xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Forge

Backdated to last week - Finishing the last bit of packing and moving, Marie-Ange runs into Forge... and ... gets... dating.. advice. No, the world isn't going to end. Today.

The last of her packing was entirely disorganized and scattered. A pile of books here, which reminded her to find her favorite cloth-bound journal. That sent her looking for a shirt she hadn't seen in weeks, and the guitar pick in the pocket of the slacks that were on the hanger with the shirt reminded her that her equiptment was still in the music room.

Better get that now before someone else realized and screeched at her some more.

Outside the room she could hear the notes played over and over, a scale, followed by a "Damn!", and then a period of silence. And then the scale again, and the frustrated exclamations. Forge, practicing.

Marie-Ange couldn't tell why he was so frustrated. The piano was in tune, he wasn't missing notes. But for all she knew, he was trying to play the piano remotly via the robot squid. If there was a robot squid in the room with Forge, she didn't want to startle it, or him, and so she knocked on the doorway to get his attention before going in.

A dissonant bang on the keys, and Forge spun around on the bench, a mixture of annoyance and surprise on his face fading as he noticed Marie-Ange in the doorway.

"Oh, hey," he said, flexing the fingers of his artificial hand with a frown. "Was I too loud?"

"How loud were you trying to be?" Marie-Ange asked. "You were on key, but I could hear you in the hallway." She looked around the room, checking for anyone else before going in and heading towards her guitar case.

"I know I was on key, there's nothing wrong with the piano," Forge grumbled, prodding at an open part of his wrist where the internal structure of his arm was exposed. Fingers twitched reflexively as he poked a small probe against contacts and terminals. "My damn tactile sensors are out of sync with the biologicals, and it... you ever wake up in the morning and one eye's a little blurrier than the other? It's like that, some days."

He sighed, playing another scale again. "The keys don't feel the same, although my ear tells me I'm hitting them right. It's frustrating."

"So your fingers are telling you one thing, and your ears are telling you another?" Marie-Ange said, bending to inspect her amp, and making a frustrated sigh at the tangle of cords. The last time she'd played was months ago, and twice that for the cello."I would ask if you can fix it, but we both already know that you can, yes?

Forge smirked, a small laugh breaking the pattern of the scales. "It's not so much a matter of fixing as constant adjustment. It's just... it takes a while and it's annoying having to wait for it to adapt. But it does a good job of reminding me that no matter how amazing I can design a prosthetic, it'll never be the same as... well, you know."

He stood up from the piano, looking over to where Marie-Ange was rummaging around the amps. "Packing up, then?"

"I am starting to. It will probably take all week, at the rate I am going." And that wasn't counting clothes. She wasn't thinking about how long that was going to take. "Can you build a time machine so I can go back and scold myself for not putting this away properly the last time I used it?

"You couldn't have just peeked ahead and realized you were going to need to pack it up later?" Forge replied sarcastically, before raising his hands in mock surrender. "I know, I know, that's not how it works. But still, you've got to see the irony in the precognitive not knowing where her stuff is."

Marie-Ange laughed. It was ironic. "I know where this is. I just seem to have turned the cords into the gordian knot." She held up the tangled mess of cords, now detached from the amp and guitar. "Would you care to take a stab at being better than Alexander the Great for the day, and tell me if this actaully has two ends?"

Sliding off the bench, Forge walked down to where Marie-Ange knelt by the rats' nest of cables. Closing his eyes, he held onto one end of the cable with his prosthetic hand. "Interesting bit of science," he said as he traced its length with his other hand, coiling the cable into small loops, "even if they come from the same manufacturing plant, after different loads, over time all electric cables will develop a unique impedance signature. Lorna could probably tell you exactly what the difference is, but one of the benefits of having a built-in impedance tester..."

Jerking with his other arm, Forge yanked the other end of the cable out of the mess, opening his eyes. "Voila. Science in action."

"You have a remarkable sense of the dramatic.." Marie-Ange said, smiling. "Not that I know what an impedance signal is, but your demonstration was entertaining." He'd make a good science teacher someday, she thought, if he ever wanted to choose that career path. "I do not suppose I could impose on you to show me how to disassemble my large scanner?" The small one she could put in a box. The bigger one she was dreading moving. It was half the size of her desk.

"I... I'm sorry, I'm kind of taken a little by surprise here," Forge said sheepishly. "You're asking me to help you move? I was... well, I was under the impression you didn't like me much. Not that I've ever given you a lot of reason to..."

For a moment, Marie-Ange frowned, obviously thinking. "I have had a lot of reason lately to reconsider some choices I have made. It seems like the appropiate thing to do, to try to not hold grudges." She lifted the case that her bass guitar was in and fiddled with the shoulder strap for a moment. "I do not understand you, but that should not mean I am.. " What was the phrase she'd heard. "A stone bitch to you.."

