Log [Alison, Nathan, Tim] The stupidest thing of all stupid things...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Late Sunday afternoon, after Alison has returned from spending time in town with Haroun (log as of yet unfinished, placeholder before this one!). Nathan decided Alison has to be made aware of something before he and Tim haul off to indulge in mass stupidity. Alison isn't too pleased with that. Even if it might work, for all the stupid involved.



"Why precisely do we have to talk her into this again?"

Nathan shook his head at Tim. "Because she's the team leader around here who's basically handling most Mistra-related thing," he said patiently. "Because she's quite a bit more objective than either of us, and because I am not going off to spend quality with the old rat bastard without convincing her that I'm not being stupid first."

The conversation echoing down the hallway drew her attention and Alison blinked, looking up from her music class notes. The glow of the day's outing in town with Haroun was still with her, a mellowness that was priceless really. The fun thing about the way the hallway was made was that it carried sound, like almost any hallway. Keeping the doors open just a certain way had proven to nudge that a bit further along Alison had noticed long ago. And it wasn't eavesdropping really, she told herself as she looked down at her notes. She couldn't help it if she was just likely to listen more than most. And then what they had been saying actually hit.

Rat bastard. Going off. Quality time.

…

As he and Tim reached the music room doors, Nathan realized that a. they were open and b. Alison was sitting inside at her desk giving them both a thoroughly appalled look. Whoops. Apparently they'd been a little loud.

"Uhh... hey, Ali," he started cautiously.

Tim, having no caution and very little in the way of patience, plunged right into it. "We're going to Spain to see MacInnis," he said bluntly. "Nate seems to think we need to talk to you about it first. So here we are."

#Ooh. Now you're using diminutives for me, huh? Riiiight. Be a good Nathan and close that door behind you, huh?# Outwardly she ignored him entirely though, focusing on Tim with a brilliant smile as she leaned back in her chair, lacing her fingers behind her head.

"Spain! I hear it's great this time of year." She rocked back just a bit, stretching out as she backed up the chair, wheels rolling across the floor near silently. "Take in a bit of sun, relax, get a tan, make sure MacInnis doesn't scramble Nathan's head all over again and sends him off to die." The last word, despite nearly being snarled out, was still said with a smile. A very wide smile. One could even have said that an awful lot of teeth were showing in that smile.


Nathan opened his mouth, closed it again, and then closed the door. Tim just gazed back at Alison, frowning a little. "I know what he's done," Tim said crankly. "Doesn't mean that we don't need someone there with them. He can't use those ex-second-gens he's got properly. They need a leader."

"Use?" She purred out the word far too cheerfully. That Tim wanted to go and work directly against Mistra made, of course, perfect sense. #This is stupid. Just so you know. Abysmally stupid. Reaching the very depths of stupidity and then carving a trail of glory beyond even that. I'm impressed.#

Tapping one finger idly behind her head, still keeping her hands firmly where they were and not even considering moving them in the least so as to not carve accident holes into anyone, Alison took a slow breath. "Riiight. Use. So hey, let's just give MacInnis, who uses so well, two ex-first-gens to use. Mmm?"

Nathan winced. Yep, just about the reaction he'd expected her to have. #It actually does make sense,# he protested weakly, but by then Tim was already answering her.

"You can only be used if you let yourself be used," he said harshly. "Don't plan to be doing that again anytime soon."

"Just like you don't plan to hide?" Nathan couldn't help the sharpness of the question - Mick had looked just appalled, and hurt, when Tim had snarled that. Tim flushed, his eyes sliding sideways to him and then back to Alison.

"I'm not going off to Berlin to 'recover'," he growled. "I don't need to recover. I need to be doing something useful."

#I hate it. With a passion. The burning passion of a thousand fiery suns and I know what that feels like, to boot.# She'd been willing to work with MacInnis, under controlled circumstances. Throwing Nathan back to the wolves, so to say? Was far from something she was willing to consider. The thought of Tim throwing himself in that situation as well, actually, held just as little appeal. Perhaps it had something to do with the still awfully clear memory of helping to move his unconscious body from a crater of glass, too.

"Bullshit." Alison rarely swore, but the door was closed and that's all it was, really. "You can be used no matter how hard you try to fight it. You can be used without ever knowing you're being used. And telling yourself there was any letting going on about it only shows that you're avoiding facing several things already." The last statement was separate from the rest and her voice was flat, but if they were going to talk her into this, not that they could she swore to herself, cursing the fact that it did make an awful sort of sense, Tim would have to be very very clear at least with himself about his motivations on the matter.

Tim turned pale, his jaw clenching. "Not you too," he hissed. "I'm sick of people telling me I'm avoiding things. I know what happened, damn it. I don't need to wallow in it."

Nathan bit his lip, then reached over and delivered a judicious smack upside the head. Not hard, but enough to startle Tim into a defensive position. "Do I need to find another handy river to drop you in?" he growled. "Stop that. You're being an asshole."

