xp_logs | Amanda, Nathan - Sunday morning

Following these adventures in dreamsharing, Nathan comes across Amanda in the pool, and they talk. The topic of Illyana comes up and Amanda has a wiggins, but manages to be mature enough to deal with the idea of sharing 'her' Nate. Set before this email, otherwise there would have been more arse-kicking and less cute.

The swimming thing was getting easier - she'd never be an expert, but she was at least managing to keep herself afloat and not swallow too much water in the process. Managing to make it to the shallow end of the pool with a rather clumsy freestyle (she tended to hold her head out of the water too much), she paused, gasping for breath and thinking perhaps she ought to cut back on the cigarettes.

Having woken up in a shit of a mood, Nathan had decided that his morning swim was most definitely in order, even if it was looking a little gray out there. His mood didn't approve on the way down to the pool; he'd gotten completely changed before leaving his and Moira's suite, but judging by the stray thoughts he caught from a few of the students he passed in the halls, he had no business walking around without a shirt on to hide his scars. One or two even thought darkly about how he was 'showing them off', and by the time Nathan reached the pool he was absolutely seething.

Amanda was floating on her back as Nathan reached the pool, giving herself a break and trying to sort out some of the extreme weirdness that had been her - or Nathan's, or both - dreams last night. The almost-angry slap of footsteps on tile startled her, and she lost her concentration, ducking under the water for a moment. As she surfaced, spluttering and wiping water out of her eyes, she hoped whoever it was wasn't one of the starers - there was a reason why she came down early in the mornings or late in the afternoons to use the pool. The swimsuit was modestly cut, but it was a swimsuit - the scars on her legs were entirely exposed, as was most of her back.

Nathan swore under his breath and reached out with his telekinesis, steadying Amanda in the water. "I'm sorry," he sighed, standing at the edge of the pool and staring down at her as she blinked up at him. "Didn't mean to startle you like that." Not enough that he hijacked her into his dreams, he had to try and drown her, too?

"Nah, 's all right, just wasn't expectin' company." There was a surge of real relief when she realised it was Nate. And not just because he wouldn't look all horrified at the damage Rack had inflicted. "I'd ask if you slept all right, but we know the answer t' that one already," she said wryly, dog paddling towards the steps and preparing to climb out.

"Don't get out, I'll come in," Nathan offered, tossing his towel at a lounge chair and then slipping over the side. "Up to my neck, so I don't offend anyone else," he muttered, the cool of the water hitting him like a pleasant shock. "Apparently showing off my battle scars is a way of bragging about my disgusting career as a mercenary, did you know that?"

Turning back around, Amanda perched herself on the steps, the water up to her waist. "Tossers," she said, but with a flicker of unease. If they thought that about Nathan's scars, what were they thinking about hers, and her recent sort-of-decision to stop hiding them? She was gad she wasn't a telepath - knowing would probably be harder to deal with than not. "Ain't like you went about gettin' 'em on purpose."

"I put myself in the way of getting them," Nathan muttered, swimming to the middle of the pool and then pausing, treading water as he stared up at her. "Slight difference there," he said more gently, sure she'd catch his meaning. "And the tossers are in the minority, anyway." He sighed, still treading water. "Are you all right?" he asked awkwardly. "After last night?"

"Mostly," she replied, honestly, giving him a brief smile to let him know she'd gotten the hint. "I feel a bit like a peepin' Tom, seein' all that stuff without you wantin' me to. An' that... Cable thing was a bit unsettlin'." She sighed and gave him an apologetic look. "'M sorry 'bout that whole connection thing. With healin' spells. I didn't know, but I should've. After that brainsharin' thing I did with Manny that time, I should've realised then."

"I don't know that the connection was the culprit," Nathan said with a sigh. "Probably didn't help. But it's happened with other people too, Amanda - Moira, Betsy, Angelo. I think it's me... wandering at night, like Askani said." He tried to smile. "Just... not quite sure what to do about it. As for Cable..." He sighed again, more heavily. "Now you know what I was like. Before, I mean."

She nodded, accepting his explanation, but still feeling vaguely responsible. Moira was linked to him, Betsy was a telepath... why Angelo, though? With a mental shrug, she stopped evading the scary stuff. "Yeah, I do. Not exactly Mr Sunshine, but I s'pose it's t' be expected when yer a trained killer type."

"It--the conditioning never really made it that much easier to compartmentalize," Nathan said after a moment. "Just helped you to pretend you didn't feel any of it." He swam slowly over to the other side of the pool, holding onto the edge. "Like this... cold layer you could never break through. Hell, I didn't want to, most of the time."

She nodded. "An' why would you? You let yerself feel all that, what they made you do, yer'd've gone stark starin' bonkers in no time at all." Without noticing, she had started chewing on her much-abused thumbnail again. "Sometimes, with Rack, I had t' do stuff, stuff you shouldn't make a kid do, ever. But I didn't get a choice 'bout it. An' that's the only thing that stopped me from goin' crazy, rememberin' it was somethin' I was made t' do."

Nathan was silent for a moment, staring up at her. "Your eyes look too old when you talk about him, you know," he said with a faint, sad smile. "I wish... well, I wish a lot of things, trouble."

