Jean and Nathan, late Sunday morning

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Jean has happy news about a breakthrough with her powers for Nathan, who's pleased to hear it.


Stairs. Stairs were not his friends yet, even without the wheelchair. Then again, stairs had never been his friends. Nathan smirked a little, remembering how many time he'd taken a header down this particular staircase over the course of the last year. Well, let's not add a more fuel to the running joke, he told himself, and concentrated on reaching the ground floor safely. He was sweating and even unsteadier on his feet when he made it, but made it he did.

Jean was looking for Nathan and, it turned out, he was much easier to find when he was on the move. At those times his concentration shifted and his shields... well, they didn't exactly waver, per say, but they certainly became more permeable. The sudden internal dialog which reached her mental ears on the matter of stairs and falling down them had a very distinct 'Nate' flavor to them, and Jean turned left down the hallway, heading towards the other psi.

Jean's presence coming towards him was unmistakable, and Nathan straightened, wincing but mustering a smile for her as she came into view. "Morning," he said as brightly as he could. "I was practicing stairs."

"So I heard. I have to add another vote for the 'not taking a header down them' side of the argument. But you seem to be doing better." There was a definite spring to Jean's step and a happy feeling to her thoughts. She had News.

She seemed chipper this morning. "Good morning?" he asked. "You have a certain glow."

"Indeed. I have had a breakthrough." There was a certain smug happiness to the way she said it, although it dimmed for a second. "Admittedly, not under the best of circumstances, but a breakthrough nonetheless."

"Well, share," Nathan said dryly, leaning heavily on his cane as they moved down the hall.

"I think I've been going at my TP fight the wrong way," she said, falling in beside him and trying not to be too obvious about studying him for any signs of excessive weariness. The doctor instincts could only be stifled so far. "I've been trying to recreate my shields, thinking I could work on everything else once I had gotten that but, really, given I can receive, there's no reason I shouldn't be able to build up my ability to project again, which would help with the whole 'establishing where the inside of my head and the outside are' part of building up my shields." Ok, that had come out rather quicker and more like one of their excitable, teenaged charges than Jean really liked to admit, and she breathed in, calming herself. "I did manage to send, you see, albeit under strained circumstances."

Nathan looked thoughtful. "Strained circumstances... I won't ask, but that makes sense. Charles is always saying that stress often leads to breakthroughs." Like him being able to coopt the mind of four completely unwilling telepaths on Youra, something he really hadn't had the chance to process yet. "I think I see what you mean about using it to help establish shields, too..."

"Yes," Jean said. "So, I hope, if I can work on the one it will, eventually, help with the work on the other. Especially since I haven't really been having any success with my shields but I have had some with projecting. At least, I have now."

"Balance of energies," Nathan said a bit vaguely, stumbling over the English translation from the Askani. "Shields are projection, in a way. Have you ever thought of it like that?"

"Hmmm... No, I hadn't, but I can kind of see how that would work, from an active psi standpoint." She nodded. "Which is simply more reasons yet to work on it now."

He looked sideways at her, summoning up another smile. "Told you you'd start getting it."

Jean couldn't help a grin. "Yes, you did, and I greatly regret my pessimistic ways up until now." Sticking her tongue out him would be far too childish, although she did mentally raspberry at him without trying to send the thought.

"Just a question of relearning what you already know..." They were passing by the rec room, and Nathan, after shooting her an apologetic look, headed in. "I've got to sit down," he confessed, lowering himself gingerly onto the couch.

"That's fine," she told him, settling onto the table in front of him and reaching taking his wrist to check his pulse as she continued speaking. "Relearning what I already knew, yes, but also relearning it in a way that I can make it work now. Because, well, I still know how my powers ought to work, can remember how they did work, but I can't use them. It's... difficult."

"Is the pattern-meditating helping at all?" He was breathing too hard. Damn, but he hated being this out of shape... "You look a little steadier," he said, knowing that she'd know he meant she looked a little steadier on the psionic-level, rather than in general. Although, that too.

"It is, and I am, I think. You're pulse is up, but not alarmingly," she told him before sitting back. "I'm certainly losing control less often, and I may not be able to block out the mental noise but I'm getting used to it again."

"Amazing how you can get used to it, isn't it? Until something happens and it's just too loud, that is." Nathan closed his eyes for a moment, running over a pattern in his mind to help himself relax a little. "And in terms of you losing control less often... I think that has as much to do with one of your pre-amnesia sources of support stepping up again as anything else." His lips twitched.

"Well, all of them, really, but I assume you mean Scott?" There was a hint of a goofy-happy smile lurking in the corner of her lips and her eyes brightened at the mention of him.

He smiled. "Not prying, you know that. But the two of you seem to be spending more time together lately."

"Every second he'll give me is probably too corny for words, huh?" Jean asked, grinning. "And not actually true, since I've got work to do that's at least as important as the work I keep dragging him away from."

"I hope you both realize that Moira watches you with this ridiculously smug expression every time she sees you together. It's rather cute."

Jean did not blush, as she was far too old for such things. Any flush which may or may not have come to her cheeks was purely in the imagination of whoever claimed to see it. "I had gotten the impression that she was amused by it, yes. I think Hank would be tormenting us both about it more often as well if he weren't distracted."

Nathan smiled. "Give him time. I'm sure he'll get to it." He gave her a thoughtful look. "Did I ever tell you my first wife was a telepath?"

"No," Jean said, cocking her head at him. "I knew you'd been married before, but very little about it."

"Aliya was a telepath. Fairly well-trained one, as well. We were linked for almost ten years." It had gotten so much easier to talk about her over the last several months; it wasn't that the sadness wasn't there, just that it wasn't overpowering anymore and the guilt was down to a distant echo. "Our link was broken rather abruptly, too, when she was killed. I always felt for Scott. I know what it's like to live for years that off-balance."

Jean bit her lip lightly, nodding. "I can't help but feel that, well, that I got off easy," she said. "I... I just had to die, he had to live." And Canada had been so normal, up until it wasn't.

"You're making the most of your second chance, though," Nathan said, "and to be honest, you seem to be doing it in the smartest way imaginable. Making sure the foundation is solid again isn't the quickest way, but in the long term it's going to be the best." He shook his head, chuckling. "And listen to me, giving relationship advice. I think it's the rapidly approaching nuptials doing something to my brain."

That got him snickered at. "To be fair," Jean said, "you have made it farther along the 'being engaged' path than I have. Scott and I never got to the planning the wedding bit." She paused. "Although have you actually set a date yet?"

"We have... ninety-five percent set the date, yes. Stay tuned," Nathan quipped. "We've got a few last things to hash out before we announce it generally."

"I'll keep my ears open for that, then."

"And if you hear Moira complaining about looking like a white whale in the medlab at any point, laugh at her for me?" Nathan asked, then grinned. "If you do, I'll show you a couple more patterns. Quid pro quo."

"Oh no," Jean said, holding her hands out to ward Nathan off. "I am far to well versed in family medicine to ever get on a pregnant woman's bad side. Especially not one with such a deep understanding of my genetics."

Nathan rather shamelessly gave her the puppy-dog eyes.

"Nope. No no no no no. I am resolute. She knows where we store all of the really nasty drugs and where I sleep. Besides, I've known her longer. She clearly has prior claims on my loyalty."

"Wimp," Nathan accused, a twinkle in his eyes.

"I will own to that," Jean said, grinning at him. "But, then, I'm also going to tell her you said I should laugh at her, so it's all ok."