xp_logs | Nathan and Madelyn, Nathan and Angelo, Friday morning

Before office hours, Nathan stops in the staff lounge for some coffee and proceeds to fall asleep on the couch. Madelyn finds him and feeds him cookies. They talk about the pitfalls of manly pride, he threatens to matchmake for her, and they mope in an entertaining way about the neverending series of crises which is their lives.

He'd just stopped in the staff lounge to get some coffee; because he'd gone and cancelled classes yesterday, he had been sort of obligated to hold extra office hours today to deal with kids feeling neglected, and the first was due to come through his office door in about an hour. Enough time to let him enjoy his coffee in peace and quiet, he'd figured, which was why he'd sat down on the couch. Bad, bad idea. Before he knew it, his eyes were drooping, and he had just enough presence of mind to set his cup down on the end table before everything started getting really kind of pleasantly hazy.

Time stood for no man, and neither did marking. Even with the spate of medical emergencies lately, Madelyn still had classes to teach (although there'd been more than the usual number of reading assignments handed out lately) and classes meant papers and papers meant reading them and making some kind of assesment. All of which needed quiet and coffee, and since every time she used her office in the medlab some kind of disaster happened, Madelyn was going for the staff lounge. Besides, there were rumours Lorna had been coffee shopping again.

Humming under her breath a little, a stack of papers in her arms, Madelyn stopped dead when she saw the feet - rather large - hanging over the edge of the couch and heard the rumble of a snore. A very distinctive snore. Walking softly over and peering down at Nathan's peacefully sleeping face, Madelyn couldn't help snickering. He was so cute. Like a giant, growly teddy bear.

Someone was giggling at him. Yes, that was very distinctly giggling. Nathan opened his eyes, blinking up at the giggling person until Madelyn's face came into focus. "Whaaat?" he muttered grumpily, raising a hand to rub his eyes. Then it hit him and he sat bolt upright. "Whoa! Crap! What time is it?"

"Nine-thirty," Madelyn assured him, still snickering a little. Nate had Couch Head. Or rather, Couch Face - there was the imprint of a an upholstery button on one cheek.

He relaxed, a little. Still a good half-hour before office hour. "Must've fallen asleep," he muttered, rubbing at his eyes again and then trying to make a vain attempt to smooth down his hair. "You'd think I hadn't slept last night..."

"That would be because you probably didn't?" Madelyn said to him archly, dumping her papers on the coffee table and heading to the coffee pot. Hmm, coffee. And it looked like someone had made cookies, too. Not Lorna, Madelyn decided, nibbling on one. Probably Jamie, given the lack of oatmeal and abundance of chocolate. "You've got the extra-large suitcases under your eyes," she pointed out. "And you're grumpier than usual. Therefore you haven't been sleeping."

"Long day yesterday." And goodness, was that putting it mildly. Nathan gave her a brief, slightly sardonic smile. "Long day, longer night." He looked around for wherever he'd set his coffee. "I was even tempted by your donuts."

"Brave man, to get between the overworked doctor and her sustenance," Madelyn said, coming back with coffee and the cookie container. She held one between her teeth as she offered the container to him, and resumed speaking once he'd taken one and she'd put the container down on the coffee table. "I beat up Kurt, you know," she said, a slight hint of shadows in her eyes belieing the humorous tone.

Nathan blinked at her. "You--beat up Kurt?" he asked uncertainly. Maybe he wasn't quite awake yet. "Why?" he continued in bewilderment.

"He stole my donuts?" Madelyn suggested, flopping down onto the other end of the couch and curling her legs up underneath her. When Nathan looked unimpressed, she shrugged a little. "I needed to hit something and he was there," she admitted. "After Vermont. Kurt made the mistake of being there. At least he bamfed out of the line of fire before I got more than a few hits in."

Nathan stared at her for a moment, then nodded slowly. "I know that feeling," he said quietly, and tried the cookie. They sat there in silence for a few minutes, until he decided that it was probably his time for a confession or something. "I nearly wound up sleeping on the couch last night."

"Well, not having any powers, I tend to go the way of fists - usually in the gym. I'm glad he was there, though - I would have made a much worse mess of myself punching out the fridges in the morgue." Madelyn gave him a curious look. "Trouble in paradise?"

Nathan smiled humorlessly. "We... settled it. Mostly because I admitted I'd been an idiot." He sighed heavily, setting his cookie aside. His appetite had abruptly vanished again. "The stuff in the summer? Apparently it didn't get rid of all of my conditioning. There are still things in my head. Charles found some of them yesterday morning, and I decided I was going to be overly male and try and keep it from Moira."

"There was still conditioning?" Madelyn sat a little more upright, startled. "I take it Charles took care of it?" At his slow nod, she went on. "No wonder Moira was pissed... wait, yesterday?" She smacked herself lightly in the forehead. "That damn dinner. You didn't not tell her because of that, did you?"

