xp_logs | Nathan and Haroun, Tuesday early evening

Haroun stops in to visit Nathan, and tells him about something he left at Mick and Tim's memorial stone.

They had taken to dimming or raising the lights to give him some sense of the passage of time. It was dim but not dark in here now, which made Nathan think that it had to be early evening or thereabouts. Approaching dinnertime, maybe, he thought, dimly amused by his continuing lack of anything approaching appetite. Hurray for intravenous feeding.

Haroun poked his head in the door, and seeing that Nathan was at least semi-coherent, invited himself in. "Good evening." he said with a grin. "How's life in Traction Central treating you?"

There was a grinning face leaning over him. Nathan raised an eyebrow. "Depends," he muttered. The drip was still set higher than it had been earlier, and his head was fuzzy. "Is the month up yet?"

"Getting there." Haroun said with a laugh. "Getting there. How are you feeling?" he asked, settling into Nathan's Visitors Chair. "See you've got your artwork up."

Nathan gazed at the ceiling. "Yeah... was here when I woke up this morning. Quite something," he murmured. "And I'm okay, I guess... hurts a lot, still. But less."

"That's good." Haroun said. "Thought I'd stop down, see how things were going. Maybe help alleviate some of that skullcrushing boredom you're probably suffering. And I've got the Go board here, if you want to take a stab at continuing our game."

"Don't think I've quite got the focus for that. Just talking's good, though..." Nathan took as deep a breath as he could. "How's everything?"

"It's OK." he said. "Got a letter in the batch left behind. Burned my own, just to be on the safe side. No one needs to read me being that maudlin when I'm still alive to be teased mercilessly about it."

Nathan hesitated. "You... got a letter?" he asked, surprised.

Haroun nodded. "Sure did. Real eye-opener, that one." he said. "Made my own little gesture of respect to the two of them. Once you get on your feet, I'll show it to you."

"From... Tim? Or Mick? I didn't..." Nathan trailed off, troubled. "I didn't think you'd met either of them, really."

"I had a nice talk with Tim. Never did meet this Mick fellow. I'll have to wait until I cross over to introduce myself personally." he said with a smile. "Maybe it was foolish of me, but I was really hoping that Tim would have the chance to discover himself as a person someday."

Nathan swallowed, the pain pushing its way up to the surface again. "Me too," he said hoarsely. "For both of them."

Haroun quirked _both_ his eyebrows. "Man, you must be wallowing in existential angst if you're copping to the Afterlife." he said with a grin. "Knew you'd come around someday."

"What?" Nathan asked, distracted. "I mean... that last thing you said. I..." He set his jaw, glaring up defiantly at Haroun. "Don't make this a religion thing."

Haroun grinned. "Come on, man, I was having you fitted for your own khayyifeh!" he smirked. "But yeah, Tim and I talked. I was a little hard on him, but it was things he needed to hear. Turns out it wasn't just falling on deaf ears."

"Right," Nathan muttered. "Guess that must have been some letter, then."

Haroun shrugged. "Well, let me put it this way. I talked to Scott, and they each got a set of pins at their gravesite." he said quietly. "Figured it was the least I could do."

Nathan's eyes filled with tears suddenly, and he couldn't even rail at his apparent total lack of pride, these last couple of weeks. "I... that means a lot, Haroun. Thanks..." He had to concentrate on keeping his breathing as steady as he could, knowing that he'd have Moira or Hank or Jean in here if the monitors started doing anything funky.

Haroun squeezed Nathan's shoulder in comradeship. "They'd earned it." he said quietly. "The letter convinced me of that."

In and out. "They loved this place," he muttered, squeezing his eyes shut for a moment. "It was like something out of a dream. Just like the way I felt about it when I first came."

Haroun nodded. "Now I've done it - any minute now, one of the Furies is going to come swooping through that door and castigate me for upsetting you. Even if it was in the good way."

"It's okay," Nathan said a bit raggedly. "Think I need to be upset in the good way a little more often... can't just lie here drifting all the time, can I?" He opened his eyes again, made himself focus on Haroun. "So easy just to slide back to that day. The hallway. Less than it was, but still..."

Haroun nodded. "For me, it's when the golden orb went up." he said. "But hey, we all have our own little crosses to bear. So to speak." he laughed. "When you're up for it, the XOs are going to rent out Harry's and we are going to have a _party_. We don't know each other nearly as well as we should, and I think we've earned the downtime, don't you?"

"What is it with everyone and parties?" Nathan asked a bit dimly, remembering something Cain had said. "People keep telling me that... get better so I can buy the beer."

"I wasn't even going to insist that you buy the beer - that's Scott, Alison, and Ororo's jobs. But if you're volunteering I'm sure that they'd be delighted to accept." he grinned. "And Cain stopped down to visit?"

"Few days ago. He told me." Nathan managed a half-smile. "I might have done a double-take."

"Hey, that would mean that your poor abused spine was transmitting signals!" he said with a grin. "And yeah - we've been trying to come up with scenarios to tax the big guy without taxing the Room or the bank."

"Scott was grumbling about that, last time he was down here. I think he's enjoying himself, though." Nathan's gaze drifted back to the ceiling. "I keep wondering if I'll ever be able to get back to it."

Haroun hrmmed. "Well, if you can get medically cleared I don't see any reason why you wouldn't be." he said. "If you still want to, of course."

"If I can get medically cleared." He shied mentally away from Haroun's second comment, not sure he wanted to answer that just yet.

"If you can get medically cleared." he said, letting Nathan dodge for the time being. It was too soon.

"Think I made Moira happy this afternoon..." A change of subject would be good. Even if he'd brought the subject up in the first place. "Wanting to make wedding plans."

"I'm surprised I didn't hear here from up in my classroom." he said with a wide grin. "Of course, listening to my mother tongue get butchered again is fast paling in the fun factor - I think I'd rather hear Moira gush."

"Bitch, bitch. I only wish I could teach, right now..." Not a good mental place to go either. Nathan wrenched his thoughts away from that. "And she wasn't gushing. Well, not much."

"Another reason to let your body heal. Take your little Witchy treatments, do what the nice doctors tell you, and you'll be fine. Most normal people who take that kind of punishment die or are crippled for life." he pointed out.

"Well... we're not normal people, are we?" Nathan sighed, his hands twitching restlessly. "Still so damned tired all the time."

"Not even close, man." he said with a grin. "Not even close. And that's because you went and fucked yourself up but good. Body wants to shut down and devote itself to healing."

"So Moira keeps telling me." Nathan blinked - and discovered that his eyes rather liked being closed. "Go tomorrow?" he asked, the words a little slurred. "You know what I mean..."

"Listen to Moira. She knows what she's talking about. And yeah, sure. No problem. Get some sleep, man. Catch up with you tomorrow." he said, standing up to go.

"And be nice to your kids. Big meanie..."

Haroun stuck his tongue out and raspberried Nathan. "Little blighters. Should just flunk them all." he grumbled as he headed out.