xp_logs | Shadow King: (Backdated) Idle Hands

Late at night, Jack and Moira have a conversation over a catatonic Charles.

It was late in the evening and though most of the mansion was now quieting down, Moira was still making rounds. She'd sleep soon enough but she wanted to record some last minute observations. Stopping outside of the door, she frowned, looking in. Someone had beaten her to see Charles, it looked like, and she slipped inside, making enough noise to not startle anyone. Though, at that moment, she would be grateful for just the ability to startle her old friend just a little bit.

"Jack?" she called quietly.

Though he didn't start at her arrival, it took Jack a long time to look at her. Already thin, the figure standing by Charles' bedside was now almost skeletal. The waxen shade of Haller's skin didn't help the illusion, nor did the dark circles under his eyes.

"I'm thinking," Jack said slowly, "of all the times I dreamed of getting close enough to smother the gimp in his sleep. Now we're at the one time he could be of use and he won't wake up. There's irony for you."

"It'd be nice if this all was simply just ta spite ye," Moira agreed, coming up to stand at the foot of the bed. They both looked horrible for different reasons, she thought, shoving her hands in her pockets. "I take it Laurie's intervention isnae helpin' much." It wasn't a question. Not only were the results physically there but she'd been getting daily reports as well.

"She does what she can, and it did help, but seems like chemical intervention doesn't quite match whatever's going on back there." Jack pulled a hand across his face, and though it was still him in ascendence his next words were delivered in two distinctly different voices. "Something's really wrong. I wish he'd wake up. -- 'Course, if he was awake it'd probably be a moot point, but I could sure use some big giant exposition. Like what's going on."

Moira stared at him, racked with a sudden sense of helplessness. The telepaths issues around the mansion added up to something bigger than she was, which was really not too hard to accept. The fact that she was unable to help either her husband or her friends hurt. But the fact that the boy she had essentially raised was facing something that she had no idea how to fix – she took a deep breath. "We will fix this an' make it right," she said, steel in her voice. She didn't know how but she'd die before giving up on anyone in the mansion.

There was a pause, and when he replied Davey's plaintive quaver and Cyndi's hysterical blurt had left his voice. "Yeah, I know. Sorry. System's all sorts of fucked right now, and the others aren't doing as well as me." He exhaled and turned to Moira, composed again. "And how are you holding up, with the bugfuck crazy husband and this place Grand Central Station for all the assorted insanity?"

She gave him a wry smile. "I'm doin' all right, as long as I keep busy." Moira's look grew to a wry expression. "And tha', lad, is somethin' that this Grand Central Station is verra good for right now. I'm scared 'alf ta death but when has that ever stopped any of us?" This, she decided, was probably the most surreal experience she'd faced in the last month or so. "And 'ow're all of ye 'oldin' up?" she asked in response.

Jack gave her a tired look. He pegged the redirection as a tactic Jim often used when the other party was trying to shift attention away from themselves, but lacked the energy to call her on it. Especially since he'd started it.

"Davey's scared, Cyndi's shrill, and I'm holding up. Like always." Jack crossed his arms and looked down at Charles' comatose form. Charles wasn't a large man. Unconscious he looked even smaller. "But mostly, I'm angry at him."

"Ye've always been angry at Charles," Moira pointed out bluntly but no with malice. Jack was just…Jack. "Or is this different because of all…this." She waved her hand around vaguely.

A muscle in Jack's jaw knotted. Epithets came easily for him, but he wasn't used to quantifying his emotions beyond a few choice four letter words. Unfortunately, at this moment there was no one else.

"Thing we went after copied him," Jack said, the words slow and awkward. "Mimicked his psi-signature somehow. Jim went where it told him to, and did what it told him to do. That's how it got him."

Maybe Jack couldn't quantify his emotions at the moment with a four letter word, but Moira did and with vengeance. "Fuck," she snarled, understanding exactly why he was so angry now. She wasn't angry at Charles but thing that did this – using them both like that disgusted her beyond belief. And, she realized, was probably going to cause David a whole lot of mental anguish when this thing was finally over and done with.

"That about covers it." The muscle knotted again and Jack spat out, "And it should never have fucking happened. This is what you get when you fucking trust people. Jim trusted Xavier, and it made him stupid, and now we're paying for it."

"Tha's because yer bitter. If'n ye dinnae trust Charles, tha's up ta ye, Jack. Trust me."

"Right. Because you've always had our best interests at heart." Jack didn't know what made him say the next words, but they came out with the inexorability of a landslide. "Because I'm sure letting David live a lie for ten years had nothing to do with the fact that as long as he didn't know he had a family, you had that much more time to play mommy again."

