xp_logs | Moira and Nathan, Wednesday afternoon

Backdated to Wednesday afternoon. Moira finds Nathan on the roof and the conversation comes back around to mutual fear and the reason Nathan didn't get in touch with her sooner about his problems with his precognition.

Moira poked her head out and eyed the fliers platform. She had been looking for Nathan for a while when he'd poked her through the link and told her where he was. She didn't dislike the fliers platform, per say, but after Amanda's attempt at suicide, she wasn't necessarily fond of it, either. But this is where he was, so...she edged onto it. It was cool out, just edging around cold, but it felt good to her.

"Any particular reason yer 'angin' out 'ere?" she called out.

Nathan shrugged, smiling slightly. "Change of scenery," he said from where he was sitting cross-legged on the platform. He had been trying one of his old meditative techniques for about an hour now, hoping it would settle him down, but it hadn't really helped. "Plus it's a hell of a view."

Though she stayed away from the edge (a tumble from the cliffs at Muir when she was younger had taught her to respect heights) she edged closer to where he sat. "Aye, tha' it is. Though I swear yer developin' another mutation in th' form o' teleportation," she groused slightly.

"Afraid not," Nathan quipped as she sat down next to him. "Although that would certainly have come in handy in about three hundred and fifty separate situations I can think of, and that's just off the top of my head."

She shook her head at him as she settled and tucked her feet under her. It really was incredibly nice out, she decided, and she breathed in the fresh air appreciatively. "Though ye seem damned good at it now...'ow on eart' can I misplace ye when yer as large as ye are an' we're linked?"

"Experience," Nathan said, and smiled when she blinked at him. "On my part, I mean. When you're as large as I am you have to work at being inconspicuous." He stopped, frowning slightly as he found himself remembering that particular set of lessons back in the Mistra training program, and the sort of punishments that had been dished out for any failure to excel. Today was a bad day for memories like that, he acknowledged to himself wearily. Between Pete's news and getting back in touch with Ani--

The back of his hand was cool from the air, Moira noted as she curled her hand around his. "Ye okay?" His side of the link seemed so...tired.

"Just a few too many reminders of times I'd like to forget." He saw her flinch slightly and hurried to reassure her. "Not just the dream. There was--something Pete found on his trip, and then talking to Ani. I've been thinking a lot about Mistra today." He stopped again, blinking as he realized what he'd done. "I used to go up on the roof of the main facility when I was having a bad day," he said thoughtfully. Being up there looking out over the badlands had helped him relax, sometimes.

Moira snuggled closer and sighed. She had been afraid the nightmare was bringing him down, she reflected, deliberately not thinking about how her own emotions were still roiled up in the aftermath of that. "Anythin' I can do t' 'elp?"

Nathan looked down at her with a sigh. "You can stop trying to pretend you're all right," he said quietly, putting an arm around her shoulders. "I can hear what you're thinking, but I'd really like to know what you're feeling, too."

"...so much fer quiet thinkin'," she joked, weakly, picking at the seam in her jeans. "It jus'...dredged up a lot o' stuff fer me." In part, Kevin's death. Seeing Tyler through Nathan's dreams had brought her own son's death to the forefront of her mind. Plus, Nathan's fears about her dying had gleefully pulled up some of the things she herself feared most. So much for her wonderful emotional wall she had built.

"You know," Nathan murmured wryly, "it really is a wonder that we can both walk, talk, and act like we're actually functional people. Well, you're doing a better job at that than me, at least lately." She snorted softly, but didn't pull away. He went on, his voice softening even further. "Stuff gets dredged up, Moira. It doesn't mean you have to pretend you're okay with it."

"Dinnae I?" she replied softly, starting at their intwined hands. "Yer th' only one I dinnae feel like I 'ave ta put up this...front wit'. Unbreakable, unbendable. But 'tis still 'ard ta let go of. Been doin' it since Joe left because if I dinnae stash it all away where I dinnae feel it, I was useless."

"I know you know I understand," Nathan said, his eyes locked on her face, even as she avoided meeting his. "And I would be the biggest hypocrite in the world if I tried to tell you that it was a bad or unhealthy thing to do. Just--try not to do it with me?" he asked tentatively. "I'm tough, Moira. I can handle it if you're not perfectly collected 24/7. I want to have the chance to handle it--"

Her breath caught in her throat. "All right, I'll try...'tis 'ard." Was it so hard to let him know? Moira looked up, finally, into his eyes. "I'm scared," she admitted softly, trying to ignore the instincts that told her to stop right there, retract it with a laugh and keep on going.

"Of?" he prompted gently.

Moira hesitated but sighed quietly when he squeezed her hand. "O' th' same thin's ye are...I'm terrified tha' I'll lose ye. Ta these damned visions, th' virus." The memory of that long year previous, with no word, no contact. Her eyes closed tightly. "When ye got in touch wit' me a while back, by tha' time...God, Nathan, I was startin' ta--I'd go ta bed every night, afraid I'd get an e-mail in the mornin' from Bridge, tellin' me yer 'adn't made it out o' some fight ye were in."

