xp_logs | Terry's morning.

Terry discovers that being injured makes you popular as her first visitor of the day stops by.

Nathan knocked on the suite door, scanning briefly and nodding to himself as he sensed that Terry was indeed the only one at home. He'd half-expected a Bobby. A faint smile tugged at his lips. "Terry? Can I come in?"

Terry had gotten out of bed late, stubbornly slept through Mass and breakfast. She'd only left her room an hour or so earlier and had made it no further than the couch in the common area, blanket wrapped around her still pajama'd self. Nathan's knock made her jump but only in surprised and not alarm. She glanced around the room. No messier than it usually was, though living with Jubilee that wasn't saying much. "Aye, Nathan. It's open," she called back after a moment.

Nathan came in, smiling at the sight of her curled up on the couch. "Hey," he said gently, leaving the door open as he came over and sat down in one of the armchairs. "I thought I'd stop in and check on you. How are you doing today?"

She didn't smile back, not so much out of disinclination as much as the fact that smiling hurt. She knew she probably looked dreadful so she made her voice as cheerful as she could, "I'm okay. Sore a bit."

"Yeah, I bet you are." Nathan tilted his head, giving her a long, considering look. "You putting ice on your face? It'll probably help."

Terry blushed slightly, ice making her think of Bobby and...she wrenched her thoughts back. "Not today. I haven't gone anywhere today. I took some aspirin that the docs gave me." She shrugged one shoulder, the other tended to pull on bruised muscles if she tried to move it.

"You should," Nathan said wisely, unable to help another faint smile as he caught the stray thought. "Take it from someone who's been hit in the face more times than he can count. The ice does help." He leaned forward, his expression going serious again. "You handled yourself so well, yesterday. So well. I wanted to make sure I told you that."

She shrugged again, "I could have done better. Wouldn't have been this banged up if I'd hit him instead of trying to reason with him." Last time she was going to try that tactic. Though, come to think of it, she'd vowed that after Mike as well. Terry sighed.

Nathan shook his head. "You did exactly what you should have done," he said firmly. "You've had the self-defense training, yes, but he was a hell of a lot bigger than you. You did your best to protect yourself to buy yourself some time to either figure out how to get out of the situation or for help to arrive - which it did."

"I couldn't stop thinking about Jay." She licked her lips and winced was she was reminded that was a bad idea right now. "I thought about just...screaming. At him, you know? Making sure he couldn't..." Talking about it was harder than she'd expected. "But then I thought that...I don't know, it's wrong. He's just a kid and can't defend himself from that. So I screamed for help instead."

"Not using your powers on him was absolutely the right choice," Nathan said quietly. "You could have. None of us would have blamed you. But by not doing it you avoided all kinds of potential complications." He gave her a faint, sad smile. "If you had, I'd say that the chances were pretty good that you'd have been the one blamed for assaulting him."

Terry nodded, "That's why I didn't. The PD...they don't love us. I didn't want to give them a chance to prove it." Not that her thoughts had been that coherent at the time. She just knew that she had to be better. More innocent than right. Her bruises meant that she hadn't fought back. "And I'm all right anyway."

"So basically," Nathan said, the smile more natural now, "you were thinking. Even in the midst of all of that. Not just reacting." He shook his head. "Yeah," he said more firmly. "You did good. I just wish Bobby and I had gotten there a minute or two earlier."

Now she did smile, slightly because it was hard to do even that much. "That's the first thing you learn when you fight. You can't just react or anyone can outthink you." A lesson from her uncle and reinforced by self-defense classes here. "I wish you and Bobby were there sooner too though. Or that I hadn't let him get that first shot in. Messed me up."

"One of the little kids had had a little too much cotton candy," Nathan said somewhat sheepishly. "Projectile vomit is very distracting. I am sorry I didn't get there sooner, Terry... I'm just glad you're all right."

She waved her hand at him, "It's over. I'll be healed up in a few days. You and Bobby," again that faint blush, "got there and no one got seriously hurt. It's not the worst thing."

The blush was very cute. "Do we need to get Bobby a suit of armor?" he teased gently, finally unable to resist. Now that he knew she was indeed okay. "And a white horse?"

"He'd probably like that," she replied, pretending that she wasn't bright red. "And he'll make us refer to him as Sir Robert of Drake or something." And knights traditionally won the hand of the damsel they'd rescued from distress. Terry ducked her head. She knew better than to believe fairy tales. "He'd name the horse Snowball."

Nathan took pity on her. He reached out and patted her knee, still smiling, then rose. "The suit of armor would be a pain in the ass, most likely. Although I think we have an almost-white horse or two in the stables..."

