xp_logs | Friday afternoon, Lorna and Haller

x-polarisstar.livejournal.com posting in

Lorna's having a failure to cope. Jim tries to help. Cyndi makes snarky commentary. Nothing gets resolved but nothing gets worse.

With great and exaggerated care, Lorna placed the phone back in the cradle, sank back into her chair and covered her face with her hands. She could feel the trembling set in and knew that the next student to walk in--which happened surprisingly often during her office hours--would be faced with a teacher on the verge of a breakdown.

The decision to leave wasn't really a conscious one. She was on her feet and out in the corridor before she registered getting up. She stood for a moment, stock still like a trapped animal then dashed off. She'd go up to her room and...not deal. Just for a little while. She didn't have to be strong every second of the day and right now she just wanted to...not be. Her vision blurred with tears. With a gasping sob, she ducked into the thankfully empty sunroom and slid down the wall, hands fisted, struggling to regain her calm, just for a few more moments.

The new shrink couldn't be all bad, Cyndi thought as she bobbed her way down the hall. He subscribed to the theory of carefully controlled body-time for the alters to encourage that lingering "self-acceptance" crap Jim was somehow still not over after like six freaking years, which, along with Charles' suggestion that they try to train their powers, meant Jim was completely screwed for good reasons not to let her out. Now that Jim was done with his "real" work today it was Cyndi's turn, theoretically on her way outside to practice and not in any way pushing her luck to see just how public she could cut it without getting a panicky tirade about undermining the students' sense of security. In deference to the fact that part of the deal was not attracting too much attention to David's obvious Crazy, she was singing under her breath. In deference to the fact that Cyndi had been created to be exactly the opposite of subtle, it wasn't very well.

"Burninating the countryside," she muttered, with growing enthusiasm, "burninating the peasants, burninating all the peoples in their thatched-roof COTTAGES! THATCHED-ROOF COTTA--"

She almost tripped as she passed the sunroom and a flash of green caught her eye, the shade immediately attracting the attention of Jim. There was a crowded moment as the two co-conscious personalities simultaneously assessed the situation: Lorna what's wrong with Lorna oh hell no no way am I handling touchy-feely crap good!

Free time was one thing, but that was clearly at an end. Cyndi stepped back, Jim stepped forward -- figuratively, within his mind, and then literally, into the room.

"Lorna?"

She started and scrambled to her feet, scrubbing at her eyes with hands still clenched tightly. "Jim, hey, um." Her face was already blotched and red from tears so the sudden flush of embarrassment didn't show. It was a small mercy that she could have done without. "I..." What precisely was she supposed to say? It's not what it looks like? They're not real tears, I'm just practicing for a play? "Did you need something?"

Wow, lamest dodge ever. Shh. Jim pinched the bridge of his nose, a line creased between his eyebrows. "Um, Lorna, sorry, but can we maybe agree the consensual reality is the actual one for now? I mean, when my best friend's in tears it's kind of mean to make me wonder if I'm having a delusion about it." He softened the shameless guilt as best he could with a smile, then let it fall at the expression on her face. "What happened?"

"Nothing. It's...nothing. I'm just...not having a good day." That was the hell of it. It wasn't like anything was worse than usual. That stupid phone call shouldn't have done this to her. But even just sitting there and listening to the pleasant voiced man on the other end of the phone she could feel her throat closing and chest getting tight. "I'm okay. Really, I just...I should have gone up to my room instead." She chafed at her arms, her oversized sweater rubbing against skin that felt too thin, too thin to protect her anymore. How had she ended up so weak?

Jim's mouth quirked slightly. "I don't know, I'm kind of glad you didn't. I mean, I'm all for suffering in silence, but we just had a pretty good object lesson of the consequences of the 'crawl off into the woods to die alone' mentality a few weeks ago and while the staff could probably stand to learn a few things from the student body I really don't think that's the example you want to follow." The telepath stepped up to her and rested one hand on her back, gently propelling her towards the couch. "Sit."

"The situations aren't exactly parallel. My powers aren't trying to kill me after all," Lorna protested faintly, letting him guide her to sit. She'd stopped crying at least--the need to appear calm stronger than the worn-out feeling that had led her to break down in the first place. "I'm fine, Jim. Really I am. I just...it's not anything. I'm only a little tired."