Nathan felt something twist in his chest. "I'm so sorry," he said quietly, his gaze dropping to the platform. "It was a selfish thing to do, to stay out of contact for so long. I just--" He stopped, giving a helpless shrug. "It was selfish," he said wearily. "I don't have a reason that makes any sense. I was just--I'm so used to just putting one foot in front of the other and soldiering on, no matter what happens." It struck him that Dom had used the same words, and he flinched, remembering her too-pointed question about whether or not he had told Moira everything about the consequences of his 'distraction' over the last year. He didn't think he should tell Moira how close she had come to getting that email.

The flinch didn't go unnoticed and Moira poked at the link experimentally. He wasn't telling her something. She scowled. "Wha' are ye 'forgettin' ta tell me?"

He opened his mouth to brush it off, but then stopped as his conscience informed him acidly of what a hypocrite he was being. On the other hand, his protective self argued, there was a difference between Moira sharing what she was feeling now and him sharing something that had happened months in the past. They could do something about the one, but the other was irrevocable.

Still. She was clearly waiting for an answer. "I was--stupid," he said awkwardly. "Trying to ignore the problem for that long. Got myself into--a shitload of trouble, a couple of times."

Her scowl deepened. "'ow stupid?" She had been afraid of this. "An' if'n ye dinnae tell me I'll--I'll bloody well ask Bridge an' Domino!" Moira was not bluffing.

"Just--stupid," Nathan temporized. "Stupid in ways that it's not good to be stupid in my line of work." She really didn't need to know the details.

"God damn it, Nathan!" Anger was so much better than fear. "I was goin' ta let ye tell me but Domino already gave me some o' th' details. Ye fuckin' fell off th' face o' cliff! A CLIFF! An' tha' apparently wasnae wha' got ye ta get in touch wit' me! A *year*, I was worried fer a bloody year an' I 'ad every right ta be!"

Nathan closed his eyes, reminding himself to snarl in Dom's general direction for not watching what she said. "Is that what she told you?" he asked quietly. "About what happened in the Dolomites?" They'd been making their way up to a remote research facility when he had blacked out--while leading out on the climb, no less. He didn't remember falling, just coming to while slung over Grizzly's shoulder like an inconvenient package.

"Aye. An' tha' ye nearly got yerself killed. Several times. She told me nay ta mock th' idea o' bad luck." Moira held tightly to her emotions. She needed an explanation out of him.

Nathan blinked. He was going to kill Dom, he decided. Especially if he found out she had told Moira about this after their IM conversation. She did have something of a vengeful side. "Once in the Dolomites," he muttered, knowing that he wasn't going to get out of this conversation without giving at least a semi-complete version of the truth. What he sensed on the link was crystal-clear when it came to that. "Four other times she knows about."

Moira pulled away a little further, watching him with steely eyes. He swallowed, then went on. "About two months before that, I dropped my TK shield too soon in Tashkent. Didn't know there was a sniper on the building above us. He didn't hit me, but it was pretty close." He hesitated for a moment, wincing at the way Moira's jaw tightened. "A month or so before that, I didn't sense an ambush in Rome. The week before that, we were in Sicily and I wasn't concentrating properly in a firefight. Did get shot, that time." His next words tried to catch in his throat, but he forced them out. "Two months before that, I--got caught on recon in Tibet."

"Damn it, Nathan!" Moira scrambled to her feet, furious. *This*, this, was what she had been afraid of. Losing him in some forgotten country. "A fuckin' year an'...argh!" Anger warred heavily with bone numbing fear within her and she turned away, trying to gather some control again. "I fought wit' Rory, bad one. 'e caught me checkin' me fuckin' e-mail every chance I got. Said it was useless. Ye'd be pleased ta know I nearly punched 'im fer tha'. I never stopped lookin' fer those e-mails. I knew somethin' was wron', I knew it..." She pressed a hand to her mouth.

Nathan looked away from her, that twisting sensation back in his chest. "It--I told you, I don't have any excuse," he said, and could have kicked himself, hearing the near-hysterical edge to the words. "I'm sorry, Moira. I was being stubborn--I wasn't thinking--"

Furiously, she wiped the tears from her eyes. There was something *just* beyond the reach of the link, flickering almost teasingly and then slipping away again. "Ow, Nathan, tha's givin' me a 'eadache," she said weakly. "Yer thinkin' 'bout somethin' over there an' I'm givin' meself a migraine tryin' t' read what it is. Please...there's somethin' else, isna there?"

