xp_logs | Nathan and Lorna, Tuesday morning

With all of his packing done, Nathan takes some time to make Jennie her birthday cake. Lorna supervises.

"I had to look up the recipe for this," Nathan said, assembling his ingredients. "I've never made a red velvet cake before. I didn't actually realize it had cocoa powder in it. What do you think?" he went on as he went over to rummage through the pans. "Should I do Jennie a layer cake?"

Lorna lifted the printed out recipe he'd set down beside his mixing bowl and shook her head. She set it back down and set her own recipe book down next to it, comparing them for a moment. "Layers are nice. What kind of frosting were you planning? I've always preferred a cream cheese, it's a little less sweet so it goes nicely with the cocoa."

"I thought cream cheese, yeah. I gather that's traditional, for this type of cake?" He gave her a quick, somewhat sheepish smile. "I did look at a few different recipes. The origin story for this cake is kind of funny."

"The Waldorf story? It's a little silly, I think." Lorna hopped up onto a stool to watch Nathan as he mixed this dry ingredients. "Cream cheese isn't exactly traditional but I like it better. I'm just wondering why a Vegas girl like Jennie is asking for a distinctly Southern dessert."

"Maybe she had it somewhere and liked it. I hope she has a better birthday than last year," Nathan said, then smiled a bit self-deprecatingly. "I say that, and look at my last two birthdays."

Lorna rolled her eyes and laughed, "It amazes me that you have even worse luck than the girl who actually generates bad luck with her powers. Were you cursed at birth by an evil fairy? Or...no, wait, I know. You're burning off the terrible karma from a previous life. Maybe you were Nero. How do you feel about playing the fiddle?" She gave him a mock-suspicious look.

"You don't want to see me trying to play a musical instrument," Nathan scoffed. "It's a terrifying and appalling thing." He started to sift the flour. "So I think everyone's packed for Prague," he said. "I have yet to check on Medusa, mind you."

"That's what you say. But no one said Nero was a good fiddler. J'accuse!" Lorna lifted a finger and pointed it at him. "I see right through your petty attempt to shift the topic away from your previous life as a crazy Roman emperor and terrorizer of Christians. What exactly are you planning to accomplish by going to Prague anyway? I always wondered what the heads of charities thought showing up in person did. I mean, really, why does Bill Gates go to Africa?"

"I'm not the head of the charity," Nathan said wryly, "and we have a very specific job to do in Prague. Nothing's getting out of Smichov, no information at all. There are a few different groups from different organizations going in to take pictures and do interviews. We bring back out the hard evidence, and then the smart lobbyist people can start to exert some real pressure."

"Ah, okay. So you're the roving reporters. Is Medusa going to handle being in the nitty gritty, do you think? She seems a little more...oh, geez, this is going to sound awful but, in touch? Than her sister. Like she's vaguely aware of what most people's lives are like...and aren't like."

"She's older," Nathan said, setting the flour aside and then waving a hand at the recipe, which came floating over. "That few years makes a lot of difference, and I get the sense she's been preparing for a public role for a while now. I suspect the social awareness is part and parcel of that... and she's certainly determined enough."

"Makes me wonder what they're preparing Crystal for. Doesn't really seem like she's particularly interested in anything." Lorna frowned, "She worries me. She barely tolerates anyone here. I don't think she has any friends other than her sister and she's been here what? Four or five months? Cream the vinegar with the sugar and butter first. Even Jono and Sarah had some kind of friendship after that long."

Nathan did as he was told. "I don't know quite what to make of Crystal. I seem to have an in with her these days, since I get along with her sister... haven't had much of a chance to do anything with that, yet, and I'm not entirely sure..." He cut himself off, shrugging a little. He'd been about to say that he wasn't sure that there wasn't a part of Crystal that distrusted him simply because he was a telepath, but perhaps Lorna wasn't the best person to get into that with. "Maybe after Prague. I'm supposed to be teaching her self-defense. What is it with me and constantly winding up involved with the students who don't trust us?"

"I told you. Bad karma. You shouldn't have burnt all those Christians for torchlight." Lorna shrugged, "Actually, I have to remind you that you volunteered to teach her. I personally think she'd have been better off without the special treatment. Get Logan the hell out of there, sure. But don't do her a further disservice by removing her from her peer group. Giving her a solo class just reinforces the idea that she's somehow due more consideration than the rest of the school."

"But she is," Nathan said, still mixing. "They're all due a new teacher - or teachers, and you and Angelo will do a fine job at that, I think. But Logan took a student who was already having severe difficulties handling life here and more or less utterly shattered her faith in the school. Not in him," he pointed out. "in the school." His jaw was tensing again, thinking about the whole situation. "She needs to feel like we see her as her, not some raw recruit that needs whipping into shape in the most abusive way possible. He went right for her sorest spot - her uncertainty about life here - and rubbed her nose in it. Not that her reaction wasn't bizarre in the extreme, but it was a reaction to someone trying to break her down psychologically." Nathan growled under his breath, not noticing that his creaming of the butter was getting a little aggressive. "If I'd had the guts to lash out at the people who treated me like that when I was her age," he said heatedly, "I would have done a lot worse than strangle them."