"A little tired," Jim smiled faintly, "right." He reached out to stroke a thumb across the drying smear of moisture beneath one red-rimmed eye, then let his hand lower again to his knee. "Nothing is wrong in any way."

"That's not...no. I mean..." She stopped and took a breath, hating the she was stumbling over her words like this. "I'm tired. And there's all these things going on and they're stressful but not like crazy stressful, just normal and it's just that it was all a little bit too much to deal with today." She forced a smile, trying for reassuring and just managing pathetic. "I probably just need a nap."

"A nap might help," Jim conceded, "but first, can you explain to me the part where a city's got to be destroyed before you're justified in feeling like crap? I really want to know. I mean, it's not like normal people haven't managed to go crazy every day for the entire history of mankind because of 'nothing in particular.'" He gave her another half-twist of the mouth, tone becoming slightly less chiding. "C'mon, Lorna. The relentless culmination is just as soul-destroying as the big stuff. And even fatigue-crying needs a trigger. Even if it seems like a dumb one."

"I was on the phone. That's all. It was just a phone call." Her voice broke on the last words and she bit her lip, trying to hold off a renewed bout of tears. Why was it that when you'd started crying it was so hard to stop again? "It's stupid and it doesn't mean anything and I shouldn't be crying over it because there's nothing I can do about it." Lorna doubled over, bending her head over her knees, arms clutched around her waist. The tears fell to the carpet instead of tracing betraying lines over her cheeks.

He was sitting in the sunroom with an emotionally fragile woman while still wearing an old t-shirt Cyndi had mutilated years ago. This was exactly the wrong place and the wrong time for this kind of confrontation. The alter was still close to the surface, and the bleed was inevitable: forcing where he should have backed down, offering sarcasm when he should have been giving support. But Lorna's tears weren't going away. Politely excusing himself wasn't an option.

Jim took a deep breath and leaned forward to bring himself even with her, one bare arm braced against his knee. He placed his other hand on her back, hot beneath the fabric of the too-large sweatshirt. Green hair brushed the top of his hand as it moved slowly up and down between her shoulderblades; it was coarse and dry. "Can I ask what was it about?" he asked softly after a long moment. "The phonecall that shouldn't've meant anything?"

Lorna choked back another sob and took a shaky breath. Her whole body trembled beneath is hand, her voice no more steady when she spoke, thick and stuttering with tears. "My...sister. They haven't found her. I don't know...I shouldn't care. She doesn't mean anything."

"It doesn't take much if it feels like things have been building up on you for a while." Don't go to the personal place, don't go to the personal place, don't go to the personal place . . . ohhh yeah, like you can do that. Jim turned his mind from the criticism and tightened his hand briefly on Lorna's shoulder before speaking again. "Did they say if it's like, um, the 'she moved to Europe' kind of can't find, or" don't say 'kidnapped by terrorists' "another kind?"

"My parents spent years trying to find her. They gave up 14 years ago. Since then she could have done anything. The investigators...they just don't know." She sat up a bit, propping herself on her arms. "It's not like its a common name. Zala...it's a river. In like, Hungary or something. It's not a name. But they said they can't find her. They're still looking. I can't really afford it but they're still looking."

"Are you having money problems?" Jim asked, raising his eyebrows. He'd thought Lorna's family was well-off. "Um. Or was that meant in a metaphorical sense?"

Lorna shook her head, "I can't ask my parents to pay for this. They just wrote her out of the will, it's not like I can ask them to give me money so that I can track her down. They don't even know." She sat back, head falling to the cushions. She stared at the ceiling without seeing it. "They don't know and I can't tell them."

Jim looked at her, then his eyes fell to the years-old Doc Martins that were the only pair of shoes he owned. "Um. If you need some money I could give you a loan. I know you'd pay me back, and I haven't really spent a lot of my salary since I got here. It'd be good knowing it gets some use before coming back to my bank account to gather dust. All it gets spent on is cigarettes and anything Jack breaks, mostly." Except for the part folded into a blank white card and an envelope without a return address. Jim pushed away another unwelcome thought, this time his own: guilt of three months already spent on the professor's goodwill, and the pride that had run stronger than obligation.

But that, as with the other things he could have said if only he'd been willing to go through with the hypocrisy, was set aside. It's done. Just send October's. That's all you can do now.

