xp_logs | Nathan and Juanita, around lunchtime (Reply)

Back around lunchtime, Nathan manages to talk Moira into letting him check on Angelo - even if she won't let him out of the infirmary just yet. He winds up getting an earful.

Moira had insisted that he stay in the infirmary overnight for observation, shaking her head at him when he'd insisted he was feeling better. She had however conceded that he could get up and move around a little, if he felt up to it. He did, but barely - the encounter with Senyaka still had him wobbly on his feet, and maybe Moira wasn't really being overcautious after all.

But he needed to see Angelo. Just to check on him and make sure he was doing all right, although Moira had assured him he was.

He didn't make it all the way into the room. Juanita was sitting, red-eyed and pale-faced, in a chair facing the door, and got up to intercept him as he came in. "Nathan."

Nathan stopped, swaying a little. "Juanita," he said after a moment.

"I don't think you should be here", was all she said next. Her tone gave no clues as to whether she meant 'in your state' or 'in this room'.

"I just wanted to look in on him," Nathan said, foggy-headed enough that he wasn't really thinking about reasons she might be resisting. "For a second... is Moira or Amelia in there with him?" Maybe that was why. The doctors were in, checking on him.

"No", she said, turning away. "He's sleeping. I'm here with him, and I can tell you he's okay." Or would be.

"I'd just... like to see," Nathan said uncertainly. "I didn't see him on the frigate." He'd been unconscious for the better part of a day. "I won't disturb him?"

She glanced at him over her shoulder, then nodded briefly. "You can see well enough from the door." She moved out of the way, clearing his view.

Nathan gazed at her for a moment, confused. He wasn't about to get into an argument with Angelo's mother, but he had absolutely no idea what was going on. Still, he looked into the room and saw Angelo sleeping, apparently peacefully. Probably sedated.

"There, you see", Juanita said brusquely, quite plainly wanting him to go away. "He's all right. And now perhaps he'll stay that way for a little while."

"Juanita..." Okay, so maybe it was making a little sense now. "I know this had to be difficult."

"Difficult?!" It was almost a growl as she fought to keep her voice from rising, and then she stepped out of the room and closed the door behind her. "You promised me you would look after him, Nathan. So don't come to me now and say 'difficult'."

"I promised you I'd do my best." He hadn't given her any guarantees. Doing so would have been lying to her, and he'd thought they'd both understood that.

"And he came back to me with broken bones and coughing up blood. So your best wasn't good enough. Was it?" Her eyes were blazing, now, as she stared up at him.

Nathan drew himself up with as much dignity as he could. "No," he said, simply.

"Sometimes I think you forget whose son he is", Juanita said bitterly, looking down at again. "Or perhaps just what I would be losing if he didn't come back."

He was tired, in quite a bit of pain despite the minor nature of his injuries, and fully aware of the fact that he hadn't yet properly processed just how close a shave this had been for all of them. That didn't mean he was going to lose his temper with Juanita for a natural human response. He was just a handy target. "I presume," he said, sounding tired. "By any definition,yes, I probably presume. But I'm also a father myself, who's lost a child."

"Then you should understand, Nathan", she almost shouted back, not through the anger yet. "But you don't. You can't, or you wouldn't... he's all I have. All there is of my Eduardo, God rest his soul, and all I have. But time and time again, you lead him away from me and you bring him back in a hospital bed."

"That's not fair, Juanita, and you know it." Nathan's voice still had no edge to it. This wasn't an argument, after all, not really. "You can blame me for this all you want, but when you do that you're ignoring the fact that it's Angelo's choice to do what he does. Like it or not, it's not all about me. He had reasons to want to help people, to save lives, before I ever met him - and he knew the X-Men before I ever did."

Juanita turned away from him at that, eyes bright. "But he didn't join them until after you did. And he might not have gone this time if you hadn't." She was staring through the glass door at Angelo, lying quiet in his bed. "Helping people. Saving lives. He could do that without so much risk, but he'll never see it."

"He does. He does that every day. He just does this too."

"He's so like his father", she said softly, hand pressed to the glass. "Eduardo was a volunteer firefighter, you know. Not so flashy, but he did his part." She turned to look at Nathan again. "But I see you in him too. Do you know how much that scares me?"

Nathan's tight, pained flicker of a smile lasted for only a moment. There really wasn't anything he could say to that.

