xp_logs | Nathan, Charles, and Manuel

Nathan goes to Charles with his plan to help Manuel with the blocked link, and they discuss why he feels that he needs to do this, what help Charles can give him, and getting a running start on Moira. In the end, as they talk about the kids and feeling connected to them, Nathan finally admits, to Charles and to himself, that yes, he's here to stay.

He had been nervous numerous times before, standing in Charles' office. Almost unbearably so, for their first half-dozen sessions, and although it had begun to fade, slowly but steadily, it was still always there, in the background. What he was feeling now wasn't that familiar anxiety. It was something else, a dazed, detached sort of disbelief that he was actually going to do this.

"It's the easiest way for him," he said aloud, as if to reassure himself. Charles was sitting behind his desk, watching him. "The least risk to Manuel. This all... does make sense. To do it this way."

"I won't argue that it is to Manuel's benefit for someone to do as you propose," Charles said calmly, lacing his fingers together and placing his hands on the desk. He was observing Nathan with no small interest, watching not only the man's expression but the entirety of him. "I think that you definitely possess the personal experience and the empathy with which to undertake the task. However, I also am capable of this thing. Tell me; why you?"

Nathan stopped to give that question the consideration it deserved... again. It had been so very, very tempting, the idea of just dumping this all in Charles' lap and running away. Pulling the metaphorical covers over his head and pretending Manuel de la Rocha didn't exist in his world. Hell, it was still tempting.

But. "For a number of reasons," he said, and hated the fact that he even sounded rattled. "I do have the experience. I do understand what he's going through. He knows that - " Even if he did throw it in my face the last time we talked! " - and it may allow him to stomach my intrusion a little more easily than yours." Nathan stopped, taking a deep breath that was supposed to be cleansing but wound up sounding more like a sigh. "And I think I have to do it, Charles. He came to me about the link when he first started having problems, and I just think..." A laugh, one that was very definitely on the edgy side, slipped out. "I feel like I took on the responsibility, when I started doing my clumsy best to counsel him about it."

Charles nodded, not quite smiling. "All good reasons. I agree with you, that you have some investment in the young man. And what would you like from me, Nathan, other than my blessing and a running start when Moira hears about this?"

Nathan took another deep breath, a little more successfully this time in the sense of calming him down a little. "I don't think we should... double-team him, or anything, but if you could be... watching, to make sure I don't do anything by accident that's going to hurt him, I think that would be a good idea. It's not as if I'm particularly practiced at this sort of thing." He stared out the window at the grounds, rubbing at his still somewhat-sore jaw. It really wasn't all that much different than what he had done with Angelo, he realized suddenly. Just on a different scale. "And... I'm not sure if I can shield the link with Moira while I'm doing this, but I think someone needs to."

"You do realize that this wheelchair of mine is not sea-worthy, don't you, Nathan?" This time Charles did smile. "I'm honoured that you trust me enough to allow me to help, and I appreciate that you came to speak with me before making the attempt. I'll be quite happy to provide support and protect Moira while you do what you need to do."

Nathan did his best to smile back. The expression probably wasn't entirely convincing. "I'll make sure she knows this was all my idea," he promised, giving another nervous laugh. "I had broached the subject with her a few days ago, when I started to think about it, so it's not as if it's going to be coming out of the blue, at least." He turned back away from the window, his smile wavering a little as he met Charles' eyes. "I obviously need to compose myself a little better before I make the attempt."

"I believe you're correct in that," Charles said calmly. "Would you like to go through our usual exercises to prepare yourself or do you want some time alone?"

"I think the latter would actually be counterproductive," Nathan said with more than a touch of irony. He came over and sat down in the chair across from the desk. "I think... actually, I'm curious, Charles. Do you think this is really right?" He slouched a little in the chair, running a hand over the cushioned arm. "I know they both want it back... or Manuel would, if he understood that Amanda was still alive. But they're so young, both of them, and Manuel is not entirely what I'd term stable... hypocritical though it might be for me to say that about someone else."