"An' if wishes were horses..." Amanda replied, with a flash of her old, self-mocking attitude. "Wishin' don't change anythin', Nate. 'Course, if it did, both of us wouldn't be sittin' here, chattin'. Might not even get on - I could be a complete airhead an' you could be a stuck-up prat of a teacher who wears socks under his sandals," she added, grinning. "So, if all that shite means that I'm here now, in this place, with the people I have around me, well, maybe it's not all a bad thing."

"Socks under sandals," Nathan said, bemused, sure there was a reference there he was missing. He managed a slightly more natural smile. "And hey, by some accounts I am a stuck-up prat of a teacher. Perspective is everything, you know."

"That it is," she agreed, snickering at his confusion. "But I wouldn't say you were ever stuck-up. Least, not with me. An' the socks thing is a joke from me school days - the biggest Neville of a teacher I had at one place was a Geography teacher who used t' come t' school in summer in shorts an' with these knee-high socks under his sandals. 'S very uncool," she explained. "Like tuckin' yer t-shirt into yer shorts."

"Ahh," Nathan said wisely. "T-shirt hanging out. Check." The sun broke through the clouds suddenly, and Nathan looked upwards, smiling again. "Not so gray after all," he said and then snorted, looking back at Amanda. "Did you get back to sleep last night?"

"Not really. Weren't worth it, with the sun just startin' t' come up, an' there was too much t' think about. An' I've been wakin' up 'bout that time anyway, t' work at Stonewall." The sun was getting too warm on her back, and she slipped back into the water, carefully holding onto the side since her treading water was pretty substandard yet. "Went for a ride in the end - I was buggin' Manny with the link. How 'bout you? No more dreams?"

"I don't remember," Nathan muttered, and noticed how she was holding onto the side. "Let go," he suggested, swimming back out to the center of the pool. "Practice your treading - I won't let you go under."

She raised her eyebrow at the diversion, but let it go. Since the incident with the other teacher who she was pretty sure had been Betsy, she was being more cautious about pushing him - and really, what right did she have to pester him if he didn't want to talk about it? That was what he had Jack for. "Slavedriver," she muttered, but let go, pushing herself away from the wall and trying hard to keep herself afloat. Not easy when she had no natural buoyancy to speak of - she was all bone and wiry muscle, not a lot of fat to aid with the floating thing. "An' good way... t' stop me... askin' questions," she gasped - it was difficult to tread and talk without breathing in water. "Askani have any... more ideas... 'bout how t' stop... this?"

"Keeps telling me to stop addressing the symptoms," Nathan said, supporting her just enough with his telekinesis to keep her a little higher in the water. "And to meditate." His mouth twisted a little. "She's back to treating me like glass again." As if she thought he'd break if she spoke too loudly to him. Not that he was entirely sure he wouldn't - he definitely didn't have the energy to weather an argument with her this week.

"She's one for extremes, ain't she? Nearly killin' you a couple of months ago, now she's treatin' you with kid gloves. Still, I know which I'd rather." Amanda eased up on her efforts as she felt Nathan's telekinesis holding her up, but he gave her a Look and eased off a fraction so she had to keep treading water herself. "But this Mistra stuff, it ain't like you can do much 'bout them, is it? If yer'd been able t' hunt 'em down or sic the old bill onto 'em or somethin', you would have, right?"

"That's not quite what she means," Nathan said, although he had to admit that Askani was rather pleased he was working with Pete on the matter. 'Standing to battle', she had called it. "And I'm not crazy about meditating any more than I already am. Seems like an awful lot of time for something that really hasn't had all that profound an effect. Besides," he said with a tight smile, "I've got to stop hiding myself away in my suite. Apparently, sequestering one's self is contagious. I notice Illyana's done it too..."

"Yeah, I saw." Amanda said shortly. Any mention of Illyana tended to not sit well with her - she always felt a stab of deep-seated fear whenever they came into contact, and she was sure Illyana knew that. "Seems like people have finally decided t' not take her bullshit story at face value an' actually start askin' just what it was she got up to in that demon dimension for eight years."

Nathan frowned. "She was so young when she was taken," he said, remembering the conversation he'd had with the girl. "All of her most formative years, spent in what sounds to me like a literal hell..."

"Oh, she's gotten t' you with that whole 'poor little innocent girl' thing?" Amanda looked irritated, and started paddling back over to the side of the pool. "Be careful of her, Nate, really. Yeah, she was just a kid when she got taken, but so was I. Rack taught me all sorts of nasty magic, an' he weren't even a demon. She's not as innocent as she comes across - somethin' 'bout her just..." She shuddered a little, holding onto the side again. "Somethin' ain't right, is all I can say. I can't say what - I can't even look at her aura proper - but there's somethin' there. I told Strange 'bout the whole story after the Skippy thing, an' he's lookin' into it."

