xp_logs | A Friend In Need - Amanda, Doug: Monday evening

Back in New York, Amanda stops by the brownstone just long enough to grab some things. Or at least, that was the plan.

The bag slipped off her shoulder as she closed the door to her apartment with a small bang, and Amanda heaved it back up again with a frustrated noise. Of course, the movement meant that she lost her grip on her keys and then when she went to pick them up the bag slipped again, the weight of her laptop driving it firmly into her hip. It was almost enough to make a grown woman cry, especially a grown woman fresh off 15 hours of flying and a week of anxious waiting and watching. Instead, Amanda bit down hard on her lip and concentrated on picking up her keys, before straightening and more carefully pulling the bag back onto her shoulder before heading down the hallway towards the stairs. All she had to do now was get out to Westchester without having an accident, and she could rest. Well, sort of rest, depending on how bad Angelo's nightmares were.

So intent was she on just getting to the car that she didn't even notice the common room was occupied as she passed by the doorway.

The bang of the door had caught Doug's attention, and so his head was already up and looking around when Amanda passed by the door. "Amanda?" he called as she strode by. He quickly got up and darted to the doorway as she continued by, and he called her name a bit more firmly.

It took the second repetition of her name to break through the focus, and she started and turned. The movement sent the bag sliding down her arm yet again, and she couldn't help stamping her foot in frustration. "Oh for fuck's sake!" she exclaimed, deciding to just give up and setting it on the floor. The smile she gave Doug was wan and tired - her face was pinched with exhaustion. "Hey, Doug."

The smile didn't fool Doug at all. The stamp of the foot and the pinched look caused his face to furrow in concern for Amanda. He'd been camped in the common area hoping to catch her, and he was glad he had. "How is he?" he asked, concern filling his voice as he rubbed eyes that were slightly puffy from lack of sleep.

"Alive? In one piece? Feeling guilty 'cause he's not in a hospital bed like half of them?" It had been meant to come out as a joke, but her tone fell flat. "Surviving's 'bout as good as you can say right now, Doug. He'll get better, but right now..." She rubbed her face tiredly. "I was gunna go spend a couple of days at the school. He sleeps better when there's someone around, and with Forge away..." Making an effort to pull herself together, she looked at Doug, seeing his own exhaustion. "We both look like something the cat dragged in and then threw up on."

Doug shook his head. "I'm fine," he demurred, but a jaw-splitting yawn gave the lie to his assertion. "Okay, not fine, but you don't need to be worrying about me," he said after Amanda gave him a disbelieving snort. "I've been trying to find everything I can. Besides, every time I close my eyes I see that footage of Dom coming out on a stretcher." He ruffled his hand through sweaty hair. "Surviving's something," he said. He took a moment to curse the timing. Amanda had resolved herself to telling Angelo how she felt, and now this. Someone out there had a really sick sense of humor.

"I'd yell at you for not taking care of yourself, but I'm too fucking shagged right now. I'll give you an IOU." She stuffed her keys in her pocket, trying not to yawn herself - Doug had reiterated just how tired she was. "Find anything yet?"

"Sofia already bitched me out over sleeping. I've managed to at least get enough to keep her off my back." Doug shook his head. "And I haven't found much. I'm starting to get cranky." He grimaced.

"You and Pete both. These bastards caught everyone by surprise." Another small, wan smile crossed her face. "Dom says hi, and not to worry, by the way. She was hurt pretty bad, but she's gunna pull through all right."

Doug managed a dry chuckle. He remembered vividly working with Nate to extract Dom from a sticky situation in Russia. "That's rich, coming from her," he said huskily. "I'm glad she's going to pull through, though."

"I think it's code that people like us use. 'Don't worry about me'. We all know that's not gunna happen, but we say it any way. Like it's gunna make things easier somehow." Her voice shook a little, but she rallied slightly. "You get to be smug and tell me you told me so, by the way." Focus on the positive things - that was how she'd been managing for the past week. Selfish perhaps, but if she didn't, she'd have fallen in a heap days ago.

"Told you so?" Doug asked, shaking his head and looking somewhat baffled at the non sequitur. "About what?"

