xp_logs | Nathan and Jim, Sunday around dawn (Reply)

Nathan goes for a walk in the aftermath of the operation on Youra, looking for something. Jim watches him from a distance.

He shouldn't have skipped out on the rest of the clean-up. Irresponsible of him, and Scott would probably have something to say about it in debriefing, but right this moment, Nathan didn't care. He'd helped with triage. The Greek military could do the remaining heavy lifting; he'd done his part, and done it as well as anyone could expect of him. Besides, he didn't want anything to do with a Greek debriefing, if that admiral had anything like that in mind. All of the things he hadn't said about this whole... disgusting situation were liable to come out at this point, if anyone pushed.

Done for the day. He was so done for the day. Moving unerringly in the pre-dawn dimness, he headed further inland, away from the lights and activity. The map of this island was burned into his memory and always would be. He knew precisely where he was going.

Jim slipped his lighter back into his pocket, the orange ember of the cigarette cupped in his hand glowing in the pre-dawn. Jean was more than capable of easing what rockier transitions were left among the Phalanx unit. Jim now had no excuse not to take the break the medical staff had instructed him to . . . or to find Marie. And then, once he'd apologized to her as much as anyone could have for the situation he'd forced her into, Scott. If Marie hadn't already made her report Jim had no doubt Garrison had.

The end of the cigarette flared briefly at the intake of breath, and through the swirl of smoke in the lightening darkness the telepath saw a figure making its way across the terrain.

It didn't take him too long to cross the distance; Youra wasn't a large island, after all. Nathan reached the top of the last ridge, staring down onto what had been the Mistra compound here, a year and a half ago.

And saw nothing.

Nearly nothing, his mind corrected as he realized that there was debris there, where some of the original buildings had been. Other spots that shouldn't have been were bare, where the debris had apparently been taken away. Nathan took a breath that was oddly shortened, as if something was crushing his lungs, preventing him from breathing properly.

Of course they'd have started to clear away what was left. The Greek government had been trying to return Youra to its pristine condition, back to being the domain of students and archaeologists. What Mistra had built had no place here.

But they'd bulldozed the training barracks! part of him cried out silently in protest. They'd tried to remove the evidence of what had happened here two years ago, wipe it all away, and suddenly, what had nearly happened here tonight made too much sense. No noise escaped Nathan as he stumbled downwards to the bare rock where the barracks had been.

From size and mission reports there was only one guess at who he was looking at. Mismatched eyes trailed the silhoutte as it walked, carried by mechanical steps over the same ground again and again. Unseen, the telepath watched Nathan as he circled over the barren earth, searching. Retracing.

Slowly, Jim lowered his cigarette.

There. Right there. It was as close as he was going to get, Nathan thought, and crouched down, his hands white-knuckled around the staff of his psimitar, trying to ignore the steady ache between his shoulder blades. Psychosomatic, he told himself. Barren rock or no, there was a part of him that knew with absolute certainty exactly where he was. Nearly two years ago, this was where he'd fallen, a single blow from someone - he'd never figured out who - breaking his back and leaving him on the ground. This was where the medics had unearthed him from beneath a pile of bodies after he'd set off the Trojan Horse. And he'd clung to the psimitar then, too, refusing to let the medics take it away from him.

He touched the tip of the psimitar to the ground, concentrating. There was a grinding, tearing noise, and a spur of rock pushed itself upwards, a rough pillar rising perhaps three feet out of the ground around it. Nathan ignored the tremors in the ground; they were local.

The earth thrummed faintly from the movement even here. The telepath watched the older man standing before the new marker in the greying dawn, then dropped his eyes to the cigarette held in his hand. Sparks sprayed as the butt dropped to the ground and bounced, extinguished an instant later beneath the heel of a boot.

Without a word Jim turned and walked away.