xp_logs | Nathan, Domino, Moira (and Bella), Saturday, early afternoon

Nathan is having a moderately crappy day when Domino arrives unexpectedly early and brings a feathered surprise with her.

Why was it that I got up this morning? Nathan thought grumpily, settling down into a cross-legged position on the floor of the bedroom and trying to compose his mind so that he could try one of the new meditative exercises Askani had been trying to teach him. His visualization just wasn't there, though, and his mind kept racing around in circles, unwilling or unable to take a moment's breather.

He was trying not to perceive this week as having gone steadily downhill, but it was hard. Starting that summary for Pete had been harder than he had expected, and it hadn't gotten any easier yet. The nightmares had come back, and he'd been forced to resort to the sleeping pills again. More drugs, oh, yay... Then, he'd been stupid and had mentioned the dreams in his session with Jack this morning, which had led to a lengthy, probing discussion and a rather humiliating near-breakdown on his part. Big tough mercenary, crying in his shrink's office... And on top of that, he was beginning to think that Moira was avoiding him. Sure, she was excessively busy in the lab, and she'd had that meeting with Strange, but for the last couple of nights she had been coming to bed after he was asleep and getting up and going before he so much as opened his eyes in the morning.

He was probably imagining things. She was hardly blocking the link or anything, she was just a little... distant. Busy, he told himself again. That was all. Closing his eyes, he tried again to visualize the complicated structure of psionic energy Askani had tried so hard to explain to him. Astonishingly, it actually came to mind, and he started to lose himself in the curves and twists of it, hearing his heartrate start to slow as his thoughts followed suit.

Outside in the hall, Domino opened the door, peeking in and smiling with delight as she saw that Nathan wasn't in the living room of the suite. The bedroom, then. Which was perfect. Turning away, she lifted the crate, murmuring something reassuring as she heard a flutter of wings from inside, and carried it in, setting it on the center of the floor and letting the door close behind her.

Straightening, she cast an amused look at the bedroom door. Moira had checked on the link and said he seemed to be meditating, but she was still rather surprised that he hadn't 'heard' her and come out already. Ah, well, that's easily enough fixed. She grinned. "NATHAN!" she said with a good approximation of what she liked to call his battlefield-bellow. "Get your ass out here, old man!"

Nathan's eyes flew open and he cursed as the psi-structure fell to pieces in his mind. "Fuck," he muttered, getting up. "Dom?" he went, heading to the bedroom door and opening it. "I thought I was picking you up at the airport at four..." He stopped, his eyes falling on the crate. "What the hell?" he asked, giving her a quizzical look.

There was a distinctly avian shriek from inside the crate. "NATE! NATE!"

Domino laughed aloud at the floored look on Nathan's face, clapping her hands in delight. "From Rome with love," she said, grinning, and wandered over to give him a quick hug. "Want me to help you open it?"

He was still a little too stunned to think straight. "Bella?" he asked, giving Domino a disbelieving look. She nodded, still grinning, and he shook his head, trying to make sense of this. There was a box with a bird in it on his floor. A particular bird. A bird he had actually missed quite a bit, but still... "What happened... why..."

"Maria and Silvio moved into a retirement community," she explained as they crouched down beside the crate. "They couldn't take Bella, so when Maria found out you were more or less settled here she suggested this. The two of you being so fond of each other and all."

Nathan, still shaking his head, reaching out and started to open the crate, a rather foolish grin spreading slowly across his face. "And you figured you'd surprise me. Very devious," he said, opening the fastenings on the side. "Poor Bella," he said softly, and a cooing noise started to emanate from inside the crate. "All that time on a nasty airplane... my poor girl."

He got the side open, and immediately, out crawled an enormous hyacinth macaw, ruffling her feathers in obvious agitation but still making that cooing noise. Bella looked up at him with that uncanny, piercing gaze. "Nate!" the bird proclaimed again, and then let fly with a string of Italian profanities.

Nathan laughed gleefully and picked her up. "You didn't like the plane, did you? Of course you didn't." Bella stopped swearing and started squawking happily, resting her head against his shoulder, and Nathan looked back at Dom, struggling for words again. "I can't believe you did this," he said, grinning helplessly and inexplicably happier than he'd been in weeks.

"Oh, I wasn't the only one," Domino said wisely. "I had help."

Suddenly, the door to the room opened quickly and Moira stood grinning in the doorway. In her hands was Nathan's own digital camera and before he could react, she had raised it and quickly snapped off a picture of him and the cheerfully squealing bird. Lowering it, she couldn't help but laugh at the look on his face. "Looks like ye've been poleaxed, love," she remarked, leaning against the doorframe and shooting Dom a grin.

Nathan's jaw dropped a little as it dawned on him precisely why Moira had been so ostentatiously busy and preoccupied the last couple of days. He shook his head, feeling seriously sheepish as he thought back on how he'd been pouting about it. "And people say it's impossible to keep a secret from a telepath," he said, grinning at her.