xp_logs | Moira and Nathan, at various points on Wednesday...

All is not miraculously back to normal when Nathan wakes up. Moira does her best to help.

He heard the voices first. Before he opened his eyes, while he was still floating in the darkness, they started murmuring in the emptiness around him. So many voices, saying so many different things. He couldn't begin to untangle them all, and as they got louder, angrier, he didn't want to try. Striving futilely to shut them out, he could feel himself surfacing, as if he were floating up to the top of a great dark sea, and breaking the surface meant opening his eyes.

His eyelids felt heavy, impossibly heavy, and the room was nothing but a mass of colorful blurs. The voices hadn't gone away, and a whimper wrenched itself free from his throat as one voice rose up out of the others, shrieking at him in rage. He couldn't close his eyes, Nathan thought dimly. If he closed his eyes again he would see them, not just hear them.

The whimper jerked Moira from where she lay dozing in the chair. She sat up, quickly uncurling herself from the small ball she had fallen asleep in and hurried to the bed. "Nathan?" Her hands hovered just above him, not wanting to startle him again.

This blur was familiar. A red-haired blur with a familiar voice, and blue eyes that seemed to come into focus even when the rest of the world wouldn't. "Moira--they're shouting," he said, or tried to say, because his voice cracked and the words came out slurred and he wasn't sure if she could understand him.

#Does this 'elp any?# The touch on the link was gentle, a worried soothing caress.

He grabbed at the link almost frantically, holding on tight. More of the voices started to scream, and he could feel the sound they made, like a flock of birds spiraling back and forth inside the confines of his mind, beating their wings violently. But they couldn't touch him as easily, not while he was holding to the link. "Is--there anyone else h-here?" he managed to ask, his voice a little stronger this time. "Did they go away--I don't want the--girl to be here anymore, she was so s-sad--"

Moira grabbed his hands and shivered as the link intensified with the contact. #I think they're leavin'. Focus on me thoughts, me presence. Nay anyone 'ere but us.# She winced as his hands closed around hers tightly but didn't say anything. #Jus' th' two of us.#

"Good," he whispered weakly, relaxing a little. Even with the voices, if they weren't there watching him, it wouldn't be as bad. "Good--that's good--"

The bed creaked as she sat next to him. "I guess askin' if'n yer okay would be a stupid question?" She squeezed his hands.

He let his eyes drift away from her for a moment. The rest of the room was coming back into focus, if slowly. "I walked," he muttered. "I walked and walked and the cities kept burning. Then they came--"

"Th' people from yesterday?" Moira asked, remembering yelling at someone he was seeing to go away.

"They're not people." The words started to flow out, seemingly of their own accord, and as if from a great distance he heard the wild edge to the words grow sharper and sharper. "They're not people yet, they're not born, but they're dead already and that's so unfair, Moira--they're so angry, and I don't know what they want me to do--"

She grabbed his chin and made him look at her. "Focus, Nathan, on me...aye, tha's it." This was starting to scare her. It was getting worse and nothing she was doing seemed to help.

Nathan took a deep, shuddering breath, losing his focus on her for a moment. There was someone standing over by the window, back to the rest of the room. "Don't turn around," he muttered feverishly. "Don't--"

"I'm nay goin' ta. Nathan. -Nathan Christopher Daysprin'-, ye look right at me." Moira's eyes narrowed. She didn't know what he was seeing and really, didn't care. "Dinnae lose yerself or I'll 'ave ta brin' ye right back 'ere, ye got me?"

Nathan stared up into those blue eyes, feeling the link quivering in his mind. A piece of reality, a reminder of the here and now. "It sees me," he murmured almost brokenly. "I see the future and it sees me, Moira--I want it to stop--"

"I know, sweetie, I know." She cupped his face tenderly, blinking rapidly as her eyes burned. "An' we'll find a way. But fer now...what can I do to brin' ye back, fully? I want all o' ye wit' me."

