xp_logs | Post-healing breakfast - Marie-Ange and Amanda

Backdated to the second, because I am a flakey McFlakenstien. And I have a cold. Marie-Ange and Amanda go to breakfast to try to conquer the post-healing munchies. Waffles, homefries and quiet serious conversation.

Healing, of the magical kind seemed to impart a need to eat everything in sight, Marie-Ange decided. She'd never been the type to shy away from food, but all the same, the bare state of her kitchen was just depressing.

And the rumbling of her stomach was embarassing.

In light of that, if she was hungry, Amanda was very likely ravenous, and hopefully not so exhausted that she was sleeping off the fatigue. Marie-Ange would've felt horribly guilty if her knocking on the door to Amanda's apartment to invite her to breakfast woke her up.

Amanda was indeed awake, although barely, and was staring at the contents of her fridge in the hopes breakfast would appear. When she hadn't been sleeping, she'd been eating, it seemed - the usual response to large amounts of magic, but still a pain in the butt in terms of grocery shopping. And Angelo had gone back to work today... The tapping at her door got her attention, tho', and she hastened to open it, nearly tripping over her feet in doing it - her reflexes were still off too, it seemed. "Hey, Angie!" she exclaimed, on seeing her former roommate standing there. "Please tell me you have food in your place?"

Marie-Ange shook her head, and couldn't help but smile in amusement. "No. I ate all of it." She answered. "And then I fell asleep before I could go to the grocer." She glanced downwards, and then leaned in towards Amanda. "Shh. We should go get breakfast before my stomach finds out that there might be food around and starts making noises at me again."

"Fuck, yes," Amanda agreed vehemently, already grabbing her jacket despite the fact she was still wearing a pair of sweat pants and one of Angelo's shirts, with slippers on her feet. "That breakfast place Jubes used to work at? The one 'round the corner?"

"Oh, yes, please.." Marie-Ange said, giggling. "Maybe I think you should get shoes first?" Even thinking about food made her stomach growl, and she looked down at it. "Shush, you. Amanda needing shoes only delays food by a few moments." She looked up at Amanda and grinned. "I think it heard me talking."

Amanda was already shepherding them both out the door and turning the key in the lock. "Shoes are overrated," she told Marie-Ange. "Food's the priority here."

***

The pile of plates were evidence as to how much food the pair had eaten. Marie-Ange was still working her way through one last waffle, no longer devouring it with quite so much intensity, but certainly not quite done eating.

"If I try to say thank you again, are you going to throw something at me?"

Amanda laid down her fork and picked up a sugar packet, tossing it at the other girl. "That a good enough answer?" she replied, arching an eyebrow. "Seriously, Angie, you don't need to thank me. I had the chance to help you and I did, simple as that. 'S part of the whole friend package. Just don't make a habit of it - it tends to be a pretty limited deal when it comes to big injuries. Like Remy - I doubt I could magic away a papercut on him at this stage of the game."

"I am not Nathan." Marie-Ange said sternly. "If I go another twenty years without ever being shot again, I will not complain." She flicked the sugar packet back across the table. "But you are still letting me pay for breakfast. I think that is only fair."

"And here I was thinking we could write it off as a company expense. Sort of health and safety thing, yeah?" Amanda snickered a little, sipping at her tea before picking up her fork again. Stabbing some home fries, she dipped them in the puddle of tomato sauce and ate them before going on, a bit more meditatively. "Everything's all right, tho'? All the bits in the right places and the rest? I've only ever healed at a distance once before and that was just between a couple of levels in the mansion."

Even though Marie-Ange had checked herself over several times before, both in New Orleans and then when they arrived home, she still took a moment to make sure she felt -right-. "Yes. There is some scarring, but everything feels healthy.." She said, hesitating over the word scar just for a moment. "And I have an appointment for a checkup next week just to be certain."

Amanda nodded, taking Marie-Ange's hesitation in her stride. "Even before I fucked around with my powers, I couldn't fix everything without a mark. There's always some kind of scar tissue." She gestured with her fork. "Especially in a job like ours. None of us is going to come out it this without some kind of mark to show for it."