She gave him as woeful a look as she could manage, "Stop teasing me. I was beaten up yesterday and you're being mean to me. I'm going to tell Dr. Mactaggart on you." The ability to laugh at herself meant that she wasn't really upset. Or at least not very, considering exactly how confusing this whole Bobby thing was.

"Moira's firmly convinced that laughter is very good medicine," Nathan said, smiling down at her. He really liked this girl, he thought suddenly, and it bothered him suddenly that he'd never really let her know that before. "If you're feeling better later," he offered somewhat spontaneously, "why don't you come upstairs and play with the baby?" He chuckled. "She'll be awake as soon as Moira leaves her with me to go downstairs and do some work. You just watch."

Terry beamed, "Really? I'd love to play with her." She glanced down at her pajamas, "And I should be getting dressed soon anyway. It's stupid to sit around and mope all day. Thanks, Nate." Normally she'd have hugged him, instead she just looked at pleased as was possible without smiling.

"Well, you know. Redhead bonding and all," Nathan said, turning towards the door. "I'll see you later, Terry," he said with a chuckle.

After Nathan leaves, Jay drops by to commiserate about the joy of being beaten up. Then they gossip.

Sleep sleep sleep. Every time Jay had gone to see Terry, he'd been told that she was sleeping. He'd have pressed to at least try to catch a glimpse of her anyway, but he knew that she wouldn't appreciate that. She deserved her privacy.

But he still checked every hour on the hour. Finally, at 11 on Sunday morning, he managed to find her without any company. About damn time. "See what happens when ya get beat up? No one'll leave you alone for a second," he said, smiling softly as he stuck his head through Terry's doorway as means of introducing himself.

Terry had managed clothes and a shower by this point though she'd returned to her nest of blankets on the bed. "So I'm beginning to notice. Are you here to swear revenge or tell me I did well? Those are the two flavours of concerned visitors." She waved him into the suite but didn't smile--her busted lip made that a painful proposition.

"Ah'm the last one who should be tellin' anyone ta get revenge, and just about everyone who doesn't get 'emself killed did better'n me," he said wryly, shutting the door behind before hopping up on her desk to sit. "Ah reckon y'all've gotten all the platitudes already, so Ah ain't gonna say no more. Just wanna listen iffn ya wanna talk. Or not, whatever."

"Is it going to be hard? Listening to me talk about it?" Especially considering why they'd known she was a mutant in the first place. Would they still think she'd done the right thing when they realized she knew who he was before he started harassing her? And why she'd known?

Jay thought for a minute. "Yes," he admitted. "But Ah'd rather know than not know." There weren't words to express how relieved he was that the worst Terry had received was just a busted lip and black eye. She didn't have a healing factor. Things could have been unimaginably worse.

Terry nodded, accepting that. "Tommy...had these friends. I only met them once but...one of them recognised me yesterday. Thought he'd get a few licks in on the mutant who sullied his friend, I suppose." She looked away, searching for how to tell this story. "I tried to tell him to just walk away. He tried to hit me...did hit me obviously. I screamed. Nathan thinks I did the right thing. He managed to knock me down before Bobby showed up." She paused, closing her eyes and trying not to relive the sickening feeling of his foot slamming into her, though she'd done all she could to soften the blow.

Jay forced himself to keep his eyes on Terry as she spoke, painful though that was. His mind replayed images of his own assault at Tommy's hands; the punches to the face, the kicks to the gut, stomping on his wings and leaving him with about as much regard as a motorist would for roadkill. "M'sorry ya had ta go through that," he said softly. "T'ain't fair none."

Terry took a measured breath. "Bobby froze him," she waved her hand vaguely, "just like that. Tommy ran in right after that. He...didn't do anything and then Nathan came and Bobby took me back to the cars."

It wasn't hard for Jay to muster a small smile for Terry. "Guess Bobby really is your knight in shinin' armor, isn't he?" he teased lightly. "M'glad he was there. Ah'd apologize for not bein' there mahself, 'cuz that's what everyone does, but Ah'd've just made things worse."

Terry shivered, "I was scared. I thought about what happened to you and I nearly just...well, no. I didn't. But I thought about stopping him before he could doing anything. Scream at him full voice or just hurt him so he couldn't hurt me. If Bobby hadn't come...I would have."

Jay got up from his perch on Terry's desk to go sit down next to her on her bed, wrapping and arm (and a wing) around her. "No one would say nuthin' iffn ya had done that. It was self-defense. If Bobby hadn't come when he did, then, well . . ." Terry didn't have the physiological advantages that Jay had. He couldn't even say what would have happened to her if she hadn't been rescued.

"No one here would say anything," Terry corrected with a sigh, "But the local PD would have had plenty to say." She leaned against him tentatively, trying to see how much it would hurt. Not enough to make her stop, she decided. "But it doesn't matter. Bobby stopped him."

