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Alison paused in the hallway, closing her eyes and pressing the flat of her hand to her forehead for a moment, sighing slowly. She'd been looking for Marie-Ange for an hour now - both in the mansion and on the grounds, while resisting the urge to just ask the Professor to find her, as well. Shaking her head, she looked at the tip of her sneakers thoughtfully, and then snorted. There was still one place she hadn't even thought of checking, and in retrospect, perhaps it should have been the first place to go to, really.

Marie-Ange sat, knees to chest, on a cushioned bench against one of the large windows. In her hands, she had a set of wooden beads that she ran between her fingers, timed to pauses between whispered French. Her head was down, eyes towards the window - she wouldn't notice much of anything, in the state she is in.

The door opened easily under Alison's hand, and she looked into the room, spotting Marie-Ange by the windows easily enough. The girl's pose spoke volumes as to her mental state really - similar to the other two she'd spoken to so far, Alison suspected. She stepped inside, closing the door behind her to afford some privacy, before making her way towards the bench slowly. Not being particularly careful to be silent as she wasn't trying to sneak up on the girl, but figuring she'd still probably be unnoticed until she made it fairly close to her.

Marie-Ange slipped another bead through her fingers and started yet another whispered prayer before she heard Alison's footsteps. She glanced to the open door, and then to Alison, and slid down further against the window.

"I've already spoken to Jamie and Kitty," Alison said. And damn if a trace of amusement didn't peek through briefly, at Marie-Ange's reaction. Sobering up, she kept a calm and neutral expression on her face. "Noticed you didn't come down for dinner..." She closed the distance between the two of them, eschewing any of the seats to simply plops down on the floor near the window seat, stretching out her legs and leaning on her hands, to look up at Marie-Ange.

"I don't know what I should do." Marie-Ange sat up, only a little, and grabbed the dangling end of the rosary. "and I do not know who is right or wrong anymore. So I wanted to pray to see, but it is not helping."

"Would it help, hon, if I tried to explain why people reacted the way they did, when they found out?" Alison asked, thinking back on her talk with Kitty.

Marie-Ange shook her head briefly, and then just as briefly, nodded. "I am confused. Ms Munroe is furious. I expected everyone to be mad. Lorna was angry, and now she apologized, and my classmates aren't angry at all, I think." she wrapped the rosary around one hand. "I know we were wrong, even if it was maybe for good reasons. I know that it doesn't make it less wrong. I am just confused, and some of the things that Ms. Munroe said made me even more confused."

Lips quirking at the no/yes response, Alison listened carefully, trying to make sure she understood exactly what Marie-Ange was saying. Once the girl was done, she started with the 'easiest' question. "What confused you, exactly, in the things that Ororo said?"

"She said in her journal that Miss Braddock told her family she was not sure about the surgery. Why did she have it then? " she paused, and took a deep breath. "If Doctor Essex was wrong about the surgery, why did Miss Braddock wake up? If he was not wrong, why was she scared?"

"There were a lot of factors involved," Alison considered her next words, "many of which even now, aren't entirely established, in respects to the surgery, the way Doctor Essex went about it, and the consequences of it. And the moral and ethical implications involved." Alison doesn't point out how to her, Essex's subsequent actions put that in even a more doubtful light. "I think Betsy was more afraid of being blind, than anything else. And she was desperate." The words slip from her unintended, certainly - but true nonetheless. "Desperate people, Marie-Ange, do desperate things."

Marie-Ange nodded, just a little bit. "I knew we would get in trouble, but Doctor Essex seemed so upset, and like you just said, desperate. I don't know if we were right or wrong or if one of us should have said something to Professor Xaiver, and I am upset with him, and myself and Ms. Munroe and everyone a little for not being as mad as I thought."

A wry smile greeted that. "Outright anger and blame would have been easier to deal with, maybe?"

"I think, not easier, just less confusing." Marie-Ange leaned against the window. "If everyone had been mad, I could have stayed thinking I was right to help Doctor Essex. They are not mad, and I thought that would make me feel better, but it just makes me feel confused."

"Marie-Ange... did you ever think that people weren't just mad - but scared, as well? Not just for Betsy, but for the sake of the students who left the school grounds, to go a military base? You're all our responsibility as well, hon. If one of you had been hurt..." Alison shook her head, slowly. "I won't even go into you drugging Hank, kiddo. That was," she thinned her lips, a glint of anger briefly showing. "I'm going to let Hank talk to you, on that one. But I think at the very least, you owe him an apology, there."

