Haller and Adrienne

[x-adrienne.livejournal.com]

Having decided to become one of Tandy's guardians, Adrienne goes to Haller for some advice on how to help Tandy and to add him to her arsenal of people willing to talk to her about relapse-fear. The two of them also chat about their recent jaunts to London and South America and Haller brings up the fact that Adrienne wasn't pleased he called her by her real name during the fight with D'Spayre.

Trigger Warning for discussion of addiction issues and parental death.

Having decided to go ahead with Father Michael's ridiculous plan to apply for joint guardianship of Tandy, Adrienne found herself knocking on Haller's office door, hoping for a little advice. "Hey, I was hoping for a little guidance, counselor?" she called out as she knocked. "Do you have a minute?"

"Adrienne? Um, sure." The reaction from within was only slightly delayed. She wasn't a normal visitor, but then, Jim hadn't had anyone
scheduled for the day. Considering the extent of the work he'd done in the last hour amounted to a page of doodles this was probably a good thing. Jim turned over the implicating paper and wished vaguely that he'd remembered to shave this morning.

Opening the door, Adrienne slipped inside and closed it behind herself. "Thanks. So... I'll cut to the chase. With Tandy Bowen's
mother and stepfather dead, and her father in SHIELD custody, her guardianship falls to her uncle, who's a Catholic priest. He's asked
me to take on a joint guardianship situation with him, to appease the bishop of his archdiocese. And I've agreed to do it," she added with a nervous sigh. "But I could use some... I dunno. Advice? Commiseration? I mean, her parents are dead, and she's going to need me to help her through that, and I don't think I know how."

Jim blinked, momentarily thrown as his brain attempted to chisel the massive chunk of information in her opening statement down into manageable pieces.

"It does make sense to have someone on the grounds for certain decisions," he said. It was good that there was someone Tandy trusted,
and he was obscurely relieved that made at least one orphan who wouldn't be Charles' direct responsibility. The source of the man's hair-loss became more suspect with every mass kidnapping.

That wasn't really what Adrienne had come here for, though. Jim tried to refocus on the subject. "Um, the parental thing . . . that's
difficult. People react differently. Has she come to you about it yet? Tried to talk?"

Adrienne shook her head. "She's staying pretty quiet about it, for the most part. To me at least. Should I... go to her? Make her talk to me?"

"If she doesn't want to, I wouldn't. At least not for the time being. The best thing is to let her know you'll be there to listen if she
wants to talk. For a lot of people it's enough to have someone there while they talk themselves through it." Assuming they move on and
rather than letting it turn into brain damage, Cyndi pointed out. The comment twitched a muscle in Jim's forehead. The counselor
smoothed it away with a tired rub.

"Okay," Adrienne nodded, "I can do that. I was sort of feeling like I should leave her alone about it, except then I was worried that I just thought that as a kind of cop-out, so I didn't have to put myself out there to help her. With everything I've had going on lately," she explained, scrunching up her nose in distaste, "I guess part of me is feeling like if I add trying to talk her through her what happened to my plate, I'll break." She'd already gotten confirmation from Garrison that he wouldn't let that happen, but that didn't mean she wasn't worried about him having to intervene to keep it from happening in the first place. "I mean, what with being back with Garrison... the last time I contemplated that, I nearly started using drugs again after almost twenty years. And now that I have just had to use Kick in dealing with Wyngarde, the temptation is even fresher. Add these new responsibilities with Tandy, it makes me real nervous. Hence asking for help." That was what Garrison had told her to do, right?

Drugs. Adrienne had been addicted to cocaine. She'd never told him that, but when she mentioned using the knowledge came to him like a
long-forgotten memory. It must have been some fragment gleaned from Garrison's memories during the reconstruction process, though the
context eluded him. That was a relief. The odd piece of information rustling free at a specific trigger wasn't a problem as long as Garrison's private experiences remained private.

"Wait," Jim said, holding up a hand. This, at least, was more solid ground. "Hang on, back up a minute. The last time you contemplated what? Adding more responsibility?"

Adrienne wrinkled her nose again as she tried to figure out how to explain it. "Not because of the responsibility, persay. That's never
really been a trigger for me. With Garrison, it was contemplating sex. It's always been more... a sense of inadequacy that's prompted me to use. Lack of self-confidence. Despite what I try to project to people, that's always been an issue for me," she admitted. "So cocaine was a way to make myself feel confident, smart, happy, sexy; which is how I wanted to feel around Kane that night. Of course," she added with a shrug, "I don't feel the need for chemical enhancements to make myself feel like that around him anymore." Even looking back to the difference in herself now from last year made her feel pretty proud of herself in terms of the self-assurance she'd found. "But that doesn't mean I'm not scared I won't feel like that again, some day. Although, I guess that's pretty much the run-of-the-mill response for a recovering addict regardless of circumstance, huh?" She wouldn't be an addict if the temptation ever went away. Adrienne knew that much after countless meetings.

Well, this got really personal really fast. The thought was more bemused than shocked. Adrienne's matter-of-factness eliminated
all potential salaciousness. It was weirdly refreshing. Jim allowed himself to relax slightly.

"Relapse-fear is normal for anyone recovering from anything. Addiction, chronic disease, or mental . . . things." The telepath made
a self-deprecating twirly motion with one finger. "Rock bottom is something that stays with you. And hopefully why and how you ended up
there so you don't end up with a round ticket." He frowned slightly as the details had a chance to find purchase in his brain. "When did you use Kick with Wyngarde?"