"I don't know. I don't know how to make them go away. They're the ones whose eyes I borrow--"

Moira's stomach dropped as a little light bulb went on in her mind. "Oh..." she said weakly. Things were starting to make sense now. She wished they weren't. The results of some of the tests she'd run on him over the last couple of weeks had told her disturbing things about how the visions were affecting his brain chemistry, and now, with these hallucinations, not to mention the way he was reacting, this panicked, almost incoherent babbling--it all seemed too much like some form of schizophrenia for her comfort. His telepathy and his precognition were obviously interacting somehow, negatively enough to push him into this sort of psychotic state.

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, trying to focus. His thoughts kept falling into pieces, as if they didn't want to stay together, and now the voices were laughing at him. So angry, so bitter--why? But there was something else, something from the link, and he opened his eyes again, blinking up at Moira. "You're sad," he said uncertainly. "You shouldn't be sad, Moira--"

"I'm worried an' I'm scared," she admitted. "'bout ye." Moira brushed hair off his forehead. The implications of her idea scared her but so did the idea of losing him to this. Medication of some variety would possibly help, but would he agree to it? The only reason he took the drug cocktail for the virus was because he would die without it. She wasn't sure he would agree to anything that wasn't a do-or-die proposition. He was not the easiest patient in the world, to put it mildly.

It was hard to concentrate on the thoughts coming from the link. "Something--something went wrong?" he asked slowly. Maybe that was it. Because they did leave little threads behind when they died and little pieces of themselves, memories that weren't his. He died with them so maybe it only made sense that he lived with them, except it would be better if they stayed in his head, probably. If they stopped trying to pull him into their lives--

He didn't realize he was speaking aloud until he heard Moira's indrawn breath.

"Is -tha'- wha' 'appens?" she whispered, her mouth dry. "Oh God." It was the straw that broke the camel's back. Medication was definitely in order, until the visions either slowed back down to normal or he was in the shape to deal with them as they were. She'd force-feed him the antipsychotics herself, if she had to.

Nathan stared up at her for a long moment, feeling oddly trapped, all of a sudden, as if she'd cornered him. The way she was looking at him bothered him, too. She was watching him like she thought he was going to crumble into pieces in front of her, and she made a nervous gesture with her hands, as if she was batting at the birds--at the voices, trying to drive them away.

"Don't be--worried about him," he said softly, his eyes flickering past her to focus on the dead man standing at her shoulder. The dead man was holding a knife, his eyes burning with rage. His throat was slit from ear to ear, but he didn't seem to notice. "He's not angry at you."

#Nathan. Don't...damn it, don't leave me -now-.# Or for a very long time. The thought that this was going to take him from her scared her more than when he'd nearly died from the virus. She hadn't -known- him them. Seven years and the bastard had wormed himself deep inside and she wasn't about to let that go.

Nathan looked away from Moira and the dead man, turning his head slightly and letting his eyes rest on an empty patch of wall. "I'm so tired," he murmured faintly, and he was. It was more than fatigue that was making his mind so hazy, he knew, but there was plenty of fatigue there too. "I'm afraid to go back to sleep, though--"

#If I watch over ye, will tha' 'elp?#

He looked back at her pleadingly, suddenly terrified by the idea of her leaving. "Please don't go--"

"Never." Gently, she pushed him to the side so she could stretch out next to him. "I'm 'ere, I promise." At least until he was safely asleep again. Then, she had some test results to review.

---

The lab was quiet, the hum of various machines providing a soothing sound to Moira's more than slightly troubled mind. She stood next to her desk, flipping quickly through the past several pages. Various tests results that spanned several weeks flashed by and she sighed. Nothing reassuring here, and the symptoms he had been exhibiting today and yesterday certainly looked like schizophrenia, much as she might want to deny it. Hallucinating, delusions. His thoughts bouncing all over the place before and after the visions hit. Disordered thinking.

