xp_logs | Nathan and Romany, wee hours of January 4th

Backdated to January 4th. For every action there's a reaction... Romany turns up at Muir to deal with the aftermath of what happened with Selene, and she and Nathan talk. There's much in the way of helpless anger.

Romany closed the door softly behind her and leaned her forehead against it with a sigh, feeling more tired and drained than she could ever remember being. What a complete balls-up. Homily had been right about the cockiness... She knew she should go find Moira and Nathan, let them know what was going on, but right now it was all she could do to stand upright. Well, mostly upright.

Nathan had been waiting. He had hung back, let Moira usher Romany in to see Amanda and then retreat back to her own research, and just waited. There wasn't much else to do but wait, of course. Wait, and do nothing, and try not to grind your teeth down to stubs... He saw Romany come out and stop, and took a deep breath at the sight of her obvious exhaustion. It took serious effort to push his own anger and frustration away and approach with some semblance of calm. "Hey," he said quietly, sliding an arm around her waist to support her. She didn't protest. "Come on. We do have places to sit around here, Rom."

"I was just on my way to look for you. I should have known you'd be somewhere close," Romany said with a faint smile, glad for the support. "She's all right," she added, knowing that was what he was waiting to hear. "Or she will be. She's packing now - I need to get her back to London, have the coven check her over." Sagging slightly, she admitted, reluctantly: "I don't trust myself to not have missed anything again."

Nathan said nothing more until he'd gotten Romany down the hall and safely into a chair. He flopped down in the one opposite, giving her a very direct look. "I have some experience with having my head screwed with empathically," he said finally, a bit bluntly. "So when I tell you that as bad as what happened is, the fact that she used Manuel's powers is making it seem even worse, I'm telling the truth."

Leaning back - well, more like collapsing back - into the chair, Romany sighed. "I know, Nathan, I know she used all our weak points to attack us, but that doesn't take away from the fact I didn't let you know what we were doing with Manuel, warn you there could be some sort of repercussions... I thought... I thought I had the link covered, that we could deal with the remnant of that woman we found in his psyche, the residue of the spell she used on him." She closed her eyes, unable to bear him looking at her like that. "I fucked up, Nathan. And the cost was nearly too much. Homily's confined to her bed, Aspen can't even look at me without apologising and bursting into tears, and we very nearly lost Manuel. Not to mention Amanda. All because I thought I could deal with the situation."

Nathan's jaw clenched, but before he could come up with something reassuring or encouraging to say to Romany, the Askani crowded forward into the forefront of his mind until the whole room seemed lit in gold again to his eyes. "We should have seized the chance," he murmured, his accent shifting. "Pulled her into his mind and done battle. Burned the taint out."

Romany, to her credit, took the sudden appearance of the Askani fairly in stride. "Oh," she said faintly. "My. Well, there are a lot of you, aren't there?" Recovering her composure to a degree, she shook her head. "That would not have been wise. This woman, this creature... she's a psychic vampire. She feeds on energy, of which you all are entirely composed. There is a good chance many of you would have been lost, and her energies replenished to the point where we could not save either child."

#Back the fuck off,# Nathan hissed at them. #She doesn't need this right now!# They retreated, grumbling, and he sighed, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment and telling the headache to fuck off, too, before he focused on Romany again. "Sorry. Between what that bastard Joe brought down on us all and now this, they're a little unsettled. And they do not like Selene. I think if they could figure out a way to ensure they killed her, sacrificing a few hundred thousand of their number would be an acceptable cost to them."

"Except those numbers would only make her stronger, and she's already quite strong enough, thank you," Romany said a little wryly. "She knows about them now, and that can't be a good thing - I can't help thinking that perhaps this whole incident was intended as more than a bit of malicious fun. The fact she went after you and Moira and Angelo... She's testing Amanda's resources." Anger sparked through the weariness. "That damnable Club and that bastard de la Rocha. All this is down to him, I know it."

"Him I could kill," Nathan said. "Or have killed. Quite easily. You do realize that, right?" He smiled faintly. "Except without a hundred percent guarantee that it couldn't be traced back to the school," he admitted regretfully. "Which means that it's too much of a risk."

"Precisely the reason Peter gave me for not doing anything myself. And I'm fully aware of your resources, Nathan - it's one of the reasons why I'm glad you're one of Amanda's guardian types." Romany shook her head, exhaustion descending again. "I don't... I don't know what to do, Nathan. I'm not sure I can protect her from this."

The reassuring words just weren't coming. Funny. "I don't think there's such a thing as protection anymore," Nathan said, more bleakly than he really intended. "Just fighting the battle when it comes to you, one way or the other, because it always does."

There was a long silence, broken only by the crackling of the fire, the occasional creak of wooden floors shifting. At long last, Romany spoke, words so soft they were barely audible. Not that that mattered with Nathan. "I never wanted this," she said. "To be responsible for a child again, to be... a mother. Peter was so young when our mother died, and I wasn't ready for that kind of responsibility, but Dad needed me. Once he was old enough to look after himself... it was like being given my freedom back, and I seized it with both hands. I got into rather bad company, I'm afraid..." She gave him an almost shamefaced look, at odds with the person Nathan knew. "I was with Rack's coven for two years before I got Amanda out. I tell myself it was because I needed the right moment, that I had to gather my strength, but Homily knows the truth - I wasn't done learning from him. So I stood by and watched what he did to her for two years before my conscience finally couldn't stand it any more. And then I just handed her over to Social Services without a murmur. Because I didn't want the responsibility again."

