Log [Nathan, Alison] Past, present and future...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Wednesday afternoon, in the kitchen. Nathan bakes, Alison checks in on him to make sure the entire process of getting the point through to him is going well, and to reinforce a few other things as well. There is, as it turns out, mutual reinforcement instead - not all that surprising, really. Featuring churros, hot chocolate and some silly amongst the serious.



He had been a little loath to try this particular recipe with his cooking class, after Jubilee's kitchen accident. But then, Nathan reasoned, laying out the ingredients, perhaps it would be a good idea to show them that they didn't have to be afraid of accidents with hot oil, so long as they were careful.

She hadn't been following him around, exactly - more like keeping a very close eye on his activities and general state of mind, since the last training session on Tuesday. Moments of realization were good and all, but she'd essentially made sure they were artfully punching a great big hole in a few rather large elements of Nathan's way of thinking and living, which meant making sure to point out a few others things, once the dust had settled. Peeking through the doorway and spotting him doing the utterly mundane things involved with a kitchen and food, Alison pondered if now was the right time.

Nathan sensed Alison's unmistakable presence, her thoughts tinged with a certain cautious curiosity, and he smiled a little. "Come to confirm for yourself that yes, I do actually teach a cooking class?" he joked, turning away to get the flour out of the cupboard.

The stress lines of the past weeks had faded and his expression was open , unguarded- Alison found herself smiling back at him, breath escaping slowly her as she stepped fully into the kitchen. She'd had, of course, not a thing at all to do with Lorna deciding to ambush him on that. Hadn't even enabled. Much. "Well, you know me. Always hungry." Especially with the training she was undergoing right now. "Testing something for the class?"

"Churros," Nathan said, his smile growing a little as she came in. "I'd promised the kids a treat for tomorrow, and really, a lesson in 'how to cook with hot oil' is probably in order after Jubilee's accident."

"Churros?" Alison repeated, eyes widening just a bit. A memory surged forth, the taste of sugary cinnamon so strong she could almost taste it. "My nanny would make those sometimes as a special treat." It had also involved sneaking down to the kitchen when her parents were off doing something or other, she recalled, and a fair amount of giggling.

"They're a bit of a nostalgia food for me, too," Nathan confessed lightly, remembering telling this very story to Moira. "The family in Mexico that took me in after I got out of the States eight years ago... I remember the daughter trying to tempt me to eat with them."

She was letting her stomach distract her. Well, not really - more like it felt right to just talk about this, and see how things turned out. She'd been patient this far, after all. "Hrm. Don't supposed you'll need someone to taste test those when you're done, will you?" Well, the googly eyes of doom worked well enough on Lorna, when it came to food in general.

"Mmm. That and the Mexican hot chocolate, yes," Nathan said with a straight face, getting out a saucepan. "Since I apparently shouldn't be having any of the latter."

"Oooh.. Someone should make sure that doesn't go to waste," Alison nodded wisely. The kitchen was empty other than for the two of them. Look at that. "I guess I should help out. It would just be criminal to let all of that go to waste like that."

"So, test batches of each, then," Nathan said, mixing water, sugar, salt and oil, then setting it on to boil while he measured out the flour. "Do me a favor - dig out the double boiler? Hurts to bend over too far, still."

"Got it." She was used to that sort of stuff, since a fair part of wheedling Lorna into cooking for her involved her being a kitchen minion, after all. The casual reference to the injury incurred on Tuesday was just that - and though there was a smidgen of guilt still lingering, over everything he had been put through, the sense of relief and happiness that he had broken through to his realization still held far more sway than anything else. "Here you go!" Pure habit made her place it in the same area Lorna always did.
Nathan smiled, and a knife slid out of the rack on the other side of the kitchen, floating at a safe speed over to the cutting board, where it was joined by several chunks of dark chocolate. The knife started to chop it evenly, while Nathan stirred the mixture already on the stove. "I cheat shamelessly," he explained. "The kids get a kick out of it, though."

"I'm used to watching Lorna cook," she grinned, sidling a bit further to give him room to move, leaning on the counter to watch. "It feels funny when there isn't cutlery floating about on its own." Alison looked amused at the admission, even as she pondered having a few of the Churros set aside for Miles - depending on when they were finished, considering she was attempting to curb the sugar intake after a certain hour. Little boys on a sugar high did not deal with bedtime very well. "Sounds like you're enjoying teaching the class."

"It's really kind of refreshing," Nathan confessed. "And I like the little kids." The mixture was boiling quickly, and he removed it from the heat, bringing it back over the island, where he'd left the flour. The chopped chocolate removed itself to the double boiler, which slid smoothly onto the hot burner just vacated by the other pot. "Not always relaxing, but fun. They giggle a lot."

"Kids and food are generally a good mix," Alison snickered. Miles moreso than anyone else, she knew only too well. "You could probably ask Miles to assist you when you decide to show them how to make cookies. Lorna's been teaching him stuff there." Bright, lively amusement welled up at that, Lorna still not having noticed the way the little boy worshipped her every step.

"I think Charles is tickled to death that I'm doing this, too," Nathan said. "He's gotten to sample a couple of test-batches himself." There. He'd given her the in, and he smiled to himself as he stirred in the flour.

"All this time and I wasn't even invited to do so?" She pouted at him, before wrinkling her nose at him, ruining the sulk entirely within a matter of seconds. "You spoke to Charles, yesterday." It wasn't a question so much as a statement, the opening accepted gently.

"First thing this morning, actually. He had tea. I mainlined coffee." Nathan snorted softly, then went in search of the pastry bag. Lorna had told him there was one suitable in here somewhere. "And I did most of the talking."

Well, he didn't have the jitteriness about him that Alison had learned to associate to too much coffee. "Well. We did give you a lot to talk about, really." She said the words softly, the still overwhelming relief that it was over present and far more fresh to her mind than how never-wracking the wait had been to see if her idea would work at all.

