Doug and Rachel (backdated like whoa)

[x-cypher.livejournal.com]

Backdated to August 24, 2012. Doug seeks shelter from the unusually heavy storm by finding someplace to get some privacy at the mansion. He finds someone very unexpected.


It was astonishing, in a building as large as the mansion, how difficult it was to find a room with no windows. At least, if you weren't in the super-secret basement. And with yet another of the sudden storms that had been popping up with no warning throughout the week in full force, Doug wasn't leaving the mansion until it died down. The rec room was likely to be full of people watching TV or playing games, and Doug didn't feel very fit for company, so he made his way to the library instead.

However, someone else seeking solitude seemed to have staked previous claim to the room. Seated by the window with her legs propped up on the reading table was a lithe redhead girl. A thick, hardcover book sat nestled against her thighs as she perused it, with several more by the side of her chair. There was a flash of lightning as Doug entered the library, and Rachel glanced up to watch his entry, looking slightly wary.

The lightning strike caused Doug to jump, and he stayed well away from the windows as he came in. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to intrude," he said quietly, as the wariness on the other person's face was quite obvious. His own 'fight or flight' reflex was running a bit high due to the storm, so he couldn't really blame her. "Seems I wasn't the only one with this idea."

“No prob.” Relaxing back into her seat, Rachel tugged her feet down from their previous perch and shifted so that she had a bigger range of movement if a quick exit became necessary. She glanced out the window where it was raining cats and dogs before quirking her lips at him. Clearly, the man was not a fan of storms. “I don’t own de place.”

That was strange, hearing a Cajun patois from someone who wasn't named Remy Lebeau or Belladonna Boudreaux. And the mysterious new person didn't look at all like they came from anywhere near Louisiana. In fact, if Doug narrowed his eyes, she looked a lot like...

click - the mysterious 'new student' that Scott's post had been very short on details for, and who hadn't bothered to introduce or interact at all on the journals.
click - a very fair complexion that suggested ancestry from the British Isles.
click - bright red hair that reminded him of Moira Mactaggart.
click - a wary soldier's bearing that would not have looked out of place on Nathan Dayspring.
click - a tiny hint of something reminiscent of a toddler he'd looked after once or twice, if you allowed for a dozen or so extra years.

"Rachel?" he asked, his voice a bit hoarse and quietly hesitant.

Oh. He was one of those then. She tilted her head at the man before nodding cautiously, already mentally scanning through a list of possible identities. Strange, he did not seem like he was one of the X-Men. Even if he did look very familiar.

“Hi.”

"Sorry." There was undoubtedly a reason she was keeping a low profile. It was just the way his brain worked, and the accelerated age of her didn't trip him up the way it probably did others. He'd spent time in Asgard, Forge and Crystal and their time in Attilan...plus Marie-Ange had been doing some work in the advanced age drawing techniques the FBI used for missing persons. He saw her cautious nod, and suspected she was trying to place him. "Doug Ramsey," he introduced himself.

Rachel could not help starting a little. She sat up, visibly tracing Doug’s body with her eyes before forcing herself to lean back against the back of the chair. For a few long seconds, the telekinetic was unable to verbalise her thoughts, or anything else for that matter. The Doug Ramsey in her world had long since been lost to them, absorbed by Mastermold during one of the earliest battles – The next time Rachel had seen him was when she was sixteen, and by then he had been reduced to being a prisoner in his body, if the part mechanical being could even be considered such.

“Rachel,” she finally replied, dropping her surname as always. But by then the silence had become painfully awkward.

He could see the startled expression, followed by an awkward pulling back. Almost revulsion. He didn't know what her story was, or how she'd come to be much older, but there was clearly something about him that was affecting the way she looked at him. "What is it?" he asked, quietly but intently.

Doug received a headshake in reply and a darting glance that settled somewhere on his forehead. “Nothin’. I knew a Ramsey, is all.” Rachel carded her fingers through her short locks and tried for a smile even if she knew very well that its lack of genuine amusement would not escape the man’s eyes. “He wasn’t afraid of lightning, though.” Unfortunately.

Doug didn't bother with an answering false smile. "Knew. Past tense." His eyes hardened. "Dead?"

"In a manner of speaking," Rachel shrugged, verdant eyes meeting his. A pause. Then, "Are you all right?"