"Which is why we have Sofia, and a health plan." Marie-Ange said. "I expect that as soon as she recovers from fatigue herself, that I will have an appointment to see Sofia to make sure I do not have any undue trauma." She gave a half-hearted shrug and took another bite of waffle. "I feel like I should have more trauma then I seem to. Maybe it is delayed because I am still recovering?"

"Or maybe it's just too big to have sunk in yet." Amanda sounded thoughtful. "Getting shot, getting healed, all the bits in the middle... I know I'm still getting my head around parts of it." She took a breath. "Including being used to kill Remy."

Marie-Ange's fork dropped to the table with a metallic tink. "No one told me about -that-. and Remy is alive. I saw him!" She shook her head, trying to piece together the explanations she'd been given when she was, admittedly, still a bit groggy and overwhelmed. "I know that he ... channeled a loa, I think, yes? But that is not the same as dying? It isn't something that is going to happen later, is it?"

"Tante called up Baron Samedi." Amanda let that sink in, before adding: "The death loa. The one no-one survives. She used the spell Candra did on my back to channel the power she needed through me, even tho' she knew it would kill him. And I let her. Because it was the only way to stop the ritual and save those people. And it killed him. He pitched over into the mud in front of me, and when I checked for a pulse, there wasn't one." With another ragged breath, Amanda said: "It killed somebody, any way." Of everyone, she knew Marie-Ange would understand.

"Do... do you think she knew? What would happen, with Belladonna, with Remy?" Tante had been the one to tell her not to meddle. If what Marie-Ange suspected was true, then Tante's definition of meddling was certainly more flexible then Marie-Ange had thought. "I am not sure I want you to answer that question. I am used to thinking around in circles and it is giving -me- a headache."

"With Tante, who knows? I know she wasn't expecting him to survive - she was as surprised as the rest of us when he got back up. I know she made Gambit her slave all those years ago, and she told him that he was paying Gambit's debt, but I don't know. Maybe she was just doing what was supposed to happen?" Amanda gestured helplessly. "I keep feeling like I should be pissed off at her, using me like that, but I can't deny it got the job done. Saved all those people, saved the city... what right do I have putting my issues before something like that? Or even one man's life, with that many at stake?" Her tone was confused, however, and she looked at Marie-Ange as if she might be able to provide the answers.

"Did Remy know?" Marie-Ange asked, thinking out loud. "I am not sure what to think. If she knew what was going to happen, then did she know I would be shot? I... " She shook her head firmly, setting her jaw. "I cannot answer any of my own questions, much less yours. And I do not know if I want to ask Tante. I think ... it would not go well at all. And maybe I do not really want to know, I think."

"You know Remy - if he'd known, he would have said he deserved to die." Amanda wrapped her hands around her tea mug. "I don't know. If Tante had known everything beforehand, does it make a difference? You were there at the end, saw the people, the ones we saved... I think that has to be enough." Taking a sip, she continued, a little wryly. "All part of the job, after all. Getting shot, getting used, using others... there's a reason we're not X-Men."

"And even if she had seen it, it does not make it easier." Marie-Ange agreed solemnly. "That much I do know." She spent a moment fidgeting with her napkin. "I could have been an X-Man. Doug as well, and Wanda. We all were, if briefly for Doug and I. I could probably go back, if I really thought it wise, and ..." She set the napkin down, and pushed her plate away. "I thought about it. But I do not think it would be right. Not for me."

"Do you miss it?" Amanda asked quietly. There was no question in her mind that it wasn't right for Marie-Ange any more, so it went unsaid. "Being an X-Man... it was simpler than this."

"Not... not for me, it was not." Marie-Ange said, after a few moments of thought. "I think I had more questions before than I do now. I kept myself up nights." She shook her head, laughing wryly. "Although I suppose I do that now, but it is just not the same."

"There's a lot of things not the same - guess that's part of the growing up thing." Amanda took another stab at her home fries and conceded defeat, pushing her plate away as well. "And I think the Bottomless Pit has finally gotten full. How about you?"

The remains of Marie-Ange's waffle had sat inert for a few minutes now, and she gave them one last half-hearted stab. "I think I have eaten all that I can eat." She said. "For now. How long does this last where I am hungry all the time?"

"Oh, a week or so. Until you build your energy levels back up. Or you do a Mr Creosote and explode."