xp_logs | Nathan and his alter ego, one last time, Saturday night

Nathan has one last discussion with the all-too-solid figment of his imagination, and finally makes a decision.

Getting out of the wheelchair took a fair bit of effort, even when it was just from the wheelchair to the bed. Nathan relaxed back against the pillows with a wince, glad he was wearing Institute sweats and could get away with sleeping in them. Struggling in and out of clothes would have been a little awkward right now, especially as the evening painkillers hadn't kicked in just yet.

"The days feel long, don't they?"

Nathan didn't look in the direction of the window, where the voice came from. Mostly because he knew what... who he'd see. "I'd be lying if I said that I wasn't looking forward to going back to bed by midafternoon, most days lately," he admitted, his voice low but level.

"So long as you recognize it as normal, and not a weakness." Cable shifted in the armchair. Slouched, his feet propped up on the chair across from his, he was wearing Institute sweats as well. Probably the same Institute sweats, or at least a mirror-image of them. "In fact, you should be sleeping more."

Nathan raised an eyebrow, and did look over there this time. "Is that why you're here this time?" he asked. "To criticize my sleeping habits?"

"You have this fascinating tendency of being more honest with yourself when you're dreaming. I find it very illuminating."

Nathan shifted, wincing again, and gazed up at the ceiling. "So what am I not being honest with myself about this time?" he asked tiredly. He really wasn't in the mood for another one of these long, involved, frustrating discussions. "You're here to puncture more of my self-delusions?"

"No." Cable's voice was quiet, strangely soothing. "Just wondering if you'd thought any more about what we talked about the last time."

"The last time..." The fact that he had to stop and think about what they had talked about the last time was probably a bad sign. "About what I want? Or whether I like you..."

"Both. Either. Anything else. It's not as if you don't have plenty of food for thought these days."

These days. Nathan closed his eyes, willing the painkillers to work already. The doppleganger over there only seemed to stay as long as it took them to kick in properly. "Leaning farther in one direction," he murmured. "Balance hasn't tilted just yet, though. I think I'm still..."

"Afraid?"

"Tired."

"Both?"

"Possibly."

A soft, amused laugh. "Was that so hard to admit?"

Nathan gritted his teeth, his jaw clenching. Gathering his strength, he pushed himself up to a sitting position, ignoring the pain - and stopped, eyes widening as he saw the other him - Cable, he reminded himself - sitting there on the edge of the bed, watching him.

"Would you stop," Nathan said, breathing hard, "needling me? Please?"

"Why?" Cable arched an eyebrow. "The more holes I poke in the 'I'm fine' crap, the faster you'll make certain choices. And I don't know about you, Nate, but I'm getting tired of the seesaw approach to the issue you've been taking."

"Go to hell," Nathan snapped - or started to, as he was suddenly and quite completely distracted by Cable leaning towards him and grabbing his wrist. He stiffened, pure panic flooding him. He could feel the hand locked around his wrist, as if Cable was really there, was...

"Calm down." Cable's gaze was steady, his voice calm. "We went over this. I'm here but I'm not. I'm a shadow you gave form, because you couldn't resolve it in here." He tapped his temple with his free hand. "There's no reason in the world to be afraid of me," he went on, just as levelly. "I can't do anything you don't want me to do." His lips quirked in a smile. "So what does it mean?"

"What does what mean?" Nathan asked, still breathing a bit raggedly.

"That I'm here. Confronting you. What does it mean?"

"Enough with the trick questions!" Nathan wrenched his hand free, pushing himself back a little with some difficulty. Fuck, he hurt. Had moved too fast, even with the brace on. "Obviously I don't know what I want, do I? If you're here, and yet I'd still like to disassemble you into your component... whatever the hell you're made from."

Cable shook his head. "Not as much conflict as you think," he said patiently. "You said you felt like the balance was tipping..."

"And you said I was taking a seesaw approach to the issue..."

"Which means that you can go one way or the other. And do it quickly." Cable's expression was very somber, suddenly. "You might want to do it quickly."

"What?" Nathan stared at him blankly. "Why?"

"The longer you wait, the more likely it is that something will come along to muddy the waters." The other him shook his head slowly. "Right now, it's as clear as it's ever going to be, Nate. You wait much longer, and whatever you decide... well, you'll always wonder. Whether you let events push you in one direction or the other, rather than listening to yourself and acting on what you really want."

