xp_logs | Nathan and Jack Leary, Saturday morning

Despite having stayed up all night worrying about Domino, Nathan still attends his session with Jack Leary in the morning. They wind up talking about the Tuesday night incident, and Nathan lets slip another few interesting tidbits. Much less property damage this time, though. [OOC: Thanks to Rossi for socking Jack!)

There really wasn't much of a view from the window of Jack's office, Nathan thought a bit petulantly, peering down at the street. Nothing in the way of handy distractions, which was really unfortunate at times. Like now, when Jack was sitting there behind him making a rather amused mental bet with himself about how long it would take him to come away from the window and sit down.

And that wasn't looking terribly likely any time soon. Jack shrugged, mentally. No matter - Nathan could talk just as easily from his place at the window. "So," he said at last, leaning back a little in his chair. "Rough week." It was a statement, not a question, but tinged with enough concern to make it not as threatening as it sounded.

Nathan sighed, not turning away from the window. "Actually started out not bad at all," he said drearily. "Then I took the path less traveled and walked into a really fun conversation that ended with me turning some greenery into glass and whining at a fellow teacher." And here he thought he'd been bouncing back nicely from that, until arranging that long-distance rescue for Dom and consequently not sleeping all night had highlighted that he was still entirely too twitchy.

"The strange thing about conversations is that we don't have to have them if we really don't want to - all we have to do is walk away," Jack said to Nathan's back. "Except when it's your therapist, of course. You don't get to walk away then," he added wryly. "So, perhaps this conversation of yours with this fellow teacher... it was something you had to do? A way of airing certain things that you've been bottling up?"

"I have trouble walking away from fights," Nathan muttered, "and it... felt like one. I suppose she was trying to get me to air certain things, like you said. I'm just not sure I like what came out." He finally turned away from the window, meeting Jack's calm gaze. "It felt... childish," he said after a moment. "Like my inner child suddenly woke up and had a temper tantrum."

"You've been focusing a lot on your past this past week or so, yes? Going over your history for your friend to work on?" When Nate nodded, Jack went on: "That's bound to be stirring a lot of stuff, Nathan. Things that were buried, either deliberately by yourself so they couldn't do you harm any more, or were masked by the breakdown of your conditioning and the years subsequent. Things you've never had the opportunity to deal with before." Jack gave him a penetrating look. "You were fourteen when you were taken into the program?"

Nathan nodded a little uneasily. "Is this where you tell me there's part of me still stuck at that age?" he asked, striving vainly for a wry tone. "I think I figured that out on Tuesday night. I..." His voice wavered, but he swallowed and went on, an edge of frustration entering the words. "She told me I needed to trust them to help me. With Mistra. I shouted at her..." He trailed off again, struggling with a surprisingly powerful reluctance not to give voice to that particular sentiment again. "I told her I couldn't, because no one ever had."

"Well, at least I don't have to point out the obvious to you," Jack said, managing the wry grin Nathan couldn't, before sobering. "Trust is a tricky thing, Nathan, particularly when you have had little reason to trust anyone before. It doesn't happen just because someone tells you to trust them." This time Jack's grin was humorless. "Quite the opposite happens, generally, if there's shouting involved."

"But I--" Nathan bit off the next words, his expression twisting. "So maybe I do have a closet fourteen year-old," he muttered. "You'd think a fourteen year-old would be old enough not to blame people who didn't even know he existed back then for not helping him."

"You'd be surprised - fourteen year old boys are notoriously thick-headed," Jack told him. "And some betrayals are too big to just bounce back from - the government was supposed to be looking after your welfare, not training you to be a killer."

"Haven't had much luck in my life with people who've been 'supposed' to look after my welfare," Nathan said, leaning back against the windowsill. "The government, my p-parents." His jaw clenched and he shook his head a little, angry at the way his voice had broken. "I'm thirty-eight years old, Jack. Holding childhood grudges after this long is really sad."

"When have you had the chance to sit down and work through them, 'though? Not with Mistra, certainly not in your freelancing years... This is the first time you've really allowed yourself to stop and catch your metaphorical breath, you're dredging through all these memories... is it any wonder you're finding echoes of that abandoned child? Growing up, _true_ growing up only happens when we work through the issues."

Shaking his head again, Nathan turned back to the window. "I hate this," he said, the words coming out even more strained, edgy. He gripped the edge of the windowsill, his knuckles going white. "The dramatics. I keep doing this. At some point they're going to decide I'm a liability--" He stopped sharply, swallowing past a lump in his throat, shame mixing with shock at himself for saying that.

"And make you leave?" Jack said quietly, meeting Nathan's eyes. "That's what you're afraid of, isn't it? That you can't live up to what you see as the expectations held for you at the school, and you'll lose your place there?"

His jaw was beginning to hurt, it was clenched so tight. "I wouldn't blame them," he said hoarsely. "I'm not a good influence. If I can't keep it together, I can't do anything to help the kids, not really."

"Bullshit, Nathan." The words were blunt. "You do this every time - you prefer to think of yourself as some kind of failure rather than entertain the possibility that you might be actually a worthwhile human being. Look at things realistically for a change, will you? You do help these kids - take this empathic boy you've been tutoring. Moira tells me he's made more progress since working with you than he has in months. Both with his powers and academically."

