Jay and Terry log - Backdated June 19th

[x-icarus.livejournal.com]

Jay and Terry talk about what happened, only what she says is limited

"Terry?" Jay asked, knocking on the wooden frame of the door. "Ter?" Why was it that he was always talking to the door and not the people within? Everyone was hermiting this week and for some reason, he felt he should probably be doing the same. Would have been doing the same if he was in a miserable mood to begin with. He lacked the cheery disposition but he also lacked the gloom, being somewhere inbetween content and sedated. Maybe a bit of both.

Terry opened the door and gave him a once over, grateful that he seemed to be fully clothed this time. "Hey. Come on in," she said quietly, stepping back from the door to allow him in.

His lopsided, easy going grin surfaced and he returned her once over. "Thanks, yer pretty damn sexy yerself," he said, lazily wandering into her suite and situated himself on the couch. "So what's up. Patience got a little time to play around?"

Terry considered him for a moment then nodded. "Aye, she's done all her homework and finished her chores but she's got to be back in by supper," she replied wryly. She pulled her hair up into a ponytail as she went to her room to get her acoustic. She hadn't played in days and it sounded like a really good idea right now.

His hands sat on his knees, for lack of anything better to do and he looked around the room for signs, but saw nothing out of the ordinary. One, two, three taps on his knee and his hands slid to rest on his thighs as he eyed her walking back in. Jay pushed off the couch, leaning forward to catch her hand with his and pull her into his lap. "C'mere."

Terry swung Patience out of the way with one hand, caught herself his chest with the other. "Hey, hey. Careful. You break it, you buy it." She settled on his leg peaceably enough though, carefully setting her guitar aside. "Something's got into you recently. What's up?"

Reaching up, he traced a finger under her jawline, tilting his head curiously. "Wanna talk?"

She flinched back, the bruise Mystique had left still ugly and sore. "It looks worse than it is," Terry assured him, "I just don't heal as fast as you do, that's all."

"Who gave it to you?" he asked quietly, concern etched within his features.

Terry's eyebrows went up. "I got it on a mission. It's nothing to worry about. I came out of it just fine." The bitterness in her voice was entirely self-directed. It seemed an insult to her teammates that she'd come away almost uninjured when the boys had suffered so terribly. Shaking her head, she started to get up from his lap, uncomfortable with the turn of the conversation.

His hand dropped but not away, resting on her thighs until she tried to make her escape. He grabbed her waist and pulled her to plunk right down in the spot she was before. "Whoa we ain't done here. What's wrong?"

Her jaw tightened and eyes narrowed, "Stop that. You don't get to bully me." She heard the strident, nearly panicked note in her voice and forced herself to calm down. This was Jay, for Lord's sake. "It was...it was a bad situation. I can't tell you that much about it."

"Easy there girl," he said in a quieter tone like he was talking to a wounded horse. She flinched from him, tried to get away even though his hand was kind and he saw it as she didn't want to talk about it. Sighing, his hands fell back on her thighs and he stroked her leg with his thumb, a habit he had been getting into recently with Kevin. "You and the rest of the world. There anything you can tell me? Like maybe you're needin' a bit more than a musical tune?"

"God, Jay, I don't know." Terry sighed and looked away, eyes tracing over the contents of the room without really seeing any of it. "I should have gone home. There's security at the Keep that needs seeing to and meetings to be had and I still haven't called Sean about any of this. But I didn't want to leave while Forge was recovering."

"What? What's Forge recoverin' from? Shit." Fucking hell, he had to hear it through the grape vine to actually find out about Forge. It was like pulling teeth to find out anything around here. "What happened to him?"

Terry stared, rather appalled. "Forge was in the hospital and then the infirmary for days. Did you even look at the journals last week? He was seriously injured on the mission," that I led. Her breath caught and this time she stood too quickly for him to grab her back, too agitated to sit still.

Jay let her go because he was standing up himself. "It was in the journals? Ah didn't see it, or did you forget that Ah'm not on the team? Is anyone gonna tell me what happened to him or is this just another one of those thing's Ah'm gonna have to overlook again?" He went to the door and grabbed the handle, turning around to look at her."He in his suite, or they got him healin' up somewhere?"

"He's been released. I..." She paused, cocked her head, listening intently for a few seconds, "I don't think he's in his suite. Mr Summers posted to the main journal when we came back. He mentioned the crash and that Forge was badly hurt. Kyle was too. How did you not know about this, Jay? What were you doing?"

"Shit, Ah.. AH was workin'. Ah didn't see it." He must have missed it. "Sorry Ter. Ah gotta go. Ah didn't know. Ah gotta go see him." He felt really bad for not seeing the journal, entry. Had he missed it? Forge probably thought he didn't care. "Ah'll come back and we'll talk soon."

Terry nodded, too stunned to really respond. He was just leaving? She couldn't blame him, not when it was her fault. Not when Forge deserved more care than she did right now. Still, it hurt. "I...yeah. See you."

He hesitated, hearing the change in her voice and gave her an apologetic look before closing the door behind him.



And later, Jay returns to talk to her, only to find out more without being able to help.

