Logs [Alison, Jean // Scott, Alison] Moving on...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Early afternoon. Jean is ready to see a particular patient, despite the previously hectic night, though of course, this might be because this is a somewhat private sort of appointment - or at least one only Jean can do, at the moment.

Sitting on the examining table, the back of the light blue patient's robe she was wearing opened and the cool air brushing against her back, Alison let her legs rock back and forth slightly, feeling somewhat like a little girl in a too high chair. Only, it wasn't a chair, nor was she a little girl, really. And this was just the next in a series of similar appointments, which she was going to do nothing about other than go and do exactly everything Jean told her to do and not complain about until the red headed doctor decided they were done with them.

Jean stepped into the private room they had been using for Alison's check ups, shutting the door firmly behind her. "Afternoon, Alison. How are you doing today?"

"Better than yesterday." That was the routine overture now, really - it would have felt almost odd to say anything else, after this many meetings in such a short frame of time. "Charles says I'm starting to do better, on the talking side of things." Perhaps, really, because she'd not thought once to not blab out exactly how she was feeling to him, without reservation. "We've sorted out most of what I'd… forgotten, by now." She offered Jean a faint smile, the looked at her feet again, wiggling her toes. "Physically, feel fine. Haroun's been making me go through the regular workouts I used to do before. No sparring yet though." The again went unspoken, this time.

"I'm glad to hear all of that," Jean said, her own smile safely in place. "The cream is still working, then, to help loosen you up?"

"Yes." Straightening up a bit, Alison stretched out one arm, slowly. "They pulled a lot more at first. Less now." She dropped the arm down, settling her hand on the table again. She's thanked Jean already, for her part in things - it was hard not to want to do it again, though.

Jean was being very careful with Alison, avoiding responding to her unvoiced thoughts, simply because the woman needed to have a chance to control what she showed to the world so she could recover. "Let me have a look at them," she said, repeating what she always said before stepping around the table to examine the marks.

"Of course." The same reply as every other time the request had been made, Alison knowing exactly what Jean was doing, Jean knowing she knew, just as well. The fact that if one day she said 'No' Jean would stop nonetheless was also something Alison knew, somehow. It made things... easy. Just as Haroun was helping making them easy, following the same pattern in near everything he did of late involving Alison. And the others, as well. "Thank you."

She nodded, then mentally steeled herself before moving around behind Alison. No matter how often she saw them, the harsh, black marks were always a small shock, but Jean did not react to them, verbally or physically. Instead, she concentrated on the skin around them, eyeing the pucker marks where the healthy skin met the scars. "It does look as though your skin is relaxing," she said.

"The cream you gave me is a miracle, really. And I'd work on my flexibility more to take care of them myself, but Haroun's pretty insistent in helping." Somehow, he managed it without every being imposing. Just being… there. Tears pricked Alison's eyes for a moment, as she determined to find a way to thank him beyond mere words, soon. To lessen the load on him, somehow. "I've been careful not to push beyond what you felt at me, though." IT had been such an easy way to give her a benchmark as to how far to push herself, the telepathic sense of what was pulling too much or just on the edge.

"Good. You always have been more sensible about these things than, well, almost any of the others. It ought to loosen fully with time and careful management." While her fingers could give her a better sense of the improved flexibility in the skin around Alison's scars, Jean never touched them without permission first, and the sense she'd gotten when Alison stretched earlier would be enough for this check up, so Jean returned to face the other woman. "You're doing very well, you know."

Watching Jean for a moment, taking in the breath and scope of the words she'd just said, oh so simply, Alison nodded slowly. "It doesn't feel that way sometimes." When she woke up screaming from a nightmare, or when she broke down while talking to Charles. "I'm not going to stop pushing, though." She toed the line and listened to what she was told, but she didn't stop going forward, as best she could. "I want all that's mine back."

"And that's part of why you're doing well, Alison. You're not willing to give up." Jean smiled, more than her standard bedside-manner smile, and honest smile of understanding and pride at the other woman's strength.

Smiling a bit crookedly, not sure what to answer there beyond the simple fact that there wasn't any other alternative she'd been able to see, Alison cocked her head to the side, just a bit. "When will you be applying for trainee status?" The question was not, really, such a large segue of subject, when you stopped to think about it.

"As soon as I consciously tap my TK," Jean said. "Which, given how much Nathan and I have been working recently, shouldn't take that long. Or, at any rate, I don't intent for it to. But I want to be able to prove I can access both aspects of my powers before hoping back into team training."

"You'd get both, really. Trainee and team training. Same as Bobby." They'd both been team before - they already had the knowledge and the training, the mental habits that were needed for team status. It was just a question of polishing power control, more than anything else. "He'll be glad for the company, I'm pretty sure." Alison took a deep breath, not bothering with tying up the robe - she'd change back as soon as Jean left, anyway. But there was no rush. "I'd offer to help, but I'm not exactly cleared for powers training just yet." Yet, she repeated to herself firmly.

