LOG: Madelyn and Haroun - Good Friends And A Couple Of Pints

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Madelyn and Haroun gossip like old women over cheese fries, pool, and drinks at Harry's. Backdated to just after Ricochet.



Haroun leaned back in the booth he currently shared with Madelyn and grinned at her. "Thought I had you on that last pool
game." he said as he sipped at his iced tea.  "You got _lucky_ on that last shot. If I didn't know better, I'd say you were manifesting some telekinesis or something."

Madelyn stuck her tongue out at him. "All mundane skill," she told him with a grin, reaching for her beer. "Telekinesis would be cheating. Besides, we'd have _two_ red-haired telekinetic doctors on staff, and that would just be plain confusing. Talk about your identity crises - people would think I was Jean's clone or something."

Haroun grinned as he contemplated the thought. "Mmm. Double the redhead, double the fun?" he grinned, and then shook his head. "Nah.
Like you said, too confusing, and then one of you would have to turn evil and destroy New York or something like that. It's required." he
said with a laugh, reaching for the cheese fries to heap some onto his plate. "And we're collecting redheads like they're going out of
style."

"And supervillain costumes are just plain bad," Madelyn agreed with a snort, shaking her head slightly at him with a smile. It was good to see Haroun the Joker out and about again. "All skimpy leather and capes. I can't really see Jean going that route, which means I'd have to do it, and there are some sights no-one should have."

"Oh, I don't know about that..." he said, and then waggled his eyebrows at Madelyn. "One thing about this Mansion - apparently
somebody chased away the Ugly Stick in a big way." he laughed. "Except for us half-men types, of course." he added. "We don't
count."

"Says he who finds any excuse to wander around shirtless because of the effect it has on the rest of us and whose collection of icons make a strong woman's knees go weak." Madelyn tossed a cheese fry at him. "Don't tell me you missed poor Jay nearly walking into the wall the last time you did the no-shirt thing in the halls."

"The icon says it all. Alison keeps stealing my shirts, so I have none. Woe." he said, in a nearly perfect dead-on impression of Alison.
"And I generate far more heat than I really need. Clothes exacerbate the problem." he said piously. "You wouldn't want me to keel over from
heatstroke, now, would you?" he asked her innocently, even batting his eyelashes a few times at Madelyn. "And I did miss Jay walking into ... a ... wait. Jay's one of those?" he said as the realization finally dawned on him.

"A teenage boy? Yes, Jay's one of those," Madelyn replied, watching Haroun over her glass as she nonchalantly sipped beer. "He also happens to be gay, yes."

"Yeah. Well. Guess I need to stop doing what I was doing, then." he said, visibly uncomfortable with the whole notion. Sipping at his iced
tea to give himself time to think, he grinned at Madelyn. "And speaking of walking into walls - how are you and Hank doing, hrm?" he
asked theatrically.

"Jay's no more likely to jump you than I am, even if you are the Shirtless Wonder," Madelyn told him, before letting that thread go. "We're going well. _Very_ well," she added with a hint of a naughty grin. "Although the baby means I'm not getting a lot of sleep these days."

Haroun laughed. "Sure. Blame it on the _baby_." he snickered. "Right. Uh-huh. And I was born yesterday. Good for you! I wish you both much happiness." he said sappily. "And if you want me to break his legs for you, just let me know." he added with a conspiratorial wink.

"Well, there is all the mind-blowing sex, but the baby needing four-hourly feeds tends to cut back on the sleeping inbetween," Madelyn elaborated, snickering. "And I like Hank's legs as they are, thank you. No disassembly required." She leaned back in the booth and raised her eyebrows at him. "And how are things in the songbird's nest these days? I like what you've done with the place."

"The songbird is doing just fine, thank you!" he said with a grin. "We have what I'm given to understand are the usual ups and downs of two people trying to share a space together, but all in all I'd have to say it's fantastic." he said with a grin. "No real complaints.
It was a stroke of genius on her part, redecorating like that. Now, if I could just get her to keep it tidy, life would be _grand_!"

"Ah, the age-old clash of the living styles," Madelyn said sagely, but with a certain amount of amusement.

"Oh, like you're all that fond of He-Who-Sheds getting his hair all over everything..." he said with a smirk. "Or did I mishear you when you were cursing about that set of samples being spoiled the other day?"

"I'm very fond of Hank!" Madelyn replied, but then admitted: "Just not the random bits of blue fur that appear in strange places, like my samples. But he does try hard to keep the shedding to a minimum." A slightly silly smile crossed her face. "And there's something rather adorable about all over bedhead first thing in the morning."

"You're weird." he said with a grin, and then waggled a cheese-encrused french fry at her. "But you're happy, so that's all that counts. How's your professional life treating you, anyway? There's more to you than just the latest appendage on the House McCoy. You talk to Agent Duncan lately?"

"Says the man who baby-talks a jet," she reminded him, remembering her beer. Once she'd swallowed, she shrugged a little. "Some. That job in Minneapolis came from him, using me as the go-between, but there's been some issues with the consulting work he was trying to set up. And it doesn't help that we've got two medlab guests not looking to be leaving any time soon and needing night supervision even if Jean and Charles are in charge of Paige's treatment. Between Hank's new fatherhood and Moira's imminent labor, a lot of the normal work's falling to me. So for now it's Doctor Bartlet. Agent Bartlet will just have to hibernate a bit longer."