Adrienne gave him an appreciative smile when he mentioned mental things, feeling like he understood better than most what she was
afraid of. "Yeah, well one of the benefits of my powers is that rock bottom literally does stay with me. I can't ever forget it." She paused for a moment before answering his question. "The day he quote-unquote summoned me to pitch the offer of me going to London to
get Steed's encryption key in exchange for releasing my assets. I knew I needed to know what he was up to, and I couldn't take a chance that I wouldn't get what I needed from my powers. So I took the boost. Inhaler-style, to convince myself that if I didn't snort it it would seem more removed from the mechanization of using coke."

"But the issue is that you're afraid you'll want to use again, not that you're actively thinking about it, right?"

"Yes, exactly," Adrienne answered with a nod. "And I mean, Garrison's already given me the whole 'you're not alone in this, there are lots
of people around the mansion to help you' spiel," she shrugged, doing her best Garrison impression (though it was possible she was
exaggerating the Canadian accent a lot,) "so that'll take a lot of the pressure off when it finally sinks in, I guess. And he agreed to keep an eye on me; y'know, make sure I don't slip. But that doesn't mean I want him to have to."

Jim gave her a half-smile. "None of us wants to be the person you need to be watched, but you know . . . we are who are are. A little
self-indulgent denial can be fun, but eventually it's just easier to give up and take the help." He grimaced. "Though I'm going to turn
into your mother long enough to ask you to be really careful with that stuff. Kick. Not just because you're an addict, obviously
you know, but Shiro was on it for a while -- part for the normal reasons people get addicted to things, and part for the powers augment. It can do a lot of damage."

Scoffing goodnaturedly, Adrienne shook her head. "My mother was addicted to painkillers and alcohol; she would have been the last
person to warn me about being careful with addictive substances. But I appreciate the warning. I really wish there'd been another way to go with Wyngarde besides the Kick, but... I still feel like I did what I had to do, so it's hard to regret it completely. I didn't know Shiro had been on it," she mused. "Maybe I should go use my powers on his old room, get a firsthand look of what it can do so I don't forget it," she said with a wink.


Jim laughed. "Oh god, never do that. There's no way to screen what you'd end up with." He was glad she was keeping it light, though he
suspected doing so was her way of processing events. She didn't need to be chastised and he wasn't in the mood to do it anyway. Besides,
while he hadn't known she'd taken Kick he had realized the significance of being asked for help. He'd seen for himself how much
of a wedge that reticence she'd made light of had driven between herself and Garrison.

"Anyway, don't feel bad, you're not the only one who did things that were a little uncomfortable," he continued, running a hand through his hair. "Please let that be the last time anyone asks me to do psychic espionage."

"I very much hope it will be," Adrienne assured him. "At least, as far as I can speak for myself I hope it will be. I'm... sorry about
London," she said sheepishly. "What you had to do, I mean. I'm extremely grateful for the help you and Lady Braddock gave me. I'm sorry you were uncomfortable."

Jim laughed. "It's not that, it was no problem. Helping out, I mean. I'm just kind of, um, 'specialized'. I'm good at diagnosis and repair. Jean's the one who handles any offense or undercover work. And obviously that's what Betsy's trained for, but she was needed elsewhere." He gave her a half-shrug. "Let's just say I sympathize with your feelings going into that meeting with Wyngarde."

"Well, I think you did a fantastic job," Adrienne praised, even though she didn't exactly know the particulars of what he'd done.


Again the half-shrug. "Betsy's a good teacher. Still, for now I'll stick to comms or TK." The telepath's brow furrowed again as another thought occurred. "By the way, speaking of team stuff, I know I shouldn't have called you by your name when we were getting Tandy, but . . . what are we supposed to call you? Not that it's usually a big deal, but we had two assignments together in a month and I just realized you don't have a code-name."

"Yeaaaah, well, since I'm not actually an X-Man, I'm not too sure what you're supposed to call me, either," Adrienne admitted, brow furrowing a little. "I just seem to end up going on missions sometimes where my powers are going to be useful, but I have no desire to actually be on the team. Though, to be honest, it does make me nervous to think of demons and psychopaths and corrupt government officials possibly figuring out who I am and possibly putting the school in danger." Mostly herself, but also the school. "So maybe I should have one for next time. Not that I have any idea of what it should be, mind you," she added.

"I'm the wrong guy to ask. For the first year or so I just used my last name. I didn't have any notoriety issues to worry about, though."
Jim scratched his head. "Though now that I think about it, in my case it was less a matter of signing on and more that I got dragged into and along so often that it was actually less effort to join. At least when you join you get notice about the roster."

Adrienne shrugged. "It's less about notoriety for me than it's just about the possibility of someone plugging a name they hear into a
computer and finding out where we live... I mean, it's so easy to get information like that these days. But maybe I'm just overly paranoid after everything the Black Court did to me." She chuckled at his mention of it being less effort to join. "I feel the same way somedays. But then I remember how busy I am with teaching and my X-Factor work and the thought of joining the team full-time makes me laugh. I think I will ask Scott and Jean about this code-name thing, though," she mused.

Jim nodded. "It might be a good idea. Hopefully it'll never come up, but there's no reason to take the chance." Privately he doubted that
working with private investigators helped her paranoia either. Then again, the Black Court had probably used similar organizations against
her. Maybe joining one herself was therapeutic.

"Your powers were useful, though," he mused. "Against Dana, or whatever that woman was, I mean. Our senses lie, but I guess objects don't."

"Nope, they certainly don't," Adrienne agreed with a hint of pride at being useful.