xp_logs | Nathan and Amanda, Friday morning

After this log, Amanda comes up to get the second half of her Christmas present. She shares the baby pictures Margali gave her, and catches him up on how the visit with the Pack went. Then the talk turns serious, and they discuss what happened on Muir, what happened in Berlin, and how she's handling it all.

"Nate? Are you decent? If not I'll shut me eyes 'cause I'm comin' in any way!" came Amanda's cheery voice at the door of Nathan and Moira's suite, soon followed by the doorknob being tried and Amanda's head poking around the opening door, broad smile on her face.

Nathan heard her from the bedroom and snorted, even as he pulled the new, warm, dry sweater on. He had wound up changing completely. The snow had gotten everywhere. "If you ever walked in and I wasn't decent, you'd go running out shouting 'Ewwww!'," he joked, emerging into the main room of the suite. "I have hot chocolate just about ready. Want some?"

"Well, there is that whole 'old' thing you have goin' on..." Amanda said, grinning and coming in, closing the door behind her. She was petting Bella as Nathan came in, and she looked up as he came out offering chocolate. "Sounds great - I didn't notice how cold it was at the time, but snow's freezin'. 'Specially when it's melting down yer back."

"This is from a mix," Nathan said severely, handing her one of the mugs. "Thus, very little actual chocolate. I'm supposed to be minimizing my intake for the next little while, for obvious reasons." He flushed a little, remembering the incident with Angie.

She couldn't help laughing at that. "Only you could get off yer face on chocolate," she scolded mock-severely. "Don't you know it leads t' harder stuff? Next thing you know, you'll be mainlinin' pixie sticks an' dealin' in licorice allsorts..."

"It was a combination of the chocolate, my juiced-up telepathy, and the fact that Angie has a very weird mind. And you're not planning on a career as a stewardess, are you?" He gave her an innocent look as he sat down. "You looked very disturbing as a perky little blonde in a short skirt. I had the urge to get Moira's shotgun."

"Um, not that I was thinkin' of... I mean, I like flyin', but servin' a bunch of drunken louts booze for twenty hour flights? Not exactly my cup of tea." Letting Bella out of her cage (after giving Nate an enquiring look, to which he nodded), Amanda joined him on the couch, bird on her shoulder nibbling curiously at the new hair colour(s). "So, what else was there in this wacked-out future of yers?"

"I don't think it was a single future. Or even real futures, some of them... I think Angie and I managed to open the floodgates and we started seeing possibilities. Entirely too many possibilities." Nathan smiled slightly, sipping at his hot chocolate.

"Uh-huh. I saw that post of yers." Picking up her own cup and warming her hands around it, Amanda tilted her head at him curiously. "Was it all the funny stuff, or was there anythin' else? Like that vision of Manuel's that time?"

"I'm really not sure." Okay, so that was temporizing just a little. "We didn't get it all down, what we did get down is gibberish in several different languages... plus it's all blurred in my head, now."

Okay, possibly not the best question, but she couldn't help wonder. "Probably just as well," she said with a slight grin. "After all, a future where I'm a stewardess is bad enough, right?"

"Or so most people would argue, yes," Nathan said with an absolutely straight face. "So you had a good time with the Pack, I gather?"

"I did." She stroked the feathers on Bella's chest, smiling at the bird's cooing. "I always do - 's strange how easy it is t' get along with 'em all. An' Mick an' me talked, some."

"I'm glad. He was always so worried about upsetting you, knowing what had happened at Columbia..." Nathan smiled again, faintly but still warming. "And the other important meeting you had?"

"It was... nice." Amanda's smile turned a little silly. "I mean, it wasn't one of those TV specials or nothin', but... they're good people. An' they like me." She sounded a little surprised. "Well, most of 'em do. Jimaine, my... my little sister, she's a right brat. Looks just like me, too, which probably doesn't help."

