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xp_logsDoug goes seeking out Marie-Ange as one of the few people he remembers that remembers him, and finds out something he was truly not expecting.
Remy was herding the entirety of the residents of the brownstone to and from the offices, so as to keep them all in arm's reach as much as possible. It was like some bizarre form of field trip, if all of the 'students' were of various adult appearances, and their 'chaperone' was an extremely cranky Cajun. But at least the offices were fairly nice, and at least had some people Doug knew, even if they didn't always know him back. That was extremely odd, and was taking some getting used to.
Doug was tempted to go digging around more in 'his' servers, even if just to catch up on the past seven years of technology, but Remy had been quiet insistent about not indulging his curiosity and he'd already gone looking a bit more than he should've. So instead, Doug went and found the office that apparently belonged to Marie-Ange. If he couldn't go searching through computers, maybe he could try and piece something together with his friends. He knocked on the doorjamb and looked inside. "Hey, Angie," he greeted her somewhat diffidently. "You busy?"
Marie-Ange was still boggled by having an office of her own, and wasn't quite sure what to even do with such a thing. It seemed to be hers, it had a few little familiar things, a deck of tarot cards she'd only started sketching - now finished, some photographs, art supplies of brands she knew she liked, but the drafting table with blueprints, she had only even just started to consider architecture as a possible career, and university was years away. She'd run out of things to search for, after the "crash course" in google that she hadn't really needed. So she was sketching - doodles, mostly. It was strangely boring to be so idle. "No. Just ... no, not I am not doing much of anything at all."
Marie-Ange's office was fascinating in the same way that his server room had been fascinating - that you could just barely see the extrapolation of the person he knew with seven more years of experience behind them. Seven-years-older Marie-Ange was also incredibly good-looking. And since she was the closest to the way he 'remembered' her (his brain was getting a lot of mileage out of air quotes the past day or so), it was also in some ways the most confusing to be talking to the quiet French girl he knew and be looking at the body of a twenty-three-year-old...hottie. Not that that word was ever leaving his lips.
He wandered in and took a seat in the chair facing her desk. "Can...can you think of any reason why Jamie wouldn't even take my calls?" he asked her quietly.
Of all of the things Marie-Ange had hoped she and Doug might talk about, James Arthur Madrox was not one of them. The very idea that he might not answer calls. "I do not know. The last thing I remember talking to Jamie about was... History homework, I think? There was an essay?" She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remember. "No, that is not right. I do not remember what it is we talked about, peanut butter brands, perhaps, but he was not angry at you. I cannot imagine what might have happened." She glanced around the room, as if to look for some clue as to why Doug and his best friend might not be talking seven years later, and came up with... nothing.
"I guess I hadn't really expected you to know, it's just..." Doug wasn't sure where to look - the ceiling, the floor, his hands... "He wouldn't even let me leave a voice message, you know? Like he'd pick up the phone and then hang it back up before I could get a word out." He sighed. "I guess I must have done something horrible or something, to make him hate me that much."
"What sort of horrible thing could you have possibly done?" Marie-Ange's voice raised sharply, and she shook her head. "You... the .. the very worst thing I can think of is your computer hacking things, and Kitty does that!" Marie-Ange tried to keep the edge of dislike out of her voice. She got along with Kitty sometimes, and sometimes... well sometimes Kitty seemed much too invested in desperately trying to pretend that Illyana was not evil and Jubilee was not a twit. "I... you and he got along fine. We went on double dates, you and I and Jamie and Kitty. I do not understand at all what has changed."
Doug's eyes widened. "Double dates?" Which meant... "You mean you and I really were..." That was a lot to take in. Marie-Ange was slightly younger than him, and thus apparently remembered a bit more of the gap in time than he did. The mechanics of everyone in the office apparently thinking they were sixteen was rather headache inducing.
"I thought it was you when I woke up with Wade. I know we must have broken up, but..." Marie-Ange leaned on the desk that was supposedly hers. "I cannot imagine what I must have done to break us up. I share an apartment with Amanda now, I am dating this person named Wade, who I do not know at all, what sort of people have we become that you and I are not dating but are working in the same office?"
The idea that he would date, and then break up with, Marie-Ange at some point in his relative 'future', was a bit much for Doug to handle. "I can't imagine you doing anything to...I mean..." He sagged in his chair. "What if it's me that becomes someone different?" he asked quietly. "I mean, if Jamie..."
"It cannot be you." Marie-Ange stood up from the desk chair and stepped away from her desk. "All of my clothes are like this." The slacks were tailored to show off leg, the skirts were worse, and there wasn't a single shirt or bra that wasn't designed to make the best show of her chest or shoulders or both. "I turned into someone who... who has... .there were ... in my nighttable." She couldn't even say condoms, and there'd been a half-empty pack of them. "What kind of people -are- we now?"
