Log: Lorna and Alex

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Thanks to their playful puppies, Lorna and Alex run into each other in the sunroom and end up having a little chat. In spite of the Awkward, it's a familiar, comfortable chat.



Lorna laughed and dove after Lili again as the puppy scrambled away. They'd just come in from outside and Lorna was trying to convince the little dog to come rest by the fire so she could towel off the last bits of snow and ice from her fur. Lorna's jacket had already been discarded in a chair and her scarf as well, resting on another towel to protect the upholstery. "Lili'uokalani! Come back here this instant!"

Alex too was chasing his dog, who had stole one of his sneakers. Shiro was down stairs for some X-men training and he'd been planning to check on the condition of his ramps outside. That is, until Crush had playfully stolen his shoe while he was getting ready and ran off with it, resulting in a chase through almost every room in the mansion. "Crush, give that back!" The Golden turned a sharp corner and and skidded into the sun room, Alex right on his heels.

Lili went mad immediately, crazed with joy as though she hadn't seen Crush in months instead of days. The small dog ran for the golden and leapt upon him with an excited barking, momentum carrying her head over heels over his back. Lorna watched this impending train wreck with her hands over her mouth, eyes wide in horror then she scrambled to her feet, following her puppy. "Lili, oh Christ, baby?" Not paying all that much attention to her surroundings, she managed to collide with Alex in much the same way the puppies just had.

Having just turned the corner, Alex had no way to stop his momentum even if he had seen Lorna right there. Thankfully, there was a love seat behind them to break their fall as they fell back into the room. Quickly, Alex jumped up and held out a hand of Lorna. "Geez, I'm so sorry!"

He didn't see the two smug canine looks he was getting behind his back.

She remained on the loveseat for another few moments, catching her breath and deciding whether to be stunned or amused. When she finally took his hand and let him haul her back to her feet, she was laughing. "We need traffic signs or something. This is turning into the Autobahn."

Her laughter was infectious and soon Alex was laughing as well. "No kidding." then he looked around for his dog, who had settled himself on the nearby couch, sneaker in between his paws as he smiled and panted at his owner. "Stupid dog stole my shoe. I've been chasing him all over the damn mansion..."

"Lili's been running me ragged too. We were just outside and now she doesn't want to get toweled off. I think you spoiled her." Looking around it took a while to locate Lili now blissfully zonked out in another armchair. Lorna smiled fondly and tried not to think about what the damp paws were going to do to the fabric. "How are things going?"

Alex grinned cheekily. "Spoiled her? Me?" Though he knew that he had, letting the dogs get sand everywhere since he and Jared had anyway. At Lorna's question, Alex grinned turned fond as he thought of Shiro and their new arrangement. "Pretty good. Still figuring out what I'm going to do for school now." He looked around for a seat and realized that thanks to the dogs...the only seat available was the love seat.

"Yeah, you. She thinks she's a princess now." Lorna eyed the seat he'd taken, realizing as he did that there were actually any other seats left. She swallowed hard, reminded herself that they were both adults and took the other end of the love seat, hands in her lap a bit primly. "You should check out Westchester's program. They don't have the vulcanology emphasis of course but their seismology department actually rocks pretty hard."

"You're the one who named her after royalty in the first place." was his teasing retort, trying to ignore their close proximity. "And was that pun intended or not intended?"

"Pun?" Lorna blinked then giggled at herself, "Oh! No, I didn't even notice. Just unintended punning, I'm afraid." She smiled at him and didn't say anything else for a little while, distracted just by the nearness of him and the fact that for once she didn't feel loaded down with tension and guilt by being this close. "Um." She blinked a couple of times, remembering that she'd been speaking, "If you'd like I can give you the name of my advisor. He knows his stuff."

Alex couldn't help smiling at her giggling. He loved the sound of her giggling and other happy noises she made. This was...comfortable and nice. Like all their meetings hadn't since he'd come back. "Yeah sure, that'd be awesome. The guy's probably wondering what the hell Hawaii does their students if they all keep coming back to him."

"Remind me later if I don't get it to you." She propped her head on her hand, shifting so she was facing him with one knee drawn up between them. Her foot brushed his thigh but she did them both a favor and ignored it. "I think you'll like him. He's one of those old school types. There's patches on his tweed jacket."

Alex was keen on ignoring it as well, though he couldn't help but try and think of Shiro's touch left ghosts behind it as well. "As long as he's not Hawaiian with a daughter my age, I think I'll love him." He said kiddingly. "But I believe you. Can't wait to meet him already."

