xp_logs | Nathan and Moira, Tuesday around lunch

Right after his 'conversation' with Angelo, Nathan brings Amanda's pendant to Moira, who has a number of very stern things to say to him about his counseling efforts. She gets him to agree that he needs to think about these things a little more carefully before he does them. Then, she opens her mail to find a horrifying surprise.

With a sigh, Moira flopped down on the couch in her office and stretched out. What they had compiled on Amanda and Manuel lay in her lap, his folder being much smaller than hers. But with the recent data due to what happened, she might be able to glean something new out of them. It never hurt, not not and certainly not for future reference. She flipped through the first file, Amanda's, as her other hand groped along the side of the couch, trying to find the mug of coffee she had poured for herself.

The day had been the complete opposite from yesterday and she knew if she looked at her watch, it would be five minutes from the last time she looked. So Moira tried to ignore the crawling time and tried to concentrate on reading the files, not tipping them over and finding her goddamn coffee.

Nathan stuck his head in the door, saw Moira fumbling for her coffee, and levitated it away an instant before she would have knocked it over. "It was going to wind up all over the carpet in a second," he explained as she sat up, looking at him. He floated it over to her, and then pulled the pendant out of his pocket, letting it dangle from his fingers. "Look what I found."

As Moira caught the coffee, she saw the pendant. "Bloody 'ell an' thank God," she sighed in some relief. This would certainly help matters a great deal. "Where'd ye find it?" Moira blinked and squinted slightly. Something seemed off about Nathan.

"Angelo had it," Nathan said, deliberately tilting the one side of his face away from her. She'd see it eventually. No need to rush. Lowering the arm instinctively protecting his side was a little more difficult. "He didn't realize she needed it. Make sure no one scolds him for it, okay?"

"O' course. It wasnae like any o' us, an' Amanda, went around sayin' it was also t' 'elp wit' th' addictions." A frown settled on her face. "Are ye jus' goin' ta stand there or are ye goin' t' come in?"

"Actually," Nathan said with a laugh that made him wince a little. Angelo had really gotten a lucky shot in there. "I thought I might just stand here."

"Wha' th' bloody 'ell's gotten int' ye?" she snapped, looking perturbed. "If'n ye were jus' goin' ta stand there like a daft man, ye could 'ave jus' told me 'bout th' pendant on th' link, ye know."

"Well, except I couldn't have given it to you then, could I?" Nathan said, smiling in wry surrender and coming into her office. He gave the door a telekinetic nudge shut. That would probably be a very good thing in a couple of minutes.

Moira rolled her eyes and reached for the pendant. "Stupid daft men, alwa..." She stopped mid-word when she saw the condition of his face. Eyes widening, she found herself on her feet in front of him, cuping his jaw gently. Her tone didn't match the touch. "Wha' in th' bloody 'ell 'appened t' *ye*?!"

"Is this where I get to say I ran into a wall?" he joked a bit weakly. Oh, she was going to kill him.

"Nay, it is not," she snapped, worry flooding her voice. "Who did ye piss off, Nathan?" Moira suddenly took in how he was protecting his ribs and cursed strongly. "Sit down an' let me go get some ice." Ignoring his reaction, she managed to force him into sitting on the couch as she went over to the fridge trying to find something ot put on those ribs of his.

"I was helping Angelo deal with some issues," Nathan said, relaxing a little as he sat down. Now that the adrenalin was fading, he was starting to register the fact that Angelo did know how to hit.

She paused from rifling through the fridge and looked at him over her shoulder in horror. "*Angelo* 'it ye?" she gasped. "Why?"

"Well, he needed to hit someone," Nathan said, poking tentatively at his jaw. "Kid's going to spontaneously implode if he doesn't get some of that anger out. So I provoked him, he vented but good, and I know now not to take these kids' fighting skills too lightly."

Moira turned, clutching the ice pack she had just found tightly in her hand. "Ye let 'im 'it ye?" Well, it only made sense. Angelo wouldn't have been able to lay a finger on him otherwise. She was surprised her voice was that calm.

He gave her a pained look. "It really wasn't as stupid as it sounds."

"Aye. It. Was," she grated out, glaring at him.

"Okay," he admitted with a sigh, really wishing she would at least throw the ice pack at him. "I could have given him one shot, instead of three."

"Three." She straightened. "Three?"

He nodded, wincing again, this time at the look in her eyes. "Moira... it helped him, okay?"

"I...jus'...ARGH!" Furiously, she threw the ice pack at his head. "Wha' th' bloody 'ell were ye thinkin'?! It may 'ave 'elped but damn it Nathan, ye know as well as I do tha' it wasnae th' bloody smartest thin' ye could 'ave done!"

Nathan caught the ice pack telekinetically, floating it the rest of the way over. "I'll live," he said reassuringly, and would have grinned if it wouldn't have hurt his jaw. "Unless you're planning on changing that? I really didn't intend to get this banged up, Moira."

