xp_logs | Jean and Nate

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He'd probably had more than enough coffee in the last two days, but Nathan suspected that his students would forgive him for being on a bit of a caffeine-edge, if they knew what was going on. The planning for the raid was coming along nicely, but strategy couldn't take up the whole day, and he knew it was important to keep to the routine as much as possible. Given that most of the staff was going to disappear this weekend. He strode down the hall, sipping at the coffee cup in one hand and resettling a pile of marked tests in the crook of his other arm as he walked.

Time for another exploratory break, Jean had decided after discovering the file marked Summers, Alex. She would face up to whatever that meant later. She had slipped out of her room and wandered down to check on the refurbishing of the kitchen before heading, almost inevitably, towards the class wing. Classes ought to be over for the day, she thought, so there maybe wouldn't be too many people. The students were still tending to stare at her, although some of the new children had begun to be comfortable enough with her to talk to her. In crowds, though, they were still most unsettling.

Nathan, as he came around the corner, lost his grip on the pile of tests and swore as they landed on the floor, scattering. "Damn it," he muttered. At least he hadn't spilled his coffee. Staring down at the papers, he concentrated, and they started to float back upwards, gathering themselves into a neater pile.

Jean had seen the papers fall and been about to hurry over and help the man gather them up when she saw them begin to lift up into the air. Stopping dead in her tracks, she stared. There was another telekinetic at the school?

Nathan looked up, sensing - ah, that was why the blank spot. The inhibitor. He smiled at Jean as he reached out and took the pile of papers out of the air. "Afternoon," he said amiably, wandering in her direction. "You must be Doctor Grey."

Jean nodded and smiled slightly. "I am, indeed, but I fear you have the advantage of me. Not," she admitted, "that this is unusual, since everyone knows who I am after my... um... rather spectacular return."

"Nathan," he said, then blinked at the fact that he had no free hand to offer. He let go of the pile of papers and let them float for a moment, then reached out to shake her hand. "Moira's fiance."

"Ah... so you're the scoundrel who knocked her up." The tone was light and joking, the remark a counter balance to her internal thirst for the control he displayed so casually. "Nice to meet you."

Nathan raised an eyebrow, catching the undertone, but smiled anyway. "Accidental, I assure you. And in my defense, the proposal came well before the knocking-up."

"Well, in that case I guess we won't have to sic the dogs on you. Actually," she paused. "Charles doesn't keep dogs, or ... didn't?" Many things had changed and she still didn't know what all of them were.

Nathan reclaimed the papers, having noticed the way she'd looked at them. "No dogs. Although we do have a number of pets around the mansion these days," he said easily. "I should introduce you to my bird."

She did seem to relax when the papers once more had visible means of support. "Your bird gets introductions?" she asked. "I'm hoping it's a parrot, or some such...?"

"Bella's a hyacinth macaw," Nathan said cheerfully. "Very large, very profane, very big hit with the kids." He took another sip of his coffee - no sense in letting it get cold - and wondered just how familiar he dared get, here. "Feel free to tell me I'm being too personal," he said, "but I've heard that we have very similar mutations. Telepathy and telekinesis... although I gather you're not afflicted with precognition." Askani hissed fondly at the back of his mind.

"Sounds fascinating. I would like an introduction, then." Jean shook her head, denying that it might be too personal. "No, that's fine," she said. "Yes, telepath and tk, when not..." She lifted her wrist, letting the inhibitor finish the sentence. "Although... currently having some trouble."

There was a definite edge of sympathy in Nathan's voice as he answered. "I've had some pretty serious powers-related difficulties in the last year myself. I've finally just gotten my shields back to a respectable level."

"Really?" Jean asked, cocking her head. "Oh, dear, you were going somewhere. Hallway conversations are, I admit, fun and interesting, but if you're busy..."

"Just back to my office. Want to come along?" He grinned ruefully at the papers. "Need to record these marks but that can wait for a while."

"Sure," Jean nodded. "I'd love to talk to you about... well, shielding, actually. That's got to be my first priority." Because sanity was good.

"Mine were never completely gone," Nathan explained as they headed for his office. "But my telepathy was... undeveloped, I suppose you'd call it." He wasn't about to get into the why and wherefors, not just yet, but he could give her at least the basics. "I was used to using it as an early-warning system and not much more."

She frowned at him for that. "Really now, whoever trained you must have had the most appalling set of psi-priorities. Leaving any aspect of a mutation untrained is just asking for trouble."

"I had very... very poor early training," Nathan said a bit dryly. "I was never encouraged to develop my telepathy, and was required to push my telekinesis too hard for far too many years. Gave Charles some lovely first-hand evidence for a new theory about psionic stress fractures, though."

