xp_logs | Nathan and Amanda, Wednesday afternoon

Backdated to Wednesday afternoon. After Hindi class, Amanda lingers to find out why Nathan was so out of sorts. And it's role-reversal time, as Nathan unloads on her about a certain empath.

Hindi was over, the other students fleeing for classes in something more comprehensible, like Applied Physics, but Amanda lingered. Nate had been... well, 'cranky' wouldn't be entirely wrong. Downright grouchy, even. It probably wasn't any of her business, but she didn't like to see him so out of sorts, and she knew she could sometimes cheer him up, so she waited until the last student had gone and approached his desk. "Hey," she said, and then switched to halting Hindi. Basic phrase number 2, after "my name is..." "~Are you well, teacher?~"

Nathan blinked up at her, mustering a faint, somewhat strained smile. "Was I that bad?" he asked with a certain weary humor. "I was trying very hard not to bark at any of you."

"Not that bad," she replied. "Just a bit short, is all. An' you know me, can't keep me nose out unless I'm told." She gave him a lopsided grin in answer to his. "That's yer cue t' tell me t' keep me nose out, by the way."

Nathan glanced past her, and the door to the classroom swung shut, the lock clicking shut. "Sit down," he said quietly. "We need to talk."

Raising her eyebrows at him, Amanda did as she was told, dumping her books on a desk in the front row and taking a seat. "What about?" she asked, all traces of humour gone from her voice. Nathan had his Serious Face on.

"I don't know if he's told you or not," Nathan went on in the same quiet voice. "Manuel, I mean. That he turned the Askani down when they proposed finding a way to continue his lessons."

"Not in so many words..." Amanda frowned - this was completely out of the blue. "He said you an' they were workin' on a way of teachin' him without you bein' involved, but he didn't expect it t' come t' anythin'." She tilted her head. "Where's this comin' from?"

It had been something of a non sequitur, hadn't it? But he wasn't about to tell her about the conversation about Jubilee. "It keeps coming up," he said wearily, his voice tighter than he would have liked. "Everything I haven't done for him. Or how I screwed up what little I managed to do by... " Say it. "By running. Or, you know, the fact that apparently, despite the fact that he despises me, my opinion still matters enough to him to help send him into a tailspin when he hears something he doesn't like."

She sighed, leaning her elbows on the desk and resting her chin in her hands. "He doesn't," she said at last. "Despise you. Or at least he didn't." Seeing Nathan's frown, she went on. "He feels like he owes you his life. You were the first person t' actually try an' teach him, an' you did. You an' the Askani. He couldn't help but feel somethin' for you - I won't say he liked you, but there was somethin' there. An' then when you stopped things so suddenly, it... it hurt." Oh, Manuel wasn't going to appreciate her giving his secerts away, but this needed saying. "The first time someone gives a shit 'bout him, an' then they don't any more. That's the way he sees it."

Oh, this had been a bad idea. Such a bad idea. Nathan took an unsteady breath, shaking his head a little and wincing at the way the Askani were muttering at him. They'd been quieter, since the argument with Alison. Not silent by any means, though. "Do you know..." His breath caught in his chest, and he struggled for composure for a moment before he went on. "I know you know I was trying to get Pete to kill me. At the art exhibit. Even if you didn't hear... you have to have realized that by now."

"I know," she said, her voice cracking a little. She couldn't meet his eyes, not because she was angry or ashamed of him, but because this was too close to home. "I knew, after talkin' t' Pete." She rubbed her face with her hands, and sat back, crossing her arms over her stomach. "It was the only way out you had, wasn't it?" she asked, still in that small voice.

"It was. Until you stepped in. But even then..." He swallowed. "When they had me down in the medlab, I begged Betsy to kill me. Told Shinobi that Pete should have killed me. I gave up." He met her eyes as levelly as he could. To hell with confidentiality, at this point. Nothing was salvageable with Manuel anyway, and acknowledging that only heightened the sense of defeat. "At our last session, Manuel was talking about leaving the school, drugging himself to keep his empathy suppressed. This was when the two of you... were on the outs. I asked him what he would do if someone came along and said 'Hey, look, a perfectly good empath' and tried to use him." Nathan looked away. "He described the suicide method he'd use in that situation very calmly."

Amanda blanched. He hadn't told her that. Bad enough that he was willing to cripple himself... But there was more here than her reactions, and she focussed on the two points. Nate giving up, and Manuel... "It was too close, wasn't it?" she asked. "That's what made you stop."

"I tried to take him to Charles that morning," Nathan said, still not meeting her eyes, his eyes a bit distant as he remembered. "He wouldn't go. Walked away from me." He laughed, a small, hurt-sounding noise. "I think that was it, in the end. His pride, in the end... that's what it was all about. He decided to believe that I didn't care about him. Despite, you know, empathic evidence to the contrary... I suppose because it would have made it that much worse if he'd acknowledged that."