Charles leaned back in his chair with a sigh and shrugged. "They're not children, that's been taken away from both of them. It's too late for us to make this not have happened. Do we condemn them to live feeling incomplete because we don't think they're old enough to handle what they've created?" He shook his head. "It's not our choice. It wasn't to begin with and it isn't now. This is not the worst thing that's happened to them and it may be a good thing in the end. If they come to me and say they want the link gone, I'll act. For now, we heal."

"'Heal what can be healed'," Nathan murmured, mustering a faint smile. "My 'sister' may be something of a pushy bitch, but her people have a very practical sort of wisdom, I've been noticing." He rubbed at the back of his neck for a moment, his thoughts still spinning, even as some of the tension he was feeling started to ebb. "I really have no room to talk, about them being too young," he said after another long moment. "I wasn't much older when my wife and I were first linked. Maybe a year older than Manuel..."

"Age has nothing to do with it in the end, does it?" Charles said thoughtfully. "They are already too old in too many ways. This is what we have to work with. Your sister has the right idea. It is all that we can do, to try anything else would be wasteful."

"They draw you in, these kids," Nathan said, his eyes roaming the office as if he hadn't already catalogued every detail of the room weeks ago. "Not just Manuel and Amanda... all of them."

"Yes, they do." Charles nodded, understanding fully what the other man meant. "They're compelling children, on the cusp of so many things. When you have their trust, and their affection, it is a huge responsibility as well as a great gift. It's less of a weight than it is something like gravity, when the connection is there."

Nathan nodded slowly, the words ringing true, but then chuckled a little, almost dryly. "I doubt I'll be getting Manuel's affection anytime soon. But I can do this for him, and I feel like I should." He smiled suddenly. "And there's Amanda to consider," he said, the affection creeping into his voice of its own accord.

"I suppose that next semester we should look at giving you an official position here," Charles said with some amusement. "I think they hooked you, Nathan, I don't think you're going anywhere. When this is over, why don't you think about what you plan to do here, and let me know. I have staff positions to fill, I might as well start looking here."

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, regarding Charles with a wry smile. "You just had to come out and say it, didn't you? I couldn't have gone on denying the just-about-inevitable for a few weeks longer?" He slouched a little in his chair, letting his breath out on a sigh. "Wriggling," he said finally, still smiling. "Wriggling on the hook still, just a little... mostly because I worry that I'm not really all that good an influence on any of them."

"I'm about to let you into the mind of one of my most fragile students, Nathan," Charles pointed out. "I'm afraid I've already made the leap of faith. It's about time you admitted that you have too. I think that you need to do so in order to go ahead with what you plan to do with Manuel. You need to acknowledge the role you're taking on, and to know that I trust you with it."

Nathan straightened, his expression going serious as he saw the way Charles was looking at him. "I've thought for so long that good intentions always lead to disaster," he said after a moment. "I suppose sometimes, they still do. But I think I'm starting to see..." He paused, struggling for the right words. It would probably be easier to express telepathically, but something told him that it would be good to say it aloud, to have it out there, irrevocable. "Well, hell, I think I knew what an excuse that had become for me. And I don't think I really bought it, deep down," he confessed with a sigh. "I'd have been a lot happier with my life these last seven years if I had, I think."

He caught himself rubbing at his jaw again, and forced himself to stop. "I want to do this," he said abruptly, knowing Charles would know he didn't just mean this 'intervention' with Manuel. "I want to do this so badly I can taste it, Charles, and I don't think I can run away from that any more." That wry smile tugged at his lips again, and he spread his hands wide, almost helplessly. "I may screw up - in fact, I probably will. But I want to try."

Charles nodded, managing to look deeply pleased and serious at once. "Welcome to the staff then, Nathan," he said, quite sincerely. "Life is often disastrous, for good or bad. All we can do is try. How do you feel now about what you plan to attempt with Manuel?"

Nathan turned his attention inward for a moment. "Still not particularly excited," he said dryly, "but I think I'm good to go." He rose, still smiling slightly. "And I promise I'll hold Moira back if she starts thinking thoughts about you and the lake."

