As You Were: Part Four
Sleep did help, though it took nearly twelve hours of meditation to rebuild his shields to the point where there'd be no more accidental revelations on his part. He'd been running too close to the edge for a while now, Nate admitted to himself the next day as he was puttering around in his apartment, trying to find something to distract himself from the nagging feeling that he should be at work. The investigation leading up to the operation against DaCosta Industries - it was easier to think of it that way - had taken nearly six months, and he'd spent the whole time internalizing his emotional reactions to what was happening. He wasn't much of an empath, but he was enough of one that he couldn't really get away with idiocy like that. It would take time and some serious effort on his part to sort things out before his internal equilibrium was restored to where it should be.
Sorting things out was precisely what he had on his mind that night when he teleported across town to the small apartment tower where Clare lived. Ordinarily, he would have teleported right to her door, but he didn't want to catch her off guard. This conversation was going to be awkward enough without starting out on the wrong foot, so he altered his destination and popped into the lobby instead.
One quick scan of the building told him he needn't have bothered. She wasn't home.
Chastened, Nate retreated to the coffee shop across the street, kicking himself for not having called to see if she was there. After all, why should she spent the entirety of her leave at home? For all he knew, she was out somewhere enjoying herself--though that wasn't precisely a comforting thought, Nate reflected grimly, buying himself something to drink and picking a booth by the window. Clare's idea of enjoying herself tended to be a little too robust, particularly when she wanted to vent.
The last time she'd wanted to blow off a little steam, he'd had to fish her out of a particularly rough bar where she'd gotten involved in a high-stakes poker game that the other players hadn't taken too kindly to losing. Not that she'd really needed his help, but he hadn't seen the need to let her trash the place.
Nate sighed, scraping the whipped cream off his cappuccino methodically. Worrying about what she might be up to wasn't a productive train of thought, he told himself sternly. His time would be better spent trying to figure out what he was going to say when she got back. Whenever that was.
In the end, he wound up buying a second cappuccino, mostly because the manager of the coffee shop was giving him dirty looks for sitting there with an empty cup, and he didn't want to get kicked out. Better to be here than hanging around in the lobby looking like someone's lost puppy. He remembered to specify no whipped cream this time, although he was busy enough listening for Clare that he didn't manage to stop the girl serving him from squeezing an indecent amount of caramel sauce into his poor coffee.
It was disgustingly sweet, he reflected glumly, sipping at it as he went back to his booth. Like a flonqing candy bar in a cup. He might not be the triple-espresso type, like Clare, but even if he did order a flavored variety of cappuccino, that didn't mean he wanted a centimetre-thick layer of caramel at the bottom of the cup. Clare would be laughing and cursing him as a coffee heretic if she could see this.
He took a few more cursory sips, but soon gave up and sat staring across the street, his mind spinning with all the things he wanted to say to Clare, and a number of things he didn't, but would probably wind up saying anyway. No solid conversational strategy came to mind, though. He supposed he'd just have to wing it. Maybe that wasn't such a bad thing? There was something to be said for spontaneity, after all. Hell, if he wound up fumbling his way through, she might even take pity on him--
A familiar ripple made the local astral plane shiver, and Nate stood up, perversely relieved that he wasn't going to get any more time to brood. Dropping his still mostly-full cup into the garbage by the door, he managed a faint smile for the girl at the counter, who'd spent the last fifteen minutes staring at him while she formulated some mildly embarassing fantasies involving him, a white horse, and strategically placed bits of armor. She blushed bright red, and Nate shook his head ruefully as he stepped out onto the street.
#Clare?# he sent diffidently, sensing the blaze of Clare's thoughts in her apartment. He knew he wouldn't be startling her; she'd probably sensed him the moment she'd teleported in.
A pause, then the mental equivalent of a sigh. #Nate? Why didn't you wait up here?#
He shifted from foot to foot, starting to feel a little conspicuous standing out here staring up at one particular set of windows. Maybe the coffee hadn't been such a good idea. He felt edgy, and all of his determined resolve from earlier seemed to have vanished. #You weren't there,# he sent back a bit awkwardly. #I thought it'd be rude.#
Another minute hesitation made him wonder just what was going through her mind, but he didn't reach out to make any kind of deeper contact. Mind-to-mind wasn't going to work here. They needed to talk, face to face, if only to ensure they both spent a little more time thinking about what they wanted to say. #Polite of you,# Clare finally sent, her mental voice sounding wry. #But you can come up now, if you like.#
#Thanks.# Taking a deep, somewhat shaky breath, Nate visualized the spot just inside her door and teleported. The first thing he saw were grocery bags, four of them, sitting on the counter that separated the kitchen from the living room. He flushed, remembering the conclusions he'd been jumping to about where she'd been. Maybe he should apologize? But no, that would involve explaining what he'd been thinking, and--no, it was probably better just to leave it alone.
"Need any help?" he asked hesitantly, coming over to stand on the other side of the counter.
Clare finished arranging the cans on the shelf in front of her, then turned to face him. "I think I can manage," she said, avoiding his eyes as she pulled a loaf of bread out of one of the bags. "Thanks, though. Want a drink or something?"
"That's all right," Nate said, leaning against the counter and watching her carefully. She was definitely tense, but not nearly as tightly wound as she'd been the other day. The predominant emotion he was sensing from her was relief--that he'd been the one to make the first move and show up on her doorstep, maybe? "I had some coffee while I was waiting. That shop across the street's not bad."
Clare looked up at him, raising an eyebrow, and her mouth quirked in the beginnings of a real smile. "Real coffee? Or more of your usual flavored crap?"
"Don't mock the cappuccino."
"But it's so easy to mock." Clare's smile wavered a little, and Nate wondered why it was no comfort to realize he wasn't the only one feeling awkward. "You--uh, look better than you did the other day." Her gray eyes softened slightly as they lingered on his face. "I guess a few days leave wasn't such a bad idea after all."
"I got some sleep," Nate said, trying very hard to sound casual. "Put my shields back together, too."
"So I see." Clare turned away to find a place for the bread, and he could sense both her desire to stall and a fair amount of self-directed disgust at the idea. It was almost enough to make him smile. "I'd imagine we both spent yesterday the same way."