He sounded so certain of himself. Nathan almost asked if he had seen something, if this part of him had stolen a moment of precognitive clarity somewhere down the line... but then, it was common-sense in a way, too, wasn't it? There would always been something. There had been 'something' even since Youra, a tangled mess of events that he hadn't been able to do a damned thing about, and...

"Stop." Cable's voice was back to being low, almost soothing. "Step back."

Nathan gave a cracked laugh before he could stop himself. "I can't walk. Can't step back."

"Metaphorically speaking," Cable said with a faint smile. "Push it away for a minute. Rise above it. It doesn't have to drag you down if you don't let it. You know that."

Nathan couldn't understand why this fragment of him seemed so... steadying and challenging at the same time. Didn't make any sense, that he should be able to goad him and bring him back down to earth, all within the space of a few words.

"What do you want, Nate?" Cable stopped suddenly, his eyes sharpening. "Wrong question," he said suddenly, as if something had just dawned on him. "What do you see?"

And he would have asked what the question meant, what was really being asked - except that he was seeing something. A third version of him, standing at the end of the bed. Wearing leathers and carrying the psimitar, and Nathan shook his head slowly.

"I am really losing it, aren't I?"

The third him, thankfully, didn't seem to have anything to say. He just stood there, watching. Smiling slightly.

"So?" was Cable's quiet reply. "Maybe you have to lose it to find it. Maybe you have to let some things go to reach out for what you really want."

Nathan studied the third version of himself, taking in every detail. The relaxed, confident way he stood there, the light yet assured grip on the psimitar. How he was tanned and fit-looking, so unlike the pale, badly underweight shadow he saw whenever he looked in the mirror these days.

So much else there, in this figment's calm gray eyes, that he didn't see in his own of late. Confidence. Strength. Conviction.

Faith.

Faith?

"Can I ever get it back?" he whispered.

"It's still there."

"How do I know that?"

"Because I'm still here."

Nathan looked sideways at that calmly fierce reply. Cable gazed right back at him, his expression utterly composed, but an unmistakable challenge in his eyes. "Yeah," Nathan said slowly, feeling it all change. It wasn't the rapid, almost cataclysmic shift in his mental patterns that he'd experienced in the Danger Room back in January, but something more subtle. The last step of a process that had been ongoing for a while now. "You are here, aren't you?"

When he looked back, the third version of himself was gone. But the image was there in his mind, lingering almost stubbornly, and he shook his head, frustrated. "It's all about picking up the pieces, isn't it?"

"Putting Humpty-Dumpty back together again?" He heard Cable give a rusty-sounding chuckle. "You aren't as broken as you seem to think you are. See the good, Nathan." Nathan looked sideways at Cable sharply, catching the shift from the nickname to his full name, and Cable smiled sardonically. "Yeah, that's right. I'm talking to you, Nathan. The man. Not..."

"The boy."

"Right. And the man needs to realize that's what he is," Cable said forcefully. "He needs to look back on what happened in Greece and realize that it was a victory."

Part of him still rebelled at the idea. A victory, when so many had died, when he'd...

"And how many lived? How many are free now - how many will never be chained, now?" Cable tilted his head. "How many of the butterflies will stir hurricanes with their wings?" he said more softly, and Nathan was almost overwhelmed by the memory of the moment of the Trojan Horse's release, of the color coming back to the minds of the children in the barracks.

Butterflies. Delicate, fragile, colorful butterflies. Them and the kids here, too. So small, yet so enormous. Driving the world with the beating of their wings.

"What do you want, Nathan?"

Nathan looked sideways at him, silent for a long moment. There were so many answers he could give to that. He wanted to be healthy. He wanted the grief to diminish, even if he knew it was never going to fade completely. He wanted to be able to live with the love and the fear, to find a way to balance them.

I want to know I'm doing what I can. Because strength was selfish if it only supported you. Power, if you had it, was meant to be used for more than your own benefit. Empty, all of it, empty mindless force, unless you made it mean something.

It was the one thing he'd learned from his father, the lesson his father had never intended to teach.

"I want," he said finally, softly, "to be you."

Cable smiled, a fierce blaze of a smile. "Told you so."

And then he was alone in the room again. Just like that.