After stalking around, trying to find where Forge was, Jay finally asked someone and was told that Forge wasn't to have any visitors yet. It was bullshit as far as he was concerned and wouldn't have taken if not for him not knowing where Forge was exactly. It was frustrating to be so vacant sometimes and he wondered if half of the mansion did what he did, skimming over the journals because he was too tired to even bother to read most of them. He kicked himself repeatedly for it too, all the way to Terry's door. He settled his hand on the handle, knocking briefly on the door and pressed his cheek into it. "Terry."

Terry stifled a sob at the knock, swallowing it down. She was a mess now, just like every third hour of the day for the last several days. She hated this, hated the weakness and the fear and the guilt. Mostly though, she hated getting caught at it. It was bad enough she couldn't handle her own reactions to this privately but to do it in front of other people? That was unforgivable. Sympathy seeking behavior when she didn't deserve anything of the sort. And she wasn't going to answer the door.

He'd heard it before she knew to stop and Jay lingered there for a moment in silence, trying to figure out what was going on with her. "Ter. Ah know you're there. Open the door please. Yanno Ah hate talkin' to the door frame. Ah'm gonna have a permanent wood print on mah face if you make me stand here and talk to you through you're door." If only Kevin and Terry knew how similiar they really were. "What's going on Ter. Open up."

From inside the suite there was only silence as Terry stared miserably at the door, willing Jay to just walk away, too ashamed of herself to even begin to try to explain to him. She was just being a child about this and she didn't really want to be told that that was all right. She should have done better.

He tried the knob and found it unlocked. Pushing the door open, Jay peeked his head inside to see a teary eyed Terry. Stepping inside, he closed the door behind him and immediatly came to her side. "Hey, ya'll right?" he asked.

Terry looked at him for a moment, then shook her head and tried to take a breath without crying. Tried being the operative word. "I don't... it's not... I'm sorry..." she sniffled and grabbed at a tissue--she'd been going through them at an alarming rate since getting home.

He didnt know what she was going through. Hell, he didn't even know what was going on, only that she looked terrible. Raising a hand, he brushed away a tear and leaned over more to curl a lock behind her ear. "Ya don't have to tell me okay? Ah'll just sit here with you if you want."

It took her a several seconds, time ticking by in silence as she fought for control again. Her hands wouldn't stop moving, tracing agitated patterns like the right combination would help--fingers in her hair, tugging at her shirt, clasped together and apart and palms rubbed over her thighs. "Did you see Forge?" she asked quietly when she was something close to calm again.

His hands found hers and Jay held them still over top, warming them to the touch. "No Ah havn't. Not yet. Ah will though. Ah'm sure if he were dyin', someone would've come and got me. You want me to stick around for awhile? Maybe play you a tune?"

She clutched his hands and swallowed hard against a traitorous sob. "You don't have to. I'm just being stupid."

"Ter, you ain't being stupid. Why are you sayin' that?" He wanted to ask more, but held back incase any question prompted more ears. His chest tightened to her being down and out, an attitude he wasn't use to.

"Look at me. I'm a mess," Terry managed to contain the sob but her voice broke anyway, "I screwed up and my team got hurt and I'm sitting here feeling sorry for myself like I deserve some sort of coddling for it. I hate this. I hate being this weak. They're going to take me out of leadership roles, I know it and I don't want to lose that..."

He reached out to take her and and give her a bit of a shake. "Terry, stop it. Ya ain't helpin' no one like this. Ah'm lookin' at you and Ah see someone concerned for their team. That's it. Maybe ya did screw up but not everyone's perfect. And are you sure you messed up or are you just being hard on yourself?"

"I know, I know. I'm being stupid." She curled away from him, ducking her head and letting her long hair curtain her face. "I did what I could. I did what I thought was best but Kyle and Forge are..." she choked on a sob and forced herself on, "and the Blackbird's a wreck and Mystique..."

"What about Mystique?" God, he wished he knew more than he did now. It was so limited and he couldn't help her as good as he knew he could. "Terry, don't pull away, okay, c'mere. Ya gotta stop blaming yerself. Forge and Kyle are big boys, they can take care of themselves."

"Mystique...she's been in the Keep. She told me. Threatened Bobby. I don't know how I could be so stupid. Why I didn't think that it was a target. Of course she's going to go after him." Him, Sean, anyone who visited the Keep.

"Have you talked to Bobby about it? He ain't stupid. You should tell someone about it if ya havn't already."

Terry nodded, "Course I have. Called him the second I could. They're doing security upgrades now--like we haven't bloody torn the place up enough in the last couple years. It's a protected landmark so there's limited amounts we can do with it. It's just...I should have thought of it. Someone should have thought of this."

"How you gonna think about all that? There's gotta be a dozen ways to threaten Bobby and you're sittin' here, worryin' about just one of 'em. You\re on the team. That's the way it's gonna be. People are gonna threaten you and maybe, one day they'll get lucky and blow out the place you love and everyone in it. That's the stuff they don't put down on paper for you when you sign up."

"I have to think about it, Jay!" Terry shook her head and put her chin on her knees. "If I'm just putting the people I love in danger, then what use is this? How can I say they're less important than what I want?"

"Ah dunno Ter. " He didn't argue there becuase he didn't have any answers for her. Only more questions.