He managed to look slightly guilty. "I wanted you all to have your break," he muttered. Madelyn was giving him an appalled look. "You deserved it," he protested feebly. "And Charles took care of what he could," he went on, to answer her other question properly. "There might be more. He has to be careful about digging... apparently he likes me better non-catatonic." He managed to smile. "Why, I don't know, since I'm an idiot. But anyhow..."

"For God's sake Nathan..." Madelyn shook her head at him. "Do you really think we're that fragile? Yes, it's been a crap several months, and not looking to get any better, but... Gah!" She flailed with the hand that wasn't occupied with the coffee cup, cookie long gone. "You're right. You're an idiot. I don't know why we put up with you, sometimes - you seem determined to self-destruct." She mock- growled at him. "I'm surprised you didn't end up in the lake."

Nathan waved a hand tiredly at her, picking up his no-longer-hot coffee. He stared at it for a moment, then sipped at it anyway. "I'll tell you what I told her," he said, "and in the light of day it makes a little more sense than it did yesterday. Not that it was any less stupid, but... " He stopped, shrugging irritably. "I wanted to pretend it hadn't happened. It was supposed to be over." There he went again, with the mantra. "I promised her I'd stow the stupid male pride, and I will, but damn it... I could really use a little, you know. Just to keep, for longer than ten minutes before life comes along and reminds me that's not permissible."

Madelyn set down her coffee mug, gave him a long look, but this time there was sympathy in her eyes. "You want to know your life's your own," she said quietly. "You're supposed to be free, finally, and there's yet another person pulling your strings."

Nathan's mouth twisted bitterly. "Yet another person. Good way to put it. I had almost--" He stopped, took a deep breath. "I'd almost gotten used to the idea that there weren't things buried in my head that would wake up at awkward moments and make me do things against my will. Two months, and I'd almost gotten used to it..."

"I don't pretend to have the first idea about what was done and how it was done, but..." Madelyn leaned forward a little. "It's twenty-five years' worth, Nathan. I know how badly you want it to be over, we all do, but it's going to take more than a couple of months. And I don't just mean the triggers and whatnot. I mean the reactions they programmed into you, the changes in behaviour, the way you think..." She shrugged helplessly. "This is probably going to drive you nuts, but it will take time. And help."

"I know." He and Moira had talked for a while, when they'd both been awake in the middle of the night and unable to sleep. They'd both been calmer, and she'd said much the same sort of thing as Madelyn was saying now. "I just don't want..." He trailled off, shaking his head. "Don't want it to become an excuse, I suppose. It would be too easy to walk around afraid and paranoid, all the time... I spent the better part of seven years like that. It wasn't a very good way to live."

"It doesn't have to." Madelyn shook her head in exasperated fondness at him. "You don't do anything by halves, do you, Nathan? It's an issue, yes, but no more than any of the others around here. It will only be an excuse if you let it."

"There is that saying about how you're not paranoid if they're actually out to get you," Nathan pointed out. Madelyn mock-glowered at him and he smiled faintly. "Come on, I had to say it."

"Don't make me throw a cookie at you," she told him. "Because then you'd catch it with the TK and I'd have to feel all inadequate and you really wouldn't want that, would you?" She gave him a look that could be best described as cutely pathetic, the one she used on Alison for waffles.

Nathan laughed suddenly, an edge of weariness to the sound but a spark of real humor in his eyes. "Madelyn, if you persist in being that cute, Moira and I will just have to matchmake for you. You might want to keep that in mind."

"Don't you dare," she warned him. "The last time someone ever tried that was a roommate at the Bureau. It did _not_ go well." She pulled a face at the memory. "And the sad thing is, that was still be best date I've had in five years." She sighed. "Okay, now _I'm_ depressed. I need another cookie."

Nathan floated the container of cookies up off the table and over to her. "I went... well, seven years. Moira... um, I should probably not mention how long she was playing the scientist-nun over on Muir. It's rather scary. Never question why she's at the pinnacle of her field - she certainly wasn't doing anything else for a very long time." He looked at Madelyn, smiling. "I guess what I'm trying to say here is don't give up hope? Sometimes it surprises you. Of course, sometimes it's also been yelling at you for five years or so and you're just too dumb to hear it. So yeah. Uh, don't be me?"

"See, that's the dilemma - lock myself away and become an expert in my field and lauded by my peers, or have something resembling a life." Madelyn snagged another cookie and bit into it with a laugh. "I suppose I have to decide how badly I want that Nobel prize. When you consider who I work with... peer group pressure is a sad and terrible thing." She gave him a mournful look.

"What we need to do," Nathan said, not really joking this time, "is to get you a break from patching people up so you can see about actually having one of those two options."

