xp_logs | Amanda, Nathan - Friday evening

After this visit from Angelo, Amanda gets another from Nate. He tells her about Manuel and the link, she freaks a bit, and he gets to be all paternalistic. He's such a sucker for little girls in distress.

She was just sleeping, Nathan knew that. There were coherent thoughts there, not that terrifying near-blankness. He slouched in the chair, rubbing tentatively at his jaw as he watched Amanda's sleeping face. The pendant was around her neck, glowing a little, and the sight of it clearly at work made him relax a little further.

His relief at the fact that she was on the mend, although sincere, still didn't do much to dissolve that frozen tension inside him. You're tired, Nathan tried to convince himself. He'd gotten maybe two hours of sleep last night, none of it particularly peaceful. What Charles had said about letting the government look into Mistra, to see if that didn't resolve the problem for him, made good sense, but only on an intellectual level.

They had sent the picture to Moira. Nathan grimaced, trying to lasso his erratic emotions back under control. Amanda didn't need to wake up to see him glowering at the wall or something.

Too late. Amanda stirred, yawned, and rubbed her eyes. "Hey, old man," she said, seeing Nate sitting at her bedside. "You must like watchin' me sleep or somethin'." She levered herself up, the effort obvious, and then frowned. "You look like shite. Again. What happened?"

For a moment, that dull, gnawing panic and anger did retreat in the face of a sudden surge of relief and joy as he met her eyes and saw that she was still there - a bit bruised and battered, perhaps, but intact. "You know me," he said, a faint, fond smile tugging at his lips. "I get bored, get into things - the rest is history. How are you feeling?"

"Fine. 'Cept for this habit of fallin' asleep every five minutes. Think I conked out on Angelo - he was here earlier." She wasn't fooled by his evasive answer, but let it slide - for now. Once she'd woken up a bit more, then she'd prod. "'S stupid, considerin' I just spent four days sleepin'."

"Four very long days," he said quietly, tilting the bruised side of his face away from her but not breaking eye contact. "Did you need anything? Some water?"

"Nah, 'm good for now." Amanda struggled with the pillow, trying to pull it up so she had something to rest against that wasn't cold metal medlab bed railing. "Pete told me you were wearin' a groove in that chair while I was out," she added. "I must've known or somethin' - I had a dream with you in it."

"Actually..." Nathan hesitated, then decided to tell her, at least the basics. It had been her mind, after all and if Romany, Strange, or anyone else mentioned it to her she might wonder why he hadn't told her first. "It wasn't a dream. Well, it was. But I was there. I dozed off watching you, and wound up inside your head."

"Oh." Amanda went quiet, trying to remember the details of the dream itself, and not getting a lot. Except the feeling that Nate had been important. And there had been something else, someone else... "I... gave you somethin'. Somethin' important..." The link throbbed, and she sighed, rubbing her head. "Manny, I don't know what the fuck's goin' on with you, but I really don't appreciate the headache," she muttered. She looked up at Nate. "I gave you me name, didn't I?"

Nathan flinched slightly at the mention of Manuel, but managed to recover, nodding at her. "You did," he confirmed. "But don't worry. Romany's explained to me how important it is that I keep it to myself. And trust me, kiddo, very few people can get information out of me if I don't want to give it."

"I weren't worried - I know I can trust you. Just didn't remember that well. Things got a bit out of hand." She held up the pendant. "See? Doubles as a nightlight."

Nathan gave a soft laugh, careful not to make it too hearty. His ribs weren't up to it. "Glad to see your sense of humor's still all there, trouble."

"Think I'd have t' be dead t' lose that," she replied, grinning, but eyes not missing the way he favoured one side very slightly, or the fact he was keeping his face turned away so she couldn't see one side. "Sometimes yer gotta laugh, or yer'd be screamin'."

"Rules to live by." For a recently-comatose person, the little brat was entirely too perceptive, Nathan thought, more fondly than in irritation, and, surrendering, made himself face her full-on. "Still," he went on calmly, "it's good to hear you say it. Between the dream and what Pete told me... I was worried."

"It weren't fun, but I'll be fine. I'm sort of stubborn that way. An' it helped that I had help." She nodded at the bruise on his face. "Looks like Ange has a hell of a punch."

Nathan raised an eyebrow, but then gave her a lop-sided smile. "Oh, he told you, did he? Well, just so that we're clear, yes, Angelo did hit me. But I let him." He rubbed at his side. "Kind of thinking I could have limited myself to letting him have one free shot rather than three, though."