"I'm really glad it went well," Nathan said quietly, his smile growing a little. "I was worried. Then again, I do that a lot. You all seem to sort things out perfectly well in most cases anyway."

"'S what dads do, isn't it? Worry?" she said almost off-handedly, but there was a certain deliberateness to her words. "Oh, I've got somethin' t' show you, think you'll like it," she said, setting down the chocolate and reaching into her jacket pocket. "Margali gave me some pictures. Of me when I was little. Well, copies - she had 'em made for me before I left."

"Pictures?" Nathan said almost delightedly, his expression brightening dramatically. "Give, you little brat..."

Giggling, Amanda handed the photos over, pleased at his reaction. There weren't many, but considering she'd never had _any_, that was still an improvement. Her as a baby in Margali's arms, her father standing proudly behind them. Stefan, Kurt and herself, Stefan holding her carefully. Her father with one of the horses, her on its back. "This one's just before I got taken," she said, pointing at the horse one.

"You were so cute," Nathan said, studying them intently for a minute or two before he looked up, grinning unrepentantly. "So what happened?"

She poked her tongue out at him. "I have been told by a good many people that I still _am_ cute," she said loftily. "Especially when I do the pigtail thing. Which I have t' do now my hair's gotten longer."

Bella choose that moment to pipe up. "'Manda pretty!"

"See?" Amanda said, grinning.

"The pigtails are adorable. Let me guess..." Nathan paused, tilting his head. "Dom. Her idea."

"How'd you guess?" Amanda grinned and retrieved her chocolate. "I was talkin' 'bout how things've changed for me since I got here, an' the year thing an' all, an' she suggested a change in look t' match the change in me. So we did the whole thing. Hair, clothes... we even went t' this place she knew an' got some of the scars on me front taken off." That had been one of the harder decisions, but she'd felt better for it. "Got a replacement, tho' - you saw me post 'bout the tattoos?"

"Dom-psychology... and yeah, I saw the post about the tattoos." Nathan made a thoughtful look, rubbing at his upper arm briefly. "Did I ever tell you I had one?"

"You did? What was it? An' why did you get it taken off? Was it embarrassin', like a naked woman or somethin'?" she teased.

Oh, yeah, this was definitely the time to be telling this story... Nathan sighed inwardly. He had broached the subject. "An alpha-omega symbol. Call it a Mistra brand. I, um, cut it out with a knife."

"Fuck..." Instinctively, Amanda moved to lay her hand on the place he'd rubbed, guessing it was where the tattoo had been. "A _knife_. Bleedin' hell, Nate, there're easier ways to get rid of that sort of thing, even if it was a Mistra brand an' all." And speaking of brands, she'd pretty much done that to Manuel, even if it _was_ a protective rune as well as a warding one.

"I'm just very lucky Moira didn't catch me doing it. It was not long after I... got back, in August. Just after I stopped doing the narcolepsy thing." He paused, though, at the faint hesitation that followed her comment, wondering what that was all about.

"Yer fuckin' lucky neither of us did... I thought you meant ages ago, not that recent." She smacked him lightly on the arm. "Bloody hell, Nate, at least you could've come an' gotten me t' fix the damage after."

He snorted softly. "There were a couple of days, after the narcolepsy crap stopped, that I was still really out of it. Thinking the house was going to change around me. I took it into my head that I had to get rid of the tattoo or they'd know where to find me."

"Oh, Nate..." She said the words with feeling, and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "That was such a fucked-up time. I still can't believe we didn't lose you, sometimes." A brief, humourless smile crossed her face. "An' I'd like t' see 'em try now."

"Hey. Nearly six months, speaking of anniversaries." He put his arm around her shoulders, hugging her. "I'm glad you're back," he said with a somewhat hesitant smile. "I know we didn't get to say goodbye properly when Romany came and got you."

