Marie and Angelo: Everybody Leaves

[x-traction.livejournal.com]

To say Marie isn’t doing well would be an understatement. After noticing that she hasn’t come out of her room in a few days, Angelo finds a way in to check on her.

"Thanks, Dani", Angelo said over his shoulder as he moved into the room. "I didn't really want to get one of the teleporters to bring me in here, if I didn't have to."

"Just what do you think you're doing?" Marie asked, not turning to see who it was. "Do locked doors just mean nothing here anymore?"

"You didn't exactly give me a choice, Em", Angelo said, leaning against the door and watching her steadily. "Isn't the first time I've dragged my friends out of their rooms, probably won't be the last knowin' the way things are here."

Marie sat in a chair by her window, her expression disturbingly flat. "Sure you had a choice. You could have left me alone," she said, not turning her face towards him.

"For how long?" he wanted to know. "A day? A week? 'Til I had to bring Dr. Voght in here with me, not Dani?"

"You wouldn't need Dr. Voght." She gestured to a pile of granola bar wrappers on the table, the site strange in her normally pristine room. "Ah'm eating. Ah just don't feel much like talking to people right now."

"Well, at least I don't have to worry about you starvin'. But the other way's not much healthier, Marie, you know that." The roles had been reversed often enough two years before, after all.

Her laugh was dark and short. "Right, talking about this is gonna make things better. What Ah've learned is that the more relationships Ah've built, the more chances Ah have of getting hurt."

"...you really think anyone in the world isn't in exactly the same boat?" he asked, carefully calm. "There's always the chance, unless you're gonna be a hermit for the rest of your life. An' sorry, but I'm not gonna let you."

"Ah think Ah've earned the right to be a hermit," Marie replied, her voice remaining emotionless. "Got set on fire, found out Ah was adopted, got set on fire again, absorbed a crack head, got taken over by the personality of my best friend, got betrayed by a teammate and now my best friend was fired and is making himself scarce."

"So you think hidin' from the world in here is a way to deal with Logan makin' himself scarce?" he asked pointedly. "Instead of huntin' him down, wherever he's gone? I'm pretty sure he hasn't actually left."

"But he will leave. Like everyone does." A trace of sadness entered her voice and she wrapped her arms tightly around herself.

He didn't move from his place by the door yet, not sure if she wanted him to. "I never left", he pointed out quietly. "Got no plans to, either."

"Leaving doesn't always mean the physical gettin' up and goin’," she said, her voice resuming it's detached tone.

"I never left that way, either. I mean, yeah, I'm busier these days, but.... never too busy for you. I thought you knew that."

"Ah don't know what Ah know anymore. Ah thought Ah knew..." she stopped, clenching one fist. "Ah thought Ah knew a lot of things that apparently don't mean squat."

"Well, that's one thing that isn't gonna change in the foreseeable future."

"That's what everyone always says," Marie said. "'You're my baby girl' or 'Ah'll never let you get hurt.'" She shook her head. "All lies."

"They're not lies when you believe them at the time", he pointed out. "Only one person we know can see the future, these days."

Her head snapped to face him. "Ah know of two. One had some rather unpleasant things to say as I recall. Don't much like the future she implied or what she did to my past."

"Precog's not even reliable", he said, recovering after a beat. "You just ask Angie or Nathan. What they see can be changed."

"Yeah, that's what they say. Trouble with that is what can happen when you change things." She shook her head, thinking of that email she'd gotten from Doug when he'd taken the future into his own hands. "An' they never warn you about the really important stuff or make it clear enough where you can do anything about it."

"Far as I can figure out, that's because they don't see the big stuff, hardly often. Or when they do, it's all symbolic."

Marie returned to gazing out the window. "Don't forget depressing. It's always about destruction or loss or somethin' like that. Why can't it ever be that when the butterflies fill the sky, there will be much rejoicing through the land?"

"Because nobody needs warnin' about the good stuff, I figure. An' maybe it's not all bad, but we just don't understand."

Marie sat silently, not visibly reacting to his words. It was almost as if she hadn't heard what he’d said.

"Marie?" he prompted. "You're scarin' me now."

"Ah'm ok," she said softly. "No one needs to worry, Ah'll be fine." She looked at him and tried to smile convincingly. "Worry duly noted."

He eyed her for a few moments longer then nodded. "All right. But another day or two of this, an' I'm comin' back." He wouldn't be so easy to get rid of, if it came to that.

Marie nodded then turned back to the window. She'd worry about that time when it came.