Part of him was glad to hear that. At least they'd be on roughly equal footing, neither of them too exhausted or mentally raw to handle what had to be said. "Clare," he said earnestly when she turned around again. "We need to talk."
The corner of her mouth tugged upward again, tiredly this time. "I know," she admitted with a sigh. Her sudden acquiescence surprised him, but it seemed real enough. "Go sit down. I'll just put away the stuff that needs to go in the fridge."
Was it going to be that easy? He had to admit, he hadn't expected her to be particularly responsive, given her reaction the other day. "You sure I can't give you a hand?" he asked hesitantly.
Clare gave him a patient look. "Go sit down, Nate."
He gave her his best, most deceptive meek smile, and wandered back into the living room. It, and the rest of the apartment, were sizeable, if not extravagantly so. Clare could definitely have afforded something bigger, on her salary, but she'd had this place for a decade now, and seemed perfectly content.
He'd always liked it, himself. Clare's preference for black seemed to have vanished entirely when it came to decorating and furnishing the apartment, and the result was a blend of soft colors - mostly blues and greens - and pale woods. The effect was almost soothing--or it usually was. Tonight, it wasn't really working.
The coffee had been a really bad idea. He settled on the sofa, his back to the huge bay window, and folded his hands together to stop them from shaking. "Where's Harry?" he asked after a long moment, knowing the question was blunt but unable to think of any more diplomatic way to phrase it. As much as he wanted to try and resolve things, having Harry show up in the middle of the conversation would be really awkward.
"At the Academy," Clare said from the kitchen, and he heard the refrigerator door close. "Which is where he spends most of his time these days." Emerging from the kitchen, she came over and sat down on the other end of the couch. Giving them both a little space, Nate thought with a faint smile. "He's got a full teaching load this spring, so he's moved out to the mansion. Made more sense, since he can't teleport himself back and forth."
"Oh." It was all the response he could come up with, and he instantly regretted it, because Clare's expression immediately went distant.
"It's not a big deal," she said, her voice cool in that 'I don't want to talk about this anymore' sort of way. "Besides, sometimes you just need some space."
Well, that was nicely ambiguous, though he supposed he deserved to get the brush-off, given the ham-handed way he'd raised the subject. Still, equivocal as the comment had been, it gave him some food for thought. Harry having 'moved out' to the mansion sounded oddly conclusive, as had Clare's tone, and that was certainly something new. Clare and Harry had never precisely lived together on a permanent basis, but they'd always bounced back and forth between each other's apartments here in New York. They'd been more or less 'together' for over a decade. Though if Zara had been telling the truth - and she usually did, that was what made her so threatening at times - Harry hadn't been precisely monogamous lately, had he?
Nate grimaced. He'd always envied Harry and Clare for their bond. It was both deeper and subtler than a psi-link; they actually had simpatico minds, a product of having been in utero while their mothers served as members of the Twelve and primary participants in the Great Merge. He'd always wanted that kind of instinctive understanding of another person - hell, be honest, Guthrie, he admitted ruefully, you wanted it with Clare! - but the casual nature of the rest of their relationship had always irritated him on some level.
"Clare," he started carefully, "this whole--needing space thing. This wouldn't have anything to do with what happened in Rio, would it?" Her eyes snapped back to meet his, flashing dangerously, but he gazed back as calmly as he could, sure he was on to something. He knew how she reacted to trauma, after all, and it generally involved pushing everyone away and isolating herself. It was a conscious choice on her part, something she did so that she could wrestle with her demons in private. After all, she was a Summers, and members of the Summers family took it in with their mother's milk that You Don't Show Weakness. If they had a coat of arms, that would be the motto. Nate wondered dimly how that translated into Latin.
Oddly enough, Clare was no longer glaring at him. "If I said that was part of why I needed space," she murmured, her expression more weary than anything else - and he could understand that, could sympathize with the fact that she was sick of people poking at her about this - "you'd probably give me that knowing look and start talking about post-traumatic stress. And then I'd have to hit you."
"For being right?" The words slipped out, and he leaned back a little, just in case.
Clare gave him a brief, baleful look. "I may hit you anyway."
"If it makes you feel better, go right ahead."
"Don't tempt me," Clare muttered. Her voice shook a little, and Nate fought the urge to reach out to her as she turned away, loose black hair falling at just the right angle to hide her face. "Why didn't you tell me?" she asked, her voice sounding oddly muffled. "About how you felt."
Nate sighed, his stomach twisting. The question of the hour, and one for which he still didn't have a compelling answer. "I was afraid," he muttered at last, ignoring the way his pride protested.
"Of my reaction?" Clare asked very softly, still not looking at him.
"A little." Honesty was the best policy, he knew, but it didn't make the anxiety that rippled down from her end of the link after his admission any less painful to acknowledge. "Afraid of screwing up what we had, too," he went on, trying very hard to project just how much he meant that. "Plus I thought Harry would want to roast choice bits of my anatomy."
"He'd probably consider himself forever beholden to you for taking me off his hands," Clare said with a light, brittle laugh.
Nate grimaced. "That's not funny, Clare," he said, a bit more harshly than he'd intended. He really hated this self-derogatory crap she sometimes indulged in. It was an aspect of her behaviour that he made a point to stomp on whenever he had the opportunity.
"Actually, it's terribly funny. And true. If we didn't share a brain, he'd have given up on me a long time ago. I'm not precisely the easiest person to live with, you know." She finally looked at him again, and there was a dangerous light in her eyes, enough to make him stiffen and lean back a little further. "By the way, you're not my first visitor today. Zara invited herself over for coffee this morning."
"Oh. That's--nice." He shouldn't let her get away with changing the subject, he really shouldn't, but as much as he hated to admit it, they probably needed to talk about what had happened with Zara, too. Letting Clare see how he felt about her five minutes after letting slip that he'd spent the previous night with Zara hadn't been the swiftest thing he'd ever done. Clare and Zara might be sisters, in both the Askani and emotional sense of the word, but they'd been violently competitive since childhood, and Nate really didn't want Clare thinking he'd turned to Zara as some sort of substitute. He was in enough trouble as it was.
