xp_logs | Nathan and Dr. Strange, Saturday morning (Reply)

The two men who were in the middle of things at Columbia six months ago talk about it, and Mistra, for the first time since.

Well, he'd managed to walk away from this one in somewhat better shape, Nathan tried to console himself as he headed upstairs. Then again, that was only because he'd tripped the safeties, according to Scott, and thus ended the program early. Pity. He did so prefer it when his failures were spectacular ones. What was the point of fucking up otherwise?

The speech was coming along nicely, Strange decided as he headed downstairs from where he'd been workign with Amanda, both on her speech and the precautionary magic she might need. He probably didn't need to come out to the school quite as often as he had been, but he'd wanted to reassure himself she was all right after New Year's. And possibly to try and redeem himself in her eyes after his failure to detect Selene's presence in Manuel's mind.

Nathan was partway up the stairs before the identity of the man heading down them actually penetrated his tired, scenario-replaying mind. He stopped dead, staring up with wariness he couldn't quite disguise at Strange. "Stephen," he said after a moment.

"Nathan." Strange's tone was equally wary - Amanda had told him his reaction to her giving the speech, and Strange had the feeling he was going to be blamed for putting the idea in her head. Which he hadn't, he thought almost defensively. But still, he had a certain amount of sympathy for the man, given the circumstances... "Another tutoring session with Amanda. Making up ground lost over the New Year," he said vaguely.

"Going over stuff for the memorial too, I'm guessing?" Nathan asked, no edge in his voice. "She told me you would be there. Helping to watch over her." Like he wouldn't be. Couldn't be.

Strange nodded cautiously. "She's coming along well. Nervous, but that's to be expected." The lack of edge in Nathan's words was a small comfort. "I'll watch her every second, you know that, Nathan. Nothing will happen."

This was probably not the place to be standing and having this conversation. Go through the motions, Nathan told himself, stepping aside to give Strange room to come past him and turning at the same time to follow him back down. Maybe they could both pretend he was just seeing Stephen out. Being polite.

"I know you will," he finally said. "This... can't be easy for you, either," he said after an awkward pause as they headed towards the front door. "The anniversary, I mean."

"It's... difficult," Strange admitted. "I always intended to attend this gathering, but seeing the reminders, the posters, the news reports... It brings it all back." They reached the front door and Strange opened it, waiting until Nathan had followed him and closed it behind them before speaking again. "My office overlooks the parking lot," he said, almost suddenly.

Nathan stiffened. "I didn't know that," he said, almost inaudibly. "I'd never been up there." He stared out at the driveway, at the snow, anywhere but at Strange. "So you remember, when you look out the window."

"At least once a day, when I come in," Strange said, sounding tired. He looked tired as well, his face slightly drawn, as if he hadn't been sleeping lately. "Not that I need reminding, but yes, it acts to jog my memory. Or more club me over the head with it." He smiled faintly at the joke.

Nathan couldn't bring himself to smile. "She's doing a brave thing," he said after another long moment, his voice still barely a whisper. "Not so sure it's a smart thing, but as she's pointed out to me, I'm hardly objective on the subject."

"Hardly your fault, Nathan. Your perspective on the situation is.. uniquely personal." Strange moved to take a seat on one of the benches that lived on the front porch. "She... needs to do this. To make her point. To prove the hate-mongers wrong." He looked up at Nathan. "To get some sense of control back into her life."

"Uniquely personal. That's the nicest euphemism I've heard yet." Nathan bit his lip, raising a hand when Strange would have said something. "I'm sorry. I'm just..." No, not going there. "I'm glad you're helping her do this. I know she feels strongly about it." There.

"What do you want me to say? That you feel responsible for those deaths because those madmen chose that time and place to ambush you? We both know that's how you feel, but my euphemism is, at least, easier to say," Strange practically snapped, before regaining some sense of control. "She would do this, with or without my help. I would prefer to not see her in danger in the course of it, so I help. That and because perhaps I have some atoning of my own to do, having failed her then and more recently." He shook his head. "I understand why you cannot. So does she."

What was he doing, talking about this? To be doing it with Strange of all people, who had been there, probably lost people he knew... "I'm sorry," Nathan muttered, trying to ignore the increasing tightness in his chest. "This is not... I'm glad you'll be there." He'd said that already. Damn. Swallowing painfully, Nathan turned back towards the door. "Thank you."

"It's a good speech," Strange said, halting Nathan with his hand on the doorknob. "She wrote it largely herself. You'll be proud." He gave Nathan a penetrating look. "I'll be recording the final version. You're not ready now, but when you are... I can give you a copy."