Amanda was silent, processing all this. Nathan was right about Manuel's pride - she run up against it enough. But Nathan had his own pride, his own feelings, and all this was about more than just people giving him shite about leaving Manuel in the lurch... In a way, Nathan had been hurt just as much as Manuel. She closed her eyes, trying to think what to say. "Pride's the last thing he has left of bein' a de la Rocha," she said at last, opening her eyes to look at Nathan. "Without that, he thinks he's nothin'."

"I don't want to take his away from him," Nathan said, his voice shaking. "I just want mine back, damn it." He shook his head, then pressed the heels of his hands against his forehead, wincing. "They're at it again," he said hollowly. "You know, they drove me back, trying to get me to arrange an alternative way of holding these lessons. Galin tried to... shame me into doing more. And Manuel... I don't need to be an empath to know how much contempt he had for me. He knows how..." He stopped, swallowed. His throat was impossibly tight. "He knows precisely how much it terrifies me to be around him, and sees it as a weakness on my part. That's why his lessons stopped, according to him. I... it's my fear. Maybe he's right."

"Then fuck the flonqin' Askani!" Amanda burst out. "What's the point in drivin' you t' this? It ain't gunna solve anythin', an' it ain't gunna help Manny see you any different!" Anger sparked in her eyes, and that particularly stubborn look crossed her face. "An' if they won't listen t' you, I'll bloody well tell 'em."

"The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. And I'm just the flesh. That's what Galin told him." Nathan swallowed again, then gave her an almost pleading look. "I'm not trying to... fuck, Amanda, I don't want to put you in the middle of anything. I don't. Manuel's made the choice that whatever more they could teach him isn't worth... indebting himself---" The words stuck in his throat. "---any further to me. Hell, he threw my offer of extra help with his written assignments in international relations back in my face for the same reason. Something I'd be obligated to do with any student, and he decided to regard it as me trying to indebt him further..."

"Yeah, well Galin can go fuck himself sideways," Amanda growled. "You ain't just flesh, Nate, yer a bloody person, an' if that's how these empaths of the Lady's do things, then maybe they shouldn't be teachin' Manny anythin'." Her anger was making it hard to think, and her magic was still too on the unstable side for that, so she forced herself calm. Calmer, any way. "Nate, Manny's pride, that bloody sense of honour of his... it's not Earth logic, t' quote Angie." A brief, tight grin crossed her face. "D' you know he even pulls that shite with me sometimes? I helped him with a translation spell, for his readin', an' now he thinks he bloody well owes me. Me, of all people." She shook her head. "If I knew how t' get around it, I wouldn't be spendin' half me time tryin' t' tiptoe around it."

He hardly registered her indignance on his behalf, or her reassurance that Manuel's pride didn't make any more sense to her. "I'm just so tired of it," he said with a sigh, knowing he sounded petulant. "Them yammering at me in my head, him looking at me like I killed his puppy or just... with such disgust. None of them..." His voice broke, and he looked away again, struggling hard for control. "None of them can forgive me for being weak. For being afraid."

"You ain't weak." Unable to take the sight of Nathan so close to breaking down any more, Amanda got and crossed to where he was sitting. "You ain't weak," she repeated, wrapping her arms around his shoulders. "I dunno how t' fix things with you an' Manny, but you ain't weak, an' anyone that says otherwise doesn't know what they're talking about. Yer've been through so much..." Her voice wavered as the memory of Nathan at Columbia resurfaced. "They don't know."

Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, hugging her back. "You don't need to fix things," he murmured hoarsely. "I'm not asking you to. You just... needed to know." His side of the story? Was that what he'd wanted her to know? How very adolescent.

"Now I do." Amanda closed her eyes, wishing she didn't. Things were hard enough without knowing all this... "An' it weren't you that screwed him up with that atonement stuff. It was me. I said some stuff in me journal, an' he took it the wrong way. An' then I wouldn't talk t' him 'bout it." She sighed. "Why's it all so fuckin' hard?"

"Because that's life," he said with a hoarse sigh, drawing back a little. Ashamed of himself, suddenly, as he met her eyes. "I shouldn't have told you all of this, I suppose," he went on dully. Shouldn't have burdened her with it. "I just... it's been bothering me, since the last time he and I talked about it. I know you were wondering what kind of arrangments would be made to let him continue his training. Looks like he'll be working with Moira and that's about it."

"Stop that," she told him, perhaps a little sharply. "Yer pullin' back, same as I do - we weren't gunna do that any more, remember?" It might have been funny, the slight girl scolding the bulky ex-merc so much older than her, if someone had been there to hear. "You told me 'cause you needed to. An' Manny'll cope - he's doin' a lot better with what you an' Loki taught him already, I can see the difference. Moira'll help him - she helped you, didn't she?"

"She did. This isn't me doubting that she'd be able to help him, Amanda. I just--" He stopped, then sighed. Just doing what he'd accused Manuel of doing, making all of this about him. Which it wasn't, and hadn't been, ever. He could hardly deny the debt Manuel believed he owed, and then want the kid to owe him... what? "You know," he said slowly, "if he had said, just once, that he didn't want me to stop the lessons... just once. I might not have been able to pick them back up right away--" Certainly wouldn't have, he amended mentally. "--but I would have gotten back to them as soon as I could." Gotten back to them, worked on suppressing the fear... "If he had just... one little shred of validation." He laughed humorlessly. Manuel had been right about that, too.