"Although we did have a semi-lively discussion about the different between psychic conditioning and operant conditioning." Another saucepan floated out of the cupboard, the milk and cream levitating off the island and pouring themselves into it as it moved in the direction of the stove. "I think the conclusion was 'Don't blame the former for the latter'."

"Mmm." Alison nodded, glancing down at the counter for a moment. "Even if one can reinforce the other." She paused, and then offered him a small smile. "I had a few talks about that with him myself, before he and the others agreed to scenarios." And because it had to be asked and now felt right. "How do you feel about it, now?"

"Mixed feelings," Nathan said, a bit more briskly than he really felt. Ah-hah. There was the pastry bag. He pulled it out of the drawer, examining the nozzle carefully. Yes. That would do. Fluted, which he needed. "On one hand, understanding yourself better is always a good thing. Deluding yourself as to your motivations is almost always dangerous." He smiled a bit humorlessly as he came back over to the island. "Then again, it's not entirely a comfortable realization. I've been haunted by the whole 'am I or am I not a trained animal?' question lately. Realizing that I was driving myself based at least partially on the fact that I was afraid someone was going to punish me if I let you all down... yeah. Not a happy thought."

Nabbing a stool with her foot, Alison dragged it closer, sitting down on it before leaning back on the counter. "What worried me the most in all of this," she said carefully, "is that sometimes you tended to punish yourself if no one did it when you expected it to happen." It was why she'd made a point of giving him a target for his frustrations - a clear tormentor, as it was. "When someone's been taught," she paused, searching for the right expression, "a Pavlovian type of reflexes since childhood, and then had that reinforced later on... it's only human to follow what we know. What feels safe."

He paused for a moment. "It's funny," he said slowly. "I remember trying to explain that to Amanda, that I did... but I didn't understand how much it was still motivating me. I thought it was this occasional thing I did under stress. Not there all the time..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Doesn't make me happy," he muttered, spooning the dough into the pastry bag with more force than strictly necessary. "You know what it makes me think of? This business of Shiro's about being ronin. Except at least there's a little dignity in that. None at all in being a trained attack dog that ran away from home."

"You're not supposed to see it, the conditioning. That's what it's all about," she pointed out, not saying a word about the treatment the pastry bag was receiving. "You know, just because Mistra viewed you as a thing to be used, it doesn't make them right about it. Or anyone else who might have done that to you. If you were what they thought of you as, would you have been telling me about how you enjoyed teaching the kids how to cook, not ten minutes ago?" He'd been treated like someone less than human long enough to believe it. "And just so you know, that's one example of, oh, a bazillion others I can think of." She had the opening to address the other issue she wanted to make sure to bring to the table now, too.

"The memorial didn't help." His voice was very low, now. Didn't want anyone to happen by and hear him bitching about this. "That part of Amanda's speech, where she talked about the evil mutants who enjoyed killing and destroying... I know it's the only thing she could have said, and I know there was no way to tell the truth, but..." His hand clenched on the spoon. "Acceptable casualty, the truth," he said a bit hoarsely, thinking about that conversation with Forge. "Since so much could be achieved by just... glossing over that part. Perfectly understandable, but it still makes me feel like shit."

"Acceptable? No." Alison sighed, shaking her head slightly. "No, it's not. I wish it hadn't been presented that way, myself. That it had been just about being mutants, and human all the same. With no 'us versus them' going on." She shrugged, a bit awkwardly. "But I'm probably biased there. Never mind the probably - I am, pure and simple. That was the message I was trying to pass along, back then. Human first. Singer by choice. Genetic quirks of Fate having nothing to do with who or what I could be." She offered him a somewhat helpless smile. "But it wasn't my choice to make or my stand to make, on Monday. And the circumstances weren't the same. It's... easy to want to justify. And it might make solid ground for her and others to build on, too, because in general there was some truth to it. It just didn't apply to what really happened. And I am never, even going to let her know I think this." Just because she would have preferred another way didn't mean it was the only one, or even the right one for Amanda.

Nathan finished filling the pastry bag, then set it down, going over to put the oil on the stove while the hot chocolate continued to make itself. "She dehumanized them," he said finally, very quietly. "And I would never say that to her, either, because I can't imagine it didn't bother her to phrase it that way. She knows, after all. Hell, I tried to explain this to Forge last week - I was worried about it before I ever heard her speech. He told me that maybe it could help lead to a world where mutants weren't used like that. I just..." His hand shook a little as he poured the oil. "It all connected, in the end, you know. I doubt I'd have figured things out yesterday if I hadn't had that gnawing at me."

"The grand old theme of good and evil is an easy one to pass along to people. And it's a dangerous one to use, too, because once you've set up a faceless someone for people to point the finger at..." People succumbed to fear, easily. "But what's done is done. It's not like it hasn't been done before, either." She watched as he handled the ingredients, noting the unsteadiness. "And... I thought that the Columbia thing might nudge things along for you." That, or that it would have possibly set him back weeks, if not months.

Columbia, the conversation with Cain... both had contributed. "I feel..." Nathan paused again, shaking his head. "I don't know how I feel. Wrung out, still, when you come right down to it." He bit his lip. "Kind of defeated, too," he confessed more quietly.

He never did do things halfway, and Alison's lips quirked slightly. "Nathan? You do realize that this doesn't invalidate everything about you, right?" She tilted her head to the side, because this was another of those 'can't be rehearsed' conversations, which kept coming up far too frequently it seemed, these days. "'With your shield or on it.' That was what we really wanted to get you to rethink. Because you're worth so much more, as a friend and a colleague and a human being. Because you should be able to define these things on your own, without anyone else setting that standard for you. And - because the majority of your training is brilliant and you can bring so much to the team. We just weren't willing to do it on anything but your terms."

Nathan was thrown by that last bit. "It's not just my powers, then?" he asked a bit tentatively. "You wanted the training, too?"

