Nathan and Jean-Paul

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Haunted by thoughts of the dead, Nathan escapes from the medlab, seeking more agreeable company.



Nathan had pretended to be asleep when Amelia came in to check on him, and then waited until he sensed her busy with inventory in the storage room before he made his move. His very slow, halting move; he might be a few days from being discharged back to his own bed, but that didn't mean he was anywhere near fully mobile. Fortunately, he managed to get out of the infirmary proper before he had to stop to catch his breath, otherwise he probably would have been caught. And we couldn't have that. She might tie me to the bed. Wheezing, Nathan forced himself to straighten and continue shuffling down the hall towards the elevator. Once he was there, it was a quick ride up to the third floor.

Safely inside, he sagged back against the wall, wincing. Yet he was feeling better than he had been, he tried to convince himself. The stabbing pain in his chest was pretty bad, but everything else just ached, and if he was feeling a little light-headed, it was just all the lying around he'd been doing. It might have been more sensible to stay in the infirmary where he belonged (at least for now), but the idea of lying down there the whole night, alone with his thoughts...

Nathan closed his eyes, swallowing the lump in his throat. It seemed uncharitable to wish that Adrienne hadn't stopped by to visit him, but he really, really hadn't wanted to talk about John.

The mental signature he was looking for was right where he should be and, as expected, wide awake despite the lateness of the hour. Good. It would have been just too much to come all this way and find Jean-Paul asleep for once.

The speedster answered the knock easily enough, but the greeting on his lips died at the sight of Nathan beyond his door. Jean-Paul couldn't quite manage to get words past his gritted teeth, but his thoughts were loud and clear.

'Are. You. INSANE?!

Nathan visibly wilted a little at the response. "Don't yell at me," he muttered, one hand going to the doorframe to steady himself. "Can't handle the infirmary anymore. Hate rooms with no windows..."

"Get in here." Jean-Paul helped Nathan to the couch, kicking the door shut behind them. Beneath all of his worry and upset, there was a sliver of admiration from the speedster, but he had to get Nathan off of his feet. "Voght is going to have kittens and each and every one of them is going to come seeking your blood. You are lucky that place drives me equally mad or I would turn you in now."

"Been good for... three weeks," Nathan wheezed, sinking gratefully down on the couch. "Sick of being good. Sick of sitting down there thinking about all of this..." His eyes burned again, and he rubbed at them irritably. "Sick of being the cheerful invalid. 'Hah, hah, look at me, landed myself in the infirmary again...'"

"Stiff upper lip, bleeding heart, and collapsed lungs. Lie down." Jean-Paul settled on the arm of the couch at Nate's feet instead of taking one of the flanking armchairs. "You lasted a while," he said quietly. "I was going to ask Jeanne-Marie what it took to qualify you for sainthood."

"When you stop... being so preoccupied how much it hurts," Nathan said unsteadily, trying to settle into a comfortable position on the couch, "then the ghosts come out. Doesn't take much, you know. Just a few words."

"Just the wrong ones." Jean-Paul looked to his friend sadly. "Lense?"

"And Carly." Nathan was silent for a long moment, staring off in the general vicinity of the opposite wall. "They have no next of kin, you know. Neither of them. Knew that about John, after Mistra went down...and I checked, about Carly, after Budapest."

"What would you say to them if you had found their families, Nathan? How would you have them remembered?"

Nathan was silent again for an increasingly lengthy space of silence. "That they were more sinned against than sinning," he said, almost under his breath. "Both of them. Whatever they did."

Whatever other opinion Jean-Paul might have held of Lense and Alverez, what little he knew of her, he could at least agree to that. "Amen. They deserved better. All of you deserved better."

"You think there's any chance I won't have to do this anymore?" Nathan just sounded... broken. There was no other way to describe it. "Retiring. Does it mean I'm not going to have to lose people in g-groups..."

Jean-Paul followed Nate's gaze to the wall. He wanted to lie to Nathan so badly that he had half-formed a comforting falsehood in his head by the time he'd identified his desire. It took an effort of will to dismiss it. Really, this was not fair -- couldn't he offer Nathan something for this pain? But it was stupid to lie to teep. Worse still to lie to your friend.

"If we are lucky," he said at last. It was the best he could do.

"Nice save," was the faint-sounding reply. Nathan closed his eyes. "Figure I've got about half an hour before Amelia notices me missing and comes to teleport me back to her dungeon. Maybe she'll be kind and knock me out for the night."

"Half an hour?" Jean-Paul managed something like a smile. "Music, television, or winning the fourth gold in Calgary? Xavier's even done some housecleaning recently, so the odds of you stepping in anything foul are next to nothing."

The idea of losing himself for a moment in someone else's happy memory - especially a memory like that - was almost unbearably tempting. But he didn't know if he had the concentration to even make a link at the moment. "Got any Bob Dylan?" Nathan mumbled, forcing his eyes open. They wouldn't focus, though, and his eyelids felt like they had lead weight attached. Even his breathing, despite the raspiness, was starting to slow, as if of its own accord.

"I can dig some up."

By the time Dylan was fishing the waters outside of Delacroix, Nathan was asleep and Jean-Paul was on vigil again. Voght was going to kill them both, but at least he could play cannon fodder.