The Patron Saint of Lost Causes: Part One

by Alicia McKenzie

The muffled sounds of a child's sobbing broke the dead silence, and Nathan Summers froze, then flattened himself against the wall beside him. One hand went to his gun almost on instinct, and he cursed himself silently for the overreaction. Reaching out telepathically, he identified the young boy and the silent but equally terrified woman huddled in the bedroom down the hall as the son and wife of the man he'd left dead in the drug lab below the house. A flicker of shame pierced the post-adrenalin dullness glazing his thoughts, and Nathan took a deep breath, willing it away.

He'd just leave them alone. Once the house had been quiet long enough, they'd come out. Hopefully the woman wouldn't take her son with her to check on her husband. Not good for a kid that age to see piles of corpses.  Desensitized them and all. He could say that from personal experience. Something that felt like a semi-hysterical and mostly humorless laugh bubbled up inside him, but he clamped his mouth shut firmly, not letting it out, and widened his telepathic scan, ignoring the way his mind burned and ached from the backlash of all the death he'd wreaked at such close quarters.

Just the two noncombatants and him, the only ones alive in the whole sprawling mansion. He didn't need to scan the underground complex. He knew the dead silence there was more than a metaphor. Shivering, Nathan leaned back more heavily against the wall and breathed deeply for a few moments, trying to suppress the pain from his injuries. A couple of bullets had clipped him in the firefight, when his TK shield had failed unexpectedly, his powers having chosen that particular inopportune moment to go into one of the intermittent fluctuations that had been plaguing him since he'd removed the T-O virus from his system weeks ago. Neither of had hit anything vital, but the blood loss was getting a bit excessive.

Too many hostiles, that was all. He hadn't expected to run into that much paid muscle. But he'd been right to make his move now. The mutagenic drug developed by the man who'd owned this house and all the secrets beneath it had been circulating in Central America for a month, killing nearly ten percent of its users and leaving the mutants from whom the raw material to make it had been harvested brain-damaged, at best. The production end of the operation had still been centralized here, in this single location. A window of opportunity begging to be exploited.

But the boy's crying tore at him. He really hoped the mother would leave her son in the bedroom when she came out to see what all of the shooting and screaming and explosions had been about. No child needed to see their father's brains splattered all over the wall.

Not that he regretted shooting the bastard. Really. Or the technicians who'd helped develop the drug. That had all been--necessary. The hired muscle had just been an obstacle. Once he'd mowed his way through them, he'd lined the others up and shot them, one by one. A message. Word would get around, and others might think twice before following the same path.

Deterrence. He felt, absurdly, like laughing again. Maybe the blood loss really was getting to him. Pushing himself upright, he started to make his way towards the nearest exit. He'd have gone out through the entrance to the lab, but the explosion he'd staged to take out the mainframe and destroy all the records it held had collapsed the roof. Whoops.

The hallway opened into a much larger space - a living room? - with a wide bay window overlooking the valley below. The rain was still coming straight down, Nathan saw. The hike back down to where he'd left the jeep was liable to be bad.

There was a Christmas tree standing in the corner, he realized with a sudden, strange pang. The lights were out - the lights were out in the entire place, that was what happened when you blew up the generator, part of Nathan's mind pointed out inanely - but he could see how lavishly the tree had been decorated. There were presents beneath it already.

The boy had probably been looking forward to Christmas morning. Nathan swayed, squeezing his eyes tightly shut for a moment as he tried to forget what he'd seen in the father's mind the moment before he'd pulled the trigger. The man might have chosen a less than savory way to make his living, but his last thoughts had been of his family. He'd died, not knowing whether they'd live. And Nathan hadn't even thought to tell him that he wouldn't hurt them. He should have. He really should have. If you were going to stand someone against a wall and put a bullet in their head, execute them for crimes you'd judged them guilty of, shouldn't you at least let them know you were going to be fair about it and not slaughter their innocent family too?