"Mmm," Clare said, and although she was keeping a perfectly straight face, he could sense what was beneath the mask, an odd combination of amusement, annoyance - at Zara - and what was, quite unmistakably, jealousy. But before he could process what that meant, she went on and shattered his composure completely. "She told me to tell you when I saw you that she had a great time, and that you should stop by the next time you were in the mood for some comfort sex."
Nate cringed as his mind insisted on presenting him with the image of Zara perched daintily on this very couch, coffee cup in hand and a delicate smile on her face as she gave Clare that message to pass along. "Oh, fuck," he muttered, looking away and wondering if there was an appropriate description for the shade of red he was undoubtedly turning. 'Lobster' sprung to mind.
"Well, there's a singularly inappropriate thing to say." Clare hesitated, and the emotions flowing along the link simplified, that ripple of unhappy jealousy becoming predominant. "Did you?" she asked, her voice sounding odd.
"Did I what?"
"Have a good time with Zara?"
Nate gave her an incredulous look. But she didn't seem like she was being facetious--in fact, she was clearly waiting for an answer. "You don't really want me to answer that," he said.
Her mouth twisted. "I sort of do," she said, as if the admission were somehow distasteful. "I need to know, before I let it go."
"Fine," Nate snapped, feeling more color flooding into his face as he struggled to keep his grip on his temper. If giving her a straight answer was what it took, he'd do that. "No, I did not have a good time with Zara. I was drunk and stupid, and I feel remarkably like shit about the whole thing. Is that what you wanted to hear?"
Clare shrugged uneasily. "Maybe," she murmured, avoiding his eyes again. "I--I shouldn't have shouted at you about it the other day. It's not--like I've got any claim on you. Zara pointed that out." He opened his mouth, but she looked up at him suddenly and the words froze on his lips as he saw how bitterly ashamed she looked. "She also told me that I was being selfish. Stringing you along, instead of--" She hesitated, turning red, but then bit her lip and went on stiffly. "She said I had no business letting you hang around waiting for a decision I was never going to make." Her flush deepened. "She said a lot more, but I think I'll leave it at that."
Nate made a mental note to kick Zara's ass for being an interfering bitch the next time he saw her. "She had no business getting involved," he said roughly. "You didn't know--"
"I should have known." Clare gave a ghostly laugh. "That's what telepathy's for, isn't it?"
"I've spent--" His voice broke, but Nate forced the words out doggedly. "I've spent so much time and energy making sure you wouldn't know, Clare." His eyes burned, and he wiped at them in aggravation, telling himself to pull it together. "Don't blame yourself if I was good at it."
"She was definitely right about something. I do take you for granted," Clare said in a very low voice, and then shifted across the couch suddenly, hugging him so fiercely that air was starting to be a concern until he put his arms around her and she relaxed a little. "I do love you," she whispered unevenly, and although her face was hidden against his shoulder, he could hear the pain in her voice. "Please tell me you know that."
Nate closed his eyes. "I do." He'd never doubted that, not for a moment, but Zara, as cruel as she'd been, had a point. Deep down, he wanted more than the love that came from a lifelong friendship between telepaths, more than the trust and platonic devotion that a successful partnership bred. He wanted--more, wanted--
Who was the selfish one, here? his conscience screamed at him. Nate swallowed hard and pulled back, raising a shaking hand to touch the side of her face, hating the sight of her eyes shining with tears. "Do you know when I knew I loved you?" he asked hoarsely. She waited, and he managed a shaky smile as he went on. "It was when you made Zara give back my stuffed tiger."
Clare actually gaped at him. "Nate," she said, her voice still shaking but the link--lightening, somehow, "that had to have been thirty years ago. You can't be serious--"
"I'm perfectly serious," he said, and put a little more effort into the smile. "I was three, you were five. After you made her give Horace back, you hugged me and told me not to cry--"
Clare made a noise that might have been a laugh, but sounded more like a sob. "That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard. You are so full of bullshit sometimes."
"Sometimes," Nate admitted. "Not this time, though." For a long moment, he watched her struggling to regain her composure, until he was sure she wasn't going to burst into tears, or do something similarly un-Clare-like. "I guess the question's--" His voice broke, his courage nearly failing him, and he wound up resorting to Aunt Dom's words, rather than the ones he'd wanted to use, the question he'd really wanted to ask. "I guess we have to figure out where we go from here."
Clare's gaze was very level. "I don't know," she admitted, her voice soft. Nate bit his lip, but his heart, which had sunk so quickly to the vicinity of his boots, started to return to its regular place as she went on. "We'll have to find out together. At the very least, I don't think we should try and shove this under the carpet." She gave him a tiny, wry smile. "Zara's a nasty-minded bitch, but she had a point. You deserve better."
"Oh, so this is about straightening me out?" he joked, to cover the strange mix of emotions her words had provoked.
Clare looked taken aback. "I just--well, you know. Blurred lines in a relationship, bad thing." He raised an eyebrow, and she looked a bit agitated. "Nate, it's not that I think you're confused, it's just--"
She was cute when she got rattled, Nate reflected.. "So what, I'm getting carried away? Is that what you think?" It came out a bit more seriously than he'd intended, and provoked such a bewildered look from Clare that he wasn't sure whether or not to laugh.
"I didn't think--I mean, you can't--" She stopped, but the words she hadn't spoken were in her mind, and before she could push the thought away, he caught it.
You can't really want me. It's not safe.
The pain that had clenched around his heart like a vice at that first whispered thought eased a little, but only because of the flash of bewilderment provoked by the second. "How--you believe that, don't you?" he breathed. She did--she had to, he'd have known that even if he hadn't sensed it. It was just like his accidental revelations the other day--too spontaneous to be anything but brutally honest. "Clare," he went on unevenly, "I don't understand--"
Clare went white, and something flashed across her end of the link--the image of a forest locked in winter, but looking as if it had been flash-frozen, and clearly unreal. It was so striking, so surreal and vivid, that Nate instinctively reached down the link and into her mind, grasping at it.
But something was suddenly in his way, and he toppled headlong into a mass of memories like quicksand, Denver and the warehouse in Rio tangled up together into one hideous whole. But he struggled through it, fighting back a wave of physical nausea, and caught at the image of the forest, knowing now that it had it be something important--
And Clare shoved him out of her mind with such force that he fell off the couch, gasping. His vision clearing, Nate looked up and saw Clare halfway across the room, staring at him. What, had she teleported?
