xp_logs | [Manuel, Marie] I don't claim to be guilty.

Marie crosses paths with Manuel, midday on Saturday, and takes him to the kitchen to feed him. An extensive conversation about Manuel's past attempts to help others and his present situation ensues.

Manuel is in the Infirmary, apparently just had his brain scanned extensively. He moves sluggishly, languidly, as he trudges through the Medlab towards Dr Samson's office.

"Okay, I'll stick around, Maddy." Marie emerges from Madelyn's diagnostic lab, pulling her sleeve down over the bandage on the inside of her arm. "I take off once and you're paranoid now." It takes her a moment to realize that the shambling young man in the hall is Manuel and her amused expression shifts into a dire frown. "Manuel," she raises her voice to get his attention, moving to intercept him.

Manuel looks over to Marie, and his lips twist in what might charitably be called a smile. "Marie." he says, voice flat. "You came back." He's dressed all in flat black today - black button-down, black slacks, black loafers, and black collar.

"Of course I did." She gives him a geniune smile, though one that doesn't hide her concern for him. "I'm glad to see you. I wanted to come by when my tests were over, but this is good too. What are you up to right now?"

"I need to drop off these pictures to Doctor Samson. Then, I don't know. Probably listening to music. I'm kind of hungry, but I avoid the kitchen nowadays. Might run into Lorna, who wants to kill me." he says, completely flat in tone.

Marie's frown returns, the flat tones and lack of expression don't escape her attention. She holds her hand out to Manuel. "You want some company? I'll make you something to eat."

"Will you make sure Lorna doesn't kill me?" he asks her dispassionately. "And I need to make sure that I drop off my homework to Doctor Samson." He looks at her hand like he's not sure what to do with it, and opts for ignoring it.

"Yes, I will make sure she doesn't hurt you, Manuel," Marie promises, her tone moving to something closer to the way she'd speak to one of the boys. She's not shocked to see him this way, just saddened. "We'll drop your homework off and then we'll get you something to eat. Let's go." She turns toward Samson's office, starting to walk slowly in that direction.

Manuel shuffles along, clutching a case with the aforementioned pictures in them. "It is nice to see you again." he admits, all in a rush. "I regret that I cannot be better company for you, but I am not myself."

"I understand. This can't be easy on you." Hands clasped behind her back, Marie keeps pace with him. "Don't worry about it. Did you want to talk about any of it?"

Manuel shrugs. "There is not much to say, really. It is hard to think with this collar on, and everything's so _futile_. But I keep trying anyway, because I was _bad_. I tried to help people."

"You weren't... I don't know what you were, Manuel." Marie shakes her head. "Whatever happened, people got hurt and Charles and the others think this is a way to keep it from happening again. Futile... it may /feel/ futile but I don't think it is."

Manuel and Marie finally make it to Samson's office, and Manuel puts the collection of photographs (headshots showing various emotions, by the looks of it, scribbled over in ink by Manuel in Castillian) into his "IN" bin. "There. That's done, for all the good it will do me. You mentioned food?"

"What would you like to eat?" Marie leans on the doorframe, waiting for him. "I'll cook you something while I'm waiting for Maddy to be ready for another rest of tests. I don't do anything fancy, but I think you'll survive."

Manuel twitches into that almost-smile again. "Anything would be fine." he reiterates, shuffling towards Marie and the kitchen.

"Come on." Marie puts an arm around his shoulders, gentle and loose enough for him to shrug off. "You haven't been eating well, I can tell." He's irritating, he's dangerous, and he's done damage to her friends, and yet she's compelled to keep giving him another chance. At first she could excuse it by being afraid of what he'd become if she didn't, but maybe she's just compulsively compassionate to the wrong people.

Manuel allows himself to be led, offering very little resistance to her guidance. "I'm not very hungry very often." he admits. "Too much effort to eat properly. And Lorna wants me dead. So does Marie-Ange. Marie I can understand, but Lorna?"

"I don't know what you did to either of them, Manuel. But I don't think that killing you is going to heal anyone. They'll have to learn that for themselves and I don't think either of them would really do it." Marie sighs. "In a way, I don't want to know. I know what people can do to each other, I don't need to know the details of it. Samson would be the better one to explain if you need to know why someone's angry with you. I'd rather be free to accept that you've done some things wrong and still be able to make you lunch with my conscience quiet."