"He said somethin' 'bout a new kind of therapy an' you makin' him angry. I sort of figured it was somethin' really macho, an' since yer down on minors gettin' drunk, it had t' be physical violence. As long as it did what you wanted it to." Amanda rolled her eyes at him. "Boys."

"We stink," Nathan said, more cheerfully. Not that he had expected her to tear strips out of him like Moira had, but it was still rather heartening. "And I think it did. We'll have to see if he takes me up on the offer next time, though."

"I think Moira'd appreciate it." Amanda shifted uncomfortably. "Nate, I don't wanna freak you out or nothin', but I gotta know. An' no-one else seems t' want t' tell me, or they don't know nothin'." She hesitated, unsure of how to put her question into words that wouldn't make him pull that face he normally did at the mention of Manuel and the link.

Nathan studied her for a moment, sobering. "No one's told you?" She nodded, and he shifted in the chair, grimacing a little. Oh, thanks so much, all of you - leave it to the one with the Problem with empaths, he thought uncharitably. If she was this coherent, she had to be noticing that there was something very wrong with the link. How did they expect her to rest and recover if she was worrying at it?

"It's... a form of backlash, I think would be the best way to describe it," he went on slowly. "He's awake and walking around, but he's not really there. If you don't remember the dream, you won't remember that I found out he thinks you're dead."

"He wot?" What little colour there was left in Amanda's face drained away, and the link flared, filling her head with pain and emptiness. She hissed, leaning forward and clutching her head. "How... Why?" Another fragment of memory, this time of Rack's draining spell, the feeling of falling into the void, even as she felt Manuel's confusion and then pain wash over her through the link. "'S my fuckin' fault," she whispered. "If I hadn't've gone, if I'd have waited for Pete..." Despite herself she reached for the link again, only to retreat with a low cry of pain.

Nathan bit his lip, then got out of her chair and sat on the edge of the bed, hugging her carefully, and not even stopping to think about how easy it was to do it, how little his instincts protested. "It's not your fault," he said quietly, reaching out telepathically and soothing the pain away as best he could. "It's Rack's fault, if it's anyone's. I don't want you eating away at yourself with guilt. Besides," he said, drawing back a little and smiling a little quizzically at her, "it's not permanent. Or at least, I have a fairly good idea as to how it can be fixed."

His touch - both physical and telepathic - was familiar somehow. Soothing. Taking a deep, shuddering breath, Amanda resisted the urge to cling to him as he pulled back. "It ain't?" Her face hardened with resolve. "What do I need t' do?"

"Nothing," Nathan told her firmly. "Not yet, in any case." She opened her mouth as if to protest, but he shook his head at her. "I have to clear it through Charles and Emma. I may be way off-base here, but on the other hand, as far as I know neither of them have the sort of experience I do with this. If they okay it, we can talk more about how it's going to affect you. There's nothing you actively have to do." He grimaced a bit apologetically at her. "I know me telling you to sit around and wait isn't what you want to hear, but blundering into things would just make things worse."

She looked ready to argue, but then remembered that the last time she'd gone ahead and done something without waiting had ended in that small house in Catemaco, and her shoulders slumped. "All right," she said in a small voice, sounding very much like the small girl Nate knew was still in there. "I won't do nothin'. But... it hurts. An' I don't know how t' deal with it. 'S like there's somethin' missin'." She looked up from where her hands were twisting the blanket. "But you know that, don't you? You said, in the quarry that time, you said yer'd done this?"

Nathan's eyes went distant for a moment as he thought of the picture sitting up on Moira's desk. "Yes," he said very quietly, and then looked again at Amanda, wearing his best neutral mask. The picture had stirred up too much, though, so he wasn't about to vouch for what she could see or didn't see in his eyes. "I told you..." He had given her a minimum of detail, he thought, simply saying that he had lost a link of ten years. "My wife," he said finally, "was a telepath. She and I were linked for almost a decade. When she died, it was..." He stoped, smiling very slightly. "Hard," he said.

"A decade? Fuck..." Amanda winced at the thought of the pain that would entail - if things were this bad and she and Manuel had only been linked for a couple of months, what had he gone through? She couldn't imagine it, or put words to it. "'M sorry," she said at last. "This whole thing with me an' Manny... it mustn't be easy, havin' those memories pushed in yer face."