"Yer tryin' ta give me white 'air aren't ye?" she snapped, throwing her hands in the air. "An' I bet ye dinnae plan on it. 'Tis why it was such bloody stupid idea, ye...blasted...argh!" She paused, glaring at him. "I'm really fuckin' tempted ta take ye up on tha' stabbin' ye in yer sleep thin' right now, Daysprin'." Stupid, so very stupid. High intelligence but God, his wisdom sometimes...

Nathan grimaced and got up, approaching her slowly. "And the bruises you take inside for these kids are somehow more acceptable, just because they're on the inside?" he asked pointedly, remembering Sarah and the picture, Amanda and the drinking.

"Tha's nay th' same...I...oohhh, bloody 'ell, bite me," she snapped, knowing it was incredibly childish but she had no other way to vent her still boiling anger at him. Moira turned her back on him and crossed her arms, trying to calm herself down. She really, really didn't want to admit he was right. At all.

"And hey, this is good for Angelo's self-esteem, right?" Nathan quipped. "He gets to say he beat up on Doctor MacTaggart's mercenary boyfriend."

"Tha's nay 'elpin' calm me down," she snapped over her shoulder. Nathan could be completely insufferable when he wanted to be. "Do ye *like* gettin' th' crap kicked out o' ye?"

Nathan opened his mouth to answer, but then paused, thoughtfully. "Um," he said. For all that he was sore at the moment and would probably be sorer in the morning, he felt... good, and he didn't think it could all be attributed to helping Angelo. "Well, not so much getting the crap kicked out of me as... uh, never mind."

Turning, hands on her hips, she glared at him. "Dinnae nay never mind me, Nathan," she growled, almost literally. "Wha'?"

Nathan eyed her a bit warily, wondering if she really wanted to know. "Do you really think I stayed in the career I did because it was the only thing I knew how to do?" he asked evenly.

"Well, nay," she said slowly, eyeing him. "An' aye, I want t' know." Even as mad as she was, Moira was still paying attention to the link.

"There's part of me that likes it," he admitted, meeting her eyes and not letting himself look away. The words were a bit harder than he had expected. "The violence, I mean. I'm not sure whether that's the conditioning, or something in me... but you've seen how restless I've gotten, being so physically inactive. Wandering the grounds, blowing up rocks in the quarry... it's been a pale substitute. What I've really wanted to do is drag Pete off to the gym or something and have at it."

"An' ye've never told me...why?" The glare she gave him was milder than the others had been. "Did ye really think I'd nay understand?" She paused. "I dinnae understand th' need. But I understand ye 'avin' it." Moira rolled her eyes skyward. "An' why dinnae ye say anytin' 'bout wantin' ta spar wit' Pete? God only well knows I'd 'ave taken tha' a whole 'ell o' a lot easier than th' stuff wit' Angelo."

"Hey, I didn't leave a single bruise on Angelo," Nathan protested, knowing she didn't mean that. "And up until the last little while I haven't really be in the shape to spar with anyone, have I?"

With a sigh, Moira rubbed her forehead. "Ye bloody well know I dinnae mean it like tha'," she snapped half-heartedly. She glared at him. "Did ye ever think if'n tha' 'ad gone badly wha' th' other teachers, Charles especially, would 'ave thought?"

"Well... for a minute. Then I did it anyway."

"Are ye *tryin'* ta give me an ulcer?" Moira demanded.

"No," Nathan said with an apologetic little smile, reaching out and taking her hand before she could pull away. "And I promise, I won't try anything like that again without giving it a whole hell of a lot more thought first. It's just..." He paused, his smile fading. "He and I have talked quite a lot, and, well... he needed the kick in the ass. Badly. I don't know why no one else around here thought to give it to him."

She glared down at her hand and cursed it because it wouldn't let her pull it away from his. Traitor. She was still mad. "Aye, 'e did but...God, Nathan...jus'..." She sighed again. "I dinnae 'ave words right now, I'm jus' so bloody frustrated."

"Why?" he asked a bit tentatively, not entirely sure about the source of her anger and frustration. Her thoughts on the link were tangled, to put it mildly. "I'm not trying to be a smartass here," he assured her. "Just..." He trailed off, hoping she would realize he did want to understand.

Moira's shoulders suddenly slumped. "Because as o' right now, love, yer nay staff, yer me guest. A well-liked guest but damn it, if'n somethin' 'appens..." It wasn't just that, she knew. Deep down, she knew the fear that something would happen to him was blown out of proportion but God, he was not making it easier. "I know yer nay goin' ta give up certain thin's," she murmured. "But Nathan, would it 'ave 'urt ta talk ta me 'bout this? I'm nay sayin' I'd 'ave agreed ta it but ye could 'ave probably talked me int' agreein' somehow! I'm nay stupid, I know thin's 'ave ta get down like this at times."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I didn't--intend for this to happen," he said a bit lamely. "I just went looking for him to see if he had the pendant. But point taken."

