xp_logs | Backdated to the Day after Alex Arrived

The day after he is released, Lorna comes to check on Alex with some of things from Hawaii, including his suit and a visitor. They are understandably akward

Thanks to Clarice's goodwill, Lorna was able to gather some things from the apartment in Hawaii. First and foremost of course was Alex's suit, but she'd picked up a few other essentials and at Jared's insistence, brought home a visitor as well. Alex had been exhausted after his ordeal so they'd just tucked him into a spare bed and so Lorna decided to wait for morning to bring him his things. She'd thought about pawning the duty off on someone else--try to avoid some awkwardness--but she was selfish enough to want to see how he was doing for herself.

Lorna rapped on the door. "Alex? It's me," she called through then looked down and hushed his visitors, "Stay. Behave."

Crush knew who was on the other side of the door and it took all the willpower of his small puppy brain to stay sitting, even if his butt wiggled happily in delight.

Alex on the other hand, took as long as he could to pull on a sweatshirt he'd left at the mansion over his sleep pants so he could answer the door. He hadn't slept well, both from worry over Scott and the normal nightmares when he slept alone. Not to mention who was on the other side of the door.

Finally he did answer the door with a muffled hello before he was tackled by one large golden dog followed by a smaller dog of brown and white. He couldn't help but laugh in delight. "Crush! Lili!"

Lorna leaned against the doorjamb, smiling fondly at the trio, Lili's high-pitched yips punctuating the frenzy of puppy love. Tears stung her eyes and she bit her lip. She really only had herself to blame for losing it all. "I told him he needed to stay home but he wouldn't take no for an answer. He stowed away in your t-shirts."

Alex wasn't really listening as he sat on the floor with the two puppys climbing all over him. Finally, as they calmed down, Crush lying beside Alex with his head on his boy's leg and Lili curled up in Alex's lap, he looked up at Lorna. "Thanks. I really need some love right now." He hadn't meant for it to come out like that, but it was too late. Embarassed he looked down, concentrating on petting the two canines.

Lorna just shrugged and stepped cautiously into the room. She slung the backpack off her good shoulder and set it down beside him. "I brought your suit. And some changes of clothes. Jared's going to take care of letting people know what's going on back there." She sat slowly, sinking to her knees and reaching out to scratch Lili's head. "How are you?"

Eyeing the backpack, Alex looked up with a genuine smile. He always got extremely nervous not having his suit for longs periods of time. "Thanks. You...you really didn't have to do that."

He paused a moment to consider his answer to her question. "I'm....I won't lie, I'm not okay."

She nodded, "We're working on finding him right now. Ororo is sending out teams to look for him and the Professor hasn't left Cerebro since we found out." Lili crawled over to Lorna's lap and head-butted her to get her attention. Lorna petted her obligingly. "Are you having nightmares?" She knew him so well but the question felt like a violation.

"I know you are. It's just not soon enough, ya know? It's not anything against you guys...I just want my brother back. I can't help but think this is partly my fault anyway." Alex looked down, tangling his fingers in the long fur of Crush's ears. The golden puppy was just about full size now and his coat was growing longer every day it seemed. He winced slightly at the question. "I'm sleeping alone." He said matter-of-factly, knowing she'd get her answer from that.

"Alex, it's not your fault. Not partly, not at all. If anything it's our fault for not having someone around who could protect you." Lorna sighed and pulled Lili away from her attempts to eat Lorna's sling. "This was just temporary. We can move you into another room until we find Scott and you're ready to go back to Hawaii."

That just earned a small snort of annoyance. "Yes it is. If they hadn't me, Scott wouldn't have gone with them. And I shouldn't need anyone's protection all the time. I'm not some little kid who's going to get lost or something." Sore subject? Definitely. "And yeah, if someone wouldn't mind...I just wanna be in the same room as someone." A small part of his brain told him that she already knew that.

"And if it hadn't been you it would have been someone else. You're not a little kid but you're not trained like the rest of us either and there are people out there who are willing to take advantage of that fact. Hell, I am trained and they walked me away from you without even a fight last year." Lorna shook her head, wishing she hadn't brought up that memory. "There are plenty of open rooms. You'll probably want to ask Shiro first though. I think he's got space."

"You walked away with them because they threatened to blow up the plane I was on." Alex added harshly, also not happy she decided to bring up yet another instance where he'd been used as leverage to get to one of the X-men. It seemed to be a theme that he wasn't proud of. "And yeah, I will, one he gets back from looking for Scott. That's more important then my nightmares."

"They threatened everyone." But that wasn't the point and Lorna knew it as well as Alex. She didn't know what to say though. There was so little she could offer him right now. "Do you mind watching Lili? I should get downstairs and she's missed Crush a lot. I'd hate to pull her away so quickly."

It wasn't the point. The point was, the plane had been threatened because he had been on it. If he hadn't been, the leverage wouldn't have been as effective. But he let her change the subject. "Yeah I don't mind. We've both miss her." There was a 'and you too' hanging in the air but neither of them acknowledged it.

Lorna was silent for a moment then nodded. Because he was lying down, she was saved from the awkwardness of trying to decide whether or not to hug him. "Thanks," she said softly. Carefully she moved Lili off her lap. The little dog hit the ground running and pounced on Crush instead, gnawing on his ear in a familiar and much missed gesture. "I'll check in on you later. If you need anything, let me know okay?"

Once she'd have finished that with 'I love you.' Now she just stood and went to the door, paused a moment to see he would say anything else, then left.

Alex didn't look up from the canines untill she was out of the room and then he stared at the close door for a few long moments. He only really stopped when Crush stood up and began licking his face. With a small chuckle, Alex turned back to what he had and quit lamenting over what he had lost.