Part 4

There was a flopping noise and the bed shivered and bounced a bit as a mass landed on it. "Waughmph," said the mass, in Domino's voice.

Nathan, who had been contemplating the relative merits of trying to go to sleep without her, or going to look for her, or getting up and pretending he hadn't tried to go to bed without her, or reading the tattered but quite legible and interesting-looking fat little novel by J. R. R. Tolkien that was definitely *not* either The Silmarillion or Lord of the Rings or The Hobbit, or coming up with something unusual and... fun... to do to the room for when she did arrive, lifted his head and regarded her.

"'Waughmph' to you too. Are you all right?" He'd have been more concerned, of course, had she not actually sounded all right.

"You," she informed him, raising one arm off the pillow beside her head and into the air from the elbow, then waving her index finger in the approximate direction of the ceiling over his chest, "did not come and rescue me."

Nathan blinked at her in surprise. This was unusual. This was Dom, right? Right, there was the link, definitely Dom, definitely the right Dom, OK, good, whew. "But Dom," he pointed out reasonably, knowing quite well he was asking for it, "you hate it when I rescue you. Especially if you could have made it through on your own." Which she clearly had.

"In this case," she raised her head and threw hair back from her face, "in this one case, I might have made an exception."

"What happened?"

A very light investigation of the link and wandering hands had assured him that she was in fact uninjured and, though genuinely tired and exasperated, not entirely serious -- she just felt like complaining. That did not quite prepare him, nevertheless, for her answer.

"En Sabah Nur happened." As noted, having ascertained her safety failed to enable entire suppression of the "ACCCK!" reaction, but at least he swallowed the vocal part. Domino patted his arm. "And," she added significantly, "his girlfriend."

"Hatshupet?" That sounded rather less threatening, even if Hatshupet had reached into the path of a rampaging Sabretooth (he'd been going for someone else, and no, he shouldn't have been there in the first place) and slit his throat with her knife. Of course, it had been foolhardy. Idiotic was in fact a better description.

And of course she'd had her abdomen gouged and ripped open by his claws in the process of sticking the knife in his eye. Too bad she hadn't known about the healing factor. Not to mention that there had been no one else in the room (distance fighters would have been nice) except a couple of very frightened newcomers, whom Hatshupet had apparently taken under her wing.

((They were afraid of her now, for which she was thoroughly disgusted with them.

"They... are... idiots!" she had complained to Nur.

"They are afraid of you, because they don't know how to face or deal death, and you do."

"They are idiots."

"You said that."

"Yes, I know I did. It's not as if I attacked them."

"I know. Believe me, I know."))

Nur had been the first effective fighter to reach the room; Franklin had been close on his heels and just in time to see Sabretooth's head torn from his flailing body and subsequently crushed between gray hands that might as well have turned to steel. Or adamantium, belike.

(Belike?)

Nur then, genuinely out of temper for the first time since he'd arrived there, had turned on Franklin and berated him for a setup that had let such an obvious threat in, even one that should have been trivial. Franklin, being fortunately not too easily flustered himself, had made noises about seeing to the perimeter and moved to administer healing to wounds worse than the ones the girl had had when she was first brought in.

Cable had arrived during this; his knowledge of the actions before that point were pieced together from other accounts, taken with a grain of salt. More like a small salt cellar, actually....

(("You'll... spoil me for caring for wounds properly, you know," she'd joked.

"So quit trying to get yourself gutted." Franklin was practical like that.

"Yes. Do," Nur had agreed rather grimly.

Hatshupet had turned to look up at him, probably getting a view of his chin since by that time he'd crouched behind her to support her shoulders. They were kind of cute, and Nathan wanted to smack himself in the brain for thinking that. "I should have thrown the knife, shouldn't I?"))

That probably wouldn't have helped, actually, and he somehow doubted Sabretooth had much to do with Domino's grumbling over the Egyptians.

"Yes. Who could it possibly be OTHER than Hatshupet?" A very rhetorical question.

"Is she his girlfriend yet?" It was generally considered a yet. Nur was, honorably enough, refraining from pursuit on account -- as he had eventually explained to Nathan, who was rather astonished both that En Sabah Nur was quietly in love and that he seemed to have been one of the first people to notice this -- of Hatshupet's belief that she was obligated to him. What this failed to take into account was that the only apparent way for her to demonstrate she believed otherwise was to get involved with someone else. Also that she might consider him obligated to her as well, since he was the only male Sandstormer remaining, but if this was the case she was being patient about it.

"No. He's still stalling."

((It had by this point long been obvious to most of those who actually made observations of it, not just Nathan, that the friendship between Nur and Hatshupet was more than simple mentoring or even camaraderie.

Nathan had watched one interchange, several weeks after her arrival, and reached the conclusion that they were in fact well suited to each other. It had been yet another "discussion" of whether Hatshupet ought to be out in the shifts on her own, and had ended with Nur's insisting (fairly reasonably) that she was not yet prepared to go wandering by herself -- he'd taken advantage of the fact that she did acknowledge him as something of an authority to extract a firm promise this time that she wouldn't try it until he said she was ready, but also given one himself that he'd teach her about them.

Normal humans had to be able to perceive at least enough to manage sometimes, and she was significantly more accustomed to nature being all around and frequently inimical than a lot of the ones who somehow found their way to Oasis, even if she hadn't actually been lost in the shifts on her way. Not that she could protect herself against caustic air or semi-tangible predators better than others, but the danger and uncertainty didn't faze her psychologically.