She shook her head at him, trying to repress a smile and failing miserably. "Nooo. Not exactly. We didn't want your just your powers and we didn't want just your training, so much as we just wanted you." She brought her hands up, cupping them together. "Whole. And if from here you decide not to be part of a team, then it'll be your decision. Free and clear. And if you decide to stay and become an active team member, then it'll be your decision as well. And nothing less than that was acceptable to us. We wanted you to have that choice. Entirely. Not driven by anything that you weren't aware of."

Nathan stared at her for a long moment before the sizzling of the oil behind him caught his attention. "I don't know what to think," he finally said, picking up the pastry bag and going over to squeeze long strips of the dough into the oil. Three at a time, at first. And the hot chocolate was progressing nicely. "I still want to do this, Alison, but now I'm afraid it's for the wrong reasons."

A low chuckle answered him. "Nathan, half the time I'm not even sure of my own reasons for doing this." There was a pause at that and she glanced down at the counter once more. "Except when I stop to look at Miles and think of what the future might hold for him." The memory of light filling her mind, and the need to protect Miles no matter what was still achingly clear. "That you're afraid it's for the wrong reason isn't a bad thing, you know. Just means you may need to look on it a bit closer and try and figure it out, best as you can. It's what we all do."

The oil hissed, and Nathan turned away to mix up the sugar and cinnamon combination. "I just want to feel good about doing it," he said, more tiredly than crossly. "I want there to be a point to things. You remember the RedX trip to Florida, back in August? Just before Mistra recaptured me? I want to feel like I did when I came home that night." He sighed, going back to the frying churros.

"I remember that," she answered after a moment's silence, pushing away from the counter a bit to sit a bit straighter, staring down at her hands. She hadn't been on a RedX trip herself for even longer than that, really - and found she missed being able to point at something with a concrete, immediate result. "Someone has to do it anyway. It's easy to point and think we've got all the glory, but really, we're just holding back the tide and giving someone else the time to try and set the foundation for things to come. People like Amanda and the other kids. So maybe they won't have to do what we do, when it's their turn. So things will have changed enough." Whether it was what one wanted out of life, or not.

"Holding back the tide." The churros had turned nicely golden and he fished them out telekinetically, transferring them to the paper towel-covered plate. A quick dip in the cinnamon and sugar mixture, then to another plate, and a cup of thick hot chocolate poured itself behind him. He levitated both the plate and the cup over to a soft landing on the counter in front of Alison.

"I figured out one thing," he said quietly. "It can't be about redemption for me." He thought about Moira, about the baby, and smiled suddenly.

The smell of the churros and hot chocolate wasn't as tempting now as it had been earlier, somehow. But the smile on Nathan's face drew her attention and she gave him a curious look, tugging her plate closer a bit absently. "Share?" She meant whatever it was he'd figured out, of course, though by Miles-ingrained habit she was now looking for another plate as well, to divvy up the pastries.

"If you do something like this for the sake of redeeming yourself, as penance for the things you've done... who tells you when it's enough?" Nathan shrugged a little, putting another couple of churros into the oil. He might as well use up the dough, although he had only made a part-batch. "There's a very thin line between penance and punishment, isn't there? And really..." He trailed off, his eyes going distant for a moment as the thought came around full-circle, almost gently. "It's not a reason. Not a good enough one in these circumstances. Fight to live, not live to fight. Like Askani said."

"Yeah." He would be all right. The point had been made and he'd integrated it well and even if there might be backsliding for a while, that would be normal. And if there was none, then at least she'd done this better than she thought possible and Alison couldn't help staring down at her hot chocolate, tears threatening to take over. She had one tangible achievement, right there. Even if she still felt trapped into all of this, left with no other path to take except one which she'd never wanted to start with - at least there were some things she could tentatively hope to have done entirely right. Maybe.

Nathan sensed the shift in her thoughts and tilted his head, regarding her silently for a moment. "This can't have been easy for you," he said after a moment, a smile tugging at his lips. "Wondering whether or not I'd get it or kill myself in the Danger Room trying."

"You weren't going to kill yourself," she muttered, the mantra awfully familiar by now. "The safeties were on." Now, the wondering as to whether she was actually right or not about everything had been another story entirely. "I would have been very aggrieved if you'd killed yourself. Would have kicked your butt for it too."

Nathan took the churros out of the oil, and the oil off the heat. That done, he moved across the space between them until he was standing beside her. "Not to mention the fact that I've been snarling at you for most of the last two weeks. I'm sorry." He hesitated for a minute, the smile lingering. "And thanks. For sticking to it. I have an awfully thick skull sometimes."

"Mr." She waved that off, eyeing her plate with perhaps a bit too much interest. "I... sorta figured you'd need to be able to do that. To have at least some outlet, or else you'd have just chewed yourself up even more." The admission made her grin though and she slid him a sideways look. "So long as you were snarling, I figured you were going to be okay once it was all done with."

"Well, I am a cantankerous old man, you know." But Nathan shook his head, his smile growing. "Alison," he said, waiting until she looked up at him. "Thank you," he said, quietly but firmly. "I mean that."

"You're welcome," she murmured, smiling just a bit and holding his gaze for a moment before looking down at the churros once more. "They're going to get cold."

Nathan reached down and stole one off the plate, biting into it. "Mmm," he said after a minute. "Not as good as Maria's."

"They're never as good as the first person who made 'em for you." Alison grinned at him, before claiming one for her own. "But s'not bad at all," she added after taking a healthy bite out of her own, winking at him impishly.

Nathan detoured back to where he'd been standing, to dust the other two with the cinnamon-sugar mixture, and then, somewhat whimsically, poured himself a cup of hot chocolate, too. "So where do I go from here?" he asked, coming over and sitting down on the stool beside hers. "Training-wise, I mean. If I were to decide to continue." Oh, right. 'If'. He smiled as he sipped at the hot chocolate, fully aware that yeah, he'd kind of given himself away there, and maybe that wasn't such a bad thing after all. Questionable motivations were questionable motivations, but like he'd said, he still wanted this. One way or the other.

