xp_logs | Trojan Horse, part ten - Out of the Dark - (Nathan and Charles, Thursday night)

It's all over. But there's a door left to be opened.

They had taken it all away. All of it, in the end. Not just everything he loved, everything he'd had to live for, but now the whole world. In the shape of his fourteen year-old self, Nathan huddled in the corner of his cell, that first, tiny cell at Mistra, and watched the door fearfully. He had seen what was out there, seen his thoughts and memories splinter into innumerable pieces as a voice he knew sang words that had barely registered and made his mind explode.

But the cell was still here. Because it was always here. In the end, at the last, it always came back to this place. Not the commune, or the Alaskan woods, but here. And now he'd be here forever. Alone. Nathan laid his head on his knees and closed his eyes.

Charles made his way through Nathan's mindscape--settling already, after the first chaotic surge that followed the conditioning being destroyed, and the speed with which it was reorganizing itself gave him hope. But it was still empty, the pale shadow of a living, vital mind, and would be until Nathan's consciousness was restored--was welcomed back to its own house, as one of Charles' old teachers had once put it. All the activity was merely the processes of a brain beginning to heal itself, but the mind, the mind was...

An iron cell caught his astral eye; cold and isolated, it held itself apart from the rest of the mindscape, reverberating with fear and loss and pain. There. Nathan was there. Charles would have wept, if his current form allowed him to.

#Nathan,# he called, drifting closer. #It's Charles. Do you remember me? It's all over now, and I've come to bring you home.#

There was a voice calling to him, and Nathan raised his head, staring in fear at the door. "Go away," he whispered, huddling back against the wall, as if he could melt into the corner. If the door opened... they would be there with the gurney, ready to take him back to the conditioning room.

Or maybe it would open onto that hotel room, with Aliya and Tyler's bodies. And he would sit there, holding her, and this time he'd stay there and let them kill him. Like he should have. It was supposed to end there. The story wasn't supposed to go on for seven years and make him think that he could live, that he could be free...

"Go AWAY!" he shouted at the presence outside in his cracked adolescent voice, covering his ears and squeezing his eyes shut, ignoring the hot tears trickling down his face.

"I will, if you truly want me to, Nathan," Charles said quietly. The cell was cold enough to crack stone, forged out of Nathan's despair, and it hurt him to stay this close. He edged closer. "If all that you want is this cell, if that is your choice, then you can stay here." He smiled, and the mindscape brightened, just a little bit; drifted closer again, and it warmed, just slightly. "Or we can open this door together, and you can leave this place behind forever. There are people out here who love you, who would be glad to see you make that choice. But no one else can make it for you. Whether you know it or not, believe it or not, you _are_ free. No one holds you here but yourself."

Charles. He remembered the name to put to the voice, now. How could he have forgotten? All those afternoons in his office, that calm, reassuring voice echoing in his mind as he tried to overcome his fear and move beyond his own mental walls. Slowly, step by infinitely patient step, helping him believe that his telepathy didn't have to be feared or hated. That it could be a gift...

Tears continued to burn his eyes, savage despair twisting inside him. "I can't do this," he tried to shout, but it came out as a sob. "I can't do it again... I can't believe and then lose it all..." Pressing the heels of his hands to his forehead, he struggled for control, to master the sudden, desolate pain. "I don't remember who I am," he whispered in anguish. "They killed him. He died... I don't know who I am..."

"You don't need to know in order to be, Nathan. Knowing comes later." He glanced around at the mindscape, still settling. "And you may find that you have not lost as much as you think." Charles laid one hand on the cell door, gritting his teeth as frost etched his fingers. "But even if you have, you don't need to bear the pain alone." His voice roughened. "Those who love you will stand by you. I come in their name, and as one of them. Help me open the door, Nathan. Claim yourself again."

And there were images in his mind suddenly. Faces he knew, even in here. Flashes of memory, flickers of warmth in the cold.

Angelo giving him that lopsided grin... Manuel asking him if he thought he could ever be a good person... Angie and Doug, trying not to blush at each other... Jane literally dancing down the halls in joy at her friends being back... Rahne leaning against him in the hallway as he hugged her... Amanda in the boat, blonde hair and all, beaming....

Alison bouncing across the room and throwing her arms around him... Pete smirking sardonically at him from across the table at Harry's. Dom and GW, in a hundred different moments.

