xp_logs | Topaz and Haller

After receiving Maddie's email and talking to the redhead, Haller brings Topaz into his office to get her side of the story and figure out exactly what's been going on with Tandy.

"Behind a desk and by compelled appointment" was not his favorite way to talk to students. Unfortunately this wasn't the sort of situation where he could get away with "accidentally" bumping into the student on the grounds. Still, there was nothing to be done for it.

Body relaxed and tone surprisingly neutral, Jim turned his full attention to the young woman seated across from him.

"How did it start?"

Topaz briefly considered playing stupid, but instantly dismissed the thought. Maddie had followed through on her threat - no surprise. Haller knew everything - or everything a certain annoying redhead thought she knew, at any rate - there was no point in lying. It was actually a little surprising Haller hadn't opened by scolding her. Or yelling. Or both. All in good time, she supposed. Maybe he was doing a good cop/bad cop thing.

She crossed her arms, sighing just a bit as she met the counselor's gaze. "Accident," she replied simply. "I was in their suite with Hope, Tandy was asleep on the couch. I guess she was having a nightmare, when we went out to check on her she accidentally fired daggers off at us. I used a shield spell so Hope and I wouldn't get hurt, drew off Tandy because she was the strongest emotional source in the room at the time and I was just...I dunno. Instinct or somethin'. When things settled down, we noticed that Tandy's emotions were kinda...gone."

She reported the entire incident in a flat tone, detached, as if she was talking about strangers.

Jim nodded. "The emotional draining -- has that ever happened before?"

A shrug, and Topaz's eyes darted to the ceiling for a moment before turning back to Haller's face. "Probably?" Her tone made the word a question. "I dunno. I've never exactly gone back and asked anyone how they felt after. Or did you mean me draining people's emotions to cast spells? 'Cause yeah, that's happened before."

Thoughtful, the counselor wrinkled his forehead. "I meant the numbing effect, yes. But all right." Jim moved the index finger of his right hand against the desktop, as if tracing a note to himself. "When the draining became a regular thing, who initiated it?"

Topaz watched the movement of Haller's finger as she answered, "Tandy," in the same, flat tone. She felt bad throwing the girl under the bus, so to speak, but what did it matter? Everyone was going to blame Topaz for this anyways, it didn't matter what she said at this point. She'd answer all the questions, get all the lectures, take all the punishments, jump through whatever hoops they wanted her to jump through. She could handle it.

"She came to you." If either her reply or the flatness of the tone in which it was given bothered him, it didn't register in his own. Jim tilted his head slightly to one side and asked, "Why did you agree?"

"Because I wanted to." Slightly blunt honesty. Still better than a lie. "When it happened the first time, I wanted to experiment more with it, because I'd never really gotten the chance before. It was curiosity, I guess."

Again the nod, as casual as if he were agreeing with her comment on the weather. "Was that the only reason?" he asked, watching her intently with his mismatched eyes.

A shrug. "She wanted me to do it because she couldn't deal with how she was feeling. I'm not completely heartless either, ya know." Despite what probably everyone thought.

Jim allowed himself a slight smile. "If experimentation had been all you were after, I figure you'd have stopped after two or three."

Topaz fidgeted the slightest bit - this conversation definitely wasn't going the way she'd expected. "Emotions are difficult," she finally muttered, staring at the floor. "Especially the negative ones. Can't say I blame her for not wanting to feel them anymore."

"No. Neither can I." The candidness of her initial response had been a little off-putting, but he appreciated the straightforwardness. It -- and the tenor of her follow-up reply -- had probably been meant to repel; she'd obviously come in expecting a fight. But that was something he had experience with.

With a final nod, Jim clasped his hands leaned forward, elbows resting lightly on his desk. "Thank you. I think I have what I needed to know. Now . . . do you know why people are upset?"

"Either way I answer that question, I'm screwed," Topaz replied, still focused on the floor. "Either I know and I understand what I did was wrong, or I didn't know and I'm an idiot. I do know, by the way."

The telepath shook his head. "You won't be screwed, and you're not an idiot. What's done is done, and I'm not interested in yelling at you for it. I just want to understand what you see from your side. That's all."

Okay, well this was good cop. And from what Topaz could tell of Haller's current emotional state, that was all it seemed to be. He wasn't lying about not yelling. That was...interesting. "There's not much to understand. It was a good opportunity to experiment - and help Tandy. That's all."

"I mean your perspective on why you're being told it was a bad thing," Jim elaborated, though her answer confirmed what he already suspected: the girl saw nothing wrong with what she'd done. The fact she hadn't lead with helping Tandy, and her reaction to being confronted by it, was another interesting piece of data to be filed away. If the girl had been trying to get out of anything the benefit to Tandy would have been the thing to lead with.

Topaz shrugged, her eyes shifting left and right for a moment before settling back on Haller's face. "I don't know, really. Psychic tampering is bad, I get that, I'm paying attention in the lessons with the professor. But it's temporary, it wears off after a few hours, and there haven't been any permanent effects, unless you count her being able to sleep without nightmares for a while as a bad thing."

That was the problem with rules, Jim reflected. If you knew them well, you sometimes forgot to fully explain why they were necessary.

