xp_logs | Nathan and Angelo, early Friday evening

Nathan drags himself back to the mansion, but is clearly still preoccupied by familial matters. Angelo lends a listening ear.

The Nathan who walked into the boathouse was wearing sunglasses, and not merely in deference to the brightness of the noon sun outside. He had two days worth of beard, and an unhealthy gray tinge to his complexion. Two-day benders, however interrupted by flights, were easier when you were twenty-five.

Angelo looked up from his desk at the sound of the door, and his eyebrows went up at the shade of Nathan's face. "Y'know, I'm the only one around here supposed to have gray skin."

Nathan didn't take off his sunglasses. "Nngh," he responded, dropping his suitcase at the door into the living room and then moving very slowly over to his desk. He sat down, sunglasses still on, and regarded the office levelly, as if expecting it to misbehave any moment now.

"I don't think you want to be doin' anythin' like work", Angelo continued dryly, getting up. "I'll go get the Tylenol. Or maybe Alka-Seltzer?"

Nathan gave him a wave that might have been 'yes', 'both', or 'stop looking at me like that'. He leaned back in his chair, sighing, and finally slipping the sunglasses off. The dark circles under his eyes were rather alarming.

"Happy spring break to me."

Angelo had already disappeared in search of the pills, but returned in short order with one pack of Tylenol and one bubbling glass. "Here. I thought you just went to talk to the lawyers?"

"Yes, well. Then there was lots and lots of alcohol. Saul had a very well-stocked cellar." Nathan took the glass and the bottle of Tylenol, shaking three into his hand and downing them with a sip from the glass.

"By yourself?" Angelo demanded, perching on his desk.

Nathan eyed him. "At first," he said balefully, taking another sip from the glass. "Then Pietro and Kurt showed up."

"...right." He'd known about that, vaguely. "Ororo sent them. Weren't they supposed to bring you back?"

"I had things to do. And I promised not to burn anything else." Nathan gave him what might have been an innocent look, under better circumstances.

"So then what happened?" He was not fooled.

"What, you want the whole sordid story? But it's so dull."

"So just give me the key points." He wasn't giving up on this.

"I cracked Saul's safe, read some of the papers inside, decided to burn them, got bored of burning them, and went downstairs to the wine cellar. Nothing all that exciting," Nathan drawled. "I didn't even set off the smoke alarm."

"And after Kurt an' Pietro arrived?" Angelo prodded. "You just sent them away again?"

"Nooooo, they drank with me. They're good friends."

Angelo stared at him, then just started laughing. "Course they did. Are they as bad off as you now?"

"I don't think so. Had a day or better's start on them, after all." Nathan sighed and drank some more of the Alka-Seltzer. "I didn't burn all of it. Mostly just Gideon's letters. Brought back the rest of it. There are baby pictures, believe it or not..."

"Hah. I'll have to get a look at those. You feelin' any better for burnin' what you did burn?"

Nathan pondered the question, then shrugged irritably. "Hell if I know. Didn't really change anything. I suppose what bothered me was how... functional, they sounded. Like a family."

"Well, they probably were, once", Angelo pointed out quietly. "Even with everythin' that happened after."

"Bullshit," Nathan said crossly, swinging the chair around in an apparently random movement. "Never once." It didn't sound all that convincing.

Angelo just looked at him.

"Stop looking at me in that tone of voice. They lost the right to call themselves anyone's family. All three of them," Nathan said, thinking about his mother's letters, stashed carefully away in his suitcase.

"Sure they did", Angelo agreed, not questioning the 'three'. "But that doesn't mean it wasn't ever better."

"These hypothetical 'better times'... they don't mean much, when I don't remember them. I mean, in general," Nathan said, frustrated. He looked towards the nursery. "I don't sense Ray. In the mansion with Moira, I'm guessing?"

"Yeah", Angelo confirmed. "Either with Moira or maybe with one of the girls, if she got busy."

"What am I ever going to tell her, about my side of the family?" Nathan said, not looking back at Angelo. "When she's old enough to know that there's something there that's not... usual." He sounded tired, more than vaguely depressed.

"When she's old enough to know that", Angelo said slowly, "you'll be able to explain to her whatever you want her to know. Even if it's just that they're all dead."

"It's not enough. And too much, at the same time." His voice was steady, but there was a strangely forlorn note to it. Nathan swiveled around in his chair, as if to check his inbox.

"You've got plenty of time to think it over an' come up with somethin' better", Angelo pointed out gently.

"It just doesn't ever really end," Nathan said, almost drearily. Still not making eye contact. "Just kind of hangs out there, forever... I forget sometimes that there's no such thing as closure."

Angelo was watching him carefully, now. "If there's no closure, Nate, then all there is movin' on."

"Well," Nathan said more briskly, "the house will be out of my possession by the end of the month." He turned his chair back, sipping at the Alka-Seltzer. "I didn't take much. The letters and papers from the safe, a couple of other things. Told the lawyer to sell the rest."

"Good", Angelo approved. "It wasn't really yours an' you didn't want it. Now it'll be someone else's that does." An' without the baggage that came with it for you.

"They have kids, apparently. Three of them." The comment was almost innocuous.

Angelo blinked. "...who do?"

"The people buying the house. Three girls, all under twelve." Nathan shook his head. "Children's laughter, in the halls of that big old house... seems kind of ironic."

"Maybe. But at least someone's gonna be happy there?"

"One can hope." Maybe it would be the good kind of irony, in the end.