"Short of locking everyone in their rooms - _alone_ - and laminating them, I really don't see there being much of a chance of that," she said with a small sigh. "I mean... I'm learning more about mutant physiology and emergency procedures than I could ever hope to in a hospital, but it's not easy to deal with when it's the kid you had breakfast that morning with you're working on."

"Plastic bubbles for all," Nathan murmured and then shook his head. "It can't be like this forever," he said, a faint, bitter smile slipping out before he could help himself. "Of course, I seem to be always saying that. Maybe I'm just trying to defy the inevitable."

"Isn't that the human condition? Defying the inevitable?" Madelyn asked him with a small grin. "You being the historian, not me."

"History is merely a list of surprises," Nathan quoted. "It can only prepare us to be surprised yet again."

"Well, that's certainly the school. One surprise after another." Madelyn tossed another cookie at him.

Nathan froze it it in mid-air. "Shh. It might hear you." The cookie flew back in the other directon and landed back in the container. He hadn't eaten his first, after all. "I have that mental image sometimes. The school as this sentient thing with a mind of its own, and it has a hate-hate relationship with all of the people running around in its halls..."

"Channelling Cain, you mean?" she asked, innocently, but then the grin crept out again. "I think I've hit the point where I can't possibly be more stressed, so I've got this whole fatalistic thing going on. Of course, that's when something _worse_ happens, so I'll just shut up now, shall I?"

"Yes. Shut up and eat your cookie," Nathan told her placidly, then shook his head. This conversation was getting downright weird. Like life here in general, swinging back and forth from the ordinary to the weird to the appalling. "I still don't regret making sure Moira went out for dinner last night," he confessed.

"We needed it," Madelyn agreed, eating her cookie as she was told. Then she wagged her finger at him. "Doesn't let you off the hook though. It's the special instruments for you next time you're in the lab, bucko."

"The refrigerated ones? I shall grin and bear it... and Moira would smack me if she heard me accepting that there would be a next time. I'm supposed to be endeavoring not to wind up in the medlab anymore." Nathan snorted, then sighed. "Might as well tell the wind not to blow, I suppose."

During office hours, Angelo stops in to see Nathan, with a couple of questions about the assignments but mostly to check on him.

Well, that was the last of the actual appointments, Nathan reflected, slouching in his chair as the door of his office closed behind the departing student. He had promised those two classes that he'd be around until one, though, just in case anyone decided they'd like to talk at the last minute. He really ought to find something to do to kill the intervening time, though... sitting here staring at the wall wasn't productive.

Angelo had actually meant to make an appointment, but had forgotten. Hoping Nathan had nothing pressing to do, he waited for the last of the others to leave before knocking on the door.

"Come in," Nathan called, picking up a book off his desk and leafing through it idly.

Angelo pushed the door open and walked in, smiling slightly. "Hey."

"Hey." Angelo had no books with him. "Question about the assignment?" Nathan asked, donning his best approximation of the inquisitive, 'tell me your problems and let me help you find solutions' face.

Angelo grinned. "A couple. An' I was kinda wonderin' if you were okay, too."

Oh, and here he'd thought he would get through these office hours without that particular question. No one else had asked it. "I've been better," Nathan said frankly, waving a hand at the chair on the opposite side of the desk.

Angelo sat down, looking concerned. "Yeah, we were worried. You don't usually send someone else to take the class without sayin' anythin'... but I guess it was only a library class..."

"I just... got focused on what needed to be done, I suppose, in terms of someone to take the class, and forgot the niceties." He ventured a faint smile. "Sorry?"

Angelo shrugged. "No need to apologize, really. You're okay, so we're okay."

Oh, good. He was going to leave it at that. Nathan took a deep breath, the smile a little more steady. "I had a session with Charles that was a little rough," he said, offering part of the truth. "Wound up a little too shaky to be teaching."

Angelo nodded. "But you're doin' better today?"

"Quite a bit," Nathan said, and it was even the truth. He'd had a little time to process, to start thinking about possibilities and responses and all that fun stuff. Things which would probably horrify Angelo if he knew. "I just needed some rest, I think."

Angelo had no reason not to take that on face value, so he just nodded again. "Yeah - 's been a rough month. How's your friend?"

"Doing much better," Nathan said, and his smile grew even a little more as he thought about just how much better Mick was doing. Still skittish, still trying to get his feet under him, but time and quiet - and more to the point, Anika - were doing wonders. "You might spot him out and around a bit over the next few days, actually."

Angelo smiled back. "Probably stop and say hi, then, if he's up to it."

"I'll tell him to watch out for you," Nathan offered, and then chuckled. "You might actually meet Ani. Apparently she's been wandering around trying to introduce herself to all the people I've mentioned to her."

Angelo laughed , pleased. "I'm sure I will, then."

"So," Nathan said, donning his teacher-face again. "Those questions you had?"