xp_logs | Moira and Nathan: Triptych (Sunday)

First thing in the morning, Nathan and Moira wake up and take stock. Things don't look quite so bleak in the light of day.

It was very quiet when he woke up. Nathan stared up at the ceiling for a long moment, just savoring the calm, the feel of Moira's warm weight against him. The voices weren't gone, but they were softer, barely there, and his head felt almost clear. He breathed deeply, his arm tightening around Moira, letting his eyes close again as he felt the murmur of her thoughts on the link.

The slight increase of pressure jostled Moira awake. Blinking in slight confusion, she raised her head a bit and tried to center her sleep-tossed thoughts. She actually hadn't managed to grab a lot of sleep the night before, an hour here or there but nothing really solid. Shifting a little, she tried to see the clock but gave up. It was Sunday, there was no need in trying to rush around when one could just laze around until the next crisis hit.

"Sleeping in's a good idea," Nathan murmured, shifting slightly so that he could put both arms around her. "Didn't mean to wake you up..."

"Mmm." Moira tucked herself up closer to him and enjoyed the warmth of his body. "'Tis okay," she murmured sleepily, "probably was goin' ta wake up soon anyway."

"Got that mental alarm clock still, huh?" he whispered, a faint smile tugging at his lips. Some things never changed.

"God, it never bloody turns off." She roused herself enough to reach up to press a kiss on his chin. "'ow're ye feelin'?" Even now, she couldn't keep the worry out.

"Here," he said simply. "Kind of tired, though."

"Nay wonder, ye've probably exhausted yerself." He did look rather tired. "Tell me ye slept better than I did, though."

Nathan thought about it for a moment. "I don't know," he said uncertainly. "Yesterday... it's all kind of mixed up. I remember talking to Marie, and to you..."

"Ye remember us kickin' yer ass?" A smile tugged at her lips. She'd have to go find and thank Marie later. Once she was more awake and dressed.

"How could I forget?" He smiled slightly, again, inwardly a little embarassed as he thought of just how despondent he'd been yesterday. Falling apart on Marie, whining at Moira about how life wasn't fair...

"Yer allowed, ye know," she said softly, holding him a little tighter. "We get ta kick yer ass for it, but yer allowed t' break down, Nathan. It 'appens ta th' best o' us."

He let the air in his lungs out on a sigh. "I'm just... not used to needing to lean on people like this," he said. "And I keep thinking about what could happen."

"'Tis 'ard, I know. 'Tis nay like either o' us is used ta it," she reminded him. Moira shivered a little. "I know, I keep...thinkin' 'bout it as well." She couldn't help but frown, that's all she thought of lately.

Feeling her tense up, he rubbed her back gently. "Don't make faces like that," he said as lightly as he could. "Your face'll freeze that way. And that would be a shame."

Laughing a little, she reached up to kiss him. "I'll try ta keep tha' in mind." With some effort, she tried to banish the worry from her mind and snuggled up as close as she could possibly get to Nathan.

They laid there for a while in the quiet, but Nathan couldn't bring himself to close his eyes again and go back to sleep. The logical, thinking part of his brain seemed to be working again this morning, if sluggishly, and it insisted upon turning itself to the problem at hand. "I think there's something I can do," he said slowly, after a while.

She tilted her head back to be able to look him in the face. "Wha's tha'?" Moira asked, a little cautiously. She remembered his *other* solutions before they'd gone on their vacation and neither appealed to her very much. Or, actually, at all.

"Memories of my own," he said, sensing her worry. "They've pulled me back, a couple of times. Or you've pulled me back with them... I need to try harder to remember myself, next time." He raised a hand, stroking her hair as the tension in her face eased. "It might help. I don't know..."

With a sigh of relief, she leaned into the touch and closed her eyes. That suggestion was, by far, much better than the last two. And it was something she could help with. "I wish I knew 'ow t' help ye remember better when th' visions 'it. Wish there was a bloody manual tha' came wit' powers."

"You and me both, love," Nathan said with another sigh.

Around lunchtime, Nathan tries to convince Moira that he really doesn't need to be baby-sat.

The ceiling was really not all that interesting, Moira decided, sprawled on her back on the bed. Nathan sat next to her, reading another book she'd found for him. That reminded her, she'd need to run into town eventually and pick up more. She was fairly positive he had nearly finished reading everything she had, including some of the more boring scientific journals she owned. Something pricked her conscience and she grimaced. There was work waiting for her downstairs but...she glanced at Nathan. She really didn't want to go.

