xp_logs | Nathan and Amanda (Monday afternoon)

Amanda comes out to the quarry to find Nathan and grill him on the whole issue of links. (Backdated to Monday at lunchtime.)

Patience had never been one of Amanda's strong suits, and that hadn't changed. Seeing Nathan's post about being in the quarry and finding her later, she decided to pre-empt him and find him first. So when lunchtime rolled around, she checked his room and Moira's, just to make sure he hadn't come back, and made her way out to the quarry, with the help of a small location spell - she figured that her motivations were pure enough, with her concern for Manuel, and for Nate, and, to a much smaller degree, herself. Marie-Ange's reaction to there having been a link, and Nate's sudden change of mood had scared her a little.

Spring was definitely on the way - the trees were budding and the air was a lot less cold than it had been. But she was still grateful for her faithful old leather jacket and Docs as she made her way along muddy paths to the quarry. Dull, muffled booming noises greeted her as she got close, and she was careful to think very hard about where she was, so Nate wouldn't be taken by surprise.

Another sizeable chunk of rock exploded, spraying his TK shield with fragments. Nathan stopped, taking a deep breath, and then closed his eyes, pulling the fragments back together. Blowing something up was the easy part; as with so much else in life, putting it back together was the real challenge. He continued to breathe deeply, letting himself slip into the partial meditative state that he generally needed to exert his telekinesis on this level.

The rock was shifting, he could feel it, fragments melting back into each other to re-form the whole. The rock was there again suddenly, intact, and he opened his eyes and let it fall back to the ground. It was steaming, he saw, and it didn't look quite as it had. "Sloppy," he muttered to himself. Grimacing, he rubbed at his eyes, trying again to will away the dull throbbing in his head. It had been increasing steadily for the last half-hour. He was maybe pushing it just a little too far.

A presence flickered at the edges of his awareness. He looked up, his eyes narrowing, and left the next rock alone for now. As the presence got closer, it was fairly clear that it was Amanda. She was trying to announce herself, Nathan thought with a faint smile as he went over to sit on one of the larger boulders.

He heard her 'knock', she realised as the noises stopped, and she couldn't help grinning slightly smugly to herself. Whilst she was well used to seeing other mutants, and accepting all sorts of weirdnesses in the name of magic, she actually had little experience with other people's powers and how they worked. Rather than freak out about it, though, she liked finding out. Then her face clouded as she remembered Manuel, and the possibility that their mucking around with his powers had done him some serious damage.

"Hey," she called, clearing the trees to find Nate sitting on a rock. He looked... frazzled, was the best word she could come up with. "You all right?"

"Trying to work myself into exhaustion," he said dryly, smiling. She did look good, much better than she had before she left. And although she clearly had a number of things on her mind, her presence 'read' clearer, too. "I'm getting there," he said, levitating several of the untouched rocks and setting them to 'dance' with each other. Moira had taught him the step-patterns for some of the Highland dances, to use in this sort of exercise. They were good and complex, perfect for these purposes.

"Would've brought your present out here with me if I'd known you were coming," he went on, the smile lingering. "You'll have to stop up by Moira's rooms later."

Amanda chuckled at the sight of the rocks 'dancing' around each other, and perched on another boulder not far from Nate's. "Bugger, out-smarted meself, didn't I?" she said ruefully. "I figured I'd try an' catch you out here; needed the fresh air. Had me first session with Samson since I got back, an' I always need time t' think after one of those, so I thought I'd take a walk, see if you were still out here. I can stop by after class - still have those books Homily gave me for you."

"Well, your present isn't perishable," Nathan said. "So, no rush." He watched her for a while longer, knowing he had to take this slow. If he brought up Manuel right away, especially in the way part of him wanted to, this wasn't liable to go very well. "So how was the rest of the course?" he asked lightly.

"Good," she said, smiling. "Really good. Really helped me get me head back together, showed me what I'd been doin' wrong. 'S not gunna be easy t' change everythin', but at least I've made a start." She pulled a face. "Wish the rest of me education was as interestin'."

She really was happier, he thought, his expression softening as he watched her. "If you need another set of eyes for an essay or anything, just ask," he offered whimsically. "I do have a couple of graduate degrees, after all."

"You might regret that - you ain't never seen me spelling without the spell check. Or me handwritin' for that matter." The smile slipped from her face. "Nate, 'bout this link business... That stuff in me journal, with you an' Frenchie... Yer've got me a bit worried. Did I... is what's happenin' t' Manny now because of me, how I was before I left?"

