Nathan and Cain, wee hours of Tuesday night

[x-cable.livejournal.com]

With Moira on night-shift and everyone else settled, Nathan goes out for a very late-night wander. He winds up at the boathouse, where he tells Cain some of the less widely-known details about the missions to Vermont and Belgium. Cain gets angry and makes some suggestions. Nathan does take one of them.



Amanda seemed none the worse for wear for the unbinding spell. Anika and Mick were curled up together in medlab, the latter sleeping peacefully, without sedatives for the first time since they'd brought him back. And Moira was on night shift. Which was entirely fair, and Maddie had certainly needed the break, but... Nathan grimaced and shook his head, staring at the ground beneath his feet as he wandered down towards the lake. All he needed was to run into LeBeau, he thought restlessly, and the night would be complete. Really.

Sitting in his porch chair, Cain watched as Nathan strolled down the path, head tucked like a whipped puppy. Looking over his shoulder to see LeBeau sprawled on the couch watching TV, Cain figured he may as well intercept the former mercenary before he walked straight into the lake. As he stepped down off the porch, Cain put his fingers to his mouth and gave a quick sharp whistle to hail the moping Dayspring.

Nathan blinked and looked up, seeing Cain, his towering form unmistakable even in the darkness. He hadn't realized he'd gotten this close to the boathouse. Shrugging irritably, he changed direction and came over, casting a very wary look in the direction of the house. "Your roommate around?" he asked as he approached Cain.

Cain jerked a thumb to the boathouse. "Watchin' his TV programs. Only does it when I'm outta the house. Probably one o' those scrambled porn channels." Cain rubbed his chin thoughtfully, pondering 'cable descrambling' as a useful mutation suddenly.

"Mm. Porn," Nathan said dryly, sticking his hands into the pockets of his jacket. "You still pissed at me about the living room?"

Chuckling, Cain shrugged. "Depends. Do we have to put telekinetic training pants on you this time? Or just put down some newspaper in the corner and point:?" He spread his arms jovially. "Hell, wasn't nothin' couldn't have used remodeling anyway."

"Not planning to do it again anytime soon," Nathan said with a faint smile in return. "Then again, I say that every time, don't I?" He shrugged again, half-turning to look back out at the lake. "If you can believe it, I've actually improved. Used to be a lot worse about doing that."

"Try the quarry?" Cain offered. "Get the ol' blood pumping when you can't pound the guys what deserve it, I figure." He folded his arms and remained silent for a moment, then spoke quietly. "Heard you got one of your people out of some shit few days back. You and Alison brought him back." Something close to pride crept into Cain's voice, but only a little.

Nathan looked back at Cain for a moment, not answering. But it hadn't been an X-Man mission, he told himself. No need for confidentiality. "We nearly missed the chance," he said quietly. "Got there a little bit too late, and they'd left with him already. We tracked them down, though." His jaw tightened a little, remembering Alison's reaction to what he'd tried to do to the medic to get information out of her. "Alison handled herself well," he said, more softly. "Couldn't have done it without her."

"Well," Cain proclaimed, "you brought everyone home safe. Good soldierin'." Cain walked off to the side of the path to squat down on a chunk of granite he'd carried back from the quarry.

"Y'see, that's the kind of stuff I was talkin' to you about," he said, plucking a blade of grass and gesturing with it like a lecturer's baton. "Your buddy was in some bad stuff. You got him out. Those kids - like that little dogboy runt - you've pulled them out of the same shit that happened to you." With a smile, Cain gave a quick 'thumbs-up' to Nathan.

"Hell, Nate," he joked, "looks like you're setting that example for your kids whether you like it or not."

"Cain..." He didn't know. How could he? "I don't know if you knew this," he said slowly, "and one way or the other, you can't mention it to Kyle. But he was one of six kids at that facility in Vermont. The only one alive when we got there." He fell silent, staring out at the lake. "And when we broke into that safehouse in Leuven looking for Mick, I walked into their morgue and found eleven other kids in bodybags. A few of them couldn't have been ten years old yet. I think the team there got away with a couple of survivors, but..." He stopped, shaking his head again. "We may have gotten Kyle and Mick out, but I don't think compliments are in order."

A long moment of silence was broken by the grinding of stone under Cain's fingers. Then, with one fluid move, he slid to his feet and whipped his arm around, sending the boulder flying over the treeline to land like a bomb out in the wilderness.

"God DAMN it..." he hissed. "Eleven kids. These sons of bitches. I mean, kids, Nathan!" Cain was nearly frothing with frustration. "Who fucking needs soldiers THAT badly? So much they'd grab kids like Kyle, kids like LeBeau, kids like any one of them up there. Eleven," he repeated, wishing he could disbelieve the news.

"You see?" he asked, "You see why I keep sayin' to keep these kids out of that world?"

"It's not need," Nathan said, his voice still low, almost emotionless. "It's opportunity, Cain. They see kids with combat-useful powers, in foster homes or juvenile hall or orphanages... why leave them there? There's not precisely a stampede to adopt mutant children. Why not put the useful ones to work?" Nathan shrugged. "We're not human, after all," he said. "Better that we be weapons on a leash. I had that explained to me when I was fifteen years old by one of the Mistra directors, right after my first mission."

