xp_logs | Shadow King: Blind Minds

Nathan wakes up - thankfully, not in the mood to make any more craters, but most definitely not in his right mind. Amelia and Moira continue to cope with the strangeness.

White light everywhere. Nathan cringed instinctively, shrinking away from the movement he could just barely see within it. But the person came closer - slowly, very deliberately - and the shape resolved into red hair and a familiar face. Except his head was throbbing, the buzzing was still filling his mind, and if this was Moira, he couldn't tell.

There was a hesitation in the movement and then the lights dimmed even more so they were just casting a dusty glow over everything. Moira hoped that would actually help and that the light sensitivity he was probably going through was just passing. "Nathan," she murmured quietly, not reaching out to touch him just yet, though she desperately wanted to.

Test her. If this was Moira, there was a question she could answer, and given that it was the most important question in the world he had to ask it again. He tried to speak - paused, coughing, then tried again. "Rachel." His voice sounded raw and broken, like he'd been screaming for hours. "Where? He'll hurt her..."

"She's at Muir," she responded instantly, voice still quiet and soothing. "My uncle's with her, remember? Gone t' th' island itself to keep an eye on her." Because at least, hopefully, within those walls she'd have some protection if this spread.

Nathan sucked in a sharp breath. He hurt. Not just his head, but the still-healing bullet wounds, and it felt like he'd been hit by a train somewhere along the line. "Something's... really wrong." His voice was a little stronger, but more disjointed-sounding. "I don't remember..."

Her hand hovered over his -- it was like the old days, she thought with a pang. She had to let him come to her because otherwise, it might be disaster. "Tha's all right, Nathan," Moira responded. "Dinnae push yerself ta try and remember. That'll come with time."

"But... it all went wrong." It sounded like Moira. But if it was Moira, why wasn't she... Nathan's hand reached out, closed around her wrist. Not a crushing grip, but not a gentle one, either. "You have to keep her away," he insisted, his voice shaking now. "Keep her far away. Away from it... away from them. They keep-" His voice broke, his eyes filling with tears. "They tried to keep me from finding her. You can't trust any of them. If it's you, you have to keep her safe!"

Moira leaned over, ignoring the pressure on her wrist, and cupped the side of his face. "'Tis me, Nathan, I promise ye that. An' our lass is as safe as she can be." She stopped, a desperate look in her eyes. She needed him to realize she was real, that this was real and that he was back.

All of her careful shielding around her end of the link dropped, vanished without more than a ripple. And she waited.

And he just stared at her, a mixture of horror and confusion playing across his features. "I can't... sense you. I can't..." The buzzing in the back of his head rose louder - got harsher, like razor blades, and he winced, squeezing his eyes shut. "Something's wrong," he said again. Unnecessarily.

"Aye, yer right, somethin' is verra wrong," she agreed, voice in a gentle cadence now. "But we'll fix it, we're all workin' verra hard on makin' it right again. Nathan, I need ye ta relax. Think back ta Muir, love, th' cliffs. Do tha' for me? Think about home an' all the good times we've 'ad over the years." Moira thought. "Remember the stars."

His head hurt. Nathan kept his eyes closed, more out of instinctive obedience to Moira's voice. Old habits died hard, even when the world stopped making sense. After a while his breathing slowed back to the rhythm of sleep - normal sleep, or as normal as it could get under these circumstances.

Amelia waited until then to speak. "Well," she murmured, keeping her voice low. "That's a relief. If we can keep them all relatively calm, that would be ideal. I was most concerned about him, after the mess he made upstairs."

Moira grimaced, her free hand going to smooth down Nathan's sweat soaked hair. "Unfortunately, Nathan's the only one that I can get to do that so easily." And even that, that hadn't been all that easy. "But yer right, keepin' them calm until whatever this is ends...probably the best thing we can do for them."

"I still think we should store them all in the Box, for simplicity's sake," Amelia said, then rolled her eyes slightly at the look Moira gave her. "I'm trying this 'humor as a coping mechanism' tactic."

"Good, Nathan's th' last ta wake up. So we'll keep an eye on them an' the moment anyone starts actin' weird again, we'll know."

"Weirder, Moira," Amelia pointed out, with rather more truth than tact. "None of them are particularly... what do the children say, 'right in the head'?"

"Ye work 'ere, so I suppose tha' says somethin' about ye as well," Moira responded, staring over at her coworker. She rather liked the woman but she was just so...Amelia. And so very Russian. "Come on, let's prove ourselves useful once again before I get th' urge ta dunk ye in the lake..."