"I know I do. I just know it won't be enough and I don't know what would. I don't think any of us thought you would be scared about us. " Marie-Ange shook her head. "I do not think any of us knew that Doctor Essex was in as much trouble as he was. Not until after we started this."

"Talk to Hank," Alison said, knowing the man would likely make Marie-Ange discover new worlds of guilt, without even intending to at that. Kitty knew. "I have a question, for you. Dunno if you've thought of this or not, but here goes... why didn't you ask anyone, Marie-Ange? Or has everyone here been so," Alison paused, searching for the right word, "closed to you, that you felt there was no one on staff to approach on the matter?"

"It is.. I do not know if I have an answer. When Miss Braddock's surgery did not work, and she was in a coma, I did not think I should talk to anyone. I was upset but not as upset as Mister Summers, or some of the others. Then.. I think I knew, maybe, that I would get in trouble, and I was worried that if I said anything, that Doctor Essex would not get a chance to fix the mistake." Marie-Ange crumpled, and put her head between her knees. "He is a doctor, and he said she would die. How could I not help? How could I say anything? It would be like killing her."

Alison held her breath as the French girl spoke, feeling some of the tension drain away as Marie-Ange finally seemed to crumble - because that was bound to happen, and better now than on her own. Rising to her feet, she sat down on the window seat next to her, and placed an arm around her shoulders lightly. "Hank is a doctor as well," she murmured, a bit wryly. "Doctor Essex isn't the be all and end all of the medical world, hon. He doesn't have all the answers. And it was unfair of him to put that on your shoulders." And I'm sorry you chose not to trust us.

Marie-Ange sighed and continued to rest her forehead on her knees. "I just don't know what happens now. I know Professor Xavier said we won't be sent away, but what else? Maybe we should be sent away..." She bit her lip, straining to keep tears away. "We did the wrong thing, but it worked, and I don't know what to think anymore."

"You did one thing, Marie-Ange." She draws her closed, leaning her chin on the girl's shoulder contemplatively. "What you didn't do, is look for alternatives. Other solutions. Sending you away wouldn't help you learn to do that, hon. And it would be doing right by you - which is all the Professor wants to do."

"So now what happens?" Marie-Ange looked up above her knees. "I do not know if I can make things better, I do not think apologizing is enough but I don't know what to do, or even how to start." She buried her face again in her knees, letting her jeans absorb the tears she couldn't hold back.

Lips quirking at the sight, remembering her own sense of well refined melodrama, Alison repressed a smile ruthlessly, and patted Marie-Ange's back gently while the girl cried. "Apologizing, hon, is always a good start. Not an easy one, but a good one. Talking to people's good too." Really good, that. "And er... you may want to promise to Hank that you won't ever help someone steal one of his patients again. In person."

Marie-Ange looked up. "I think I can promise I won't ever help kidnap anyone, ever, patient or not." She rested her chin on her knee. "We're going to be grounded until we're forty, aren't we?"

"Fifty, maybe," Alison nodded solemnly. "I think the promising not to kidnap people might knock off ten though." She reached over, and tugged at a lock of Marie-Ange's hair. "If there's ever anything... go talk to someone, k? Anyone on the staff, not just me. Just... someone."

Marie-Ange nodded. "I will try. A lot. And I will go talk to Doctor McCoy, once I think I won't sick up if I talk to anyone at all."

"I won't get sick," Alison corrected absently, before leaning back pensively. "Any other questions? Anything at all?"

Marie-Ange shook her head. "Not right now, no. I think I will probably have some later, but I think now, maybe I need to eat, and maybe email Doctor McCoy."

"Food is good," is the amiable reply. "Why don't we go do that, then. I'll have tea or something, and maybe treat myself to a chocolate chip cookie, mmm?" And it'll do the other students good to see you with an adult, and not being eaten alive or anything.

Marie-Ange nodded. "I think there are still some cookies left. John ate a lot though."

"That's what you get for being into fire," Alison quipped, rising to her feet and offering Marie-Ange a hand up as well. "Eats everything in sight, that one."

Marie-Ange stood, taking Alison's hand to steady herself. Spending many hours in prayer is apparently not good for one's sense of balance. "I noticed that." She wobbled for a bit, but balanced, and waited for just a second before following Alison out of the room.