Nathan and Moira, Tuesday afternoon

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A cheerful Moira arrives in Nathan's room and finds him studying his ceiling. He surprises her with the desire to discuss wedding plans. Looking ahead is a good thing, after all.


Moira nearly breezed into Nathan's room, humming slightly under her breath. The first gorgeous day of spring--hopefully. No rain, no clouds and it was actually warmish. She had snuck out for a while, aiming to get a little bit of sun and had accidently fallen asleep on the patio. It had done her a great deal of good. Glancing up at the ceiling, she grinned. "Enjoyin' the view?"

"I'm analyzing it," was the quiet, somewhat hoarse yet still vaguely amused-sounding reply from the bed. "Each individual element... the placement..."

"Only ye would analyze this," she teased, popping into his view suddenly and smiling down at him.

"I wouldn't be appreciating it properly if I didn't," Nathan quipped lightly, with a weary smile of his own. "But I'm pacing myself. Analyze for fifteen minutes, sleep for an hour. Works really well."

"Mmm, I bet it does." Bending down, Moira pressed a gentle kiss to his cheek. "How're ye feelin' right now?" she asked, leaning over to check the stats on the machines on the other side. She was careful to not bump him all that much.

"On that downward slope," he said with a bit of a sigh. "Drugs are wearing off, so the head's clearer, but the pain's worse."

Her mouth tugged down slightly at that. "I'm sorry, love--an' I know how hard it must be ta pick between which ye want."

"Hey, I'm doing better than I would have six months ago..." His lips twitched wryly. "'Course, I can't get up to flush the pills. Even if they were pills. Somehow it's just not as much fun to... demonize an IV."

"Good, twas kind o' frightenin' when ye were talkin' ta th' pills." There was a pause. "Before ye took them."

Not. Laughing. Laughing was bad. So said Mr. Cracked Rib and his friends. "Thought we agreed that we were never going to speak of that again? Wait... no, you promised to remind me of it when we were eighty and in our rocking chairs..."

Moira beamed down at him brightly from between her arms, seeing as she was still stretched over him. "Aye, I did dinnae I? Hah!"

Nathan smiled up at her. He just felt so much better when she was in the room, he thought a bit dimly. More here. Like the link was an anchor, no matter how much he hurt or how insistent the dreams and memories of Youra got.

"I had an idea," he murmured as she straightened.

"Oh?"

"Wedding planning." He gave her his best innocent look.

Moira's eyes popped open a little bit and she barely refrained herself from grabbing onto him in her excitment. "Really?" she hedged, eyeing him.

"I want to." The puppy-dog look came almost without effort. "Jack said looking ahead was good. And I keep staring up at the ultrasound pictures and thinking that you're going to kill me if we don't do this before you're showing too much."

They both glanced down at "the bump" at the same time. "Well, yer right on tha' score," she said wryly, snagging a chair so she can sit. "An' lookin' ahead is verra good, especially for this." Her gaze went to her engagment ring and she smiled softly.

"Need to work out timing," Nathan mused. Focusing on something else helped with the pain, too. "Can't wait too long, but I don't want to have to be wheeled down the aisle... hey. Gives me something to shoot for, no?" He gave her a crooked smile. "Dancing with you at our wedding..."

Her eyes teared up slightly at that and she blinked, trying to get rid of them. "Dinnae rush it," she warned him, trying not to sniffle. "I dinnae want ye hurtin' yerself more because ye want ta dance wit' me. As adorable as tha' is."

"Mmm. So putting the date aside..." He glanced at the ceiling, at the picture of Muir. "At the castle still?"

Moira thought about it, reaching out to brush her hand against his. "Aye, I would like tha'. Considerin' how much o' our past is there."

"So. Lots of room." He smiled at the touch. "Guest list? Or should we just start with everyone here and everyone within a hundred kilometer radius of the island?"

Her laugh echoed through the room at that. "I think th' second choice is, by far, wiser."

"Outside or inside?"

"Knowin' Muir's weather? Plan for both, though outside would be grand."

"Ororo," Nathan reminded her. "Suspect we can have weather of our choice, whenever and wherever..." He hesitated, smiling a little at the mental image of her all in white, standing in the sunlight. He missed sunlight.