Nathan took a deep, somewhat unsteady breath. Small talk was over, then, he thought, flinging the rocks at the cliff face, where they shattered. "I saw Manuel last night," he said. "Unintentionally, believe me. His dampener is set low enough to let him receive, if not manipulate emotions, and he could see the link I have with Moira. He... wanted to know about what it was like to lose a link."

She sighed, shoving her hands into her pockets and unconsciously fiddling with the cigarettes and lighter in them. "I saw him last night too - it must have been before you did. We hadn't talked since I left... He asked about the link, what had happened t' it. It must have been the cleansin' Rom did, 's the only thing I can think of. I didn't know it would break it! I thought it was already gone, because of the Box - I couldn't feel him any more." She looked up unhappily at Nate. "Is Manny gunna be all right?"

"I can't give you an unqualified yes. Manuel's got problems that go far beyond the link," Nathan said as firmly as he could. "But I want you to understand that you are not responsible for anything he's done, either while the link was still in existence or after it broke."

"I s'pose so..." Amanda sounded unconvinced. "There was stuff he did that hurt people. I don't mean the Kwannon thing, I didn't know nothin' 'bout that. But some of the other things... I didn't say nothin', even tho' I knew I probably should. But I couldn't. Partly 'cause I needed him, t' get over the cravin's, but it was also 'cause he... we understood each other. We ain't so different, for all he can be an arrogant git. When he got here, everyone was scared of him, an' he felt bad 'bout it. It was different with me - the first time he met me I was off me face on that magic source I talked about in me journal, an' wasn't feelin' anything but good. So he felt good. It sort of went on from there." Unable to handle the pressure any more, Amanda pulled her cigarettes out of her pocket. "You mind? Talkin' 'bout this... it's makin' me twitchy. An' it's this or end up on Marko's doorstep again." She didn't seem to realise she'd let slip Cain was the mystic energy source.

Nathan nodded, remembering how quickly Cain had lit out of here to go get his shield. "Just blow the smoke in the other direction, if you don't mind," he said dryly. He lifted another rock, encasing it in a TK bubble and then exploding it. 'Holding' onto the fragments, he started to reassemble it, watching Amanda closely. "Manuel tried to explain to me how the link came about," he said. "What he did... it was very dangerous, Amanda. The absolute wrong way to go about something like that, and the fact that he didn't know any better doesn't really do anything to change that."

"Neither of us knew any better," she said, hands busy with the familiar ritual of getting a fag out of the packet and lighting up. Taking note of which was the wind was blowing, she got and and changed rocks so the smoke wouldn't reach him. "I don't understand how it works, but a link like that... it'd take both of us to make it, right?"

"Not necessarily," Nathan said, and scowled at the rock, raising a hand to wipe the sweat from his forehead. He couldn't quite make the pieces fit together... damn it, he was supposed to be better than this! But it continued to elude him, and giving in to the sudden flash of anger, he just smashed the pieces together, pushing them into each other. He let the TK bubble dissipate and the rock dropped to the ground again, a rippled, steaming mass that looked nothing at all like it had beforehand.

"You're headblind, he's not," Nathan went on, the words coming out more harshly than they should as he wiped at his forehead again. His hands were shaking slightly, and the headache was getting increasingly worse. Probably a sign that he should be stopping, but he didn't think he was ready to give up on breaking things just yet. "He may not have forced the link on you--although he is fully capable of something like that and you'd probably do well not to forget that. What worries me is what he did to make it stronger." He eyed Amanda, wishing suddenly that he was better with his telepathy, so that he could scan her himself and make sure she hadn't taken any lasting harm. "He told me he tried to match his mind to yours on the empathic level. If that had developed any further and your minds had started overlapping, both of you could have... well, let's just say you probably would have wished it had killed you."

Amanda had flinched slightly at the thump the rock had made as it hit the ground, but said nothing about it. "Okay, so it was a really stupid an' dangerous thing t' do," she said steadily, doing a creditable job of covering the fear that had stabbed through her at Nate's relevation. "We didn't know what we were doin', and were fuckin' lucky it didn't turn out worse. But 's over an' done with. Thing is t' fix it, right?" The question she'd asked earlier was repeated again in her mind: Will Manuel be all right? Her own welfare didn't occur to her.