She wasn't, by any stretch of the imagination, going to dangle the active status under his nose as a reward. Even if it was far closer than he probably suspected. "Finish training. Which includes training with me, may I remind you, because I still need to get some sparring in." And would forever, as far as she was concerned, if she was to keep up with everyone on the team who had been fighting forever and a half, she thought whimsically. "And then at one point you get to pass the final evaluation tests for active status approval. Fitness test in the medlab, powers test, probably a few others things including tactics and teamwork."

Nathan waved a hand and the cooking mess started to clean itself up. Pots and utensils rinsed themselves under the tap, then floated into the dishwasher, and ingredients returned to their cupboards, and Nathan showed no evidence of visible effort. "All right," he said calmly, examining the flicker of impatience her answer provided with some amusement. Yeah. Definitely a little more sure of what he was doing than he'd really been prepared to admit to himself. Funny, that. "Can I start back today?"

"So long as the medlab's cleared you, you're all set." And Moira was still going to chase after her when she got back. A sip of the hot chocolate was due and upon sampling the beverage, Alison decided that that was possibly the best hot chocolate she'd ever had. "Mmm. Brain just went fizzle."

"Hank said to take it easy on the physical training for the next couple of days." He shot her a sideways look, tickled by her obvious approval for the hot chocolate. "Doesn't mean I couldn't do some of the tactical work. Scott was having me review some of those doomsday files of his. I solved one."

"He usually has solves for all of them too," Alison murmured pleasantly, fast headed for a hazy chocolatey happiness. "They're just not always pretty solves." She took another sip of the hot chocolate and grinned down at it approvingly. "I've got tactics going too. Scott is happy throwing stuff at me. Scott will be happier throwing stuff at more people. Bet you he hides out in his office and rubs his hands and chortles in glee with each new victim he nabs, too."

"Mmm. Charles told me today that he was happy with me, powers-wise, too," Nathan said, taking another sip of his hot chocolate. It had turned out quite nice, he decided. "I need to experiment more with the precog, obviously, and the telepathy's going to need steady work... he wants me to try playing switchboard in a couple of weeks. That should be fun."

"Mgrnf." That little acquisitory voice which kept piping up 'Mine!' every now and then cheerfully did so at that, along with a few ideas as to how exactly that could be applied to team tactics as well. "Ow. No thinking. Stupid brain." Alison took a sip of hot chocolate, which didn't do much of anything to drown out the cheerful voice, sadly. She was willing to bet Scott would get all grabby about it too. "I like that idea too."

"I didn't say I liked it. But, it's just communications-level stuff, at least," Nathan said, trying not to give her a suspicious look. What was it with chocolate and mutant metabolisms? Okay, so the Mexican hot chocolate was serious chocolate, too... "I'm not making much progress with anything beyond communications-level stuff, to be honest. Charles thinks I have a psychological inhibition."

"That's why I like the idea," Alison answered serenely. Because it wasn't as if Nathan's leeriness about his telepathy hadn't always been advertised with a great big neon sign over his head for all to see. That he seemed to forget about it when he was with people he trusted was a good sign though, she thought. "It'll be good for you. And I'm trying very very hard not to integrate this to team scenarios already. Let me know when you're ready for that to happen though?"

"He wants to drill me on multitasking a little more, first. Like I said - a couple of weeks." The clean-up efforts were reaching a conclusion, and Nathan sipped at his hot chocolate. "I know the team's not got a telepath available," he said quietly. "So I'll try and keep my nose to the grindstone."

"It is a fact that we don't have a telepath on active status right now," she agreed, before giving him a sharper look, unhazed by any chocolate glee. "But while it's a precious skill to have on the team, you as a human being is more important still." She blinked, then looked sheepish. "Sorry. I'm still in 'get the point through mode' I think." If she could have hid in the hot chocolate at this point, she would have. The reminder of her now deadened link with Betsy, which she had been trying to ignore to this point, was too much to avoid however, and her expression slowly walled off as she tentatively reached out to it again. Habit and the vague hope it might be back, foiled once more.

Nathan picked up a churro and waved it in front of her nose.

The motion caught her attention right away, but both her hands were quite busy hanging on to the mug of hot chocolate and not wanting to let go. Alison decided her hands were on to something and managed to not go quite cross-eyed as she focused on the churro. "That's taunting, you know."

"They're very good," Nathan said, mustering his best woeful look. "And they're not any good when they're not hot."

Somehow, through a great effort of will (and the smell of hot cinnamon now wafting about) Alison managed to unlatch one hand from her hot chocolate to claim the churro. "Well now, can't have all that hard work ruined, can we?" Oh yes, she was going straight for sugar overdose hell. It was only fair, if she was doing that, to go hunt down Miles afterwards and return the favor in return for all his sugar rushes. Oh yes.

"Speaking of Mexican food, I have a recipe for a chocolate jalapeno cake I wanted to try, too," Nathan mused idly, then shook his head. "Listen to me."

"Nathan, you're talking to the woman who has practiced a googly eye attack of doom on her roommate for over a year now, in an effort to get her to cook for her." She grinned widely, then did just that. "Chocolate jalapeno cake?"

"I found it while I was looking for recipes for these," Nathan said, waving a hand at the churros. "Looked interesting. I figured it might be good for Moira's cravings, too? She seems to go for odd combinations of sweet and spicey..."

"I think that is a very good idea," Alison nodded wisely. It might also, she vaguely hoped, distract Moira from hunting Alison down to kill her. Lots. "Maybe you should have that done for when she gets here?"

"There are a lot of things I want to have done for when she gets here," Nathan said a bit wistfully. "I don't want her coming home thinking I've been wallowing and miserable the whole time she's been gone."

