xp_logs | Nathan and Alison, Tuesday afternoon

Alison wakes Nathan up from a nightmare. It's a doozy, and it takes him a while - and quite a bit of reassurance - to settle back down.

He wasn't dreaming about the past this time. This had never really happened. He'd never stood in the parlor here at the mansion and listened to Tim and Mick yelling at him, telling him arrogant he was, how he'd made their sacrifice meaningless. Anika had never stood there in the corner crying while they shouted at him, either. It hadn't happened, it was just a dream, and he didn't need to tell them that he was sorry, that it was his fault and he was so sorry, so sorry...

"...so sorry..."

Normally she would have let him sleep, knowing it was important that he heal. But the images that slipped by his shields, the emotions… "Nathan, wake up," she murmured, drawing a chair closer to sit by his bedside. She didn't have to raise her voice much on the second call to get through to him, or so she thought, and then waited, watching him with a thought of anxiousness.

Nathan, wake up.

Damn you, Tim spat. Damn you for giving us hope and then letting us die...

"...no..." The broken plea slipped out, caught between two sobs. Pain stabbed into his side with each ragged breath.

You might as well have killed us yourself.

You did.

The images hit her hard and Alison snarled, everything within her rebelling at them - this was not Tim or Mick, nor would they ever say such things. Ever. "Nathan!" She let her denial of the nightmares plaguing him take over, even as she rested one hand on his own, knowing the contact would make it even easier for him to pick up on what she was feeling. "You're having a nightmare. Listen to my voice and follow it. Wake up."

..follow it. Wake up.

Nathan opened his eyes, looking up at the blur leaning over him. Tears were running helplessly down his face, and he tried to catch his breath, a whimper escaping him at the pain. The pressure of her hand on his drew him back, inexorably. "... killed them," he rasped, his voice cracking. "Killed them, I k-killed them..."

"You did not." Each word was a separate entity, the three of them coming together into something that refused to be anything else but believed. "You listen to me very clearly, Nathan Christopher Dayspring, and don't you dare forget. You did not kill them." Even as she spoke, she brushed her fingertips lightly over his cheeks, wiping the tears away. "It was a nightmare, Nathan. Just a nightmare."

He squeezed his eyes shut, trying to slow down his breathing. The link with Moira glowed warmly, comfortingly in the back of his mind, though in a sleepy sort of way. As his head cleared a little more, he started to realize just how much he did hurt. The haze of the drugs was still there, dulling the pain a little, but it felt like every cell of his body was screaming silently.

She could feel some of the pain flashing through now and then, oddly numbed around the edges. It took her a few moments to realize the numbness was medication, and she just sighed at that, settling down slowly, still holding his hand. "Hey. There you are," she welcomed him gently this time, back into the world of the awake and conscious.

Nathan opened his eyes again, trying to blink them clear. Didn't work. He could hear monitors bleeping in the background, sounding agitated. "J-Just a dream?" he rasped hoarsely. "Not real...?"

"You didn't kill them," she said softly - not allowing for confusion, sorrow edging her thoughts and coloring her voice. She plucked a kleenex from the box nearby and dabbed at his cheeks lightly. "Shh. Take it easy..."

"But they're d-dead..." And not just Mick and Tim. So many others, too. All those missing minds... Nathan tried to move, a choked noise of protest slipping out as he realized he was still more or less completely immobilized. Trapped, nowhere to go except inside his own head, and the thought terrified him.

"Yes." Simple confirmation, a 'this is how things are' that couldn't be avoided. She glanced at the medical board nearby, noting that he'd had pain medication not long ago - it explained the his condition, to a certain extent. Shock and emotional trauma easily accounted for everything else. "Anika is here. She'll be fine. She was asking about you earlier."

"Ani... can feel her," Nathan murmured faintly, settling a little. "She'll be... okay?" Wait, Alison had answered that question already. He squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, trying to concentrate. Not trapped. Alison was here, and talking to him, and he needed to relax. "I can't think straight... I'm sorry."

Holding his hand in hers once more, Alison nodded, even though he wasn't looking. "That's okay. Meds and all, and - it's normal." She tried to focus on being calm herself, despite the weariness, and if nothing else even that was better than panic or guilt, she hoped. "Charles will be by later, to see you. Just to check up on you and all."

"Charles..." Memory stirred, and Nathan took a deep, shaky breath that hurt his ribs terribly. "He was there... I couldn't have, without him. Three were helping, but the other four didn't want to..."

Feelings ebbed and flowed, the pain he was feeling coming and fading along with them as his shields held - or slipped. She'd mention that to whoever was outside, once she left. "I saw." The words were almost forlorn sounding, and Alison took a short breath to try and steady herself. "It worked. Just like it was supposed to."

"Didn't." The reply was desolate-sounding. "Didn't work fast enough... and it hurt them. On top of the trigger..." No. He couldn't let his mind go there, because that would be a downward spiral he'd never escape. "Someone... jamming it," he whispered. "Kept trying. Over and over..."

