xp_logs | Nathan and Alison, Thursday afternoon (Reply)

Alison stops in the medlab to see Nathan. Despite the fact that she's the one who's been miraculously healed and he's lying there blind and attempting to hack up his lungs, he somehow manages to be the encouraging one.

His fever was back down again. Not that it meant his head was anywhere near clear, but it was easier to think, at least. His eyes determinedly closed - the fact that there was no change when he had them open was still bugging him, probably more than it should - Nathan was lying in bed, listening. There were more noises than one would really expect in the medlab, and he was trying to kill time by identifying each of them.

Sock-clad feet shushing on the metallic floor of the medlab broke the monotony of the usual sound envrionment, eventually coming to a pause in the doorway to his room. "Hey," Alison's voice drifted towards him after a while, along with a long sigh. "Moira said I could drop by for a short visit before you tried to chew through something..."

Nathan opened his eyes, the unhappy little shiver as he saw nothing but blackness muted by the sound of Alison's voice. "Hey," he said hoarsely, managing a wan smile as he turned his head in the direction she seemed to be coming from. "Not chewing on anything... don't worry."

"Mm. Not being able to tell what was going on around me when I couldn't hear was driving me nuts. When they had the sound off and all." She shuffled closer, clearly making noise on purpose, until she reached the side of the bed. "Going to take your hand and plop myself down on the side of your bed, okay?" Falling asleep out of the blue and ending up flat on her face on the ground would be embarassing.

"Okay." She was moving deliberately slowly, he thought, making sure he registered her weight coming down on the bed before she reached for his hand. "How're you feeling?" he rasped, the faint smile lingering. "Sound tired..."

"I am the original sleeping beauty, I swear," she groused, settling down and taking his hand in hers firmly. "Slept more than twenty-four hours after I blew up Cain," and there was more than a shadow of guilt there, despite what everyone had been telling her, "and then more often then not since. Actually, now's the longest I've been awake in one stretch. About four hours now." She held back another sigh and patted his hand idly.

"I go... in and out, too." Although he could hardly say that he was sleeping, really, when he was 'out'. The fever when it spiked got a little too high to allow him to rest. He tried to think of what else to say... and then it struck him, all at once, that she was holding his hand. He blinked, aware that he probably was wearing the mother of all pole-axed expression at the moment. "Alison? You're... it's not hurting you to touch me?"

A chuckle escaped her at his expression, because it really was that funny in a comical "wha huh?" sort of way. "They ran every test on me and then invented a few more just to make sure, but yeah. I'm fine now." A solid thump on the bed confirmed that, though she figured she'd have to stop that soon. "I even played the guitar a bit earlier." It had been scary off playing too, and she had a lot of exercises coming up on her schedule there.

She was... fine now? How was... "Oh," Nathan said with dawning realization, remembering seeing the shrapnel wounds heal over. "The gem. It did something... fixed the nerve damage?" His smile got a little stronger and he squeezed Alison's hand, if a bit tentatively. "That's great."

"Yeah." That was what Moira had explained to her further in depth, even though Alison clearly remembered feeling it now. It had been distinctively eerie. "Pretty much everything actually. The wounds are healed completely." There wasn't even any pull from the scar tissue on her leg, although Moira had still warned her they'd have to watch for that. But that didn't need to be mentionned out loud, really. "I - really wish it hadn't happened that way. I'd rather have waited." Or not healed at all, if it meant avoiding what had happened to Cain.

Nathan squeezed her hand again, hearing the undertone in her voice. "Hey," he murmured. "Everyone's going to be okay. Think of... silver linings? You got some unexpected good out of it... turns out I did, too."

"You did?" The question was somewhat oddly pitched, Alison's voice a touch more strangled than it ought to be, but she didn't let go of his hand, taking a briefly unsteady breath before apparently calming down. "What?"