Doug could interpret fairly well, knowing what he knew of Marie-Ange, and extrapolating from her worry about the 'modesty' of her clothes. Of course, now he was trying not to be caught staring at her legs, and thinking about just what having birth control in her nighttable would mean, and from there picturing her amazing adult body naked. And then blushing furiously.
"I wish I had answers for you, Angie," he said, shaking his head. "But I don't. I mean, you remember a couple more months than I do, even."
"Yes, but all I remember is more of the same. We dated. Before, that you almost ..." No, she could most certainly not tell him that. If this was some kind of time travel, he could go back knowing, and that could change everything, and even thinking about it gave her a headache right behind her eye, and so Marie-Ange sat back down in her chair, and began opening the unlocked desk drawers. "We dated, and you were friends with Jamie and we went to classes. Amanda and I were friends, and she does not know me at all. Jubilee does not know any of us, but she is just as annoying as I remember." She pulled out a handful of pill bottles, and began discarding them as she read the labels. "Do I have a painkiller habit?" She asked, a bit rhetorically. There were three bottles of the stuff, in different doses.
"Apparently?" Doug replied. "I mean, I suppose it makes sense. You have that canopy bed and stuff to deal with insomnia, maybe the headaches and stuff get worse as time goes on?" And could he say the word 'stuff' any more? And could he stop making every sentence into a question? He blamed the fact that his brain was still totally distracted by how attractive 'grown up' Marie-Ange was.
"Nothing makes sense anymore!" Marie-Ange said, voice wavering. "I live in New York City, Remy is old, we are not dating anymore and I am told I am dating Wade, which I suppose I understand because if he is like he is now, he is polite and shy and awkward, but he does not look like he is polite and awkward, even if he is, and you certainly do not look ... polite... anymore." She waved a hand in Doug's direction and it was clear she was talking about the changes to his appearance. "I do not own a single skirt or pair of pants that does not make sure everyone in the city is staring at me, and I do not even know where I go to Mass!"
"I'm...not sure I am polite, either," Doug said after thinking. "I found a suit in my closet that I can't even guess how much it costs. And I have a gun safe. That has actual guns in it. Guns. Plural." He still had no idea what to think about that. And the fact that the discovery of guns only barely made the top ten of most weird things that had happened was even more unsettling.
Marie-Ange blinked a few times, and then quite suddenly leaned her elbows on the desk and rested her head in her hands. From the noises, and shaking of her shoulders, it was all too clear she was crying.
Doug was out of his chair in a flash, hand reaching toward Marie-Ange's hair, but pulling back just shy, as if he was unsure whether she needed comforting. Or if she would accept it from him. "What...what's wrong?" he asked haltingly.
"I think this may be all my fault." Marie-Ange looked up and wiped her eyes with one hand. "There... blast. I cannot tell you because what if we go back and remember this and it changes something? I just.. I saw something, and now I wonder if perhaps because I did not say anything I caused all of this, all of us being... " Whatever they were. People who clearly kept guns and had tattoos and scars under their breasts. What if she had been the one shot, and not Doug?
Doug shook his head. "I don't think you can blame yourself for everything that happens," he said reassuringly. "That's...just a terrible burden to put on yourself." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
Marie-Ange scrubbed at her eyes until she couldn't feel any more tears. "Oh, if only you would take your own advice." She said, laughing wryly. "I wonder how much that will change, if I say to you, stop blaming yourself for everything?" She said, all too aware that even that could change things, and simply too beyond caring to ... care. The mechanics of their being 16 in adult bodies had just gotten too confusing to handle.
Doug wanted, more than anything, to be able to say or do whatever would be the right thing to comfort Marie-Ange. But he wasn't sure what that was. "Maybe change can be for the better," he said hesitantly, before putting his arm around her shoulders and bending to hug the seated woman somewhat awkwardly.
It was probably unfair to enjoy the hug from a version of Doug she was not dating, but Marie-Ange did, and leaned against his arm for a little while. His surprisingly muscular arm, which was a sure reminder that this was not the same Doug she'd dated once. "Can I make you promise not to blame yourself for everything wrong?"
Doug said "Maybe. If you promise you won't blame yourself for everything either? Or second-guessing yourself and how things might change quite so much?" Maybe they were dating other people (that they didn't remember), but hugging her, and the way she hugged him, felt good, and kind of right in some way. So he gave in to an impulse and kissed the top of her head, then turned his own cheek to rest against her hair.
"That is easier said than done." Marie-Ange said softly. "I will try, if you will not make Yoda jokes about do or do not try." She reached up and hugged Doug's arm, and leaned against him.
