Amanda - Late Saturday Night
Oct. 15th, 2005 11:59 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xp_daytripper posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
xp_logsHaving locked herself in her room to keep out of the way of the storm surrounding the events of a few days ago, Amanda comes to some realisations about the consequences of her actions.
So, where had it all gone wrong?
Amanda sat on the sill of her open window, legs dangling, heels of her boots lightly knocking against the brickwork. A cigarette burned in her hand, lit but unsmoked, the small trail of smoke spiralling away into the darkness. It was cool, but Amanda didn't register the temperature, or the slightly damp feel to the air: her mind was turned, as it had been more and more often these days, inward.
How exactly had things become such a mess?
She hadn't expected praise, or gratitude. She'd done something dangerous, incredibly risky, and it had paid off, same as when she'd Healed Alison or got Manuel and herself out of the Hellfire Club. She'd expected anger, recrimination, punishment. But she hadn't expected this. People hated her, people feared her.
People were calling her a monster.
Nate would have preferred it if she'd died. That had hurt, stabbed deep, and she'd only just been able to hide the reaction under the well-schooled mask of indifference. Manuel had been right after all - blood won out over everything else, over promises and sacrifice and love. No matter that Rachel hadn't been there, was safe and unharmed. Nate hadn't given her the benefit of the doubt, just assumed that she would have hurt the babies. It was true, she hadn't considered it at the time, but if Rachel had been there she wouldn't have used her, that she was sure of. Most probably. It was nice to know where she stood in the scheme of things, at least. Nate wasn't her father, he wasn't even her father-figure any more, he hadn't wanted her around for months. Her burning herself out completely Healing Remy on her own would have been seen as a tragic sacrifice and Nate and Moira might have even felt bad about it for a while, but in the end it would have made things easier, simpler. One less trouble magnet to endanger their precious daughter.
It was just too bad Amanda's own blood family didn't want her either. Margali on the phone had been brief, but very clear - she wouldn't have Amanda anywhere near the camp, not now. That rejection stung as well, but not as much as the others - there was too much distance, too much time lost, for her to really feel part of the Szardos clan.
Had it been when Charlie died, that things started to unravel? Or before, when Pete left and she'd carried the burden of why for weeks on end? That had certainly been the beginning of the end of things with Manuel. She'd felt him through the link, taking comfort in the physical - Dani, she suspected. He'd been lusting after the Cherokee girl for months, thinking he was hiding it. If he had meant to hurt her by letting her feel everything through the link, he had failed - she was glad, in a strange way, that he had that. That there was someone for him to fall back on, to cushion the fall. Best he move on, let her go, since she was a lost cause now.
Everybody leaves.
Holding on, that had been the trouble. She'd held onto Nate too tightly, and hadn't been able to take the stress that was his life. She'd held onto her loyalty to Pete, believed he'd be there for her even when he left, and it had poisoned her relationship. And it was certainly her need to hold onto Remy that had ended with her sleeping with him. Regressing into old patterns when nothing else was working, when she found herself left behind by everyone she cared about. She'd slipped into old habits, used what had always been a substitute for actual caring before - sex was the only way she'd been able to control her life, control the people in it, once. And now she'd shredded Manuel's heart, probably set him back on the path that led to the Man in the Chair, another thing to blame on her, and Remy would still leave when he was able. She knew it in her bones, in the echoes of shared pain from the healing spell. This place wasn't his home and never would be - the reaction to her Healing him had proved that. They'd been more interested in their witch hunt - ha! - than concerned about him, what had happened, who had done it. And when Lorna returned, they'd continue to ignore it. Remy was expendable, always had been.
Maybe she should point out that she'd saved Lorna's life too, in a way? Stopped her from becoming a murderer? Kept her from crossing that line that would have destroyed her in the end, even knowing it wasn't her fault. Because it wouldn't be - that was the reason they didn't want to know. Lorna was the victim, had to be brainwashed, telepathically-controlled, not herself. Never mind the pain she'd dealt Remy, the permanent injuries, the emotional damage she must have inflicted.
Amanda snorted, glancing over her shoulder at the closed-up laptop. She'd had her access cut to the journals, even after she'd agreed to stop posting, and she hadn't bothered trying since. She'd gone a little crazy, caught up in the thrill of letting loose, letting go, hurling their dirty secrets out into the open. Everyone was always complaining that they were left in the dark, treated as children, and when they did get the truth they'd told her to shut up. Hypocrites, all of them, even if she had gone a little too far in her anger and her hurt. The exhilaration had worn off, and now the idea of even looking at the journals made her feel tired. It hadn't taken much really for her friends, her family to turn against her. Cheating on her boyfriend when he'd cheated on her before, 'misusing' her powers when there'd been no other way. They hadn't even asked why she'd done it, just assumed it had been for herself. And Marie-Ange was the only one sticking by her, probably because of whatever vision had driven her to Tante, and Amanda couldn't let her do that, not when it could mean the pre-cog throwing away everything she'd worked for. Best to keep quiet, let the storm rage around her until the next crisis distracted everyone, slip away unnoticed.
