xp_logs | Laurie and Amanda: Phone Calls

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When: Backdated to Wednesday 14th February 2007. Time: Noon

Who: Amanda and Laurie

What Happens: Laurie asks Amanda to find out any information she can on her father.

Laurie paced back and forth in front of the phone, movements nervous and swift. She wasn't sure if she should be doing this. If she didn't think it would crush her mother into little pieces, she might have just asked her. But she had to know, she wanted...closure, she supposed.

Reaching forward, she picked up the phone and pressed the fast dial for Amanda's work number, waiting impatiently as the phone rang. Bollocks. The phone ever rang at the most inconvenient time. This time being just as she had taken a mouthful of croissant. Hurriedly, she chewed and swallowed, picking up the phone and punching the flashing line. "Snow Valley Memorial Center for Mutant Affairs, Amanda Sefton speaking," she managed somewhat indistinctly. They really needed a shorter name.

"That was a mouthful." Laurie replied, grinning as she heard Amanda's voice. This wasn't so bad, she could do this...maybe.

"Late breakfast," Amanda replied, then glanced at the time on her computer. "Or early lunch. Something like that. Any way. How's it going, Laurie?"

"Good, good." Laurie replied, palms suddenly sweaty as she twisted the phone cord around her finger. "H-h...I mean, what's the going rate?"

Well, this was going to be all sorts of interesting, she'd just completely fumbled over what she'd been practicing saying for the last half hour. Besides which, she didn't think she'd actually mentioned the going rate for what.

Amanda's eyebrows shot up. It had certainly been a while since she'd been asked that. But somehow she doubted Laurie was wanting to pay for those sorts of services... "Depends on what you're after, Laurie," she replied, trying to keep the amusement out of her voice and sound reassuring. "How about you take a couple of deep breaths and explain to me what the problem is, yeah?"

Laurie followed Amanda's advice, taking several deep breaths and thanking whatever deity might be watching that nobody had wandered by yet. The mansion was not exactly the easiest place to get some time alone on the telephone.

"I need to find somebody. Only, I'm not sure what his name is, or where he lives. Um, I need you to find my Dad." Laurie replied, voice firming as she got to the end.

Again with the eyebrows - Amanda was sure she had an almost-cartoonish expression of surprise on her face by now. Laurie had never mentioned her father before. "Well, it's not gunna be easy, but there are ways..." she temporised, pulling her scratch pad closer to her and picking up her pencil. "But before we go into that, and rates and the rest--" Not that they'd be asking for the kid to pay, but best to treat her like an adult." --I need to ask you why you're wanting to find him. Since yeah, probably don't want to aid and abet some kind of revenge trip." She let the amusement come through this time, letting Laurie know she was joking.

Laurie snorted as she briefly imagined that. While she might want to kick her father in the ass for the fact that he'd skipped out on her mother all that time ago, not to mention the whole unethical use of his mutant powers, she wasn't about to harm him in any way. "I need to find him without letting my Mom know I'm looking. He wasn't...this version of him wasn't exactly winner of Husband of the year, if you get my meaning. But I need, I guess I need to see he isn't anything like he was in the dreams. I need to know he doesn't give a damn about me, because otherwise I'll always wonder if he just didn't think he should after...after everything."

''Fair enough," came the unruffled response. Laurie couldn't lie - not without stammering and stuttering - so Amanda was taking her word for it. Besides, the dreams had stirred up a few things; Kurt had been pretty quiet since their last talk about his own 'father'. "You wanna know one way or the other, I can get that. I'll need a few details from you - where and when you were born and the like, any hints you might have got from your mum, overheard conversations and the like. Anything, no matter how small it seems."

"Okay." Laurie replied, feeling better. She wasn't asking too much, or being a weirdo. Amanda would've said something if she had been. "He...He makes people feel things. I don't know if that helps at all but that's what my Mum said. That when she got pregnant with me, he couldn't do that anymore and that's when she left him. I don't know if he'd still be doing something like that, but if it was deliberate, and he's the guy I've hated all my life, then he'll probably be shacked up with someone."

Amanda scribbled down 'Mutant', and added 'Empath???' after it. "Makes people feel things how, do you know? Like you do, or more like changing the actual emotions?" Her expression had tightened a little. A rogue empath could be nasty to deal with, and she wasn't wanting to expose Laurie - or herself, for that matter - to that

"Changing actual emotions. Mom said he used to run around a lot with other women, only she never seemed to care. Making him happy, made her happy, and so it didn't matter. I...I think if he'd still been able to get to her, I'd never have been born. He wanted her to get rid of me. That's what she said." Laurie replied, pausing for a second as she thought about how that sounded. "It wasn't...she wasn't trying to make me hate him. She just, I'd just told her I was a mutant. I think she wanted to make sure I wouldn't go the same way."

Something about empaths and the womanising, although Manuel had never used his powers on her that way. Amanda bit back the sigh. "'Kay, if he's still up to that sort of thing, there might be some kind of trail... Can you get me a copy of your birth certificate? Or at least the details of when and where you were born so I can get Doug to get hold of it for me?"

"I can probably get my birth certificate. I'll just tell Mum it's for something at school." Laurie replied, wincing at the idea of lying to her mother.

"Good stuff." Amanda straightened in her chair, making a few more notes. "Anything we find, I'll let you know. But no guarantees - I don't want you setting all your hopes on this, Laurie. Even if we do find him... well, we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. Just don't expect too much, yeah?"

"I won't." Laurie replied, feeling as if a great weight had been lifted all of a sudden. Even if they didn't find anything, she'd at least tried. "And thankyou."

"You're welcome, Laurie. Get that stuff to me when you can, and we'll get started."