xp_logs | Log: Remy/Lorna

Lorna comes to find Remy after his post, and discovers with him that answers aren't easy to find.

He wasn't hard to find. For a secret operative, LeBeau could be frighteningly easy to read sometimes. Lorna caught a nod from Harry and walked around to the back of the bar, where he sat in the furthest booth.

There was the requisite bottle and glass on the table, but surprisingly, it looked like the amount that was missing from the bottle was still sitting in the glass in front of him, as he sat slumped against the back of the booth, hands in the pockets of his trenchcoat and staring dully at the table.

Lorna hadn't really intended to track him down but when he hadn't replied to her comment and she couldn't find him at the mansion for an explanation, she'd started ranging farther afield. Harry's was her third stop. She slipped into the booth next to him, half turned to face him and rested her head on her hand. She regarded him silently for several moments then asked quietly, "So what's going on?"

Remy's eyes flickered up, and then back down to the glass again. It was a long time before he spoke, as if he was trying to remember how to first.

"Charlie's dead." Remy said quietly. There was only a scattering of people in the bar, but it still sounded impossibly loud to him.

She took a breath and slid closer, placing her hand on his arm. "I'm sorry." It sounded odd to say. Meaningless words really when faced with death. "What happened?" No one had hurt him. Remy would be raging instead of morose in that case.

"I don't know. Found him yesterday." Remy shook his head. For once, there wasn't any comfort in Lorna's touch. "He killed himself."

Putting the words out there made things fresh again, brought up the images. There was something unfinished, and Remy could figure it out. Was this supposed to be how you grieved?

"Oh god..." Lorna bit her lip against more of those useless things to say--how and why and how terrible. She just looked at him instead, her eyes bright with sympathetic tears though she hadn't know the boy. "God, Remy, I'm so sorry. I know he was your friend."

"Oui. Dat's de problem." Remy shook his head. "I didn't know it could hurt like dis, Lorna. I just... I'm angry. At him, me. What's dat right reaction? How does dis work?" Remy finally took a sip from the glass.

She sighed, "Right? There isn't really a right reaction. You're hurt and you're angry and you want someone or something to blame. Being religious helps because then you can curse God for being a giant fuck." She shrugged, "But in the end, what's right? I don't know. You have to take time to come to grips. Len...Samson would say grief is a natural process. Whatever you're feeling...that's how you're supposed to feeling."

"If dis is what's supposed to happen, den de whole thing is fucked up." Remy scowled. "He was a kid, Lorna. None of dis leather hero bullshit. Just a nice normal guy dat liked old books and got picked on at school. What's de point of heroes if we can't save him?" The raw anguish was there; helpless and angry.

"We save the ones we can. And it's not enough. That doesn't make what we do less important but...we're not heroes. And we're not perfect. If you could have stopped him, you would have but sometimes people slip through our fingers. They just...can't hold on." She flexed her hand subconsciously on his arm. "They don t see any other way to get out so they give up instead."

"I'm mad at him." Remy said quietly, his voice small. He took another sip. "Because he did this to me. I keep thinking 'bout what I missed. What Remy didn't see that could have changed things. Dat maybe if I was a more complete person, I could have stopped it. But all dat comes back is dat it's his fault."

"I would be too if he were my friend. That's just what happens. You curse them for being so stupid and selfish and not just coming to you and letting you fix things for them. And maybe you even hate them a little because it's easier than hurting and knowing that you'll never get the chance to tell them what they did to you." She shook her head, "And in the end it doesn't help. So you just...hurt."

"Oui." Remy nodded, mouth dry. He did have one thing he could do; his job. There was that, but a voice in his head whispered treacherously that it was just another kind of dodge. "I just wish it would go away."

She put her arms around him finally and hugged him. "I know. But it won't. And running won't help." She rested her head on his shoulder, "Don t go."

"Remy not going anywhere, chere." He put his hand on hers, squeezing it lightly. "'less I stop running, dere's a chance dis could happen again. And it hurts to much to let dat be de case."

"There's nothing you could have done, Remy. You know that, right? Nothing you could have done to change this." She looked up at him earnestly, wanting to see him acknowledge it.

"I do. But dat doesn't mean dat it will be de same way next time. If I stop running; start trying to figure out what it means to be an actual person, maybe de next friend who's hurting will think to tell me. Or I'll see something dat I couldn't see wit' Charlie." Remy picked up the glass again, staring into the amber liquid.

Lorna smiled sadly, appreciating the revelation if not the pain with which it had been bought. "That's the most anyone can hope for. To see someone in pain and be able to stop it before it gets to be too much."

"Dat been your job, chere?" Remy said, receiving a nudge and a light chuckle in return. He waved over another glass and poured a measure into it. He knew Lorna liked mixed drinks, but this was one she'd have to handle. Remy picked up his own glass. "Sit back, chere. Remy want to tell you 'bout an homme named Charlie Plunder."

She accepted the glass and sat back with it as directed, still smiling. "Not my job. My privilege."

"To Charlie." Remy said, and they both drank. He refilled the glasses and started to talk. "De first time dat I met Charlie, he was sitting at a table, wit' 'manda looking at him like tomorrow's main course. Had dat deer in de headlights look an'..." Over the next few hours, deep into the night and the bottle, Remy passed along his dead friend to Lorna. Another to hold the memories; a second Witness.