Blessed Are The Peacemakers: St. Augustine

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

In the hold of a cargo plane on the way back from Chechnya, things start to sink in.


I dreamed I saw St. Augustine,
Alive as you or me,
Tearing through these quarters
In the utmost misery,
With a blanket underneath his arm
And a coat of solid gold,
Searching for the very souls
Whom already have been sold.


Somehow he hadn't noticed the cold on the way to Chechnya quite so much. Nathan stared off into the darkness of the cargo plane's hold, shivering slightly and trying to figure out why it was more difficult to breathe than it should have been. Jean had given him were doing a fairly good job at keeping the pain mostly at bay, but his chest felt tight, like he couldn't get a proper deep breath.

"Did he... seem odd to you?" he managed, his voice coming out appallingly weak. He meant Saidullayev, of course, but he didn't want to try and wrap his tongue around the name just now. He was fairly sure he wouldn't manage it. "His mind..."

Jean was more than a little concerned about Nathan, but she'd done all she could. Field doctoring a wound like that, even with proper medication, was only going to be so effective. Now she needed to get him back to a proper medical facility. When Nate spoke, though, she dragged her mind back away from her worries, although she was having a bit of trouble focusing - her headache was getting better but she'd not slept yet, and wasn't likely to. "The shielding," she said. "He's always had strong shields but... They were far stronger than they should have been. There were Askani patterns in his mind."

"Deep, though." He'd gotten only a moment's glimpse as he'd yelled at Jean to retreat, and only because some of those patterns had been splintered after her telepathic attack. "I don't think... he did that himself. Not consciously."

Jean nodded. "He's not a telepath - even if he were meditating every day on Askani shielding patterns, they shouldn't be that strong." She hesitated, then frowned. "Trask, too. If someone imposed shielding on Saidullayev, it can't have been her." Which meant she had a telepath working for her. A strong one.

One of the many people she'd drawn into her web over the years, maybe, Nathan thought. Entirely possible. They were dealing with someone who'd had at least a ten year head-start on them. Maybe more. And all she would have needed was a willing telepath, to show what she'd seen... "Would've had the knowledge. In Askani's head for that long..."

Not to mention she'd been in his, too, and Nathan jolted forward, alarm piercing the numbness as he realized that she could very well have shown Saidullayev all of the telekinetic techniques Askani had taught him. The movement brought on a coughing fit, though, and suddenly the drugs didn't seem to be working all that well.

"Whoa, whoa, Nate..." In a flash Jean was next to him, supporting him. "Careful. Breathe. You've got to stay calm, Nate..."

#He could be me,# he thought at her disjointedly even as he struggled to catch his breath. A new picture was resolving and he didn't like it at all. #He always could have been but now he really could be-#

#Shhhh. I'm not kidding, Nate. Calm. Focus.# Jean calmed her own mind, trying to get Nate to relax by pure force of will. #He's... no, it's not true. You could never be that. Relax.#

It worked, eventually. But was still too hard to breathe as Jean eased him back against the side of the plane. #She wants him to give her strife. He will.# Talking was not really in the cards right now. #I knew what it felt like once, to want to burn the world down...#

Jean eyed him worriedly, then sat down closer to him than before. "I won't say I'm terribly confident that he'll have as much of a chance as you did to recover from everything, but all things are possible. Particularly now that he's saner."

#-Er.# He would have laughed, under different circumstances. Because it was funny, in a terribly perverse sort of way. Which probably meant that it was time to give up on this line of conversation. Nathan let his head rest against the cold metal behind him and closed his eyes.

#... I need to stay out of Russia,# he sent after a while, the thought fraying at the edges, going fuzzy. #Go home and ... never darken its doorstep again.#

"Yes, I think you're on to something," Jean agreed, reaching out to smooth his brow. #You also need to sleep.#

Sleep away the rest of the flight. That sounded... very tempting. Charles was sure to find them soon. Find them and have help waiting for them in New York.. #We are so... very... dead when Moira and Scott get a hold of us,# he sent, trying to relax.

#You know it,# Jean agreed. #There's going to be so much yelling.# Maybe she could get Amelia to hide her from her husband. At least until after she'd slept... Probably not.


"Arise, arise," he cried so loud,
In a voice without restraint,
"Come out, ye gifted kings and queens
And hear my sad complaint.
No martyr is among ye now
Whom you can call your own,
So go on your way accordingly
But know you're not alone."

Comments

[x-rahne.livejournal.com]

*choke*

You know, I sort of doubt this is quite what either you or Nathan meant, Alicia, but the idea that Trask's planting the Askani patterns in Saidullayev's head could end up backfiring on her by eventually giving him more room to think--this is appealing in a rather hysterical way.