"Moira," Nathan said softly, not looking up from the rather decent Ken Follett novel. "If you feel you need to go, you should."

Saying "Dinnae want t'" sounded really petulant, so she just thought it instead.

He did look up from the book this time. "You would know," he said quietly, reaching out and putting his hand over hers, deliberately making the physical contact to intensify the link and make the point. She shifted, her eyes widened slightly as she looked up at him, and he tilted his head, feeling all the different imperatives pulling her in all different directions. "You would know," he repeated, "as soon as anything happened. And I'm better this afternoon, right? So go do what needs doing." He squeezed her hand gently, then let go.

She finished shifting until she was on her side. "I know," she responded with a sigh. "'Tis jus' 'ard." Moira picked at the comforter with a sigh. "Intellectually, I know I'd feel in th' minute somethin' went wron'. I jus' dinnae want ta take th' chance." She knew she was being really stupid and clingy and all worried, but she really didn't know how else to act.

"You ought to adapt a baby monitor," Nathan said, a sudden, mischievous grin springing to his lips.

Moira blinked and then laughed, reaching for his hand again. "Ye know, tha' actually isnae a bad idea," she teased gently. With an eyeroll, she shook her head. "I'm bein' stupid, aren't I?"

"No," he said more gently, the grin softening to a smile. "Not stupid at all." He leaned over, ignoring the dizziness the motion provoked, and kissed the top of her head. "Go satisfy your conscience," he told her softly. "I'll stay put."

Moira sighed and got up, stopping to give him a quick kiss. "I'll still be worryin'," she warned playfully.

"Hey, you don't see me asking the sun not to shine, do you?"

Later that afternoon, however, Nathan finds himself in the desert, seeing through the eyes of an Askani general in the last days of his world. Moira finds out that yes, what happened on Thursday is not going to be a one-time occurrence.

Light. He opened his eyes, and all he could see was light, coming from around the door, harsh and white and yet somehow beckoning. Slowly, he sat up, blinking at the room around him as the walls shimmering, there one moment, canvas lashed by the wind the next. A tent, he thought, sliding out of bed, part of him registering the way the floor beneath his feet flickered from carpet to sand, over and over.

The light from the doorway grew, and he moved towards it, reaching out to push it aside as it turned from the door to the front flap. He narrowed his eyes against the desert sun, breathing in the hot, dry air, and it felt so familiar, so right.

There were other tents all around his, stretching out around the oasis in neat circles. People moved between them, speaking quietly to each other, preparing weapons. The hush was strange, unnatural. The camp shouldn't be this quiet. With a sigh, he wandered down towards the oasis, nodding to those he passed, knowing they needed to see him. This was no time to indulge in his own fears and doubts. He had to be strong for them. For her.

They would move again at night. Closer to the front, to do what they could. He looked around at the faces of his soldiers and knew that they knew, that they understood they were one of the last forces that the Clan had to send. That this was nothing but a delaying action...

The link was going haywire and Moira had to stop on the stairs to steady herself. Everything spun out of focus for a few seconds before snapping back with painful clarity. "God...Nathan..." With some effort, she pushed herself off the wall and made it to their room. When she opened the door, she had expected to find Nathan still on the bed, caught up in the vision. She hadn't expected to find him nearly at the door and she bounced off his chest as she ran into him.

With a curse, she dropped the bags of food on the nearest surface and reached out for him. #Nathan?#

Part of him registered her presence, the impact, but he couldn't seem to respond to it. Too much of him was in the desert, and the pull of the link was a negligible thing, barely perceptible. Down into the heart of the oasis now, he reached out to push aside the fronds of a palm tree, only to stop at what he saw. Beyond, down by the spring and the pool, there were perhaps a dozen of his soldiers, praying.

He was just standing there, that thousand yard stare more than a little unnerving. Moira reached for his hands and curled hers around them. #Damn it, Nathan, remember who ye are,# she sent, frantically.

He didn't hear her. He was too caught by the sight of his people, making their peace here in this green quiet. But then, they all knew, he told himself. They knew they were going to fight, and fight until the end. That their lives would be spent to allow their Clansmen more time to evacuate, to flee north to safety.

He would join them, he decided, striding down towards the pool with a sudden rush of decisiveness. His conscience could stand some examination, as well. And he suddenly wanted so badly to be among his people, not the war-leader standing apart but merely one of the Clan. It had been so long since he had felt like that, since he had shared his burdens...

