xp_logs | Rahne, Nathan, Monday afternoon

Rahne drops by medlab to talk to Nathan on Monday afternoon and tells him about Kyle's list and her weird dreams. Also, Nathan is to have a post-it note stuck to his forehead in several months saying, "Fortieth birthday approaching. Do not injure." Or something like that.

Reminded by the ninja comments on the journals, Rahne folded up a laptop and made her way down to the medlab to see Nathan, if he wasn't busy. Well, talking to someone else. There was only so busy one could get while in traction, which was probably part of why he smelled frustrated. Among other things.

She knocked on the door and cracked it open. "Hi, 'tis me. May I come in?"

Nathan had been dozing - again - but Rahne's soft voice was unmistakable, and he opened his eyes. "Sure," he called back tiredly, staring up at the ceiling.

"Or I can be quiet and let ye get some more rest, if I were paying more attention," Rahne added, wincing but coming up to the side of the bed, leaning over a bit so he could see her, at least for a moment. "Sorry?"

"It's okay. I sleep a lot... lose track of time." He told himself to focus on her. People were getting more and more upset when he didn't do that. "Weekend's over, right?"

"'Tis Monday afternoon." Rahne smiled, then sat down in the nearest chair, scuffing her feet lightly on the floor for a moment. "Kyle started making lists to keep himself busy in study hall."

"Lists? Lists of what?" Nathan asked with a flicker of interest. He'd be wondering how Kyle was doing. He hadn't be back down, at least not while he was awake.

"Ten things he's learned in the last six months. Number eleven was that he can't sit still and be quiet, so all the rest of us should make lists for him to read too."

"Sounds like... a lot of introspection." Nathan wondered suddenly what he would write, if he had the opportunity. Other than 'I hate the ceiling. Oh, how I hate the medlab ceiling.' "Did you do one?"

"Aye. So did Forge and Dani and Catseye." Rahne paused. "Some of them are introspective. Some of them are just fun. Mostly in the same lists."

He smiled a little. "Not surprised," he said quietly. "Thinking about things like that... it usually leads to introspection."

"I can read them to you if you want," she suggested suddenly. She thought that would be all right. Even Kyle's tenth item.

"Okay..." Nathan couldn't manage to sound quite as enthusiastic as he should have. But it would be something to listen to, something to focus on besides everything in his head.

He didn't sound that interested, but after all, he was tired. And... right. Kyle's list. Rahne opened up the laptop, raised her eyebrows and went red when she saw Clarice's list, and scrolled down. "Let's see..." She went through girls, liver, standing backflips -- "Mr. Kylun says those can come in handy, actually" -- and nerds, then laughed a bit. "Ahem. Number six: Ninjas are taller than six feet tall and like Scottish doctors."

Nathan would have laughed, but it would have hurt his ribs. "Still with the ninjas... good to know some things don't change."

Now, there was a definite hint of smile in his voice, which was good. Rahne grinned and proceeded on to caramels glueing fangs together, toenails, and squirrels. "I canna be surprised at the squirrels. I bit when a giant picked me up, too." She went on more softly, "Number ten: Adults, even ones you maybe doona like, who might not like you will get all busted up to keep you and other kids safe."

Nathan breathed out on a long sigh. "He... I think he was very glad to find out how many kids were rescued last weekend," he said after a moment, his voice very low.

"I ken I was." She'd heard more than she maybe had a right to, being around medlab. "Even with everything else...."

"I keep trying to remember that... I sensed them all." Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, struggling to bring back to mind his memory of that moment, of feeling fifty-three young minds reshaped. But along with it came the other memories, horror and loss bound up into the joy, and he winced.

Rahne put the laptop aside and leaned over him again, then, not sure what else to do, leaned down and touched her cheek to his for a moment. "I dreamed the other night...." She wasn't sure whether she should tell him; it didn't even make sense. But it almost didn't seem right to dream about them and not say. "I dreamed about Hrimhari's pack in Asgard, and new wolves in it, and one of the new males tried challenging him, before they all -- settled." She swallowed. "That one's name was Tim."

If he broke down crying in front of Rahne he was going to be very annoyed with himself. "Were they happy?" he asked hoarsely. "Once they settled?"

"I think so. I -- I'm not sure if I could dream about it not being... a good place... even though I ken there were harder times -- but I think they must have been. I dreamed them running all together, at the end, I think it wasna even a hunt, just a long slow run to another side of the territory." Even if it didn't really mean anything, dreaming. Though it could, maybe; she knew from Paige that you could die from Asgard into Asgard, and Hrimhari had taken it as a given that none of the worlds were permanent, and if you were allowed to stop off somewhere else for a while she rather thought somehow that the people who'd got away from Mistra might have preferred Hrimhari's pack to Valhalla, and she was starting not to make sense, probably. She didn't have clairvoyant dreams. "I think they'd like it there...."

"It sounds like a good dream. And a good place." His voice was breaking, and he closed his eyes again, fighting for control. "If there was something... after, for them, I think you're right. I think they would have been happy there."

"Paige says she was a Valkyrie and they really did pick up the dead from battlefields," Rahne said slowly, "but that may be only in Asgard." Although she never had found out how Hrimhari knew English.

The images were right there at the top of her mind, as if she wanted him to see them, and Nathan studied them, wishing... could he believe? If not in this but in something? The idea of them being gone for good... all of them... it was just too much. "I guess we don't know... what's possible, really," he whispered. "If Asgard taught us anything..."

"Asgard taught me 'tis complicated, I suppose. I do believe there's a heaven and hell," Rahne said, "but apparently there's also a Valhalla." Until the worlds all end, which was what Hrimhari had said a few times instead of forever. She had been interested that he expected that to happen. He had been interested that she expected there to be something afterward.

"So strange," Nathan said faintly. "Never imagined there was anything... never wanted to believe." Until now. Yeah. Shaping up to be a lovely midlife crisis here. He swallowed, then focused on Rahne again. "Do you know, I turn thirty-nine on Friday?"

"Now I do." She looked thoughtfully at him. "Lousy way to spend yuir birthday, stuck in traction. I think we'll have to celebrate it a second time when ye get well."

"Least it's not forty. Would have been way too depressing..." He mustered a weak smile.

"When ye turn forty, ye will not be allowed to be injured for it," Rahne told him mock-sternly. "I actually have no idea how we're to assure that, but there's no call to schedule crises the same time each year anyhow."

He wished he could reach out for her hand, or something, but he still couldn't move either arm particularly well, between the claw-wounds and the burns. "Post-it note," he said a bit sleepily, his eyes drooping. "On my forehead."

"I'll keep that in mind. Get the right size so it willna obscure your vision." She hesitated a bit, then took his near hand briefly and squeezed it, very gently. "...Sleep well," she added softly.