"I'm reassured, then," Charles said with a smile. "I should accompany you down if you're going now. Figuratively, that is," he tapped his temple lightly, "if I may?"

Nathan nodded, letting his shields down and imagining an outstretched hand. He saw/sensed Charles reach out to take it, and then the connection was there, quiet and undemanding, but enough to support him if he needed it. #Thank you,# he sent, and then turned to go.

Nathan finds Manuel in the sunroom and gets the empath to let him into his mind. On Manuel's mindscape, Nathan finds the visual manifestation of the block on the link with Amanda, and takes the most direct approach to breaking it down. The backlash is a little worse than he'd expected.

The link had been repaired after hours of grueling psychic surgery, but when Manuel awoke he felt no real difference in his pains. Sure, he was conscious of the Real World again, and able to think and react and decide his own fate, but he still couldn't feel what he most wanted to feel. Meditation hadn't helped. Music hadn't helped. Sleep hadn't helped.

Nathan stood in the doorway of the sunroom, watching him. He could sense Charles, connected to him, observing this all through his eyes. Back-up, Nathan thought with a flicker of bleak humor, and then cleared his throat. "Manuel," he said quietly, still not stepping forward into the room.

Manuel kept his eyes closed, his posture relaxed, and his breathing regular. "Yes?" he said, not turning to look at Nathan.

"We need to talk," Nathan said, and did come in this time. "You have a very specific problem," he said as precisely as he could, kneeling down a few feet away from the young man. "I would say it's all in your mind, but I think that goes without saying." The calm he was feeling was being 'encouraged' by Charles, he suspected. Probably a good thing.

Manuel's exhalation sounded suspiciously like a sigh. "I still can't feel her." he confessed. "Xavier says I should be able to, but I cannot."

Nathan nodded slowly, wishing the kid would at least turn around and look at him. "I know," he said simply. "These things... they don't make sense, Manuel. The connection is there, but it hurt you so badly that you're keeping yourself from reaching back out to her."

"I want to." he said calmly. "I want it very badly. But it's like I can't force myself to do it. I have tried trickery, I have tried strength, I even tried to reason with it. But nothing works. Are you here to tell me that you can fix it?"

"There are no guarantees in this," Nathan said, part of him astonished by how cool the words came out. "But I'll try. If you'll let me."

"It would seem that I am not being possessed of many options." Manuel said, eyes still closed. "I will not fight you if you enter my mind. Not consciously." he admitted.

"Then we can try this," Nathan said, with more confidence than he felt, and closed his own eyes. #Think of the link,# he projected, not willing to impose his own preconceptions upon Manuel's mindscape. #Show me what you see.#

Manuel did as Nathan requested, and his mindscape, normally Mostly Invisible to non-empaths, changed slowly. The link manifested itself as a door, currently covered completely in a soap-bubble moire pattern of shifting colors. #See? I cannot pass here.# Manuel, in his mindscape, looked much, much younger than his nineteen years. He looks more like he's fourteen or so, and his eyes always blaze red here.

Nathan took in his altered appearance at a glance, then turned his attention to the door. #What you feel when you try?# he asked, reaching out a hand but stopping just short of touching the colors.

Manuel tries to extend his hand through the moire to touch the door, but he couldn't even touch the colors - his own hand turned black and curled into a claw like it was burned. When the hand was withdrawn, Manuel had a pained look on his face but his limb returned to normal.

#I see.# Nathan composed himself for a moment, and then reached forward again, touching the colors. It was like plunging his hand into acid, and only the purest form of self-control kept him from screaming as he was assaulted by waves and waves of emotion he knew, knew from those months after Aliya's death as well as he knew his own reflection in the mirror...

He wrenched his hand free, going to his knees. #I see,# he repeated shakily, sensing Charles trying to soothe him.

Manuel looked over to Nathan, and actually looked sympathetic. #I tried to warn you.# he tsked mentally. #The feeling - it is too much. I think. I don't know how this all works.#

#It's a block, Manuel. About what I thought.# Getting back up, Nathan stared at the door for a long moment and then looked back at Manuel. #There's only one way to get through it,# he said, feeling a flicker of discomfort as those glowing eyes fixed on him.