Best to let go.
'Small and controllable,' a voice whispered in the recesses of her mind. A voice, or a memory of a voice - the conversation with Selene in Central Park came back with sharp-edged clarity.
"You were right," Amanda replied out loud, her voice quiet but still shockingly loud after the long silence - she hadn't spoken to another person in days, it felt like.
'There is no place for you here.'
"You're right about that, too."
'Then let it go. To stay is to let them cage you again.'
Amanda paused. It was time true enough, and they were working on a place to send her that would keep her out of trouble even now. Not to forget Tante - the swamp witch was probably on her way to make good her promise to strip the magic from her. No doubt using people as a power source was precisely the sort of thing she'd meant, regardless of the reason. But there was one last tie, one last person she needed to hear from. The one she'd done all this for in the first place. As soon as Remy was well enough to talk to her, and she'd worked out a way to get past Cain, she'd go to him. It would settle, one way or the other, what she'd do next. Where she'd go next.
"Not yet," she told the Black Queen. "Soon. After I've talked to him. I won't forget what I owe you."
There was a long silence in her mind, and then a feeling of reluctant acquiescence. 'Very well.'
Amanda didn't bother answering. She stubbed the unsmoked cigarette out on the sill and flicked the butt out the window before drawing her legs back inside. Looking around the room, she took in the clutter, the scattered belongings. Trappings of another life, another girl, what might have been. Resolve hardened her features, and Amanda bent to pull a flattened carton from underneath the bed.
Time to let go indeed. Starting here.
Note: The morning after this log a small pile of packed boxes will appear outside Amanda's bedroom door. Some are labelled: 'Manuel' contains various items of clothing borrowed or stolen from him, CDs that were lent, books that were left behind from study sessions. 'Meg' holds the non-magical and non-school books, mostly Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman books, plus the crystal sculpture of a foal Domino gave her. 'Nate' contains all the other gifts given to Amanda by Domino, Nathan and Moira, with the Arabic herbal on the top. The last box contains all the clothes bought for or by Amanda, with a note 'Free to whoever needs them' stuck to the top. By Marie-Ange's calculations, it leaves Amanda with pretty much the equivalent to what she arrived in - a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts and a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and her leather jacket and Docs.
There is also an envelope, with Angelo's name on it. It holds the key to Amanda's study and a short note" 'For Strange when he shows his face.' And last of all, her laptop, left very pointedly on top of the pile.
So, where had it all gone wrong?
Amanda sat on the sill of her open window, legs dangling, heels of her boots lightly knocking against the brickwork. A cigarette burned in her hand, lit but unsmoked, the small trail of smoke spiralling away into the darkness. It was cool, but Amanda didn't register the temperature, or the slightly damp feel to the air: her mind was turned, as it had been more and more often these days, inward.
How exactly had things become such a mess?
She hadn't expected praise, or gratitude. She'd done something dangerous, incredibly risky, and it had paid off, same as when she'd Healed Alison or got Manuel and herself out of the Hellfire Club. She'd expected anger, recrimination, punishment. But she hadn't expected this. People hated her, people feared her.
People were calling her a monster.
Nate would have preferred it if she'd died. That had hurt, stabbed deep, and she'd only just been able to hide the reaction under the well-schooled mask of indifference. Manuel had been right after all - blood won out over everything else, over promises and sacrifice and love. No matter that Rachel hadn't been there, was safe and unharmed. Nate hadn't given her the benefit of the doubt, just assumed that she would have hurt the babies. It was true, she hadn't considered it at the time, but if Rachel had been there she wouldn't have used her, that she was sure of. Most probably. It was nice to know where she stood in the scheme of things, at least. Nate wasn't her father, he wasn't even her father-figure any more, he hadn't wanted her around for months. Her burning herself out completely Healing Remy on her own would have been seen as a tragic sacrifice and Nate and Moira might have even felt bad about it for a while, but in the end it would have made things easier, simpler. One less trouble magnet to endanger their precious daughter.
It was just too bad Amanda's own blood family didn't want her either. Margali on the phone had been brief, but very clear - she wouldn't have Amanda anywhere near the camp, not now. That rejection stung as well, but not as much as the others - there was too much distance, too much time lost, for her to really feel part of the Szardos clan.
Had it been when Charlie died, that things started to unravel? Or before, when Pete left and she'd carried the burden of why for weeks on end? That had certainly been the beginning of the end of things with Manuel. She'd felt him through the link, taking comfort in the physical - Dani, she suspected. He'd been lusting after the Cherokee girl for months, thinking he was hiding it. If he had meant to hurt her by letting her feel everything through the link, he had failed - she was glad, in a strange way, that he had that. That there was someone for him to fall back on, to cushion the fall. Best he move on, let her go, since she was a lost cause now.