It may have been a joke but Lorna barely suppressed the flinch. She had stopped being surprised by her ability to hate these women who had hurt Alex. That didn't make the strength of it any easier to swallow and she couldn't joke about it, not even a little. "He's single actually. Never married, never wanted to be. Never a better picture of old school academia will you find without adding monk's robes. I think he's German."

The flinch made him realize that not everyone was in such good spirits over everything as he was and unconsciously, he felt the need to comfort her so he reached out a hand to lightly place on her leg. "Sounds like a good guy. I'll check it out then. How have you been?"

It was so natural she forgot that it shouldn't have happened and so she relaxed at his touch. "I'm okay. Nothing really new to tell you, I guess. Had a check up with Jean that was practically a clean bill of health." She looked into the fire for a moment, weighing her next statement. "I've been trying to find my sister. I got an update from the agency. They think they found someone who matches her description. I'm going to fly out there and meet her myself."

Alex was about to comment on how happy he was over her clean bill of health when he stopped and just blinked. "Your sister?" This was new.

"I didn't tell you?" Lorna shifted, stretching her arm along the top of the sofa, drumming her nails on the cushion behind his head. "I have a sister. My parents' real daughter. She ran off twenty years ago. I only just found out when they changed their wills to leave her out. J...David convinced me that I should try to find her."

Swallowing back his slight hurt over finding out like this, Alex managed a smile. "That's great! Right? I mean finding out about family is always a positive." But then, not everyone coveted family like Alex did. But still, he was happy for her.

Lorna shrugged, "From what I know, she left because she didn't like being replaced. By me. So this may all be a fool's errand. Sometimes I don't even know why I'm doing this."

That made him frown. "Replaced? How were you replacing her?" He was a younger brother so of course he didn't understand that concept.

She shifted again and her hand brushed his shoulder. "She was an only child until me. And then suddenly, instead of being the one who got all the attention, there was a baby. A baby who could grow up to be exactly the daughter they always wanted. My mother said...they used to have fights. Horrible ones. And she'd accuse them of not loving her and wanting her to be different." She wrapped her arms around her waist. "It sort of makes me wonder if that's the reason they raised me like they did."

He shifted and leaned into her touch for the moment as he shook his head again. "I still don't understand. Did they really treat you that differently?" Alex lifted an arm to put around her shoulders in a comforting gesture. "Or was she just blowing it out of proportion?" He knew the Danes and knew how much they loved Lorna and couldn't understand why this older sister would be just as loved.

For a second she tensed then sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. "I don't know, honestly. That's one of the things that I'd like to ask her when I see her. It's not really fair to judge her without getting her side of the story. From what my parents said, they didn't treat her poorly. Just that she was kind of wild."

Alex felt her stiffen and almost removed his arm, but found he couldn't when she finally relaxed. Nodding at what she had said, he thought for a moment. "have you had any luck finding her?"

"This is the closest they've come. She's been gone for twenty years, tracking someone down after that long isn't easy." That was what Jared, the investigator, had said. Managing expectations, she was sure. "I'm planning a trip out this weekend. Washington State of all places."

"Hey, she's closer than like Russia...or hey, even Hawaii!" he said with a grin at the fond memory of his reunion with Scott. "I'm sure everything will work out." Alex squeezed her shoulders in a half hug.

Lorna smiled up at him, "Thanks. It's...really good to talk to you."

Alex wanted to melt under that smile. "Yeah, same here." An 'I missed this.' went unsaid but it seemed to sit in the air anyway. Breaking eye contact, he looked over at the dogs. Lili had joined Crush and was sprawled over his back, both giving what he swore was a smug look.

As he looked away, her expression changed, just slightly--softening into wistfulness before firming up again. "I should let you go. You were headed out, right?" Carefully, regretfully, Lorna sat up again, to her side of the couch that now seemed incredibly far away.

Taking that as his cue, Alex removed his arm and stood up, his hand fidgeting awkwardly. "Uh, yeah, I, uh, was but Shiro will be getting out of training here soon and I promised we'd, uh" make out "catch a movie, in town tonight." Then he turned and quickly gestured for Crush, picking up his slobbered-on shoe as he did, "Come on, boy; let's take you out first."

"Have a good time," Lorna replied. Calling Lili softly, she gathered up the towel and the puppy as Alex headed out again. That had been nice. She'd forgotten, really, how right it felt when he was around. Lorna smiled and stood as well, wondering why she felt so uneasy.