It would be so wonderful, he thought with a sudden flood of weary bitterness, if he could actually manage to be as unflappably self-righteous as his friends and less-friendly acquaintances thought he was. It would make things so much easier--

She'd left the room. Lost in thought, he'd withdrawn back behind his shields, trying to minimize the backlash-headache, and he hadn't noticed the woman's fear turn to determination, hadn't sensed her make a mother's choice that her child needed to be protected. But the taste of that particular type of resolution was unmistakable--now that he was paying attention.

He didn't want it to come to this. Nathan looked around, trying vainly to remember the floor plan of the house. He'd memorized it, he knew he had, but he was so flonqing tired, it wouldn't come back to mind. But he needed an exit out of here, and he needed it now--

"Get out of my house!" came a quavering voice in Spanish from the hallway, and Nathan had just enough time to throw up a TK shield as she raised the gun she was carrying and fired.

He felt the impact more than he should have. The blood loss was definitely getting to him, his concentration wasn't what it should be. Before she could fire again, he spun and ran for the window, throwing an arm in front of his face as he smashed through the glass.

The drop-off on the other side was precipitous, to say the least. He wound up tumbling down the long, muddy slope, losing both guns along the way, and nearly an eye to the apparently razor-edged undergrowth.

He came to a stop halfway down, bruised and battered and just about ready to lie there and see if the storm wouldn't do the world a favor and hit him with a lightning bolt or three. But as more shots ran out from the house above, Nathan pulled himself back to his feet and staggered for the cover of the trees.

Running away, from a terrified woman with a gun. Strategic withdrawal, if one went in for euphemisms, which he didn't. He'd killed close to fifty men today, thirty-five or so in the heat of battle, nearly fifteen in cold blood. He just didn't want to add a more or less innocent woman to the total and leave a completely innocent boy fatherless. He was feeling like quite enough of a monster as it was.

He needed to get to the jeep and the medkit he'd left with his other supplies there. Then he needed to get out of this country, out of this part of the world. Out of this part of his life, just for a little while.

Light-headed from the blood loss, fighting the exhaustion that had been there for months but had seemingly chosen tonight to descend on him like a meteor the size of Texas, he kept running, and the rain kept falling. Too bad it didn't make him feel any cleaner.

***

There was something so surreal about this, Rachel Summers thought with a trace of weary humor. Given all the things she'd seen and done in her life, the fact that she was stressing out over a history exam should have been funny. Except the comedic value of the situation did nothing to change the fact that she did have a history exam in the morning, and still had three centuries to get through.

She sighed, removing the chunk of notes on the Thirty Years' War from her binder and rearranging herself in the overstuffed chair. It would probably help her concentration if she could manage to get comfortable, but that was completely eluding her this afternoon. Rachel pursed her lips thoughtfully and looked at the couch. Might be better to go over there and stretch out--only she'd probably fall asleep if she did that. The all-nighter last night probably hadn't been such a good idea.

The house was too quiet, she thought, taking a sip of the hot chocolate she'd made herself before sitting down. That was the problem. Maybe she should put on some music or something?

A wiser, slightly amused part of her mind pointed out that background noise wouldn't change the fact that the house was too quiet. The silence that was bothering her wasn't the one she was registering with her ears. Rachel sighed again, shuffling through the sheaf of notes.

"Picky, picky--you're too picky, Summers."

It wasn't that she didn't like the house. Hell, after some of the places she'd lived in her life, having a fully-furnished brownstone in one of the better neighborhoods of Cambridge, Massachusetts all to herself was not something she was going to complain about, thank you very much. Especially since, on top of giving her the house - and he'd been very firm on the fact that it was a gift - Nathan was also paying her way at Harvard. He'd breezily pointed out that he had more money than he knew what to do with stashed away in various places, 'and since we don't have to fund an ongoing war against the embodiment of evil anymore, Rachel, you should use some of it.'

She was grateful, very much so. Nathan did a very endearing semi-paternal brotherly act, and she appreciated everything he'd done to help her make yet another fresh start. After all, she hadn't precisely had any high school records with which to apply to colleges in this timeline, but Nathan had pulled some strings, both the first time and this time, and so here she was. At Harvard, no less. 

