xp_logs | Log: Nathan and Rahne

Backdated to Friday afternoon, after Jennie's post, Rahne's post and departure, and before Jennie's apology emails. Nathan calls, as promised. Rahne is in a deeply foul mood.

"Pick up," Nathan murmured under his breath, frowning a little as the
phone rang and rang. She wouldn't be in class, not at this hour. Was
she not going to answer? His frown deepened as he wrestled with a
moment of real worry. That post had not been reassuring at all.

Rahne had set her phone to vibrate-only before burying herself in the
Westchester College library, but when it actually went off (and it was
Nathan, or she would have been greatly tempted to ignore it) it
occurred to her that she hadn't taken into account getting down
several flights of stairs in time to answer.

She hit the ground floor, slowed down enough not to slam open the door
out of the stairwell, and hurried out the door. There. "Hello?"

"Hi," Nathan said, relieved, but then paused. "You sound out of breath."

"Only a little. I just ran down seven flights of stairs." While
worrying she'd miss the call.

Nathan opened his mouth and then closed it again. "Well, sit down
somewhere, catch your breath," he said, striving for a good-humored
tone (rather than worried). "I didn't mean to make you get your
exercise to answer..."

"Aye, well, that's what I get for prowling the library stacks when I'm
expecting a call." She obediently set off for an unused bench. "Sorry
for the delay."

"Don't apologize," Nathan said, and then shook his head quizzically as
he sank into one of the deck chairs. It was a cool afternoon in Tel
Aviv, today. There would be rain before too long, he thought. "In
fact, don't apologize. At all. That was what I was going to hammer in
when I called, wasn't it?"

"Er," Rahne said. "I think so, but..." She sighed. "I really was out
of line, and I know it." She still didn't think any better of Jennie,
but she wished she had approached it better. If only because it was
easier to vivisect someone's idiocy if you remained calm yourself, and
you looked better. She ought to be more genuinely charitable as well
as more polite, too, but she wasn't far enough along to wish that yet.
"I notice ye managed to be nice to her yourself."

"Rahne, you've been working for days. You're tired-" He knew that much
just by the sound of her voice, and had been able to tell that the
last few times he called. "-you're worried, and you're probably
feeling a little helpless, too, I imagine. Maybe less so than Jennie,
but..." He sighed, smiling a bit ruefully. "And I managed to get
twelve hours of sleep last night, which did wonders for my
perspective. I'm not sure how I'd have reacted had I seen that last
night."

And he was very worried about how Angelo was reacting. He maybe
wasn't going to bring that up with Rahne, however. Not yet, at least.

"I went out and bit the head off a Canada goose." Rahne paused. "Not Garrison."

Nathan proceeded to choke. On air. He wound up coughing for a minute
before he could find his voice again. "... um, okay. Uh... did it
taste good?"

"Are you all right?" Well, he sounded like he was breathing again. "It
was a little feathery at first, but not bad."

"A little... feathery..." He was gasping, now, absolutely gaspign with
laughter, and he just could not help it.

"Are you--" Laughing, he was laughing. Frustrated as she still was,
that was probably good. "Well, it was a goose, after all."

"Oh, Rahne." He struggled to even out his breathing and stop laughing.
Didn't want to get into another coughing fit. "You have the best forms
of stress release ever, have I ever told you that?"

"Ye might have. I'm not sure. I think I'll cook the next one." She put
a hand to her face. "I had to get outside. I was seriously afraid I
might bite Jennie else. And unlike some of the other people I've
wanted to bite, it's not my teeth I'd break then."

"I hope you understand why she reacted the way she did," Nathan said
after a moment, trying to force himself to stay serious. Wonderful as
that little descent into mirth had been, it had possessed perhaps too
much of an edge of hysteria, in retrospect.

"Because she's a condescending little twit who thinks if she does not
want to hear about something, anyone who does mention it is the one hiding
their head in some orifice?" Rahne snapped. "Although as much of a
hurry as everybody was in to make her feel better, I suppose ye'll
tell me something else."

Nathan closed his eyes, took a deep breath. Then counted to five
before he answered. "I had some time to think about it. Do you think
she was really talking to us?"

Don't yell at Nathan. Don't break the phone. Really, don't break the
phone; it would probably worry him if the call ended on an abrupt
cracking sound. Rahne held the phone on her flattened palm for a
moment, trying to relax her fingers, before putting it back to her
ear. "Yes. Yes, I do. Considering hardly anybody else has so much as
posted about it, and she explicitly told me she was talking about
things you and Angelo and I had said. And then blamed me for not
understanding that by saying 'not killed, not even dented' and 'not
even hurt,' repeatedly, she must of course have been saying 'hurt'
when she meant 'destroyed.'"

Nathan just listened, letting her get it all out. "The journals aren't
a great medium for... well, anything," he said quietly. "You know
that. Things can come across very badly." He paused for a moment, then
went on. "You know, what struck me, when I had some time to think
about this today... you're not all that much older than Jennie."

Which Rahne supposed was a fair reminder that she had been acting like
a brat too. And still was. Nathan didn't need her lack of self-control
as an extra problem. She should have talked instead to--

She drew a blank on anyone else at the school she'd want to talk to
about this, especially after seeing the other reactions to Jennie. She
should have prayed about it, then. Or maybe gone straight to the
geese.

