Adrienne and Nathan, Tuesday evening

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

Adrienne stops by the infirmary to visit Nathan, bearing gifts. The conversation goes unexpectedly awry, however, and she finds herself playing an unfamiliar role.


Balancing a carton of chicken wings in one hand and two bottles of beer and a manila folder in the other, Adrienne did her best to knock on the door to Nathan's room, keeping a sharp eye out for Amelia. "Are you up for visitors, Dayspring?" she called out, kicking at the door with a boot. "I come bearing some Elpis paperwork!"

Nathan blinked at the sight of her. "How did you get your hands on Elpis paperwork?" he asked, not quite suspiciously. He was sitting up in bed, looking pale and tired but more or less alert. The BBC news was playing on the television screen in the room. "You didn't steal it, did you? And is that beer?" He made a noise that might have been a very faint laugh. "Tempting, but I don't think I'd better mix it with the pain meds."

"Fine, I'll have the beer, you can have the wings," she replied cheerfully, setting the carton down on the table beside the bed. The paperwork was placed on his lap. "Is it really stealing if you bribe one of the employees- who actually works for both of us, by the way-for the keys to the office?"

"No, but it might be cause for a very stern lecture to said employee about the importance of not letting people walk off with the paperwork. Even donors. Maybe even especially donors." Nathan leafed through the files. Current stuff, unsurprisingly.

Adrienne rolled her eyes. "Oh, come on. Don't punish Cammie. She did it because she knew you must be going crazy in here with no work to do. She was only trying to help. And I didn't read your precious paperwork. Why would I bother, when I can just 'read' it with my powers instead? And that way, it's inadmissable in court," she pointed out, a little too cheerfully.

"Your brain does jump around, doesn't it?" Nathan asked wryly, reaching out to snag a chicken wing and a napkin. "Hoping to be out of here in a few days, tops, although I suspect my minions are not going to let me come back to work for a while yet."

Opening one of the beers, the eyeroll turned into a full-blown tongue-bearing frowny face. "It jumps around because my meditation and shielding teacher, who is supposed to be teaching me to keep my brain all focused and clear keeps landing himself in the damned infirmary."

"Oh, enough with implying this is a weekly affair," Nathan grumbled. "This is what, twice this year? Not bad, considering the life I lead."

"True, true. Your life is a touch insane. Morgan and I wondered a while back how your wife even lets you out of the house anymore."

"Well, it's going to get less crazy," Nathan said, nibbling on the chicken wing as he scanned one of the files. "I'm retiring from active duty with the X-Men."

The psychometrist's green eyes went wide. "Really? Wow, your wife and Rachel must be ecstatic. Good decision, Dayspring." She tipped her beer towards him in a toast. "I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried that you wouldn't be coming home from one of those missions." That would be almost as bad as Garrison not coming home. "Of course if anyone asks I would completely lie about being worried. Does this decision have anything to do with killing Shaw's Black Knight?"

Nathan froze. "And how the hell," he asked slowly, "do you know anything about that?"

"Inadmissible in court?" Adrienne suggested, waggling her fingers at Nathan. "Shaw has lackeys. I lunch with them. I learn things. Don't feel bad about Lense. Now there's a place open for me in the Black Court." She was kidding, but she wasn't sure if Nathan knew that.

Nathan went white - not pale, but white, and looked away, rather mechanically setting the chicken wing on the pile of napkins Adrienne had brought down with her. He ought to say something to her, he knew, to explain... but it was like his jaw had locked shut.

Panicking slightly at Nathan's loss of colour, Adrienne leaned in closer, Amelia's call button in her hand. If he remained nonresponsive she would call the doctor. "Nathan, are you alright? I was just joking about the Black Court. I decided a while ago I don't want any of their power- I'm just trying to help Emma keep them in check, now. Not taking anything for myself. You were right about them, and I get that now. Please don't be having a stroke or something."

"Lense... was a Mistra operative," Nathan finally managed, the words stiff with pain. "He couldn't adapt to life outside. Kept lashing out... and your Black King took advantage of that." His eyes burned, and he stared fixedly at the paperwork on his lap. "I tried, and tried to reach him. And then I killed him. So I'm sorry, but I'm not up to joking about it just yet."

Adrienne set the call button down and slumped back against the chair, contrite. "Shit. I'm sorry, Nathan. I didn't know you two had a history." She sat for a moment, and then her green eyes flashed with anger. "Shaw's not my Black King. I told you, I'm not playing his game anymore." Here was yet another reason why. "I'm not going to be taken advantage of like Lense." She shrugged uncomfortably. "You're part of the reason I decided that, so you did reach someone." Not that it would give him any consolation, she supposed. "I am sorry you had to kill him."

"You want to know the kicker?" His voice sounded like it had the first few days after he'd been off the ventilator. "He wanted me to. Deep down, all he wanted was to die fighting."

Shivering involuntarily, the brunette picked up her beer, examining the bottle closely. She was shitty at comforting people. "Garrison says that people can only save themselves," she murmured quietly. "I think that's true. You tried to reach him. Knowing you, you did everything humanly possible to reach him. But if all he wanted was to die fighting, then at least you were able to do that for him, even though it's made you miserable? Isn't that... I don't know... that's something, right? You gave him what he wanted?"

"Garrison's full of crap," Nathan said, still not looking at her. "Sometimes people can't save themselves. But sometimes you can't save them, either." He swallowed past a raw-feeling throat. "I'm not a fan of assisted suicide. And he had to remind me, the stupid, stubborn bastard, of the old days..." His throat was trying to flat-out close, at this point, but Nathan forced the words through. "He wasn't top of the mutant supersoldier class. I used to cover for him. For as many of the people like him as I could, not that it worked most of the time... but with John, it did. Because he resented the hell out of it - he didn't want to be protected, so he worked harder."

And he really did not need to be remembering John Lense at fourteen. He really, really didn't. Nathan wiped his eyes, looking away.

Completely at a loss as to what to say, Adrienne put her beer down and held Nathan's hand. She hated the fact that Nathan was hurting so much, because it made her want to cry too, and that was bad. It seemed like a long time before she looked at him again.

"If you tell me next that you wish it had been you who died in his place, I may have to smother you with a pillow," was the thing that came out of her mouth instead of something pitying, and she mentally smacked herself in the head even as she was smirking at him. Why couldn't her mouth and her facial expressions be attached to her brain in situations like these?

Nathan didn't seem to notice the smirk or the tone, or at least, didn't take offense if he did. "I don't," he said hoarsely - and didn't let go of Adrienne's hand. "I can't. I want to see my daughter grow up."

Adrienne squeezed his hand harder, even as she was scooting back in her chair, knowing that if she wasn't careful she would be giving him a hug in a moment, and then she'd have to change her name to Polly, get a job as a midwife and move to the Midwest with five cats and take up needlepoint. Or something. Because Adrienne Frost did not hug. "Damn straight you do. I've seen bits of it already, Dayspring," she grinned, remembering the good part about her encounter with the memory crystal. Usually precognition sucked; the glimpse of Rachel as a young woman was a rare exception. "The show's worth sticking around for. Worth retiring for, too, huh?"

"Yeah." The catch in his breathing was as much due to his ribs protesting the too-rapid breathing as anything else. "Worth it. I should have done it earlier, but I couldn't leave this unfinished."

"'Course you couldn't. You're the good guy," Adrienne grinned. She raised her fist to punch him in the arm, but decided against it at the last minute.