xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Tuesday morning

Haroun stops in the medlab to visit Nathan and do a little exploratory verbal poking to see how he's doing. The answer would be 'not well'.

Haroun walked into Medlab to come and see Nathan. He winced when he saw the spinal traction setup, and took up a spot in the chair near the big man's bed. "Well, I've seen worse medical rigs, but then again, I was in it at the time. You really got yourself chewed up, didn't you? Still have all your parts, do you?" he asked, looking things over to see for himself.

Nathan had been dreaming about New Mexico, about sitting in the operatives barracks and watching Tim and Mick try and beat the pants off each other at Go. The sound of footsteps hadn't fit the dream, though, and he opened his eyes to see Haroun leaning over him. For a moment, he stared up at him with a total lack of recognition before his mind made the transition back to what was real. And it was real - wasn't it?

"Hey," he managed, his voice coming out slurred and cracked. "So Moira tells me..."

"Well, that's good. Guess we can stop passing the hat for a cybernetics package for you. Which is good, I need that $20 to buy lunch this week." he said with a laugh. "How do you feel, old man?"

"Peachy. Rethinking... the whole drugs are bad idea." Haroun sounded intact. That was a good thing. "You okay...?"

Haroun grinned. "I'm fine. Stressed my elbow a little bit, but that'll heal in a few days." he said. "Drugs are bad, mmmkay?" he said in his best (really awful!) South Park impression. "You look like someone crammed you headfirst through a log chipper. Any word yet on how extensive the damage is?"

Haroun was definitely intact. Intact and doing bad impressions. Mixed blessing, there... "Burns and stuff'll heal on their own," Nathan murmured, his eyes trying to close again. "Back's broken, though. Knew that. Someone hit me and I couldn't get back up..."

Haroun winced. "Take it from me - back injuries are nothing to be dismissed lightly. Better start passing that hat again." he said. "You need help with rehab, let me know. I've been through it - through much worse, actually - and I can help pull you through it. Even though you may hate me for it."

Nathan forced his eyes open and gazed up at the ceiling. He was going to get very tired of this ceiling very fast, he thought dimly. Needed to put something up there, or something... "Just too many of them," he murmured, memories flickering through his mind. "Had to keep them away... back from the shield."

Haroun nodded slowly. "Hold the line. No one gets through." he said softly, then paused. "With your shield or on it?" he added, trying to suss out Nathan's mental state.

Fresh anguish flared up, painkiller-haze or no haze, and Nathan swallowed, his throat feeling like sandpaper. "Saw Tim die," he said, quiet desolation creeping into his voice. "Just... fell, and I couldn't do anything. Felt the others go..."

Haroun ahhed. "Not with your shield or on it, but avenging the fallen. I can get behind that." he said, feeling muchly relieved. "I hate feeling helpless."

"Didn't want to kill any of them. Think I did... the Trojan Horse..." He'd felt some of those empty minds splinter under the assault, and the knowledge was like a knife twisting in his gut.

Haroun frowned at Nathan. "Knock that shit off." he said, suddenly blazing past irritation and heading into full-blown anger. "The dead are gone. You pulled, what, a few dozen out of that madhouse? Despite a balls to the wall kill-on-sight assault from the combined might of Mistra? Shit intel, no real ground plan, and we pulled it out. If you can't see that, if you'd rather sit there and kvetch about the ones you couldn't save, the ones who laid down their lives to help you, then you've just pissed on all their graves, and their sacrifice means _nothing_!"

... he was in a medlab bed and Haroun was snarling at him again. This was familiar. But there was a sudden ripple of anger of his own there, amid the pain and fatigue, and for a moment he just wanted to be able to move, to sit up and throw something at Haroun. Preferably a punch. "Shit intel? We had p-perfect intel dropped into our lap. Our p-plan was fine." Just hadn't taken into account that there had been a scorched earth plan that no one had known about. "And don't you tell me... don't you tell me I'm kvetching," he went on, a wild edge to the words. "I killed them trying to save them... I killed them..." For a moment, he didn't know whether he was talking about the second-gens on Youra, or Mick and Tim.