"At least yer agreein' wit' me," she muttered, feeling some of the anger drain away. Irritation, on the other hand, was still there.

Nathan nodded slowly. "I'll... be more careful," he said with a sigh, letting go of her hand and going back over to the couch. "Don't want to overstep myself." He hefted the icepack in one hand, not sure whether to put it on his ribs or his jaw. "I mean well," he said planitively, watching her go over to her desk, sorting through some mail as if she was trying to buy herself a moment to regain her composure.

"I know ye do, Nathan," she responded, flipping through the various pieces of mail. She hadn't even noticed which student dropped it off today. Too engrossed in the problems of the day, it seemed. Most of it was junk, trying to convience her to buy this book or that one but suddenly her fingers bumped against a larger package. "Wha' is this?" Moira murmured, dragging it out from under the other envelopes. Curious, she started to open it. "I dinnae order anythin'. Might be for one o' th' other doctors." She stopped as a picture slide out from inside and she caught it before it fell.

Blinking, she stared down at the picture of a woman and a small child and something twigged in her memory but her mind was a few steps behind her memories and she didn't put two and two together just yet.

"What is it?" Nathan asked, pulling up his shirt and wincing as he pressed the ice pack against his side.

"Um...I'm nay...sure?" The exhaustion from the last week had her trying to grasp at her memories and failing. But she couldn't help but feel a sense of unease settle on her. "'Tis a picture," Moira said, quietly, walking over to Nathan with it still in her hand.

As she angled it towards him, the ice pack dropped from his nerveless fingers. He stared at the picture, wide-eyed. And he couldn't breathe, couldn't get his lungs to work...

"Nathan?" she whispered, staring at him. The feeling of unease was getting worse by the second, especially at the sudden tangle of thoughts on the link.

The thoughts from him suddenly stopped and she stared down at him, worried. Nathan didn't move, couldn't it felt like almost, as he stared at the picture. The picture...she glanced down and searched her memories. Suddenly..."O' my God." Aliya? Tyler? A glance at him told her all she had to know. Slowly, she crouched down in front of him, his eyes following the picture down with her. "Nathan?"

Breathe, the still-functioning part of his mind insisted. Nathan concentrated on that for a moment, until he could find his voice again. "Is there..." The words came out uneven and he stopped, swallowing. His throat felt like sandpaper. "Is there anything else in the envelope? A return address?"

But he couldn't take his eyes away from the picture. He knew it; it had sat on his desk in his office at Mistra. Aliya was hugging a two-year old Tyler, both of them beaming at the camera. He had taken it on Christmas morning that year. Tyler was in his pajamas with Winnie the Pooh on them...

"I...can look," she whispered. Gently, with a hand that wasn't exactly steady, she set the picture next to his leg. Somehow, Moira managed to get back up and back to her desk. Where had she left that bloody envelope, she thought weakily, knowing she had dropped it before walking over to Nathan. Looking around, she spotted it and quickly scooped it up. Quickly, she glanced at the front and her eyes widened. It had been addressed to *her*, not him...and as she reached inside, she felt something else. With a grimace, she pulled out a note.

She read it and and blinked. "Nathan..."

"What," he said, forcing the words out, "does it say?"

"It jus' says ''ello, Nathan'," she murmured. "An' 'tis nay addressed t' ye..." Moira looked at him over her shoulder, confused and worried. "'Tis, um, addressed t' me..."

He was having a hard time seeing, all of a sudden. His pulse was thundering in his ears, and it was taking conscious effort to breathe again. "They know where I am," he said, barely recognizing his own voice. "They know I'm here, with you."

Moira found herself in front of him again, trying to sooth him. She didn't have to ask who "they" were, the link was all but screaming it. Mistra, who else? "Nathan?" she whispered, a hand brushing his cheek hesitantly. There was no real good way of figuring out how he'd react to all of this.

Nathan tried to focus on her, managing a strained, horrible-sounding laugh. "Well," he said with a mixture of anger and fear, "I expected this eventually." He looked down at the note in her hand. Two neatly typed words. 'Hello, Nathan.' A warning, it and the picture, and a particularly malicious one.

Really, she had no idea what to do, how to react, to any of this. And that scared her the most. Moira swallowed and looked up at Nathan. "Wha' does this mean, exactly?" she asked quietly.

"They're letting me know they know," Nathan said, reaching out with a shaking hand to pick up the picture. He hadn't had one, since they'd... everything had been lost, even pictures. All he'd had left were his memories. "T-Taunting me. They want me to react..." How, though, how was the question. If he tried to run, would he find a retrieval team on his trail as soon as he left the school?

"We need t' tell Charles." The words were firm, nearly hiding the tremble half way through. She watched him with the picture and wanted to do nothing more than hold him tightly and banish all the bad around them. But these were his troubled memories and so she watched him.

"I know," Nathan said hollowly.