Moira/Nathan (Backdated to Saturday at 9:30)

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Moira hummed "Scotland the Brave" under her breath as she entered her room. She had two big mugs of coffee in her hands, both steaming and freshly made. "Nathan? Ahh, there ye are." She spotted him sitting at the window, gazing out on the mansion grounds and she wandered over, humming a little louder. The call from her uncle and cousin had done wonders to her mood, though she had spent a good five minutes being sniffly because of the promise to visit.

She missed them something fierce, she realized.

Nathan blinked and looked at her, finding it more than a little difficult to pull himself out of his own thoughts. "Hey," he said, his voice coming out gravelly. He could see the sparkle in her blue eyes, even as they softened in concern, but he couldn't seem to respond to it, not even with a smile.

"'ey yerself." The cups of coffee were starting to become too warm in her hands, so she sat them near Nathan. "Wha's wron'?" she asked, sitting next to him.

He shrugged slightly, eyeing the coffee.

"Nope." She leaned over him and placed herself firmly between him and the coffee. "Nay gettin' any until ye talk." It took some twisting, but Moira managed to balance herself fairly well.

"Not a whole lot to say," he muttered, looking away. He wouldn't even know where to start.

"Well, somethin's wron' an' I'm nay movin' from this position until ye at least tell me somethin'!" Moira gritted her teeth, trying desperately to hold onto that good mood from earlier. And the table. But she could hold on longer than he could hold out, she thought stubbornly.

Nathan remembered, suddenly, what he had promised Marie this morning. Closing his eyes for a moment, he tried to pull himself together. "I'm just--tired," he said finally, his voice wavering a little as he looked back at her.

"Did somethin' 'appen?" Her arm was starting to cramp but she wanted to make sure he was going to talk before moving and letting him at the coffee.

He shrugged again. "More visions," he said dully. "I was just--going to try and write about them, but--" His stomach twisted as he glanced over at the laptop and he bit his lip, looking back out the window.

With a shove, Moira righted herself. "'ey, nay anythin' wron' with tha', Nathan, if'n yer nay ready ta, dinnae rush yerself." She brushed her hand on his gently.

"And I saw Manuel in the kitchen," Nathan muttered, shivering a little as she touched him.

She withdrew her hand and frowned. "Did it go badly?" Moira reached over and grabbed a coffee mug and held it out to Nathan. She could feel the good mood start to slip away and she resigned herself to letting it go.

"Not really," Nathan said with a sigh, taking the mug. "He didn't--come across as an empath, with that collar around his neck. Just a screwed-up kid." He took a sip of the coffee to fortify himself before he went on. "I should've felt more sympathy for him than I did."

"'Tis 'ard tryin' ta do tha' ta someone who 'urt ye." She scooped up her own mug and leaned back against the window. "Ye know tha' they're 'urtin' but so are ye. Manuel 'as a lon' way ta go."

"This place is doing funny things to me," he said, sipping at his coffee again. "There was a day not that long ago that I wouldn't have cared one way or the other."

"Place dra's in ye," she muttered, staring down into her coffee. "Amazin' 'ow it doesna let ye go." Her mind bounced back to her uncle and then back to Muir and she felt a bit of a pang. It -had- been too long. But the mansion was becoming home as well. "I'm glad it dinnae end badly. For either o' ye."

"I'm tired," he said again, and then frowned, realizing how petulant he sounded. "Just--so sick of all of this. These aren't the fine lines I'm used to walking." Okay, now that had made no sense at all.

"I wish I could make ye feel better or at least get ye well rested." She frowned at him over her coffee mug. "Fine lines?"

He made a vague gesture with his free hand. "Watch what I say, watch what I do. Don't frighten the children. Tolerate them when they act like children. Just--not what I'm used to."

"I know, I'm sorry." Moira grimaced. -She- had been the one to tell him to do most of that. She'd spent a good part of the day thinking of ways to help. Not much had popped up on the brilliant ideas list.

