xp_logs | Marie and Nathan, around lunchtime...

If he didn't know better, he would have thought Moira had slipped something into the orange juice she'd all but poured down his throat at breakfast. He felt--odd, detached and a little hazy. Perfectly content to sit in the armchair and stare out the window, which was the strange thing. He was tired, yes, but he had been tired before, and yet the walls had still felt like they were closing in on him. Not today, though.

Marie knocked gently on the door, not wanting to disturb Nathan if he were sleeping. Her shoulders still ached in spite of the very slight healing she'd permitted Logan to give her the night before.

"Come in," Nathan called passively, not stirring from the chair. When the door open to reveal Marie, however, the haze fractured a little and he straightened, fighting back a profound sense of embarassment. His memories of last night were a bit on the fragmented side, but he did recall Marie having been the one to get him back here from Doug's room. "Hey," he said, a little unsteadily.

"Hi." Marie let herself in, smiling. She was dressed for teaching again, neat blouse and jeans, the dark green blouse pushed up to reveal thin, pale green gloves. "How are you?" She crossed the room slowly, looking him over as she did.

He gave her a strained smile. "Um--fine," he said, his voice still not quite level. He looked her up and down, biting his lip as he thought about how tightly he had gripped her shoulders as she'd helped him upstairs. "I, uh, hope you don't have any souvenirs of last night. Bruises, I mean. I didn't--I wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing--"

"Oh, no, no harm done," Marie said with a reassuring smile. Unselfconsciously, she slipped her blouse off of one shoulder to show Nathan unmarked white flesh and a dark green satin bra strap. "See, all better." She sat down opposite him and adjusted her clothing again. "It was nothing. I'm just glad you're feeling more coherent today. You still look a little dazed, though," she added with a small frown.

He gave an edgy little laugh, not sure that he felt much better. Oh, he was glad that he hadn't hurt her, but having to be basically carried to bed--not so good for his pride. "I feel a little out of it still," he admitted shakily. "I'm not sure why."

"I didn't see or hear any of what happened to set you off," Marie said. She tucked her bare feet under her and put her chin in her hand, settling into the chair. "I didn't even know you were down there until Doug came pounding on my door for help. You were ... struggling to stay, I guess that's the best way to say it, when I got to you."

Nathan shuddered at her wording. "That's--too accurate a way to put it," he said hoarsely, remembering how easy it would have been to let go, sink back into that other place and let this world fade into the distance again. The walls between them were thin, and he could almost feel the pull from the other side.

Marie bit her lip and paled a little, suddenly aware of the analogy she was drawing in her mind. "I'm sorry," she said softly. Yes, she'd seen the look before and she knew the feelings that went with it. She fought back feeling vaguely ill. "I didn't know what to do, so I decided to move you while I could, to get you somewhere safer, and talk to you. I was torn, but leaving you in the boys room didn't seem like a good idea."

"No, you did the right thing," he hurried to assure her, and then couldn't help another faint smile. "Even if my male pride is stinging. It's just--" He trailed off with a heavy sigh. "I don't know what the hell it was, Marie. Precogs don't generally have conversations with the people in their visions." At least, he thought the red-haired woman had been in his vision. Or maybe he didn't. He wasn't really sure.

Marie laughed at him and shook her head. "Male pride? You'd better put that thing in the safe downstairs, Nathan. Especially if you plan to get well enough to come train with some of us." Her expression was purely affectionate as she leaned forward to pat his knee. "We'll be gentle with you. And as for your vision... I don't know much about them. I talk to the people in my head often enough, so I can't say what's normal for anyone, much less where someone's mutation's concerned." Her laughter faded as fast as it had come. "I'm sure someone will be able to help you, though."

Incredibly, her words tickled his errant sense of humor. "That sounds like a challenge," he said, a more natural smile tugging at his lips. "You know, when I'm not toppling over every twenty minutes, I'm told I'm a pretty good sparring partner."