He almost blocked the link again, instinctively, but the imploring look in her eyes made him hesitate. "In Tibet," he said wretchedly, forcng the words out past the pain in his chest. "They had--while they were questioning me, they had--" He closed his eyes, taking a deep, shuddering breath. "They had someone there. He was--empathic and telepathic."

She finally turned around, face pale. But she was listening as she knelt down beside him again, a little hesitant.

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut, fighting for control. "They got tired of not being able to beat the information out of me and decided to bring him in," he said, distantly amazed by how cool his voice sounded all of a sudden. He had managed to explain it to Dom and G.W. in the same way, he remembered. "He broke through my shields. Started--messing around with the conditioning. A lot more subtly than Manuel. He was more careful, didn't set anything off."

Moira stopped an arm's length away and reached out her hand. It hovered right above his. She didn't like where this was going. Where this had ended. "Oh God, Nathan..." No wonder he had been so afraid of Manuel. She had wondered about that, why he had reacted with such sheer terror, instead of the wariness and tension she would have expected.

Nathan rested his head in his hands for a moment. He could hear his heartbeat thundering in his ears again. Blood pressure was way too high, he thought dimly. "I was only there for a few days," he said emotionlessly. "I don't--really remember most of it. The Pack got me out pretty quickly. Dom--" He hesitated, shaking his head slowly. "Dom was crying. Don't know why. I just didn't want her to touch me." He hadn't wanted anyone to touch him, hadn't wanted anyone to get too close, to push--

Her arms acted before she thought about it and she curled herself around him tightly. #God, Nathan, I'm sorry.# Moira was crying again. #I get so scared fer ye.# She understood, now. It hadn't just been him being stubborn, it had been this, too. He tended to isolate himself under the best of circumstances, and this--this would only have made that tendency worse. No wonder he hadn't contacted her. #So afraid ye'll leave an' nay come back.#

Her understanding trickled down the link to him, and he sighed shakily. "I think you're right," he admitted dully. "I was just--so determined to stay in control. I thought the visions would go away if I used a little willpower." Blind, he'd been blind by choice, and idiotic, too; maybe things wouldn't have gotten so bad if he'd gone to Moira earlier. He shook his head again. "I--couldn't let down my guard," he murmured unevenly. "Just couldn't. But then Dom and G.W. threw it in my face and didn't let me avoid it anymore."

"Good. Remind me ta send them thank ye flowers." She sniffled a little. "'Tis 'ard ta stay in control when everythin's spinnin' around ye," Moira said softly. "Scary as anythin'."

Nathan closed his eyes, trying to let everything else go but the feeling of Moira's arms around him. It wasn't a particularly successful attempt. "What were we saying last night about baggage?" he muttered, trying vainly to make it sound like a joke.

"Tha' this was worth' it?" she asked hopefully, leaning into him.

"This is the only thing that makes any of it worth it," Nathan said, a bit too vehemently.

Moira scowled and felt the urge to hit him rise. But she really didn't want to let go, either. She settled for turning her head and biting him on the shoulder. "Stop tha'," she warned, glaring up at him.

He yelped and then gaped at her. "You bit me," he said indignantly. "What are you, five?"

She shrugged. "It got yer attention, dinnae it? It was either tha' or let go." She couldn't help but smirk a little.

Nathan gave her a bewildered frown, but let it drop. "You know," he said after a moment of silence, "you're going to come to terms with the fact that I really don't like most of my life most of the time, Moira."

Moira sighed. "I know, okay, I know." She closed her eyes. "'Tis nay tha', it's--I'm scared, okay? Back ta where we started at. Ye said this is th' only thin' makin' it wort' it right now." She swallowed around the lump in her throat. "...Kevin depended on me an' I let 'im down..."

Nathan sighed, rubbing her back gently. "I'm not Kevin," he said softly. "And even I died tomorrow, Moira, what you've given me already has been more than I could have dared to hope." Seven years, and even if they had been difficult years, there had been things he wouldn't have traded for the world. The Pack and some of his experiences with them. Freedom of choice, something he had never really had before. His time with Moira most of all.

Moira sniffled again and damned her eyes. "God, wasnae I jus' th' one tellin' ye somethin' similar? We can never listen ta our own advice, can we?"

"It would be too easy," Nathan pointed out, feeling as if some semblance of balance was returning to the world. "Neither of us can do things the simple way. I think we're constitutionally incapable of it."

"We jus' 'ave ta be difficult 'bout everythin'," she muttered, reaching over to kiss the spot on his shoulder. "Mmm, sorry 'bout bitin' ye..."

"I don't think you drew blood," he said as dryly as he could, taking her hand and kissing it. "So you must not have really meant it."

"Sweater was t' thick." Moira relaxed slightly. #...weren't complainin' last night...# she thought impishly, humor slowly coming back to her.

"I'm the one with the empathically-created pack instinct, remember," he said, raising an eyebrow at her. "Hence I have no objection to someone marking her territory."