boxofdactyls | NATHAN PETRELLI || VOICE-TEST

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NATHAN PETRELLI || VOICE-TEST

[With the thinnest amount of patience ever, Nathan tries to at least... make conversation with you people] Ok, so these... what are you calling them? Roadies... Rhodans? ... Whatever. The green ones. How the hell am I supposed to understand what they're asking me when they're cornering me out on the street and speaking that... clicky language? Is there some kind of translator program or ...

[hesitantly] robot... thing... that could... [yeah, ok, this is dumb]

I can't believe I'm asking this.

[Deep breath, forging ahead:] Look, they seem to want something from me, and if they're part of my... constituency here on Coruscant, I'd rather know if they were compliments or death threats.

Anybody who's got a lead on a local linguist or something, I'd appreciate it.

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She caught the tone, and recognized it for what it was. It took her a few moments to come up with something to say in return, just because she didn't want to spark another argument. So when she set aside her datapad, she looked up at him with a smile. It wasn't a full one, or one that said she believed what he was saying was sincere, but it was at least something other than a glare.

"I've learned some of that Force stuff too, you know." She pointed out with a throaty laugh, amused that she used to be the same as him when it came to believing in the stuff. "I had to learn how to fight so I could fend for myself. I even have a lightsaber now."

Of course, said lightsaber had been given to her by a guy she was seeing before he went off and faked his own death, but that really doesn't matter so she decides not to mention how the lightsaber came into her possession.

"You could learn too, if you wanted. I think people with abilities like ours have an easier time learning everything. I could even teach you a few things."

And the smile on her few grew then. Truthfully, she was pretty excited at the prospect of being able to do something her dad couldn't.

Hey, even a fake smile was a step up, he figured. He'd take it. Nathan was pretty familiar with insincerity - that came with the territory in being a politician - but he also knew that taking the effort to fake it at least alloted to trying.

He was pleased that she was doing that much.

"A lightsaber," he repeated, his eyebrows climbing up, for a second. He pursed his lips out as he considered the horrifying thought of his teenager daughter whipping a lazer sword around and cutting somebody's cat in half or something. There was a law suit waiting to happen. "They just... hand those things out, huh?" Maybe somebody should sue the Jedi Order for that kind of negligence.

At her suggestion that he could also learn Jedi tricks and how to swing a lightsaber around, he just... stared, and then scratched his forehead to give himself an excuse to look down at the floor. "Yeah, uh, I don't really think I'm the type for that kinda thing. And like you said," he added, glad she'd given him a solid reason to turn her down, "I've got plenty of work to do."

"They aren't exactly giving them out. I'm pretty sure if you still have to make your own or earn one if you're an actual Jedi. I just got mine -" Oh, this was an interesting thing to have to explain. She wasn't sure she could do it, since she wasn't sure how he'd react. She could easily predict how Noah Bennet would react, but Nathan Petrelli was another story entirely.

Another story that she wanted to test and make squirm a little, so she supposed the story would be a bonus in that aspect.

"Passed down to me." She finished her thought and idly scratched at her temple, a gesture she was unknowingly copying from him. "There's a boy that I'm close to, and before he left he gave it to me. He has a red one now, so he won't need it back."

Yeah, that was an awkward story to try and tell while leaving out details. She was more than glad to pretend to be fascinated by someone's network post, although she glanced up every couple of seconds to see his face. This was a test, after all, to see how he'd react to boy stories.

That 'exactly' pinged his interest and Nathan fixed her with a stare that demanded further explanation. Of course when that explanation featured 'a boy', he felt previously unexplored instincts that must have come built-in to parenthood springing to life. Especially with the tone of her voice while talking about him... and he couldn't help but think back to what he was like at her age, and things he said or did to girls he was 'close to', and the horrible mental image of those guys like him getting anywhere near his young, blonde, beautiful daughter was...

Not comfortable. To say the least. Which his stare and lowered brows probably conveyed.

He'd had people chastise him in the past, when his eyes had raked over young things in casinos or at parties, joking about how those girls 'were somebody's daughter', but suddenly that phrase had a starkly different sentiment attached.

Claire looking away as if she were keeping something important out of the story didn't help either.

He tried to keep his tone neutral and slow. "I thought the bad guys around here had the red ones."

Of course, she and her father would come equipped with the same piece of Star Wars knowledge. She didn't answer him at first, her mind whirling and attempting to come up with a reasonable response.

"I said he left." She shrugged, trying to act like it wasn't a big deal to her, despite the fact it was the one thing that had consumed her life and sanity for the past couple of months. "He thought he could be a Sith, but I made him realize that was a stupid choice."

Another shrug followed, and she kept her tone as neutral and slow as his was. But the look on her face betrayed her tone of voice and her casual shrugging, as she looked very much like a hurt and betrayed little wide eyed lamb.