So, she was grateful, touched, all the things she should be. It was just that she was also very lonely. After how poorly her last attempt at having the college experience had gone - nothing like finding out your new friends were anti-mutant bigots and then having to break up a Dark Sisterhood-inspired plot to kill them and all their bigoted little friends - she'd been a little too wary this time around. Her classmates, after she'd dodged their initial overtures, had gotten the impression that she didn't want a social life. Well, at least it gave her plenty of time to study, with no distractions. She just wished she had something other than an empty, solitary Christmas holiday to look forward to.

Not that most of the Christmases in her lifetime had been anything to write home about. She had very fond, very faint memories of Christmas in the years with her family, before everything had gone wrong in her timeline. Beyond that, there wasn't much worth remembering. That shouldn't be bothering her as much as it did--but then, she was trying to start a new life, a life with some semblance of normality to it. Maybe part of her mind wanted to regard celebrating Christmas as a 'normal' thing to do.

Not for the first time, she wondered if she should get in touch with Scott and Jean. Rachel bit her lip, wondering why the thought made her feel guilty. Keeping her return to this time secret had seemed like such a good idea, at first, but the longer she let it go on, the harder it was going to be to break her silence. That was, of course, assuming that she ever decided it would be fair to Scott and Jean to turn up on the doorstep of the mansion some day. After everything they'd been through, they deserved some peace--

Tearing herself out of that particular unproductive train of thought, Rachel took another sip of her hot chocolate and forced herself to concentrate on her notes. She'd gone through her lecture notes and typed up a condensed version of what they'd covered this term. It had taken her nearly three solid days to do it, but it was done, and much more readable - and useful - than her original scrawled notes had been. She giggled softly, almost despite herself. Once upon a time, she'd worried about encroaching global catastrophe and the fate of all mutantkind. Now, she did things like pour all her energy into constructing legible study notes for European history. Definitely surreal.

She was almost to the French Revolution when something broke her concentration. Rachel looked up with a frown. The house was a relative 'dead zone' in terms of the psychic atmosphere, and the neighborhood itself wasn't much better at this time of day, since most of the people who lived around here were well-off professionals who worked during the day. That vivid flicker at the edges of her perceptions was definitely something out of the ordinary--

A huge smile broke over her face and she jumped up out of her chair, tossing the notes on top of the stack and running for the door. She opened it, and her grin only widened as she saw the taxi coming to a stop at the bottom of the driveway.

#Hey, Ray,# a familiar gravelly voice greeted her.

#Hey yourself!# she sent back to Nathan happily, slipping her shoes on and coming out to meet him. Her smile faltered a little as Nathan got out of the car. He was favoring one arm, and was moving stiffly enough that she knew he had to be hurt, even before she brushed a light probe against his surprisingly flimsy shields - definitely NOT a good sign - and sensed the pain he was trying to hide from both her and himself. #Do I even want to know what happened?# she asked, trying to suppress a sigh.

"Probably not," Nathan said aloud, and gave a strangely breathless laugh that almost immediately turned into a coughing fit. It was a deep, grinding cough, and she watched, scowling, as he tried to catch his breath.

"You sound awful."

"I know," he said, his voice so hoarse the words were almost indistinguishable. "Shouldn't've laughed." Bending over, he hauled his bag out with his good arm, and she took it from him, ignoring his rather half-hearted attempt at a baleful look. "Thanks," he rasped, handing a couple of folded bills through the open window to the driver.

"Maybe I don't want to know," Rachel said as the taxi pulled away, "but I'm going to make you tell me anyway." She got a raised eyebrow in response, nothing more, and concluded that she needed to work on her 'big sister' act a little. Obviously it wasn't quite as intimidating as it should be. "Eventually," she temporized. "It's too cold out here to stand around grilling you until you spill the beans."

"True," Nathan said, looking around at the bare gray trees and dead grass, but squinting, as if his head hurt. "Dismal-looking place you've got here, Ray. Could do with some snow."

"Come on," she said gently, trying not to scowl as she got a better look at him. She'd never seen him looking quite so haggard. The shadows beneath his eyes were alarmingly dark, and he wasn't just pale, he looked almost gray. "Have you eaten anything yet today?"