"Down, boy," Lorna said without much respect for Nathan's sympathetic trauma, "You'll ruin the cake and then I'll have to make Jennie a new one. Besides, Logan only ruined her faith if she ever had any in the first place. I'm pretty sure we were all judged and found wanting months ago. She's not going to be impressed by any kind of hard ass treatment. Hell, she won't even be impressed by thrilling heroics. I don't know that we have any way to convince the girl that we're worth anything at all. And frankly...who cares? She's one girl and unlike many of our other students, this school isn't going to save her. If she doesn't ever get us, then she'll go back to her ivory tower and live out the rest of her privileged life. No harm, no foul."

Nathan stopped beating on the butter. "I don't want us to impress her," he said with a sigh, picking up the recipe again. "I don't even want us to save her - you're right, I don't think she needs it. But I think we need to at least try to do her more good than harm, or you have to kind of wonder why we're all here to begin with. And we've got a lot of good to catch up on, after what happened with her and Logan."

Lorna shrugged, "She's been volunteering more. I don't know if that's guilt or what but hell if I wasn't shocked to have her offer to help carve pumpkins. The only person who can change Crystal's perceptions about the school is Crystal. And the rest of us just have to keep doing our jobs the best we can." She grinned suddenly, "After all, if Marius can learn, anyone can."

Nathan snorted and started adding the eggs. "That was an interesting email. I imagine it made Ororo and Kurt feel better," he mused, his eyes straying away from Lorna and to the bowl. "Speaking of students, Sooraya is currently cracking me up. She got the idea that it would be effective for me to start dangling recalcitrant people upside down. Politicians and the like. I'll be damned if I can tell if she's serious or just making a joke... she does a scarily good deadpan look. But the way she and Ray were giggling at each other makes me suspicious."

"Great, your daughter is teaching the new girl to be evil." Lorna mock-groaned and covered her face with her hands. "If sweet little Sooraya turns into a mischief maker I'm blaming that wicked little girl of yours."

"Sooraya and Rachel have a special bond," Nathan said sententiously. "Ray actually only runs when she wants Sooraya to chase her - she doesn't fly. I think that displays a surprising level of consideration for a fifteen month-old, don't you?"

Lorna gave him an indulgently amused look, "Yes, Nathan. Your daughter is the smartest, most wonderful baby ever. Far more advanced that any child before or since. I'm sure she'll be a Nobel winner before she's 10 and won't ever dream of dating."

"Of course. You know, she spelled out 'doofus' for me with her alphabet blocks the other day?" Nathan said with an absolutely straight face, although his gray eyes were dancing wickedly. "I was attempting to play peekaboo with her."

"Moira must have taught her that one," Lorna replied with a perfectly straight face.

"You're no fun at all. I was going to confess that no, she hadn't actually spelled out doofus, but she did throw the D block at my head. Which I think amounts to the same thing." Nathan started combining ingredients. "It's nice to get a chance to work with real food before I leave," he said. "I have this big case of freeze-dried food sitting on the boathouse floor. I am not looking forward to meals in Prague."

"Yum. Sounds like my kind of diet." Lorna's fingers twitched in the direction of the bowl, obviously wanting to take it and do it herself but refrained, clasping her hands together instead. "Is Bobby holding down the fort while you guys are gone?"

Nathan nodded. "Now that he's out of the infirmary. Hopefully he won't have too much to do, but I am going to send back the images from the cameras each night. The camcorder tapes we'll have to bring with us on the way home - I should have gone digital with them, too - but if we send the still pictures we know we have backups of those, at least." He smiled faintly. "Might as well make use of the satellite modem. It would be a shame to go there and get all kinds of great visual evidence and then have it all taken away on our way out."

"Have to justify your expense reports somehow, right?" To force herself not to take over, Lorna stood and started to make a pot of coffee instead.

"I don't want him to feel like he's entirely sitting on the sidelines, either," Nathan said, smiling approvingly at the batter. "He's done as much work as any of us on the Prague file so far. And damn, but I wish he was coming..." He shook his head slightly. "Not that I'm anticipating trouble. But it was a good thing for everyone he was there in Afghanistan."

"He's a greater asset than he gives himself credit for a lot of the time," Lorna noted, grinding coffee beans. "You've seen the pictures from San Diego, right? That ice wall is still out there, slowing melting away. I heard Sea World wanted to buy it."

"Hadn't seen the pictures, no." Nathan poured the batter carefully into the pans. "I'd been kind of avoiding the continuing news coverage ever since July. I don't really want to be thinking about it too much," he said briskly, scraping the bowl. "This really is an interesting color of batter."

"I'm pretty sure it could sink the Titanic. It's a huge, freaking iceberg." Lorna turned to peer around Nathan's shoulder, "Oh...hrm. Yeah, that probably could use more...actually, nevermind, it should bake up fine."

Nathan gave her a patient look. "So glad I have you here to supervise."

"Well, you could have used a little more cocoa and coloring. But it'll be okay. Should taste fine." She gave him a bright smile and patted his shoulder, like one of her students who had done when on a tricky assignment.

He stuck his tongue out at her. "You can make the icing if you like. My beating arm is tired."

"Weakling," she accused. "Turn down the oven, it's up too high."

"Nag," Nathan accused. The temperature on the oven, however, did adjust itself.