Manuel accepts that explanation without comment, and trudges alongside Marie, his normally fairly light footfalls now dull and plodding. "It is nice to be able to walk to the kitchen." he says at random. "Doctor Samson and Dr ... what'shername say that I need to eat better."

"MacTaggart? Or Bartlet?" In the kitchen, Marie steers Manuel to a seat and heads for the fridge to look through what's available. "It'll only take a few minutes to thaw you a steak," she says after a moment of poking. "I'll grab one from the freezer. You need protein."

"Bartlett." he says, after a few long awkward moments of thinking. At the mention of steak, Manuel visibly flinches, but doesn't say anything. "Don't burn your hand." he says cryptically.

"I won't." Marie tosses a frozen, vacuum-wrapped steak into the microwave and pulls a few potatoes out of the bin. "I rarely do." She takes a large knife from the block and begins to slice them thinly. "When I get back, if you wanted, I could start teaching you to cook and drive. Someone's got to teach you to be self-sufficient."

Manuel flinches _again_, almost knocking himself off of his chair. "Thank you, but I think that can wait for the time being. I have an income now, so I'm not averse about buying what I need."

Marie takes in the reactions and files them away. "That's not the point, Manuel. It's just like your mutation and the... blocking collar?" She gestures to his neck and begins to cook the potatoes. "You need to know what to do without it. The whole idea is not to need it. And then, you're closer to being free."

Manuel hrms to himself. "Marie? Is it wrong to want to help people?"

"Of course not." Marie stops and looks over her shoulder at him. "Why would you think that?"

"Because part of the reason I'm in this collar and in the Box is because I tried to help someone be happy." he says. "It is so frustrating. I have to be good, yet when I try to do good I'm bad? Ah well, it's not like it makes a difference anyway."

"Well, maybe you misunderstood what the person needed." Marie rummages in the fridge and pulls out some herbs that she begins to chop. "Sometimes people don't want help, you know. And the kind of help you give, sometimes it has to be with a gentle hand. It's a delicate thing."

"Sadness is very distinctive." he says. "I would know. It's a velvety brownish-black with a little dull red and blue in it."

"Well, yes." Marie turns down the heat under the potatoes and then leans on the counter by the stove. "But sadness and happiness are symptoms of something in process, they're not just entities to be removed or supplemented, right? And sometimes, sadness and negative emotions are impetus to heal, signs of trouble, or obstacles to be overcome. Just because you can move the emotions around... that doesn't mean you can change the cause or predict the effect."

"Actually, they _are_ entities to themselves, to be enhanced, suppressed, erased, or redirected. It's always worked that way for me before." he says, fingertips tracing swirls on the kitchen counter.

"They all have their cause and effect, though, Manuel. To interupt that without good knowledge of the issues can easily cause a negative reaction." She puts a heavy pan on the stove and starts it heating. "You probably get lucky a lot, or you're innately able to make good choices, but if lack understanding of people on a level that's not enhanced by your mutation, you're not always going to do the right thing."

"That cause and effect stuff you mentioned - those are thoughts. I can't see those. All I can see are the emotional patterns." he admits with a sigh. "I'm not a telepath."

"Neither am I," Marie says with a shrug. "I'm not an empath either, but I can read people pretty well. It's a matter of knowing what to look for, and it can be learned. It's like a whole other set of information that you're missing, Manuel. None of us are going to get everything right, but we can get less wrong if we take advantage of all our resources."

"If I learn how to do all of that, that's like admitting that I'm going to be defective forever. A cripple, trapped. I don't want that." he says quietly, eyes shining bright with tears. "I don't want to be like this. It hurts to think, I don't feel anything anymore, everyone hates me..."

"Defective?" Marie switches off the stove and comes around to put her hands on Manuel's shoulders. "You're not defective, this is just... this is like practicing with your good arm strapped down to develop your off side, Manuel. This is temporary. It's to let you get all those other skills and understandings that you're having trouble with. It's to let people know you without fear."

"I'm an empath." he mumbles at the floor, not raising his eyes to meet Marie's. "Reason enough to hate me, I guess. And they should fear me, from what you have told me. I'm scary."

Marie crouches down and puts a hand under his chin, trying to get him to look at her. "Maybe Empath is. But Manuel... Manuel can be whoever you want to be, whatever you make yourself. You don't have to be hated, and you don't have to be feared. This is your chance to work on being Manuel. You wanted to find him, right?"