"Heavens," Jean said softly. "Well then, even more congratulations on your improved shields."

Nathan opened his office door and gestured for her to precede him in. "I'm afraid I can't offer you any coffee," he said, going over to set the pile of papers down on the desk. "Moira stole the coffeemaker, although she swears she's not actually using it for herself. I have my doubts."

"Thank you for the thought, then, and don't worry, I'm fine. And I must admit, I can't quite imagine Moira having anything to make coffee with in a mile radius and not using it."

"She's supposed to be cutting down on the caffeine. Kinross Junior isn't fond of it," Nathan said with a chuckle, sitting down.

Jean settled into one of the chairs on the other side of the desk. "The baby may have more sense than she, at least in that regard. Does she still drink that toxic sludge she calls 'coffee' or has someone finally convinced her that it's poison?"

"She's cut back," Nathan said wryly. "Had an ulcer this past summer, so she was off coffee completely." His smile was self-deprecating. "My fault, mostly. We haven't had the most sedate year imaginable."

"Which is saying something impressive, given that life at Xavier's has never been sedate to begin with."

He couldn't wait until she heard about the Askani. "I won't say that things are settling down, per se," he quipped, "but at least there's considerably less madness in the actual halls."

Jean raised an eyebrow. "Which just means the children have started having their screaming fights and powers explosions in their rooms or outside?" she guessed. It was still a high school, after all.

"We've had relatively few explosions lately," Nathan said and then sighed, thinking of Jono.

"That is good to hear, although I'll note you've not said anything about the screaming teenagers."

Nathan gave her his best innocent look. "No comment?"

Jean snorted. "They're teenagers, it happens. Genetics has just conspired to insure that when it happens something will probably blow up."

"There are good days and bad days," Nathan said with a wry little smile. "I'm finding that after a year, I'm getting both more tolerant and less, if that makes any sense. Plus, well, I have more to distract myself now..."

"It does make sense," she reassured him. "They're little walking balls of contradictory hormones - it's almost inevitable that we end up feeling contradictory things about them in return. But distraction is always a good thing."

"So," Nathan said after a moment, studying her. "The inhibitor. How long are you going to keep it on?" He paused, then offered a bit of an opening. "When I was having trouble with my powers, I couldn't wear one. I have... a medical condition, that requires telekinetic assistance. It's how Moira and I met."

Jean glanced at the ground. "Charles feels, and I admit, I agree, that I'm going to have to take it off soon and simply relearn how to deal with the noise and how to turn it off, but... Well, I am rather hesitant to do so until at least some of the... hubub over my return has died down."

"Perfectly understandable." Nathan chuckled ruefully. "I actually slept in the barn one night. The noise... it was just too much. And it wasn't even particularly chaotic around here at that point."

She laughed slightly. "Well, personally, I'll just be glad that I am allowed the Box. Far more comfortable, I would think."

"I've spent a couple of nights in the Box recently," Nathan murmured, then shook his head. "Not that my shields aren't better, like I said. Just... a couple of days when the stress got to be too much." He looked at her thoughtfully. "Your telekinesis?"

She took a deep breath. "In truth, I've no idea. That is what drove me to come back in the first place, although I had no idea I was coming 'back'. When I was under a lot of stress, or upset, it would simply turn on and stay on until I blacked out. But, of course, at the time I had no idea what it was, so I didn't have any chance to control it. Now..." she shrugged.

"The furniture will still occasionally rattle when I'm angry," Nathan murmured, then shook his head. "I think TK's a lot more closely tied to emotional state than my original instructors ever thought."

Furniture just rattling would have been nice, a part of her muttered in her mind, but she nodded. "Yes, I think that's absolutely true. Of course, powers control is always affected by emotional state, but it does seem that TK gets hit by it harder."

Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Then, of course," he said cheerfully, "there was the time I blew up the living room. Just... slipped. I hadn't slept in days...coming off a pretty bad mission. Thankfully I didn't actually blow up the person in in the living room."

That earned Nathan a wry, rather humorless smile. "Yes. You have no idea how relieved I was to learn from his medical file that Jay has a healing factor."

"There are things I can probably show you. With the TK," Nathan said after a moment. "Once you have the inhibitor off, I mean. I... that medical problem I mentioned? I restrain the replication of a virus telekinetically."

Jean's eyebrows raised, surprised. "Oh my... You have fine control on the viral level? That's... that's amazing."

"Moira helped me with that. It used to be unconscious, but I've improved, since. Learned... some new techniques," he said a bit vaguely, then offered a smile. "It's all about patterns of energy, Jean. Once you have the inhibitor off I'll show you."

"I'd like that," she said, smiling in return. "Having any sort of control at all right now is an outcome much to be desired."