Log: David North and Laurie

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During the evacuation of the mansion, North helps Laurie keep moving.



Laurie had been hooked up to an IV and was holding the bag slightly above her head to make sure it drained properly as she crept across the rubble, following the others as they evacuated the mansion. Amelia seemed to be everywhere at once, although Laurie suspected that was more that she was drifting in and out of awareness then that the other woman had somehow developed the ability to multiply herself at will.

It was hard to keep moving when what she most wanted to do was lay down. She knew she was still very much in danger of going into shock if she didn't watch herself. She hugged the bag against her chest for a second and adjusted the sling with her good hand before picking it back up again and holding it high. As much as she put on a brave face, as much as she could be okay with being alive, Tabitha a glowing example of just how glad she was to be alive, she felt so numb and so painfully wrong all at once. If someone had called her a zombie, a moving set of bones with only the shreds of humanity left to keep it animated she would not have foresworn them as crazy.

God, all those people, all her friends and the people she loved, and the people she'd only ever had a meeting in the hall with. Why hadn't she tried harder to know them? It wasn't like she couldn't have had a damn conversation, maybe taken a moment between reading and studying. She couldn't remember the last time she'd spoken to Tabitha for anything more then a Danger room run, or maybe about whether a book was still on the shelf.

It wasn't even war, it wasn't anything, it was just bodies, and rubble and somewhere up above a screaming fire that wanted to end them all, and how could anyone have said that that was just? How could any God have let that stand when they're only ever wanted peace, and to help. She hated them, she couldn't help it, she wanted more then anything for them to be dead, for Jean, or the Phoenix or whatever that thing was to be dead and that hurt so much. Because Jean, because how could that be okay? How could hating someone who looked like Jean, wanting her dead, how could that ever be okay?

But she did, she hated and she wanted, and it was so hard.

Lost in her thoughts as she was, Laurie did not see the Trenchcoat hobbling down the hallway, pausing to speak with Amelia with his weight partially born by a rifle - an odd crutch to be using, for sure, but not surprising considering the circumstances.

North approached again at a sedate pace, his outward calm out of place amidst the flurry of chaos going on around the mansion. He stopped Laurie with an outstretched hand, not quite touching her arm as he cocked his head at her.

"Have you seen Doug, Miss?"

Laurie blinked at him, a moment of confusion crossing her face before recognition set in. "Not since the evacuation started, is he okay?"

Panic was not normally an emotion that she allowed, especially not during a time when her control on her abilities was shaken at best. She backed away from North, crouching down in the hallway to put her head on her knees. She'd seen the technique work for someone once.

"You should probably go."

It was muffled, but she was proud her voice was still steady, and that she hadn't burst into tears quite yet.

There was a quiet sigh before she felt the weight of someone settling in beside her with a grunt of pain. North had his bad leg stretched out in front of him, his makeshift crutch propped up against the wall alongside of him.

He did not have a paper bag at hand so he settled for the only other way he knew how to quell a panic attack in the shortest time possible.

"I am going to put my arms around you, and you are going to breathe with me, all right?" The spy said, gruff voice gentle, if not soothing, as he carefully placed his hands on her shoulders and slowly guided her back to lean against his chest.

Laurie allowed herself to be pulled into the hold, trying to get her breathing under control. If she'd had breath for it, she might have warned him away but she didn't, nor did she really want to do this alone either.

They breathed together after Laurie had struggled to match the rise and fall of his chest, his arms wrapped loosely around her waist such that he was not hindering her ability to escape. Each inhale was deep and each exhale was long until North was sure that she was not going to start hyperventilating.

"Doug is fine," he finally said, voice pitched low and quiet, knowing that while her panic had abated, the darker feelings that were gripping her were probably not going anywhere for a while.

He shifted around, left arm groping at the floor to her side before it found purchase on a bag of liquid which the German man raised above her shoulder.

"Thank you, I'm not usually the person panicking."

Laurie could only hug herself with one arm now, and the reminder that she now lacked the other wasn't particularly the self-comforting gesture. She smiled wryly at herself and rested her head against North's shoulder.

"Will you do me a favour and tell me a happy lie? I think I could use a little less truth right now."

North grimaced and looked down at the woman he had only seen a few times before. Anyone who knew and knew of him would know that he usually was the last person to do the comforting or to be comforted. Empty words and lies were things he rarely indulged in, if at all.

So the first thing out of his mouth was, naturally: "Everything is going to be all right." And because that sounded trite even to his own ears, he patted her remaining hand and added: "And you should trust the precog."