Log: Haller and Laurie

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Haller finds Laurie in the dining room and they talk.



Laurie cut her steak into small pieces, spearing several pieces of broccoli and coating the streak and vegetables in mashed potato before drawing it toward her mouth. She'd never realised how hungry powers training would make her, but it seemed that skipping lunch due to nerves was not a good idea.

She looked up as she heard movement at the dining room door, her cheeks stuffed with food.

"Hey, Laurie." Jim looked at her over the bowl of cold kateh a lack of cheese in his suite had driven him to take to the kitchen for seasoning. "Haven't seen you around lately," the telepath said, noting she was alone. He was aware he should have checked on her more this winter, to ask how her mother was doing at the very least, but the winter break had disrupted the habit. He glanced at the bowl in his hand, and then nodded towards the table. "Mind if I sit?"

Laurie swallowed the food in her mouth and eyed Haller for a moment before shaking her head and going back to cutting up her steak. She wasn't entirely sure if she wanted to talk to him right now, not after she'd found out about the lying.

"Um, okay," Jim said to the distinct lack of reply, giving the girl a puzzled look. Socially he would have gladly heeded the unspoken hint, but students were in a different category. Jim took the seat nearest the door, a respectable distance away from Laurie, and set down the rice. "That wasn't a good look. What did I do?"

"I don't know, Jack. What do you think you did? Or is it Cindy right now? I assume you're not Davey because you're not carrying any crayons about." Laurie replied, tone frosty as she stabbed at her steak, thrusting it into her mouth and chewing in a rather angry fashion.

"If you're not sure, the eyes are a good indicator." Jim didn't miss a beat, all visible signs of his reaction automatically flattened by long practice. He'd known Laurie was doing some of the preliminary groundwork to become a trainee when she came of age. That meant she had access to some of the less sensitive mission logs -- and, he now realized, basic personal dossiers. Specifically, the one he'd ensured was available for any team mate who cared to look.

He was used to things like this. But even so, he hoped the heat that had risen in his face at the comment about crayons only felt like a flush.

Exhaling slowly, the telepath folded his hands on the table and looked up at Laurie with mismatched eyes. "Yes, I do have Dissociative Identity Disorder," he said simply. "Is that going to be a problem for you?"

"Please, don't even try to make this about me, Mr Haller." Laurie said, placing her knife and fork carefully on the table beside her plate. "I don't have a problem with your, what you called it. I have a problem with the fact that you obviously don't trust me at all."

It had hurt, even though logically she was aware she wasn't being terribly fair to the man. It was just...she'd trusted him, why had it been so hard for him to trust her in return?

It was hard to tell if this reasoning made it better or worse. Jim sat back in his chair and forced his shoulders to unknot before he replied.

"It is a trust issue, but not the way you're thinking. Some people have a problem with mental illness, and I'm the school counsellor. I know I can do my job. But you can see how some kids would maybe have problems talking about their problems to somebody with a diagnosed psychiatric disorder. Or their parents, with letting their kids go someplace where they employed somebody like that." The tall man gave Laurie a humourless half-smile. "It wasn't you, Laurie. I just learned a long time ago that sometimes the only way to help people is when they're focused on what's going on inside their heads, not yours."

Laurie thought about that for a time, picking at her food as it lay on her plate. She didn't buy it, sure, Mr Haller was her school counselor but...she didn't know. Maybe she was the one being wrong here, expecting something from her teachers that went beyond what their job description was meant to entail. Just because you lived with people, didn't mean there was the level of trust there you might have in a family.

"I'm sorry, I expected more then I should have." she said finally, picking up her plate as she stood. "I'll make sure to remember what's appropriate next time."

"Hang on--" Jim half-rose and almost knocked the chair down, thinking it was just as well they'd already veered so far off the map of professionalism they'd entered Here There Be Dragons. He wasn't quite sure what he was supposed to do, but he did know it was a bad idea to leave things like this. Making sure the chair was secure first; Jim stood the rest of the way and shook his head.

"Listen, Laurie," Jim said, holding out a hand, "you didn't do anything wrong." Raking a hand through his hair, he went ahead and forced a little personal information and hoped he wasn't the one now overstepping. "I've always understood people better than I relate to them because I've been through things that have made that hard. You shouldn't judge yourself based on my reactions. I'm bringing my own share of baggage to the loading dock." He smiled that half-smile again, this time regretful. "While you're a student here our relationship might be a little complicated, but that doesn't mean you're the only one who can make mistakes sometimes."

Laurie gripped the sides of her plate, hair shielding her face slightly before she reached up to push it back and met Haller's gaze head on.

"I've been thinking of this place like family, weird, bizarre family but...I just want to know that if I'm going to be honest about who and what I am, that other people are going to be just as honest with me. It's not fair, being judged without even being asked. Do you really think I'd care that you're different people sometimes? I mean, you're still able to help me, right? It's not like you're going to give me bad advice just because sometimes you're not Mr Haller."

"You? No. And not that many other people here, really." For a moment his eyes locked on the bowl of kateh on the table, still wearing that small, quiet smile. "Like I said, I've got my own baggage. It may not be the smartest thing, or the bravest thing, but sometimes it's easiest to just not bring it up." He turned his attention back to Laurie, and the odd smile became a little less fixed. "You have to remember putting yourself out there to be accepted's only half the work. The other half is accepting yourself. And sometimes that can take a little work."

"I..." Laurie started to respond but then paused for a moment, thinking it over. He hadn't needed to explain anything to her, not really. She was still a student, after all and he was the school counsellor, if she'd pulled something like this at any other school she might have been suffering through detention for a decade. "I guess you're right. I don't know how much I'd tell someone outside this school about what I can do either. I'm sorry I was, I didn't mean. I should have just told you I was upset and what for, I didn't need to get all angry at you."

Jim smiled and gave a half-shrug. "Well, considering you just found out your school counsellor had a mental illness he neglected to tell you about for a year or so I'll give you some leeway. Trust me, much worse has happened for much less reason."

"Yeah. So...can I see one? Of your alters, I mean." Laurie said eyes alight with a sudden curiosity.

Jim cleared his throat. "We may want to work up to that. They don't exactly appear on demand." Especially not in front of someone who was still an active student. Even Cyndi was mildly weirded out, though she awarded Laurie due props for having the guts to ask a guy to flip alternate personalities within ten minutes of confronting him about their existence.

"Sure. So, you doing anything, other then eating that is? I was going to see if some of the others wanted to watch some DVDs. You're welcome to join us, that is, if you haven't got anything else to do." Laurie said her hands now relaxed on the plate she was holding, now that she'd gotten everything out into the open, she didn't see much use in continuing to harp on it.

Jim laughed, the sound just slightly relieved. "Thanks, but I actually have to double check some things about my courses after I eat. I'm probably being paranoid, but it's been over a year. I'd prefer to be over prepared."

"Okay, well, have fun." Laurie said, grinning as she turned and walked out of the room. She felt much better now; she just hoped that the rest of the week would go easy; she didn't really want any more surprises.