Everybody leaves.
Holding on, that had been the trouble. She'd held onto Nate too tightly, and hadn't been able to take the stress that was his life. She'd held onto her loyalty to Pete, believed he'd be there for her even when he left, and it had poisoned her relationship. And it was certainly her need to hold onto Remy that had ended with her sleeping with him. Regressing into old patterns when nothing else was working, when she found herself left behind by everyone she cared about. She'd slipped into old habits, used what had always been a substitute for actual caring before - sex was the only way she'd been able to control her life, control the people in it, once. And now she'd shredded Manuel's heart, probably set him back on the path that led to the Man in the Chair, another thing to blame on her, and Remy would still leave when he was able. She knew it in her bones, in the echoes of shared pain from the healing spell. This place wasn't his home and never would be - the reaction to her Healing him had proved that. They'd been more interested in their witch hunt - ha! - than concerned about him, what had happened, who had done it. And when Lorna returned, they'd continue to ignore it. Remy was expendable, always had been.
Maybe she should point out that she'd saved Lorna's life too, in a way? Stopped her from becoming a murderer? Kept her from crossing that line that would have destroyed her in the end, even knowing it wasn't her fault. Because it wouldn't be - that was the reason they didn't want to know. Lorna was the victim, had to be brainwashed, telepathically-controlled, not herself. Never mind the pain she'd dealt Remy, the permanent injuries, the emotional damage she must have inflicted.
Amanda snorted, glancing over her shoulder at the closed-up laptop. She'd had her access cut to the journals, even after she'd agreed to stop posting, and she hadn't bothered trying since. She'd gone a little crazy, caught up in the thrill of letting loose, letting go, hurling their dirty secrets out into the open. Everyone was always complaining that they were left in the dark, treated as children, and when they did get the truth they'd told her to shut up. Hypocrites, all of them, even if she had gone a little too far in her anger and her hurt. The exhilaration had worn off, and now the idea of even looking at the journals made her feel tired. It hadn't taken much really for her friends, her family to turn against her. Cheating on her boyfriend when he'd cheated on her before, 'misusing' her powers when there'd been no other way. They hadn't even asked why she'd done it, just assumed it had been for herself. And Marie-Ange was the only one sticking by her, probably because of whatever vision had driven her to Tante, and Amanda couldn't let her do that, not when it could mean the pre-cog throwing away everything she'd worked for. Best to keep quiet, let the storm rage around her until the next crisis distracted everyone, slip away unnoticed.
Best to let go.
'Small and controllable,' a voice whispered in the recesses of her mind. A voice, or a memory of a voice - the conversation with Selene in Central Park came back with sharp-edged clarity.
"You were right," Amanda replied out loud, her voice quiet but still shockingly loud after the long silence - she hadn't spoken to another person in days, it felt like.
'There is no place for you here.'
"You're right about that, too."
'Then let it go. To stay is to let them cage you again.'
Amanda paused. It was time true enough, and they were working on a place to send her that would keep her out of trouble even now. Not to forget Tante - the swamp witch was probably on her way to make good her promise to strip the magic from her. No doubt using people as a power source was precisely the sort of thing she'd meant, regardless of the reason. But there was one last tie, one last person she needed to hear from. The one she'd done all this for in the first place. As soon as Remy was well enough to talk to her, and she'd worked out a way to get past Cain, she'd go to him. It would settle, one way or the other, what she'd do next. Where she'd go next.
"Not yet," she told the Black Queen. "Soon. After I've talked to him. I won't forget what I owe you."
There was a long silence in her mind, and then a feeling of reluctant acquiescence. 'Very well.'
Amanda didn't bother answering. She stubbed the unsmoked cigarette out on the sill and flicked the butt out the window before drawing her legs back inside. Looking around the room, she took in the clutter, the scattered belongings. Trappings of another life, another girl, what might have been. Resolve hardened her features, and Amanda bent to pull a flattened carton from underneath the bed.
Time to let go indeed. Starting here.
Note: The morning after this log a small pile of packed boxes will appear outside Amanda's bedroom door. Some are labelled: 'Manuel' contains various items of clothing borrowed or stolen from him, CDs that were lent, books that were left behind from study sessions. 'Meg' holds the non-magical and non-school books, mostly Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman books, plus the crystal sculpture of a foal Domino gave her. 'Nate' contains all the other gifts given to Amanda by Domino, Nathan and Moira, with the Arabic herbal on the top. The last box contains all the clothes bought for or by Amanda, with a note 'Free to whoever needs them' stuck to the top. By Marie-Ange's calculations, it leaves Amanda with pretty much the equivalent to what she arrived in - a pair of jeans, a couple of t-shirts and a long-sleeved shirt, a sweater and her leather jacket and Docs.
There is also an envelope, with Angelo's name on it. It holds the key to Amanda's study and a short note" 'For Strange when he shows his face.' And last of all, her laptop, left very pointedly on top of the pile.
