Madelyn, Nathan - Sunday afternoon

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Following sparring fun with Sarah, Nate comes down to the medlab to get stitched up. Madelyn is Not Impressed, especially when she finds out who his sparring partner was.



"Oh, I can't wait for the explanation for this one..." Madelyn said, watching Nate stumble into the medlab, blood staining the leg of his track pants and already moving to switch the light on above the exam table and roll over the instrument tray. "Assume the position," she added, nodding at the table.

"Yes, ma'am," Nathan said with a good attempt at meekness, wincing as he got up on the table. "My own stupid fault. You'd think I'd learn by now to take the simplest option in a fight."

"I hope you're not too fond of these sweats, since I'm going to have to cut this leg off," Madelyn said, reaching for the scissors and beginning to do just that. "And who exactly were you sparring with? None of the team would leave damage like this..." There was an ugly gash in Nathan's leg, still bleeding sluggishly.

"Cut away," Nathan invited her, wincing again as she pulled the fabric gently away from the gash. "And it was Sarah, actually."

"Sarah?" Madelyn did her best to suppress her reaction - Sarah was a student, the same as the rest, and if Charles believed keeping her here was the best thing, so be it. "I didn't know you two were on sparring terms," she went on, hoping Nathan was being polite and not reading her thoughts just then.

"Call it an experiment," Nathan said with a brief smile, picking up the reaction but choosing not to comment on it. "Something Pete said to me... well, never mind about that. I'm trying to see if I can break some of her thinking patterns... and just how deeply ingrained they are."

"And how much damage are you going to take in the process?" The remark slipped out before she could stop it. "I'm not saying Sarah's a hopeless case and we shouldn't try, but... well, I think we have plenty of evidence of what she's capable of. Do you really want to be down here on a regular basis getting stitched up until you look like a patchwork quilt?" She began swabbing the surrounding skin down, gently, so she could see the extent of the damage.

Nathan watched her work. "You've met Dom a few times when she's been here, right?" Madelyn looked up at him, blinking at the non sequitur, then nodded and turned her attention back to her work. "She was fourteen years old when I pulled her out of that combat pit in Hong Kong. She didn't remember anything but how to kill on demand and survive to see the next match." He shook his head slowly. "She was conditioned," he said, his voice a bit unsteady on the c-word, "in certain ways. Sarah reminds me a great deal of her." He smiled a bit at Madelyn. "And Dom hasn't killed me yet. Not for lack of trying, occasionally..."

"You and your strays... Moira mentioned your weakness for little girls in trouble." Madelyn shook her head. "Sarah... She worries me, Nathan. It's why I tend to let Hank deal with her, when she needs dealing with in the medical sense. I suppose it's difficult for me as someone who used to uphold the law to be comfortable with the fact we have a teenaged murderer living in the place." She shook her head, bending to examine the gash. "She did this one of her bones, right? I'm afraid you're going to need a tetanus shot."

"Oh, yay," Nathan said wryly. "I figured..." He was silent for a moment as Madelyn turned away, fussing with her supplies. "I always wondered why you weren't more uncomfortable around me," he said finally.

Madelyn paused, thinking about that. "I'm... not sure," she said at last. "Moira's part of it - she loves you, and I trust her judgement. The fact that you don't declare you fully intend to kill again, as soon as you get the chance probably helps too." She shrugged a little. "I don't know, really. You don't set off my alarm bells the way Sarah does. Perhaps because you have control, and I'm not sure she does. Besides, I haven't had to patch up too many of your sparring partners, unlike hers."

"Her background, and mine... more similar than you'd think," Nathan said quietly. "I don't know if Moira's ever told you. My family was part of a cult up in Alaska. They trained their children to fight and kill each other at a very early age." He shrugged as Madelyn turned her attention back to his leg. "So she reminds me of Dom, and she reminds me of me. Which is probably why we haven't gotten along so well."