"I don't trust gifts from Greeks." he said with a sudden grin. "You're kvetching again. I heard it. You saved who could be saved, and the rest went down swinging. What more can you _ask_? That they just bow to the mighty God of Trojan Horses, apologize meekly, then queue up to be marched off to the gas chamber?"

The sudden shift in Haroun's mood left Nathan floundering, again. He had enough trouble coping with that sort of thing when he was on his feet and in possession of all of his faculties. "Stop it," he muttered fitfully. "Stop telling me to shake it off, stop it... it wasn't supposed to happen like that. Pushed too hard..." Grabbing the minds of the other telepaths like that, pushing the Trojan Horse through the psimitar...

Haroun grinned again. "Oh, fuck that with a spiked pole. Wasn't supposed to happen like that? In the chaos of combat, _anything_ can happen. Thought you would know that by now." he said. "There is no supposed to. There's a plan, and then there's reality."

"I did IT!" It would have been a scream if he'd had that much of a voice. "Why are you not getting that... I get myself p-pushed through a woodchipper, trying not to kill them, then I break their minds!" Oh fuck how he wanted to be able to move.... "Fuck you and your p-pedantic PLATITUDES..."

Haroun sat back and grinned some more. "Good. Still got that fire in your belly. You'll need that when you recover from your broken back. Assuming no neurological damage." he said with a satisfied look. "I was a little worried that those fuckers had finally broken you. Guilt is a powerful thing, Nathan. It impedes the healing process." Hence why it took him a full year to even get back to his feet, let alone walk, run, fly, or fight.

Nathan closed his eyes again, shaking a little as the anger drained away. "Don't do that," he said, and what had been meant as a growl came out almost as a plea. But everything hurt, drugs or no drugs, and he was so tired... "Can't get... a few days, even? Have to pull myself together and soldier on? Fuck that..."

"Hell no. But you do need to pull yourself together so you can _heal_. Your shrink would agree, if he were here." Haroun pointed out.

"He's coming..." On the weekend, apparently. "I'm just... so tired." His voice broke, and if Haroun wanted to jump on that and berate him, fine. He didn't care. "Can feel the echoes in my head still... every time I dream I see them and I can't tell what's real..."

"Yeah, no shit. Nobody's going to begrudge you your restless dead, least of all me. Got too many of my own to answer to, and even taking down the bad guys doesn't quiet them sometimes." he said, in a moment of honesty.

Nathan let his eyes stay closed, ignoring the images replaying themselves on the insides of his eyelids. "Ali's okay?" he asked after a moment, trying to focus on something, anything else. "I remember... she was there, after. Telling me not to move..."

"She's ... rocky. Not physically hurt - she passed her physical exam with flying colors - but mentally she's, pardon the phrase, a little fucked up. She just needs time to process. She's not the hardened killer like you or me, and just between us two, I'd like to make sure it stays that way. Women give life, they shouldn't take it." he said with a sigh.

"She didn't kill," Nathan said a bit disjointedly, his eyes opening. Back to the ceiling. "Protected... the shield? You saw the shield... everyone must have."

Haroun nodded. "Not consciously." he said with relief. "And I'm glad that she has a defensive aspect to her power. So that she can shield, put herself in harm's way."

"Where she got the power... you know...?"

Haroun shook his head. "Presumably, she got juiced on a little rock and roll." he said with a laugh. "It's a battlefield with powers. They tend to be noisy."

"Mick."

Haroun nodded. "Should have guessed. He's the walking speaker, right? Sound-manip? Makes sense - to do the really heavy stuff, she needs some major decibels. Only way to get 'em easily is through Mick."

"Didn't want to see any more dead kids," Nathan murmured brokenly, remembering screaming at Mick in the morgue in Leuven back in November. "So he k-killed himself, helping save them..."

