xp_logs | Nathan and Jean, Sunday morning

Sometimes the ambush is inevitable. Jean is blunt, Nathan moves from 'avoidance' into 'resignation', and a rather interesting reversal of roles emerges.

Amelia must have been having a bad day, Nathan thought sourly, rubbing at his shoulder as he stepped out of the examining room. The poking and prodding had been a bit overly fierce, which he hadn't really appreciated. He was going to be glad when he was properly healed up and stopped having to have regular check-ups.

Jean, of course, was well aware of Amelia's scheduled appointments for the day. Just as Amelia was well aware that Nate seemed to have been scheduling his check-ups for times when Jean was not officially in the office. Of course, not officially being in the office didn't mean she wasn't still down there fairly often working on extra work while she didn't have to deal with patients. And, if part of the 'extra work' included subtly checking up on Nate, well, Charles had mentioned something. And it wasn't like the two of them had been spending enough time together lately for her to have noticed on her own.

But yes, as Nate walked down the hall Jean could tell what Charles meant, though she waited until he was right in front of the open door to her office before saying anything. "So," she spoke up as he came into view, clearly not realizing she was watching him from her desk. "Is there some particular reason your shields are like wet tissue paper?"

Nathan jumped; down here in the heart of the mansion, the telepathic atmosphere was loud enough that with his shields in this condition, picking out individual minds - even Jean's - was harder than usual, even when he wasn't distracted by a rather enthusiastically aching back. He paused in the doorway, his eyes narrowing slightly.

"I don't know," he said grudgingly. "Charles hasn't offered any helpful explanations, and mediating doesn't seem to help much."

"I assume you're using the shielding exercises you taught me, all those many ages ago..." Actually, Jean didn't really assume anything of the sort, given how stubborn Nate could be when he got a (really, really) stupid idea in his head, like 'oh no, I'm useless as a telepath'.

"Of course I am." Although that wasn't precisely the truth. He was working on patterns, or trying, but he hadn't gone right back to the very basics and tried to rebuild from the ground up. It wasn't necessary, Nathan told himself again, doggedly. That level of.. engagement, with all this.

"Uh huh." By the tone of Jean's voice it was pretty clear she didn't really believe him. "And then we come right back to the question of how the man who re-taught me how to shield when everything I knew had been turned upside down is wandering around with wet tissue between him and the world."

They were not having this conversation with him standing halfway out into the hallway. Besides, his back really did hurt. Nathan stepped into her office, closing the door behind him, and sank down onto one end of her couch. "You're harping," he said, but without any real energy. "I haven't been ignoring the problem." That much was the truth, at least.

"I am, this is true. I harp because I worry and you've been very steadily pretending you don't know anyone who could or would help you with this, so I've had no outlet for my worry. Like, you know, going back into training with you. That would give me something useful to do, rather than bitch at you."

Nathan rubbed at his eyes with the hand attached to the arm that didn't hurt to move. "What's the point?" he asked, then went on before Jean could answer. "No, seriously. Like the pretty Askani shields ever help. I lived without them for twenty-five years..."

Jean all but glared at him. "See, saying things like that is why I started yelling at you last time. And where the hell do you get off saying your shields don't help? Excuse me, so you can't prevent astral attacks you don't have any warning are coming. Because the rest of us are so good at that. It was your shields that caught that bitch professor long enough for us to figure out what the hell was going on so you could kick her the hell out of your head."

"They didn't stop her in Chechnya, did they?" Nathan shot back - and then paused, one eyebrow going up. At himself, not at anything Jean had said. "Well, they didn't," he muttered after a long moment, trying not to sound like his daughter when she hadn't had her afternoon nap.

"Yes. The somewhat alarmingly clever and mentally unstable woman whose power we don't fully understand found another new application of said power that we couldn't have known about to defend against. And, I'll point out, had Askani shields burned into Saidullayev's mind. Clearly she doesn't think they're worthless."

She'd stopped harping and moved right into lecturing. Yay. "I'm still waiting for you to tell me what the point is. I'm not huddled in a fetal ball screaming at the voices to be quiet, so it's not like the shaky shields are doing me any real harm." And if it kept being at least tolerable, then he wouldn't have to... Nathan stopped that train of thought right there, quite deliberately.

Jean's eyes narrowed, partly because he was being obtuse but mostly because she caught the edge of that thought and really wanted to beat him over the head with a floor lamp for it. "The point," she said, scowling, "is that you have yet to give me a good reason why your shields are still in this condition. The point is that you're clearly not making any significant attempts to address the problem and, in fact, seem to be trying to pretend it's not a problem."