"You were right. 'Bout Ange... I told him - didn't mean to, but I panicked and it sort of came out and then he kissed me. To shut me up." The memory should be making her smile, but all she could think of was how he'd been for the days afterwards, so flat and lifeless, or swinging wildly from anger to depression, the sight of him, angry and silent, practicing sword drills on the beach. "It's... complicated, tho'. We're still working things out, 'specially with all this going on..." And bugger it, there was the tremble in her voice again and this time there was no hiding it.

"Oh, Amanda," Doug murmured, reaching out to draw the Brit into his arms for a hug. "That's...well, everything else isn't so hot, but that he feels the same way..." He squeezed her shoulders before stepping back. "I'm happy for you both."

Well, he tried to step back. Amanda held onto his sleeves, refusing to let him pull away. "It's been... hard," she managed. "Seeing him like this, and trying to help, trying to be strong for him. He's just so... it's really knocked him around, Doug, and I hate seeing that, hate it so much I want to take down those fuckers myself. And it's not just him, it's the Pack, and the Elpis people that were killed, and Vasily's lost his leg..."

Doug's arms returned to their place around Amanda's shoulders, and he stroked her hair gently with one hand. "I know," he said helplessly, unsure of what else to say. While he was somewhat close to Dom, he wasn't as close to the rest of the Pack as Amanda was, and he could only guess at how hard events had hit her. "I know you have to be strong for him," he said quietly. "Just let me be strong for you, because you need it too."

"I'm so tired," she whispered, almost a guilty admission. "I wasn't as close to things as the rest, so I was trying to get the little stuff done whlst they worked on the rest, only seeing them like that, not being able to help, especially when Ange stopped talking after that post Jennie made..." She trailled off. "Just tired," she repeated. "I'll rest when I get to the school."

Doug frowned. "Amanda, are you okay to drive?" he asked solicitously. She'd just said how little sleep she was working on, and suddenly he had an image of her driving off the road from exhaustion.

"Right now I have no bloody idea," she said with a humourless laugh into his shoulder. "I have to get there, tho'. Ange is expecting me."

Doug shook his head firmly. "You'll drive yourself off the road, the state you're in. Rest a little bit now," he instructed the Brit, guiding her toward the couch. "Better to take the time now so that you get there in one piece later."

"But..." The resistance was only token as she let herself be guided into the common room and onto the couch. The slight whimper of relief as she said down on its soft, welcoming cushions escaped her before she could stop it, and she gave Doug a grateful look. "Just five minutes to sit and catch my breath," she said, stubbornly. "That's all."

"Fair enough," Doug allowed, since he'd gotten her to sit down. "How about I go get us a quick cuppa?" he slid into Amanda's London accent unconsciously. "Back in two shakes," he told her as he darted from the room.

"You're an angel of mercy sent by the tea gods," she replied as he left. She let her head flop against the back of the couch, closing her eyes. Fuck, she was tired. Doug might have a point about the driving thing. But she needed to get back, and she'd go, just as soon as she'd had a cuppa and maybe just rested her eyes a little...

A few minutes later Doug returned bearing two steaming mugs. The sight of Amanda laying back, her face finally losing its pinched look in sleep, made Doug smile gently. He'd hoped that this would happen. Setting the mugs down softly, he gathered up a pillow and tried to move Amanda's head just enough to slip it underneath.

Her eyes flickered open at the contact, and she blinked blearily at him, still mostly asleep. "Wha?" The pillow registered, and she took it automatically, tucking it under her head as she shifted to lie down properly. Her hand reached out to grab his, however, as he made to leave. "Stay?" she mumbled, voice thick with sleep.

"Of course," Doug reassured her, taking a seat next to her. He opened his laptop, tapping quietly away at the keys as Amanda dozed off again. A few minutes later, he stifled another large yawn and shifted to lay back on the couch beside Amanda. Just five minutes, he promised himself as his eyes slid closed and his head leaned onto Amanda's shoulder.

Half an hour later, when Marie-Ange came by, the lights were still on, and Doug's laptop had switched to the flickering screensaver that only he understood. She paused for a moment, watching the pair curiously.
She hadn't expected this, not at all, and yet, it explained a great deal. Their recent closeness, why Doug had seemed recently far more comfortable with himself.

It begged a conversation with Amanda, at least. But later. Much later, after the crisis was over, and once she could justify the necessary drinking it would take to get up the nerve to ask. Drinking heavily
was so very not an option at the moment. Not with the amount of work that needed doing.