"Well. You can probably let her know you were wallowing and miserable from her not being around but decided to do stuff anyway. There's nothing wrong with missing someone." Alison took another bite of the churro, and then shrugged a bit. "I was wallowing and miserable when Haroun was off to Las Vegas." Stupid Lebeau. Grr.

"I think it's probably good that she was gone for all of this, actually," Nathan said. "It forced me to focus on what was happening, if that makes any sense." He sipped at his hot chocolate again. "Needs more cinnamon, I think."

Not being able to lean on Moira, being forced to see things on his own - yes, that would have, he had to admit. It had also saved Moira from having to possibly leave the role of supporter to nudge along said realization. Alison finished off the churro and pondered his statement. "Guess you'll just have to make more, huh?"

"That's the plan." Nathan set the mug down on the counter and sighed. He closed his eyes, tracing one of the meditative patterns in his mind. "I feel all out of balance, Alison," he said, keeping his eyes shut. "I know that was the idea, and it's a good thing, but I'm terrified that someone's going to come along before I work it all out and knock me right over."

"It might happen. That's the problem," and she grinned self-deprecatingly at that, "with learning about yourself. Sometimes you think you're dead solid only you're not." The past few days had proven that to her, after all. "And people can't always guess where you're at when they haul off and do something." She sipped at her hot chocolate pensively. "You're already done the biggest part of it, you know. That can't be changed, now."

"I never thought I was solid," Nathan murmured, troubled, finally opening his eyes again. The lights in the kitchen seemed overly bright, in contrast. "Didn't delude myself to that extent, at least."

It was with some consternation that Alison started at her hand, which had of apparently of its own willpower decided to whap Nathan on the shoulder rather smartly. "Erm. Sorry 'bout that. Just happened." She gave him a very sheepish smile in apology, placing said hand back on the mug firmly. "You know. Making sure you never felt that way, couldn't see your own strengths? Might have been part of that pattern we've been nudging into oblivion. Food for thought?"

He raised an eyebrow at her for the swat. "Self-esteem," he said a bit dryly, the eyebrow not returning to its proper place. "Problematic thing, isn't it?"

"Tell me about it," she muttered ruefully, waggling the fingers on the mug to demonstrate they were staying put. There wasn't much else she could say to that statement, really.

He picked up his mug again. "So," he said, his eyes sliding sideways to her. "When do you get back on active status? There are probably infinitely more interesting things you could be doing than watching me run around the Danger Room."

Ow. Alison wished the chocolate haze had been enough to cover up her reaction to that, really. "I don't know. S'up to Scott and Ororo, really. And the medlab declaring me back to where I was before, fitness wise." And she'd been doing her best not to work herself into the ground on that one. "Being out for so long really threw a lot of wrenches into things. Got Haroun and I on pretty intensive team work training this week, though. Scott was positively chortling when I asked him to think up challenging scenarios for us."

"You'll be there," Nathan said almost absently. "So long as you're sure you're ready to be, too."

Which hit a few sore spots in and of itself, as statements went, but Alison simply sampled the hot chocolate again, nodding agreeably. Not pointing out that it seemed endlessly ironic to her that everyone else was convinced she'd do fine, except herself. And possibly a few people who chose to not speak up, regardless of their reservations. "I know the things I'm good at." She said suddenly, surprising herself. "This is… something new."

"And?" Nathan asked levelly. "Alison, I'm assuming that you did notice me chiming in on behalf of you and Haroun when Scott asked that question. Why do you think I did?"

The pithy or snarky replies were all firmly deep-sixed, Alison refusing to give herself an easy out on this. "I honestly didn't know at first. I was that surprised by the nomination. And how fast everyone agreed to it." Gah. This was hard. "Thought you were all on crack for a heck of a long time, too." And now, she just tried to make sure she'd not mess up. Big time.

"Experience is something you get. Inevitably. Whether you really want it or not," Nathan said after a moment. "And Haroun has enough to counterbalance what you don't, at least at the outset. Still. The point is, experience isn't strength. Sometimes it's weakness. You're sitting beside one of the poster children for that idea, no?"

Considering she'd been having a talk of that nature with Scott not so long ago, Alison rather felt like hitting her head on the table a few times. "I'm a dork. You're right. It's just..." There was a difference between knowing you were a damn good singer, and leading people into dangerous situations where they very well might die if you fucked up. Or panicked at the wrong moment, instead of being able to wait until later on to give in to that. And she had no right to go on about one's life plans to Nathan of all people. "I know."

"Just hasn't sunk quite in yet, huh?" Nathan gave a tolerant chuckle. "You and I. Quite the pair." He tugged telekinetically at the cinnamon, back over on the spice rack, and it floated across to his hand. He added a little more to his hot chocolate. "You know, hypothetically speaking, I wouldn't have taken the job if it had been offered to me."

"Yeah." Alison sighed a bit, though she was smiling ruefully just a touch. "That we are." She was perfectly content with her hot chocolate as it was though, making no move towards the cinnamon. "I wouldn't have either - heck, I'd have laughed my head off, myself. But that's hypothetical. And not taking into account the whole part that was about ending up here and generally just… sliding into it. Partly because there was nothing else and partly because standing aside and doing nothing just... I don't know. Wasn't doable."

"I kind of slid into my mercenary career, if you can believe it," Nathan said after a moment. "I mean, I had... uh, liberated enough money from a Mistra slush fund that I could have holed up someplace quiet and stayed off the grid for the rest of my life."

"It's hard not to want to use a skill or a set of abilities if you're good at them." Regardless of what those skills were. Alison's fingers tightened on the mug - she taught music and she wrote and she had a record label. And a son and a boyfriend and a life now which would make going on the right nigh impossible. "I've got enough money to live off from too." She shrugged, a bit awkwardly, and didn't go into life on the road. "Staying out of sight and doing nothing at all would drive me stir-crazy, I think."

"It would have killed me," Nathan said quietly, then smiled wryly at her. "Okay. Mind going bad places... I don't think I'm drinking the hot chocolate quite quickly enough."

