xp_logs | Jean and Nathan, Wednesday morning

Two worn-out telepaths meet in a wood. One is being a stubborn ass.

Moira had made it very clear that hermiting was not permitted - or at least, that exposure to fresh air was required from time to time during his mandated days off. Nathan had just meant to stand out on the deck for a little while, satisfy her that way, but the woods had been awfully tempting-looking. He wasn't sure why. His eyes were still trying to play tricks on him, or remembering playing tricks on him, and trees made for strange and unsettling associations when seen in his peripheral vision.

But he couldn't sit around, she was right. And he'd been inside that damned infirmary room for so long... at least out here, there were no walls and he didn't have to worry about whether or not they would stay put.

Jean was flying - her powers were back but she wanted reassurance and space from the people who still tended to glance at her out of the corner of their eyes and flying provided both. There were some people, though, whose company was always bearable, and as she banked around the lake she caught sight of one of them. #Hey you. Can I join you?#

"I promise not to attack you," Nathan muttered. Aloud, not telepathically; she'd pick up on the response one way or the other, and he was... not into telepathic communication right now.

Which was understandable, Jean thought. Personally, she was exulting a little bit in, well, remembering who she was and just being. Not to mention what she'd finally come to realize about coming to cope with her mutation. But, then, aside from vast quantities of embarrassment, she'd had things much easier than Nathan. Settling to the ground near Nate she smiled at him, switching back to speaking. "Deal, then. How are you doing?"

Nathan shrugged. "I'm no longer seeing things. I think that's about as much as I can ask. You?"

"If I never see another pair of lycra leggings it will be too soon," Jean said, "but I got off lightly. Although I'm really hoping no one had a camera." Her voice was light but her eyes were serious as she considered Nathan.

He gave her a slightly quizzical look. "Lycra... leggings. I don't really want to know, do I?" He hadn't asked about anyone else's experiences, beyond the bare essentials of making sure they were all relatively okay. Bad of him, maybe, but he hadn't had the energy to summon up the interest.

"You really don't," Jean agreed. "I spent the last week convinced I was about twelve years old and it was still 1986."

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, shaking his head. "Well. Odd in a charming sort of way." He couldn't quite keep the bitterness out of his voice. Charles and Jim had gotten to be unconscious, Jean had gotten a second childhood... and he'd gotten a week of being psychotic. He had to wonder what that said about him. That you're a weak-ass excuse for a telepath, most likely. He resolutely did not listen to the voice that pointed out Betsy hadn't had such a good time either.

"Mmm, at the time it was... disconcerting doesn't even cover it. There's nothing terribly comfortable about being a six foot tall eleven year old, surrounded by strangers who all insist that you're actually thirty." Tucking her hands into her pockets she shrugged. "Also, I think I called Scott a dweeb."

"I bet he had a week. Moira didn't look like she slept at all." Nathan stuffed his hands into his pockets and continued down the path, not looking at Jean. "Hard to believe it was a week," he went on, his voice neutral. "Did your eleven year-old self keep track of the time?"

"Kind of," Jean said, thinking back. "Mostly I was boggling that nobody was making me go to class, even though I was staying at a school. Wasn't like I had a real schedule to distinguish one day from the next, though."

"I couldn't tell. I said it was hard to believe that it was a week, but it might as well have been a month. I couldn't tell." Nathan realized he'd repeated himself, and shrugged again. "I shouldn't dwell on it. It's done. I would really have appreciated the coma, though." Maybe next time.

"Dwell... no, maybe not. But thinking about it, processing what you can - that's never a bad idea."

"Process what?" Nathan asked sharply, but then clamped his jaw shut. The idea of having to talk in detail about this, with Jack Leary or with anyone, was unpalatable.

"What you can," Jean repeated, "and when you can. Trust me, I'm not going to push."

"Then give me your opinion." He sounded horribly brusque. He couldn't bring himself to care. "I had absolutely no business being there, did I? Working with the rest of you, I mean... obviously I was a liability. And no one else got turned into a gibbering wreck."

Jean stared at him, stunned for a second and the response she came out with wasn't planned or thought out in the slightest. "Are you out of your fucking mind?"

Not quite the response he'd expected. "Charles, you, Jim - you're all specialists. Betsy's got a different kind of experience. I was the well-meaning amateur who really ought to know when he needs to leave well enough alone and leave it to the experts."

Already Jean was shaking her head at him. "Don't be absurd, Nate. We went in not knowing what the hell was up or what we would need - we never could have guessed what was attacking Cain, let alone that it was setting a trap for us. And, believe me, you were no more outclassed than the rest of us. Fine, Charles and Jim and I have more experience with astral work - what does that say then that we were taken in every bit as easily as you?"

"I shouldn't have been there," Nathan said curtly. The tension was visible in his shoulders, and he was looking at the ground, not at Jean. "I'm not reliable for that sort of thing. You can't do first aid without being able to keep yourself unhurt, and it's the same thing."

Jean opened her mouth to say something, then closed it and took a deep breath - he deserved to have her full consideration, given how clearly upset he was. "That, Nathan, is a different issue," she said at last. "You don't trust yourself - that doesn't mean we don't trust you, or that you're not just as capable of helping, even in difficult situations."

"It's not got anything to do with trust, it's about being realistic," he snapped at her, his voice suddenly bitter. If he'd removed his hands from the pocket of his jacket, they would have been shaking. "I have my uses, but they were right to undertrain me."

"They weren't right about anything," Jean snapped right back, enough off balance from the last week that she couldn't keep from losing her temper. "You were the one Charles asked to help me reestablish my shields when I came back, we have trained together for years. You're not weak, Nate."

This was turning into one of those situations where he made overly dramatic statements and some well-meaning person, usually red-haired and female, gave him a pep talk. But that wasn't what this was. Nathan pulled strained and fractured shields more tightly around his mind, shoving his hands deeper into the pockets of his jacket, his shoulders almost hunching.

"I know what I am and what I'm not." His voice was low and gravelly, humiliatingly unsteady. "Don't make me pretend otherwise." You all did for three years, and look what happened.

"I'm not making you pretend anything, you're doing that just fine on your own." Jean was clearly not in the mood for a pep talk.

"To hell with this." He wasn't in the mood to be berated, either. He turned on his heel - swaying a little; the lightheadedness was apparently due to Marie smacking him upside the head or something - and started back towards the boathouse at a faster clip.

"Fine," Jean said as he headed off, not making a move to follow him. "Fine." She let him get a few more yards away, then raised her voice. "Come see me when you're feeling less sorry for yourself!" she called out. He didn't turn back, and that was fine with her. A thought and she lifted off the ground, needing more than ever the space and freedom and reassurance of her powers.