"Don't apologize," Nathan grumbled, shaking his head. "You were right, with all of it. Doesn't make it any less hard to act like a civilized, well-adjusted human being." She frowned at him and he offered her a faint, defensive smile. "Well, I'm not, particularly."

Moira snorted, annoyed and took too fast of a sip of coffee. With a splutter as her mouth cheerfully informed her that it was still too hot to take a gulp, she gasped. "Bloody fuckin' 'ell, god -damn- it." When she would look back later on this conversation, she wouldn't exactly know if she was cursing at Nathan or at the coffee. But it was clear that talking to Anna still worsened her use of language.

"Don't blame the coffee," Nathan said, the corner of his mouth tugging upwards.

"Maybe I was cursin' at th' bot' o' ye," she grumbled, fanning her mouth in irritation. "If'n I 'ear ye say yer nay tha' again, I'll dump yer stubborn ass inta th' lake an' 'ave Clarice switch yer clothin' ta somethin' 'orrible an' pink."

"I'm not trying to be witty and self-deprecating," Nathan said with a short laugh. "It's just the truth, Moira. When have I ever had to interact in anything resembling normal society?"

"Muir," she said simply, jaw twitching just slightly. "An' nay jus' on th' island...at th' pub as well on th' mainland."

"Well, I can fake it for short stretches at a time, you know--"

Moira reached out and smacked him full in the chest. "Damn it, Nathan, ye are nay makin' this easy!"

Nathan grunted, then raised a defensive hand, smiling a bit wryly as she leaned back to take another swing at him. "Sorry," he said. "But I do have a point. You've got to admit that."

"Nay admittin' anythin'," she groused, trying to figure out what part of his body would make a good, solid thumping noise when she hit him again. What irritated her more was that he was enjoying this.

"I just--" Nathan stopped, a sigh escaping him as his mind went back around to Manuel. "I forget what it's like to be patient, Moira," he confessed a bit uneasily. "With people, I mean. I don't usually stay places long enough to have to worry about it, and the people I do stay in contact with--well, they cut me more slack than they probably should." He mustered another sardonic smile. "That includes you, by the way."

"Last time I counted, I kick yer ass on a regular basis. But maybe I do, but tha's jus' I -know- ye an' I think ye deserve it." She had been going to smack his knee but settled for putting her hand there instead. "An' believe me, it takes time ta build up patience." Moira smirked. "I wasna always a complete ray o' sunshine, ye know."

"Nooo," Nathan said dryly.

"Bite me," she replied, sticking her tongue out at him.

Nathan smirked right back at her, but the smile fell off his face as he heard the whispering at the back of his mind start up again, soft and imploring. "Was that an invitation?" he tried to quip, but the words came out sounding a little strangled, and from the look on Moira's face, he wasn't fooling her.

"Is it startin' up again?" she asked, calmly, putting her coffee mug back on the table.

"Yes," Nathan said tightly, squeezing his eyes shut. The whispering wasn't in English, of course, but he could almost understand it. "Just one voice this time," he muttered, rubbing at his temples. "Quieter."

With a gentle tug, Moira took the coffee cup away from Nathan and placed it back on the table. "Well, tha's a start. Want ta lay down?" Somehow, she had picked up his hand, though she didn't remember doing it.

"Yes," he whispered, letting her help him up out of the chair. "I think that would be good."

She grunted slightly as he leaned into her but simply propped him up. "Come on, aye, tha's it, jus' a wee bit further." She noticed he was starting to shake as she helped him sit on the bed.

