xp_logs | Marie-Ange and Doug, pinky promises

Marie-Ange stops in Doug's server room to check on him after he returns from his retreat. He's certainly more honest, and she discovers without him saying what happened in Genosha, and part of why he hadn't talked about it.

Doug set the small shoulder bag he'd taken to the therapy retreat that Dr. Grim had suggested down just inside the door to his office and looked around. It wasn't that the Snow Valley offices looked unfamiliar, exactly, but after four intense days away, they looked...different. He supposed maybe it was more that -he- was different after being away. He'd come straight into the office rather than drop anything off at his apartment. He'd made some brief hellos on his way in, but they hadn't really registered.

Mostly, he was weary.

He hasn't been in his office more than a few minutes before there was a brief knock, and then Marie-Ange poked her head around the open doorway. "You missed the morning round-up, but it is all right, because it was just the same news as always, and I brought you the important part." She appeared more fully, bearing a plate with two donuts on it, and a napkin. "Chocolate, with chocolate frosting, and more chocolate inside and sprinkles. Also, coincidentally, chocolate."

Doug looked up at her and raised an eyebrow as he took the plate she was offering. "Have you had any of those yet?" he asked with the hint of a smile. It was tired, and small, but it was one of the first honest smiles he'd made since returning from Genosha.

"No, I saved them. I had a cruller." It had chocolate, but not very much. "But if anyone except Wanda asks, I ate them. Too many high metabolisms in the office this morning." Marie-Ange sat down in the 'guest' chair facing Doug's computers, and then scooted it out of alignment with the desk to better face him. "It was not a chocolate sort of meeting, and had it been, I still have four brownies from the last batch."

Doug sat down heavily in his own chair, placing the plate on the corner of the desk nearest Marie-Ange and taking one of the donuts to begin nibbling on. It wasn't like he'd done anything physically demanding over the weekend, but he knew quite well that mental exertion could be just as exhausting. "Thank you," he said. He'd gotten some takeout on his way back into the city, but he was still hungry, and chocolate donuts never went out of style.

"You are welcome. Can I be terribly nosy now, or shall I come back when you do not look like you want to have a nap on the fold-away?" The very well made high quality fold away that was more comfortable than some beds. Marie-Ange had borrowed it once when she was so tired she was afraid she might fall over after walking a few steps.

Doug had kind of expected the question. And he was in the odd mental space where he was too tired to beat around subjects, but also...after the weekend, he wondered if perhaps he didn't need to open up some. And Marie-Ange seemed as good a starting place as any. Perhaps better, given their rocky history of late. "Ask away," he told her. "Yeah, I'm tired, but..." He waved a hand, trying to convey by gesture his thought process, since he had no idea how to put it into words.

"Should we go get you coffee?" Marie-Ange asked. "Were you allowed to have caffeine at your... retreat, was it a retreat, really?" She was not quite sure if that was what he'd really gone to, or if it had been a nice term for 'inpatient treatment'. Or some middle ground. "I still have a very big stack of Starbucks cards. I have not yet had to send any more for reasons of octopi and squid."

Doug shook his head. "Let's hold off on the coffee," he suggested. Because he knew that all the tiny details of getting situated and going to get coffee would just be a thousand opportunities for him to throw up walls. And he was tired of walls. "Yes, it was a retreat, and yes, I was allowed to have caffeine. It was...well, they suggested nobody have a lot of it, since the whole idea is peacefulness and stuff. But nobody looked at me funny for having coffee with breakfast, or iced tea with dinner." He'd even managed a soda with his last meal, a tiny victory over the negative association it held.

"But no giant cups of espresso?" Marie-Ange's question was punctuated with a small smile, as though she was teasing but not quite sure if she could safely tease him. "Venti espresso with an extra shot of espresso, it was not really a good idea, no?" She tilted her head, as though she was trying to figure out just what was different, but could not quite figure it out. "Was it peaceful? I am not sure how to ask, did it give you what you needed?"