"I went insane overdoing it, after the moping, when I first got here. Ask Lorna one day about what my schedule was like. Well, there was whole way my sleeping schedule was out of whack from the sound overload from the touring and all, but still. Think I scared her more than once." Alison grinned, a bit sheepishly. The renewed sound exposure the medlab staff had her undergoing to prevent another big boom was doing funny things to her sleep, still. "When's Moira due back, again?" That should settle the mind going to bad places bit, she thought.

"Not absolutely sure yet." He didn't mention the weekend plans; he hadn't spoken to either of the resident teleporters yet, after all. "She can't really leave, until she's got someone to replace Rory." He shook his head slowly. "I used to be able to go for months on end without seeing her," he said with a sigh. "I've been spoiled, this year."

"It's a good kind of spoiling," he was told firmly. "Didn't think I'd be dating anyone at all, myself. Just concentrate on Miles and my training. Figure out how to be a mother and an X-Man both." She shook her head, just a bit. "Haroun took me by surprise, there. I was so very dense about it."

"You were dense before the fact, and he's getting his turn now." Nathan grinned a bit ruefully. "Seems perfectly fair to me."

Alison blinked at that, giving Nathan a curious look. Obviously, he knew something she didn't - well, that was nothing surprising, of course. She talked to her friends about some things, sometimes. It only made sense Haroun would as well. She stomped on the paranoid little voice telling her she wasn't going to be good enough once more, and instead ventured a cautious smile. "This is something that's going to have to be sorted out between Haroun and I, isn't it?"

"Oh, it's nothing specific," he reassured her. "Just... you're both so young." His lips twitched and he leaned back judiciously out of range.

She resisted the urge to thwap him again, however much it was deserved. "Ha. Now you're asking for trouble, old man." Alison made a face at him, before claiming the last churro on her plate. "I'm quite happy with being many years away from having silver in my hair, you know. I am very vain about that." She sobered up quickly though. "Age doesn't matter. Always stuff to work on. You stop, things die on you and then you're left with nothing." It hurt to say that, too. But she'd learned that lesson, finally. Or so she hoped.

"You're wrong, you know," Nathan said after a moment, more seriously. "Age does matter. Or the years do, rather. Sometimes for the worse, sometimes for the better."

She looked down at that, not saying a word for a long time. "Ok. Point there." In many ways, ranging from how past experiences could color things, to how much time one could lose with someone, for not opening one's eyes. "Very valid point." And looking into her mug, Alison realized she was out of hot chocolate.

Nathan noted the empty mug. "More?" he asked, inclining his head at the one pot still on the stove.

"Yes please." Despite it all, she smiled up at him, resting the mug on the counter for it to be refilled. It was nice, to be talking like this. Variety of topics and all, regardless of how some of it touched sensitive subjects for both of them.

Nathan levitated the pot over. "I asked Haroun to help me measure the second bedroom up in the suite. For the nursery," he said with a sudden smile.

Alison tilted her head at that, the sound of hot chocolate being poured catching her attention only for a moment. "Really? How is that going, then?" Once the mug was full she claimed it once more, letting the heat sink through her hands pleasantly.

"Haven't started quite yet. Tomorrow, probably. Might recruit him for some other stuff, even when Moira's back, because I fully intend to keep the woman in bed waiting on her hand and food for at least a week."

A faint snicker greeted that statement, despite Alison's best intentions. "Moira will go crazy at doing nothing after a day, y'know." She was being generous in her estimate, too. Her thoughts wandered back to the talk she and Haroun had had over the Holidays, about marriage and children, but she shook her head, setting that firmly out of her mind.

Nathan tilted his head, sighing. "I heard all of that, you know," he said. "And it's not like you're projecting. I'm getting very tired of this."

Stiffening at his words, Alison stared firmly down at the cup in her hands, refusing to give in to the inexplicable tendril of panic that coiled up suddenly. "Is it easier to pick up things from certain people than others?" She wondered if familiarity with someone's mind might have something to do with it. And it was far easier to focus on that than what he'd picked up.

"I shouldn't have said anything. I'm sorry." But he focused on her question, knowing that she at least deserved an answer to that. "There are still minds I can't read easily. Any of the other psis. Remy, a couple of the others whose minds are just... odd. But just about everyone else..." He stopped, took a deep breath. "Sometimes it's clearer than others. Stronger minds are louder."

She took a shallow breath, then another. The panic tapering off, she focused on what he'd said, and the smiled a touch. "You know, before I came here... I would have been all about the ethics of things, the privacy of one's mind. But it's not that simple. Two sides to every story, and to a telepath - it's not that clear cut. Or easy."

She let out her breath in a sharp exhalation. "Emma used to scare me witless. But it wasn't her power. It was her. And I went to Betsy for training. Much as a non-telepath can get anyway. And I guess I understood a few things, there." The closed down link in the back of her mind was a reminder of how much things had changed there, still, and Alison wondered how long it would be until Betsy simply, finally, broke it entirely. "I don't mind it really," she shook her head at the accidental pun, "when you pick things up like that. Mostly because I know you're safe that way. But still. Just so you know."

"It's good to know," Nathan said a bit hoarsely, staring into what remained of his hot chocolate. "It's not uncommon around here, though. Fear of that power. Hell, I still share it myself, to some extent. Isn't that ironic."

"Yeah, well. Between Charles, Betsy and you," she added an emphasis to the last word, "I've learned to dissociate the power itself from the person. Not the same thing. And I know about being scared of your own power," she added, before considering beating her head on the table. What was it with her and those admissions, lately? "Well. At least most people don't seem realize I can turn them to vapor if I've the sound charge to do it." She sighed. "Even after what I did to the mall."

"I was at the mall," Nathan reminded her with a very faint smile, then decided that a slight shift in topic was probably appropriate. "It's interesting to see, the different attitudes towards different mutations here," he said. "Very different from at Mistra, yet there are more similarities than you might think."