"I know," she repeated, wishing there was a way to get through to him and reminding herself that in no way any of this would be easily healed. "I saw, Nathan. I was there. I remember." Seeing him through a wall of light, the desperate attempt to hold them back without killing them, while trying to activate the Trojan Horse. Protecting children and operatives both. "You didn't kill any of them," she murmured, intently. "Not once, you never slipped up on that, Nathan. Not once."

The sudden flash of Tim stumbling, looking up at him with shocked eyes and saying his name before he fell, hit him like a sledgehammer to the chest. He flinched, his hand tightening spasmodically on hers. Had to pull himself together. Concentrate. "Talk to me," he said raggedly, his voice breaking again. "Please. Something... something else? The kids, something..."

"They know." She curled up a bit on the chair, leaning on the side of the bed, carefully so as to not even move him in the slightest bit, and help his hand with both of hers. "They didn't want to hide from what happened, when they walked out - bore witness to what happened in their own way." She remembered the smell of Haroun's jacket, and the small boy, orange hands moving in slow deliberate words. "Live well." She'd said the words out loud, she realized, the signs she'd returned after searching for what to say.

"You s-should have felt it," Nathan whispered, tears escaping again. "When the Trojan Horse went off. Like their minds were b-black and white... and suddenly there was color again..." He held onto that memory doggedly. It wasn't enough to hold back the anguish, not nearly enough, but it was important, so very important. And maybe it would be enough someday.

"Maybe you can show me later," she murmured, reaching out to wipe at the tears again, ever so lightly. She had memories of her own to share, which perhaps one day he might be ready for. And a small boy's voice echoing clearly in her mind, refusing to just walk away with looking - and knowing the price which had been paid.

'I should..." But later. Nathan frowned a little, listening. "Shields are off," he muttered. "Guess they would be..." A quick, sharp exhalation that might have been a laugh. "House full of dysfunctional psis..."

"If I say I don't mind, will it get me in trouble?" she teased lightly, the pun entirely too easy to pass up on. She didn't though - the pain flashed in and out and wasn't the entirety of what he was feeling, and she knew pain well enough by now to not mind something to fleeting.

"Possibly. Bad pun..." His thoughts were getting all disjointed again, even as he started to relax a little. "Hurts," he muttered faintly, then wished he hadn't said that aloud. "I don't like not being able to move..."

"The hurt means you're healing," she replied softly, which triteness all aside was also inherently true - it meant that while his back was broken it wasn't permanent, that he would be fine given time and rest.
"And your shields are wobbly cause you're tired and on meds. That's all."

"Tired... it's so hard to wake up." His voice shook. "Not just from the bad dreams. The good ones, too... they feel so real." He stared up at the ceiling. This same damned ceiling. "I hate the ceiling," he muttered fitfully. "And now I can't look anywhere else but at it..." You're whining, Dayspring.

"Mmm." Pinning a TV to the ceiling could be offered, but it wouldn't fix the real problem, she knew. "Why don't you hitch a few rides now and again, when they dampen some of the meds and your fine tuning is steadier? And Charles could do that now too. He goes on rolls around the estates outside fairly often, these days. It's a second view of the outside, but it'd still be something."

"Outside... that'd be good..." Nathan closed his eyes. "Moira said... she'd bring down a CD player, this afternoon. I think that'll help... music. The Askani have been singing to me sometimes, when I've been awake... "

Well - she had a CD or two of tracks to burn for Moira to bring down now, didn't she. It would be a nice surprise for Nathan, music of the Askani she's been working on for the second album to be published, since her own Muse was so stubbornly silent. "I'm still not done on finishing the instrument with no name, but I'll lug the beast down here soon as it's ready," she offered, smiling a bit.

It helped to think about that, Nathan reflected a bit hazily. About work done before, that would continue after... that there was something more than this. "It didn't stop," he muttered. "I'm still here... still trying to wrap my mind around that. Think I thought I might vanish..."

It was after and Mistra was done and now, what was before him? Alison nodded gently, adding a low sound of understanding in case he didn't see the gesture. "I think you know this one," she murmured, smiling just a bit. It was a children's learning song, simple and sweet, and she started to hum the opening lowly, waiting to see if there would be any recognition in response.

Nathan's breathing slowed as he listened to it. He did know it, and had always liked it. Listening to it now made him think of the kids he hadn't seen, only sensed, and it was comforting, maybe more comforting even than it should have been. But he was so tired...

Crooning the words lowly, Alison did nothing to keep him from drifting off, far from it. And staying to work her way through the lullaby, and perhaps a few more at that if it helped to keep his sleep steady was something she could do - needed to, really, she knew. Settling down to stay for a while longer, Alison wound her way towards the end of the child's song, and then picked a new one, going on.