Nathan and Callisto, Wednesday morning

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Out and about on the grounds first thing in the morning, Callisto spots Nathan digging in the snow.


There was entirely too much snow on top of this damned hill. Nathan pushed it away doggedly, ignoring the way the cold seeped through his gloves and the tiny, sensible voice in the back of his mind that suggested a shovel would be a better idea. He didn't need a shovel. He just needed to figure out where on the top of the hill he was, so that he could damned well uncover what he wanted to uncover, and then everything would be good.

The figure on the hill, Callisto realised on reaching the far side of the lake, was the Elpis guy - Nathan something. His activity seemed a little incongruous given the weather and relative unremarkability of the hill in question, but honestly, who was she to query the actions of anyone around here?

As she drew closer, rounding the lake on her way back towards the mansion, her keen eyes narrowed against the white glare of the landscape and caught something else - something about the man's stance, the tense shoulders, the fixed expression, the way he seemed oblivious to his hands shaking with the cold soaking its way up his arms and through the legs of his jeans. He wasn't properly dressed for the weather, and he wasn't digging for fun.

Callisto's mouth pressed into a thoughtful pout, and she jammed her hands further into her pockets, setting her sights on what was visible of the mansion from here and lengthening her strides. It was none of her business what was going on, and she was sure she wouldn't be thanked for interfering.

Why was it, then, with every intention of walking on by, that Callisto found herself nearing the top of the hill before she'd even begun to think about what she was going to do when she got there? If Nathan noticed, he didn't react, even once the young woman had been standing there some moments, the bitter wind on the rise whipping her hair into an ever more impressive exageration of its usual mop.

Eventually, she cleared her throat. "Funny place for a snowman."

Nathan's head jerked around briefly, a flash of something wild and trapped in his eyes before he looked away again. "I woke up dreaming it wasn't here," he said roughly. "I just need to find it, and make sure..." It sounded so completely unreasonable, said aloud like that. But the idea of the stone having vanished, like it had never been here, like they had never been here, haunted him, even awake.

It was what he'd said to Kyle back at the start of the week, he thought. His... entirely selfish outburst. You couldn't just set aside a responsibility like this one. There was no such thing as laying down that particular burden.

Callisto was pretty sure she wasn't expected to know what 'it' was, but it didn't really seem like the time to ask. She considered for a moment getting on her own knees and helping to speed things up, but it didn't feel right, somehow, to interrupt his catharsis, and instead she took a step or two back, and watched in silence, keeping in check the urge to crane her neck to get an earlier glimpse of whatever Nathan was trying to dig up - or uncover.

It took him longer than it should have; he'd started digging too far to the left. Nathan brushed the last of the snow away from the inscription - Go tell the Spartans, stranger passing by; that here, obedient to their laws, we lie - and leaned back, breathing hard. "Still here," he muttered, and a harsh bark of laughter slipped out. "God, most obvious metaphor ever - I fucking hate my subconscious."

Callisto's eyes moved across the words, naturally not recognising the quote, and she took a moment to process them before realising what they signified.

"Who is it?" she asked, not sounding overly invested in being answered.

"Friends. It's not a grave. Just a marker. I scattered their ashes on the lake," Nathan said, the words coming out too fast. "It's for more than just them." Another of those slightly disturbing-sounding laughs, and he folded his shaking hands together in his lap. "One little stone, buried under the snow. One fake grave in Arlington that whispers to you. It's not enough, but it's so much in comparison to-" His throat closed, not letting the rest of that sentence out.

Callisto didn't say anything for some time, hunching her shoulders against the wind, brow furrowed thoughtfully. Finally, she cleared her throat. "We should, uh. You should get inside. Warm up."

--

"There's some coffee, I think," Nathan said as they came through the door of the boathouse; he wasn't sure why Callisto had followed him all the way back, but, well. The least he could do was offer her some coffee. "I usually set it to be ready first thing in the morning..." He headed in the direction of the coffeemaker without waiting for an answer. Even if she didn't want a cup, he did.

"Caffiene makes me a little too wired," Callisto said, her tone almost apologetic for the fact she wouldn't be indulging. She'd learned to avoid stimulants.

The young woman didn't seem about to leave though, leaning against the wall by the door of the boathouse as it swung shut behind them.

Nathan filled his own cup, and took a long sip before setting it back down on the counter. He didn't turn to face Callisto. "I have this... personal thing," he said after a moment, staring out the kitchen window into the woods. "I don't quite know what to call it... or maybe I do. A cause, I suppose." A faint, edgy laugh slipped out. "Right. I'm the Don Quixote of the fight against mutant child soldiers. Lately the windmills have started to fight back."

"Child soldiers. Like the kids at that conference last year?"

Nathan took a shaky breath. Calmly, he told himself. He could have a conversation about this without going there. He had to. Fine, things had happened, but 'stop the world, I want to get off' was not an acceptable response. It just wasn't. There was too much work to be done.

And maybe if he repeated himself often enough, he'd believe that.

"Yes," he said. His voice sounded odd. "I mean, it's not... just them. It happens all over the world. Bastards using kids for military purposes. But a thirteen year old with a gun is a weapon. A thirteen year old with superpowers can be a weapon of mass destruction."

The furrow in Callisto's brow deepened. "That's pretty sick," she said, displaying as usual her talent for stating the obvious.

Nathan rubbed his hands. They were still cold. "Sometimes they just abuse them psychologically, to turn them into weapons," he said, his voice soft. "Just. Will you listen to me. But when you've got someone that powerful, you have to keep them under control, right? Can't have the human WMD turning on you. So you take more drastic steps. Use one mutant to keep another in check - get a telepath, or an empath, to put things in the kid's head to make sure they can't misbehave." His voice was increasingly tight as he went on. "Only maybe that's not enough, either. Maybe they're not broken enough, obedient enough, that way. So you get them younger."

Callisto observed Nathan in silence for a moment, slowly getting the nagging feeling that this wasn't necessarily a conversation she wanted to pull Nathan into right now. So she just nodded.

He finally turned back towards her, his expression more composed than it had been. Enough to fool anyone who didn't look closely enough at his eyes. "There are some days I walk around here and I see half these kids as they could have been, if they'd been snatched up," Nathan said, and then gave another one of those edgy laughs. "So many of them were vulnerable - homeless, orphaned, problem children, what have you. The damned thing is, it's almost easier to fight this sort of thing in Africa, or the Balkans, or Southeast Asia. Countries like this one? When they do it, they do it well. They fund it. They hide it. And people only care when they have to." And only on their terms. Nathan reached back for his coffee.

"What can be done about it?"

"There's the million dollar question. How do you make people care, and respond with compassion, instead of focusing on wiping out the mutant threat." Nathan swallowed past a throat that felt almost raw. "I wish I knew," he said, his voice more gravelly than it should have been. "I wish I had a foolproof way, to make people see them the way I do. Just that way."

Callisto seemed to be listening, but he couldn't tell what was going on behind those watchful eyes. Nathan sipped at his coffee. "I need a drink," he muttered. "And it's not even noon yet."

Those bony shoulders lifted into a shrug. "It's always time for a drink somewhere in the world. And plenty of bars open before noon."

"Right." Nathan took another sip of the coffee, the faint tremble in his hands persisting even as the cold receded. "Only alcohol is likely to make me go even further off on this rant, and I don't think you want to hear it - do you?" Gut check time, Dayspring.

Callisto pulled her lower lip between her teeth, her thoughtful frown deepening, as though her mind was working in ways it wasn't used to. She looked up from her coffee to meet Nathan's eyes. "Let's find you a beer."