"Ain't right," Cain whispered, absently brushing rock dust off his clothes. "Why not find 'em?" he asked. "Charlie's got that big giant brain radar thing. You know who you're looking for, why not just track the fuckers down and wipe 'em off the face of the planet?"

The entire concept didn't make sense to Cain. He'd seen the dogma of "Us vs Them" fall apart in the war, he knew how it was. It was everyone for themselves - even when they couldn't protect themselves. Kids, for fuck's sake.

"I may not like them," Cain hissed, "but that don't mean they deserve something like that. Not them, not anyone." He whirled on Nate, fists clenched. "Why ain't Chuck's X-Men on the plane already, huh? Jesus, you'd think this is the one thing they'd be good at."

"Cain," Nathan said after a moment, "how many X-Men are there here?" He went on, answering the question himself. "About fifteen, and that's including the trainees." He paused. "Mistra still has better than seventy alpha-class mutant operatives. Trained killers. Not like the X-Men. A few of their best could kill me, Cain. Not easily, but they could take me on, one-on-one, and possibly take me down." He thought of Morgan, then pushed the thought out of his mind. "They have the best psi-shielding money can buy for their facilities. They have, even now, at least a dozen telepaths of their own." He stared fixedly at the lake. "They've split the new training programs into cells, gone international. They may be taking kids from other countries, now. Pete's doing what he can with the intel from Vermont and Belgium, but we're still playing catch-up. Not to mention that I don't know what precisely they got out of me in August. If we're not careful, they might decide to come here after all."

"Like fuck they will." Cain droned, staring daggers out into the night. "I'll tear the bastards limb from limb myself if I have to. Far as I'm concerned, Nate, this place is hallowed ground."

An idea came to Cain suddenly. "Why not go public? Shit, Chuck knows enough people in high places. You've got kids you've dragged out of there, you've got your buddy whatsisname. Put 'em in front of a camera, in front of Congress, do what you got to." He threw his arms up in frustration. "Fucked if I know what it's got to take to wipe something like that out. But unless they get taken out, it's only gonna get worse."

"Charles has been talking to his friends in high places. They've been looking into it for almost as long as I've been at the mansion. Since April." Nathan stared dully straight ahead. "Going public... might be a last resort. I don't know. Loathe to suggest that. From what I know of their protocols, they'd pull a scorched earth routine, kill every kid they have in training, and move again."

Cain shook his head, letting the rage just bleed out with each breath. "That's why I ain't makin' the plans, I suppose. You know this shit, I don't. But I do know one thing," he said, turning to Nathan. "You brought your boy home. Ain't shit you could have done for them eleven others. You made sure it wasn't a dozen, and at the end of the day - shit, it's better than nothin'."

Nathan was silent for a long few moments. "He's doing better. They're going to let him out of the medlab tomorrow morning. Charles doesn't think he'll kill himself at the first opportunity anymore." He shoved his hands deeper into his pockets. "Having Anika here's helping. Did you see Ani arrive? Small, blonde, a little on the feline side... she was Mistra too. I got her out... almost two years ago, now. Staged her death."

"One of yours?" Cain remarked. "Damn... waste of quite a looker if you ask me." He paused, then clapped Nathan on the back. "That's a joke, son. Feel free to laugh."

Nathan did at least manage to crack a smile. "If you run into her, ask her how you smell. The answer would probably be pretty damned entertaining." The flash of humor was gone as quickly as it came. "They haven't changed things much," he said more quietly. "Twenty-five years, and they're still using the same damned sense-deprivation cells. I was ripping the doors right off their hinges in Vermont, looking for the kids, and I kept forgetting where I was."

"Flashbacks." Cain knew from flashbacks. Memories like that were too strong to tamp down and bury, especially when you'd had them playing for a few decades while you were in a coma. "Shit, Nate. You're in the wrong place." Before Nathan could respond, Cain pointed up to the mansion. "It's like this book Moira made me read, see? You're like this big cup full of bad stuff, and you keep wanting to dump it out. But you're standing in the rain and the cup keeps getting full. Now, you can either get out of the rain - not an option for you; you can put your hand over the cup and not let anything in; or you can fill it with something else."

Cain pointed again up to the mansion. "You're out here trying to empty everything out when you ought to be in there trying to fill it with something else, even for a little while." He paused for a moment, then looked abashed. "Well, don't think *I* came up with the idea. Your damn fool Scotswoman gave me the damn book."

Nathan couldn't help another smile, and this one was a little more steady. "I suppose I could go keep her company," he said, restraining himself from commenting on the metaphor. Although it was really tempting. "The damn fool Scotswoman, I mean. She's down in the medlab on night-shift, trying to give Madelyn a break."

Pointing even more vigorously, Cain waved up the path. "Even better. Everyone's asleep. Go find a spare gurney or something. Hell, they renamed the Espinosa Memorial Gurney to the Dayspring Special Bed, just for you. Even if it's just for a few hours' nap." While Cain didn't sleep, his unique schedule had let him see the results of sleep deprivation on almost everyone else. The last thing the mansion's walls and windows needed was a telekinetic who was too exhausted to keep control.

"Get on that trail, hero," he ordered, "before I thwack you on the head and end up carrying you to your damn Scotswoman. Convenient and tempting as that option is."

"You've carted my sorry carcass around often enough for a lifetime," Nathan pointed out, turning back towards the mansion. "Remind me to borrow that book of yours at some point. Night, Cain."