Remy was herding the entirety of the residents of the brownstone to and from the offices, so as to keep them all in arm's reach as much as possible. It was like some bizarre form of field trip, if all of the 'students' were of various adult appearances, and their 'chaperone' was an extremely cranky Cajun. But at least the offices were fairly nice, and at least had some people Doug knew, even if they didn't always know him back. That was extremely odd, and was taking some getting used to.
Doug was tempted to go digging around more in 'his' servers, even if just to catch up on the past seven years of technology, but Remy had been quiet insistent about not indulging his curiosity and he'd already gone looking a bit more than he should've. So instead, Doug went and found the office that apparently belonged to Marie-Ange. If he couldn't go searching through computers, maybe he could try and piece something together with his friends. He knocked on the doorjamb and looked inside. "Hey, Angie," he greeted her somewhat diffidently. "You busy?"
Marie-Ange was still boggled by having an office of her own, and wasn't quite sure what to even do with such a thing. It seemed to be hers, it had a few little familiar things, a deck of tarot cards she'd only started sketching - now finished, some photographs, art supplies of brands she knew she liked, but the drafting table with blueprints, she had only even just started to consider architecture as a possible career, and university was years away. She'd run out of things to search for, after the "crash course" in google that she hadn't really needed. So she was sketching - doodles, mostly. It was strangely boring to be so idle. "No. Just ... no, not I am not doing much of anything at all."
Marie-Ange's office was fascinating in the same way that his server room had been fascinating - that you could just barely see the extrapolation of the person he knew with seven more years of experience behind them. Seven-years-older Marie-Ange was also incredibly good-looking. And since she was the closest to the way he 'remembered' her (his brain was getting a lot of mileage out of air quotes the past day or so), it was also in some ways the most confusing to be talking to the quiet French girl he knew and be looking at the body of a twenty-three-year-old...hottie. Not that that word was ever leaving his lips.
He wandered in and took a seat in the chair facing her desk. "Can...can you think of any reason why Jamie wouldn't even take my calls?" he asked her quietly.
Of all of the things Marie-Ange had hoped she and Doug might talk about, James Arthur Madrox was not one of them. The very idea that he might not answer calls. "I do not know. The last thing I remember talking to Jamie about was... History homework, I think? There was an essay?" She pinched the bridge of her nose, trying to remember. "No, that is not right. I do not remember what it is we talked about, peanut butter brands, perhaps, but he was not angry at you. I cannot imagine what might have happened." She glanced around the room, as if to look for some clue as to why Doug and his best friend might not be talking seven years later, and came up with... nothing.
"I guess I hadn't really expected you to know, it's just..." Doug wasn't sure where to look - the ceiling, the floor, his hands... "He wouldn't even let me leave a voice message, you know? Like he'd pick up the phone and then hang it back up before I could get a word out." He sighed. "I guess I must have done something horrible or something, to make him hate me that much."
"What sort of horrible thing could you have possibly done?" Marie-Ange's voice raised sharply, and she shook her head. "You... the .. the very worst thing I can think of is your computer hacking things, and Kitty does that!" Marie-Ange tried to keep the edge of dislike out of her voice. She got along with Kitty sometimes, and sometimes... well sometimes Kitty seemed much too invested in desperately trying to pretend that Illyana was not evil and Jubilee was not a twit. "I... you and he got along fine. We went on double dates, you and I and Jamie and Kitty. I do not understand at all what has changed."
Doug's eyes widened. "Double dates?" Which meant... "You mean you and I really were..." That was a lot to take in. Marie-Ange was slightly younger than him, and thus apparently remembered a bit more of the gap in time than he did. The mechanics of everyone in the office apparently thinking they were sixteen was rather headache inducing.
"I thought it was you when I woke up with Wade. I know we must have broken up, but..." Marie-Ange leaned on the desk that was supposedly hers. "I cannot imagine what I must have done to break us up. I share an apartment with Amanda now, I am dating this person named Wade, who I do not know at all, what sort of people have we become that you and I are not dating but are working in the same office?"
The idea that he would date, and then break up with, Marie-Ange at some point in his relative 'future', was a bit much for Doug to handle. "I can't imagine you doing anything to...I mean..." He sagged in his chair. "What if it's me that becomes someone different?" he asked quietly. "I mean, if Jamie..."
"It cannot be you." Marie-Ange stood up from the desk chair and stepped away from her desk. "All of my clothes are like this." The slacks were tailored to show off leg, the skirts were worse, and there wasn't a single shirt or bra that wasn't designed to make the best show of her chest or shoulders or both. "I turned into someone who... who has... .there were ... in my nighttable." She couldn't even say condoms, and there'd been a half-empty pack of them. "What kind of people -are- we now?"
