Log: Doug and Marie

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

Marie and Doug run into each the day after the big events. He helps her find some new clothes and she surprises herself by saying yes to a question he asks.

Marie didn’t know how much time had passed since she started clearing the rubble in the city. She’d lost count of the people she’d found and helped to load in the few available vehicles. She barely noticed the sun setting and only noticed the sunrise because of the ease light added to her search. All she knew was that there were more people and she couldn’t stop. “Found another!” she called out and was rewarded with a blanket being tossed at her. Wrapping it around the child she had uncovered, she clucked soothingly as she carried the boy to safety. “There, there…Ah got you.” Damn…arm looks broken. Setting him down gently near the medic she had been working with, Marie wiped her brow. The medic nodded in appreciation and shooed her off to find another building to work on. She flew to the next point, landed and stumbled, barely catching herself before she fell.

Doug was operating on the coffee that had been provided on the C-130 that had airlifted the RedX volunteers from New York to San Diego. All things being considered, even though he could have come in leathers (and that was something he'd never thought possible), it was better to keep a low profile. And he could do just as much good with a RedX windbreaker on as he could in the leathers. Hearing stumbling footsteps behind him, he turned around from the Hispanic grandmother whose frantic outcries he was translating for the team preparing to enter the half-demolished building. His eyes widened. "Em?"

She nodded and took a step towards him, before hesitating. “Hey Doug. Wish Ah could say its nice to see ya, but Ah really would rather neither of us had to be here.” She barely recognized the hoarse, weary voice coming out of her mouth.

The hoarse voice registered on him, and he somehow managed to turn around and translate directions that the old grandmother was giving him to where her grandson was trapped, and deliver them to the rescue team before turning back to Rogue. "Em...what happened to your -uniform-?" he asked suddenly.

“Ah got set on fire,” she said in a voice that was calm, but held the threat of snapping. The scarf wrapped around her head hid the fact that what little hair she had left was black and crisp, but her leathers had crumbled away to almost nothing. The right leg of her uniform had completely disintegrated below the calf and the left one had was barely holding together. Both gloves and arms had fallen to pieces and all that was left covering her torso was a swath of material that threatened to come apart at any moment.

Without any conscious thought, Doug's windbreaker was off and draped around Marie's shoulders, and the heavy work gloves he'd been issued to help in lifting rubble were extended in a hand. "Come on, we're getting you to a shelter," he said in a businesslike tone that brooked no arguments. If he could just concentrate on what needed to be done, he wouldn't think about the fact that she'd been -set on fire-.

Marie still tried to argue that there was too much to do and that she couldn’t rest now, she could rest next week or perhaps next month. But Doug’s tone was firm and with a sigh she accepted his outstretched arm. Just for a moment, get you’re strength back up. She wobbled unsteadily on her feet as they walked, but Doug was always there to support her.

She'd been set on fire, and had obviously been working through the night, working herself past the point of exhaustion. Doug was simultaneously humbled by her spirit and furious that she wasn't paying attention to herself. With a gentle hand on her arm to support her, he brought her to one of the shelters that had been set up all across San Diego. A mutant with bright turquoise hair levitated a sweatsuit out of a box filled with them and handed it to Doug at his direction. Handing the sweatsuit to Marie, he spoke gently. "Go get changed, I'll get you some food."

Marie nodded mutely and allowed herself to be ushered to a changing area by a teenaged girl with wings. Emerging in a gray sweatsuit that was two sizes to big, Marie sat down on the first chair she bumped into. Once she had stopped moving, exhaustion took over and she propped her head on her arms, knocking the scarf covering her hair loose. She hadn’t realized how hard she had been pushing herself and felt relieved that she had run into Doug before she had fallen flat on her face.

Doug busied himself getting a plate full of food while Marie was changing. He made a beeline for the tray of fried chicken, taking a piece of each since he had no idea what Marie preferred. He balanced another plate with some biscuits and coleslaw on his other hand, and cleared a spot at the end of one of the picnic tables and sat to wait for her to come back out.

The turquoise haired mutant made his way over to Marie, pointing to where Doug had settled with enough food to feed a small army. Waving off the guy’s proffered hand of assistance, Marie slowly rose to her feet and made her way to the picnic table, all but collapsing in the seat across from him. She smiled tiredly at him. “Thanks…feels good not to be exposed anymore.”

Doug looked up and smiled at Marie. Her hair looked like it had been blowtorched, and there were shadows under her eyes from lack of sleep, but she still looked... "Go on a date with me," he suddenly blurted out, then stopped and blinked, as if surprised that he'd said what he'd said.