She grimaced. "No, I'll...I'll figure something out. I just didn't think that this would be so hard. They're supposed to be able to find people. That's their jobs." Besides, that wasn't really the problem. It was just the most recent wrinkle in long campaign of things going wrong. It was easier to focus on just this one but complaining about it was very unsatisfying and fixing it would do even less. "I should just give up. This is a sign. Obviously she doesn't want to be found and what the hell good will it do anyway? She left and if she'd wanted to come back she would have done so in the last twenty years."

"Just give the PIs a little more time. Not everyone's got Cerebro or something to fall back on." Jim thanked God that despite the rockiness of the conversation he wasn't careless enough to voice the suggestion that if she really wanted results she should run it by Remy. Despite the fact the man had now successfully located her, Forge and two missing students, Jim really didn't want to make Lorna cry for a third time today. Jim shook his head. "As for Zala . . . I don't know. Maybe she really doesn't want to be found, it's a possibility, but . . . it could be she's just waiting for someone to find her. You can't know which it is unless you ask."

He'd said as much before, Lorna wasn't any more certain that he was right now than before. "It...I guess." She sighed and wrapped her arms around her waist, pulling her sweater tightly around her. "I don't know what I'm doing anymore," she said in a voice scarcely louder than a whisper, "Every time I think I've got my balance back something happens and I just...I can't do this anymore. I want to give up."

"No, you don't." Jim brushed a strand of hair behind her ear and gave her another faint, lopsided smile. "For one thing, if you give up on life you'll have guilt about it. And that would be bad."

"I have guilt about a lot of things, I'd deal." She'd given up so much to do so already. Done what she could to keep her problems out of the eyes of the students. Tried to pay back a little of what she'd taken from others. Cut ties with the ones who she could offer nothing but hurt. She ran her hand through her hair. "I'd really like for all this to just...stop hurting."

Jim ruffled her hair, leaving the green sticking out in odd loops. "You beat everyone for guilt. You are the reigning champion. It's just that if you also get the additional guilt from giving up on life no one else is even going to have a chance, and that's not fair. And also, not so good for the pain." He tried to hard to leave the self-flagellation for some later point. Between resuming his formal duties as counselor and even managing to abscond with Marie for a few days he'd been feeling on top of things, and now this. Congratulations, Jim, once again you're such a shit friend you don't notice when yours is starving herself and oh, yeah, slowly dying inside.

"I'll tell you what," he said to Lorna, "we'll get some of the little things out of the way so they can't gang up on you so much. Let's just start with a glass of water, okay? And while you drink that I'll make you some soup because it's cold and when it's cold that's what people have to eat. Then you can take that nap so you won't be tired anymore. Everything else gets to be put away for the rest of the day."

"I'm not hungry," Lorna replied automatically, "and I have papers to grade. Really, I know this looks bad but I'm okay, I swear. I'm tired but I'll be okay once I get some sleep." She stood, agitated by the mention of eating. Why did people always try to feed her?

"It's Friday. The papers can wait. At the very least you're getting the water, and soup doesn't even really count. It's not even a solid, and this way if Amelia harasses you about your last meal you'll be able to name a witness." Which Jim was sure she would, since even if she hadn't already noticed someone was going to be accidentally letting slip his concerns about Lorna's weight later. He rose to his feet, placing one hand on his friend's back again. "C'mon. You need to get hydrated. If you fall over and I have to carry you back to your room you're going to get redheads around the clock for a week."

Her whole body was tense while her mind raced, considering all the angles. Just soup. She could manage just soup, not too many calories. Calories could be burned off with a good training session. Couldn't sleep, though. That would turn straight to fat and her thighs were monstrous as it was. With her head down and her hair covering her face, Lorna squeezed her eyes shut, trying to quell her racing heart and calm her thoughts. She knew what she was doing to herself. Knew that she was back sliding. But this time she could control it. She knew she would. "That sounds okay."

"Okay is good," Jim smiled. He wanted desperately to push more on her, but he knew better than to push something like kateh on an anorexic in the middle of a crisis. Rice and butter was probably going to be counterproductive. A little was good enough for tonight. He glanced down at his slashed t-shirt and blushed slightly. "Um, we'll just stop off at my room first so I can get the soup. And clothes."