"Nate, if you do that again, I'm going to have to kick your ass," she said a bit wildly, and then blinked around, as if unsure about how she'd gotten where she was standing.
"Okay," he wheezed, and managed to get back up to the couch. "Sorry--got a little carried away." That was putting it mildly. *What the hell were you doing, Guthrie?* he raged at himself helplessly. *What happened to thinking before you act?*
Clare seemed to come to some conclusion about how she'd wound up six feet away from where she'd been sitting a moment ago, and turned her attention back to him, frowning. "Weren't you the one who told me the other day to ask if I wanted to know something?" she asked, folding her arms across her chest.
She wasn't angry. Why wasn't she angry? All he sensed from her was confusion and vague irritation, which didn't make sense at all, given that he'd just forced his way into her mind. "All right," he said, his voice still hoarse. Maybe the anger was coming. He completely deserved a good ass-kicking, in any case. Talk about being stupid and acting on impulse. "What's with the forest?"
"Nate, I don't know what you're talking about."
"The forest. In your mind." She gave him a blank look, and Nate scowled, perplexed. How could she not know what he was talking about? The image of the forest had been her first reaction, as soon as he'd questioned what she meant. "Clare, I saw it."
Clare was still frowning, still baffled. "I don't know what you saw, Nate, but I don't know why I'd be thinking about a forest."
He gritted his teeth with frustration. "Let me show you," he said, reaching tentatively up the link.
Some unreadable expression flashed across Clare's face. "I don't know what you latched onto," she said huffily, parrying that exploratory poke, "but I'm not interested."
Okay, there was definitely a little bit of avoidance going on here. "I want to know why you don't think it's safe for me to be in love in you!" he said, much more loudly than he'd intended.
Her eyes widened. "I didn't say that!"
"No, but you thought it," Nate said insistently, and blinked as that same image of the icebound forest fluttered across her end of the link, almost as if on cue. He reached for it, girding himself for hitting the same defense he'd run across a moment ago--
A sound from outside, a muffled booming noise that sounded like a small explosion, shattered his concentration. He retreated from her mind, too fast, and his head was spinning as he looked up at Clare and saw her eyes shift to the window, her expression beginning to change--
Then something came through the window, and the world blew up.
***
Pavement. It was pavement beneath him, not carpet. The five brain cells Nate was sure were working properly pointed out that while Clare had austere taste in decor sometimes, her apartment floor certainly wasn't paved. Which meant he wasn't on her apartment floor. The air was cool around him, but he could still hear the fire, smell it.
Clare, he thought, hazy panic jolting through him--where was Clare? Nate tried to move, and bit back a gasp at the nauseating wave of pain the movement provoked. Burns felt like that, he thought feebly, remembering the time he'd tangled with a pyrokinetic. Explosions were really no fun unless you were a spectator.
His pulse was pounding in his ears. Faster than it should be, and the counterpoint it created with the slow, pulsing pain inside his skull was going to drive him crazy unless one stopped. Preferably the headache. Blood pressure's dropping, he thought disjointedly, and managed to raise his head enough to see the blood spurting from his leg.
Not good. Nate took as deep a breath as he dared and applied as much telekinetic pressure as he could manage. A telekinetic has very few excuses for bleeding to death, Sulven's remembered words from a long-ago lesson echoed in his mind. So long as you can think, you can at least try and save yourself.
You were supposed to try to meditate, to focus on fighting shock. But he couldn't. "Clare?" he called, or tried to. All that came out was something that sounded embarrassingly like a moan, and touched off a fit of coughing that felt like fiery claws ripping through his chest.
#N-Nate?# her voice whispered faintly inside his head. #Nate, are you--# That hazy presence sharpened suddenly, quivered with alarm. #Nate!#
The sound of movement, somewhere close, and then she was bending over him, touching his face with a shaking hand. Nate shuddered as she reached into his mind and grabbed frantically at his thoughts, holding them together by sheer force. The pressure on his leg increased, and he moaned again as he felt her telekinesis push at other places, sending fresh surges of pain through his body.
"Look at me," she was saying hoarsely, and he blinked up at her, trying to focus. Her grip on his mind altered subtly, and the pain dulled, enough to let him take another deep breath. His vision even began to clear, and Nate blinked up at Clare, relief overwhelming him as completely as the pain had a moment ago.
Her face was chalk-white beneath the blood and bruises, and her eyes were dazed, not quite focusing on his face. All he could feel coming down the link was shock and pain, enough that he didn't understand how she'd moved so fast--or moved at all. Didn't make sense, she'd been closer to where--whatever it was had hit.
"I teleported us both out," Clare said unsteadily. Her eyes definitely weren't tracking. She raised a hand to the side of her head, then winced and pulled it back. His vision was still blurring, but not badly enough to stop him from seeing that her hand had come away bloody. "Couldn't shield us properly, though, it happened too fast," she went on, her voice more high-pitched than it should be. "It was a missile--I saw it hit the window, but I can't sense the shooter anywhere."
She couldn't sense the shooter? But that didn't make any sense. Clare saw through most shielding easily. Natural, artificial, it didn't matter. Nate blinked slowly as that handful of working brain cells came to a terrifying conclusion.
If Clare couldn't find the shooter, it was either an alpha telepath--
Or a null. Just like the one in Rio.
Clare's face went gray. "Fuck," she breathed, something close to fear blazing down their link as she started to rise.
The sound of a gunshot shattered the air, and Nate flinched as something bit into the pavement on his other side. Clare gave a choked gasp and toppled forward, catching herself with an outflung arm. Nate saw the dark stain growing on the front of her shirt, but his mind wouldn't process the image or what it meant. Clare's eyes, glowing feebly, caught at his for a moment, and Nate felt the shimmer of psi-energy around them, trying to form itself into a shield.
Too little, too late. Another shot rang out, and Clare crumpled. Something that felt like a fiery sledgehammer smashed into his shoulder, seemingly in the same instant, and Nate couldn't raise that arm to try and break her fall. She fell across his chest, her dead weight enough that he couldn't get his breath, but he flung energy wildly into the fading impression of the shield, nearly blacking out with the effort.
