The X-Project

Jean stops in to check on Nathan upon her return to the mansion. Between checking up on him and catching up, she's the first to find out what he saw when he was 'dead'.


The glass of water was sitting right there on the tray, just out of reach. Nathan stared at it rather forlornly. He was facing a number of unpalatable options here. Sitting up would hurt, probably rather a lot. Trying to pull the tray closer telekinetically was... also not a good idea. Moira had said no powers exertion, and as much as his ribs hurt now, if he spent the next half-hour throwing up because his head did its best to explode... yeah, no.

That left the call button. And given that he knew Moira was upstairs getting Ray some lunch, pressing it would bring Amelia. Which he thought, perhaps, was a fate worse than the other two options.

"Or," came an unexpected voice from the doorway, "you could lie around and think about it hard enough you catch the third redheaded doctor's attention." Stepping into the room Jean picked up the glass of water, passing it over to him, and smiled. "Heya, Nate. Welcome back."

She got a lop-sided, tired smile in return, but Nathan took a sip of the water before he answered. "Hear you were in Alaska," he said, his voice gravelly. He blinked at her, wishing his eyes would focus properly. "I was supposed to be in Santorini. Very piqued."

"Wasn't much of a vacation," Jean said, settling onto the chair beside his bed and not being at all subtle about checking him over before she went on. "Philip had a heart attack and we had to go up and help Deborah take care of him. Then I come back and find that, of my two overnighting patients, one's woken up," she flashed him a smile, "and the other ended up needing extensive gene therapy from my less than trustworthy former mentor. Glad as I am that you're awake, that's really not an even trade off."

Nathan's brow furrowed, and he took another sip of water, more to buy himself time to formulate coherent thought before he went on. He felt like he was thinking through molasses today. "...always miss these things," he finally said, somewhat vaguely. "Not usually because of comas."

"Yes, the coma is new. And undoubtedly why I shouldn't be laying heavy stuff on you just now." Jean gave him a concerned look. "I think we need to avoid comas for you in the future."

"I don't... remember it all," Nathan said after a moment, slowly. "I know what happened. John jumped me, while I was busy with Saidullayev. But it's patchy." He set the water on the closer bedside table, his hand shaking only a little. "Gather I'm kind of indecently lucky, though."

"Rather." Jean's memory of the whole thing was far sharper and more real than she'd like, even more than a month after the fact, tied up in the knowledge of the lab and her fear for him.

Nathan was quiet for another long moment, staring at the wall beyond Jean, rather than at her. "I think something happened, while I was... out. Random neurons firing, whatever. Or maybe it was because I felt the same way I did then." Mood-state dependent retrieval, to borrow Jack Leary's term. Either way, unlike the fight with Lense and Saidullayev, that was crystallinely clear. Almost alarmingly so.

"What happened?" Jean asked, cocking her head curiously.

There really was no good way to put this. "Oh. Just, apparently, Trask was almost my aunt."

Jean's eyebrows shot up and her mouth fell open. "Wait... what?"

It took Nathan a few minutes to explain about Trask and Gideon in Ushuaia, since projecting it to Jean wasn't in the cards and he wasn't sure inviting her to look for herself was, either. "... and he told me, he was taking the memory to prove he wasn't planning to kill me. Because he didn't want me to know about all of this later on."

"Well... that's a remarkably Gideon-esque bit of logic, that is," was all Jean could manage for a moment.

"One psycho deserves another," Nathan mumbled. "No idea why they couldn't make a go of it."

Jean shot him a look, not sure if he was being light hearted or light headed. Or both. "Well, you know, you start trying to one up each other and sooner or later you're having 'I'm crazier than you are!' fights and the break-up's always so hard on your shrinks."

"Maybe he's the one who turned her off men. I could understand that." Nathan sighed - a little, because deep sighing hurt as much as deep breathing. "Everything's tangled together," he finally said. "And I can't think about what we found in that facility... makes me too sad. Just the possibilities."

Jean nodded, hooking her feet on the bar underneath her chair so she could lean her elbows on her knees. "Yeah, I know what you mean. So, don't, Nate. Get stronger, first, ok? No obsessing until you can walk across the room, at least."

"I'll try. It'll be easier once I'm up to work-uh, reading, or something... my eyes are still playing tricks on me." He waved a hand a bit limply at the screen on the arm-like stand that Amelia had pushed out of the way when she'd been in to check on him earlier. "At least the Olympics are on?"

"There is that. Women's beach volleyball provides hours of distraction, I'm sure." She tried a smile, and it came out stronger than she'd expected; he was ok, or he would be.

"I refuse to answer. Grounds for... you know what I'm getting at." Nathan closed his eyes, trying not to grimace. "My head hurts. I wonder why."

"I'm sure I can't imagine," Jean said dryly. "Do you want some meds? You should probably sleep more..."

"Oh," Nathan said, eyes opening again. He blinked at her. "Talk to Ray for me? I forgot to tell Charles, when he was in here... she keeps waking me up. In my head, I mean." It was only happening when he slept for too long by her estimation, he thought. But he'd done the recuperating thing often enough at this point to know he needed rest, preferably uninterrupted.

"Sure, I can do that no problem." Jean stood up, reaching out to smooth down his covers. "Now rest, you."

"All redheads are bullies," Nathan said, closing his eyes again. "Don't know why we put up with you."

"You say this as though you had some choice in the matter..." Jean said, smiling as she felt him start to drift off.