"The professor focuses largely on telepathic ethics," Jim began, sitting back, "but empathy's a little different. You aren't reprogramming anyone's way of thinking, and as I understand it you weren't manipulating Tandy's emotions -- just drawing them off. Subtraction, not alteration. Do I have that right?"

"Yeah." There wasn't much else to say. That was basically it, word for word.

A nod. "Okay. Have you ever heard of the term 'chemical dependency'?"

"No."

"It's used in relation to drug and alcohol abuse. A person's body becomes so reliant on it to function that if they're forced to go without they get physically ill -- usually. The term can be applied psychologically as well. For example, the person who's suffered a shock or loss who drinks so they can forget. It works, so they keep drinking because it's the only thing that gives them peace of mind. Does that make sense?"

"Yeah, it's addiction."

"Exactly." Jim laid his hands flat on the table. "The issue is that your powers, if used long-term, could have the same effect."

Topaz blinked. She was loathed to admit she didn't understand, but... "What do you mean?"

"Tandy's been through a lot, and you're absolutely right about her having a lot of painful emotions to deal with. The problem is, those emotions are hers. They'll always be with her. And like you said, the effects of the drain are temporary." Jim gestured towards her. "By coming to you Tandy can relax for a while . . . but because she's numb, not better. As long as she's numb she's not dealing with what she feels. And until she does those emotions will always be in the background, waiting for the drain to wear off."

"Or she'll just learn to suppress them on her own. That's possible too."

"As long as she's getting what she needs from you, it's very unlikely. You learn to suppress when you have no other choice. The less she needs to deal with her emotions on her own the lower her tolerance for stress and anxiety will become. And while that won't be good for Tandy, it will also ripple back on you." He nodded at Topaz. "If she becomes dependent you're looking at two things: one, that she comes to you more and more often for smaller and smaller things as she neglects her ability to self-regulate, and two, if for some reason you aren't around to numb her out, the emotions that arise will be more intense and more turbulent." Jim touched his temple, indicating, wordlessly, that he was now referring to Topaz's empathy. "And that will be a problem for both of you."

"I can handle other people's emotions." No matter how strong they might be. But the idea of emotionally screwing Tandy up wasn't one that appealed to her. "I didn't really think about it like that," Topaz finally admitted. Really, she hadn't thought Tandy would take to it the way she had. She hadn't realized it would become such a daily thing. Not that she was complaining.

Jim shrugged a shoulder. "You only just realized you could do it, and we didn't know you could until now. I don't think the professor habitually covers subtracting emotions. Maybe you shouldn't have agreed to it, but you also didn't have much point of reference about the potential consequences." He sat back in his chair, watching the girl carefully. "I'm not saying you should never do it. If someone's paralyzed with fear in a crisis or you find yourself against . . . things . . . that feed on emotions, draining might even be necessary. And sometimes, if the pain is extreme . . . all of us have acted out of mercy, every once in a while. All we ask is that it not be a decision you make lightly, especially with fellow students. Even if they ask it of you. If you didn't know what could happen, how could Tandy?"

"It won't happen again." That much she could promise. "Not like this, at least." She made no promises for if they were ever in another situation like the one with the Slendermen. If using one of her classmates as a power source saved their lives, then all bets were off.

The counselor nodded. He believed her. She'd seemed genuinely surprised to hear the potential ramifications of prolonged draining, and besides, she didn't strike him as the type that bothered to lie. Apathy, pragmatism, or simple lack of tact -- whatever the reason, it all amounted to honesty. Jim would take it.

"Thank you," he said. "The professor will want to talk to you further about your empathy and long-term use, but I don't think we're looking at disciplinary action. Although I did want to ask -- if you wanted to experiment with your powers, why didn't you tell us?"

Bloody hell. She should have known that would be too easy. "I'll take a punishment if it happens," Topaz said with a light shrug. It wasn't like there was much they could take away from her, short of throwing her out. And then she supposed she'd just go back to England and live with Romany. "I didn't really think anyone would want to encourage me experiment on other people. That's generally considered bad."

Jim gave her a half-smile underscored by the first hint of wry humor in the entire conversation. "And you thought experimenting on other people in secret and totally unsupervised would be better received? Incidentally, that's another thing we ask you not to do again. But back to the point: yes, we're careful about it, but this is a school, and psi in particular is one of those powers that is very difficult to train without practical application. I'll talk to the professor and we'll retool your curriculum a little so you can test your capabilities in a controlled setting. If nothing else, I've been a guinea pig for psi-types before. We'll figure something out."

"Well there's reason we kept it secret," Topaz muttered under her breath. "I said it won't happen again and I meant it." The words weren't said testily - just in the same matter-of-fact manner in which she'd been speaking the entire time. If there was one thing that could said about Topaz, it was that she didn't break promises. Not intentionally, at least. "Great, then. Looking forward to it."

"As you've discovered, secrets are hard to keep here. But thank you." She was ready to go. Not that she hadn't been ever since she set foot in the office, but especially now. Her body language was screaming it, and they'd covered all they needed to cover, anyway. Jim rose from his desk and walked to the door.

"All right, Topaz, I think we're done here," said Jim, and opened the door to freedom.

"And the professor is expecting you in his office for that talk in ten minutes."