xp_logs | Angelo and Amanda, Thursday afternoon

Angelo is a good boyfriend and does his part to look after Amanda.

"Amanda, put the laptop down." The tone was more mock-stern than anything else, with a touch of affectionate exasperation, as Angelo headed over to put down the bottles. "Your hands're as bad as your face for sunburn. Doesn't it hurt to touch that?"

"A bit?" she admitted, meekly doing as she had been told. Of course, someone would tell her if anyone else got back - or didn't - but it didn't stop the compulsion to check the journals for herself. Still nothing. She smiled at him, a bit stiffly given the tightness of the sunburnt skin, as he handed her a glass. "'M just worried. That was a clusterfuck of a job, and Wanda and me got off easy." Bruises from the plane crash and sunburn, dehydration and exhaustion aside.

"You all got split up, then?" he asked with a frown. She wasn't the only person on her team whose safety he worried about. And he knew she was safe.

"Had to - we got tagged and everything got so mixed up... Remy and Sarah took off to draw them off, and the rest of us just scattered." She caught the frown and reached out to tug him down to sit on the bed beside her. "Sarah's tough, love. She'll be fine. Those bastards in the tunnels couldn't kill her, I doubt a bunch of Ugandan soldiers can."

"True", he acknowledged, letting her tug him down. "It probably wouldn't take even if they did - didn't last time, anyway. But... what about Doug an' Angie? When'd you last see them?"

"Not since Wanda and I went into the lab." Amanda didn't mention Illyana, knowing the involvement of someone who was still a student at the school wasn't for her to reveal. She hated the need, but understood it - better to wait until things had been sorted. "They were on the roof, dealing with security." Her head ached and she rubbed her forehead fretfully, wincing as she brushed sunburn. "'S why I keep checking the journals - trying to see if there's been word. But Pete said he'd call, too."

"He will", Angelo said firmly. "Soon as he hears anythin'. You know that - you shouldn't be makin' your hands worse checkin' over an' over."

"Now you're just making sense at me," she said, with a hint of a pout. Then something occurred to her. "Except Remy smashed my phone the other day and I haven't got a new one yet - if Pete's been trying to ring me, I wouldn't have gotten it." She gave him a beseeching look. "Check the journals again for me? Might be something now."

"You've got a landline, don't you?" he pointed out, but he was already reaching for the laptop to check.

Amanda looked sheepish. "Um, it sort of got cut off. I forgot to pay the bill when I was in China, then with all the stuff going on the last couple of months, I missed the deadline. I was gunna sort it out over Easter, only bank holiday - couldn't get the bank to process anything." She leaned against his shoulder to see if there was anything. "Oh, thank fuck for that. Angie and Doug are back." There was a rueful snort as she added. "And Angie's looking to go get a facial."

Angelo blinked, then started to laugh. "...yeah, she's fine. An' she'd be more worried if Doug wasn't as well."

"So it's just Mark, Sofia, Remy and Sarah." She rested her head against his arm, his shirt cool against her face. "No more last minute jobs. They're too bloody messy."

"You should see some of the mission writeups in the team archives", he said wryly. "But I thought you guys usually went into things with more warnin' than that."

"Usually there's the whole research and investigation part, yeah. This one was a special case." At least Illyana had gotten out safe - Amanda was impressed by the way she'd obeyed Wanda's command without arguing. Then again, it had been to save her life. "And way too close for comfort." She shuddered a bit. "I still hate guns. Especially when they're pointed in my face."

"Yeah, I don't think anyone much likes them when they're lookin' at them from that angle", he said quietly. "But you know... you got out. An' if the others just had one other person each to worry about, that makes their chances better, right?"

"Yeah," she agreed, after a pause. "If it hadn't been for Wanda, I would have been fucked, but we made it. And so did Doug and Angie. The others're tough, they'll be fine. Even if it means I'll be doing a lot more work on the magic to make sure I don't end up in that situation again." Instinctively she tried to cuddle in close, only to scrape her sunburn. "Ow. Bugger."

"...yeah, not so much of that", he said with a touch of amusement. "Not for a day or two, anyway." He remembered the bottle of aloe at that, reaching over to grab it.

"I'm gunna peel too. It'll be disgusting. I'll look like Paige on a bad skin day," she complained, sitting up so he could use the gel on her arms and hands. "Still, I should make up for it in the meantime with you being all attentive and spoiling me, huh?"

"Yup", he said cheerfully. "Take advantage of it while you can."