"Glad for the company, or possibly quiet distressed by who the company is," Jean mused. "It will be... very strange to be a trainee again, and stranger yet to be a trainee with him and Jubilee. Thank you, though, but Nathan and I are definitely making progress."

"He's been looking smug enough, now and then. I figured it was going well." Though she hadn't tied the robe, habit had her tucking the collar back into place, the moment it slipped down. Just on the right side. "How did Scott take it?" There was no question he'd been the first Jean would have told, after all, since the decision was apparently once she was comfortable speaking of by now.

Jean's smile slipped fractionally, and a small sigh escaped. "Actually, better than I feared. Thank God."

Alison, sometimes, still wondered how she and Haroun managed. Or at least how she managed - he seemed to do just fine. That they'd both been on the team already before starting to date certainly had meant that a part of things had gone... un-discussed. And going out together - at least, normally - meant the being left behind part usually wasn't an issue. She hadn't dealt so well, the previous night. "You did it before. It'll be okay."

"I know. It will be work, but what about a relationship isn't?" And that it was worth the work went without saying, of course.

~*~

Late afternoon. Scott wanders by to talk to Alison about "borrowing" her XO, and the discussion turns to a slightly new way to do things. On the plus side, someone trying to overcompensate on the whole controlling of self and world thing sometimes can end up with a useful idea. No matter how much they may hate it at the time.

He had slept like the dead, for a full twelve hours, and felt like he had, too - he only got that kind of nagging headache when he'd overslept. Which he had, whatever Jean had said about him needing it. Taking a deep breath and rubbing briefly at his unshaven jaw, Scott rapped lightly on Alison and Haroun's jaw. "Anyone home?" he called.

After a moment the door opened, Alison dressed in a set of exercise pants, and one of Haroun's t-shirts, the collar not entirely stretched out of shape for once. The five o'clock shadow - oh so rare - drew a faint smile from her and she stepped aside to let him in. "Hey. I hear the mission went very well."

"Uhhh, yeah, it did. Even with racing back like we did. I'm a little afraid to visit Moira and the baby - I'm wondering if she wants my head." Scott smiled a bit sheepishly, running a hand through his disheveled hair. "How are you doing? I..." Sort of didn't think before leaving you with an empty bed for most of last night?

"Well, she and Nathan are probably too busy cooing over the baby to hunt you down just yet," she said, closing the door and heading for the tea kettle. Funny, how it was never ever coffee anymore, she thought idly, pouring Scott a glass of tea into one of the brightly colored Moroccan tea glasses she'd started to collect. "But by tomorrow you may want to consider hiding places."

"Duly noted." Scott accepted the tea with a quick, somewhat edgy smile, and followed her over to the couch. "Still. I... well, part of it was that Haroun had experience I needed, and part was that Sam's not..." Actually, no, he shouldn't be talking about Sam to Alison because that was just a little too awkward. "Backup. He felt better about the idea of backup, and I was reviewing the updates we were getting on the way down..."

"Haroun was ideally suited to go on that mission," Alison continued smoothly for him, pouring herself a cup of tea as well, eyeing the colorful line to mark the perfect 'fill' line carefully. "Of course you had to take him along with you." She was, she thought, doing marvelously well here. Not at all the wreck she'd been last night, nope sir. She'd been positively silly to react that way. No other explanation. And keeping the lights open had been perfectly normal since she'd been reading the entire night anyway.

Oh, yes. Definitely some overcontrolling going on here. But he was neither qualified nor particularly inclined to chip away at it. "It went well," he said, not sure if she would have read the mission report or not. "Not a scratch on any of the kids."

"Haroun told me." She set the kettle down and turned around, smiling just a bit, still. "He was very happy about that, actually. First thing he said when he stumbled in and then headed to try and drown himself in the shower." And she'd done very well in clinging to her book and waiting for Haroun to tumble into bed with her before switching her clinging to him. Discreetly so. "We should probably do something about that." She had to force herself to say it.

"About Haroun drowning himself in the shower?"

Alison blinked at that, then actually giggled, shoulders shaking as she looked down. "He and I already had a talk about the actual attempts at drowning." Shaking her head, remembering the time in the pool and all that had followed rather fondly, Alison sipped her tea. Things had changed, so, since. In a way. Her smile faded a bit at that. "I meant the whole way we try to keep CO and XOs…" she shrugged, waving her hand a bit. She was being good.

"It isn't quite working out, is it?" Scott said with a sigh, sipping at his tea. "Especially given our ping-pong on and off injured reserve thing we seem to be doing..." He gave himself a little shake. Focus. "I know both of us have grabbed Kurt at times, simply because his abilities are so useful."

Fact. Simple fact and one she'd repeated to herself a lot, the previous night. And it had nothing to do with her currently being so far away from being fit for doing anything team related it wasn't even funny. Even if a few were telling her she'd be up to it soon. It didn't - she stopped that train of thought, taking a sip of the slightly too hot tea before focusing on Scott once more. She was going to do this, no matter what. "I worked it out. On paper." She pointed at the sheets placed neatly on the tea table, not mentioning the crumpled ones hidden in the paperbasket.