Doug could interpret fairly well, knowing what he knew of Marie-Ange, and extrapolating from her worry about the 'modesty' of her clothes. Of course, now he was trying not to be caught staring at her legs, and thinking about just what having birth control in her nighttable would mean, and from there picturing her amazing adult body naked. And then blushing furiously.
"I wish I had answers for you, Angie," he said, shaking his head. "But I don't. I mean, you remember a couple more months than I do, even."
"Yes, but all I remember is more of the same. We dated. Before, that you almost ..." No, she could most certainly not tell him that. If this was some kind of time travel, he could go back knowing, and that could change everything, and even thinking about it gave her a headache right behind her eye, and so Marie-Ange sat back down in her chair, and began opening the unlocked desk drawers. "We dated, and you were friends with Jamie and we went to classes. Amanda and I were friends, and she does not know me at all. Jubilee does not know any of us, but she is just as annoying as I remember." She pulled out a handful of pill bottles, and began discarding them as she read the labels. "Do I have a painkiller habit?" She asked, a bit rhetorically. There were three bottles of the stuff, in different doses.
"Apparently?" Doug replied. "I mean, I suppose it makes sense. You have that canopy bed and stuff to deal with insomnia, maybe the headaches and stuff get worse as time goes on?" And could he say the word 'stuff' any more? And could he stop making every sentence into a question? He blamed the fact that his brain was still totally distracted by how attractive 'grown up' Marie-Ange was.
"Nothing makes sense anymore!" Marie-Ange said, voice wavering. "I live in New York City, Remy is old, we are not dating anymore and I am told I am dating Wade, which I suppose I understand because if he is like he is now, he is polite and shy and awkward, but he does not look like he is polite and awkward, even if he is, and you certainly do not look ... polite... anymore." She waved a hand in Doug's direction and it was clear she was talking about the changes to his appearance. "I do not own a single skirt or pair of pants that does not make sure everyone in the city is staring at me, and I do not even know where I go to Mass!"
"I'm...not sure I am polite, either," Doug said after thinking. "I found a suit in my closet that I can't even guess how much it costs. And I have a gun safe. That has actual guns in it. Guns. Plural." He still had no idea what to think about that. And the fact that the discovery of guns only barely made the top ten of most weird things that had happened was even more unsettling.
Marie-Ange blinked a few times, and then quite suddenly leaned her elbows on the desk and rested her head in her hands. From the noises, and shaking of her shoulders, it was all too clear she was crying.
Doug was out of his chair in a flash, hand reaching toward Marie-Ange's hair, but pulling back just shy, as if he was unsure whether she needed comforting. Or if she would accept it from him. "What...what's wrong?" he asked haltingly.
"I think this may be all my fault." Marie-Ange looked up and wiped her eyes with one hand. "There... blast. I cannot tell you because what if we go back and remember this and it changes something? I just.. I saw something, and now I wonder if perhaps because I did not say anything I caused all of this, all of us being... " Whatever they were. People who clearly kept guns and had tattoos and scars under their breasts. What if she had been the one shot, and not Doug?
Doug shook his head. "I don't think you can blame yourself for everything that happens," he said reassuringly. "That's...just a terrible burden to put on yourself." He reached out and put a hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.
Marie-Ange scrubbed at her eyes until she couldn't feel any more tears. "Oh, if only you would take your own advice." She said, laughing wryly. "I wonder how much that will change, if I say to you, stop blaming yourself for everything?" She said, all too aware that even that could change things, and simply too beyond caring to ... care. The mechanics of their being 16 in adult bodies had just gotten too confusing to handle.
Doug wanted, more than anything, to be able to say or do whatever would be the right thing to comfort Marie-Ange. But he wasn't sure what that was. "Maybe change can be for the better," he said hesitantly, before putting his arm around her shoulders and bending to hug the seated woman somewhat awkwardly.
It was probably unfair to enjoy the hug from a version of Doug she was not dating, but Marie-Ange did, and leaned against his arm for a little while. His surprisingly muscular arm, which was a sure reminder that this was not the same Doug she'd dated once. "Can I make you promise not to blame yourself for everything wrong?"
Doug said "Maybe. If you promise you won't blame yourself for everything either? Or second-guessing yourself and how things might change quite so much?" Maybe they were dating other people (that they didn't remember), but hugging her, and the way she hugged him, felt good, and kind of right in some way. So he gave in to an impulse and kissed the top of her head, then turned his own cheek to rest against her hair.
"That is easier said than done." Marie-Ange said softly. "I will try, if you will not make Yoda jokes about do or do not try." She reached up and hugged Doug's arm, and leaned against him.
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