This log isn't late, it just took a wrong turn on the way to Albequerque

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Lorna gives in to roomie pressure and seeks out Dr. Samson. However, she's not exactly willing therapy girl. He pushes, she balks, he shows her the door.

Takes place Tuesday the 10th and has been backdated as such. Yes, I know that was a long time ago. I am bad. Point is, before all the Manuel and Love Potion badness.


Lorna stared at the door in front of her as though she could see straight through it to the man within--the Professor’s pet therapist and presumably the man who was going to do his best to make her admit that she wasn’t quite as fine as she kept insisting she was. It had been bad enough when Alison had entreated her with sorrowful eyes and concerned voice to talk to this Samson dude. No, the Prof has to get in on the act too. His kindly worded, gently urging email had been the last bit her guilty conscience could handle and some how she’d gone from thinking about seeing the newest arrival at the mansion to actually standing in front of his door.

Of course, now that she was facing that door, Lorna wasn’t sure her conscience couldn’t take just a little bit more. She wasn’t really so bad off. It wasn’t like she’d killed anyone or been taken hostage or died or any of the other nine hundred horrors that lived in the psyches of half the population of Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters. Alison was certainly making more out of this than it actually was. And why wouldn’t she? It wasn’t like she could get inside Lorna’s head. Alison liked to worry. It made her feel like she was doing something. Plus he’s probably crazy busy. Um, way no pun intended. Lorna shook her head, having convinced herself that she obviously didn’t need to be here. Straightening her shoulders, she turned and walked quickly away from the office Dr. Samson had been given.

Her head down as she watched the carpet slide away beneath her, she never even saw the tall blond man with the contemplative expression waiting patiently in her path. She hit him with considerable force and stumbled backwards. He steadied her, resting his hands on her shoulders. “Are you looking for me?” he asked mildly.

Lorna jerked away automatically, her left hand moving to clutch at her right shoulder where he’d touched her. “No, I was...no,” she repeated lamely when she realised she didn’t have any thing even approaching a good excuse.

“Ah. I thought that perhaps since you were standing in front of my office that you might have been. My mistake.” He extended his hand genially, apparently oblivious to her defensive posture though, of course, he was anything but. “I’m Dr. Leonard Samson.”

“Lorna,” she supplied, shaking his hand, “I’m sorry. I should have been watching where I was going.” She remained hunched in on herself, watching him warily with sharp green eyes.

Dane, he identified instantly, the burned girl. Her recoil made more sense now. Xavier has mentioned this one’s name specifically as well as several others when asking him to come to the school. Even if she wasn’t looking for him, she was supposed to be. “Nice to meet you.”

Lorna resisted the urge to fidget under his direct, measuring gaze. “This is usually my cue to welcome you to the madhouse but I guess you’re forewarned considering you’re here to fix it.” Oh, very clever, Lor. Did you knock out what little sense you had when you tried to walk through the man?

He smiled, “I appreciate the warning in any case. Have you been at the school long?” He took a step toward her. Her eyes widened a bit but he simply continued on by her and gestured for her to walk with him. She followed, more out of habit than will.

Lorna shrugged one shoulder, “About a year. I did a semester at UCLA first then came here.” She tugged on the bottom of her sweater while she studied him. He certainly wasn’t like any psychiatrist she’d ever seen. For one thing, she could look most of those tweed-loving folks in the eye. She was tilting her head rather significantly back to keep an eye on Dr. Samson. The long blond ponytail was another anomaly. This guy was no one’s image of the properly straight-laced shrink. Not that anything around here was the very model of a modern major general. “You’re good at what you do?” she asked abruptly.

He paused in the act of taking out the keys to his office to look at her, “Is that a question?”

“No. Not really,” she admitted. Of course, he was good. Knowing the Professor, he was likely the very best. What she was wondering was something entirely different, “Can I trust you?”

“I hold my oath in the highest possible regard. Anything you choose to tell me as a patient stays between you and me. If you don’t trust me then I suggest you tell me why that is so we can clear it up before we begin.” He unlocked his office and pushed the door open. “Would you like to come in?”

Lorna hesitated then shook her head, “No,” she replied truthfully. “But I think I should. Alison--Blaire, my roommate--asked me to come talk to you. She’s worried. So, yeah. If you’ve got sometime, it would make her feel better.” She remained where she was.

The tall man spread his hands, “I’m free right now. By all means, come in.” He found her duality of expression interesting. Her words were open and apparently guileless but her body language shrieked of defense, like a small child who has just been slapped. He retrieved a notebook from his desk, “May I take notes? I guarantee that no one but myself will be able to read anything in them and they will help me keep track of our conversation.”

Lorna moved slowly into the room and shut the door quietly behind her. She slipped into the large grey leather chair positioned in front of the desk. She crossed her legs at the ankles and clasped her hands on her knees. Very proper and wholly closed-off. She nodded at his question, “I’m not worried about it, Dr. Samson. Please do whatever it is that makes you most comfortable.”

It was difficult to tell if she had chosen that phrase deliberately for its pop-psych connotations or not. He suspected so and noted it down. “Thank you.” He settled back in his chair, wanting to see what she did next. He thought it was unlikely that this was her first trip to see a mental health professional.

Lorna sat in quiet stillness for a long time, watching him, trying to decide what he wanted from her. Finally her hands fluttered in her lap and she shook her head, “I’m not sure where to begin.”

“Why don’t you tell me why Alison asked you to talk to me?” he suggested, in a neutral tone.