The voice at the back of his mind wasn't alone now. There were more, begging, pleading, and Nathan clutched at his skull, a small, desperate noise escaping him as lights flickered at the edges of his vision. Another bad one, he thought dimly. One of the falling-over ones, just when he'd begun to hope those were behind him--

--dark. It was dark, and he was somewhere cramped, packed in with countless others. There was weeping, crying all around him, but he was listening to the scraping noise of the stone door being closed, shutting them in. Sealing them in, he knew, and someone to his left started to scream as they began to understand. The door would never open again. They would stay here, in the dark, with no food, no water. They would die in the dark, slowly, and he closed his eyes, cursing the Canaanite commander with all the hate he had left. There was nothing here, nothing that they could use to kill themselves. A baby started to cry piteously, and the panic began to spread like wildfire. People trampled each other to get to the walls, clawing at the stone until their fingers bled--

As he started to tip over, Moira was there to hold him up. She struggled to get him to lay back down but he fought her slightly. "Damn it, Nathan." He whimpered and then shook himself free, sending Moira stumbling to the floor. She landed in a sprawl, wincing but was back on her feet and reaching for him again.

#Nathan!#

He moved to head of the bed and pressed himself against the wall, head buried in his hands. Moira went after him and slide her arms around him. #Shhh, Nathan, I'm 'ere, shhh.# She gritted her teeth as he tried to shrug her off again but she held fast. The link had been sealed off by him, again, and she noted that he was getting quite -good- at that. But she still tried to send her thoughts down the link, hoping he'd hear.

And she held on to him.

--people were stepping on him, kicking him, and he couldn't get up, couldn't push them away. Screaming, so much screaming--

"No--no--" The vision disintegrated and he was huddled on the bed, Moira hugging him tightly. Shaking, he clung to her, barely registering the tears streaming down his face. "He buried them alive," he gasped out. "Sealed them up in a tomb--hundreds of them--"

"O' God." Moira wrapped an arm around his shoulders, while the other one caressed his head gently. "O' Nathan, I'm so sorry."

Gently, she reached for the link again. With the images of the murders still fresh in his mind, the darkness of it all, she began to push memories of Muir at him once again. It had worked last time, she figured. The sea, the sky...the openess of it all. The night they had watched the meteor shower at three in the morning and the never ending stars. All open, familiar spaces.

The claustrophobic panic slowly receded, but the pain didn't. If anything, the memories of Muir only made it fresher, sharper. They wouldn't have anything like that, his unborn ghosts. They would die, horribly, and there was nothing he could do, nothing--

#I can't do this.# The thoughts slipped across the link before he could stop them. #I can't, Moira, I just can't--they're dying and I can't help them, I can't stand it--#

#Baby, I know, jus' please 'old on.# Moira could have *kicked* herself. That had the opposite affect of what she had intended. She pressed a kiss to the top of his head and held on. #Ye can do this, ye can survive this.# Her mind wandered to the phrase she had just put on her journal...#Aut viam inveniam aut faciam.#

'I'll either find a way or make one.' Nathan took a deep, shuddering breath, fighting for some semblance of calm. When had he gotten so weak? Everything he'd faced in his life, everything he'd survived--and yet this was beating him. "I'm sorry," he whispered shakily. "I'm so sorry--"

"Dinnae apologize," Moira murmured, trying to rub some of the tension out of his shoulders. "Ye've got nay anythin' ta apologize fer."

He held onto her, trying to even out his breath, to get himself under control. "I'm so tired," he said unsteadily, and then blinked. Wasn't that how they'd started this conversation?

"I know, jus' try an' relax," she soothed as she kept trying to gently rub the knots out of his muscles. His back must be a mess at this point.

"I don't want to write this one down," he said and then wished he could take the words back. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, hating himself. He had sounded so petulant.

"Then dinnae. 'Tis simple. Write them down when ye can, nay when ye dinnae want ta." She grabbed his chin and forced him to look at her. "I'm nay 'bout ta make ye do thin's tha' ye dinnae want ta do. Unless 'tis absolutely necessary."

He met those resolute blue eyes, and found himself nodding, almost automatically.

"Come on, ye need ta relax." Moira took his hands and tugged on them. "Let's jus' curl up on th' couch an' watch TV for a while, aye?