"And Selene used Manuel's power to tear that out of both of you. The truth, I mean." Nathan watched her in silence for a long moment. "You're trying to do right by her now," he said finally. "Taking risks to help her, putting yourself on the line. She loves you, Romany. Not just for that, but it's helping to convince her that she matters. That she's worth the effort." He shook his head. "You can't shut off the guilt. I have enough of my own that I wouldn't even tell you to try. But you need to try and put it aside, as much as possible." He smiled a bit faintly. "Guilt can make you take on the devil," he said, "but love is a much better weapon."

"She did. No secrets from an empath, I suppose, and Manuel is so very powerful. I can block him most of the time - did, when he visited the first time - but with Selene driving him..." Romany shuddered. "I know Amanda loves me, and I love her - I love her and Peter both, for all my younger selfishness. I don't deserve to have that, but there you go." With a faint smile, she rubbed her eyes tiredly. "I'm too old for taking on devils in any way, shape or form," she sighed. "It used to be I could party for weeks on end. Now look at me - one sleepless night and I'm dead on my feet and making you my confessor."

"In some ways I think it would be easier without the school," Nathan said after another long moment of silence. "Without all those other young lives depending on whether the rest of us can walk a tightrope properly." He stopped suddenly, shaking his head. "Then again, what Selene and de la Rocha don't seem to understand," he said, "is that there is a limit. We might have to continue walking that tightrope when we'd rather jump down and fight, when every fibre in our collective being is screaming to do just that. They can count on us holding back because of what we need to protect. Yet there is a limit. If they push too far, the price of restraint becomes higher than the price of action."

"And they will push to far. You know that as well as I do, Nathan. I just hope it isn't one of the children that bears the brunt of that. But if they do..." Romany's expression became cold and fierce, and the lights dimmed briefly in the small study they were in. Then she blinked, and things returned to normal. "Sorry about the dramatics - residual magic from yesterday. It tends to get away from you the day after a major spell. But as I was saying, when that moment comes, when we don't have to walk that line any more, well, I hope you'll call me if you need me."

"I wouldn't dream of not calling you," Nathan said, gazing at her, troubled as he remembered something he'd said to Kurt before Christmas. "Romany, I... there's been something I've been meaning to... ask you about? Confess, maybe, to steal your word..." He caught himself rubbing at his unshaven jaw and stopped. Damned nervous mannerism. "I've felt presumptuous," he said abruptly. "Sometimes, with Amanda. I haven't taken the risks you and Pete have on her behalf. Hell, I've been the cause of some of her problems, and I've missed a good portion of the others..."

"But you've been there far more than I have for the rest," pointed out Romany. "This isn't about who lays claim to her, Nathan, who has the more right. It's about who she chooses to be what she wants to her. Peter has taken the risks, yes... but he's also away from the school much more. When she needs to talk about something, it isn't me, or Peter, or even Stephen that she goes to - it's you." She smiled ruefully. "She started calling Peter "uncle" as a joke - now it's pretty much true, in every way but fact. And I think he's satisfied with that. Being a... parent, it takes far more comittment than he's ready for. And which you do almost naturally. There's no presumption there, Nathan."

"Mi'caehla," Nathan murmured. Romany gave him a questioning look. "Askani for 'daughter'. If you can believe it, the first time it slipped out was just after they got me back from Mistra and broke my conditioning. My mind had just been basically smashed into pieces and so little seemed real... that did, though." He looked up at her, letting the air in his lungs out on a long sigh. "I hate being on the defensive," he said tiredly, not stopping to think whether Romany would follow the shift in subject or not. "There's a way back off the defensive, there's got to be. This can't go on."

"We'll find it." Romany was tired herself, but not so tired she couldn't follow him. And it was on her mind, as well. "We'll have to be bloody careful, but I for one am not letting that bitch think she can just step in like that... Bloody hell, I forgot to ask, Moira... how is she?"

"About as well as can be expected," Nathan said a bit more curtly than he really intended, or meant. "Doing better than I would in her place. This, on top of that bastard Joe and her psychotic former colleague trying to recreate her dead son and then turning the poor kid loose on her..." His jaw was aching, and he realized abruptly that it was because it was clenched so hard.

"I'm so sorry, Nathan... Amanda and I will leave tonight - it's best, I think. To give all involved a chance to recover." Romany sighed. "Amanda remembers none of it, as far as I can tell. Moira knows that, yes?"

"I think so. If not, she will." Nathan sighed, pushing himself up out of the chair with a wince. He was still feeling the bruises from the weekend. "In any case, Romany, I don't want to hear any more apologies from you. You didn't mean for any of this to happen." He mustered a weak smile. "And if any of us got damned forever for being cocky, most of the people we know and love, on top of ourselves, would be very definitely hellbound."

"Well, the apologies won't last long - best to appreciate them while they're offered," Romany replied with a faint smile of her own. "I'll be back to being my usual annoyingly serene and cold self in no time. Although I will say I wish I could help out with the aches and pains, but healing is definitely beyond me now." Her own rising was no less laborious than Nathan's. "I should go and talk to Angelo, explain what happened - he deserves to know the truth. Besides, if Selene wanted this to disrupt Amanda's relationships with those closest to her, I'm damned if I'm going to let her achieve that. I'll be by to check on Moira too, if that's all right?"

"Of course. Let me know when you're ready to go," Nathan said. "I'll arrange for the ferry."