Nathan half-shrugged, almost irritably, and followed her. He wasn't limping, but his awkward, slightly hunched-over posture - he was obviously favoring his right side - wasn't encouraging. "Plane food," he muttered gruffly. "Cardboard, more like. Wasn't that hungry." He broke into another coughing fit, and she reached out instinctively to support him as they reached the steps.

"Well, fortunately I do have some real food around here somewhere," she said, giving the door a telekinetic nudge shut behind them as they stepped through. Nathan pulled away from her, straightening partway, but still wheezing. Rachel grimaced at his stubbornness and set his bag down by the door. "So," she said, folding her arms across her chest as she turned back to him. "I'm thrilled to see you, don't get me wrong, but I'm a little pissed that you haven't bothered calling me for a month."

"Got caught up in something," Nathan rasped, wandering slowly from the foyer to the living room, his head moving back and forth as if he were taking in all the little homey touches she'd tried to add since she'd moved up. "Several somethings, actually."

Rachel trailed after him, wondering if it would be too terribly inappropriate to tell him to sit down before he fell over. "I was worried," she murmured. Looked like she'd had good right to be, too.

"Can take care of myself, you know," he pointed out as he slipped awkwardly out of his coat. Rachel stepped forward and took it, and wasn't all that surprised to see tell-tale bulges beneath his shirt, around his upper arm and at his side. Bandages, she thought with an inward sigh.

"I'll just let that pass, I think," she said, a bit more wryly than she'd intended, and Nathan's tired eyes lit with amusement. "Are you going to stay for a while?" she pressed, hoping he'd say yes. Not that she had any compunction against coercing him into it if he resisted, but it would just be so much easier if he agreed up front.

Moving with obvious care, Nathan made his way over to the couch and sat down with a sigh that immediately led into another spasm of coughing. Rachel hovered a bit anxiously, until he finally managed to stop and give her a smile that was definitely on the wan side. #If you wouldn't mind putting up with me,# he sent, his mental voice so much stronger that she winced inwardly at the contrast.

"Never," she said as warmly as she could manage, sitting down on the couch beside him and putting her hand over his.

Nathan almost smiled. "I'll just get my bag, then," he said aloud, his voice sounding very slightly stronger, and made a move as if to get up.

She caught at his arm and stuck her tongue out at him as he gave her an amused look. "You know what I meant," she scolded.

"Yeah," he said, leaning back against the cushions, still visibly trying to catch his breath. His gaze flickered around the room and finally settled on her notes. "Exam?"

"Yeah. History," Rachel said, and then pursed her lips, laying a hand very lightly on his arm, just below the bandage. He still flinched. "Bullet hole?" she inquired steadily.

His eyes met hers without a trace of embarassment or resistance. "Couple, actually," he admitted.

Rachel shook her head. "Nathan, you're telekinetic. You've got no business getting shot," she said, unable to help the exasperation that crept into her voice.

Nathan half-shrugged. "Powers are still in flux," he said. That had been the big news the last time he had called her, that he'd somehow managed to excise the T-O virus from his system. She'd been thrilled to hear it, but markedly less delighted to hear about how much trouble he was having adapting. She supposed it had to be his body's natural reaction or some such thing, so that he wouldn't burn out from the increased power levels. But with Moira dead, he had no one to go to in order to find out--unless he went back to the mansion, and she knew he was avoiding doing that, although she wasn't quite sure why. "But it's nothing that won't heal quickly," Nathan went on, looking back at her notes pointedly. "You should study. Didn't mean to disturb you. I'll just go collapse in one of the spare rooms."

"Sleep would probably be a good thing, from the look of you," Rachel said, getting up as he did, just in case he toppled over or something. But he seemed a little steadier on his feet, and she reluctantly let go of his arm. "I'll call you for dinner?" she offered, and he nodded. They stood there staring at each other for a moment, until Rachel tentatively stepped forward and hugged him lightly, careful of his injuries. "It's good to see you," she murmured into his broad chest as he slipped his good arm around her and hugged back.