He heard the next bullet ricochet off the shield, felt the shield splintering under the impact. One more shot, maybe. It might hold.
But it might not. He couldn't risk it. Clare was so still, not moving at all. Not breathing? The surge of weak terror at the thought gave him enough strength to turn his head. His vision was fading out, but he could still see enough to spot the dark-clad figure approaching steadily. It had something in an outstretched hand, and no psi-trace at all.
The null, come to finish the job. Nate dropped the shield and slashed out desperately with his telekinesis. The figure of the assassin exploded with a wet, tearing sound that followed Nate down into the darkness as he passed out.
***
Cold. Nothing hurt all that much anymore.
He wasn't sure that was a good thing.
"--hear me, Commander? Nathan?" Light shone down into his eyes, danced back and forth, then vanished. Leaving him in the dark again. "Pupils are unresponsive."
Unresponsive. Not a good word. He drifted, listening to the buzz of voices.
"Blood pressure's still dropping. Pulse is weak."
Weak? He could hear it. Louder than the voices, even.
"Hang another unit, wide open. How's his respiration?"
"Thirty and labored. Do we intubate?"
"Just the mask for now. If the healer the XSE's sending over isn't here in two minutes, we'll intubate."
"Hell of a day for our healer to be out sick. Tell me again why we don't have another on staff?"
"Ask the budget committee. I do, every year."
Something came down over his face, and he panicked, struggling. But there were hands there suddenly, holding him down so that all he could do was try and push them away with his mind, and it HURT--
"--let us know he was a telekinetic?"
"--risky to sedate, if he's a psi--"
"--rather he rips the room apart?"
Slowly, the panic faded, the pain sinking back to the dull ache it had been before. Drifting again, forgetting why he'd been so upset, he listened to the voices as they grew quiet and distant, only bits and pieces reaching him now.
"--other doing this too?"
"--still trying--resuscitate--"
"--dropping!"
"--another unit--"
"--losing--"
He thought he heard his mother's voice, sounding angry, but then he didn't hear anything at all.
***
Nate woke up in a hospital room, alone. Sunlight flooded in through the window, bright enough to hurt his eyes, and he raised the hand without the IV in it and rubbed at them experimentally. The blurriness went away almost entirely, which was nice.
It took him a moment to remember what had happened, a few moments more to control the surge of panicked adrenalin at the memory. It was over. No need to react so strongly.
Time to focus on the here and now. He felt--not bad, actually. Exhausted, yes, and his whole body ached, but after what had happened, he wasn't complaining. The head-section of the bed was elevated, and he could see that there was very little medical equipment in the room. The IV and one monitor, that was it. He supposed that meant he was more or less okay.
But where was Clare? Nate swallowed, wishing for a glass of water, and awkwardly pushed himself up to a sitting position. The ache in his shoulder grew considerably sharper when he tried to put weight on that arm, he noted light-headedly. Then again, that was the shoulder that should have a bullet hole in it, so he probably shouldn't be all that surprised.
#Clare?# he sent faintly, trying to ignore the way his head spun as he reached out, searching for her. She had to be okay. If someone had healed him - his mother? - they'd healed her, too. Nothing else made sense; he wouldn't let it. #Clare, you there?#
And she was. Unconscious or sleeping and quite oblivious to him, but alive, and even close by. There weren't any words for what he felt then. Relief didn't cut it, and glee was completely inappropriate, given the situation. Joy might do, but it would be very bad form to reach down their link and wrap himself in that blazing silvery light like a blanket, however much he yearned to do it. He could almost hear her now, raving at him for being clingy--
A gasp from the doorway drew his attention to the fact that he'd thrown the covers back and was currently wrestling feebly with the rail on the bed. "Nate!" his sister said, sounding outraged. "What the hell are you doing?"
"Flonq, Al," Nate said hoarsely, sagging back against the bed. His heart was pounding as if it wanted to burst out of his chest. He'd been focusing so hard on Clare that he hadn't sensed Alison approaching. Stupid, he chided himself shakily. Hadn't that been how he'd gotten into this mess in the first place, fixating on Clare and not paying attention to his surroundings until they were in process of blowing up? "Don't do that. You just took a year off my life."
Alison blinked at him, her hand clenching almost spasmodically around the paper coffee cup she was holding. Nate promptly felt like six kinds of bastard as his sister's green eyes shone with tears. "Don't you even joke about that, or I'm going to come over there and kick your ass," she said, her voice rough, more tired-sounding than he liked to hear. Her blonde hair was mussed, and judging by the circles under her eyes, she was short some significant sleep. "I may anyway," she went on, making a commendable stab at sounding Sulven-ish as she stalked over and flopped down in the chair beside the bed. "Except you look so pitiful, I'd feel like a bully."
Nate tried to smile. "That bad, huh?"
"Better than last night, at least." Alison took a sip of her coffee, and then set it down on the bedside table. Unable to help himself, Nate gave it a longing look, and Alison rubbed her eyes and scowled at him. "Mine," she said pointedly. "But I'll get you a glass of water if you want."
"Please." He wasn't going to be able to carry on much of a conversation if he didn't get a drink. His throat felt like sandpaper, and his voice was cracking as if he hadn't used it in days. Hopefully, that wasn't the case. Alison vanished into the washroom for a minute, coming back with a plastic cup full of water. Nate accepted it gratefully, taking a few careful sips. "How long have I been here?" he finally asked, his voice coming out a little more clearly.
Settling back in her chair and retrieving her coffee, Alison hesitated, frowning for a moment, and then looked at her watch. "I didn't get here for a little while--Dad sent a teleporter out to fetch me, but we were checking out a new site. I think--about twenty hours, maybe?"
Not so bad, then. "Clare's okay?" he asked next. Her presence was strong enough that he wasn't really worried, but he wanted to check, just to make sure.
Alison nodded immediately. "Mom healed both of you. At the same time, the doctor said." Nate bit his lip, appalled at the thought of how much that must have taken out of his mother. Her power was incredibly draining, and it only got more so as she got older. Alison noticed his expression, and gave him a faint, slightly tremulous smile. "She's okay, too, although she only woke up about an hour ago. Aunt Dom took her down to the cafeteria to get something to eat."