Her mind traveled to Marie-Ange. The girl's brain activity leaned towards epilepsy and psychotic breaks. That wasn't what they were, of course--not exactly, at least, but the chemistry was pretty similar. What if Nathan's brain did that, only in a way that mimicked schizophrenia? The growing intensity of his visions was certainly an enormous strain. His heightened general stress levels of late might be a contributing factor, as well. And if his telepathy was involved in this somehow, as it seemed to be, it was no wonder his brain was doing its best to short-circuit itself.

Hence, schizophrenia-like symptoms. With Marie-Ange, they had had the possibility of putting her on a drug cocktail, though she had turned that idea down. If it could have worked for one, why not the other? She knew from experience that certain of the antipsychotic drugs she had available to her would have few short term side effects, which minimized the risk of experimenting. If nothing else, they would sedate him long enough to hopefully let the vision run its course and get him functioning again.

Or at the very least, relax him enough to enable her to reach in and bring him back out again. Moira closed the folder with a snap. Within seconds it was safely back in her drawer, in the locked section of the cabinet. With Nathan's records, she took very few changes. She knew where they kept the more potent drugs in the MedLab and grabbed her key for it. She hoped that if this didn't work, it would bring him some temporary relief at least.

---

Moira sorted through the work in front of her. She had enough to last her well into the evening if she spread it out, which was important, because she didn't really want to leave the room again. Once today was enough, especially since she had given him her promise about staying close. She didn't think he realized that she had left briefly. The next time he'd woken up, he'd simply taken the pills she'd given him (without too much protest, amazingly) and promptly gone back to sleep again.

Her back was killing her. She'd not slept well in the chair and it was complaining bitterly. She ignored it and reached for the piece of paper on top of the pile.

It was a tiny noise, the sound of her shifting in the chair, but it seemed very loud in the quiet. Nathan opened his eyes, blinking up at the ceiling for a moment. He had been dozing lightly--whatever Moira had given him was making him feel very drowsy, very relaxed. It had diminished the voices to a dull murmurming, more felt that heard, and there were no dead people in the room anymore. He was glad about that, at least.

"What are you doing?" he murmured after another long moment. It was a bit of an effort to put the words together, for some reason.

Blinking, she turned around. "What else? Workin'," she teased gently. "'ow're ye feelin'? Ye've been dozin' fer a wee while now."

"I'm--okay," he said after another pause. "Kind of liking the bed, though." He didn't think he could get up if he tried.

"Good. I'd sit on ye if'n ye tried ta get up." Her work could wait, she decided, getting up and moving over to the bed.

He stared at her, seeing the dark circles beneath her eyes and not liking them. "You look so tired."

"I'd be lyin' if I said I wasn't." The truth of the matter was that she was exhausted but she didn't divulge that just yet. "But I figure yer restin' fer th' bot' o' us."

"You should--stay here," he said, meaning the bed. He mustered a tired flicker of a smile. "Promise I won't--freak out on you."

Moira sat with a small sigh next to him at the edge of the bed. "I'm nay afraid o' tha'," she reminded him, poking him lightly in the ribs. The drugs seemed to be working and that eased her mind somewhat. Next step would be trickier, since that part involved getting him to agree to take it more than once.

Nathan caught his eyes drifting shut again, and forced them back open. "The voices are quieter," he said softly. "They don't hurt as much."

"Good. I was worried about ye." Which translated into "You scared the crap out of me by disappearing you stupid oaf", which she felt he didn't need to hear right now. "'Tis it gettin' better on it's own or is it th' drugs?"

Nathan considered the question for a moment, his mouth twisting a little. "It didn't--start getting better until after," he admitted heavily.

She sighed quietly. It was what she had feared. "If I could find a mix tha' wouldna make ye as tired, would ye take it?"

Nathan fell silent again, feeling a strange, distant desperation at the thought. "Is this--going to be something I have to live with?" he asked hoarsely. "Like the virus?"