"Likewise," her brother said gruffly.

***

He was back in the jungle again, and his jeep was gone, just like it had been the first time. Someone escaping from the drug lab had stolen it, maybe. Or maybe the jungle had opened up and swallowed it, he didn't know. It didn't matter. Hadn't mattered then, didn't matter this time. All he could do was slog through the jungle, through the storm, heading for the next town. Only the rain was cold this time, so bitterly cold that he shivered as he walked, and folded his arms across his chest, trying to shrink inwards to reach the burning heat at the core of his being, the fiery warmth that was escaping from the two bullet wounds and dripping onto the indifferent, muddy ground.

But something else was different this time, too. There was something--someone following him, trailing behind him through the trees, crying mournfully at him to 'give my father back, please!' And no matter how fast he staggered onwards, he could still hear the little boy calling to him--

"Nathan?" Someone laid a hand lightly on his shoulder. Nathan shuddered and tried to pull away, but the call was repeated gently in his mind, and he struggled back to consciousness, groggily realizing that Rachel was standing over him, staring down at him worriedly.

Just a dream, he told himself. Just his flonqing subconscious having fun with him.

"You okay?" she murmured, sitting down on the edge of the bed. Nathan tried to push himself up on his elbows, forgetting about his injured arm, and wound up sagging back against the pillows with a muttered curse that set him off coughing again. Rachel gave him that fearsome scowl and helped him sit up. It was a little easier to catch his breath when he was upright. Not much, but a little.

"Fine," he wheezed. His chest hurt. His head felt like someone had been using it as a soccer ball or something, too. "Just cold."

The level of unhappiness he was sensing from Rachel increased as she reached out and laid the back of her hand against his forehead. "You're actually feverish, you big idiot," she muttered, sounding distressed. "I should have checked when I realized you were sick."

"Not sick," he insisted, or tried to. His throat felt like it was stuffed with sandpaper. Rather a novel feeling, actually. But he wasn't sick. He was just tired. And cold. "Is dinner ready?" He wasn't particularly hungry, but if he didn't stagger down there and make some show of eating, she'd probably TK him to the bed and force-feed him chicken soup or something. She was beginning to project that sort of outraged protectiveness he'd learned to be wary of in his female relatives.

"I just made some soup and some garlic bread," Rachel said, still peering at him intently. "Why don't you lie back down and I'll bring it up here?"

Nathan didn't know whether or not to laugh or smother himself with one of the pillows. "That's okay," he said as firmly as he could manage. "I'll come downstairs." Rachel looked doubtful, and he forced himself to smile. "Ray, I didn't come because I needed a nursemaid. I came to see you."

"I could eat my soup up here, too?" Rachel offered. When he shook his head, she sighed and slipped off the edge of the bed so he could get up. "Fine," she muttered as he hauled himself wearily to his feet. "Be stubborn. But if you fall down the stairs, I'm leaving you there."

As threats went, it sounded fairly convincing. But she was right behind him all the way down, of course, and he could feel her eyes boring into him watchfully. In some situations, a Summers woman's bark was actually worse than her bite; such situations were rare, but they did happen.

The kitchen, which smelled decidedly garlicky at the moment, was too brightly lit. Nathan squinted as he went over and sat down, wishing his headache would die down into a nice background ache and let him think. All that he could seem to focus on was that the kitchen was absolutely immaculate, and that seemed odd, since he'd never pegged Rachel as a neat freak.

"I don't have much of a social life," she said from the stove, where she was dishing out the soup. Wonder of wonders, it actually didn't look like chicken noodle, Nathan reflected with a flicker of exhausted amusement. "Thus, I have more time for things like keeping the place tidy." She glanced at the oven, which opened to allow the tray of garlic bread to float out and over for a gentle landing on the oven mitt sitting on the table.

"Why?" Nathan asked, then swallowed very carefully, trying to fight the rasping tickle in his throat that would turn into another coughing fit, if he let it.