Her speech, which seemed so far away now, Alison still remembered word for word. And it had been about how despite being a mutant, she was still, and always would be, a human being first. "There's always similarities in things like that. It's what makes the flipsides of a coin," she murmured absently. "It what they're motivated by and what people do with it that gives things their true colors." She looked at him, setting her hot chocolate on the table. "You've lived both, though."

Nathan nodded, not meeting her eyes. "The fundamentals are the same," he said quietly. "The difference is in the expression, and the fact that there is, generally, a desire to connect, despite the divisions. You don't see the kids here exploiting those divisions." He shrugged. "Then again, they're not all operating with an artificial feral instinct. Territoriality and dominance is less of a concern."

Suddenly, something fell neatly into place, and Alison idly called herself about seven kinds of idiot. "You had dissociative events when you first got here, didn't you?" She didn't mean when they'd brought him back from Mistra, after they'd reconditioned him either. "At the very start? Seeing all the kids - it was like being back at Mistra, in a way, only not..."
Nathan smiled faintly. "I did, yes. Started to have them less, over time... and then, well, August."

Yes, August. Alison frowned at her drink. "Why didn't I see that?" Of all the stupid... Spanish was a lovely language to swear in at oneself and Alison's mind switched to that effortlessly. "Hindsight is a bitch", she muttered, then clapped a hand to her mouth, sneaking a look around to make double sure no children had been around. Particularly a green skinned one.

Nathan's lips twitched. "Why precisely does it bother you that much that you didn't see it? It's not like it's that much of a revelation, is it?"

"Not funny." No green skinned boy in sight, she turned back to scowl at the mug on the table. "Wait till your kid hears you slip up and swear and wanders off to rat you out to the world." Or call you a potty-mouth and gives you stern looks. "Classic result of everything you've been through. And yes, I've been taking Charles' psychology course for a year now. No more just swallowing books and all, but still..." She ran a hand through her hair, then shook her head. "Gah. Don't snicker at me." There was the barest hint of laughter in her voice at the last though.

"I'm not," he said, picking up his hot chocolate again and indeed managing not to snicker. "I don't know whether this is in my file," he said after a moment, "but some of the possible consequences Kritzer predicted if the Trojan Horse was used on first-gen conditioning - not mine, obviously, as I was supposed to be dead - were major-league dissociative disorders. I'm not sure how I avoided that. Probably Charles, getting me through the initial adjustment period..."

"Or, you know," Alison added idly, pondering ways to hear up her hot chocolate using her own power, "maybe you actually did part of that yourself and you're just not seeing it?" She didn't roll her eyes at him, but she did smile, just a bit. "Charles is pretty big on people doing the bulk of the work for themselves, after all."

"Been a hell of a year," Nathan mused. "And it has almost been a year. Eleven months, almost to the day, I think..."

She didn't mind the change of subject - had said what she meant to say on the previous topic, after all. "Yeah. We're still here, though." So may ways it could've turned out to not be so, too.

"I didn't honestly expect to live to see the spring when Moira first brought me back here," Nathan confessed quietly.

"The thought that you wouldn't never crossed my mind," she replied peaceably, remembering feeling that way not so long ago. "You never let go. Never stopped trying."

"Sheer stubbornness," Nathan said. "It's saved me more times than I can remember." He snorted softly. "It's not all the Spartan crap, you know. In fact, I think it's probably why I survived the Spartan crap." He concentrated on the hot chocolate for a moment, and steam began to rise from the cup. "And I have so much more to live for now, than I did."

"Hey, I have to approve of stubborn," she grinned ruefully at that. "It'd be the pot calling the kettle black, otherwise. And of course the central parts of you are why you survived the Spartan crap." That was what she'd been saying all along, really. She looked around the kitchen, the drawings pinned up on the fridge. Artie's a fair deal more apt than Miles, still. "Yeah. Having something to live for." She blinked, a sudden realization making her feel a bit silly. "Huh. In terms of being parents and on a team... there's you and me. And Sean."

Nathan made a little face as she mentioned Sean, just for the sake of being a smartass. "I don't plan to miss as much of this one's childhood as I did with Tyler... I didn't have any choice then. Always told myself there would be more time..." He sighed.

"How much time off from active status are you planning on asking for? When the baby's born," she elucidated, smiling just a bit, ignoring the tightness in her chest that always appeared when the mention of being an X-Men and parenthood ended up as a single topic.

"Depends entirely on what's going on at the time," Nathan said. "I'm hoping a couple of weeks, at least..." He stopped, blinked. "It'll be around the year's anniversary, you know," he said, a bit unsteadily. "Of Columbia."

A month, at the very least, she decided, not worried at all as to whether he picked up on that or not. "New life." Alison smiled a bit at that - it suited the Askani philosophy so very well, that there would be a birth during the anniversary of an event like that.

"I dream about... the baby," Nathan said very quietly, barely tripping over the self-correction. He'd seen things during that episode with Angie, but he was coaching himself to forget them. Some things ought to be surprises, after all. "Good dreams, bad dreams, anxiety dreams..."

"What will his life be like, what kind of person will he turn out to be? Will he be hated if he's different, or accepted for who he is?" Alison smiled, a bit wanly. "Will he be proud of you, what you've done with your life, when he's old enough to understand… will he find someone to share his life with, to share the good and the bad too." Emotions surged under the surface, an indefinable mix of hope and worry.

"Did I ever tell you that Tyler had tested positive for the X-factor?" Nathan murmured. "Not too surprising, given Aliya and I both had psionic mutations. Psi tends to breed true." He sighed. "It was one of the reasons that I was so determined to get him away from Mistra, when I had the freedom of mind to want that."

"You think the baby will too," Alison murmured, not really making a question out of it. " Are you and Moira going to test for that, or just wait and see?" At least, she thought, the baby would have an environment uniquely suited to its needs. And the freedom to grow without being afraid of his or her power.