"It was...hard." Dr. Grim was very good at his job, and his job was to help Doug break the destructive patterns his brain had fallen into. In some ways, the Native American doctor's tendency to zero in on precisely what Doug was thinking and struggling with made him think of the second interrogation in Genosha. But underlying this time was the understanding that all of the pointed questions in his therapy sessions were designed not to cut him, but to heal. And he felt like maybe, just maybe, he was finally starting to heal wounds that were much older than just the things that had happened in Genosha. "And I think so. Or at least, it's starting in the right direction."

Marie-Ange nodded. "No more panic attacks in the hallways, yes?" She narrowed her eyes, waiting for Doug's reaction.

"Not yet." Doug's face was sad, but without the defensiveness that would have been there just a week before. He ran a hand through his hair, which was longer than it had been since they'd returned from Genosha. He would have been due for another trim during the retreat, but...dry shampoo. He hadn't even known such a thing existed until Dr. Grim had suggested it. "It's a process."

"A process? Are you going to have to go on another retreat, or is it just that you are going to have a great deal of therapy with your new doctor?" Marie-Ange asked. "I am sorry, I ask so many questions I know, I just ... am..." Concerned, worried, curious, and quite a bit upset that Doug had not told anyone sooner, but now was not the time to lecture him. He'd had more than enough of those. "I am not so good with not knowing, no?"

Doug smiled wistfully. "I remember. And you're not the only one." In fact, one of the struggles he'd had in therapy so far was his tendency to need to know, and his habit of living inside his own head. He just couldn't turn off his analytical nature, even when he was directing it at himself. "As for the rest, yes to the second, I don't know to the first." He shrugged. "I mean, I can't just snap my fingers and suddenly be totally fine with getting my face wet..." He winced a bit, as he hadn't meant to perhaps be quite -that- honest. But what was done was done, and he was just too tired of hiding.

"Yes, I heard about the coffee incident." Marie-Ange said, cautiously. "Is that why the short hair and stubble? Because if you had said, I am sure we could have found a solution. I wish you had said."

"I..." Doug stopped and closed his eyes, clearly making a conscious effort not to withdraw. "We were in the prison, and then we broke out, and then we had to fight the entirety of the Genoshan Magistrate corps, and then a giant...thing. And there was no time to deal with what had been done, so I just shoved it down the best I could to keep going..." And clearly had not succeeded at that nearly as well as he'd thought, judging by the events in the mindscape and then peoples' worry after. "And then, when we were finally done, and there was time to parse through it...it...got stuck. And I didn't know how to unpack it again, until it..." He gestured with his hands. "Blew up."

For a few seconds, Marie-Ange could not say anything. They were in prison? Whatever it was happened there? She opened her mouth to ask Doug for more information, and before more than a "What?" came out, she remembered the reading. The ruined cards. "They hurt you and you did not even tell anyone?" She went very still, looking at Doug as carefully as she would have if she had been drawing him. "You were no more injured coming out than when we went in, and you certainly did not have the symptoms of electrical shock. I know those symptoms." All too well, the few memories she had of being captured during Day Zero. What else was there that would have... oh. water, and he had drowned when Mastermold had him, and that had to have made it all the worse. "Oh. Oh Doug, no, they did not do that? They did and you did not tell anyone? You... Doug, no, why did you not tell anyone?"

"I didn't know how," Doug replied thickly. "And there were so many things that had to be done, the people who were mutates, and then I just...couldn't get out from under the weight of it all." He leaned back in his chair and closed his eyes, visibly more wearied than even when he had entered the office. But not looking at the mishmash of reactions on Marie-Ange's face made it easier to be honest, and continue telling her now, even if he hadn't been able to before. "They were going to do it to you. And Terry. And Amanda. And on down the list of anyone I even remotely cared about. And make me watch every single one."

It was so rare that Marie-Ange was profane - vocally at least - that hearing a second "fuck" in as many months had to be telling of her mood. "And now you are angry at yourself because you talked and told them whatever they wanted so that they would not hurt us?"