Madelyn's eyebrows rose at that, but she continued working, drawing up a dose of local anaesthetic so she could start stitching. She said nothing as she gave him the shot, and threaded the needle whilst it took effect. "Do you feel that?" she asked, carefully poking his leg about an inch away from the gash.

"Nope. Nicely numb," Nathan said with a ghost of a smile. "Stitch away." He watched her start, unable to help an inward sigh. "I'm sure there are people who would tell me I'm taking the same approach to Sarah that I was with Manuel," he said quietly. "Which is to say, wrong-headed, stubborn, and rooted in all of my own issues."

"Possibly. Or perhaps they'd say that it would take someone who understands the kid to make any kind of progress." Clamping the gash together, Madelyn began stitching. "I can't say I'm comfortable with what you've told me, Nathan," she admitted. "But you were a kid at the time. Same as Sarah. I suppose I can afford to be a little less... inflexible." She shook her head. "All this, the backgrounds some of you have, the things you've had to do... it's hard for me to deal with sometimes. Intellectual tolerance is one thing, personal experience, what your own background has prepared you for? It's something quite different. I was brought up to respect the law, to respect life. It's why I became a doctor in the first place, why I left the FBI for here. I thought I could make more of a difference." She shook herself out of the reverie. "Teach Sarah, if you think you can."

"I'll try." Nathan sighed again, watching her stitch. "Some of us just... don't get the chance to learn that respect for life," he said a bit painfully. "I was only twelve when I ran away from home.... couldn't take it anymore. I manifested while I was living on the streets, but I was coping. Finding a way to be able to live with myself. Then... well, then Mistra plucked me out of social services and I didn't have a choice about learning what I did." He grimaced, shaking his head. "Sarah... she has all the choices in the world, but she can't see them. Doesn't want to see them. I'm not sure which."

"A bit of both, perhaps. Having choices means having to take responsibility. And that can be frightening. Living your life according to what you feel is expected of you is far easier." Madelyn pressed her lips together, trying to get her usual calm back. "I'm sorry," she said at last. "You didn't need me stomping on what's a sensitive issue for you with my size eights."

"It's all right," Nathan said with a brief smile. "I get the sense you've been keeping certain opinions very much... suppressed. I'm sturdy enough to endure hearing them if it helps to say them aloud."

"Suppression is all part of that being a good role model," Madelyn said, making a face. "Wouldn't do for me to say on the journals that I think Sarah's a murderer who should have been turned over to the law, especially after Charles has decided to give her a second chance. It wouldn't help." She put in the last stitch, reached for the antiseptic cream. "Suppression's something they teach in med school, along with how to stay awake three nights running and how to make coffee out of anything. I just need to remember not to unload on the wrong people."

Nathan reached down and rubbed thoughtfully at the bullet scar on his upper leg, several inches from the gash. "It's... strange to think of how angry I was about that," he said in a very different voice. "I mean, intellectually speaking, I know why I was, and I still have problems with a lot of it, even though, you know, glass houses and all..." He frowned. "I just feel a little disconnected still. From... those last couple of months before August."

"It's understandable, given the circumstances. Trauma does strange things to the memory, even without the added fun of conditioning. It'll take a while for you to recover." Moving away to prepare the tetanus shot (with a healthy dose of Nathan-approved antibiotics as a bonus), Madelyn looked over her shoulder at him. "How're you going with all that? You seem more stable, if that helps."

"Good days, bad days," he said quietly as she came back with the tetanus shot. He smiled at her a bit mischievously. "You're going to enjoy giving me this shot far too much. Aren't you?"

"I always do. I have a nasty streak - that's the other reason I became a doctor," she told him. "I keep my instruments in the fridge, just for my difficult patients."

"Guess I know what category I fall into," he said impishly. "Although in my own defense, I am improving..."

"That you are," Madelyn replied, with a look that indicated she meant more than his dealings with the medlab. "Now this... will probably sting a bit, but you're going to hold still any way."