"Charles told me, yesterday..." Well, he hoped it had been yesterday. The fever was doing odd things to his sense of the passage of time. "It... burned out all the psychic scarring. Kind of back to square one, now... which is good." Another way he'd been trying to kill time when he was coherent was thinking of all the implications of that. All the old habits and tricks he had with his TK would be gone. He could relearn what needed relearning and leave the undesirable bits behind.

That was good, if she was understanding exactly what he meant. With everything burned out, it meant he could rebuild from scratch. On his own terms... Without any of the Mistra conditioning or any other psychic triggers to ever affect him again. That wasn't just good, that was amazing. "No more hidden triggers. No more anything." She smiled just a bit, happy for him, the emotion coloring her voice. "You can relearn everything on your own terms."

Nathan started to reply, to explain just how appropriate her choice of words was, but that involved breathing a little too deeply and he started coughing. His head started to spin as he tried and failed to catch his breath, and the tearing pain in his chest made him unthinkingly tighten his grip on Alison's hand.

It was a good thing Moira had warned her about the coughing seizures, really, although it was still unnerving to witness one of them - particularly the entirely unguarded expression on his face at that moment, too. Holding on to Nathan's hand, Alison leaned forward a bit, waiting for the worst of the coughing to go by before patting his shoulder lightly. "No deep breathing. I know, you know already, but Moira told me to remind you if you coughed like this..."

Wheezing, Nathan relaxed back against the pillows as the last of the coughing passed. It took him a few minutes longer before he found his voice again, and a poor excuse for his voice it was. "Virus," he rasped, squeezing his watering eyes shut. He could taste blood at the back of his throat again. Charming. "It'll... settle," he tried to reassure her. "Just... pushed too hard."

He was confined to bed rest and still found ways to push too hard. The man needed to be weighed down with an anvil and strapped down until he couldn't move the smallest digit. She kept the thought to herself however, instead reaching out for the glass of water beside the bed with her free hand, debating whether it should be offered to him or if she actually ought to help him with the drinking bit, considering how unsteady he looked.

"W-Water?" he managed. He knew Moira had put a glass close enough that he should be able to reach it, but his head was spinning and he wasn't sure of the distances. If he went groping he'd probably knock it on the floor.

"Great minds think alike," she answered, a faint grin echoed in her voice. She squeezed his hand and then lifted it, leading it to the glass she was already holding while making sure to keep it steady for him.

Water helped. He took a long sip, then let her set it aside again. "Ow," he wheezed, squeezing his eyes shut. "Be glad... when I'm not doing this anymore..."

"We all will be," she pointed out, a faint tremor to her voice, thinking that there were many things she could deal with, but Cain being in the condition he was now and Nathan possibly blind for it was more certaintly not among them. Not when she'd precipitated the whole thing.

He could hear it in her voice again, and he fumbled blindly for her hand, glad when she took it. "Listen," he rasped urgently, squeezing her hand tightly. "We will be. All of us. Don't... don't even contemplate anything else."

"Okay." The answer was given in a small voice, Alison taking a deep breath. "Cain... he prepped a new suite for me. Left me a note in the one with the Vibranium walls and I found it last night." Her voice was tight, although controlled. "He said he'd check in on me to see how the move went, after..."

"Then you'll have something to tell him. When he's awake." He was being such a hypocrite, Nathan thought, although it was helping him understand just how frustrated everyone had gotten with him when he'd blamed himself for Jono's accident. "Don't blame yourself... couldn't have anticipated what happened."

The protest was almost spoken out loud. But it was Cain. He's not supposed to blow up. And he was trying to help me! Instead Alison just sighed, patting Nathan's hand gently just because she could. "Okay." And winced at herself. "That was a really pathetic sounding okay, wasn't it?"

"Just a little..." Nathan sighed a bit, shifting restlessly. "You'll feel better when he's awake," he murmured. "He'll be okay. Hell... Moira and Amanda and I pulled off a near-miracle. He'd better."