"I'm sure it is." He smiled humorlessly, hand still on the doorknob. "I have to wonder if it wouldn't be even more so if she could tell the whole of the truth. If everyone who was there that day could find out that the mutants who slaughtered their classmates and colleagues and friends didn't have a choice either." He took a shaky breath. "But then, finding out the rabid wolves were actually just well-trained dogs doesn't change what they did, does it?"

"It doesn't change the results, no. But it does change the response. Don't you think I haven't wondered at a government administration that would allow this sort of thing to be put into operation? Rogue or not now, from what you and Amanda have said, this group started as a government-sanctioned military program, taking children and molding them into weapons without thought for their rights or civil liberties, or even their humanity! And people ought to know this." Strange took in Nathan's flicker of alarm. "But not from me. Or Amanda. We both understand the risk is too great, to you, to the school, and to ourselves. This is your call, I believe the expression is."

My call? Nathan turned slowly, away from the door. "The program started nearly thirty years ago," he said. "The people who made those initial decisions are probably long dead. And something like Mistra... programs like that get lost in the shadows. They become self-sustaining. I doubt any President was ever aware of their existence, even the one who was in office when they set up the first training program." He took another deep, ragged breath. "I was in the second group of candidates. None of the first lived. Barely five percent of the second did. You have no idea, Stephen," he went on, his voice growing hoarse, the words speeding up as they came out. "No idea how many children died. Over the years... it's been hundreds. Not counting what they're doing now."

He stopped, bit his lip hard, reminding himself that this was not someone who needed to know about what Mistra was doing now. "You have no idea," he repeated, back to a whisper, "how many times I wondered why no one knew. Why no one ever stopped it. Why no one ever put the pieces together, even when they started killing the parents of children with particularly valuable mutations, just to make it easier to take them into the program." His hands were shaking. He clenched them into fists, shoved them deep into his pockets, unable to meet Strange's eyes. "I came to the conclusion, in the end, that they simply hadn't cared. There are so many unwanted children in this country, and when you're unwanted and a mutant, you're a particularly awkward burden. Easier to let us just slip through the cracks."

"There is an element of that, yes," Strange admitted. "But there's also the inability to believe that such horrors could exist in this country of ours. We've been taught from an early age that this is the home of the brave and the land of the free. God's country. You may not believe that personally - I certainly don't - but enough do. It's unthinkable that such barbarity would be sanctioned, or even exist." Another of those penetrating looks. "And yet it does, and still continues, you say." His face went bleak. "Is there nothing to be done?"

"Nationalism," Nathan muttered. "Just as bad as religion..." He shook his head, his shoulders slumping. "You say people ought to know. But if it was made public, they would kill all the children they have now and go underground."

"I was afraid that would be the case." Strange's shoulders slumped a little, and he sounded almost defeated. "They need to be stopped," he said at last.

"They could have been," Nathan said very softly. "Amanda probably mentioned to you what happened a couple of weeks after Columbia?" In a few brief, clipped sentences, he told Strange about MacInnis, Kritzer, and the Trojan Horse. "I wonder sometimes, since my precognition came back, whether that shouldn't have happened after all," he concluded stiffly. "Because when I try and project ahead for Mistra, all I get is... despair."

"Is it possible your own feelings in the matter are clouding your ability?" Strange asked. "I refuse to believe that this could only have been ended with your death, religious symbology be damned."

"Any number of things could be clouding my ability." Nathan leaned back against the wall, sighing. "I'm deeply flawed as a precog, too - I have no grasp on the immediate future. Makes it kind of hard to figure out how you get from point A to point C if you can't see point B."

"Have you... has Ms Colbert Seen anything that might be of use?" asked Strange. "I was aware there have been some... developments, with her power."

"The two of us had a joint episode, a couple of weeks ago," Nathan said wryly. "Long story," he said when Strange raised an eyebrow. "Simply put, it was an inadvertent precognitive link. I'm still sorting through what was accumulated, between what she drew and what I tried to jot down before it all slipped from mind. There are a couple of things..." The wry look faded and he shook his head, smiling humorlessly. "Maybe. We'll see."

"If you are A to C, as you put it, and she is A to B... perhaps there is something in there indeed?"Strange stirred himself with a shiver - it was cold and he had a long drive back to New York to do. "I hope you forgive me. It was not my intention to confront you with any of this. I understand the need to heal, even if I myself am not a healer."

Nathan shifted restlessly. "No need for forgiveness," he said, managing to make his tone level, rather than curt. "You've had the right to confront me about this for almost six months now." He glanced up at the sky, noting the increasing darkness of the cloud. "You should head out. Looks like there might be snow."

Strange sighed at the wording, but didn't push the point. "I have no more right than anyone else to expect anything from you, Nathan," he said, pushing himself upright. "And you are right - I believe it is going to snow. Blast." He gave the other man a brief nod. "Take care of yourself, Nathan."

"You too," Nathan said quietly, nodding back. He turned away, going back inside without another word.