xp_logs | Sarah and Nathan, Thursday afternoon

Nathan's having a slightly more civilized conversation with a punching bag when Sarah tracks him down to ask him some questions about what he thinks he can do to help Jono. Nathan is very forthright about answering. Marvel at the near-total lack of hostility! And there's no hitting! (Well, except the punching bag, but he deserved it.)

His focus was coming back, Nathan thought as he hammered away at the punching bag. Amazing what a couple of nights of real sleep could do. He was even managing to hold the bag telekinetically at the same time as he was hitting it, which was felt oddly like reading and walking at the same time. He took a step back and landed a solid kick, intrigued by the way he felt the impact.

"You know if you break that one, I'll be forced to start ambushing you in the hallways for fun, right?" Sarah walked in easily, arms crossed over her chest. Odd though, Sarah showing up in the gym not really dressed to work out, instead still wearing the jeans and tank-top she'd worn to classes that morning.

Nathan stopped, his eyes flickering to her. After a moment, he managed a wry smile. "Not to worry," he said, bracing the bag telekinetically as he went back to hammering away at it steadily. "One dead punching bag a week is my limit."

"Oh good. A dead punching bag is a terrible thing. Not to mention the chances of my taking my frustrations out on somebody that -does- fight back goes up some crazy amount when I don't have a punching bag to hurt. I'm sure Angelo would thank you for not giving him any more bruises from me than he already gets." She was quiet for a moment, leaning back against the wall behind her. "May I ask you something?"

"Sure," Nathan said, with one last good kick to the bag. "Been at it for long enough anyway, I think." He turned towards her, already pulling the tape off his hands, and gave her another brief smile. "What's up?"

"Jono." She said simply, fingers tapping idly at her pocket. There's the faint outline of a pack of cigarettes just below her fingers. "Are you really going to be able to help him?"

Nathan stopped, unwinding the tape without breaking eye contact with her. He probably should have expected the question, he told himself. "I think so," he said quietly. "I'm going to do my best, in any case. Has Angelo told you anything about how the Askani manifest?"

"Nah, I guess I never really cared enough to ask." And when the answer didn't come to her immediately, she added, "What do they have to do with Sparky?"

"Two things," Nathan said, getting the rest of the tape off. He went over and sat down on the bench beside the wall, leaving it to Sarah to decide whether or not she wanted to join him, or continue to stand there in the middle of the room. "Firstly, their leader, Askani - I know that's confusing, but they named themselves after her - was over a hundred years old and looked maybe twenty-five by the time she died. She was an extremely powerful psi, and she used her powers to restructure her body and keep herself young and healthy. Because they were fighting a war for survival, she couldn't afford to get old."

Sarah followed, but chose to stand by the bench instead. "So she's the one who knows what to do?"

"Partially," Nathan said levelly. He had been giving this a great deal of thought since getting Jono's letter, discussing it with Askani quite extensively. "The drawback with what she did is that she did have a fully functioning, intact body to work with. She made cellular-level alterations, repaired her DNA. Depending on what Jono's got left to work with, that might be enough." He sighed, his eyes flickering around the gym. "If it's not, that's where I come in. When the Askani manifest, they're solid - you could shake their hands, give them a hug, whatever." He gave a somewhat helpless wave. "They can only touch this world through me, using my powers. So I'm doing something, when they manifest, that winds up giving them a close approximation of a body, even if it's only temporary. If Askani's methods don't work, we might have to look into that, to see what the hell it is, first of all, and whether it can be made permanent."

"So we're not sure yet." It hurt to say the words. The closest thing she could get to consolation was that if he'd been down in the tunnels, he probably wouldn't have made it this far. "We keep our fingers crossed, and hope something works?"

"No," Nathan said quietly. "I'll do everything I can, Sarah, but I'm not going to insult you by trying to reassure you that it's all going to work out just fine."

She nodded, arms crossed back over her chest again. "That's what I needed to know. Didn't want to get my hopes all up and find out it's like Betsy all over again."

"It's a longshot," Nathan said bluntly. "I've been reading Jono's files, but I'm not an expert, even if I am a psi myself. Fuck, half the time I don't know how I do what I do." He offered her another wry smile. "Fortunately I have a lot of very smart dead people in my head."

"We've seen worse odds before." She sighed heavily, rocking slightly on her feet. "Hell, I was -dead- and came back. Who says he can't disintegrate and do the same thing?"

"Sounds to me like you've got some room in there for a little hope after all," Nathan said. "Which is good, because judging by that email I'm not sure he's got much for himself." He smiled grimly. "Which is not good, because there's a certain amount of truth to the idea that it's all in your mind, when you're psionic."

"Maybe not as much hope as determination, but it works." She looked squarely at Nathan as she talked. "If I have to pick him up and put him back together myself, I will."

"Determination's all well and good," Nathan said after a moment, a little more harshly. "Realism is also good." He tossed the tape in the direction of the garbage pail. "Tell me, are you and I going to have a problem if it turns out Askani and I can't help him? Just for the sake of getting everything out in the open here."

"If you can't do anything for him, then you can't do anything for him. It's not your fault." She didn't want to think about that though. He was going to be fine.

"I'm going to do everything that I can for him," Nathan said, a bit more evenly. "That much, I can promise." He stopped, tilting his head a little and listening to Askani murmuring at him. "She does, too. Actually, she's swearing it by... well, she's using an oath that pretty much means she can't break her word."

Sarah considered that for a moment, and nodded. It was good enough for her. "Tell her I said thanks. You too. I'd miss the other monster if he was gone."
Nathan nodded, letting the monster comment go. Sleep or no sleep, he still didn't really have the energy for snarking, even if it was for a good cause. "Takes an awful lot to get me to quit," he pointed out. "I won't give up on him if he doesn't give up on himself."

"The rest of us'll be working on that." She uncrossed her arms, and rested them on her hips. "He said in his email that he was coming back to "disintegrate in peace". I laughed at him and asked when he'd ever gotten peace in this house."

He raised an eyebrow. "Does sound a little unlikely, doesn't it?" he asked with a flicker of humor. "Peace, around here..."

She nodded, grinning just a bit. "That's okay. We get him back, and that's what matters. And there's locks on the doors if he needs a chance to breathe."

Nathan pushed himself up off the bench, smiling crookedly. "I have to get ready for my afternoon classes," he explained. "Anything else you want to know, while you've got me?"

"'S all I needed. Thanks."

"Anytime," Nathan said with a faint smile, turning to go. "See you later."