Layla & Jean | Friday morning

[x-mandelbrot.livejournal.com]

After Haller and Jean carry Maddie out of their suite Layla follows - eventually - to find out what the hell happened.

It had taken Layla what seemed like forever to get down to the medlab. She was pretty sure Maddie had only been wearing the shower curtain when Mr Haller had carried her out of the suite. As such, the teenager sat with a pile of folded clothes for her suitemate in her lap. A package of oreos and a jar of peanut butter laid on top of it all. Layla had figured since she was slow to the dance she might as well stop off at the kitchen. After all, Maddie had fed her PB & Oreos during most Layla's month of emo.

Maddie needing to be carried out like that, and only knowing it had to do with her manifesting...worried wasn't exactly the word Layla would have used to describe herself. More like bat shit panicked. Yet she sat there in a chair outside Dr. Grey-Summers' office waiting patiently. She wasn't sure where they had taken Maddie but it seemed like it was probably down here and Dr Grey-Summers had to come back to her office eventually, right?

Jean was still wearing only her pajamas and robe and carried her doctor's bag as she made her way toward her office to put her equipment back. She had her suspicions Layla would probably be around but they hadn't been confirmed until she left the Box. The sensation of not being able to pick up the mansion's thoughts was both comforting and surreal at the same time. She wasn't sure why it felt so strange. She'd practically lived in the Box in times gone by. Perhaps her experience with Nightmare had shifted her perceptions a little.

The tiredness on her face melted away by the time Layla came into view as she put on her doctor face and she nodded toward her office.

"Would you like to come in?" she said.

"Is Maddie okay?" She got up with a bit of a groan. Moving was still a lot of effort and Layla was not a fan of it. But she managed to stand up, peanut butter, oreos and clothes cradled to her chest, and followed the doctor into her office. "Did her brain explode or something?" That didn't seem very probable but the two telepaths had kicked in the fucking door, after all.

Letting Layla come in first, Jean closed the door behind the two of them and set her medical kit down next to her coat rack.

She smiled. "She will be okay," Jean said as she leaned against her desk.
"She'll have to stay in the Box for a little while until she can get a better grip on her powers. Maddie's a telepath, like Mr. Haller and I. When telepaths manifest it can be rather jarring," Jean said, tilting her head.

"It's sort of like...being in a room with hundreds of radios and having them all turn on at once but not being able to turn them off. The Box helps shield those thoughts until Maddie can eventually learn how to tune those thoughts out. It'll take some time but I have every confidence she can do it."

"That doesn't sound that bad. Annoying but lots of radios is just noisy." The blonde shrugged. "All you gotta do is hang out in the city when the carrier homeless people are screaming at each other to get the same thing. I don't get why it was such a big deal that Mr. Haller and you had to bust in our door."

"Unfortunately it's all in your head and you can't turn it off or cover your ears or leave when it gets to be too much. It's with you all the time. It's never quiet. It's all you hear," Jean said.

"It can have a harmful effect for people who are unprepared for it. And even for people who are."

Then there were the ones who went insane or catatonic from all of the voices. But she didn't want to scare the girl too much.

Jean glanced down to the bounty Layla had brought and smiled. "I'm sure she'll appreciate those."

"Huh? Oh, yeah." She laid the pile of clothes, cookies and peanut butter on the doctor's desk. "I figured she would want clothes, not just like the shower curtain. And she likes Oreos with peanut butter. I probably can't see her for a while, huh?" Layla was still trying to understand why lots of radios in your head was super urgent but she just couldn't see why. Annoying but you'd deal, right? Maybe it was like really loud radios. Playing techno or French rap or something.

Jean could see the wheels turning in Layla's mind. While she wasn't listening in she had an idea of what she was thinking about. It was hard for those who weren't telepaths to know how it felt to have everyone's mind in yours all the time. It was something she didn't really wish on people. She'd learned to manage it and use it to her advantage when necessary but only after a decade plus longer of practice.

"Let's give her until tomorrow afternoon. She needs some time to cope," Jean said, almost at the same time remembering that the plumbing needed to be looked at to make sure water hadn't gone everywhere in all of the telekinesis-fueled excitement.

She smiled. "But you'll be her first visitor." With the exception of probably Haller. He seemed to be a little more emotional than usual.

The girl nodded. She didn't love the answer but she wasn't exactly going to argue. It was just...Maddie was her suitemate. She'd brought Layla cookies and not pushed or been super annoying when Layla had wanted to be left alone. She felt like it was only right if she went and checked on her and stuff.

"Um, okay. Tell her I brought the cookies and stuff?" She stood up and immediately reached out a hand to grab onto something. Why did the room insist on spinning at the most inopportune times possible? The dizzy spell came with nausea, but at least the former receded fairly quickly with a few deep breaths and some closed eyes. Man was that annoying. "I'm gonna go like get the stuff I'm supposed to be doing in all those classes I haven't gone to all week." Her eyes shifted from side to side suddenly and Layla looked a little guilty. "Uh...I'll come back for my anatomy stuff from you later. Or tomorrow. Or something."

Jean took a step forward, studying her to make sure she wasn't about to fall over.

"I think you had an excuse to be missing those. I can help you get caught up. We're not terribly behind. In the meantime, I recommend that you get some rest. I can help you back to your room, if you'd like," she said. It looked like she'd overexerted herself trying to get down there and the girl was in the middle of trying to recover from her own power fluctuations.

"Thanks. Anatomy...so not my strong suit, y'know?" Layla took another deep breath, eyes closed once more. It would be really awesome if she could get some measure of confidence that she wasn't gonna spew all the nothing in her stomach on herself when she started to walk. "Um...help might be good. Y'know, we'll just like pretend it didn't happen or something, right?"

Jean grinned wryly as her door opened. "It stays between us," she said as she offered her her hand.

"There's a lot to remember and with other things on your mind it can be distracting. I have a few exercises I used to practice in medical school to help me remember the bones. Mnemonics. I'll teach them to you."

Layla took the doctor's hand with a weak smile. "Thanks. I'll totally fail at it anyway but, you know, I'll try. Or try to try. Or something." Her nose wrinkled. There were 'virtual students' now and the class hadn't really been the same since. She was the only student in the class before and now there were others and Layla wasn't sure she was gonna like that. Whatever, she was used to getting really bad grades in science anyway.

"I think you're a lot smarter than you give yourself credit for," Jean said with every confidence as she helped Layla back to the upper levels. All in all it had been a busy morning. And they still had the rest of the day to get through.