"Yeah, well, I was still sort of out of it. An' none of you were up t' seein' me again so soon after..." She bit her lip. "I was awful, wasn't I? I mean, the outfit I was in was bad enough. But still, the bitch is gone, well an' truly, an' she ain't touchin' Manuel again. Not with..." She stopped herself, realising she was saying way more than she'd intended. "Um."

"You weren't awful," Nathan pointed out, quietly but firmly. "The bitch wearing your body, on the other hand..." He sighed, wondering what the rapid cutting-off had been about. "Amanda, whatever you didn't say - was it safe?"

"Not exactly, but it wasn't like there was a lot of choice at the time. An' you lot're always sayin' sometimes you have t' do stuff you normally wouldn't if yer pushed far enough, right?" He was giving her the father look, and she squirmed a bit before coming clean. "Rom told you they couldn't get it all, right? Well, it sort of popped up again, when we were..." She looked down. "When we were a bit stoned."

Nathan winced, drawing his arm back. "Have you told her? Or Strange?"

Amanda nodded vehemently. "First thing next day. Well, after we woke up. But the thing is, Nate, _I_ got it out. That little bit of her that was left was tryin' t' use the link t' get at me, an' I shoved her right out. _Me_, by meself!" She gave him a pleading look. "We're both fine, she never touched me, honest. An' Manuel's free now. I had t' put a protection ward on him t' make sure he stays that way, but he's really all right, an' so am I."

If Strange and Romany both knew, and had made sure... Nathan breathed out on a sigh, mustering a slightly wan smile. "Well, I'm glad, then. Don't mind the lack of enthusiasm?"

"I don't blame you. But it wasn't our fault, we didn't know that would happen." Amanda sighed herself. "After all the shite, we just wanted a bit of fun, y'know? Guess I'll have t' stick t' beer."

"I'm the last person to counsel you on that," Nathan said wryly. "The only vice I've never sampled was smoking. I went through a thankfully short period of experimentation, post-Mistra... generally speaking, though, mutant abilities do not interact well with mind-altering substances. Something to keep in mind, even setting aside the whole evil psionic vampire..."

"Yeah, I've noticed that with mine already. 'S why I never got into anythin' really serious, or psychadelics - fuck with the magic way too much, lose all my connections, like what happened at New Y... um, yeah." No bringing up _that_ topic either - Nathan didn't need the reminder. "An' it was weird... it was like Manuel got his powers back, just a little bit. I'm not sure if it was the dope or Selene. Things got pretty... intense." She blushed a bit, remembering just _how_ intense. And later, when Manuel had been gripped by that almost alarming level of euphoria.

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again. Oh, yes, there was more going on here than met the eye... was it bad that he didn't really want to know? He sighed again. "I'm just glad the two of you are okay. Handling it alone, however well you did do in the end..." He poked her lightly in the shoulder. "I suppose there wasn't much of an option."

"Well, no, there wasn't. I couldn't exactly give Strange a bell mid-fu... um, what we were doin', an' ask him t' come an' deal with the situation. I don't think any of 'em even realised what was left could _do_ anythin', which is why they let us leave in the first place." Amanda sounded just a bit irritated though, given the circumstances. Some warning might have been nice - she assumed it was the whole 'no messing with dark forces' thing coming out again.

Nathan frowned a little at the edge of irritation. "I can't imagine Romany letting you out of her sight if she had any idea there might still be a problem," he pointed out gently.

"Well, she didn't exactly pick up the fact there could be a problem with the ritual either, did she?" Amanda pointed out waspishly, then shook her head. "I didn't mean that, dunno where it came from. She an' the rest did their best, I know. Selene was just too strong for 'em..." She shook her head, scratching Bella under the chin lightly. "It just feels like 'm gettin' into trouble for fixin' up somethin' they left half-done, Nate. They don't tell me everythin', an' then wonder why things happen."

"It's all right to be frustrated," Nathan said after a moment, "after everything you've been through just recently... but you believe that they did their best, don't you?"