Marie’s hand halted mid-air, it’s pursuit to grab a drumstick forgotten as she blinked repeatedly, her jaw dropping opening, trying to process what Doug had just said. Ah must be hearing things. They were in the middle of a destroyed city, she looked like hell and they both had been working without rest for an extended period of time. “Hmm?” was her managed reply.

"Go on a date with me." It was easier to say the second time around, because she hadn't said no yet. Doug could see the shock in her body language, and the abortive reach of her hand toward her burned hair. Yes, he knew how much of a wreck she looked, and the request still stood. "And don't give me that crap about 'Ah can't date anyone'," he added with a little bit of heat. "That's just an excuse."

“No it’s not. Ah can’t date anyone because it’s not fair to them,” she said, but the words sounded false even to her. She wrapped her arms tightly around her body. “No one in their right mind would want me.”

Doug grimaced. "And now who's the one making a decision about how the other one feels, hm?" he shot back. "You can do it, but I can't, is that it? Pot, kettle?" He shrugged. "And I never claimed to be in my right mind, Em." He smiled somewhat weakly.

The look in Marie’s eyes softened and she managed a small smile in return. “Guess Ah am being a bit of a hypocrite.” The man across the table had seen her at some of her lowest lows, saw her today when she was at her worst, and he was still asking. She looked down, her eyes falling on her bare hands where they now rested lightly on the table. “Ah just…Ah don’t want to hurt you Doug.”

"I know you don't," Doug replied more gently. "And that's why I trust, you, silly." He grinned. "I'm not saying we wouldn't have to be careful, but that's not the same as saying it's not worth trying. Because you deserve the same things everyone else does." He slipped his hand up the long sleeve of the shirt he'd been wearing under his windbreaker, and brushed a cloth-covered thumb over the back of Marie's hand. "It won't be anything like normal, but hey, normal's a semantically null word at Xavier's anyway." He cocked his head, trying to swallow down the sheer nervousness he was feeling. "So, what do you say?"

The gentle touch across the back of her hand stirred something in Marie. She did deserve to have a relationship and no matter how hard she tried to avoid them, she knew she never could completely. But still…she had to try. She forced herself to look up at Doug, ready to gently tell him that it still wouldn’t be fair - but there was something in Doug’s face. She didn’t know if it was the anxiety, the hope, or the sheer force of will underlying it all…but there was something there that wouldn’t let her say no. “Ok,” she whispered, rubbing Doug’s covered arm with her free hand.

Doug's eyes widened. He'd been prepared for Marie to turn him down yet again, like she had so often back at Xavier's, before the train wreck that was the love potion. But she'd...said yes? "Really?" he asked, somewhat disbelievingly.

Am Ah doing the right thing? Or am Ah just being selfish? Nodding, she locked eyes with Doug. "But only if you're sure it's what you really want." She wanted to add 'that this isn't just your way of dealing with Marie Ange breaking up with you' but she couldn't bring herself to do it.

He could see the doubt in her eyes, and he could guess at some of the things that lay behind it. It hadn't been that long since he and Marie-Ange had broken up, he knew that. And maybe she had been right about the torch he carried for Marie. But that was all beside the point. "I care about you, and you deserve to be happy," Doug said simply. "And I'd like to try and be the one to help make you happy."

How could he be so calm? So sure? In the next instant, her mind flashed through her previous relationships and how they had all ended. But Doug knew, going in, what her limitations were. He had seen in her in a relationship, seen what she could give and more importantly, what she couldn’t. “Happy,” she repeated. “Ah’d like to be happy.”

Doug nodded firmly. "Good." He'd have worried a lot if she said otherwise, and probably quipped something to the effect of "psych student, analyze thyself". But the fact that she -wanted- to be happy was a good first step. Picking up the plates that she had devoured all of her food off of, he dumped them in a trash can. "Feeling better?" he asked.

Smiling, she rose and gave him a quick hug. “Much, thank you. Ah sometimes forget Ah need to do silly things like eat before Ah keel over.” Her eyes clouded with worry as she looked out over the city. “But Ah should get back…there’s just so much…” she said with a shudder.

Doug returned the hug and smiled back. "I know," he said quietly. "I should get back to work myself. Meet back here for dinner?" he asked, part nervously, part with the implication that if he found her skipping meals again, he'd be cross.

The guilty look she gave him made it clear that she had already planned on going without dinner, just like the night before. “After sunset though, once Ah can’t use the light anymore,” she countered.

The guilty look was like a neon sign to Doug, but the negotiation was fine, so long as she -did- eat. "Fair enough," he said good-naturedly. "I'll see you then," he continued, and turned to find someone to tell him what needed doing next.

She watched him for a moment, before taking off to go check in with Scott. She had finally gotten her second wind…or was it third, fourth or fifth by now? Doug had been just the medicine she needed. Happy. Would that really be so bad Marie?