"Why don't I have a social life?" Rachel came over with the two bowls of soup, setting one down in front of him and then taking the chair next to his. "I suppose I'm a bit nervous, after what happened last time," she admitted, a faint, vaguely bitter little smile playing on her lips. "Can you blame me?"

"You shouldn't be," Nathan muttered, staring down at the soup. Tomato, with chunks of something in it. He tried it, and discovered that the chunks were vegetables. "Harvard, remember? Supposed to be full of intelligent people--they can't all be anti-mutant bigots." The soup wasn't bad, he decided, although it wasn't doing much to warm him up. "Do you have any coffee?" he asked, looking up at her hopefully.

Rachel took a piece of garlic bread, studiously not meeting his eyes. "I don't think you need any coffee," she murmured. "But I could make you some echinacea tea, though. Kills colds like that."

"I don't have a cold," he said indignantly, or tried to. Apparently, talking too loud led to coughing, just like laughing did. He set the spoon down and turned a little in his chair so that he wasn't coughing all over dinner.

"I know," Rachel said, once he stopped. "You sound like you've got pnemonia or something." He opened his mouth to argue that he didn't have that, either, but she went on smoothly, her eyes lingering intently on his face. "Did you see a doctor about it?" He shrugged with his good shoulder, and a hint of iron entered her voice. "Nathan, at least tell me you saw a doctor when you got shot. Please."

"I've been patching myself up for a lot of years, Rachel," Nathan said irritably, wondering if he would be a terribly bad brother if he told her to mind her own fucking business. He hated being nagged.

"That's not the point," Rachel said mercilessly, in a tone that reminded him far too strongly of Jean. The likeness was just scary, sometimes. "How did you get shot, anyway?"

Hadn't she been listening? "I told you, my powers are still in flux--"

"That's not what I meant." Rachel ate half a piece of garlic bread, as if buying herself time to organize her thoughts. He was almost beginning to hope that she'd dropped the subject when she finally went on. "What were you doing that someone was shooting at you?" she said, very precisely.

Just to be perverse, Nathan ate his soup for a full two minutes in complete silence before he answered. "Something was going on that shouldn't have been," he said as neutrally as he could. And that was still true, weird and probably fever-induced regrets about the whole thing aside. "So I stopped it. A few people took exception."

"Well, that was nice and vague," Rachel said ironically. Nathan wondered if she really wanted to know that he'd walked into a situation where he'd been outnumbered thirty-five to one and hadn't done the sensible thing and walked right back out again. Maybe he should tell her. She certainly seemed to want some excuse to yell at him, and he would hate to disappoint her. "Did you want that tea?" she asked, jarring him from his train of thought. "You never answered me."

"I don't want tea," he muttered. If it was some sort of herbal tea, it was probably noxious. He'd rather suffer. "You should eat and go back to studying."

"I got lots done before I put dinner on," Rachel said. "All the way up to Napoleon." She rested her chin on her hand and regarded him with a mixture of concern, tolerance and annoyance. "You really don't want to talk about this, do you?" she asked heavily.

"A-plus for you," he muttered, and nibbled apathetically on a piece of garlic bread. She knew he'd been criss-crossing the globe, picking his battles wherever he saw mutants exploiting or being exploited and sharing the joys of Askani philosophy along the way, but she really didn't need to know about this last operation. He'd been trying to be smart about his causes du jour--he HAD to be, until his powers adapted to the lack of the T-O virus. Cleverness was infinitely preferable to wholesale slaughter--Nathan blinked, trying to banish the afterimage of the walls of the drug lab, smeared with blood and worse. Why was this lingering? he thought, frustrated. It didn't make any sense.

Rachel slammed her spoon down into her nearly-empty bowl so hard that he jumped. "I am not some delicate flower who's going to swoon if you tell me you've been killing people who needed to be killed," she said heatedly, and Nathan gritted his teeth and reinforced his shields a little. He must have been leaking. Damn. "Quite frankly, since I trust your judgement about people who need to be booted into the next life, I'm more liable to pat you on the head and tell you 'good job'."