The image leaked through the link and she smiled at him, pushing the image back at him gently with him added to it. "Ye'll be out an' about soon enough, darlin'."

"Then definitely outside. So long as Ororo's up for guaranteeing the weather... I'll have this whole sunlight deficit thing going on." The caress on the link wasn't nearly as good as being able to hold her, but he could make do. For now. "So... we're leaving the 'when' alone for now. We've got the where, and the who... food?"

Moira shot him an amused look. "I think Lorna would have yer head if ye even think 'bout doin' th' food without her help," she said, sending another mental image of Lorna chasing Nathan through the halls. "Th' food details I think are verra safely in her hands."

"I promised her, didn't I? That we'd let her handle that..." Inspiration hit. "She's bored, right? Someone said she was bored, lying around healing up..." He forgot who. He was losing track of visitors and when they'd come and what time of day it was far too often.

"I believe she is, aye."

"Could tell her she could start thinking about menus, then?"

"...ohhhh." Sneaky soon to be husband, she thought, beaming at him.

"Even flat on my back, I'm good." He breathed a little too deeply and couldn't help a small noise of pain. "Ow... wish that'd stop."

Reaching up, Moira smoothed his hair down. "Wish I could make it stop," she said a little mournfully. "Need th' drugs again?"

"Not yet..." It was almost a plea. "Flowers? What kind of flowers..."

"Alright, nay yet. Flowers. Hrm. Nay sure but I want colorful ones."

"Colorful... something different, maybe? Not stereotypical... orchids, maybe?"

"Ohh, I like orchids. Orchids would work perfectly."

"So pretty, some of them..." Nathan murmured. "We'll have to look at pictures. Sound good?"

"Pictures we can do," she said, kissing him gently on the cheek.

She kept finding ways to touch him, traction rig or no traction rig. Wedding plans forgotten for a moment, he stared up at her. "Are you sleeping okay?" he asked, a catch in his voice. "Upstairs, I mean..."

"I sometimes have problems," Moira responded gently, not bothering to lie to him about it. "I miss yer presence. But Bella's been keepin' me company, so tha' helps."

"Miss you both. You more than her... don't tell her that, though." He concentrated on breathing for a moment, on keeping it as steady as he could despite the pain. "I'm forgetting something... wedding party. No fairy costumes. Please?"

She was barely able to control a snort and then grinned down at him. "Promise, nay fairy costumes," she teased, pleased that that particular mental image had gone through earlier.

"Kilt, though. If you want. I'll even make GW wear one. He'll pout."

A few seconds passed before Moira was able to answer, seeing as she was laughing to hard to do anything else. "For tha' mental image, hell yes."

Happy. She was happy, and the warm, joyful thoughts and images flowing down the link was almost enough to counterbalance his own growing discomfort. Damn mutant metabolisms and burning off painkillers too damned fast...

Catching part of that on the link, Moira gazed at him for a second. "Nathan...?"

"Time... for Mr. IV to do his job, I think." He blinked up at her, trying to give her an apologetic look despite the way his eyes were starting to water. Hank had come up with a technical term for this particular kind of pain, something to do with the spinal injury, but he couldn't remember what it had been.

"Shh, s'okay." Reaching over, she turned up up the drip slowly. Settling back down, Moira put her hand on his. "I'll stay until yer asleep, okay?"

"Okay..." He swallowed, trying to relax. "Music... know Ali's going to want to sing. What e-else?"

"Pickin' out who's goin' ta be in th' bloody weddin' party itself."

"You get the hard choices... GW's easy, for me..."

"An' I have lots an' lots of choices. Bastard."

The pressure of her hand on his didn't hurt. He was glad. "Dom in a puffy dress..." The image floated up the link. "You know you want to."

"I would also like ta be able ta live ta see me weddin' day," came the dry response.

"Anna." That was obvious.

"O' course!"

"You need... a legion. Solve that problem." It was a little harder to form the image of a whole troop of bridesmaids preceding Moira up the aisle, but he managed it. With Dom in a puffy dress.

Moira died at that and squeezed his hand gently. "Yer horrible."

"I try." He closed his eyes, imagining that he could feel the haze descending over his thoughts. Nice haze. He really had no issues with the haze just now. "Love you, you know," he murmured.

"An' I love ye verra much."