xp_logs | Mnemovore: Nathan and Jean, Thursday morning

Nathan is found.

The farm had been abandoned, possibly years ago from the condition of the buildings. Its original inhabitants might have been forgiven for walking away, simply to find some company; the farm was a solitary one, no other dwellings around for miles. When the Blackbird had overflown it, there had been a man working on a rusty truck in front of the barn. He had darted back inside the dilapidated old building as soon as he'd spotten the plane, however. There had been no further sign of him, but it would have taken telepathy to recognize the waves of hostility coming from the weathered structure. Fortunately, Jean was well-equipped.

That it was Nathan's mind was unquestionable but, for all that there was something deeply wrong with his shields, she couldn't get much more than that. Enough to know that calling him 'wary' was the understatement of the decade.

Telling the others to hang back, Jean went for the straight forward approach, walking straight up the path. She briefly wished she had something other than her uniform, not knowing what would set him off, but on the other hand, it might well turn out to be a very good thing that she had the extra armor if things went badly. She was kind of expecting things to go badly. It had just been that kind of a month.

The barn looked as unused inside as outside. As soon as she stepped within the four walls of the building, there was a familiar vibrating thrum through the ground beneath her feet, and the walls trembled. From the shadows, there was a shaky snarl in Russian.

"~I will like if you are come also,~" Jean replied, the Russian she'd picked up from Nate's mind in the gestalt less than perfect. "~I wills not wounding you.~" Reaching out she laced her telekinesis through the smallest gaps in his grip on the building, trying to be unobtrusive - if it came to a knock down drag out TK fight, she'd not come out the winner. Once she had a solid grip she reached out telepathically, the touch somewhat hesitant as she worried what his response would be.

As soon as she made telepathic contact, something changed. His mind went blank - or perhaps more precisely, froze, as if he was a DVD player and someone had just hit pause. It only lasted for a moment before his thoughts were in movement again, reforming into sharper versions of the familiar psi-patterns. Jean heard a choked grasp from Nathan's direction and the unmistakable sound of someone sitting down hard on packed dirt. The telekinetic rumble died instantly, and all that was in his mind now was confusion and pain and a sudden, spiraling panic that had nothing at all to do with her presence here.

"Oh, no." It was choked, barely audible. "No, no..."

That was English, which was good. Also, the lack of threats was good. Those two things were about all that was good about the situation, though. "Nathan," Jean said, moving further into the building, peering into the dark corner of the building. "You back with us?"

As she got closer, he was visible, huddled on the ground, holding his head as if in a feeble attempt to keep his skull in one piece. There was a trickle of blood coming from his nose, and he was staring at the ground in front of him, eyes nearly blank in horror.

"Something happened." His voice broke. "I thought it was Mistra. I couldn't remember."

Jean knelt in front of him, but stifled her impulse to reach out - not just yet. "Can you tell me what you do know? What's the last thing you remember?"

"The car. They hit the car. Had a telepath." The thunderbolt, smashing through his shields. "I told GW to get to a safe distance," he said disjointedly, rubbing at his temples, his expression twisting. "I don't understand why he wasn't carrying a gun... I don't..."

"I need you to come back to now, Nathan," Jean said, keeping her voice calm and level. "Bridge is dead; it's been more than three years. You went out with Jean-Paul. It was supposed to be routine but we lost track of you. We've been searching for days. What happened?"

Nathan's mouth opened and closed, working silently. It felt like someone was closing a vice around his chest, making it nearly impossible to breathe. There was a dull roaring at the back of his mind, and he lowered his head into his hands, fighting for composure. The fragments were starting to come together. He remembered...

"I don't know." It was a whisper, barely audible, but still somehow spiraling upwards into near-hysteria. "I don't know what happened to him. The telepath hit me, and I was... somewhere else." Lying in the hay. Lying in the hay, and waking up when...

It was like someone had punched him in the stomach. I let them take him. I let them... He looked up at Jean, his face gray. "What day is it?" he rasped.

"It's Thursday. And this is not your fault. Don't even go there, Nathan."

Nathan used the wall behind him to pull himself to his feet, and nearly fell again. God, my head... "Doesn't matter whose fault it is," he said aloud, voice sounding broken even to his own ears. Lie, a voice at the back of his mind hissed at him. "Have to find him. Too long. They're only keeping him alive because they know I'll come." Whatever the state of his brain, he had been perfectly aware of that.

Jean's eyes narrowed slightly, even as she reached out automatically to help him stand. "They know, and so they'll be prepared, and they will keep him alive, but we can't just go rushing blindly in. Come, we'll go back out - I have a team waiting. We can make a plan."

"I told him I'd bring the building down on him," Nathan said roughly, swaying. "I think that's a perfectly good plan."