"I know that it was part of the plan, but..." He'd nearly balked when Amanda told him what he'd needed to do, because he was so wrapped up in his own baggage that he'd been carrying around, coupled with the effects of the interrogation. "And then you were all 'I do not need protecting, Doug', and I just couldn't..." He swallowed audibly. "I couldn't let them do that to you because of me, Angie," he said in a broken whisper.

"It wasn't because of you!" Marie-Ange said - yelled almost. "They did it, not you! Them! You did nothing wrong, you kept people safe, you did everything we were taught to do and don't you berate yourself ever again for it!" She kicked back the chair, rolling it a few feet away from Doug's desk and rubbed her face with both hands. "It is not your fault, it has never been your fault and if this was anyone else but you then you would be agreeing with me!"

Dr. Grim had already pressed Doug numerous times about his tendency to feel responsible for so many things. And Marie-Ange's words resonated with that. But like he'd said, his therapy was a process, and his emotions were especially jumbled where she was concerned. And there was a world of difference between knowing the truth of something in your head, and being able to accept that truth emotionally. He was trying, but he wasn't there yet. "I want to believe that. I'm just so..." Tired. Broken. "...emotionally compromised," he quoted. It was an especially apt comparison, as he'd been trying so hard to hide his pain under a Spock-like veneer of dispassion.

"I am going to give Wade a box of apples and make him eat them in the most obnoxious way possible in front of you." Marie-Ange said, after catching her breath a little from her outburst. "The therapy - the new therapist, he is aware that you do not like to talk about things, and he is making you do so anyway?"

Doug managed a weak chuckle at the mental image of Wade as Jim Kirk. He nodded in answer to Marie-Ange's question. "Why do you think I'm so tired after a 'retreat'?" he asked with a wry shake of his head. "Dr. Grim is...very good at what he does." He fished in his pocket and pulled out a plain red poker chip, setting it on the table and sliding it across to Marie-Ange. "I only get two pop culture references per session."

"I am instituting this policy for you and ... and everyone at the morning round-up meetings." Marie-Ange picked up the chip, rolled it over her knuckles a few times - a trick she'd stolen from Remy years ago, while he was teaching her card tricks as well - and handed it back. "Can I ask a serious question?"

"Keep it," Doug told her. He'd managed to keep to only one reference in his last session, a particularly long and difficult one, and Dr. Grim had just let him keep the chip to take with him, even though he usually took them back to keep Doug from hoarding them. "If you let me have it, I'll be more tempted to...hide behind it." He watched her thoughtful expression, then nodded. "Ask away."

"Are you able to go into the field yet?" It was such a blunt question, but easier to pull the hair than let it itch and annoy and -be- there until they had no choice. "And if not, do you have an idea of when you will be able to go into the field?" Marie-Ange frowned, and then shook her head at Doug's expression. "And if you either try to beat yourself up or go in too early I will ... steal your phone and call your doctor and tell on you."

"I don't know." And Doug's need to be useful and productive had taken up a whole session by itself. "Right this second...probably not." And that qualified statement was as close to 'no' as he could get right then. He just hoped she would understand that. "In general...it may depend. On a lot of things." He blew out a long breath. "I don't think I can give you a binary yes/no answer."

"I can work with that, if you can pinky swear promise to me right now that if I ask you later, you will be able to keep giving me honest answers." Marie-Ange said after some time thinking. She held out a hand, pinky finger out. "All that I need from you is honesty right now about this thing."

"I can do that," Doug told her, holding out his pinky and linking it with hers. Even though he was worn out, he actually felt a lot better for being open and honest with her. "Is there anything else you want to know?" he asked.

"If you will let me buy you lunch - good lunch, not taco truck lunch - after you have done all your morning check ins." Marie-Ange said, in a voice that very clearly stated that if he said no, she would ignore the no. Doug looked tired, but it was not the ground-down exhausted from earlier. This was just simply tired. She couldn't quite send him home - there were things that needed to be done - but she could make sure he at least ate.

"Okay." Doug let out a sigh. Maybe he would take a nap before trying to get back to work.