Moira went even paler than the exhaustion of the last few days had left her and she stared at Jack for a moment. "I told Charles it was a 'orrendously bad idea," she said evenly. "But he was David's father an' Gaby agreed. I capitulated only wit' the knowledge tha' if he asked me, I wouldna 'ave 'esitated ta tell him." Her accent deepened with the hint of anger – some towards Jack but mostly towards herself – and she struggled to keep it under control. "He never asked, though he never would have had reason ta question."

She closed her eyes, fingers pinching the bridge of her nose. "I'd die for him, Jack, simple as tha'. An' whatever joy I got out o' playin' mummy? I'd give up in an instant ta help him. Take my word as ye will but remember, yer part an' parcel o' tha'."

"Isn't that the point?" Jack flung out his arms to encompass Moira, Charles, and the world at large. "No matter what people would give or how much they care, shit still happens. It'll always happen, and nothing anybody can do can protect David. Not you, not Xavier, not even fucking me." He laughed, sharp and harsh, and much too loud. "And isn't that the best part? David made his own personal bodyguard, and I fucking lost him!"

And in an instant, Moira was in his personal space. Not close enough to touch but close. It was always a gamble with Jack but she'd been invested with working with David, all of him, since he'd shown up on her doorstep all those years ago. If anyone knew the consequences and could accept them in an attempt to get through, it was her. "Aye, an' ye'd be best ta stop tha' line o' thinkin' right now," Moira said, forcing eye contact. "Yer right. Somethin' will always happen. Always. Wha' would ye 'ave him do, hide away from the world? He tried that and it dinnae work. Besides, he's stubborn an' mule headed enough ta refuse that – he knows can do good and I doubt ye'll see him step down from much while he's tryin' ta do jus' tha'. Ye taught him tha' much, Jack."

Jack stood for a minute, held by her eye contact, then tore his face away. "Which is what makes me a goddamn failure," he snapped, taking an abrupt step backward. "I'm the one watching his back. This time the kid went into the unknown and got buried, and what good was I?" The monitoring equipment in the room shuddered slightly as his hands gathered into fists. "He and the Arab took the damage and locked the rest of us out. That's not how it works!"

There was a tense silence, inhabited only by the hum of the machinery, and then Jack lifted his eyes to Moira again. A muscle worked, and he almost whispered, "We're supposed to protect him."

"And, this time, whatever he saw in there made him realize tha' there was somethin' in there tha' ye couldnae protect him from. But he, in turn, could shelter ye." The smile she gave him held no mirth. "Trust me when I say tha' I know exactly how frustratin' it is ta be forced onta th' sidelines. It's painful an' frightenin' an' a pain in the arse. Sometimes th' ones we desperately need ta protect 'ave ta do it on their own. It doesnae mean we have ta like it."

The alter was silent for a long moment, his eyes still fixed on the tiles. His lips were moving, the mumbled words barely audible. The rest of the alters were adding their opinions.

"Look, we're all freaked, but she's right. I know you picked up the self-flagellation from a world champion, but you didn't do anything wrong. You need to chill so we can get through this. -- Please, Jack. Charles isn't here and Jim's gone, we need you. Please don't fight with Moira anymore. . . . all right. All right."

The last was spoken at normal volume. Jack raised his head, his expression now both composed and resigned. "I've been outvoted by the peanut gallery," he said.

Moira smirked, just a little bit. "And a good thin', too, or else I would've had ta box yer ears."

"Might be a threat if you could reach them," Jack replied without rancor. His affect remained the same, but his voice acquired Davey's cadence. "We're sorry, Moira. He didn't mean it about you not telling us about Charles and Aunt Gaby. He's got nobody to fight, and that makes him mad." A slight hitch and it dropped back to Jack's octave. "Got too much to think about and not enough to do," he finished, pressing a hand to the ever present headache.

"It needed ta be asked, though ye could 'ave picked a better time." She shook her head and looked at him, lips pursed. "Not enough ta do, hmm? If'n ye want ta stare at Charles' comatose body all day, yer welcome ta it, but I'm willin' ta bet I could put ye ta work well enough while we wait. Idle hands an' all tha' bloody rubbish, after all."

"Yeah. Sure." He glanced at Charles' still form again, then towards the door. "If it wasn't such a bad idea, I'd check on Betts first. Every so often I get the urge to make sure she isn't planning to commandeer another classroom and teach manners at swordpoint."

"Poor kids," Moira muttered, shaking her head as she followed him, pausing only to touch Charles hand lightly. "Though ye'll be 'appy ta note we've removed any an' all sharpened objects on her body or near her body…"