Morgan & Nate | Wednesday evening

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Morgan manages to make the last of her preemptive goodbyes.

Why was this the hardest of the three to conceive of actually going through with? Morgan and Nate hadn't ever been close except when she was pretending to be someone else. They weren't best buddies or any of that sentimental crap, so why had she had to look in the mirror and tell herself to just get it bloody over with already? Sure, she had time, but Morgan knew she was just putting it off because she didn't want to do it, not because she had any real reason to not find the time. Maybe it was because Nate would understand. It was a little odd for that to make it harder but somehow it did. Maybe it was also because Nate had quit, something Garrison hoped she would do and had told him she wouldn't. Though, like she stipulated for her own departure from the occupation, the Pack had quit together not abandoned one another.

With a small glare at the door, Morgan raised her hand and pressed her finger gently into the doorbell of the boathouse. Hey, maybe he wouldn't be there, right? It wasn't like the guy didn't have other things to do.

Nathan was there, of course, and a bit startled by the doorbell. Then he remembered that yes, the office was still closed, hence the door wasn't open as per usual. #Come in,# he projected, and looked around the living room, making a face as he noted the air of neglect. You can tell Moira hasn't been here in a couple of weeks...

Morgan wrinkled her nose and swatted at absolutely nothing in the air around her head. If it was possible to swat the projected words away from her head she'd manage it, damn it! Her nose was still a bit scrunched up when she walked into the living room to find Nate there. "So are you incapable of actually answering the door or just really sodding lazy?"

"Sodding lazy," was the prompt reply. "Also feeling a little seedy." He looked it, too, he knew; he hadn't been able to completely avoid mirrors. "I hate getting old."

"You could get old and be all debonair, like Sean Connery or summat," she told him as she perched on the arm of a chair. "No reason why you need to go downhill. The hot older man is always in vogue, you know."

Nathan sniffed. "I am perfectly debonair. When I want to be. Other times, I'm a very good thug." He eyed her for a moment. "So," he finally said, not quite lightly. "To what do I owe the house call?"

"Maybe I was jonesing for a debonair thug," she quipped back with a small smirk. "Meh, okay, maybe not. I'm leaving. Eventually. That sounds noncommittal, doesn't it? Aye, it's very committal, though. When the boys move on from their current job that's nearly up I'm heading out of here to join them. Mostly I just wanted to tell you and say goodbye in case I do that thing where I disappear overnight. You know how it is sometimes." And he would know, which is what made this so much easier to explain, unlike the other two attempts at explanation she'd gone through recently.

Nathan leaned forward, picking up one of Rachel's toys from where it was sitting beneath the coffee table. "I knew this day would come," he said. "Didn't figure you for a permanent resident. And I could always tell there was a lot to draw you back."

"Would you have ever abandoned the Pack before they were all ready to pack it in?" She was pretty sure the answer was no, but maybe she was wrong. Even if she was wrong, Morgan was willing to bet Nate would understand why she couldn't. The men at your side were the important thing in battle. Their survival was a mark of your ability as your survival was a mark of theirs. "Kane has hopes I'll quit one day, find something worthwhile here, be a hero. I don't know about that, but I guess it's sweet he's got that sort of optimism."

"Kane's got his own take on what's worthwhile," Nathan said, letting her question pass; it was rhetorical, mostly, he thought. "I suspect you were a learning experience for him, though." He smiled, leaning away slightly, just in case.

"Me?" An eyebrow arched in question. "How so?"

"I refuse to answer on the grounds that you may smack me upside the head," Nathan said. "Insert oblique comment about shades of gray, yadda, yadda. I'm too hungover to be particularly profound right now." He offered her the smile that usually had women shaking their head and grumbling at him.

Morgan got up, walked over to Nate, smacked him upside the head, then went back over to the chair's arm and sat back down. "That's what you get for bringing things up you refuse to answer. And why're you so hungover anyway? Does your wife know what a horrid state you're in?"

"My wife is blissfully ignorant. At least, I hope she is." Nathan smiled at her, more crookedly, but rather more sincerely. "Your powers still a worry?" he asked abruptly.

"Standard issue reply is 'no,'" she told him honestly. "The more truthful answer is 'a bit.' I'm going to build better checks into things this time, though I'm nearly to the point I wanted to be anyway. I don't think I'll slip away this time, though if I do I likely won't come out of it so it's not like I'll notice." Dark humor, but you had to find the humor of it because what was the alternative? "The guys know what's up and I'll inform them in details when I see them."

"Sometimes you just need to take these things day by day. Charles's training is good, though," Nathan said after a moment. She probably didn't really need the reassurance, but sometimes it was good to give it anyway. "Sometimes you don't realize how good until you're living with what you've learned, over time."

"Time will tell," she said with a shrug. "I doubt anyone is in the mood to test my shiny, revamped control any time soon anyway. Nearly getting someone killed will do that to your enthusiasm level."

"All we can do is the best we can. And it sounds like they're willing to take the chance on you," Nathan said with a slight smile. "Amazing how sometimes the practicalities can be tempered by other considerations, isn't it?"

Morgan snorted softly. "Aye. We're family, you forgive family for a lot. There's just no such thing as practicality considering that."

"I must admit, I have one regret," Nathan said, the smile growing, just a little. "I regret being comatose and missing the experience of you and Dom in the same house."

Morgan smirked at him. The expression held a level of sarcasm her voice could barely achieve. "That never would have happened if you hadn't been comatose in the first place you sodding idiot." She cleared her throat and straightened her spine up a bit as she informed him, "We were utterly civil to one another, thank you. Tersely civil, but civil nonetheless. Mostly because you were comatose and there were kids about otherwise I reckon she'd have gone for the jugular."

"She made me a promise, a long time ago, that she'd behave while she was here. She's always stuck to it quite rigorously." Nathan tilted his head, shrugged a little, the smile remaining. "Amazing how well we unsavory types can behave ourselves in a place like this. I bet your self-defense students are going to miss you."

"Well, sometimes unsavory types like us aren't always so disrespecting or dishonorable as some people would like to think we are. Sometimes we've more honor than the supposed good guys, but who wants to believe in that flipped over world view, eh?" Morgan stood and dropped a mostly blank business card on the table in front of Nathan. It was the third of three identical cards, the other two of which she'd handed to Garrison and Adrienne.

"You're the only one around here who actually understands what we do or what jobs we take on. Everyone else has their heads too far up their asses to get past their stereotypes. That," she nodded to the card, "is in case you've ever need of our unsavory work or connections in our bits of the world. After all, a lot of connections run dry being out of the game for as long as you've been. This way if you've real need of them, you'll be able to find them."

Nathan took the card, flipped it over and smiled slightly. "I do tend to wind up in strange and distant bits of the world," he said, then looked up at her. "Oddly enough given our past history... I think I'm going to miss you, too." He didn't regret his time with the Pack, certainly didn't want to turn back the clock, but Morgan had understood things that no one else here really had.

Morgan smiled. "You're one of only three people I'm taking the time to actually say goodbye to, no matter how far in advance this may turn out to be. That should tell you something right there." Maybe it was because of the fondness she'd developed for him when she was pretending to be Domino or maybe it was because he had that same sort of air to him that Aleister had once had, but Morgan could never deny that there was an indisputable affection she felt towards Nate. And it was nice having someone around who knew who she really was, what she really did, and not only didn't care, but didn't have to put in effort to not be bothered by it as she felt some people maybe did have to.

"Here's to the interim, then."