"That's good," Nate murmured. The sooner his mother got her metabolism back up to speed after a healing, the quicker she'd recover. Thinking about that let him avoid dwelling on how badly off he and Clare must have been if his mother had felt it necessary to heal them both simultaneously.
Alison set her coffee aside again, and before he could react, she leaned forward and hugged him, a little more tightly than was comfortable. "Getting blown up and shot in the same night," she said shakily as he slid an arm around her a bit awkwardly. "Impressive. But was it really necessary to go for a new record?"
"I'm sorry I scared you."
"You should be."
Even after all these years, Alison had never quite managed to be at ease with having so many of the people she cared about risking their lives on a regular basis in the XSE, Nate knew. She'd never been anything but supportive, but that fundamental anxiety never quite went away.
She was so different from Stef, he thought suddenly. The two of them had so much in common, both baseline humans born into a family of mutants who'd done their best to make that genetic difference not matter, but they'd taken such opposite paths in life. Alison was doing what she loved, living her own life with such relish that she was a joy to behold for any telepath or empath. His sister could light up a room. Not at all like Stef, struggling with his old jealousies and control issues so complex that Nate wasn't sure he understood them on anything more than a superficial level.
Alison drew back, wiping at her eyes again. "I heard Uncle Logan say to Dad that you killed the guy who did this." She pulled the blankets back over him, adjusting them almost meticulously. Nate hesitated, not sure what to say to that, and Alison gave him a strange, grim little smile. "Actually, the phrase 'chunky salsa' was used."
Nate couldn't help but grimace, remembering. "I wish I hadn't had to kill him," he said, and meant it. Dead men told no tales, and there were a number of questions that would need answering.
"I understand," Alison said. "But I can't say I'm sorry he's dead. I've got this thing about people hurting my family. You and Clare--" She blinked very rapidly for a moment. "You almost died. Both of you. I don't think I could have handled it--well, no one was precisely handling it anyway." A rattled-sounding little laugh escaped her, and she bit her lip, taking a deep, shaky breath before she spoke again. "I've never seen Dad so angry. He was shouting at Aunt Sulven, because she was threatening to go back to the Tower and do something awful to Stef. Aunt Dom's been pacing around looking like she wants to shoot something, and Dane told the guards he left here that if anyone made a mistake and let someone unauthorized near you and Clare, even if it was just a nurse who hadn't gotten proper clearance, he'd court-martial the whole detail."
Nate stared blankly at the air beside Alison's head. He'd tuned out, after that bit about Sulven and--"Stef?" he managed to ask, his voice cracking again. More water would probably be a good idea, but his hands were suddenly so unsteady that he was afraid of spilling the glass if he tried to lift it to his lips.
The level of distress he was sensing from his sister racheted up a few more notches. "They think--they think it was him. Something he arranged beforehand, just in case--" Alison cleared her throat, and Nate looked back at her, still feeling oddly numb. Her eyes were suspiciously bright again, and her voice trembled as she went on. "Dane said Stef made a threat, and--"
"I know." It came out remarkably clear, this time, but then again, he was just stating the obvious. He'd been there to hear Stef make his threat, after all, and had understood the all-too obvious implications. Only he hadn't told Clare, hadn't even thought to mention it.
He should have told her. There was no excuse for having let her go on for two days in ignorance of the fact that Stefano had more or less threatened to kill her. Maybe it wouldn't have helped in the end - he could almost hear the platitudes now - but he didn't know that. Clare was careful about her personal security--she had to be, she was a whole lot more high-profile than he was, and after Rio--
"Nate?" Alison sounded a little shrill. He blinked down at her, and she took another unsteady breath, gazing at him worriedly. "You were pale already, but now you look gray. Are you okay?"
"I didn't tell her." The words slipped out before he could stop them, tight and rasping and betraying far too much emotion. Alison looked bewildered, and he swallowed hard. "Clare--I didn't tell her--" His voice chose that moment to fail him completely, and he looked away for a moment, fighting for composure.
"You didn't tell Clare? About--what Stef said?" Alison ventured. Nate nodded mutely, and she gave a sigh that sounded almost exasperated. He looked back at her and saw her shaking her head at him, the expression on her face almost wry. The shift in her mood was so abrupt that it was nearly enough to jar him out of that sudden bout of crushing self-reproach. "It's okay, Nate," Alison said patiently. "Dane told her. I heard him talking to Dad about it. He said he called her and offered to assign her a bodyguard, but she turned him down." Alison shrugged, a sardonic little smile playing on her lips. "I suppose Clare figured she could take care of herself. Typical."
The tightness in his chest eased just a little. At least Dane had tried. It didn't excuse his own carelessness, but it was something. Alison was being a little too hard on Clare, too. Turning down a bodyguard wasn't as foolish a decision as she made it sound; in most cases, Clare COULD take care of herself. No one could have expected another null. That sort of lightning wasn't supposed to strike twice.
Nate shook his head fretfully, banishing the implications. "I want to see her," he muttered, and flipped the blankets back again. Alison made a grab for his water glass, catching it before it could overturn and setting it safely on the bedside table. Instead of helping him, though, she reached out and held the bed rail where it was as he tried to lower it. "Al, come on," he protested weakly.
"Mom said if you woke up, you were supposed to stay in bed," Alison insisted, the set of her jaw suggesting that she wasn't going to waste time arguing with him. Nate glowered at her helplessly. Given how he felt, he was fairly sure she'd win any wrestling match, too, and that would be a little too hard on his ego at this point. "You need to REST," Alison went on forcefully. "Do you have any idea how much blood you lost?" Her lower lip quivered a little.
Nate stopped, thought for a moment, and then countered with his best puppy-dog eyes. "Al, I have to see her," he pleaded. Was her expression softening a little, or was that just his imagination? "I just want to see for myself that she's okay. I know she's close--"
"She's right next door." Alison was definitely looking more sympathetic than stern now, although her voice was still firm. "But she's still asleep. I checked on her when I went to get my coffee."
"That's all I want to do. Just for a minute, I promise--" Nate trailed off, though not because Alison was back to giving him her best impression of their mother's most uncompromising look. He might still be a little out of it, but it was hard to miss a teleportational ripple on the astral plane, and besides, the presence it had deposited here was unmistakable.