And Moira.

Nathan laid a hand on the door, not sure when he'd moved from the corner, or if he had. It was cold to the touch, like ice. "I don't know how," he said hoarsely, dimly registering that he was himself again, the age he should be. "I don't know if I'm strong enough..."

"You'll never know until you try." Charles smiled wryly. "And for all that you have been, in some ways, a uniquely frustrating student, I have never doubted your strength. You hold the door closed, Nathan. All you need do is want it to open."

Nathan pushed experimentally at the door. The pain and cold seared through him and he withdrew with a gasp. "Want it," he murmured unevenly, staring down at his blistered hands. "I never thought I was allowed to want anything but this. Look at what happened when I tried." Then and now. He swallowed. "What will they see, when they look at me? What will she see? Is there anything left... can I do anything but hurt them?" Hurt them, fail them, lose them...

"I can't speak for them," Charles said gently. "But I myself am far more concerned for your pain than my own. And I see a friend, and a student. I see the man who brings more joy to the face of one of my oldest friends than I have ever seen there. I see a teacher. I see a man with a soul so great that it called out across the centuries, who gave of himself to make a home for those who had none." He chuckled. "I see a man who is frantically scrambling to deny what he thinks is undeserved praise." And more seriously, he added, "And I see a man who is truly free, for perhaps the first time in his life, to choose his own dreams. Don't ask me whether or not you'll hurt them. We are both too old not to know the answer to that question. Ask yourself rather what joy you can bring them--and ask yourself what purpose but their pain, and yours, is served by the denial of that joy. We miss you, Nathan--and I think you miss us. Let that be enough, at least to start."

Nathan stared blankly at the door, the pain of his blistered hands nothing in comparison to the ache in his chest. Longing. Pure, "I'm so tired, Charles," he whispered, the admission slipping out, almost hanging there in the air. "So afraid..." As if it were the door, as if the words were what was blocking him from leaving this cell. Keeping him trapped here in the nightmare, in the dark...

And something twisted and snapped within him at the thought, some last vestige of that bleak, hopeless acceptance burning away in a flash. "No," he growled, his eyes stinging with tears again. "No... no more, no more of this..." It was enough. More than enough... too much, and it was done. Done. "Let me out!" he snarled, hammering at the door with his fists, ignoring the pain. "Let me OUT! I'm not staying here anymore... open, damn you, OPEN!"

He wanted out. He wanted out of the woods, out of the cell, out of the dark.

He wanted to go home. Images cascaded through his mind, faces, moments, this whole new life they'd tried to take from him. The shadows tried to reach up to claim him, tried to dim the colors, soften the voices to an unintelligible buzz. One last grasping attempt to drag him back down.

But he heard them still. He saw them.

And he wanted it all back. In that moment, he wanted it all back more than he'd ever wanted anything in the world

#LET ME GO!# he screamed at the shadows, at himself, and the cell shattered into pieces.

The blast rocked Charles back, echoing through the mindscape, infusing it with life and light and color. He recovered swiftly, oriented on Nathan as the other man stood triumphant on the fading, corroded remains of the cell, and let all the pride and happiness he felt suffuse his aspect.

"Welcome back, Nathan." He smiled, sheer joy and good humor. "I believe there are any number of people out there waiting for good news. Shall we give them some?"

For anyone interested...

Minstrel Boy - Thomas Moore (1779-1852)

The minstrel boy to the war is gone,
In the ranks of death you'll find him;
His father's sword he hath girded on,
And his wild harp slung behind him;
"Land of Song!" cried the warrior bard,
"Tho' all the world betrays thee,
One sword, at least, thy right shall guard,
One faithful harp shall praise thee!"

The Minstrel fell! But the foeman's steel
Could not bring that proud soul under;
The harp he lov'd ne'er spoke again,
For he tore its chords asunder;
And said "No chains shall sully thee,
Thou soul of love and brav'ry!
Thy songs were made for the pure and free
They shall never sound in slavery!

(US Civil War verse)

The minstrel boy will return, we pray,
When we hear the news we all will cheer it.
The minstrel boy will return one day,
Torn perhaps in body, not in spirit.
Then may he play on his harp in peace,
In a world such as Heaven has intended,
For all the bitterness of man must cease,
And every battle must be ended