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[x-mactaggart.livejournal.com]

Moira stumbled back into the room, having returned from gathering up Amanda and Manuel and seeing them safely into the MedLab. It had taken both her and Henry to do it and she felt this urge boil up to strangle the both of them. She fumed silently as she struggled out of her lab coat and left it a heap on the ground. They'd been incredibly, utterly stupid. How could they have thought that would have ended well? At all, in any way possible?

Nathan slid off the bed and to his feet as she came in, ignoring the way his head spun. "What happened?" he asked anxiously, holding onto the headboard of the bed to steady himself.

"They were stupid," she said bluntly, peeling off her sweater. She was soaked in sweat from her sprint downstairs, to the Medlab and then the walk back up. "Amanda attempted ta 'eal Manuel an' it backfired from wha' I could get out o' them. They're bot' pretty out o' it."

Nathan's breath caught in his chest, and for a moment, he saw white. "Backfired," he said wildly. "They were linked, Moira... she was yellling at him to stop it."

"Shit. Shit, shit, shit." Moira threw her sweater across with the room with a surge of anger. "I...dinnae think...I dinnae think 'e was doin' somethin' on purpose. I dinnae know. They seemed worried, bout each other..."

"I told him," Nathan snarled, seeing red now. "I told him how dangerous it was, how close they came to killing each other--ehal'ayna nu'duuri!" He managed to sit down on the bed, rather than the floor, as his knees gave out.

"Damn it, Nathan, English." She grabbed a towel before she went over to him, wanting to get the rather ridiculous amount of sweat off her body. If she had thought about it, she would have realized it had been from fear as much as the running.

His hands were shaking badly, and he clenched them around the comforter. "I ought to kick his ass on principle," he hissed. "Or at least try and beat some sense into him."

"Ye will do nay such thin'," Moira snapped, and grabbed for a discarded t-shirt on the bed. When it was slipped on, she glared at him. "Nay until we've got th' full story an' nay even then!"

"But he--" Nathan stopped, taking a deep, shaky breath and forcing himself to relax his hands. "You're right," he said, forcing the words out. His head was pounding, absolutely pounding, and there was a stab of pain in his side every time he tried to breathe. From the CPR, he knew. "I just... he was hurting her, she was shouting at him to stop, and he didn't even back off, he just shielded..."

"Nathan, sometimes ye cannae back off even if ye want t'," she murmured and slid her arms around his neck. "This is Manuel, confused an' stubborn, an' Amanda, confused an' stubborn...nay a good combination." She kissed the top of his head. "An' good, if ye persisted I was goin' ta threaten ta make ye sleep on th' couch..."

"I'm still going to talk to them," Nathan muttered. "Both of them... they don't understand what they're risking. They have to be more careful..."

"Give it a few days?" she asked, stroking the back of his neck. "Let 'enry an' Maddie run tests, once their out o' th' MedLab...damn it, Samson an' I need ta talk again, 'bout this."

He leaned against her, still trembling. Between the vision and Monet's visit and now this, he was simultaneously exhausted and so tightly wound that he felt like he was going to fly apart at the seams.

Moira murmured against his hair and rubbed his neck and shoulders. She knew Amanda had acted without thinking, obviously, but she hadn't thought about what it would do to Nathan's stress levels. Yes, a calm talk later on would have to happen. "Shh, relax, everythin's goin' ta be okay."

"Can you stay?" he asked raggedly. "Do you have to go back down and check on them?" For a moment, he honestly didn't care what the two of them needed. He just wanted Moira, here, with him. It was infantile, yet he couldn't seem to bring himself to care.

"I can stay," she assured him, smiling into his hair. "In fact, I kind o' got booted out o' th' MedLab, love, so yer stuck wit' me 'til mornin'."

"Good," he muttered, shifting back on the bed to give her room and then stretching out beside her as she laid down. He managed to do it without letting go of her at any point, which was the important thing. Once they were both settled, he clung to her fiercely, still shivering as she pulled the blankets up over both of them.

Moira decided she'd check her e-mail when he was asleep. He probably wouldn't let go before then, not that she minded in the slightest. "'ey, it really is okay," she murmured at him.

Nathan squeezed his eyes shut and tried to lose himself in the soothing wash of thoughts coming down the link.

In a moments decision, with the stress of the past few days weighing in heavily, Moira gently pushed something down the link towards him. It was an old Scottish lullaby her mother would sing to her when she was young and had nightmares late at night and, luckily, in her mother's wonderful voice, not hers.

"I like that one," Nathan murmured, meaning the memory, and held to it tightly, letting it pull him gently back towards sleep.

"So do I," she whispered, caught up in the memory. Moira smiled a little, at the memory and at Nathan, and watched until he drifted off to sleep. Even then, she laid there for some time, content in the peace of watching him sleep.