"He's my only child, Nathan, and now he always will be. If I lose him..."

"Then tell him." Still too tired to be angry, although he might have been, on a different day. "Tell him you can't live with the risks he's taking. Don't pretend to support him in what he's doing if your heart's not in it. He may even decide to stop being an X-Man, if you ask him to - he loves you and wants to be a good son to you, and feels like he's put you through a lot already. If you tell him this is too much, you might be able to get him to stay home." He left it unsaid that she'd risk him resenting her for it. Juanita was upset, not stupid.

Juanita sagged visibly, leaning more against the door than she had been a moment ago. "But how can I do that to him? I've never once used that against him... what kind of mother would be if I start when he's doing something good?" That was more to herself than to Nathan.

She was answering her own question. Nathan took a few steps back, to where he could lean against the wall. "I've never been in the position of needing to sit back and watch, and wait," he said, his voice uneven with fatigue. "But I've had to learn that noncombatants aren't always safe. And Angelo wasn't taking risks when the Tel Aviv office was bombed."

"I've always been in that position", was the quiet response. "Since he was barely more than a child, and he thinks I don't know, but how could I make him stop when he was doing it all to help me?" She didn't know everything, clearly... but when Angelo had been five, she'd been a new widow, grieving and trying to keep it all together.

"He's doing other things, now." But she knew that, too. "Things you can be proud of, even if the risks are still hard to bear."

"I know. And I am. So very proud... but just look at him, Nathan, My baby." Her voice cracked, against her will, on the last two words, and she turned away again.

Nathan pushed away from the wall, and laid a hand on her shoulder, squeezing lightly. "He's going to be all right. He'll be up and around and giving you more white hairs before you know it."

"I'll have nothing but, if he keeps this up." She tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sob - and she hadn't moved away from his hand.

"He's very good at what he does," Nathan said, a bit unsteadily. "It's not always like this." Which was true. "It can be dangerous, but not..." Words failed him, suddenly. "Not like this, most of the time."

"But sometimes it is." She turned to look up at him over her shoulder as best she could. "Sometimes it is. And I don't think he tells me half of what he gets into. How much danger has my boy been in that I don't even know about, Nathan?"

"I don't know. I don't know how much he's told you." He took his hand off her shoulder as the conversation dipped back down towards something more confrontational.

She hadn't meant it that way, not really. She was just afraid, and half-grieving already, knowing Angelo wouldn't step off this path while he had the choice. "No more than he can't explain away or hide, I think."

"Then tell him to knock that crap off," Nathan said, his voice hoarse, taking the harshness out of his words. "There's nothing with Elpis he can't tell you, and very little with the X-Men." Things he may or may not get up to with Amanda or as a result of Amanda's job were another matter entirely, but not one he could really bring up with Juanita.

"It's a habit he got into a very long time ago", Juanita said tiredly. "It's his idea of protecting me, I think. Trying to let me think his life's all sweetness and light."

"If you're not going to tell him to stop, tell him he needs to be up front with you about it, then. Habits can be broken, and it's not as if he's doing anything to be ashamed of." Nathan sighed tiredly, slumping back against the wall again. "Moira and I manage this because I'm honest - not that I can hide a lot from her, with the psi-link. But because I'm upfront about the risks, she can have faith that I'm assessing whether they're worth it."

"It's not..." Juanita started, then stopped to really listen. "And does that help her? To know that whatever the risk, you've decided it's worth it?"

"She knows that I'm going into it with my eyes open. That I'm not just running off on a whim, or because of a need to be where the action is just because my life predisposed me towards being an adrenaline junkie. If she knows I know the risks I'm taking, she knows I've reasoned that I can do it and still come back to her and Rachel."

"I've never thought those were Angelo's only reasons", was the quiet response. "But in the end... well, I suppose yes, the reasons would be some comfort, in that case. And the assessment."

"I didn't mean that-" Nathan cut himself off. This was not an argument, or a debate. And Juanita had seen his basic point. It didn't matter if she thought he'd suggested something that he hadn't.

"I'll try to tell him", she continued with another glance into the hospital room. "That he doesn't need to keep things from me anymore. That it would help if he didn't."

"It would be better for him, too." Nathan made himself smile, but it was a slight, tight smile, empty of any real emotion behind it. "He does tend to brood."

"Among many other things." Her own smile was more than a little regretful.