Alison tilted her head at him. "Who is it?" she asked, correctly interpreting his expression.
"Harry," Nate muttered faintly.
"Oh, good," Alison said, visibly brightening. Nate heard her think something about 'reinforcements', and managed not to scowl in response. "He had to run back to the Academy for a bit. Something to do with one of his students." Nate made a monosyllabic noise and Alison raised an eyebrow, but didn't push. "You know, by the time Dad thought to send someone to get him last night, he was here already?" Her smile was a bit halting. "I turned around, and there he was."
"He would have felt it," Nate said tiredly, pulling the blankets back up and lying back against the bed. It was too cold in here. He supposed he could wait to see Clare, he told himself half-heartedly. So long as she was all right, he could wait. "He probably had one of the teleporters at the Academy send him."
"A student, actually. She needed the practice," Harry said, appearing at the door and leaning against the doorframe for a moment, as if for support. There were circles under his eyes that matched Alison's, and Nate felt a flicker of amusement at the thought that for once, Harry actually had an excuse for looking like he'd slept in his clothes. "Nice to see you back in the land of the living, Nate," Harry said in a gravelly voice. "How are you feeling?"
"Better than I deserve to be." Nate knew by the twitch of Harry's lips that he realized it hadn't been a joke. Harry was good at picking up nuances like that.
"Clare's still asleep, Harry," Alison said, swiveling around in her chair to face him. She yawned widely, then flushed. "Sorry. I checked on her a few minutes ago."
"I know," Harry said with a brief smile. Alison frowned at him. "That she's still asleep, I mean," he amended with a rusty-sounding chuckle. "But thanks for keeping an eye on her, squirt."
Alison's frown turned into an outright scowl. "I wish you'd stop calling me that," she grumbled, resting her chin on her hands. "It's not like you're all that much older than me, Wisdom."
"Old habits die hard." Harry lingered in the doorway for a moment, his eyes flickering down the hall. Then he shrugged, a gesture that was probably intended to appear diffident, and actually almost managed it. "Ah, well. I'll sense it if she starts to wake up." His gaze returned to Nate and stayed there, the expression in those dark eyes somehow ironic and measuring at the same time. "Might as well keep the conscious company for a while."
Alison looked back and forth between them, then smiled faintly. "I can go sit with Clare for a few minutes, if you want," she offered. Nate had to admire her tact in not saying anything about leaving them alone to talk, although she'd clearly caught that undercurrent. "Mom and Aunt Dom should be back up soon, anyway."
Harry gave her a lopsided grin. "You're all heart, squirt." Alison muttered something uncomplimentary in response as she got up. Harry tried to ruffle her hair as he stepped aside to let her through the door, and she growled and swatted at him.
"You shouldn't tease her," Nate said as Harry came over and settled in the chair Alison had just vacated. "She can be really good at the revenge thing."
"I remember, believe me. I still have the psychological scars." Harry sighed and leaned back in the chair, putting his feet up on the bed. "Shit, I'm tired," he said lightly, running a hand through disheveled brown hair. "This has been one hell of a long day."
"I wouldn't know. I seem to have slept through most of it." The joke was weak, and fell resoundingly flat. Harry didn't even smile.
"Lucky you. You missed all the running around and shouting." Harry reached out and snagged Nate's water glass. "You mind?" he asked, wiggling it inquisitively.
Nate waved a hand, or tried to. It came maybe a few centimetres off the bed before he let it fall again. Adrenalin was a poor source of energy, he reflected wearily, because you always crashed so quickly. "Go ahead," he muttered. "There's a coffee machine around here somewhere, though. Al had a cup."
Harry gave a rueful laugh. "Caffeine? At this point? Bad idea. The last thing I need to be doing is bouncing off the walls."
"Speak for yourself," Nate said, mustering a wobbly smile. "I think coffee would be a very good idea." Caffeine was marginally better than adrenalin. Lots of caffeine might even do the job.
Understanding glimmered in Harry's eyes. "I'd get you a cup, but your mother would probably kill me."
"She has strange prejudices at times."
"Mmm," Harry said, sipping at the water. The wry edge was gone from his voice, and his eyes were unsettlingly intent. "How are you feeling, really?" he asked. The words were perfectly level, but Nate could sense the slight hesitation behind them.
"I'll live." All of this concern was making him uncomfortable, and the thought that there was probably more to come, given what Alison had told him about everyone's reaction to the events of last night, made him feel peevish. He didn't like being a center of attention under normal circumstances, let alone when he'd been careless and nearly gotten himself killed.
"I'm surrounded by stoics," Harry grumbled. His eyes went distant for a moment, and Nate could sense him extending his empathic senses again, reaching out to Clare. He was 'back' almost immediately, exuding a vague, unsettled dissatisfaction. Nate reached out himself, the effort making him feel light-headed again, and saw that nothing had changed. Clare was still asleep. "So," Harry said, swinging his feet back to the floor and drawing Nate's attention again, "did you and Clare sort anything out before things went boom?" Nate opened his mouth, then closed it again, words eluding him, and Harry smirked. "I'm assuming that's why you were over there."
Nate swallowed, and found his voice. "I'm--not sure," he said as calmly as he could, his head beginning to throb steadily, just at the thought of having this conversation right now. He definitely wasn't up to this. There was absolutely no anger in Harry's steady regard, but that realization wasn't nearly enough to assauge the nagging certainty Nate had that he'd betrayed their friendship by letting Clare know how he felt about her. "It was a strange conversation."
"Awkward, I bet," Harry said, quite calmly.
There was the understatement of the year, Nate reflected faintly. "Yeah," he said, eyeing Harry doubtfully. "You're being awfully reasonable about this," he observed tentatively.
Harry actually grinned, and Nate blinked, taken aback by the strength of the rueful warmth that he was suddenly sensing from his friend. "Well," Harry said dryly, "it's not as if I didn't know beforehand--"
Nate cursed feebly and turned his head away, wondering despondently if he could marshal enough energy to smother himself with one of the pillows. "I'm as transparent as a fucking piece of glass, I swear," he muttered miserably, not looking at Harry. Either that or the universe was having one marvelous, protracted joke at his expense.