"It's that pride of his again," Amanda pointed out. "For him t' admit he needed you... it's too bloody hard. Opens him up t' bein' taken advantage of, in his head." She leaned against him as he sat and she stood, resting her chin on his shoulder. "D'you know how hard it is for him t' ask me t' do somethin' for him? Like havin' teeth pulled. An' he trusts me more 'n anyone."

"At some point, he's going to have to learn," Nathan said tiredly. "But it won't be me to teach him." He looked up at her. "I'm sorry," he said again, one last time. "I'll try and keep my distance. See if that makes it any easier for him." Of course, he would be seeing Manuel in class, but... well, he could be one student among many, couldn't he? He'd have to be. "We'll see if Moira makes any more headway," he went on, his voice low, lifeless. "Hopefully he doesn't think he's made some kind of deal with her for this training."

"It can't hurt, keepin' clear," she said simply, even though she knew the underlying problem would still be there. And Manuel would still resent the time she spent with Nathan and Moira. But there wasn't much else to be done. "An' he probably will, but there's nothin' t' be done for it. He needs the help, an' he knows it."

Not fair. Not fair to her in the slightest, Nathan thought dully, but he didn't know what to do. But then, he wasn't going to do what Angelo had done. There were choices here, but they were hers, and he wasn't going to take them away from her. "It'll be all right," he said, doggedly tracing one of the meditative patterns in his mind until his emotions started to settle again, his thoughts no longer running in circles. "We'll trust her to help him, right?"

"I already did," she replied, wondering when it was their roles had been reversed, when she'd become the comforter, not the comforted. "Don't worry, Nate, it'll work out. Like I said, Manny's been tryin', an' doin' much better, all that shite in Betsy's journal aside." She hung onto that fact like a lifeline. "Let it go."

"It still feels unfinished," Nathan said after a moment, quietly. "And he won't let it go, either." He looked up at her with a flicker of a smile. "Think I could arrange to get myself in trouble somewhere in his vicinity so he could repay this damned debt he thinks he owes me?"

"Don't you bloody dare - it'll end up with me havin' t' heal the both of you," Amanda mock-growled. Then she sobered. "I dunno, Nate, I really don't. I've tried t' tell him - fuck, he still thinks what he did at Columbia was wrong, takin' over me body like that, no matter how many times I tell him he saved both of us. But I can bet he's workin' on somethin' t' settle things, if I know him at all. As much as it hurts yer pride, the next step's probably up t' him."

Nathan met her eyes as levelly as he could. "It's going to have to be," he admitted very softly. "And my pride? You'd think that by now..." He trailed off, shaking his head. She didn't need to hear that. "I just... I suppose it doesn't matter. I don't want anything from him."

Maybe he didn't want anything, but he certainly seemed to need something from Manuel, otherwise this wouldn't bother him so much. Amanda wisely kept a lid on that and several other thoughts that were crossing her mind at that moment, settling for wrapping her arms around him from behind again, leaning on his shoulder. "~Sometimes the only attack is a defence,~" she said in Askani. "It ain't always weak t' admit when there's nothin' you can do, Nate. The people livin' in yer head might do well t' learn that."

"I just wish they'd let it go," he said with a hoarse little laugh, echoing his words to Alison from earlier. "Them, him... if they did, I think I could." At the very least he could try, if they would just let him...

"So do I." The tiredness showed in Amanda's face for a moment, although Nathan couldn't see it, and she kept it from her voice fairly successfully.

He reached up and laid a hand over one of hers. "Okay," he said, striving for a more normal tone. "So, I've dumped this all on you, and I'm sort of wishing I hadn't, because it's not as if you haven't got enough to worry about. Make it up to you with another picnic on the lake this weekend, if the weather's good? We can take the feather duster and see if she wants to drown herself again."

"I'd like that." Amanda's tone was far more genuine-sounding than the previous time. "Saturday after me session with Strange? I'll need the fun time, I think. He's been workin' me pretty hard."

"Then that's what we'll do," he said, more firmly. "And if it rains... well, if it rains, you can help me do some internet research." He sensed a stray puzzled thought from her, and chuckled. "I need to pick a design for Moira's ring. And some candidates for a stone."

She chuckled, giving his shoulders a squeeze before releasing him. "Yer a total sap, you know that, don't you?" she teased, ignoring the fact she'd been just as bad, possibly worse, herself in recent days. "But it's a... well, not a date. Family outing?"

"Sounds good," he said as briskly as he could, reaching out to start picking up his books. She came back around the table to get hers, and he watched her for a moment, smiling faintly. "~And daughter?~" he asked in Askani. She looked up at him, blinking. "~Thank you. For listening.~"

"~Any time you need a willing ear, father,~" she replied in the same language, smiling.