... So not only was she running around with boys here, but now he was imagining little punks in leather jackets on motorcycles waving pointy light sticks around and joining space gangs. Great.

He was so glad he had a daughter.

But as much as he wanted to just take that kind of attitude about it, the look in her eyes melted his heart, and he figured he'd have to get to the... actual bottom of this, one way or another.

In case she was in some kind of real trouble, as a result.

"The Sith are a serious militant organization here, Claire, and we're in the middle of a war," he said carefully. "Him defecting over to that side isn't going to be something easy for him to come back from." What a mess that would be, if people saw his daughter running around with some ex-Sith soldier. Apparently he HAD to help clean this up. Somehow. He pinched his nose between two fingers. "Where--" he demanded, then stopped and started again, in a calmer tone. "Where's he now?"

"I know that!" She protested in a huff, crossing her arms over her chest. Of course she knew what the Sith were and what they did, and that was why she had to go and drag Draco away. "What, do you think he's hiding in my room? He's not here." At least not right now, anyway.

"He was all I had left here. You can't just turn away people you care abou-"

She paused, and as she was now on the verge of frustrated tears, she became bratty and defensive. "Oh wait, yes you can."

Those words came out a lot more harsh than she meant for them to, and she reached up to wipe at her eyes as she let out a sigh.

"I didn't entirely mean that." She was quick to apologize, just because everything had started out so well when they were being racist toward green clicky people.

"I didn't mean that," he argued, though maybe he had. He didn't really want to think about where the kid had been hiding, but if Claire knew he was trying to come back, they'd have to have met up somewhere since his return. "But he's gotta be somewhere, and it's not safe for him to be out there on his own, with both sides potentially on his -" don't say ass "case about his desertion."

Desertion. Defection. It was way easier to couch this in the sort of military terms he was used to back home, looking at this as the kind of war he'd fought in his day, then to think of it having to do with sides of the Force, or whatever.

Her sudden accusation stung, but he took it stonily, still not sure he didn't deserve all the barbs she liked to occasionally hurl in his direction. He was pretty barb-resistant, considering it was hard to be in politics if you had thin skin, period.

But it was a little different coming from his daughter.

He decided to ignore both the comment, and the apology, and run straight on with the conversation.

"I know that, Claire, but I'm not looking to get him in more trouble here. I'm tryin' to help, alright?" He fixed her with a sincere look, lowering his chin. "So just answer me. Do you have any idea where he might be right now?"

A part of her really wanted to scream that he was in her room and she brought him there all the time, but that was a technical lie and it wouldn't accomplish anything in the conversation. She was honestly curious as to why he cared so much, since he only recently decided to claim responsibility for her. He wanted to help, fine, but it was hard for her to believe he'd do that out of the goodness of his own heart. Which meant that there was something more behind his offer, some kind of personal gain for that sincere look he was giving her, some kind of intent for asking where he was.

"I don't track his every move." She lied, shrugging a little. Of course she kept track of him, she couldn't control things if she didn't know where he was.

"How are you going to help him?" She wanted to be hopeful that he was doing this for her, but given past experience, she figured that it had more to do with protecting the family image. He and Angela seemed pretty big on constantly doing that, which was probably hard work given who Peter was and that Nathan probably had secret children all over the world. She supposed adding her recklessness into the picture didn't help anything. That thought was enough to want to give him the benefit of the doubt, or at least attempt to give him a chance to prove he wasn't an entirely terrible father.

"If you're going to help him because you actually care about me, then I could get him here. Otherwise, just don't bother."

It was a good question. One he didn't really have an answer to, considering he'd never exactly tried protecting some kid in space who'd abandoned running off to be Darth Vader Jr. or whatever. New territory, but this whole place was new territory, and he found that people were still people here, even if they had antennae or sounded like flies when they spoke. They operated in predictable ways, for the most part, and the game was played the same as it was anywhere: dirty.

"I've got some connections," he settled for. Because he sure hadn't been sitting on his hands for eleven months, ignoring his biological daughter's space life. "We might be able to make it look like he never really joined their side, make it easier for him to come back home." It suddenly struck him that this might also mean the kid was gonna be around more to move in on Claire's Kool-Aid. He frowned. "Either way, he's gonna need protection, if everyone's out to get him. Maybe we can just send him somewhere safe." Safe, and far away from them all. One less thing to have a headache over.

Oh, she was... calling him on his political minded approach to this, and he felt sufficiently chastised. But he WAS also doing this because he cared, it just... happened to coincide with other interests.

"I wouldn't do it for just anyone," he said, figuring that sounded enough like he was doing it for.

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NATHAN PETRELLI || VOICE-TEST

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