"You're not transparent," Harry said, almost kindly. "Except to people who know you well, and to fellow empaths." He gave an affectionate chuckle. "So I hate to break it to you, Guthrie, but when it's a fellow empath who's known you since you were in diapers, you're pretty much up shit creek."
Nate stole a quick look at him. "Whatever," he muttered, but was reassured by the amusement he sensed from Harry. He shifted a bit restlessly on the bed, then froze, biting back a gasp as pain stabbed up his leg. "Shit," he grated, his eyes watering. "Moved--a little too fast there, I think." He hadn't tried to move that leg when he'd sat up before. Probably a good thing.
Harry leaned forward, his mirthful look replaced by one of sharp concern, and Nate tried to frown as the pain dulled and a wave of drowsy calm swept over him. "Don't do that," he muttered, fighting to keep his eyes open. It would be so easy to let go, though. He was better than halfway there already. "We were talking."
Harry sighed and leaned back, and Nate's head cleared. Not entirely, but enough to let him think again. "So we were," Harry said drolly, his tone at odds with the lingering anxiety in his eyes. "We can talk about this later, though, you know."
"You really are being too reasonable about this." Alhough he would have expected this, if he'd been thinking clearly. For Harry, healing from his ordeal in Denver had been about achieving complete mastery over his empathy, honing his skills until he'd been able to cleanse his mind of the empathic residue of millions of deaths. All that work and control had translated to a fundamental composure that very little could truly break. Honestly, this was the most unsettled Nate had seen Harry in years.
"I could go find a glove and smack you in the face with it, if you want," Harry offered helpfully. Almost despite himself, Nate smiled, and Harry chuckled softly. "Look, Nate, I can't say I'm thrilled you decided to show your hand, but I always figured it was inevitable." He leaned a little further back in his chair, giving Nate a malicious grin that was so clearly for show that Nate caught himself smiling again. "Although I must confess it crossed my mind to seize the moment, given that the only time I'd be able to take you is when you're in a hospital bed."
"It's the academic life. Making you soft, Wisdom." They were straying from the subject, but Nate couldn't help going along with it. It felt too good to be joking with Harry as if none of this had happened. It gave him hope that maybe things wouldn't be as awkward as he'd feared, at least between the two of them. Clare was an entirely different story, of course.
"You're probably right. Besides," Harry said thoughtfully, "can you imagine what Clare would do if she caught us fighting over her?"
The mental images were suitably appalling. "Let's not find out?" Nate suggested, trying to hold onto the bantering tone.
"Sounds like a plan," Harry replied. His voice was light enough, but his expression turned almost grave as he watched Nate. After a long moment of silence that wasn't awkward, but somehow companionable, Harry finally spoke again. "She's not going to make it easy on either of us, you know."
"I know." Nate's mouth twisted. "What is she so afraid of?" he asked in helpless frustration.
Harry gave a faintly regretful laugh. "If I knew how to answer that question, I wouldn't be living at the Academy wondering how the 'giving her space' plan backfired on me so completely."
"Everyone's always giving her space," Nate muttered fitfully. "Letting her sort things out on her own--only she never seems to do it, does she?" Harry gave him a speculative glance, looking vaguely troubled, and Nate blinked, remembering something. "Harry," he started tentatively, "have you ever--" He hesitated, frowning. It seemed absurd to be asking about a ghost-image he'd seen for maybe a moment. What were the chances Harry had ever noticed it? But still, whatever the icebound forest was, it was important. He'd sensed that much. "I saw something in Clare's mind," he went on uneasily. "It--"
The ping of the elevator was clearly audible, and Nate hesitated as he felt a light tug at the empathic link he shared with his mother, followed by a flood of relief so vivid he could almost taste it. Domino was right there, too, he realized when he extended his mind a little further.
Harry raised an eyebrow. "Tell me later?"
Nate nodded, and looked up at the door as his mother and Domino appeared, both looking more tired than he'd seen them for a very long time. He managed a faint smile that only Domino returned.
"Look who's awake," she said dryly. "About time, kiddo."
"Sorry to keep you hanging," he murmured, painfully aware of the fact that his mother was standing there staring at him, her eyes wide and strained. The dominant emotion on the link was still relief, but it was overlaid by other things now, too complex to sort out. "I can't believe I was out for that long."
"I expected longer, actually," Dana finally said, her voice very soft. "Not that I'm complaining." Moving slowly, as if her head ached and she wasn't quite steady on her feet, she came around to the other side of the bed, touching his forehead with a cool hand. "How are you feeling?"
It didn't even occur to him to brush her off like he had Alison and Harry. "A bit sore. Tired. Not bad, though."
She looked about ten years older than she should, he thought guiltily. "Are you okay?"
"Don't worry about me." Dana lifted her eyes to meet Harry's, and smiled slightly. "Harry," she said. The headblind might have interpreted it as a greeting, instead of a command--no, Nate decided, one would have to be totally unperceptive not to catch what she meant.
Harry coughed, smiling a bit sheepishly as he got up out of the chair. "Hi, Aunt Dana." His eyes flickered back to Nate for a minute, and Nate imagined he caught a gleam of sympathy in them. "I'll be next door. Take it like a man, okay?"
"I'll join you," Domino said from the doorway, her voice dry. "Dana, don't be too hard on him. In the end he did pretty well." She hesitated, tilting her head and regarding Nate for a moment. "Nathan," she said with a perfectly straight face, "get some more sleep. You're making the whole 'white-as-a-sheet' thing literal, and that's not good."
Coming up beside her, Harry offered her his arm with a ridiculous little flourish, and Domino gave him a look that suggested she was contemplating hitting him over the head with her cane. She did take the arm, though, an indication of just how tired she was.
Once they were gone, Nate looked back up at his mother, who hadn't budged from where she was standing. He toyed with the idea of suggesting to her that she sit down, then discarded it. It was just that she was still staring at him with those wide, anxious--very definitely teary eyes. Crap.
"Mom," he started tentatively, honestly unsure of what to say.
"Nathan?"
"Yeah?"
"Just--shut up, okay?" Her face crumpled at the same instant that she leaned forward and hugged him fiercely, holding on as if she was never going to let go.
to be continued...
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