xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo, Wednesday night (Reply)

Nathan and Angelo share a quiet moment in the middle of the night on Muir.

Midnight on a November night was not necessarily the best time to be sitting outdoors on Muir Island, but Nathan felt like he needed the fresh air rather badly, and had retreated to the balcony overlooking the sea, one of his favorite places on the island. It was one of those cold, yet utterly clear Scottish nights. Rare for November. He wasn't complaining. His feet propped up on the railing as he slouched in the chair, Nathan stared up at the moon and many, many more stars than you ever saw over Westchester.

He'd been thinking about being on Muir, before they'd left for Prague, Nathan remembered suddenly. About how long it had been, and how much he missed it. Be careful what you wish for...

Booted feet on the balcony behind him would have been enough warning even for a non-psi, as Angelo joined him.

"Nice night," he said quietly. "Cold, but there's the sky..."

"Different kind of cold than in Prague," Nathan said a bit vaguely. He was wearing a coat Moira had pushed on him - he suspected very strongly that it had belonged to her father. "Why aren't you asleep?"

"Same reason you aren't, I think." His hand twitched for a cigarette, but he restrained himself. "Couldn't seem to sleep very well."

The sound of the waves crashing on the shore was soothing. Entirely different from the din of Smichov. The island was quiet from a telepathic standpoint as well. He could sense the patients in the clinic, the staff, Moira and Rachel and Rahne and Medusa...

He realized he'd been staring out at the water for quite a stretch without saying anything to Angelo. "I could have turned on the television, I suppose, to see what they were saying about Smichov. I didn't have the heart."

"Not like we really need to, is it?" Angelo agreed quietly. "We saw it for ourselves - there's only so many ways you can spin what happened in there."

"And most of them bad." Nathan fell silent again for a long moment. He was having a certain amount of difficulty focusing, still. Not the best of signs. You just need to sleep, idiot.

Angelo looked at him sideways, worried on several levels. "How're you doin', since we got out?" They hadn't had much chance to talk, or really the inclination, until now.

Nathan opened his mouth - then closed it again, mustering up a faint smile before he finally answered. "A little out of it. Proud of you. Don't think I missed the whole 'running into burning buildings' thing."

That got a slight smile in return, though there was strain in Angelo's eyes as he turned to look out over the ocean. "Amazin' what you find out you can do when you don't really have a choice."

"I'm sorry." Nathan slouched a little farther in his chair, rubbing at his jaw. He'd let Angelo down, zoning out like that in that apartment. He wasn't going to kill himself with guilt over it - it wasn't as if he'd intended to - but that didn't change the fact that it had happened.

"Hey, you didn't know what you were gonna find in there would set you off," Angelo objected quietly. "The kid was okay when I left him, you know. They said he'd live, anyway."

"I've shown you the picture of Aliya and Tyler, I know. You know he was blond, like that boy. About the same age, too." Angelo deserved the explanation at least. "It was... when I got back to the hotel room where I'd left them, he was lying on the bed. I thought he was just sleeping until I got closer and saw the blood."

"...so then it brought on the flashbacks." He nodded, having suspected something along those lines. "It wasn't your fault."

"You got the boy out, and were coming back for me." Nathan smiled again, very faintly and tiredly, but the pride was there behind it still. "You did precisely what you should have done. Exactly what you should have done." They couldn't have asked anything more of a fully trained X-Man. Every day, he thought, gazing up at the younger man. Every day, you keep showing me that you don't have anything to prove.

Angelo shrugged, a little uncomfortably. "I wasn't exactly gonna leave him there, not when he was still alive. An' as for comin' back for you..." There's nothin' could have made me not do that.

"You need to learn to take a compliment. I get the sense that as your training continues you're going to be getting a lot of them." Nathan sank a little deeper into the chair, his eyes unfocusing as he stared out at the water. There was too much his mind was shying away from tonight. The flashback, what he'd done to those soldiers, what Mystique had said... it didn't leave much room to let his mind slow down and rest.

"No zonin' out on me now," Angelo said would-be lightly, turning to study him. "You sleep, or you stay awake."

"I'm okay." It wasn't quite a lie. He wasn't suppressing the urge to break down or go catatonic or anything like that. He was just tired and not focusing well. Angelo was giving him that look, though, and Nathan straightened a little, forcing his erratic thoughts onto a more productive track. "We'll fly back to Westchester in the morning. Moira and Rachel will come along, I think - it's a little earlier than she was planning to head back this week, but apparently Curt encouraged her to take a longer-than-usual weekend."

"Good for him. She's almost as bad as you at the overwork," Angelo commented, brightly and hypocritically.

"Yeah. Rachel's not got a chance in hell of not being a workaholic when she grows up. Unless she really rebels." Nathan leaned forward -it was a necessary step to getting out of the chair - but paused, closing his eyes for a moment as the wave of lightheadedness washed over him. "I think I'll go check on her," he said, hauling himself slowly to his feet. "And then try and sleep. You should, too."

"Didn't we have this conversation last week?" came the rueful answer. "Yeah, I'll try."

Nathan smiled just as ruefully and laid a hand on Angelo's shoulder as they headed inside. "That says disturbing things about the fall we've been having, really."