Nathan, Manuel and Amanda, Friday night

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After helping get Remy to the infirmary, Nathan goes to find Amanda. He and Manuel wind up dealing with more than they expected.



Nathan stopped in front of the door to Manuel and John's suite, staring at it for a long moment. He could sense Amanda inside, but she wasn't alone, of course, and as glad as he was that Manuel was with her, it also meant he had to step carefully. He raised a hand, laid it lightly on the door.

#Manuel,# he called telepathically, barely brushing against his shields before withdrawing again.

Manuel opened the door. He looked like about twenty miles of bad roads - his normally immaculately coiffed hair was a mess, he had vomit and blood all over his shirt, and he looked like he'd had maybe fifteen minutes of rest in the last twenty-four hours. "This isn't a good time." Manuel said to Nathan sleepily. "Come back later." he said, and then started to close the door on Nathan.

Tracing one of the meditative patterns in his mind, knowing that he needed to keep his emotions absolutely level, Nathan reached out and kept the door from closing. "I know it's not a good time," he said very quietly. "Before anything else - is she hurt?"

"Not physically. She was very badly scared by Remy. She keeps slipping back in time inside her head, like she was still living as Rack's thrall. I have been holding to the here-and-now and reducing her panic." Manuel said, too tired to care about how he was coming across. Consequently, his accent was far thicker than normal, nearly
incomprehensible. "But the least little disturbance can set her
off..."

"The blood?" Nathan asked bleakly, looking at Manuel's shirt. If she had used her magic against Remy... he didn't like what that, plus the blood, suggested.

"She overextended shielding herself against Remy." he said. "Or, at least, I think that's what happened. She's not making much sense. If you want to help, get her a fresh change of clothes, and bring us up food and drink. I dare not leave her side long enough to get them for myself. Not right now." he said, raking his fingers through his hair. His eyes went wide as he felt something change on his link to the
overtraumatized wytch, and he ran back to the side of his bed where Amanda sat up. "Shhh, it's okay, it's just Nathan. I'm right here, there's nothing to be afraid of..." he told her, eyes blazing crimson as he spoke.

"Get away!" she shrieked, making a warding gesture with her hands. "I won't do it any more, an' you can't make me!" Whatever nightmare she was caught up in, it reacted badly to Manuel's use of his power, and the shielding spell flared up again, so suddenly it actually knocked Manuel back away from her. At the same time every loose object in the room was picked up and hurled bodily at the two men. "Get away, I won't let you hurt me no more, I can't do it, I can't..."

Nathan swore under his breath. He flung up a shield of his own around Manuel, then concentrated on catching the contents of the room as they started flying around wildly. Too much - she was doing too much of her magical TK, if whatever had happened with LeBeau had already caused her to overextend.

Manuel wound up facedown in the puddle of now stale-and-even-fouller vomit that she had hacked up when he first met up with her in his room. He didn't have the time to get disgusted - he was busy ducking his CD collection as it spun through the air. A thought occurred to him, and he narrowed his eyes as he projected as loudly as he could to Nathan. "SWORD CASE!" he shouted mentally. If Amanda should happen to get it open, ugly things could happen.

Nathan gritted his teeth and yanked at the sword case, flinging it out into the main room of the suite where she hopefully couldn't get at it. Her range seemed limited, but if she got any more panicked... #Amanda,# he sent at her, as soothingly as he could. #Amanda, it's all right--# One of Manuel's keyboards came flying at him, and he froze it in mid-air, then forced it back down to the ground. He was going to
have to hold everything down, before he could try and get any closer to her...

Manuel rolled off the puddle of vomit and projected with everything he had right at Amanda. "Calm down, love, it's OK. No one's going to hurt you..'" he said soothingly. His empathic projection, however, was anything but gentle. It was a sign of his frustration that he wasn't taking his usual care with her mind. All he wanted her to do was stop throwing his things and calm down.

Amanda cried out and the desk chair came flying at Manuel. Nathan caught it, and she slid off the bed, stumbling over to huddle under the desk, her shield contracting and flaring brighter as some of the flying objects came into contact with it. Nathan saw the blood trickling from her nose and swore again, under his breath.

He forced everything back to the ground, not particularly caring if he did damage to any of Manuel's possessions, and held it all there, ignoring the increasing burn of feedback as her spell tried to pull it back up again.

#Amanda,# he projected, coming towards the desk. #Stop,# he told her, struggling to make it a command. #STOP.#

Manuel winced as a good quarter of his CDs snapped under the pressure. He wasn't getting anywhere with his empathic projection, so he switched it from OBEY and STOP and CALM to taking her passions away from her. Not trying to impose an emotional state, but trying to take her emotions away entirely. This was much, much harder than what he had been doing, and he was virtually guaranteed to get a grinding headache from trying it, but he didn't see too many other options.

He had no idea what Manuel was doing, but Amanda's shields were getting thicker and thicker, both the visible TK shield and her mental defenses. She was whimpering, compressing herself into as small a ball as she possibly could beneath the desk, but he could feel the strain on her increasing. She was going to burn herself out if she kept this up...

Nathan stopped, staring fixedly at her, losing his grip on some of the objects he was trying to keep her from hurling at him as he threw his concentration into projecting through the shields.

#Amanda... go to sleep.# Words and more than that, as he pushed her mind down into unconsciousness as gently as he could.

Manuel let go of what he was trying to do as Amanda abruptly flopped all under his desk, amidst the crumbs and the wrappers and the Loki-only-knows-what-else and began to snore. "Well, that worked." he said, absently brushing stale vomit off of his clothes. "What did you do to her?"

"Put her to sleep," Nathan said, blinking as his vision doubled for a moment. Once the flash of lightheadedness passed, he walked around the bed and picked her up, grimacing at the blood on her face. "It'll last," he said, setting her back carefully on the bed and reaching into her mind again, knowing that he was risking making the headache worse when it finally hit; his telepathy tended to make him pay for it big time when he pretended he was an alpha. Amanda's thoughts were still totally disorganized, impossible to sort out, and Nathan shook his head slowly. It would have to wait, he thought. "For several hours, at least."

Manuel tucked her into the bed with more tenderness than he ever suspected himself of being able to show. "I'll stay here with her. Can you go string the Cajun up for me?" he said in as calm a voice as he could muster. "This all started with him. I don't care what he thinks he's done, or what he wants to try to do. There is no forgiving this."

Nathan ignored that. His head was already beginning to throb, and there was no way he was having this conversation now. "One of the doctors will probably be up to check on her later," he said hoarsely. "I'll try and make sure it's Moira - she's less likely to have this sort of reaction."

Manuel nodded. "Thank you." he said, as if wild horses had to drag it out of him kicking and screaming. "For helping me calm her down. I'll clean up while she's out. And I wasn't joking earlier - could you send up some food?"

"Yeah. Soon as I let medlab know what shape she's in. Clothes for her, too." Nathan turned away from the sight of Manuel bending over her. They'd be all right for now, he told himself. "I'll keep an ear out. Shout if you need anything else."

"I will." he said, and then looked at the warzone his room had become. "This is not going to be cheap." he sighed, and retrieved his trash-can to start throwing out broken things.