Everyone was, by now, watching her progress with considerable interest. This was largely because most people without some sort of helpful powers or a great deal of motivation (and, for that matter, most people WITH powers) were extremely reluctant to leave, so she was about the only baseline human actively studying to understand them at least in a functional sense. She was making surprisingly good progress.

The fact that an alternate of Apocalypse was the one TEACHING said baseline human only made it stranger. Nathan tended to suspect that Nur actually didn't mind taking her out there at all, and that Hatshupet wasn't especially unhappy about his company, whether she returned his interest or not.

(All right, on Nur's side it seemed to be adoration, but he'd spent decades married to her alternate and a few millennia missing her, so a certain imbalance was only to be expected.)

"I think," Cable had observed, sliding into a seat at Nur's table after Hatshupet's departure, "that she's as intrinsically stubborn as you are."

"Possibly more so. I, however, have more practice."

This was undeniable, so Cable did not attempt to deny it.

"I am hers," the ancient External had finally said in a low voice, "and have been much of my life. Only, that was another timeline's version of her, and while this one is very much as she was at the same age, I am no longer the same and it would be... unjust to accept her decision before she comes to accept that times have changed, however cliched that phrase, and that she is not required to be with me. I don't wish to overwhelm her, not that this is terribly likely...."

"I admire your restraint. I think. Of course," Nathan had added thoughtfully, "I'd be more impressed with it if she'd actually tested it by flirting with anyone else and it had held up. To be entirely fair, however, you're also the only one who's particularly likely to understand the culture she dropped in from, which could be a factor."

"Nevertheless --"

Cable had opted to interrupt, a bit surprised that Nur didn't talk determinedly over him. "I'm not really arguing the point, you understand. Quite noble of you in a way, though I have to wonder what she'll do if anyone else starts flirting with you, too...."

"Improbable."

Nathan had thought so too -- still did -- but at this point wasn't willing to rule much out. "Maybe. Dom and I are just waiting for the betting pool to start."

Nur had given him a deeply suspicious look. "Betting pool."

"On how long it takes you two to get together. We have a running debate on whether it isn't going yet because people are nervous about offending you, or because they're nervous about offending Hatshupet by overestimating the time." He couldn't quite resist adding, deadpan, "I think she likes you."

With a shake of his mighty head, Nur had resorted to a response of a sort he was uniquely equipped to pull off. "Children."

"It may be immature, but that doesn't make it any less fun," Cable had retorted. "It's only a matter of time," such as time might be, in Oasis -- that thought had to be shoved firmly away, always -- "and you're the only one not admitting the fact."))

"Hmmp. So what did they do that you didn't exactly need rescuing from?"

Dom sighed, and stretched. "Hatshupet asked me to explain the concept of squeamish."

"I thought Franklin taught her English. Strike that. I know Franklin taught her English...."

"Oh, he did. It wasn't the meaning of the word she was after. It was the reason. Why its existence was necessary, why anyone WOULD be."

"I see. Why was she asking you?"

"That's what I'd like to know!"

"What did you tell her?"

"Something about some people having too much imagination, and not being used to seeing the insides of creatures unless they'd been all washed off and cut up neatly. I think. Nur was utterly unhelpful; he just sat there looking amused."

"Hatshupet's the one you were telling graphic stories about merc-hood, right?"

"Yeah. The kind that make most people turn vaguely green or edge away or both. They don't seem to bother her, except she gets ticked off at some of the people on occasion. Am I warping her view of the twentieth century?"

"Probably."

"Oh well."

Nathan made a thoughtful hmming noise, put an arm out, and wrapped it comfortably around Domino, settling her snugly against his side. "You know what we should do," he said into her hair.

"About what?"

"Them. Maybe we could get Hatshupet to start flirting with somebody else."

"So Nur would get a move on?" Dom pushed on him until he gave her room to turn over and prop her head up, regarding him thoughtfully. "Your Askani roots are showing."

Nathan looked indignant. "What?!"

She patted him and then traced a vaguely birdish shape on his forehead, chuckling. "Manipulative...."

He glared at her.

She laughed and rumpled him. "You can't glower properly with your hair like that."

A pause.

"Telekinetic hair-smoothing is NOT fair."

He snorted and batted lightly at the hand that was trying to remedy his newly kempt state of hair. "I'm not being Askanish."

"Askanish? Is that the right term?"

"Yes."

"Are you sure?"

"Can you find a better authority?"

"Rachel?"

"You can find a Rachel?"

"...No."

"There. I'm right." He folded his arms in satisfaction.

"Give me time and a little luck, and maybe I would find one," Dom retorted. "I haven't been looking. And that doesn't prove you aren't being 'Askanish' anyway."

"Ah, but I'm not."

"Prove it."

"I will." He shook an arm free and lifted a finger. "Point one. I am aware that this position might be hazardous to the young man, whether to his heart or to his life. Therefore, I would be perfectly willing to tell him all about what we want him to do and why, instead of letting him try to figure it out and blunder around."

Dom raised an eyebrow. "A little bitter, are we?"

"A little. Do I need to keep counting?"

"Nope. I'll put point two in for you, though."

"What's that?"

"You're trying to matchmake for Nur."

"....Oath."

*****