Jay made sure not to squeeze or hold too tightly. She'd come out of it relatively well, by the looks of things, but she was moving slowly and stiffly, so there was surely more than what he was seeing. "No, you're right. It don't matter. Are ya gonna press charges?"

She shook her head, "Why? So that he can get off for being a minor or me provoking him just by being a mutant or something? It's not worth it." She sighed again and deliberately changed the subject to her other concern. "Bobby kissed me afterward."

She didn't have to defend her decision to him. He hadn't pursued criminal charges either. With his luck, Tommy would have pulled an Aaron McKinney and asserted that Jay had let him on and it was "gay panic" that had caused the incident. The mere thought disgusted and terrified him.

And he would have said all of these things to Terry, too, except her last comment threw him for just a bit of a loop. "He did what?"

"Twice." She glanced up at him, blushing yet again since she was apparently incapable of discussing Bobby without being a complete featherhead. "In the parking lot while we were waiting for Nathan."

The concerned, thoughtful expression that Jay had been wearing up until now melted into a lewd grin. "Ah bet he's a good kisser too. His lips are so . . . mmm." He grunted in emphasis. "Was there tongue?"

"Jay!" Terry laughed and groaned, "Don't do that. It hurts when I laugh. Yes, he's a good kisser. I'm not sure why he did it. It was so weird." Not bad, far from it, but weird. Bobby was one of her best friends.

His smiled grew wider, and not any less lecherous. "Sorry, sorry. So've you talked ta him since? Are ya gonna start goin' out? I promise not ta make out with this boyfriend."

"No. He hasn't been by at all since I woke up, though Paige said he checked in on me while I was sleeping." She elbowed him without much force. "And you'd better not. Not that we're going to date. Or that he's even interested. It might have been a mistake or hysteria or something."

"Ah doubt it. Guys aren't gonna kiss unless they want somethin'. He might go claimin' it's a mistake or some hooey like that, but it ain't." He winked at her. "So are you interested back?"

Her bright red blush was probably answer enough but she nodded anyway, "I've...tried some to get him to notice that I'm not a little kid anymore but he keeps saying I'm like his little sister. But...that wasn't like kissing my brother. Not that I have a brother." She was babbling. She shut her mouth with a little click of her teeth.

"You're babblin'," he informed her. "Next time ya see him? Tell him. He can't escape it now. And damn if ya don't deserve a nice and good-lookin' fella like Bobby."

"Tell him?" she squeaked incredulously, "But but but...What if he... I don't want to ruin anything." Which was only the truth. She'd rather suffer in silence than risk upsetting her friendship with Bobby. Besides..."Bobby's not interested in me."

"Bull shit," Jay pronounced. "Listen, if Ah'm gonna live vicariously through you, then ya gotta be bold and make the move! Kisses don't just happen, no matter what anybody says. They're always for a reason."

"The reason was I'd just been beat up and was scared and he was trying to make me feel better," Terry said stubbornly.

"So his lips just fell on yours?" he asked incredulously. "That's not a 'Ah hope ya feel better, honey,' gesture. It's a 'You're hot and Ah want'cha.'"

"But what if you're wrong?" She turned to face him more directly. "What if it was just to make me feel better and he really does just think of me like his little sister and telling him that I like him makes him go away again?"

Okay, she really was worried. He decided to turn it down, relaxing his smile and his body into more encouraging stances. "Ask him about the kisses. And Ah mean really ask him. Don't let him blow 'em off. Keep your own thoughts silent until he tells you his. That way he won't be a coward and run away. And then when he says that yes, he does like you like that, then ya kiss him full and hard like you're filmin' the end of the latest Hollywood romantic epic."

Terry started to bite her lip as she always did when nervous then remembered not to. "I...I'll think about it. See if he says anything. I have to wait until my face isn't black and blue anyway."

It was always so much easier to give romantic advice to others than to follow it yourself. Hence the living vicariously through Terry, Jay mused. "He'd be a dangfool ta say no to ya."

"But that doesn't mean he won't." She shrugged one shoulder, having discovered that doing so didn't hurt. "But enough of that. I haven't had breakfast. Or food at all for a whole day. Want to go down to the kitchen?"

He gave Terry a quick reassuring squeeze, hoping he didn't touch a sore spot (no pun intended), and pecked her on the cheek before standing up and offering a hand to her. "Ah'm starvin' too. Maybe we can get Dani ta fry us somethin' already loaded in fat and calories, ta make up for a shortened trip yesterday."

"You're always hungry." Terry said sensibly and got up stiffly, wondering how soon she could take more painkillers. Really just bruises shouldn't be allowed to hurt this much. "I just want something soft so I don't have to chew."

"How about ice cream?"

She hit him.