The X-Project

When insomnia strikes again, Lil finds herself visiting Nathan.


For the third night in a row, she couldn't sleep.

Lil sighed as climbed off the bed where she'd been staring at the ceiling for the past half hour, her last bottle of rum empty and laying dead on the floor. She slipped into a pair of jeans and threw on a light sweater over her cami then added a pair of flipflops before sneaking out of the suite as quiet as possible so as not to disturb Amara. Not a clue where she was going, the giantess roamed aimlessly, letting her feet decide her destination.

Past Jean-Paul's room. Past the gym. Past the kitchen and the smoker's porch until she came to the door of the medlab. With a heavy sigh, Lil's sleep deprived brain caught up.

Nathan.

She was thankful of the late hour as she stepped into the facility and headed to the private rooms; there was a great chance she'd be able to duck in and out to check on the sleeping man without being seen.

Nathan was sleeping, but not well, even with the help Amelia had offered (and he'd taken). Maybe it was the inactivity enforced by his injuries, or being down here in the infirmary, or something else entirely, but he just couldn't seem to bleed off the stress of the week just yet. As Lil slipped into the room, he shifted on the bed, his still-shredded shields registering another presence even with most of his mind asleep. The movement touched off a wave of pain through his chest, however, and with a noise that wasn't quite a whimper, he started to struggle back towards consciousness.

"Shh," the blonde woman whispered, folding herself into a seat by his bed. Lil closed her eyes briefly and tried to clear her mind in the way Charles had showed her. "Shh, Nathan. Go back to sleep."

But his eyes opened in the dimness, focusing on her. "Lil," he muttered. "I'm trying. I promise I'm trying..." It was perfectly obvious that he wasn't talking about going back to sleep. The memory of her looking in through the shattered wall in Wyoming, yelling at him to shut the kids down, had overlapped with the here and now and he couldn't quite shake it off.

Swallowing hard, she took one of his hands in both of her; soft and warm and something to anchor him to the present. "Shh, Nathan. Go back to sleep. You need to sleep." They all did but there was too much it seemed that had filled the mansion with insomniacs over the last few weeks. "Everyone's safe. You're safe. Just go back to sleep."

It did almost too good a job of anchoring him; it let him push away the memory, but it also brought him back to proper wakefulness. He peered at her for a moment, almost perplexedly, then mustered up a faint smile. "You okay?" he murmured, finally.

Lil gave a shrug with one of her shoulders, raising it then letting it fall dismissively. "I'm fine." She didn't look the best but then again, she wasn't the one in the medlab. Circles under her eyes, hair mussed and face a little pale, Lil considered herself lucky to get out of the situation the way she had: being able to not only walk but carry both Garrison and Nathan out of that closet. "I didn't mean to wake you."

"It's okay. Not really sleeping well." He took as deep a breath as he dared, gave a shallow, experimental cough that turned into a wince, and then raised an eyebrow at her in weary amusement. "Want a piece of advice? Don't get old."

"Not really planning on it. And if I happens, I'm gonna have some hot young stud to keep my blood pumping," Lil replied with a hint of a smirk and a squeeze of his fingers.

"More power to you. But really, I just mean because you don't... bounce back like you used to."

Lil blew a lock of hair from her face. "I don't bounce as it is. Just leave big holes wherever I fall."

"Cheater." But his lips were twitching slightly.

"It happens," she replied, letting her gaze wander to where their hands were still entwined. "I can leave if you want me to. You should be sleeping." They both should be.

"Why are you here?" There was a hint of uncertainty in the hoarse murmur, and his eyes were searching her face almost quizzically. But he didn't pull his hand away, and didn't seem unhappy that she'd woken him up. Mostly because he wasn't. The dreams weren't fun.

Lil shrugged again, her head shaking slowly back and forth. "Not really sure. Was just wandering after killing my last bottle and ended up here." Things had been tense between them since Hungary but despite their issues, she found she was worried about him.

"You okay?" Nathan ventured after a moment. "I mean, Wyoming..." The corner of his mouth tugged upwards in something that wasn't quite a smile. "Not the best week ever."

"Definitely not," she agreed, still not meeting his eyes. There were no nightmares to deal with, sleep just didn't come. "Coulda been a lot worse though. Least I didn't sprain my back carrying you and Gar, eh?"

"One of these days, going to figure out why the telekinetic made you do all the heavy lifting." There was a definite twinkle in those gray eyes, even in the low light.

Lil gave a low, dry chuckle. "It wasn't bad. Really. I just like ribbing Gar about him getting old and fat, really," she admitted with another hint of a smirk. Her fingers traced along the back of his hand, over his thumb and palm. "I was glad I could help."

Nathan was silent for a long moment, watching her. When he spoke again, his voice was uneven. "Lil... I'm not sure I could have finished it, if you hadn't... well, I was losing it. A little." More than a little. "You gave me something to focus on," he finally said. "Thank you."

Her voice caught, fingers stiffening in his grasp as he thanked her. Her shoulder rose and fell once more and the Valkyrie swallowed hard against the lump that had come to her throat. "You woulda finished it," she simply. "All I did was tell you to move your ass. Anyone else woulda done the same."

"Maybe. But you were there. Not anyone else." Nathan closed his eyes, but the smile came back, lingering a little. "Don't brush it off."

Lil nodded and gave his hand one more squeeze before standing and pulling her sweater tighter around herself. "Go back to sleep, Nathan. You deserve some rest."