A yelp escaped her as Nathan suddenly moved past her and she lost the hold she had on his hands. Gritting her teeth, she turned and saw Nathan heading towards the door. "Oh nay ye dinnae," she muttered, grabbing for his arm. #I told ye ta stay put, ye overgrown lu',# she sent, not letting go.

Pulling--was someone pulling at him? No, it was one of his soldiers reaching out, touching his arm as he came past. As if he were their good-luck token, their battle-charm. Sighing heavily, he knelt down among them, trying to compose himself.

It was difficult, and that was why he still had his eyes open when the woman across from him, a near-stranger he dimly remembered as being a levy from the western settlements, blurred into movement. She was on him before he could react, her long knife flashing forward, driving up under his ribs. The impact was sharp, hard, driving the breath from his lungs. The other soldiers rushed her, shouting as they dragged her back, and she was laughing, laughing and telling him in Canaanite - in Caananite! - that she had never expected him to make it so easy.

When Nathan collapsed, Moira hadn't been expecting it at all and found herself being dragged down with him. "Nathan?!" Shit, this was not good. Slightly panicked, she struggled to get back up on her knees. Reaching for him and the link at the same time, she tried to pull him over onto his back. It was slow going, as Nathan was not exactly a lightweight but she finally got him rolled over.

They were lowering him back onto the grass, talking urgently to him. Someone was shouting for a healer, but he had been one of Her generals for twenty years and he knew a mortal wound when one was dealt. Choking on blood, he reached up, grabbing at the sleeve of one of the soldiers, a lieutenant who had been with him for years. He tried to force the words out, to give his final orders, but his vision was already going, and he couldn't catch his breath. Conscious thought was disintegrating like dust in the wind. *Forgive me,* he thought, and it was his last thought--

Something in her mind dimly noted that his heart stopped right at the same time the link flickered. It didn't break, not by a long shot, but it wavered and Moira reached for it, wincing mentally. That hurt, a lot. #Nathan, get yer mental ass back 'ere right now.# Without thinking, her hands shot forward to his chest. She may not be a medical doctor, but she knew her basic stuff, working essentially as a nurse to Rory and then to the doctor's on location at the Mansion.

Cupping her hands, she quickly did ten chest compressions, going completely professional. It was the only way to deal. Was he breathing? She bent to check. No. Moira covered his mouth with hers and did two quick breaths before switching back to the chest compressions.

#Damn ye, Nathan!# The chest compressions weren't working and she gave herself another five seconds before hitting the emergancy button on the beeper. #Ye're nay goin' ta die on me, ye bastard.#

Moira bent her head, tears threatening to spill, to breathe for him again and jerked back surprise when he sucked in a breath. She winced as his hand clamped down on her arm, hard, but it didn't matter. "Oh God, Nathan..."

His chest hurt. That was his first conscious thought, that his chest hurt, and Nathan blinked up at her dazedly, gasping in air. Spots, was his next thought. Why am I seeing spots? He tried to say something, but his voice wouldn't work.

"Shhh, easy," she murmured, running her hand down the side of his face. "Listen t' me, Nathan. Take calm, slow breaths. Focus on them, tha's it."

The room. He was lying on the floor of their room. Nathan stared up at her, doing as she told him, focusing on his breathing and trying to ignore the way his vision blurred. But he could still feel the general's - Tamman, a voice at the back of his mind supplied helpfully - despair as he lay dying, his crushing awareness that he wasn't going to live to see this through...

#Yer nay *him* Nathan, *remember*.# Moira pushed the memories of the weekend away at him, trying to bring him back fully.

#...she killed me.# The thought slipped down the link before he could help it, and he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling the tears trickle down his cheek. #I was going to die anyway, I was leading them off to die... but I was supposed to be there, with them...#

Moira slipped her arms under his shoulders and gently manuvered them so that his head was resting on her lap. #*'e*, Nathan, nay ye. Never ye.#

#...hurts... it still hurts... #

#I know, baby, I know it does. Shhh, I've got ye.# Nathan turned slightly and buried his head in her stomach and Moira gently rubbed his back, tears of her own leaking down her cheeks. She was so close to just breaking down. He'd scared her so much. With a gasp, she wrapped her arms around him and lowered her head. Her hair obscured her face and covered his, as well as their tears.