"I dinnae know. I'd like ta believe nay." Moira had been thinking long and hard about this. "I'd like ta think it'd go back ta what passes for normal, like it was before. But 'tis buildin', Nathan...or so it seems." Her jaw twitched slightly. She'd spent a good portion of the day with this on her mind.

"Could it just be--the stress?" Oh, that was funny. Stress didn't make people hallucinate, generally.

"I dinnae know." If he let her -see-, she might have a better idea. She rubbed her neck in irritation, trying and failing to stop that thought from escaping across the link.

Nathan looked at her for a long moment, and then closed his eyes and, with some difficulty, took down what was left of the shield he had placed on the link yesterday.

It was like listening to a shell from the beach. Moira shivered as thoughts and voices and terrible images trickled down the link and into her mind. So that's what...no, she realized, who, he had been seeing yesterday. The one memory that stood out, one among many, was when she had gotten fed up and yelled at the 'ghosts' that had been following them into the house. They had stopped, as if hearing her. Or at least, Nathan had perceived them as having stopped. "Was tha' why ye kept th' walls up?" she asked.

"I didn't want them to see you, too," Nathan muttered a bit distractedly, the flash of distress at the thought a little closer, a little sharper this time. "Don't know what they'd do--how they'd react--" He stopped, mulling over his own words. "I'm--still talking about them like they're real," he said, a bit bewildered. "That's--not a good sign, is it?"

Her fingers brushed the sides of his face. "Maybe not, but yer gettin' better. Stronger than ye were yesterday." Well, the ghosts would have to deal, she decided stubbornly. If her presence helped keep him sane, then so be it.

His eyes were trying to close again. But Moira's touch was so soothing. It had been so long since he could say that about someone touching him. "I'm so glad you're here," he whispered.

She brushed a kiss across his cheek and smiled. "I'm glad yer 'ere as well," she murmured. "Yer wort' all this trouble."

He let the air in his lungs out on a sigh. "I trust you," he said, not opening his eyes. "About the drugs. Whatever you think's best."

Well, that had been easier than expected. "Thank ye. Jus' when it gets bad, okay?" Moira dropped her head onto his shoulder. "I jus' want ye ta get better."

Nathan made a sleepy noise of agreement. "Want that too--" Something occurred to him, and he frowned slightly, opening his eyes. "I left--a strange message on the journal-thing, didn't I?"

"Mmm hmm. Tha's okay, we've all done it. At least ye didna bamf inta a boy's shower like poor Kurt..."

The memory of the vision he'd had just before leaving the mansion came back slowly, and he kept frowning. "The map--" he started hesitantly. "Did I--"

"Did ye draw it? Aye. Did ye brin' it? Aye, after bribery ta keep th' bloody idiots runnin' th' coffee 'ouse in check." Once he was better, they were framing that damned thing. $150 for a map she couldn't read. At least he had nice hand writing.

"It was all there in my head," he said, thinking hard. "I think they wanted me to draw it, because it would tell me things--"

"Then when yer up ta it, we'll brin' it out. Maybe it'll 'elp, but I'm nay takin' any chances wit' ye right now. Nice an' easy day, nay leavin' me sight, nay anythin' weird goin' on." She nodded firmly, as if she believed that by strength of will it would be so. And, knowing Moira, who could say she was wrong?

Nathan would have nodded, only that would have involved lifting his head off the pillows and he didn't see any need to do that just now. "Okay," he said. "I should email Amanda, though. I think I said something weird to her." And the idea of upsetting her didn't sit well with him. "I like her," he said after a moment, thoughtfully.

"Nathan, ye say weird thin's all th' time. But, aye, I like 'er too. Reminds me o' th' two o' us in some ways, scary as tha' may be."

"Scary thought." He would really have to email Amanda, Nathan told himself firmly. Once he wasn't half-asleep anymore.

She yawned, loudly and then just gave up. "Sleepin' in chairs does nay mean a well-rested Scot," she muttered, nuzzling into Nathan's shoulder. "Ye, on th' other 'and, are quite comfortable."