Manuel turned his gaze back to the blockage, seeming to study it. #There is a lot of pain there.# he noted clinically. #More pain than any one person should ever have to withstand.#

#I did,# Nathan said after a moment, beginning to understand what was required here. He looked levelly at Manuel, steeling himself. #I know how to handle this. You don't. Remember what I showed you? What you said was unhealthy?# It was waiting for someone, anyone to face it head-on, he thought, staring next at the manifestation of the block. Didn't necessarily have to be Manuel.

Manuel just looked puzzled at Nathan's words. #Wait - about using yourself to hide from the world?# he thought, still looking at the block. #And it's still a bad idea.#

#For you, yes,# Nathan said, and reached out again, lowering all those inner walls, opening up that blasted, empty corner of his mind as he plunged his hand back into the shifting colors. It hurt more this time, if that was even possible. But like called to like, and Nathan moaned, barely aware of how the colors shifted, flowing up his arm to his shoulder, then farther. They sensed the void inside him, rushing to fill it. Images cascaded through his mind, what Aliya had seen, what he had seen second-hand, as the door of the hotel room crashed open and she threw herself desperately at the gun on the table, even as the bullets tore into her--

Manuel looked at Nathan with horror. #NO!# he screamed in his mind, before dropping down to his knees to cradle his head. He felt every slug that entered Aliya's body, saw the sick fear that Nathan felt.

Tyler! Aliya's voice screamed in his mind. Ty, get down-- More gunshots, Tyler's small body toppling off the bed into the corner of the room, and Nathan was there with her as she threw herself at the retrieval team, lashing out with her mind and her fists, beserk with grief. But they closed in on her, six figures in black, and then she was on the ground.

And he threw himself into that endless, bottomless horror, the unspeakable feeling of fists and feet and gun butts slamming into her body, remembered the feel of the steering wheel beneath his hands as he drove like a maniac back to the hotel, knowing he'd never get there in time. He heard her call his name, only once, and then a white-hot flash in his mind that almost made him drive the car off the road--

He opened his eyes and looked out at Manuel through a haze of color. It had enveloped him, he realized dimly. That emptiness, that void that had been there for so long, was full. The pain was... unspeakable. But there was a strange clarity there, too.

#Don't... screw it up,# he sent to Manuel, and then closed his eyes again and thought about Moira and the room at the inn, Moira standing between him and Askani, Moira pulling him back from the edge over and over. Pure light, pulling him back out of all of his shadows, all of the joy and the strain and the whole intoxicating, messy tangle that was their life together, all encapsulated in one incandescent thread--

And the soap bubbles popped, all at once, with a sound like thunder.

Manuel reeled from the breakage of the barrier, then literally cried in relief and exhilaration as the door swung open, leading out into a briefly-glimpsed emotional landscape. #I ... I do not know what to say!# he thought, before rushing over to Nathan and kissing him on both cheeks in sheer joy.

#...don't,# Nathan sent back weakly. #Just go...# He lost his connection to Manuel's mind then, toppling over onto the floor of the sunroom, his inner balance utterly gone. The void was back, howling emptiness in his mind, and he coughed, tasting blood at the back of his throat. Concentrate, he told himself, and felt Charles reach in and do something, something that eased the pain just a little.

As Nathan slipped out of his mind, Manuel opened his eyes and stood up, stetching his frame out. Looking over at Nathan's body on the floor, he didn't hesitate for a second. He pulled out his phone, and called Medlab. "It's Nathan. Sunroom. Hurry." he said into the phone before flipping it back closed.

Nathan could feel Moira shouting at him on the link, Charles lingering in his mind as well, worried but quieter. Manuel, closer, radiating joyful thoughts that hurt... "Just promise me," he said in a bare whisper, squeezing his eyes shut to hold back the tears. Not crying in front of the boy. Just not. "Just promise..."

Manuel knelt down next to Nathan, taking one of the mercenary's hands in his own. "I won't." he said softly, for Nathan's ears alone. Then he let Nathan's hand drop gently and waited for the Medical Brigade to arrive.