"Did you ever think of studying law? You do a great cross-examination," was his sour response. But his pride kept him from brushing it all off and leaving, so he made himself try to think of what she might consider an answer acceptable enough to leave him alone.

Inspiration wasn't coming.

"There is no reason for my shields to be like this," he finally said, brusquely.

Jean avoided from pointing out that if it was true that there was no external reason (which she didn't really believe) then logically he must be causing it internally. Since if she said that, he'd probably break something. "Agreed," she said, leaning back in her chair with a smile which was just on the edge of being sweet and pleasant. "So, it's time we started work. How's later this afternoon sound?"

His heartrate promptly jumped, and it took a physical effort to keep his expression level. "I... appreciate the offer, Jean, but I'd rather.." Words failed him, even if his voice didn't, and he swallowed past a throat that felt suddenly dry. "I'll put some more time into mediating," he said, and knew it sounded like he was trying to bargain with her. This really was fairly sad. "I mean, you're right. I could be paying more attention to this."

Jean didn't move, and it was definitely cheating to be using his shoddy shields and her telepathic sense of his physical body to monitor him, but that reaction was way too close to the edge of a panic attack for her to let this go. "And the next time there's a mission?" she asked softly, relaxing her shoulders into the chair. "How will you cope if you have to be the switchboard." Because while his shields might be managing to keep him from going mad just wandering around with no one pressing him, running five or ten other minds through your own demanded a very, very solid idea of where theirs ended and yours was supposed to begin.

"I've never been as good at it as you. And Jim's better than both of us. There's no reason I'd have to be. There are people who don't get brought into the switchboard because they're not okay with telepathic communication."

Nathan immediately found himself fighting the urge to get up and go smack his head into the wall a few times. Logic was good, logic was okay... except when you took it too far, as in 'past the point of no return' too far. As in 'there's no way she's going to let that pass' too far.

Jean blinked, then blinked again. Then ran through what he'd just said in her mind. Yep, still there. "So," she said, voice level, "when are you planning on telling Scott and Ororo that you're not okay with telepathy so they can start adjusting strategies?"

"When I was recovered and on the verge of being de-benched, maybe," Nathan said somewhat feebly. He hadn't been thinking that far ahead at all, really. "Crossing that bridge when I come to it and all..." He was really making himself look worse and worse here, he knew.

But he also knew, he supposed, that he wasn't going to get away with this once he was physically fit for active duty. He'd have to solve the problem, or he'd stay benched, and Scott and Ororo would be right to do it. Which only made this all worse.

"And you don't think that discussion might have an impact on your benched or not-benched status?" Jean asked mildly. She had him here and she wasn't going on Not Dealing. At least not quite so visibly.

"Fine," he said. He'd meant to snap it, but it came out sounding vaguely broken, like he'd just conceded... well, that he was going to have to suck it up, if he wanted to get back out into the field. "You're got a point. I don't want to be permanently benched. I'll take up you up on that offer of help, if it's still open." He made himself meet Jean's eyes, so she knew he'd mean it - and he did, because he'd done worse things out of necessity.

He'd do this because he had to. 'Had to' was nice and indisputable, and meant that nothing else really mattered. His hands were shaking, and Nathan folded them together, swallowing again. He sent an absent sort of reassurance down the link as he felt Moira's concern.

Jean nodded, concern evident on her face. "It is, of course." Getting him back to working on things was definitely step one, although how they would get from there to him being anywhere near okay using his telepathy was likely going to be one hell of a battle. She needed to talk to Charles, probably. "Shall we start this afternoon?"

Nathan nodded, for the lack of any other answer that seemed appropriate. His throat felt impossibly tight, and he looked away, down at the office floor. "I don't want Rachel picking up on this any more than she already has," he said hoarsely.

"Yes, that would be..." Disastrous. Heartbreaking. Unthinkable. "Bad. I wish it were warmer - we could go find some deserted corner of the grounds to work in. Might make things a bit easier."

"Easier." His smile was wan. "I don't know, maybe the greenhouse?" At least it had plenty of natural light. Nathan took a deep, shaky breath. "You know," he said, fighting for a conversational tone and not quite managing it, "thinking back to Chechnya, I'm wondering who that guy was. The one who was okay with using his telepathy from the moment we got on that plane. But it's like I'm right back to where I was when I first came here. And everything I was always so afraid of is still true."

It was possibly the most honest thing he'd said in this whole conversation.

Jean's smile was gentle and understanding. "Somehow, though, you made it from there to being that guy in Chechnya. We'll find our way back to that. It'll take time, but you've already proved you can do it once."