Haroun nodded. "So he died well. That's good. People sell their lives for many reasons - I hope that, when my time comes, I sell mine nearly that well."

Selling lives. Mick's had been his to sell, in the end, and that was... not enough, damn it, not a consoling thought in the least. Nathan's eyes burned helplessly, and he hated the fact that he couldn't even turn away, couldn't give himself even the illusion of a moment to try and wrestle with his self-control. There was nowhere to go, nothing to do but try and face it all head-on, and all his willpower just crumbled in the face of it.

Haroun hrmmed. Maybe this wasn't the best idea he'd ever had. "Hey - when you get a little better, I'll drag our Go board down here. It's your move, after all."

The words seemed to come from a bit more of a distance than they should have, but Nathan focused on them doggedly. Any port in a storm. "That'd... that'd be good," he managed faintly. "Can still beat you, you know... drugs or no drugs."

Haroun smirked. "We'll see about that. Us cripples have to stick together, after all. But I'm gonna get you this time."

"Cripples..." Nathan trailed off, staring rather blankly up at the ceiling. "Always thought that this sort of thing would hurt less. Be more numb. Suppose that's a good sign, though..."

"The difference is that you stand a pretty good shot, all things considered, of walking once your back heals." Haroun pointed out. "So your membership is temporary. That's OK, you'd have to shave your head to really join the club." he joked, running his hand over his freshly-shaved scalp. "And the little wheelchair sticker would look tacky on your stick."

"Shave my head... could do a Charles impression." Now he appeared to be trying to make a joke. How odd. Had to be the painkillers kicking back in, and kicking hard.

Haroun grinned. "You could. You're a little bulky to be Charles, and you'd have to start mainlining the Earl Grey." he said. "But it could be done. But then we'd be the D-Men, and that's just really retarded. X-Men's far snazzier."

"Much..." Nathan swallowed again, his throat still painfully dry. "It's... annoying, you know. Just got the leathers. Now they'll be hanging in the locker for... months." He paused. "Except mine got cut off me anyway... I think."

"Hey, let me get you some water or something." Haroun said, disappearing for a few moments to return with some bottled water. "Nice and slow now." he said, dribbling it into Nathan's mouth as he couldn't really move his arms much. "Alison left my jacket on the hangar deck." he said with a grin. "Still trying to decide if writing up your CO for a rookie mistake is bad form or not. I think she can be forgiven, given what we'd all just been through, but I like my discipline."

The water helped. Nathan actually managed to give Haroun a good facsimile of a mock-glare as he straightened again. "Wait'll she starts stealing your shirts... or is she doing that already?"

Haroun smirked. "I'm surprised I have anything in my closet at all most days. She's got an entire closet full of clothes, and still she steals mine. It makes no sense, and when I asked her about it, she laughed. Loudly." he mock-groused. "I don't run around wearing _her_ things!" he protested. "And speaking of things to wear - when your baby comes, I think I know what I'm going to get him. Or her.. Just what every stylish baby is wearing this year."

Nathan gave him a dubious look. "I really... don't want to know, do I?"

"Sure you do, Dad! Look, up in the sky! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's SUPERBABY! Figured your kid could get a step up on its old man with its own set of little leathers." he smirked. "I think it'd be adorable."

"Scaring me now... telekinetic flying babies," Nathan muttered.

"It's just my job as Uncle Haroun to scare you senseless about your baby's potential." he said with a grin. "Maybe your baby will be a flier, and not a teek like you."

"Then you can teach her how not to run into mountains," Nathan murmured, his eyes drifting shut again.

Haroun grinned. "Someone has to." he said with a laugh. "Anyway, you need to rest. Get your strength back. And cheer up a little, OK? No one like a grumpy Nathan."

Nathan tried to say something in response to that, but the conversation had worn him right out. Resting was probably, he decided dimly, a very good idea.