"There are some similarities," he said as steadily as he could. "Manuel thought he felt you die. I did feel Aliya die. So I'm in something of a unique position to understand what's going on here."

"Can't make it any easier." Amanda looked down. "Seems like every time I turn around, I'm hurtin' someone. This was a lot easier when I didn't give a shite." A tear rolled down her face, followed by another. "'M sorry t' put you through this, Nate."

"Shh," Nathan said, telekinetically yanking a kleenex out of the box across the room and floating it over to her. He kept his arm around her shoulder, kept projecting steady, soothing thoughts. "I'm here of my own free will, you know," he went on in a deliberately conversational tone as she wiped her eyes. "I made you a promise, and one of the few things I can still take pride in is that I don't break my word."

"Fuck. Bloody fucking hellfire." Amanda's voice was thick with pent-up emotion. "Christ, I'm a fucking mess. So much for the tough-girl act, eh?" She leaned into the contact, sighing heavily. "I dunno if it's the link or reaction t' what happened with Rack or what. Me head's all over the place."

"Probably both," Nathan said soothingly. "And you're entitled, believe me." His mouth tugged upwards as she blew her nose noisily. "You don't always have to be so tough," he went on softly. "No one's expecting you to come out of this with a cocky grin and a spring in your step. Don't expect that of yourself."

"Feels like I should, when it's me own bloody fault. Don't want t' give people the chance t' tell me they told me so." Amanda scrubbed at her face with the tissue, then crumpled the soggy wad in her hand. "An' I ain't sorry that fucker's dead. Just wish Manny hadn't been dragged into it. Ange was bad enough."

"Angelo's fine," Nathan said, "and Manuel will be. And if anyone tries with the 'I told you so', point me at them." He smiled a bit dryly at her. "I beat people up good."

"I just got so scared. I couldn't think straight. And I'll I knew was if I ran, it'd just mean he'd come after me, an' keep comin' after me until he had me." A wry smile appeared. "It was like I was five years old again an' waitin' for the next time he got shirty at me."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again. "I know the feeling," he said simply, an odd, twisting feeling in his chest. "But he's gone now, Amanda. Permanently. No more waiting for the other shoe to drop." He took a deep breath. "No more feeling afraid to be happy because you expect him to be waiting down the road somewhere." He was, quite suddenly, jealous.

"An' that's the bit that's so hard t' deal with. I spent me whole fuckin' life with him behind me somewhere, an' now he's gone..." Amanda shivered. "I think that's why I went t' confront him. I just wanted a fuckin' endin' t' it, one way or another. 'Course, the sensible thing would have been t' wait for Pete, but since when have I done the sensible thing when it's so much easier t' do it the hard way?" She shrugged.

"I knew there was a reason I liked you," Nathan said wryly.

She chuckled, leaning her head against his shoulder again briefly. "An' here I was thinkin' it was me good looks. You just have a thing for troublemakers." A thought occurred to her. "Fuck, I missed meetin' this Domino of yers, didn't I?"

"She's coming back," Nathan assured her. "And she wants to meet you. Said something about taking you out for a girl's night." He shook his head. "Scary thought."

"I'll make a point of not bein' kidnapped or whatever when she does. I don't wanna miss out again." Amanda grinned, and then winced again as the link made itself known again, as if resentful of the attention she was paying Nate. "So, O wise master, got any suggestions for how I can shut this bloody link up in the meantime?"

"Distraction," Nathan said with a sigh, wishing he had something better to suggest. "Lots and lots of different kinds of distraction. Do you play chess? I could teach you."

"There was a bloke at Homily's, Craig - he was teachin' me while I was there. I ain't that good yet, but he said I had a devious mind." She wrinkled her nose at him. "Distraction, eh? I'm gunna be askin' for extra school work, ain't I?"

"Hell, I'm probably up for some extra self-defense lessons if you'd prefer the physical approach," Nathan said diffidently. "
"You better watch it, I'll take you up on that," she said with a grin. "When I ain't as weak as American beer, tho'."

"Standing offer," he told her, giving her a keen look. "Seriously." He suspected that something along those lines would help her, in the aftermath of this.

"I will, then," she said. "The next time some fucker decides t' take advantage, he ain't gettin' a free run. I'm planning t' make it as fuckin' hard as possible."

"Would I sound hopelessly and ridiculously paternal if I said 'That's my girl'?" Nathan asked, chuckling.

"Yeah. But I won't tell if you won't."