"Wallow? You're not wallowing, you moron!" Alison pushed herself to her feet, going from not budging to righteous fury in a heartbeat. "It's been five days and you're up and about! Not jumping at shadows! Not having to be under a suicide watch every single moment! For months." She managed to refrain from armwaving at him out of sheer frustration. "You're dealing so well it's sickening! You're allowed a little trauma already!"

"I don't want to be a fucking victim!" Tim flared at her, color rushing back to his face. "I don't want to sit around, like some kind of fucking invalid feeling sorry for myself!"

#He's absolutely dead-set on this, Alison,# Nathan said, trying not to grind his teeth. #He and Ani had pretty much the same argument he's having with you now.#

#You. Want to go. To MacInnis.# What followed after that was nothing else but pure emotion, a storm of denial and refusal, underscored by pure fury at herself for admitting, at some level, that it might very well be frighteningly good move, if it worked out. If. Some things weren't worth 'ifs'.

"There's a difference between being a victim and setting yourself up for a fall by refusing to at least acknowledge things," she replied, suddenly dead calm. "You don't owe me a thing, but at least you owe yourself that much." The sick fear associated with leaving Nathan alone with MacInnis wasn't helped by the thought that Tim might be present. It was just giving MacInnis that much more to use, the still recent events with Domino clear proof he didn't know how to do anything but use.

Tim muttered a curse and whirled away, stalking over to the other side of the room. Leaving him to pick up the argument, Nathan thought with a sigh.

"There is some sense to this," he said aloud, quietly. "MacInnis' second-gens are of the better sort, but they're not as effective, not without a proper field leader. They'll follow Tim. Hell, they probably know him better than me."

Alison knew there was sense to it. That's why she had been perfectly content to avoid thinking of it that way as best she could. "MacInnis uses and you know that. He manipulates. It makes sense with someone who can't be played but damn it, right now Tim is even more susceptible to this because he wants to go out there so badly." She never even once considered asking Nathan why he was going as well. 

"Which is why I'd be going, too," Nathan said heavily. "To see if he can handle it." Tim shot him a betrayed look, and he shook his head. "I told you. That was the condition."

"And who will be keeping an eye on you?" She hated having questions she didn't ask or want to ask answered like that. Especially when they made more sense and started to make arguing against something that much harder. She was going to have to resort to being plain unreasonable about it soon and that would probably just get her a comment about being hysterical or something.

Nathan opened his mouth, then closed it again, looking at him. "I was hoping he and I would keep an eye on each other," he admitted.

Refusing to look at Tim at that, Alison thinned her lips, gaze flickering to the far wall instead, tension practically radiating from her in waves. Mick's comment about pack behavior came back to her at that, though she forced it aside for now. It was only one more argument in favor of this potentially working. "MacInnis will be incommunicado still. Keeping his team quiet. Not wanting Mistra to track them down like they did the last time. You go in, you'll be out of reach too."

"Not necessarily. Bring our own communications. Alternate methods..." Nathan paused. "There's another way, too," he ventured tentatively.

She raised an eyebrow at that, not particularly wanting for there to be 'another way' at all. Especially not with the expression on his face as he said those words, which indicated he thought she'd find it even harder to argue. She glanced back at Tim for a moment, before focusing on Nathan again.

"A link. Just a light one. Something the Askani showed me... you wouldn't even know it was there unless there's something wrong." He wasn't absolutely sure he could manage it with his brain in the state it was, but he'd kept the suggestion in reserve, figuring he might need to offer it.

She truly, deeply, hated it when people kept finding reasonable ways to do something which was still basically insane and not to be done. "I blow up again, you're getting your brain fried like Betsy did." Alison couldn't help the comment, or the slight tinge of bitterness to it. The link was still locked down tighter, as it had been since the Professor had crimped it down to protect Betsy from the pain. And since he'd lightened the lock down on the link - Betsy had simply locked it down on her own. Without a word to Alison of explanation, as of yet.

Nathan smiled a little, almost sadly. "Best I can do," he said. "I should be able to check in via encrypted email a couple of times, at least. More if I find a phone line that's not tied to any of MacInnis' people. They're in backcountry Galicia."

Calculating flight time via Blackbird was given up on after a few seconds. It would take ridiculously long if something happened. He would, quite simply, be out of reach, if anything happened. Warning system or not. "~Clan monitoring.~" There were several layers of meaning to the words, depending on the sub-tonals used. This version referred to something Askani and the other Clan telepaths had developed, when sending an agent in enemy territory. "That's what you're talking about."

Tim looked around, frowning at the Askani. Nathan ignored him. "Yeah," he said. "She, uh, drilled me on it. I think I can manage it." He bit his lip. #What am I supposed to do, Alison?# he asked with a mental sigh. #He won't go to Berlin. He can't stay here. I made him promise to let me judge, by the end of the week, whether or not he could handle it.#

"Fine." Capitulation was a bitter thing indeed. "We'll do that." She was entirely ignoring Tim as well at that point, trying to at least keep everything from showing on her face, if nothing else. #You guard his back. He guards yours.# Threatening mayhem and chaos if something happened would be purely ridiculous. And not thinking about the condition Nathan had been in when they'd retrieved him from Mistra, after what MacInnis had done to him, was the only thing she could do. For now.