"I don't know where to look." he says, chin forced up to stare at Marie. He's crying now, tears sliding down his face and onto Marie's hand.

"Oh, honey." She dries his tears with the sleeve of her sweatshirt. "He's right here. You just have to let him live, let him come out. He's hiding in the weaknesses you're so afraid of and the strengths you don't know you have yet. This is going to be okay. Keep going. You'll find each other."

"It doesn't feel that way. Everything's so grey. Featureless. Drab. Uninteresting." he sniffles. "Even the stuff I used to like doesn't feel good anymore. What happens when nothing feels good anymore? When I don't feel anything at all anymore?"

"You put one foot in front of the other until you get through." She pulls a napkin off the table and offers it to him. "And you tell people, because I'm sure there's some adjustments or something they could make to make this easier on you. I know it's hard but you're breathing and living, your heart beats, and so there's hope. Things will change and you'll feel again."

"It's just like before." he sobs before blowing his nose into the napkin. "With less rape. Same dullness, same people who hate me, same small room to live in. No drugs yet. Wonder when those will start?"

"It's not like before, Manuel," Marie says patiently. "Because I'm here and Shinobi's here and Emma is here, and we'll speak for you if it comes down to that, if we can't see that this is good for anyone anymore. Drugs, I don't know, I'm not a doctor, but they'll probably be to make you feel a little better. But you're not alone, okay? This isn't before. The room and the dullness are temporary. And people are going to hate us in our lives. It happens. The people who come to like you and respect you will more than balance them out."

"You left." he points out before sniffling loudly again. "And no drugs. I would rather die first."

"I went away for a vacation that I needed." Marie points out. "And I came back. I read your posts and I didn't forget about you. And I suppose that as long as you're not hurting yourself or anyone else, the drugs are your choice."

"If I had a choice, I wouldn't be in this collar at all. I'd be free." he retorts, finally starting to show a little bit of his customary fire.

"Yes, and you'd be making the same mistakes and learning nothing." Marie gives him a challenging look. "And you'd never learn how to go about ensuring that you know how to be someone people don't have to fear."

"People choose to fear Empath. I don't have any control over that thought, and not even I can control everybody all the time." he muses.

"That's true. But your actions and your choices are a guide for people, those who can overcome their initial discomfort at your skills." Marie taps him lightly on the nose and stands. "And you will have more faith in yourself, in your core, when you have more understanding of people."

"What is this ... core?" he asks, voice sliding back towards its former monotone. "How do you know it?"

Marie goes and turns the stove back on. "I don't know. I just... I can feel mine slipping a little sometimes lately." She unwraps the steak, looking pensively past the kitchen wall she's facing. "It's like gravity, when you fall, there's always a down to fall to. Or true north. Where the laws of your nature draw you." She turns to face him again. "I wish I could be more clear. I'm sorry. Maybe going home will help me... I'll think about it while I'm there."

"You get to go home?" he asks with the faint stirrings of jealousy. "I would have liked to go home for a little while."

"Get?" She laughs as she tosses herbs into the potatoes and stirs them. "I have to go. I need to see if there's anything of mine left there. And I need to go... for me. To find whatever of me I feel like I'm missing. I hope I'm right about it."

"No - I meant that you get to leave whenever you want to. That's very nice." he says wistfully. "I miss Spain."

"Ah, yes. Well, I can leave when it's vacation, yeah, or when it's safe for me to go." Marie puts the steak in the heavy pan and it sizzles. "You'll get to go sooner than you think, I'll bet, get to actually be free to come and go. It'll happen."

"The only times I've ever left this place is when we went driving, or the one time I went clubbing." he says. "Before, was it permitted and nobody told me?"

"I'm not sure." She stirs the potatoes again, they're browning nicely in the butter and herbs, cooking through. "It depends on the person. But you always could have asked. The answer would probably have been yes."

"Ask _who_?" he says with some confusion. "Nobody tells me anything."

"Emma, I expect." Marie frowns, thinking. "Scott, too. Those are the most likely ones. Ororo as well. Ask Dr Samson when you see him, if you remember. He'll find out for you, for now and later."

"I know Ms Frost. Scott is the one with the glasses, right? And who is Ororo? I don't know her." he says, apparently still confused.