"I don't have a doubt in my mind that there's something there," Nathan said, not quite releasing Amanda until she had a firm hold on the side of the pool. "I don't know anything beyond what I've learned from you about magic, Amanda, so I'm not going to discount your instincts. If there is something magical and dangerous going on with her, more power to you for getting Strange to look into it." He was silent for a moment, trying to put the right words together. "But whatever she learned, where she was, she was still a child with no one to help her. And she's not going to accept help from anyone now if we treat her like a pariah."

Amanda looked shamefaced at that, knowing full well she was being a hypocrite. "I know - fuck, no-one knows that more 'n me. She... she scares me, Nate. 'S like lookin' into some fucked up funhouse mirror an' seein' what might've been, yknow? An' she hates me, I know she does." Again the shudder. "'S good she's gettin' help, but there's no way in hell I'm gettin' any closer to her - I've seen demons before, an' they ain't t' be trusted. An' there's no tellin' what's inside her."

Nathan tread water in silence for a moment, half a dozen different possible responses to that bouncing around his head. But his mind kept coming back to the smile that Illyana had let slip out when they'd been talking about rock climbing, that brief spark of interest in her eyes. "There's no telling what's inside any of us," he said finally. "Maybe there's darkness in there, but I'm sure not about to write her off, Amanda. If there's a risk, being around her, there's a risk." He smiled a bit tightly. "Where would I be if no one wanted to help me because I might snap and turn them into a glass lawn ornament?"

"I never said you should, an' fuck, I know I'm bein' a hypocrite. Just be careful. Don't let that whole innocent thing fool you. She's clever, an' she's hidin' somethin'." Amanda began making her way back to the ladder, and climbed out of the pool. When she turned around, the claw-like scars on her legs were painfully obvious. "I nearly burned meself out tryin' t' save her from that place when she was taken," she told Nate, looking down at him with no small amount of sadness in her eyes. "I wanted t' stop the same thing happenin' t' her as happened t' me - or worse. An' I couldn't, an' there's none more 'n me that knows what might have happened there. But demons... they aren't t' be fucked with lightly, an' I won't have her hurtin' anyone I care about. Strange is on the case, an' if he finds anythin', he'll go t' the X geezer. I'm sittin' this one out."

"I didn't suggest that you shouldn't," Nathan said soothingly, making his way over to the ladder as well and following her out. His shoulder twinged as he hauled himself upwards, and he grimaced a little, rubbing at the still-fresh bullet scar. Amanda gazed up at him, still looking troubled, and he couldn't help himself - he reached out, touching the side of her face gently, just for a moment. It struck him, suddenly, why Illyana might hate Amanda. In the light of his confrontation with Betsy, it really should have come to him sooner. "And I know you tried to help her," he said softly, levitating her towel over and draping it over her shoulders. "And I'll be careful. I promise."

"I did. I really did. Only it was too much, an' I was already fucked in the head with Marko's stuff..." Sudden tears pricked her eyes, and she blinked them away angrily. She didn't want to cry over this. "An' 'm glad yer listenin' t' me, not thinkin' it's all in me head. Most people won't hear me say anythin' bad 'bout their precious little Snowflake, but they don't know what I know. It'd kill me, if you or one of the others got mixed up in all that shite - 's why I went t' Rack rather 'n called the leather suits in. They would've gotten killed or worse. An' don't tell me they could've handled it, they couldn't. Not against magic."

Nathan tilted his head, then tentatively projected a series of what he hoped were comforting images - horses running across a field, Romany smiling, a few other flashes of things he thought might help.

Amanda smiled as the images touched her mind. "'M all right. Just scared. Talkin' 'bout the Ice Princess does that to me." She pulled the towel closer around her, and looked up at Nate. "Do me a favour? Talk t' Strange 'bout this? If yer wantin' t' help her, seems t' me he'd have the best idea how."

"I'll think about it," Nathan said honestly, not wanting to give her a promise he couldn't keep. The
idea of going to Strange and asking for advice when the man was already half-convinced he was a menace to teenaged girls and their welfare was not particularly appealing. "But I'd rather let him worry about magical problems, if there are any. I don't want to 'fix' Illyana, Amanda. I just want to give her someone she can talk to, if she wants." He hesitated for a moment, then shrugged. "I will talk to Charles about it, once he's talked to Strange. How's that?"

Amanda gave him a puzzled look - Strange wasn't that scary, and she couldn't see why Nate wouldn't want to talk to him. But it didn't matter, not really. "Yeah, that works. As long as you know what yer dealin' with, is all. Makin' sure you got all the facts before you go in an' be all supportive bloke at her." The sun slipped behind the clouds again, and she shivered. "I should get in - 'sides, people'll be up an' about soon, an' I ain't made that much progress that I want t' go paradin' through the kitchen like this. I'll put someone off their Wheeties."

Nathan adjusted the towel around her shoulders. "Yeah, and I ought to do some serious laps here," he said lightly. "I missed a couple of days this week, after all." He smiled whimsically. "You wouldn't want to bring me down a shirt after you're safely clothed, would you? I don't feel like dealing with any more snide thoughts about my own exhibitionism either."

She giggled and nodded. "Think I can manage that," she said. "Just give Moira a ping an' let her know what I'm doin'? Wouldn't want her findin' me goin' through yer drawers an' thinkin' I'm some scary stalker type."