Lorna shrugged her shoulder again, “I broke up with my boyfriend. Over Christmas.” Her hand twitched slightly, as though dismissing the concern as minor. She lapsed into silence again. Again, he waited her out. “We sort of broke up, that is. I think.” She shifted in her chair, curling one leg up underneath her. “Actually, I don’t remember much about our fight. I’m not even sure we did fight. The whole thing feels like something I was told about.”

“Do you know why that is?” he prompted, when she hadn’t followed up with anything further.

Again, that one-shouldered shrug. She was favoring her right side, he realized. “Probably the drugs. I was on some pretty amazing painkillers at the time.” Without waiting through another interminable silence, she continued, “There was an accident. I was in the medlab forever.” She shook her head and studied her hands, lacing her fingers together meditatively. “I was in a lot of pain at the time. I wanted it to stop.”

“How did the accident happen?”

Lorna’s eyes shuttered, “It was just one of those things. One of the students lost control of his power. Wrong place, wrong time. I was too close.” Her brow furrowed, like she wasn’t sure she’d wanted to have said that. “Don’t you have a file or something? The Professor told me that he’d asked you to talk to me.”

“I do have some accounts of your accident,” he replied unperturbed, “I’d like to hear it from your point of view.”

She drew up other leg up onto the seat and wrapped her arms around it. Resting her chin on her knee, she took another long, hard look at him. “Right,” she sighed, “let me start over then.” Her voice changed subtly. It was sharper, more definite. Clipped almost, “Just before Christmas, my boyfriend and I were outside. Over there, where all those trees have been cleared? Alex, he... He never learned how to control his powers. Couldn’t release them and once released couldn’t stop them.

“He never had much warning. His hands would hurt him some but it wasn’t a whole lot of help. It just...exploded.” This, she could remember all too clearly. He’d shouted at her. Told her to run. What would have happened if she’d listened instead of arguing? Would she have been able to get away fast enough? Would he still have left? She had told him to go, that much she knew but had she pushed him away or...was he already leaving her? He’d been so distant. That’s why she’d gone looking for him. She rubbed at her eyes with one hand, “I got caught. It nearly killed me.”

“You were burned, Lorna. That’s the first thing you need to accept. You didn’t just mysteriously wake up in the medlab half-dead; you were burned and it was Alex whose powers burned you. If you can’t say it, you’ll never deal with it. You’re very good at misdirection and denial. But those don’t have any place in this office.”

She swallowed hard, “I had third degree burns over most of my right side and back.” She was staring at her hands again, “My parents flew out. Threw a huge fit and wanted to send me home. Dr. McCoy wouldn’t let them, of course. So they hung around. Mom talked to Alex a couple of times, I think. She wanted to like him. She would have if he...if she’d met him before. Dad didn’t like him. Dad never likes any of my boyfriends. I think he already hates my husband. But that’s Dad.

“So anyway. We were all in the medlab. Me, my completely wigged parents and my boyfriend who everyone blamed for the whole mess. By everyone, I mean Alex. And my parents. And me. Even though I knew better. But...God, I hurt so much. I just...I couldn’t have him around me. Not when seeing him made me want to scream. So I told him to go away. To leave me alone.” She lifted her head and looked entreatingly at Samson, “I don’t know what it was I said. I don’t know what he said. I know that Dad tried to help. He knew I didn’t mean it even thought I didn’t know that.” She shook her head, “It doesn’t matter. I told him to leave and he did.”

“How does his leaving make you feel?”

“I don’t know.”

He tilted his head. “Don’t say you don’t know,” his deep voice was stern but without censure, “You do know. You are the only one who does. We won’t get anywhere if you are anything less than honest with yourself. If you are angry, say it. If you’re sad, say it. If you’re scared or guilty or relieved then say so. How you feel is what we need to understand.”

She shivered when he said relieved. “It hurts, I guess. Makes me angry. I don’t know.” This time he waited, accepting the phrase as punctuation. “I felt...like someone had hit me. Not slapped me, but full-on gut punched me. And I couldn’t catch my breath. I feel like I just go through the day just treading water. But I’m tired. And I want to stop. I never meant to hurt him. I wish I could have done something better.” She pressed her fists to her temples. “God, listen to me. This sounds so screwed up. Like I’m some emotional basketcase.”

Samson tapped his pen idly on his notepad. “You need to stop talking to me with your head. It’s too logical. Too knowledgeable. You know too much about what you’re ‘supposed’ to say and it’s confusing you about what you actually feel.”

Lorna frowned and clenched her right hand, “What’s wrong with trying to be happy? With trying to be normal?”

“What do you think?” he returned the question, knowing it was useless for him to tell her.

“I don’t know,” she snapped, “You’re the one with the degrees and the seventeen years of schooling. You tell me. What am I supposed to say? What is the answer?”

“Why do you think you have to have the right answer? Why are you so afraid to be wrong?”

She tensed and shook her head, “I’m not afraid of being wrong.” Her chin lifted arrogantly, eyes defiant.

“Then what is it you are afraid of?”

She stared at him for a long moment then shook her head. “I’m not.”

He stood abruptly and offered his hand to her. “Thank you for coming, Miss Dane. We will have to do this again.”

“What?” she said, taking his hand reflexively.

“We’re done here today. We can’t make any progress if you aren’t willing to honestly examine yourself so we’re done.” He pulled her to her feet and have her a light push toward the door. “Please give me a call to schedule another session when you are willing to make an effort.”