"We'd have made a /fine/ pair a few months ago," Marie said dryly. "Me learning to walk again was a joy to behold. I still have my moments in training, especially if someone startles me. It's why I still only train with Logan and with Piotr if he's in his metal form. Maybe by the time you're well enough to try, I'll be well enough to try with you."

He eyed her with a new interest, knowing that he was just seizing the opportunity to distract himself from his own problems but unable to help himself. "I used to run training sessions," he said slowly, trying not to shift in his chair as the memories came back. It still was hard to look back on those years, even the positive parts. "Tactics, geared to specific mutations. I kind of miss that, actually. Not that we were training to do anything all that admirable, but--it was good, sometimes, to see someone do something with their powers that they never thought they'd be able to do. To look in their eyes and see the confidence growing there."

"I think there might be a use for you somewhere," Marie said with a warm smile. "See, me, I've had to learn all over again Here, I'll tell you a story to distract you."

"I used to be a normal little girl whose skin killed people. Humans, they don't last long at all. Life and self, the mind, soul, whatever you want to call it, they come to me if I touch them. And they remain, depending on the factors involved. Mutants, on the other hand, their powers and their minds come together. And I keep their powers for a while, and I keep their minds again, depending on the factors. After a while, they die too. One day, I killed a mutant named Stanley Watts that way, inadvertently. And his powers? Never went away. So suddenly... I could fly. And I was incredibly strong. But I had no control and no natural safeguard. It was pretty damn awkward for a while there. I just surfaced from the medlab in December. I killed Stanley in August. It's been a long adjustment, but I'm getting better with it all the time."

Nathan was silent for a long moment, absorbing her words. "Suddenly it all falls into place," he murmured, smiling wryly when she raised an eyebrow at him. "I may not be much of a telepath, but I've been getting some very unusual impressions from you. This explains why." He paused for a moment, studying her. The distraction, as she'd put it, was working surprisingly well; it was easier to focus on the here and now, now that something had piqued his interest. "Are you getting sufficient help with it?" he asked seriously. "Your mutation, I mean. And if you're using it, inadvertently or otherwise--I can hardly imagine the struggle it must take to strike a balance."

"I have the best help there is," she said non-committally, unwilling to speak to the sufficiency of it. "Which mutation, though? The strength and flight... they seem to be mostly will-based. So now that I've learned to separate the mutation from my mundane body, in terms of involuntary motion, it only activates when I need it. Usually." Marie laughed at that and blushed. "I put a mug of cocoa through the wall recently when a spider climbed over my foot. Try telling my limbic system that a spider isn't an emergency, though...."

"I was thinking more about your mutation," he said calmly, unconsciously slipping into the same tone he'd used with more Mistra trainees than he could remember. "The--you know, I'm not even sure what to call it? It can't be strictly psionic, if you absorb their mutations as well." He shook his head slowly. "Closest I ever saw to this was a girl who could hijack someone's psyche--temporarily, mind you, and it took a lot of effort on her part."

Marie shrugged. "What's there to tell?" she asked with a little frown. "It just... skin to skin contact and it begins to pull, to eat almost. It's hungry, it seems. I can make it work a little faster or slower now by thinking about it, but that's all. What do you want to know specifically?"

"I'm not looking for specific details," Nathan said with a tentative smile. "Just--well, just hoping you're coping all right with it. I sometimes think that those with strictly physical mutations have a bit of an edge on those of us whose minds are involved."

"Coping?" Marie made a dismissive gesture. "Honestly? I get by. I've let myself live so far. I still trust myself around the kids. I still trust myself with what I can do. My partions are pretty strong and I keep the collective quiet enough. I manage to be me and enjoy life here and there. It's been hard with recent influxes, even if most of them have gone to ghosts within days. I'm sure you can imagine that the people I do pick up aren't exactly good people," she said evenly. "And some of them may still literally have minds of their own, it seems. I try and keep on top of things. Being busy helps. Logan helps. I'm okay for the time being."

"If you ever--" Nathan hesitated, not sure why he was persisting with this. She was hard to read, so he wasn't sure whether he was irritating her, continuing on this line of conversation. "They taught us a number of meditative exercises, back in the program. Meant to help us compartmentalize. I used to use them to manage my precognition." He shrugged a bit sheepishly. "And hell, they used to work fairly well."