"Okay." Everyone was telling her he'd be fine but not one knew what she'd seen right before the gem exploded. The memory was still crystalline sharp, as bright as if it had just happened. "Thank you." It was for saving Cain and for taking those shards out of her as well and for trying to reassure her even as he was the only lying there blind and she tightened her hold on his hand, trying to get the depth of that thank you through somehow.

"You're welcome." Nathan closed his eyes, listening to the wheezing edge to his breathing. "Can you ask Miles... Moira's so busy with Cain, and me... Bella's going to be lonely."

"Of course!" Blow up Cain, wipe out the medstaff again, see Nathan get blinded and Amanda kept from her powers. Ask Miles to care of the bird he very much enjoyed taking care of. She could do that. "I'll talk to him when he finishes his classes..."

He heard the undertone to her voice again, and his expression crumpled a little. Maybe he frustrated people when he blamed himself for things, but he couldn't muster any real frustration with Alison. It just made him feel... sad, in a sort of wretched, 'can't do anything' sort of way.

"She'll like that," he murmured. "Poor Bella... going to start hating me, all the time I'm leaving her alone..."

"We could bring her down for a visit, if Moira agrees..." Alison tried to settle down, still holding his hand. She stared at it pensively, then smiled just a little bit. "Want Miles to check in on Moira too and make sure she gets some rest?" They'd both agreed Miles was sneakily effective that way.

"Yes," he said, almost a little too enthusiastically. "She can't resist him. She'd have to get some rest." He squeezed her hand back, smiling suddenly. "I'm going to owe him bigtime when I get out of here. Did I tell you--" He paused, his smile wavering a little as he reflected that there was a lot of Christmas shopping he hadn't done. "I, uh... got him a Christmas gift already."

"You did?" She blinked, then smiled a bit, remembering the Kokopelli statuette in her room which had been given to her by Nathan on his return from the sidetrip after Las Vegas, with Amanda. "Dare I ask what?"

"Umm... computer-programmable Lego," Nathan said a bit sheepishly. "It's supposed to be an airship. It's kind of neat, really..."

Eyes widening slightly because oh my god that sounded like a Hank gift and those were scary, Alison processed the concept through. "Really?" She was glad he couldn't see her expression, although her voice was likely a dead giveaway. "Okay. So long as it doesn't do what the Hank gifts tend to do, we're good." Although threatening to turn Hank into a throw rug had been fun, in a 'watch the really big blue furry guy' cower before you way.

"What... do the Hank-gifts do?" Nathan asked, a bit bewildered. "This one doesn't blow up or anything. It just flies." He'd found it on a website devoted to toys for gifted children and something about it had just said 'Miles' to him.

"Hank gifts are in a league of their own in the slightly mad scientist category." Alison chuckled, shaking her head. "I'll let him come by and tell you all about it. It takes Hank to telling you the story to truly appreciate it." She was relaxing despite herself, it seemed. "Miles will love it. Amanda's already asked me if the present she wants to give him is all right, and he'll love that too. Good thing he's taking to being spoiled rotten by people here well, really."

"Not hard to spoil him... fun, too." Nathan shivered suddenly, using his free hand to tug upwards at the blanket. It was getting cold in here again. Was his fever going back up? "Was going to check it with you, though. Just... hadn't gotten the chance, yet. Between Vegas and the accident..."

"It's perfect. Now - you have to rest. Moira will be upset with me if you strain yourself." She reached out, wanting to hug him but far too worried to push it now considering his condition - perhaps on the next visit - and instead tucked him in carefully. "You get a bit of sleep. I'll stay here for a while and then sic Miles on Moira. And later we'll go visit Bella and maybe bring her down tomorrow or on the weekend, okay?"

"Deal," Nathan murmured, closing his eyes. "Thanks, Ali... for being here. Don't like being alone in my head..."

"I'll be right here," she murmured, patting his hand comfortingly. "Rest now." She stayed as he drifted off, the room falling into silence if but for the sound of the medical equipment nearby, and Nathan's still somewhat labored breathing.