fandomtownies | Serenity Cove, Sunday morning

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Serenity Cove, Sunday morning

Walter had watched the sun come up, the water slowly changing color until one perfect moment where the dancing waves lit red by the rising sun had looked like fire. Then it had passed and the water had looked like perfectly ordinary rather grey-ish water again.

Still, perfect moments are always transitory.

Walter opened his thermos and poured another cup of tea, heavy on the sugar and (horrors!) cream instead of milk, then opened the pack he'd brought down with him and started to munch on a thick breakfast sandwich.

Who knew. Maybe if he was lucky, he'd manage to miss Arthur for most of the rest of the day.

[ooc: Open as all public places are wont to be.]

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After another mostly sleepless night, this time thinking about both love and why people seemed to spend half their time mad at her, Nadia decided that her ceiling wasn't telling her anything and headed out for a jog instead. When she saw Walter sitting at the cove, she headed over to sit next to him.

"So. Your boss is weird."

Walter nodded while he finished chewing before answering. "He's acting sane. I've almost wondered if he isn't an Arthur from another reality where he actually is sane and my Arthur is still home spending the budget on prostitutes."

"Maybe he's trying to make a good impression?"

"Or trying to put as all at ease so that his true lunacy has that much more impact," Walter said cynically.

Nadia shrugged. "Or he's trying to keep you off balance. Is it good to see him again, at least?"

Walter finished his sandwich and pulled two more of his pack. He held one out to her. "Sandwich?"

Why no, he hadn't answered the question.

Nadia nodded and accepted the sandwich, not missing that he hadn't answered the question. "So."

"So." He unwrapped his sandwich and decided he wanted to procrastinate a little longer. "I haven't seen much of you this week. How are you?"

"I got into an argument with Pippi on Thursday and haven't talked to her since. Cally wants us to hate each other because she's not over me yet and she says I've 'changed' since I went home, and I'm not sure what to do about that." She turned to look at him. "And I'm kind of wondering if you're okay."

Walter took advantage of a large mouthful of food to not answer her immediately.

He could lie. That would be a cruel thing to do to her in the long run. But saying it aloud would make it real.

He swallowed and had a sip of tea to clear his mouth before shaking his head. "No. I'm probably not. Why did you and Pippi argue?"

Nadia stared at him for a moment. "I was talking about training Mr. Neilson and she thought I was talking about making him a brainwashed zombie monkey. She didn't listen when I tried to explain that that wasn't what I was talking about, and I said some stuff that was probably pretty mean and out of line and she got even more mad at me, and . . . we haven't talked since." She took a small bite of her sandwich. "Tell me what's wrong."

Walter looked around to ensure that there weren't any watching squirrels or bushes, and also to buy a little time before he had to actually put any suspicions into words.

"It's hard to explain. You know that I'm not a mutant, right?"

"Jamie ran a mutant detection thingy and only picked up himself, Molly, and Marie. So, yeah. You're not a mutant."

"Right. But I'm not exactly human the way I am, either." He looked down at his hands and turned a couple of rings with his thumb. "Remember what I said a while back about a price to pay? When you were saying that there were so many super powered people here and you wanted to feel like you could stand up to them?"

"Yeah. I figured you meant having to eat so much and getting sick if you don't." She looked at his sandwich, then at the one in her hands. "Have you not been eating enough?"

He really wished not eating enough were the only problem. "That's not the problem. Or it's not the source of the problem."

And it sucked to keep making her ask questions, but he had a long-ingrained habit of not talking about this, not to mention the rest of the problem.

"I was an experimental subject."

There. That was as easy as pulling one of his own teeth.

"There were others, but I'm the last one."

Nadia was tempted to point out that she'd spent the first five or so years of her life in a lab being experimented on, so it wasn't like she'd hold that against him. But it didn't seem like the time.

"What happened to the others?"

"They died." He had another bite of his sandwich, even though it was sawdust in his mouth. It bought him another moment.

"My father thought it was because they were adults when it started, that their bodies couldn't handle the strain. He thought that someone younger would tolerate it better, that a small child would grow with the changes and adapt."

Wait, did that mean his father was the one who . . . that didn't really stand up to thinking about, just then. "But you think he's wrong."

He damned well wasn't going to die. Not on her watch.

It wasn't as though he wanted to think his father was wrong.

"He was partly right. No one else lasted this long. But I know what happened to the others, and I know the signs."

". . . Headaches?"

"Headaches, sleeplessness, increased appetite, irritibility, difficulty focusing... "

Nadia swallowed past something in her throat that wasn't sandwich, since she'd only taken one bite. "And you've been feeling all of that."

It wasn't a question. Well, she hoped it was, but it wasn't, not really.

Walter looked back out at the water and nodded.

Nadia swallowed again and set down her sandwich, then reached out to put an arm around him. "So what do we do about it?"

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NFB

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