"Of course I do," Amanda said, but her tone lacked a certain amount of conviction.

Nathan took a deep breath, outwardly calm but inwardly quite significantly perturbed. "No," he said, more quietly. "You don't. Not really. That's not unnatural, mind you... this is still a little too close for you to have any kind of perspective on it."

Amanda shrugged and got up, obstensively to return Bella to her cage, but mostly to give herself time to work on her poker face - Nate didn't need the bother, and really, it wasn't a big deal. She'd fixed it, hadn't she? "Yer right," she said. "I'm still workin' on sortin' everythin' out - the stuff with me family was good an' all, but 's still a lot t' take in, even without the rest of it. It'll work out."

"Oh, don't do that." Nathan laughed suddenly, almost ruefully as she turned back to him. "I see through it. In fact, I wish I'd stop seeing through it and half the other things I've seen through since I got back. Anyone ever told you that ignorance is bliss?"

She blinked at him. "Nate, have you gone balmy or somethin'?" she asked, not realising what he meant. "Chocolate flashbacks?"

"I told you." He kept his tone patient. "Back on Muir. My telepathy. What happened with Cain burned out the psychic scarring in this much fucked-with head of mine - " He tapped his own temple. "So it's like someone turned up the volume."

"Oh," she replied, her voice a little flat and her shields slamming up as much as she could. "I'd forgot."

He sighed. "That wasn't either a plea for sympathy, or me telling you to button it up psychically," he said a bit wistfully. "I just... Selene violated a lot of things, but among them was your privacy, if you want to put such an innocuous sounding word to it. I can't help overhearing, at least right now, but I didn't want you to be ignorant of the fact that I was."

Amanda went still for a long moment, focussing Bella who was making unhappy noises about being re-caged. "Look," she said at last. "I trust Rom with me life. Literally. But she dropped the ball on this one, Nate, she really did. An' it could've been a lot worse. So I can't help feelin' like she let me down a bit, all right? It doesn't mean I ain't every gunna trust her again, 's just gunna take me a while t' work it through."

"Just do me a favor. Ask yourself if that's an emotional reaction, or a logical one. Or both." Nathan shook his head, getting up off the couch. "Okay, enough of this. I had something for you, which is why I asked you up here..."

She blinked at him. "But you already gave me me Christmas present, that book, remember?" she said, perfectly happy to finish the more uncomfortable part of the conversation. "Which is brilliant, by the way."

"I knew you'd like it," he said, heading into the bedroom. "But I couldn't force Pete to take the other gift with him. It's just a little... uh, heavy."

"Heavy? What in the world...?" Amanda looked confused. What on earth had he gotten her?

"Close your eyes," he called from the bedroom, peeking out to make sure she did so before he came back over and set the armillary sphere down on the table in front of her. It really was heavy. Then again, there was enough metal in it to make a pretty effective blunt weapon. "Okay. You can open them."

Amanda opened her eyes. "Ooh," she said, going over to examine the sphere. "Nice... um, what is it?"

"It's an armillary sphere," Nathan said, adjusting it gently. "Lets you tell when sunrise and sunset it, and what astrological house the sun is in at any given time."

"Ooh," Amanda said again, examining it more closely. "Teach me how t' use it?" she asked, looking up at him. "An' thank you. You spoil me, you really do."

"I try. And I will - teach you how to use it, I mean." Nathan was pensively quiet for a long moment, though, staring down at the armillary sphere. Patterns were spinning in his head, nagging at him, but they weren't resolving into anything he could understand, and he let them go with an inward sigh, at last.

"Nate?" Amanda's voice was soft, and when he looked up, she was giving him that look, the one that said she was sorry for worrying him. "It'll be all right," she said, before reaching out to touch his arm gently. "Hug?"

He smiled down at her, then carefully enfolded her in his arms. "Love you, brat. Just don't forget that, okay? Whatever trouble either of us manages to get into this year."