"So Doctor Bartlett's getting a workout, but Agent Bartlett's on the back burner. Hrm. So long as you're content, that's what counts." he said, drinking deeply from his iced tea. "So - hear any good gossip from your your frozen domain?"

She wrinkled her nose at him. "Nothing I can talk about with betraying patient confidentiality, but let's just say kids will be kids. And then some." Reaching for a couple of cheese fries, she raised her eyebrows at him. "How about you? Any juicy team gossip? I know a nice little karaoke place down the road if you should feel the need to play tribute to your inner diva."

Haroun rolled his eyes. "I think I should hit _you_ one more time." he said, and then grinned. "Not an experience I'm all that keen on repeating, let me tell you." he said. "I'll leave the singing to Alison next time."

"By all accounts that's a very good idea - apparently you're considered a breach of the Geneva Convention on Human Rights. Cruel and inhumane punishment? Fred was saying the guy was thinking of suing." A wink showed she wasn't at all serious.

Haroun snorted. "Better than the Amazing Animated Hair, or Disco Dazzler, or Quicksand Cain." he said. "Still, Ricochet is going to jail, and that is what is important. They ever figure out what his ability was?"

"They're still trying to nail it down - the man himself doesn't have much of an idea of exactly what it does, only that he's good at using it for nefarious means. Still, better a petty thief than a meglomaniac."

"It's nice to deal with the guys who just want to get rich, as opposed to the whackos who want to rule the world or cleanse the Earth or other such nonsense. A good old-fashioned crook - I'll take those any day of the week. And hey, while I'm thinking of it - next time you get a free hour or two, let me know. We'll go pop some caps down the range, OK?"

"I'd like that." Madelyn's smile was clear proof of that. "Jake was supposed to come with me and brush up his field skills, but I get the idea things piled up."

"Good deal. Pistols, rifles, or SMGs?" he asked with a grin.

"Such a guy," she told him with a laugh. "Since the Bureau isn't so much into the heavy-duty automatic weaponry, lets say rifles? I'm a bit rusty any way."

"Can't have that." he smirked, and finished off his iced tea. "And yeah, OK, pistols it is." he said. "I'm a little rusty with them
anyway, got out of the habit of packing when I came to the US." he elaborated around a mouthful of cheese fries. "So ..." he said,
letting the word trail off as he thought. "Any other juicy gossip you can share with me?"

Madelyn pondered. "Things have been depressingly quiet on that front," she said with a grin. "Apart from Nate's continuing family issues. But at least he's not blowing his brain up any more."

"Small blessings." he said with a laugh. "Still - I've been listening to him babble and rant about his family problems. There's nothing there that sodium pentathol wouldn't cure." he said.

"As tempting as it is, drugging random civilians isn't really an option," Madelyn reminded him with a snort. "Personally, I don't know whether I want to be wrong or to be right about all this. If I'm wrong, then Nathan gets something he's always wanted. If I'm right... well, as much as I'm a know-it-all, I think I'd rather be wrong this time. Poor man's had enough crap in his life without me digging up more."

Haroun almost sprained his neck nodding. "Can't agree with you more. I'm a skeptic - I always am - but I'd like for this to be on the up-and-up. But something just doesn't feel right about it, and I've learned to listen to my instincts." He finished off his tea and flagged a server to bring him another. "I just can't put my finger on it."

"Your instincts and mine both. Even going to Alaska and turning up nothing... it's all too neat. There's no-one to corroborate either story, just Saul and Nathan, and I don't like it." She punctuated her frustration with short, sharp movements as she grabbed another cheese fry. "The real world just doesn't work like that. There's always evidence."

Haroun nodded. "It's too neat!" he said by way of agreement, and grabbed another few cheese fries for his own plate. "Too neat, too clean, and no independent corroboration."

"But try and tell Nathan that and you feel like the world's biggest bully," Madelyn said with a sigh, washing down the fry with the last of her beer. "He looks at you like you've just killed his puppy, and the worst of it is I understand it so well. Wanting a family, wanting things to be normal..." She gave Haroun a helpless look. "I feel guilty sometimes, for having what so many of the rest of the school don't have. A normal family, a normal life."

"You shouldn't." he said firmly. "I've got folks back home too, you know. I prefer to think of it as setting an example, providing a role-model..." and on that, he couldn't help but laugh "... a role model for them to look up to. That it's not all dungeons and bad men in white lab coats."

She didn't mention that Haroun couldn't exactly go home and see that family, but she nodded, reluctantly. "I try and think of it like that," she said. "But most of the time I get the feeling people don't think I can possibly understand what they're going through, as normal as I am." She shook her head, banishing the mood. "Bah, not sitting here and getting maudlin." A slightly predatory grin crossed her face. "You up for another game of pool?"

Haroun grinned, as he too smelled the blood in the water. "Only if you have another beer. You're cute when you're drunk." he laughed.

She wrinkled her nose at him. "You really do like to play with fire, don't you?" she teased, but she nodded at Harry to bring her another beer any way.

Haroun winced as she made that particular joke. "Someone's got to." he replied and reached for his cue.