Doug didn't like the potential implications of 'in a manner of speaking', because they all led to a suggestion of his body walking around without him at the controls. He was tempted to volley the 'in a manner of speaking' right back at her, but that wouldn't have been fair. "I...haven't had the easiest month or two," he admitted. "How much have people told you about...Genosha?"

"Everything," she said, almost nonchalantly. "And yet nothing at all." The redhead shut her book with a snap, giving up on the idea of reading for now. Instead, she turned to face Doug, expression smoothed into simple interest and nothing more.

Doug looked out the windows of the library at where rain was sheeting against them. It was easier to talk about when he wasn't looking at someone, he'd found. He could feel her eyes on him, but at least by looking away he could fool himself into thinking he was reclined on Dr. Grim's couch or something like that. "Some of us were held in the Citadel and...interrogated," he told Rachel.

She followed his gaze to the window. Then winced. "Water torture."

A statement, not a question. The redhead felt a pang of sadness, in part for him, and in part for the Doug long lost to them. She did not pity him. But her heart ached anyway. It was a familiar feeling.

"Got it in one," Doug replied, his voice hoarse again with the memory. He was still dealing with panic reactions, to some extent, the shortness of breath that came in the shower, or during heavy rainstorms like the one currently blowing around the mansion. But therapy was helping, at least, with struggling back toward...well, not normalcy. An even keel, perhaps.

"One of those times Ray hates being right all de time," she replied, half in jest and in a small attempt to lighten the heavy tension in the room.

"So what's it like?" Doug asked quietly, desperate for a change in topic. "All of...this." He waved his hand.

"A kind of torture of its own," Rachel shrugged, the rise and drop of her shoulders carelessly done, although her tone was conversational. The girl tilted her head -- almost curiously -- at him, and did not elaborate.

Doug's mouth twitched and his eyes narrowed at the word 'torture'. Genosha had been a buffet of tortures for him, some more subtle than others. Like seeing Rachel...he shook his head sharply, trying to force himself away from that line of thought. "I get that," he told her.

"Sorry," came the automatic apology when Rachel realised her poor choice of words. Living in a military base wasn't the best of ways to develop tact. The girl smiled - not her widest or brightest, but a genuine attempt at something approaching sincere. "Well. Are you going to stand dere all day? Or are you just waitin' for Rachel to pull de chair out for you?"

Doug pulled out a chair and sat down heavily and bonelessly in it. To say he was tired was an understatement. Even calling it exhaustion was well short of the mark. It was a bone-deep thing. Mostly, he wished he could sleep. For about a year. "So what's the plan?" he asked her.

“What makes you think I have one?” She asked, wrinkling her nose as she none-too-subtly deflected the question. “How much do you know about my presence here?”

Doug left a quiet pause to drift out with a raised eyebrow, then shrugged. "About that much," he quipped. "Hell, I only put all the pieces together just now when I came in here."

“I don’t know,” she admitted after a while, offering another wry quirk of her lips as she studied the man seated across from her. “Winging it for now.” Not that she was doing much. If anything at all.

"Aren't we all." The whipsaw of Rachel's changing accents and mannerisms was...fascinating, in an odd sort of way. "If there's anything I can do to help..."

“I’ll let you know,” she assured him, with another quick quirk of her lips. “But right now, I’m just being an unproductive sitting duck.” And it was driving her slightly insane.

Doug knew how stir crazy waiting could make a person. "Well, I know people who know people who know things, so." He leaned back, rubbing at his eyes wearily.

“I see,” she said, tugging on her short auburn hair as she surveyed him with an air of contemplation. He looked like he could do with some sleep. Or a lot of sleep, really. The psion opened up the book on her lap again and traced a finger down the side of the page. “Of the X-Force variety, I presume.”

"Whichever you prefer," Doug offered. "It can be through them, or just me." He didn't do much freelance hacking these days, but that didn't mean he didn't do it at all. And if Remy had a problem with him getting Rachel information off the clock, then that was just too damn bad.

“Thank you,” Rachel nodded. She could have shared more information with him and tried to make good of that offer for more information in return, but something stopped her – most likely the image of his alternate self from her world – and the redhead kept her silence as she bent her head towards her book and pretended to get lost in it. Between the rain and her presence, she didn’t think either of them would be relaxing any time soon, but the least she could do was try for an illusion of serenity.