"Hank's already run some tests," Nathan said. "Precautionary, given Kevin's mutation." He smiled faintly. "Hopefully our genes will combine more harmoniously than hers and Joe's did."

"I'm sure there will be cuteness, and then some." Thankfully, the scary charting of what ifs her mind seemed to indulge in at times was remarkably absent just now. "Do you know if it's a girl or a boy yet? Have you two picked names?"

Nathan coughed, flushing. "I, um... we haven't officially found out whether it's a boy or a girl," he said, hoping that she wouldn't press. 'The brownies made me do it' wasn't a good excuse, really. "And we haven't really talked about names yet. We ought to start doing that, I suppose..." And he needed to tell Moira just how much he wanted their child to be a Kinross, too. That was going to be a slightly awkward discussion.

Well, Alison didn't need to be a telepath to figure this one out. "You're doing the 'wah, don't ask me this or I'll have to hide somewhere' thing." And sidestepping answering by use of the word 'officially' at that, too. She wrinkled her nose at him. "S'ok. I won't ask, then. You can tell me when you want to."

Whew. Nathan gave her a rueful grin. "I'll tell you later," he promised, and meant it. "Once it's safe." He laughed sheepishly. "It's a very funny story, but... well. Later." He looked down at the hot chocolate. "I think this is dangerous," he said suddenly, suspiciously. "Entirely too much sugar and so forth." Then he picked up another churro. "But, well, you only live once."

"Yeah, that's what they say." Though sometimes you get a second chance at life when you thought there was none. "You realize that the day you run this by the kids as homework, there will be a horde of sugar buzzed children rampaging through the school afterwards?"

Nathan gave her an innocent look. "Would I do that? Set sugar-crazed children on the mansion, as if they were my little minions of chaos?"

"Sure you would," Alison gave him a calm look. "Starting with my son, too." But that was all right. One day, Alison would get to return the favor to him. She smiled serenely at the thought - she could be patient. Oh yes.

Oh, he knew that look. "I heard I missed some chaos yesterday," he said, just as innocently. "I'm surprised Haroun didn't seize the opportunity to ensure a wet-t-shirted you for his viewing pleasure."

Yes, Alison did look wistful for a moment. "I feel asleep in the debriefing room. Was reviewing some notes before saving it all to the database." And she still had a crick in her neck, too. Her lips quirked and she reconciled herself with the lost showing off opportunity. "That's okay. I'm sure he'll find a way to make up for it."

Nathan tried not to snort at the last, mostly because the former was more interesting. "Notes on me?" he asked. "Self-centered person that I am, here..."

"Yes, notes on you. And self-evaluation stuff for me, because my rock star ego beats your self-centered person any time of the day." She delivered the line with perfect aplomb, even while pondering wearing a white t-shirt tomorrow for gym training.

Nathan sank his face into his hands and started to wheeze with laughter.

Now, Alison decided, a wide grin spreading across her face, was a very good time to feel smug about herself. Oh yes. Oh so very smug.

"Don't do that... cracked rib, remember?" He finally managed to wrestle himself back to simple snickering, and shook his head as he looked back up at her. It occurred to him to perhaps drop a word in her ear… but no. Interfering had gone so very well when he'd tried it on Haroun, after all.

The look that greeted the reminder was purely about smugness and not much else. "Made you laugh." The whole picking up random thoughts thing had to have some advantages too. A few of which seemed very intriguing and got filed away for later testing, at that. "You needed it, cracked rib or no."

"Oh, probably. Still. Ow." He rubbed at his side, still grinning. "You are just a little evil at times, you know. And I will testify to that anytime I'm asked, by the way."

"Mmm. I try to make sure I don't lose my touch. Speaking of which, would a t-shirt be better, or a camisole?" It had been a while since she'd practiced the purely angelic expression, too.

"A camisole," Nathan said with an almost straight face. "That would be my guess. Based on having been around your boyfriend a few too many times when his mind was very much... occupied."

Blink. Sliding him a sideways look, Alison narrowed her eyes. He hadn't just said what she thought he'd just said. She knew how vivid Haroun's imagination could get. Death, mayhem and destruction sounded very nice just about now. "Say what?"

He raised a defensive hand. "I was asked for my opinion," he said diplomatically. "Wasn't I asked for my opinion? Don't make that face at me because it's an... informed opinion."
Her eyes went from narrowed to wide. And then some. Maybe death, mayhem and destruction wasn't going to be enough after all. Alison decided she would have to get creative. Redefine the meaning of the word evil, possibly, even. "Informed opinion?" Maybe she'd have to go evil on Haroun too, at that.

There was a certain amount of sadistic and probably fatal fun to this. "Unintentionally informed?" he offered. "He thinks loudly."

Well, that could be fixed, Alison thought serenely. And so could Haroun's thinking too loud problem. Alison smiled at Nathan. One only had to start be removing their heads...

Okay, now they'd moved on to decapitation. "Is this where I demonstrate my newly acquired skills of strategic retreat?" Nathan asked, grinning madly. It was the chocolate. Had to be the chocolate.

"Yessss." Alison beamed at him. "And how fast I can catch up while you try to do that, I think." And after doing away with his head...

"I keep telling people I want a new head," Nathan said brightly. "Maybe this can be my opportunity."

"Naaathan." Alison set down her mug and grinned at him, far too cheerfully. "See, this is the part where you set down your mug and run. And I chase after you, yelling at you to stand still so I can do horrible things to you."

"Ah, right." Nathan set down his cup, gave the kitchen one last measuring look - yes, everything was more or less cleaned up, and then fled. In a leisurely fashion.

Yes, let him take his time, Alison thought, carefully standing up and taking a few steps away from the stool. He'd be going a lot faster soon enough. She waited until he'd had a few steps in the hallway before peeling off after him, light sparking at her fingertips.