Angelo and Nathan

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Immediately after getting home, Angelo goes to find Nathan to make sure he's okay, and they have a long conversation about Manuel and about Angelo's Askani dream.



As soon as the group from the Boston trip arrived back at the mansion, Angelo made a quick detour to his room to dump his bag, then went in search of Nathan, wanting to see for himself that he was okay. He found him out on the back porch, sitting quietly in one of the deck chairs.

Nathan looked up at Angelo, smiling. "Hey," he said, honestly glad to see the young man. "Good trip?" he asked, then gave him a slightly sheepish smile. "Bear--with me. English trouble, still."

Angelo nodded, sitting down. "Yeah, you said in your post. Take your time gettin' it." He paused, before adding with a slight smile, "An' yeah, it was. The actual gettin' there an' back aside - I don't much like small spaces at the best of times - it was good seein' Sarah an' Shinobi again."

"They're--well?" Nathan said, more to encourage Angelo to carry the conversation rather than anything else. "Happy?"

Angelo smiled. "Yeah, they really are, I think. Got in a good spar with Sarah while we were there. She liked her time in the tunnels, I think - says it let her feel like a Morlock again."

Nathan made a thoughtful noise, but left the subject alone. Even now, he was a little disgusted with Sarah and Shinobi both, and even if he had been inclined to discuss that with Angelo, he didn't have the vocabulary or the patience at the moment. "No problems?" he asked, giving Angelo a thoughtful look. "With Manuel?"

Angelo's smile didn't fade so much as become a little strained. "Not as such. We took the van, so it wasn't as bad as it could've been. An' then he was off deliverin' those papers for Ms. Frost most of the time we were there. An' Amanda helped..."

Nathan nodded slowly. "Talked to him," he said. "Last week. Before... the trip." He grimaced slightly at Angelo. "Revenge, somehow," he warned. "Very determined."

Angelo stiffened slightly, but it was no more than he'd expected, really. "Yeah", he answered with resignation. "I figured."

"Be careful," Nathan said seriously, but then frowned again at Angelo. "Never... told me why. Why threaten him?" He had meant to follow up on that email but well, his own problems had gotten in the way. Again.

Angelo sighed. "There was... an issue with Bobby. Somethin' happened between them, that I know now was an accident, but it fucked Bobby up but good. Or made things worse that were already bad, I s'pose. So I went to talk to Manuel, just wanted to find out his side of what happened, an' he wouldn't stop insultin' Bobby or tell me anythin' about it. I didn't know what happened to him before he came here, an' there was an issue with Lorna too, don't really know what happened there, an' I just lost it. But I didn't threaten his life, not really, not then. Anythin' I said was much less definite than that, an' the one time that I said anythin' more than that, I took down off the journal not ten minutes later."

Nathan realized that he was never going to get the sort of detailed, objective recounting of precisely what had happened, not from either of them. Which was about what he had expected, but still... it would have made things much easier. "In the past," he finally said, with a sigh. "Not... redeemable. Whatever it was." He shook his head. "You and I," he said warningly. "Tactics. Strategy. Individual tutoring."

Angelo nodded. "Whenever you want." He sighed again, before continuing. "The thing with Bobby... it all ties in with stuff that's happened to me, an' stuff that's happened to Manuel. From what I've been told since, he... reacted badly to a feelin' he was gettin' from Bobby, that brought up bad memories. An' I swear, I did not know he had any trauma like that, or I might've understood a bit better. An' I did not gloat about what he was goin' through, once I did understand. It got to me as bad as it did 'cause I could easily've been in Bobby's place."

It just kept getting more and more complicated, Nathan reflected. But it was also sounding more and more like a misunderstanding, if a serious one, which made Manuel's craving for revenge all the more unfortunate. "It'll be all right," he said carefully. "But even... misunderstandings have eh'alarha... consequences." He managed what he hoped was an encouraging smile. "I'll help," he promised. "Whatever happens."

Angelo nodded, still looking more than a little unhappy. "Thanks. 'preciate it."

Nathan leaned forward, swatting the kid lightly on the arm. "Not... the end of the world," he said firmly. "Survive and learn. Haven't--given up on ei'gahai moenai... getting him to drop it."

Angelo glanced up, managing some kind of smile. "Well, I've survived before. Long as he doesn't want me dead, there's not much he can do that others haven't done before him."

"Fe'haela flonq," Nathan grumbled, wishing that he could at least get Manuel and Angelo to talk to each other with any reasonable hope of resolution or a lack of coming to blows. "Don't have to...take it, you know."

Angelo blinked. "What else can I do? I've apologised to him, he didn't answer so I have no idea if he even began to accept it, an' the only times I've talked to him, it's gone badly."

"What he does, I mean," Nathan said, cursing inwardly for his lack of ability to get the idea across. But the more frustrated he got, the more difficult it was. "It might... happen, but you don't have to take it. To feel it."

Angelo frowned, still not understanding. "I... know you're havin' trouble with English, but... I'm not gettin' you."

Nathan sighed, giving up. "Be all right," he said reassuringly.

Angelo tried to smile again, going over Nathan's words in his mind and suddenly finding the pieces falling into place. "You meant... I don't have to let it get to me? Well, that depends what it is, but he doesn't know much he could use... You could be right."

Nathan nodded. "Make me right," he said firmly, meeting Angelo's eyes levelly.

"If I can, I will", Angelo answered seriously, not turning away.

"Good." Nathan eyed him thoughtfully. "Did you dream? That night, I mean."

Angelo blinked at the sudden change of subject, then nodded. "Yeah, I did. Dead Askani soldiers, an' one survivor."

So the dreams hadn't all been just 'interesting' or 'weird'. "All right with it?" Nathan asked seriously.

Angelo considered, half-shrugging. "Yeah, I think so. Most of it was just him givin' them the best funeral he could, then leavin'."

"To go where?"

Angelo frowned a little in concentration, thinking back. "To find another camp, I think. Join up with another unit an' tell them what happened."

He seemed fairly calm about it, Nathan thought, even if it did sound a little worse than the others he had heard about so far. "Give you... anything to think about?" he asked seriously, the same question he'd asked Doug.

Angelo nodded seriously. "It kinda did, yeah. That's... not what I would've done in his place."

Nathan tilted his head, giving Angelo a look that invited him to explain further.

Angelo managed a wry half-grin. "It was me, I'd've gone after them. The... Canaanites? The ones that did it, anyway."

"But you--he didn't."

"No, he didn't. Would only've got him killed, without much of a... reason..." He trailed off, apparently realizing what he was saying.

Nathan grinned suddenly. "Imagine that," he said.

Angelo nodded, trying to think it out. "See... it wouldn't've been quite the same. If I'd been in his place, back in LA... there would've been no other unit to find. So it would've been either a suicide mission like that, or live without them, an' try an' rebuild things. An' I honestly don't know which would've been better - easier, now that I do know. But not better, not the way things were. 's different now."

"Live and learn," Nathan suggested.

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, 's what I'm tryin' to do." He glanced at his watch. "Well, 's gettin' kinda late. Probably should go back inside..."

Nathan smiled. "Unwind from the trip," he suggested.

Angelo smiled back. "Think I will, at that. Go see if anyone wants to play X-box with me." He stood up, stretching. "You gonna stay out here?"

Nathan pondered for a moment, then nodded. "For a while," he said, then shrugged cheerfully. "Some unwinding to do, too."

Angelo nodded. "Guess I'll see you later, then." He moved towards the door.

Nathan, once Angelo was gone, turned his attention back to the sky and the last fading color of the sunset, and inwards as well, to that starry sky full of memories.