"Three months," she said wearily, after dredging up Jennie's birthdate
from her memory. "I've got exactly three months on her."

"And yet look at the differences in your position," Nathan said, his
voice soft. "You're at Elpis, in the middle of all of this. You
can get on with living in a way that's not open to her, because
what you do for a living is an answer to what's happened, in
and of itself."

"Which according to her -- oh, and Sofia, not to forget -- evidently
means I should never have mentioned it." Rahne stopped and drew a deep
breath between her teeth. "I -- Nathan, I know ye said not to
apologize, but maybe I should try this again after a bit and be more
polite...."

"Rahne, no." He didn't say anything to her about thinking that
Sofia's response had been more ironic than anything else. This wasn't
the time for that sort of thing. "I may be trying to encourage you to
see things through Jennie's eyes, but that doesn't mean that I think
you owe her an apology." He paused, then made rather ruthless use of
his understanding of how Rahne approached things. "You can forgive
her. Right? She said something - okay, a number of things that you
found hurtful. But what would you be apologizing for? That you were
hurt?"

In the absence of Nathan, Rahne looked rather blankly at the nearest
tree. She ought to forgive her. She didn't want to have anything to
do with her. "For swearing at her and telling her that she made
me sick. I think I stopped before I said any of the other things I was
thinking. But I did that already and I canna say I really want to talk
to her. I meant the phone call."

"Rahne..." The little laugh that slipped out was sad and utterly
without humor. "Damn, kiddo, you sound like you badly need that
four-day weekend."

"I took breaks," she muttered. "Joyita told me to."

"I kind of wish you'd been here, you know." Nathan's voice was soft
again. "It's.. beautiful. The villa and the beach. Then again, I'm
kind of glad you aren't going to see it under these circumstances."

"I'm sure it is...." She leaned her head on her hand, staring down at
the back of the bench, and then straightened up again. No point
drawing anybody to ask if she was ill or something.

"Rahne..." He was silent for a moment. Trying to find the right words.
Twelve hours of sleep or not, he was still tired, still ragged
mentally, yet it was so important that he find the right words. "I
don't want you caught up in this to the point that you forget you
helped work a minor miracle this week. I don't want you so angry at a
student, or yourself, that you don't keep in mind that you were an
absolute pillar of strength."

"I just...." She shook her head, which was always singularly useless
over the phone. "It was never that much. Just busier than usual." Her
train of thought took a sharp left back onto the earlier subject. "I'm
not even seeing how it's much better if she wasna talking to us. Why
should she get to tell her classmates to shut up, then, if they want
to talk about the news?"

"She can tell them whatever she wants," Nathan said after a moment,
trying not to sigh. "They don't have to listen. Again this is why the
journals suck. They're not productive. I wish Scott had followed
through on one of his old threats and pulled the plug last night."

Rahne closed her eyes. Drop it, she told herself. Just drop
it. He's on her side anyway. No, I know that's not fair. Nathan
was being charitable and diplomatic, which is what she should have
been doing in the first place. Lorna, Marius, Sofia, Jean, and Haller,
now.... Jennie could, indeed, say whatever she wanted. At least in
theory. Perhaps she really was very bad at it.

Rahne loathed being condescended to.

"My responsibility," she said thickly after a moment, "to know when to
leave off. I should have ignored her if I was not willing to be
civil."

Nathan's turn to fall silent, sinking his head into his hand for a
moment as he rested the phone against his shoulder. He really could
not think of what to say. All of the clarity that better than a full
night's sleep had given him seemed to have run away to hide somewhere.

"I would shake you," he finally said, hoarsely, "if you were within
reach. It would be utterly unfair, because I don't think you could be
you and not hold yourself to these high standards of behavior,
Rahne, but..." His voice actually broke a little. "It's just about
killing me, to hear you unhappy like this."

The guilt climbed up her throat and choked her. "I shouldn't have c--"
Wait. He'd called her. "I could hang up," she offered, in a very small voice.

"Please don't. Please." Nathan took a slightly shaky breath,
straightening. "Do something for me, please." Please. "Just... take
the weekend off, properly. Go to the animal shelter. Cook. Do
something to get away from all of this..."

"I--" She'd never wanted to make this worse for him. "I'm all right,
really." Not behaving very well, but she could behave herself.
If she knew she was doing the right thing and someone else decided to
tell her she was useless, navel-gazing, and blind for doing her work
and daring to mention it, what did they matter? "I was thinking of
going to the animal shelter tomorrow." Drily, she added, "And contrary
to what some may think, I've even done my homework."

"I didn't doubt it for an instant." Nathan rubbed at his eyes,
coughing to clear his throat - and coughing a few more times,
completely unintentionally. "I just... I need you not to be swallowed
up by this, Rahne, if you can. I look at Angelo, and..." His voice
faltered again. "He's having such a hard time."

Oh, no.... She'd seen Angelo's comment, too. "That's what I
meant. I... am doing other things." She hesitated. "Ye've no need to
worry about me. I'm just grumpy."

"But I do. Worry." Nathan smiled a bit weakly. "I'm proud, but I
worry. About both of you. I... can't protect you from the world, and
you've both grown up into such remarkable adults that I don't really
have to. But that doesn't stop me from wanting to."

"...Thank you," she said after a moment. "But I really didna mean to
be extra trouble."

Nathan's smile grew a little. "Only the best kind, Rahne."