Forge just blinked and shook his head. "Stop sounding so much like me. It's not funny. I was just telling Doug the same thing. Just because I didn't understand what you two had until now, it's..." He paused, looking up embarassedly. "I didn't just stick my foot in my mouth, did I?"

"If I told you no, I would probably be lying." Marie-Ange answered quietly. "Doug and I are .. on speaking terms, but he is dating Marie, or at least has gone on a date with her, and that is.. well, that is that. Plus ca change." It was very obviously not her favorite topic. "Neither of us was who the other was really looking for, I suppose."

Forge resisted the urge to inform Marie-Ange that she was most likely, in the technical terms, on crack - but then again, he wasn't the precog in this conversation.

"For what it's worth," he offered, "I'm sorry for the things I said. I wish I could say that it was totally without malice, but... I suppose in a way I was jealous of what I couldn't understand. It didn't make sense to me - hell, it still doesn't. But I'm dealing with it now and... well, I realize what an ass I was."

~Oh -now- he says it.~ Marie-Ange thought. ~When it is really too late to do any good.~ But she was not going to say it out loud. Not and wreck her start at actually trying to mend fences. "I have heard rumors about you and a certain, ah, what color hair does she have this month, brunette?" She said, smiling, even if it was a little tight. "Jennie changes her hair color as much as Amanda used to"

Forge immediately paled. "Oh God, there's rumors?" He sunk his face into his hands melodramatically, but couldn't resist a smile. "It's... we've been on dates. Dating... I suppose. It's not like, you know, serious making pledges and writing epic poetry stuff. But there's... potential. I really like being around her. She's..."

He stopped, swiveling to face Marie-Ange and pulling his prosthetic leg up to sit indian-style. "People here got used to me pretty quickly - I mean, even with the arm and leg, I'm not the freakiest looking person here. But even still, I still catch a touch of pity in people's eyes when they look at me. I know they don't mean anything by it, but it's like they feel sorry for me. She doesn't. She even browbeats me if I get too obsessive about it. She sees me for me - and that's something I don't even do for myself half the time."

"Why would anyone feel sorry for you? You are brilliant..." Marie-Ange asked, surprised. But on further thought, she could almost understand it. It was not too different from the occasional comment on her sanity, or lack of it. "I would tell you that is how it should work, but, my history is not the best, yes? But that is what caused Doug and I to part. We were not seeing each other as we were, but as we wanted the other to be."

"And now you're going to be working together?" Forge asked with a cock of his head. "Won't that be a bit... um, awkward?"

"Yes?" Marie-Ange said, sounding entirely unsure of herself. "It has been awkward so far, but not as bad as I thought. We can work together well, even if we cannot have properly civil conversations without one or both of us getting headaches later. "

"I think I know what you mean," Forge said cautiously, thinking of those few awkward weeks of working with Paige where any word said was overanalyzed and inspected before the two of them had settled into a better working relationship as friends.

"So if Doug's dating other people, have you considered it?" he said before the miniscule part of his brain that handled tact began jumping up and down in panic.

Marie-Ange hastily bit back the urge to snicker at the brief panicked expression on Forge's face. "I have .. not -not- considered it. Doug has his chance with Marie, and it presented itself to him readily. I am not quite so lucky, but only because I have not gone to pursue anyone." She shrugged. "And Quentin does not count. Traumatic psionic encounters are the opposite of dates."

"Otherwise I think I could say I'd hooked up with Ms. Braddock," Forge joked right back, "and I would officially beat everyone for being the King of Awesome." He shook his head, standing up and hoisting the audio cable over his shoulder. "It's not like we don't have single and available men here. There's... um..."

He screwed up his brow trying to think. "There's... okay, I know there's someone... there's Kylun? Um... Mr. Marko? Shiro?"

Marie-Ange shook her head, laughing. "I have a whole university of people to talk to, I just need to find who I am first." She pulled the strap of the guitar case over her shoulder and lifted it off the ground. "When Jim fixed the damage that Quentin did that had caused all those visions, he had to remove other older damage, and until I feel settled in my own head again, I think I am better not seeing anyone."

Forge blinked melodramatically. "Wow," he said quietly. "Way to buck the trend. Hey, something just came to me when you mentioned Quentin -those things we all saw, you drew those, right?"

Marie-Ange nodded. "Without realizing it, yes. Most of them are still unpacked, I have been giving them away as people requested." Except for a few that she was finishing and framing for people, or those that people had said they absolutly did not want.

Stepping towards the door, Forge held it open for Marie-Ange as she carted the bass guitar in its case out to the hallway. "It got me to thinking," he said with a knowing look on his face. "How well did you know Marius's sister...?"