"She was gone for a while, but you'll see her around." Marie turns back to her cooking. "You can't miss her. She's got dark skin and long white hair, she's very beautiful. And yes, Scott's the one with the red glasses."

Manuel hrms. "The name sounds African. But - white hair? Is she old?"

"Hardly. Maybe ten years older than me, I think. The hair is part of her mutation, I think." Marie reaches for a plate and starts to serve up Manuel's meal. "There's some greens in the fridge, that nice salad mix. Did you want some of that?"

Manuel flinches again at the conjunction of the words "green" and "hair", even though they were in separate sentences. "Salad would be nice, yes." he says.

Marie pulls out the washed greens and grabs a few different dressings. Moments later, lunch is in front of Manuel and she's putting down utensils for him. "There. Nothing fancy but it'll keep you going." She rubs his shoulder gently before returning to the cooking area. "I'm sure you'll be allowed to go places in no time, Manuel," she says reassuringly.

Manuel shrugs. "Back into the machines, back into the Box, back into my own head. That's where I go." he says before digging in. Apparently, he was hungrier than he was letting on, judging by the rate the food is disappearing.

"For now," Marie says calmly. She puts dishes in the dishwasher and wipes the stove and counters. "You're half-starved and I'm going away again. I'm going to make sure someone sees that you get fed."

Manuel says "Woof" around a mouthful of food.

Marie laughs. "What was that?"

"Me being a good doggie?" he says, his vocal-flatness at odds with the joke he's making.

Marie shakes her head. "Better than you ending up skin and bone again," she points out. "And I don't think my cooking is quite dogfood."

"No, it's good." he says around a mouthful. "I am fed now. Should we put a bowl out with my name on it?" he asks, voice still dead.

"If you want." Marie says wryly. "You have the collar already, might as well make the set, right?" She makes a face. "If you don't want me to make sure someone sees you get to eat while I'm gone, that's okay."

Manuel shrugs, not refuting or accepting her statement either way, Instead, he's chasing the scraps around his plates with zeal, trying to absorb every scrap of sustenance.

When he's done, Marie takes his plate and utensils and puts them in the dishwasher for him. "Madelyn's going to think I've run away again," she says. "I hate being down there too."

"I am actually permitted to leave now." he says, twisting back into that almost-smile. "My own room is far more comfortable than The Box." His capital letters are almost palpable things.

"Tell me about it." Marie hugs herself, thinking back to the fall. "I was down there for weeks. Months, even. I'm glad you can at least go back to your room and move around as you wish."

Manuel fingers the collar briefly before lowering his hand. "I spent three months strapped to a bed once. It was because I kept tearing out the IV bag with the ... what's the word ... thorazine? Yes, that. I wouldn't let them drug me, so they tied me down." And judging by the expression on his face, that's not _all_ they did. Not by a longshot.

"I'm sorry," she says quietly. "I know none of this has been easy for you, and everything that's supposed to make things better probably feels like the past just won't let you go. It will get better from here. I'm sure of it."

"I have to believe that." he says quietly. "I only have one other alternative."

"For some reason, having that alternative makes things bearable. Not taking it is kind of winning when you're losing at everything else." Marie bites her lip. "But it does get better. Yeah."

Manuel almost-smiles again. "No, it's an escape if things get to be too much for hope to survive." he says quietly. He then raises his fingertips to his forehead to rub it like it pains him. "Ow."

Marie frowns at him. "Headache? Maybe you need a nap or something?"

"I don't know. It just came out of nowhere. My head hurts." he whines.

"Come on," Marie puts her arm around him and helps him to his feet. "We'll get you something for your head and you can have a rest."

"It will get better, right? I'm not going to be like this forever, right?" he says as he allows himself to be lead back to the Infirmary.

"It will get better." Marie says firmly, supporting him on the way to the lift. "I'm not just saying that, Manuel. This is temporary, it really is." She helps him to the infirmary area and into a bed. "I'll get someone for you."

Manuel accepts the help, and closes his eyes to watch the pretty explosions behind his eyelids. "I'll hold on for as long as I can." he says to Marie.

"I know you'll make it." Marie squeezes one of his hands gently. "You've come this far." She pulls a blanket up over him before she leaves to find him a doctor.

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Title and tag from The Law by Leonard Cohen