What is, is, Nathan thought, and he didn't really have any business getting all paternal and overprotective at her. Even if part of him, for whatever perverse reason, was really kind of leaning in that direction. "I think both of you," he said, stressing the 'both', "should be all right. Eventually. I'm guessing that your cleansing ritual minimized any aftereffects for you of the link breaking, although I still think you ought to have Xavier or Frost poke around in your head a bit and make sure." He went on immediately, not giving her the chance to register an opinion about that. "Manuel's going to have a harder time," he said bluntly. "Because he's the psi, out of the pair of you, and because of what he tried to do with the link."

"I emailed Ms Frost the other day, wantin' t' talk about the link an' Manny," Amanda said, with a sigh at the thought of having someone poking around in her head. "I'll ask her t' see if there's anythin' wrong. Better her than the X geezer." She looked up hopefully at Nate. "You couldn't do it, could you? There's stuff in there, stuff that happened t' me... I don't want someone I don't know havin' access t' that. But you know some of it already."

Nathan grimaced, more regretfully this time. "I'm not that good a telepath," he told her. "I wish I could do it for you, but you need an expert. My experience with links..." He stopped for a moment, his mouth twisting. "They've been telepathic, anyway."

Amanda nodded, resigned. "'M sorry, I shouldn't have asked. You got enough shite t' deal with. I'll talk to Ms Frost - Manuel an' Shinobi trust her an' that's somethin'." She looked at him again, frowning a little. "I could help with that headache, if you want."

"I'm flattered you did ask," Nathan said with a faint smile. "And I'm here if you want to talk about it. Dealing with the emotional aftermath of a broken link is something I am an expert at." He shrugged, a bit sheepishly. "As for the headache, help with it would defeat the purpose of this whole masochistic exercise," he said, picking up another couple of rocks and sending them flying at the cliff face.

"'S the thing - there ain't no 'emotional aftermath'. 'S like..." Amanda struggled to find an appropriate metaphor. "When yer really drunk, an' you fall over or somethin'. You know it _should_ hurt, but you can't feel it, there's too much fuzz in the way. I didn't even _know_ I was supposed t' be feelin' somethin' until you and Frenchie got all worried on me journal." She shrugged, taking a deep drag on the cigarette that was burning in her hand. "'M more worried 'bout Manuel - he's got enough shite t' deal with without me addin' to it." A wry chuckle escaped her. "'S one consequence of havin' sex they never taught me about in safe sex class."

How much of his worry for Amanda and Angie was him projecting based on his own experience? Nathan wondered suddenly, frowning. "I just don't want you to wake up one morning to find that the fuzz has gone away," he said, a bit uncertainly. "And Manuel..." He paused again, then went on awkwardly. "I'm going to see if I can help him. Like I said, I'm used to it. Managed to survive losing a link of ten years, so I might have some helpful advice..." If he could manage to be around the kid for long enough to give it, and if Manuel would listen. The odds weren't good, Nathan told himself with a flash of bleak humor.

Amanda looked surprised. "Even after what happened before?" she asked. She could have been referring to the incident in Nate's room, or what he'd said about the black ops training he'd gotten.

"Hey, I'm trying to be good here," Nathan said with a snort. "Don't discourage me. It's a stretch, you know."

"Told you this place gets to yer," Amanda replied, grinning. She sounded like she didn't really mind. "An' I give meself 'bout a week with this carin' an' sharin' attitude I picked up at Homily's. How the first one t' backslide buys the first round at the pub?" The expression on her face was pure mischief by this stage.

"Now, come on, Amanda. Do I look like the type to encourage underage drinking?" Nathan gave her his best stern look as she opened her mouth. "Don't answer that."

"Spoilsport." Amanda mock-pouted, and then gave a start. "You got the time? I don't wanna be late for class - 's only the second day."

Nathan checked his watch. "Quarter to one," he said. "I think that means you've got what, about twenty minutes to get back?"

She nodded, finishing her cigarette and stubbing it out on the rock she was sitting on. "'Bout that," she said, putting the butt in her pocket rather than throwing it on the ground. "Still need t' eat, tho' - wanna come back an' get somethin' with me? It'll save you from a bollocking from Moira later."

"Sounds like a plan." Nathan cast a look around the quarry, almost regretfully. But it wasn't going anywhere, he told himself, and if he kept this up for too much longer without eating, someone was probably going to have to carry him back to the mansion again. Besides, he needed to find Angie, too. "So you'll have to stop by later and get your present," he said, getting up. "Not too often I get to play 'Santa'."

"That's just beggin' for a joke 'bout you lettin' me sit on yer knee, you know," said Amanda with a wicked grin, clambering down from her rock. She laughed outright at the expression on Nate's face. "'M hungry. Come on, or we'll both hear from Moira 'bout not eatin'."