Scott reached out and took them. It was a basic schedule, showing a new sort of rotation - the command teams on, on backup and available for missions, and off. "Makes sense to me," he said, looking up at her with a quick smile. "I can't imagine Ororo would have any objections. Or the XOs..."

"Oh good." She hated it. Absolutely hated it. And it was the best way to balance things out and she wanted nothing to do with it. "Only makes sense that instead of just being on back up, we'd also be throw into the pool of available team members. More bases covered that way, better choices and team line-ups…" She took another sip of the tea, mostly to keep from repeating herself.

"Alison..." Scott leaned forward a little, his head tilting as he regarded her. "Makes sense," he said more softly, "but you don't like it, for all that you suggested it. Why?"

She'd been so hoping he'd not ask. Not that he'd not notice - just that he wouldn't ask. "This would have been my week. On the duty rotation. If." The last word held a world of meaning, so many multilayered possibilities - none of which she needed to explain, really.

Scott nodded, not saying anything, and sipped at his tea. There really wasn't much to say, was there? Not only had he stepped into her place, but he'd stolen her XO and boyfriend right out from under her nose. He would have apologized for being that insensitive if... well, if there'd been any other way around it.

"You'll be back in the saddle before too long," he murmured after a moment. "And you know when I say things like that I don't mean them as the cliches."

"I know." And she did too, the knowing enough to counterbalance any of  the worries and emotions she felt at the moment. Clinging to self-control wasn't easy, but she was getting better at it. Much  better. "Want to run this by Ororo?" she gestured by the piece of paper, forcing herself to relinquish that to him, as much as it burned to do so. She was still off duty. And she and Haroun and worked it  over plenty enough since the morning when he'd woken up anyway. It was solid.
 
Scott nodded, folding the paper neatly. "I imagine she'll have much the same sort of thing to say as I did," he said. "Once she does, we'll put it into practice." He smiled at her. "And there's something you can look forward to for when you're back in the saddle. Potentially giving me orders?" He said it hoping to get a smile out of her.
 
"..." Mouth open to say something, though what remained unknown, Alison stared at Scott for a full ten seconds before time caught up with her as her mind processed what he'd just said. Snapping her mouth shut, staring at him with wide eyes, she tried to come up with something intelligent to say which wasn't a scream of panic at the thought. "I think you just blew up my mind."
 
"Really? I just meant to break it a little around the edges," Scott said very meekly and then grinned at her, unable to help himself.  "Seriously, Al, don't freak out over that. I suspect in practice we'd be doing more swiping of each other's XOs than anything else under this new system."

She could throw things at him, she thought with sudden serenity. That would be a nice stress relief. Sometimes, Alison suspected, Scott tended to entirely forget he'd been the one to train her up to this to start with. "Swiping of XOs. Gotcha." Her tea had not gone cold yet and another sip was a good way to temporize, though she offered him a crooked smile over the rim of the glass before sampling the drink. "We'll see how they feel about it too once Ororo's gone over it. Don't think they'd mind, really. Kurt's volunteered for other missions before, too."
 
"And we all know how much Haroun likes his action," Scott said, "so I doubt we'll see any disagreement from him." Sam might be a question mark, given his state of mind these days, but Scott would make sure he talked to him. "Should mix up the dynamics a little. I'll give the training rotation a glance, see if I can add anything to make that a bit easier on everyone."
 
"Sure thing." She wasn't to go mucking about those yet. Though Charles hadn't told her not to, she realized -  in all of the sessions they'd had to talk about... things ...not one had it been implied that off duty meant no access to the databases. "Well, hey. I have time, right now? I can always poke at them a bit myself and all..."
 
"Of course you could." Scott smiled again, a bit self-deprecatingly. "Wouldn't complain if you did, actually. I'm still stupidly tired, and I know my brain is not so sharp at the moment. Hopefully nothing else will come up this week while I'm still the one on the hot seat."
 
"I can help." The words were instant, of course, Alison not bothering to hide her eagerness to do something, anything. "Good way for me to start easing into things, take it step by step." You had more time to do things even when on duty but during a week off. Now? If she managed to regain a few of her own duties from Haroun, she'd still have ample time to help elsewhere. "It would be nice to do something." She said the words carefully, though she had no doubt Scott of all people would know exactly what she meant.
 
"Then I'll let you look after that, at least until I'm back off duty," Scott said easily. "Then you and I can plot together while Ororo's the one on the hot seat. Sound like a plan?"

"Yes." Relief mingled with the nagging sense that she'd been overdoing it the entire time, along with echoes of Charles' voice from their last session the previous day all mingled together and Alison let her breath out slowly. Take what works, she told herself, and this does. With those thoughts, she smiled a bit, once more, nodding in confirmation of her words. "Sounds like a plan."