xp_logs | Nathan and Charles, Wednesday morning

In the medlab, Nathan wakes up to find Charles sitting beside his bed with some interesting news. It turns out that psychic forest fires can be just as ultimately beneficial as the usual sort.

There was someone sitting beside his bed, Nathan thought dimly as he drifted back to consciousness. He wasn't sure how he knew that, because his telepathy was... gone, or felt like it was gone, and the pain in his head was bad enough that he wasn't about to try and reach out. But there was definitely someone there. He opened his eyes, with some effort - his eyelids felt impossibly heavy - and stared out into the blackness, listening to the ragged sound of his own breathing and the soft bleeping of the monitors.

"Hello, Nathan." The carefully modulated voice was easily recognizable, the way Charles spoke and crafted his words something still rather unique to the man. "You saved my brother's life," he murmured pensively, a joyous undertone to his voice - he knew Cain would pull through, now. Had known it even as he left his brother's mind, somehow and the entirety of the return trip home. He'd stood vigil for a while by Cain, upon his return, gravely accepting Moira's report on his medical condition, then had waited for Nathan to wake up as well.

Cain would be okay? That was the only interpretation Nathan could put on the words, and he felt a certain tension easing as it all sank in. "Took... the three of us," he managed, his voice a cracked rasp. "Alison? Is she..."

There was a the ghost of a smile present in Charles' voice as he spoke, a quiet contentment that glimmered through clearly. "She will be just fine, Nathan. She is sleeping right now, in the isolation room and Haroun is keeping watch over her. We're going to have to call him the Ghost of the Medlab soon, at this rate." A low chuckle followed and the wheels on the floor shifted a bit, the wheelchair inching forward slightly. "The secret as to whether she snores or not is still safe, too. They have the sound baffles running on full."

A faint smile tugged at Nathan's lips, despite everything. "That's good..." The weights on his eyelids won, but oddly, he didn't drift back off to sleep. Maybe it was because the blackness was the same, with his eyes closed or open. But he suspected it was because he was awake enough to notice the pain in his head and chest now, and it was annoyed that he'd been sleeping and ignored it, so it wasn't letting go. "I think... think I blew up my circuit-breaker."

"And I think you have a wonderful ability for understatement, young man." There was a hint of rich humor to the words, Charles chuckling lowly before sobering up slowly. His voice was still steady however, without a hint of worry in it. "You did indeed blow up the circuit-breaker. The chain reaction to that and the strain you put yourself through mending Cain's wounds... seems to have, in plain terms, blown everything away." There was curiosity in Charles' voice, but still nothing to indicate this was a bad thing. "Psychic scar tissue and all. I've done a few general scans and while there is, if you're pardon the expression, a hole in your mind - I am starting to come to the conclusion that this is not a bad thing at all."

"Hole...?" But it came back to him suddenly, the memory of that crack in his mindscape and the explosion of white light that had given him the strength to force the gem fragments into Cain's DNA. "So much light," he muttered hoarsely, trying to focus on the memory more intently. His head was all foggy, though, if not as bad as the last time he'd woken up. "Burned through all the broken patterns..."

"Indeed you did." The smile was back in Charles voice again now, along with that understated amusement. "It was not the first solution I would have gone for, considering how drastic it is, but now that everything is said and done... I must say, this will speed up your mental healing, since we won't have any of the prior damage left to deal with at all." Charles didn't point out how very much like Alison's mind Nathan's memory of that moment seemed, when they had brought her back that day, still bleeding light and lasers like a creature gone mad. "We now have something perfectly new to build upon. When you're ready, that is."

He'd blown up his brain and it was a good thing. Kind of counterintuitive. "So I didn't... my TK'll come back? The virus..." Nathan stopped, squeezing his eyes shut in an attempt to banish the thought of what would happen if it didn't. Moira had reassured him, but he hadn't been able to sense her, just hear her, and she'd had her doctor's voice on. Of course, he'd been panicking at the time, between waking up unable to see and feeling, knowing that the virus was out of control. He hadn't really been listening for the subtleties.

"Your telekinesis is already back, albeit at low levels. It is currently entirely pre-occupied with keeping the worse of your virus at bay, and is very likely going to want to sit down with you for a stern talking to at one point." There was a pause, and Charles continued with great solemnity. "I expect Moira will be able to scare it into place however. Everyone knows about Moira and shotguns."

"Doesn't need a shotgun. Just her coffee..." Was he still feverish? This was getting to be a very odd conversation. Nathan opened his eyes again, a faint, frustrated sigh escaping him as there was no change in the blackness. The jangling anxiety and fear was still there, but more distant than it had been the last time he'd woken up. Which was good. Panicking and making an idiot of himself was bad.

"I am rather partial to Moira's coffee, actually," Charles replied blandly. "I will be dropping by to see you several times a day, to monitor the healing of the rift in your mind. It may be a slow process at first, but once the new pathways start taking hold, I expect it may speed along faster than you would think."

There was something very firm about Charles' words, Nathan thought dimly. He had never really thought that tone of voice could reveal much, but when it was the only thing you had to go on... "Okay," he murmured wearily, his eyes closing again. "Don't think I'm going anywhere..."

"You most certainly are not, young man. I will stay here awhile and read, I think, before I go to visit Cain again. Why don't you rest a bit." The joviality was back, along with something that hinted that Nathan very much wanted to sleep right now because it was the Good and Proper thing to do. And a certain shotgun-toting fiancee had nothing to do with it, of course.