Topaz and Amanda

[x-topaz.livejournal.com]

Amanda shows up to talk to Topaz about the day's revelations. For a lecture, it's very...not lecture-like.



It had been a long day.

Haller's lecture had been followed by one from Professor Xavier, and finally Topaz had been allowed to escape. She was now curled up on her bed, nursing a headache. Part of her wanted to go down and ask the doctors for aspirin or something, but that involved leaving the room, the suite, and possibly facing one of her classmates who more than likely hated her now, if Maddie had gotten to all of them at this point. It wasn't so much that she cared about any of them hating her - more that she just didn't want to deal with any of it. She considered it a miracle that she had managed to escape upstairs without seeing anyone.

There was a soft tapping, and then a familiar blonde head poked around the door. "Hey," said Amanda softly. "I brought you some tea. Can I come in?"

Oh why did they call her? Topaz thought wearily as she drew herself up into more of a sitting position. She hadn't been expecting to face Amanda until Monday. "Tea, huh?" She replied, tangling her fingers in her hair. "Who told you?"

"Haller," Amanda said simply, coming in and closing the door behind her. "He emailed and let me know what happened." She set the tea down on the nightstand and grabbed the desk chair, wheeling it to beside the bed and sitting down. "Can we talk?"

It probably didn't matter how she answered that question. "Sure." Topaz curled her legs up under herself, resting her elbows on her knees. At least Haller probably hadn't completely demonized her. Hopefully. Maybe.

"How're you going?" the older witch asked, perhaps unexpectedly. Her voice was as it always was, perhaps a bit more gentle, a bit worried, but certainly not angry.

Unexpectedly indeed. That wasn't usually the way one started a lecture. Surprise momentarily registered in Topaz's expression before she looked away hurriedly. "Who cares?" She didn't say the words pityingly, or in any way that might inspire sympathy. The way she said them, she might have been talking about the weather.

"I do. 'S why I asked." Amanda didn't seem to be upset by the response. "You dealing okay?"

"Yeah, m'fine. Absolutely fine. We don't need to do small talk, you know. If you're gonna lecture me, just do it." Topaz regretted the words the second she said them. It wasn't Amanda's fault she was having a bad day - week - month. "Sorry," she muttered, focusing on her blanket.

Amanda, surprisingly, didn't seem to be bothered by Topaz's outburst. Instead, she leaned forward in the chair, resting her elbows on the arms and her chin in her hands. "Has anyone told you about the love potion incident, back when I was a student here?"

All right then, they were doing small talk. "No," Topaz replied, leaning her back against the wall. "What happened?"

"I made a love potion, for shits and giggles," Amanda explained, watching Topaz. "And somehow it wound up dosing half the school, me included. All of us chasing after Doug like he was the best thing since sliced bread."

Topaz raised an eyebrow. She didn't know much about Doug, other than that he worked with Amanda. "Poor Doug," she commented dryly.

"Yeah. Poor Doug." Amanda snorted and leaned back upright again. "So, after the spell got reversed and we were all back in our right minds, it turned out what I thought would be a fun lark actually was a lot worse. As in, people saying I was as bad as a rapist worse. Not a good time - I nearly got expelled, and as it was, pretty much everyone hated me on sight. I wound up hiding in one of the disused wings for a while, feeling sorry for myself."

A small frown pulled at Topaz's lips. "That's...not really fair," she said carefully. "It was an accident. Sort of." It didn't sound like she'd set out to hurt anyone, at least.

"I still hurt people, even if I meant it or not. And I did make the potion in the first place." Amanda shrugged. "Any way, I'm sitting in this dusty old room, thinking I was going to get lynched the minute I stuck my nose out of the door, when along comes a mate of mine. And he shoves some cookies under the door, since I won't open it. It wasn't much, but you know, it made a whole lot of difference. Knowing there was someone in my corner to bat for me."

She was starting to see where Amanda was going with this. "I don't need you to bat for me, if that's the point of this." Topaz dropped her head back so she was staring at the ceiling. "Let them hate me, I don't care. I made my choices."

"Okay then. Let's try another tack." Amanda focussed on Topaz's face. "Why did you do it?"

Topaz kept her eyes on the ceiling as she answered. "Partly experimenting, partly trying to help Tandy. It sucks when you have emotions you can't deal with." She was surprised Haller hadn't mentioned that to Amanda.

"But you don't care, you just said. So why risk getting yourself into all this shite for the sake of an experiment?" Amanda pointed out. She'd known fully well the reasons that had been given, but she wanted to try and crack the girl's facade a bit.

A shrug. "I don't care if they hate me. Doesn't mean I'm not goin' to help if I can. M'not completely heartless."

"Well, it's a good sign, I s'pose, that you aren't." Amanda wondered how Nathan had managed her so well when she was a teen. "As for them hating you... well, yeah, you're probably going to be in the bad books for a while. I've got to wonder, tho', why didn't you say anything? To me, or one of the teachers? You had to know that if Tandy wasn't coping, there were people who would help."

That was a little bit more complicated of a question. "Dunno." Oh yeah, Amanda was really going to let her get away with that. "I don't...know anyone here," she finally muttered, still looking anywhere but at her teacher. "Don't trust 'em." She was purposely avoiding why she hadn't said anything to Amanda.

She might be avoiding, but Amanda wasn't going to let it go. "And me?" she asked quietly.

Damn. Topaz closed her eyes. It was starting to sink in. She wasn't going to be punished - not officially, at least - but she very easily could have been. She could have been packing her bags at the very moment. And she wasn't entirely sure how she felt about that.

"Knew you'd be mad."

Amanda sighed and smiled wryly. "Well, yeah, I was, at first. But I was mostly worried. About Tandy, but mostly about you. You remember our talk up at the ski resort? 'Bout power sources and not seeing people as batteries? This was the sort of thing I was talking about."

"Yeah, kinda figured," Topaz admitted wryly. "S'why I knew you'd be mad."

"Just a bit, yeah." Amanda shook her head. "It's a bloody dangerous path you're on, kiddo. And I will help you as much as I can, but you need to give me a bit of a hand, sometimes. 'S not like I've done this much before, yeah? I'd hate to fuck up and have you be the one to pay the price." No, that wasn't an option.

Topaz finally opened her eyes and turned her head to face Amanda at last. "What do you want me to do?" She asked quietly. There was no defensiveness in her tone - it was an honest question. It hadn't escaped her notice that Amanda had saved her life twice now. Three times if one counted keeping her off the streets after Luca died. And she wasn't yelling at her now, despite the screw up.

She owed the woman a bit more than constant stubbornness and trouble.

"Talk to me," Amanda said simply. "Before you make any powers-related decisions like this. Anything you aren't sure of, that you think might make me mad at you... just give me a chance and talk to me first? I promise I'll listen and try to help." Her voice trembled a bit on the last words, despite her attempts to stay calm and mature about all this. But it had frightened her, how close to the edge Topaz was stepping.

"Okay." The agreement was soft. Amanda's emotions were muted, as usual, but the slight tremor at the end of the sentence was hard to miss. "I'll try." Talking didn't come easy to her.

"Trying's all I ask, kiddo." It was a lot, coming from Topaz, and Amanda knew that and was grateful. "Now, I figure you need a break from people talking at you, so I'll leave you to your cuppa. You want anything before I go?"

Topaz shook her head slowly. "No. Thank you." She paused for a moment. "I'm sorry."

"I know you are, kiddo." Amanda gave her a warm smile. "Don't let your tea get cold."