Nathan shifted in his chair, unsettled by the calm ruthlessness he sensed beneath her irritation. So practical, he thought distantly. Just like the Mother Askani--

"What?" Rachel suddenly snapped, her eyes flashing. The dishes on the table rattled ominously. "What was that?"

"Nothing," he said rapidly, diverting a little more extra energy to his shields. Not that he had that much to give. "I'm a little out of it," he went on, wishing she'd drop it. He really hadn't intended to let that slip; he knew how sensitive she was on the subject. "I wouldn't pay too much attention to anything you hear me thinking."

"Oh, I think that made plenty of sense," Rachel growled, rising from her chair and taking her bowl over to the sink to rinse it. "Lots of sense," she tossed back over her shoulder at him, bitterly. "You should get sick more often, Nathan. It's amazing what you let slip when you've got a fever messing with your inhibitions."

"Rachel," he started, an entirely different sort of ache centering itself in his chest. He hadn't meant to upset her. "I didn't--"

"I was just trying to make a point, okay? I wasn't trying to stir up any bad memories."

"I don't have any bad memories of you!" he protested, too loudly, and wound up coughing again.

"Oh, really?" Rachel asked, the snap still in her voice. "You don't remember me telling you, when you were fourteen years old, that you'd never have a home?"

#It wasn't you,# he said, telepathically because he couldn't quite manage to catch his breath. Oath, this hurt. It felt like a knife ripping through his chest on the inside.

He heard Rachel sigh. "Make up your mind, Nathan," she said more quietly, coming back over to the table and sitting down. The anger was gone, and Nathan spared a moment to be grateful that he apparently looked so pitiful she didn't have the heart to keep shouting at him. She had a nasty temper, and he didn't have the energy tonight to give back as good as he got. "If you're helping me because you 'owe me so much', then you see me as her." She pressed her lips tightly together, and Nathan flinched at the barely-hidden pain in her eyes. "You can't turn around and say that you don't."

His instincts were screaming at him to get the hell out of this conversation, but he ignored them, straightening in his chair as much as he could and giving her a level look. "This isn't about how I see you, is it?" he croaked. "It's about how you see yourself." She looked away, and he persisted, his voice growing a bit stronger. "Isn't it?"

"Okay!" Rachel said in exasperation, throwing up her hands and then grabbing another piece of garlic bread. "Maybe it is," she muttered, and took a bite. #I keep getting the memories,# she sent. #They bother me.#

They did a whole lot more than bother her, he knew. They hadn't talked about it much, but he'd paid very close attention the few times they had, and he knew just how much she wished she'd never recovered any of her future self's memories. "Maybe you should call Scott and Jean, then," Nathan suggested tentatively. "Have Jean and the Professor see if they can help you. It's got to be a temporal--memory loop, something like that." Like Bishop had been plagued with, after the mess with Legion in the Negev. Rachel's telepathy was probably only making it worse. Telepaths and memory--he shook his head, wondering why it was that one of the most useful mutant powers about had to come with such a nasty little side effect.

Rachel looked at him, eyes wide, and he bit his lip at the edge of fear he sensed from her. "You really think I should call them?" she asked in a very small voice.

"I think you should call them if you want to call them," he temporized, knowing it was a cowardly thing to say but unable to help it. If he'd had any sense at all, he wouldn't have let her go on for more than a few weeks before telling Jean she was alive. Certainly, he shouldn't have let this continue after Scott's return, but he'd been so--determined to get away from the X-Men himself, at that point. And she was so afraid. "Just don't tell them I was in on the whole thing. Scott's got enough reasons to be angry with me--" Okay, how had that slipped out? Nathan felt color rushing into his face, and stared down doggedly at his soup, not meeting her eyes.

Rachel gave a faint, mostly humorless laugh. "All right," she said, sounding sad. "I see I'm not the only one with issues."

"We make a great pair, don't we?" Nathan rasped, forcing himself to look up at her and smile. It probably wasn't very convincing, but she smiled back, anyway.

"Yeah," she said, more softly, and then gave him a stern look, pointing at his soup. "Eat."

"Yes, ma'am."

to be continued...

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