"Any weapon in a fight," Marie said with a crooked smile. "Moira's got me a lot of information on yoga and meditation. I already practice zazen and tonglen, though the tonglen is a little easier to focus on. And compartmentalizing? That's pretty much my whole life. I scare myself with how normal I am some days and then I realize, 'hey, take away all this stuff, and I am pretty normal'. Treating myself as a freak and a liability didn't help at all, it made things worse. So I kind of plunge myself into what routine and normalcy I can get my hands on and set aside maintenance time to attend to my oddities."

Nathan leaned back into the chair, studying her for a few moments. "So," he said, following the instinct that told him it was time to back off now. "When you're not trying to manage a difficult mutation, what do you like to do around here? Besides the teaching, I mean."

Marie gave him a bright smile, recognizing the withdrawal. "I train and study. Mostly premed courses, in between studying for my teaching certs. I would have been in college this year but there's this misunderstanding with a murder charge, maybe more than one, I don't remember, and a military laboratory that really wants me back to keep testing me, so I'm usually hanging around here and waiting to see if that can't be settled. Training, Logan's mostly in charge of that, him and Pete, and that takes several hours a day right there. I keep busy. When I'm not doing those things, I'm chasing the kids around, helping where I can with them, and making sure the sock wars don't escalate beyond laundry throwing."

"And you do eat and sleep at some point, I trust?" Nathan said with a chuckle that turned a little wistful. "This delay you're facing with your education--I can sympathize. When I was a little older than you, I very badly wanted to continue with mine." His mouth twisted bitterly for a moment. "I had to earn the privilege. In retrospect, I'm not sure the letters after my name were worth it."

"Eating is mandatory. Logan sees to that. I need to eat a /lot/ because of the acquired mutation. Protein shakes are my friend. Sleep is intermittent. When I'm falling asleep or waking, the collective get loose and Erik has been most talkative lately. I avoid it until I'm going to collapse. And at night recently, I've had Angelo's dreams because he had a violent episode recently, so less sleep than usual for me." Marie sighed and shook her head gently. "I went through this brief phase of thinking I'd go into psychiatry and help children like the ones here. Now, I'm mostly focused on making sure they don't have to grow up like me. I think I'll probably end up serving Charles however he needs me, to that end. I trust him with me."

"These kids--" Nathan stopped, sighing as he pushed his own memories of Mistra's training facility away. "They've got one hell of an opportunity here, Marie. If you can do anything to help them, you're doing something that's purely good. I know that doesn't make the rest of it all right, but it's something."

Marie smiled at him, a geniune smile. "This is a good place. And I have faith in it and in Charles. My gym class is better than any therapy anyone could offer me. There's nothing like happy, squeaky little people being themselves to put everything in perspective. They're beautiful and they don't think anything's amiss with what they are. It's pretty close to heaven, really. If you ever want to feel /good/, come on down and play with us. We'll be swimming tomorrow in the lap pool for a treat."

The mental image, as attractive as it was, hurt. Nathan blinked rapidly, rubbing at his eyes and hoping Marie would take it as a gesture born of fatigue and nothing more. "Sounds wonderful," he said, his voice wavering a little.

"Nathan..." Marie got up and leaned over him, one hand gentle on his head, a moment's warning before she pulled him into a loose hug, comforting. "You're tired. Rest. Come play with us when you can."

"Yeah," he muttered, the part of him that didn't mind the hug so much warring with the part of him that wanted to put some distance between them, forcefully. "Got the sense in that boathouse that I'd need my energy for that."

She let go of him quickly with a gentle stroke to his shoulder. "I have a class to teach," she said regretfully. "You will come, when you feel better? It would be good to see you, they like you a lot."

"I will," he promised, trying to smile. "Thank you for inviting me."

"You're welcome. Just take me up on it before I make it an order, okay? Don't make me come carry you out, now." Her tone was light but her eyes were sad and sympathetic.

The smile came a little more easily this time. "I'll keep that in mind."