"Oh, right, Manuel." Nathan laughed a bit wildly. "You know, he came to his lesson on Friday and told me he'd made a bet with himself that I would be dead by Wednesday morning?" He pressed his lips together tightly, fighting for control. "He still scares me. He scares the hell out of me. There are times I can pretend he doesn't, and times I go back to my suite after our lessons and throw up."

"But you keep going back, even 'though he does terrify you. Hardly the act of a coward. Or a failure. And you make progress regardless - macarbe bets notwithstanding." Perhaps not the best example, Jack realised, but he had a point to make, and he was going to make it, dammit. "And there are the other students."

"He tried to help me yesterday," Nathan muttered, remembering. "Saw I was upset, tried to help... I should be proud of him." He sighed heavily, rubbing his eyes. "I just... I try. I think I... maybe do some good. Sometimes. But I screw things up just as often, and I imagine they're getting pretty sick of not knowing what strange crisis I'm going to have next."

"Considering where they live, I doubt they'll get sick of the crises. Worried and concerned, yes, but not sick of you. You're too hard on yourself, Nathan. Give yourself a break, and maybe the crises wouldn't happen - you struggle along trying to show you're dealing with everything until it gets too much for you and everything goes boom. A bit of prevention goes a long way," pointed out Jack.

His hands were starting to tremble again. Nathan stuck them in his pockets, quite deliberately. "I know we've talked about this before," he said unsteadily. "It's a little funny. All comes back around to trust, doesn't it? I don't... really trust people not to take advantage if they see me being weak." He took as deep a breath as he could manage. Didn't really help calm him down. "How do I stop expecting that? Waiting to be p-punished..."

"As hackneyed as it sounds, it takes time. Time for you to realise that you can stumble and not be punished for it." Jack spread his hands. "Small steps. Those you do trust - let them take some of the weight sometimes. Don't push them away when things are getting out of hand."

"I'm not pushing them away," Nathan said, more testily than he'd intended. "And they take so much of the weight already. Moira, especially. I keep telling her she's got the patience of a saint to put up with me, but I know damned well it's not infinite."

"Isn't that up to her to decide?" retorted Jack. "She loves you, she believes in you. By doubting that, you're not just doing yourself a disservice, your're insulting her."

Nathan flushed, unsettled enough and stung enough by Jack's words than an answer spilled out before he could really think it through. "She doesn't know," he said almost wildly. "I keep telling her, but she won't listen! It's not just the two of us, it's the two of us and them, and they know that, too..." He thought of the picture of Aliya and Tyler, addressed to her, a warning to both of them, and his control splintered a little farther. "I have nightmares about them using her to get to me, I know they'll try if I give them a chance... it's what they do, and I'm not even sure they wouldn't just kill her to give me one less reason to want to be in the outside world!" Pain lashed through him at the thought and he felt his control slip entirely. Just for a moment, but long enough for a whip of telekinesis to slam into Jack's desk, a strip of wood shifting to glass and then breaking.

Jack looked from the broken desk, to Nate and back again. "All right, I probably asked for that," he said, calmly enough.

"Oh, shit," Nathan said miserably, covering his face with his hands. "Fuck... what the hell is wrong with me? Jack, I'm so sorry..."

"Nathan, stop it. You think this isn't the first time someone's lost control in a session and done some damage?" Jack got up from behind the remains of the desk and crossed the room to the window where Nathan stood. "Besides, I hated the damn thing. I was going to replace it eventually, you've just given me a reason to."

Nothing he was sensing from Jack suggested that the reassurance wasn't sincere, and Nathan took a deep, shaky breath. "I hate this," he said bitterly, his voice wavering again. "I think sometimes if I got started really breaking things, I'd never stop..."

"It seems to me you need an outlet, something you can break. Take out all your frustrations on. And all this waiting for Mistra to strike... it's driving you crazy, Nathan. Unfortunately I don't have an answer to that part, beyond what you and your friend are doing." Jack shrugged, a little helplessly. "I'd say you need closure, but I'm not about to suggest you walk into the lion's den to get it."

"I was telling Manuel yesterday that closure might as well be the Holy Grail sometimes," Nathan said tiredly, the frustration and anger draining away, leaving dull weariness behind. "I just... want so badly to let go of it, sometimes."

"That's what you're here for. Working on letting it go. Time, Nathan. You can't expect to undo to damage of the last thirty-odd years in a couple of months." Jack eyed him critically. "You look like shit. How about we finish up for the day, and you take Moira out somewhere for the rest of the day, just the two of you?"

There was the flash of worry at the thought, of course. What if they were followed, what if Mistra was watching, what if, what if... but then, that was always there, wasn't it? Nathan nodded. "Probably not a bad idea," he said, mustering a weak smile and taking another deep breath, squaring his shoulders. "Thanks, Jack. And, um, I will endeavor not to turn any more of your furniture into glass. Trying to cut down."

"Or if you do, let me point out the stuff I don't like?" suggested Jack. "My wife is a wonderful woman, but interior decorating? Not her forte. And she insists on surprising me with the latest treasure found God-knows-where." He laughed. "But you never heard me say that."