Log: Laurie and Amanda

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Laurie goes to see Amanda and reconnect with her friend.



Laurie knocked on Amanda's door with her foot, her good arm carrying a small electronic device the size of a notepad while her other was tucked into a folded sleeve, the material pinned with a safety pin to stop it getting in the way.

"Coming!" came the witch's reply as she rolled off the couch and padded over to the door. Marie-Ange was out with Wade, so she had the suite to herself. "Hey, you," she said, opening the door to find Laurie there. "What brings you by?"

"A visit, maybe a good cup of tea? I'm told that getting away from the books and interacting with peers is considered healthy behavior. Mostly I just want a bit of a gossip and to not have to stare tragically at walls while my brain fails to be Forge level genius at robotics."

Laurie smiled somewhat self deprecatingly and gave a slight shrug.

"Painful as it is, I suppose I'll just have to settle for common genius."

"Sure, mate, come on in." Amanda stood aside from the door to wave Laurie in. "Take the chair - that way you won't have to shove a bunch of magic books off to find a spot. I've been catching up on the changes in my collection since... you know."

"I think we all have, although CeCe, Amelia and I came to an agreement that I'm not allowed in the Medlab after 12 midnight unless it's an actual emergency."

It wasn't something Laurie was bothered about, not only did it allow her some time with Doug, or her friends, she knew herself well enough that had there not been an agreement, she might have worked into another bout of pneumonia without meaning to.

"Are there many changes? I would think metaphysical laws would be somewhat problematic after everything."

Laurie took a seat on the comfy chair, taking the chance for a bit of a sticky beak. She had only really seen her and Doug's suite and the one Gabriel occupied since their return.

Amanda shrugged on her way to the kitchenette to put the kettle on. "Most of it's the same. There's little things... my connection to New York's not the same, for a start. Which makes sense, since it's not the same city as it was. So I'm having to re-introduce myself, bit by bit. The rest of it's mostly working out who's around to talk to. I knew about Strange - he and Wanda went together. But there's others. Like Romany. I haven't been able to track her down yet, and to be honest, I'm a bit afraid to try too hard." She paused and addressed the elephant in the room, the empty sleeve neatly pinned up where Laurie's arm had been. "How about you? You probably lost more than the rest of us - how're you coping?"

"I'm not sure I am," Laurie admitted with a shrug. She brought up what she'd been reading and turned the device toward Amanda before putting it on the table. It was a multi-level diagram of the human arm, complete with musculature and nerves. "It's easy to put things off when I've got something physical to concentrate on, Not so much time to think about anything else."

Amanda leaned over to look at the screen, eyes following the intricacies of muscles, nerves and blood vessels. "Yeah, I get that," she replied sympathetically. "How's the physical therapy going?"

"I believe the answer to that would depend on whether you were my physical therapist, or myself."

Laurie was not accustomed to not being able to do everything she wanted to do, retraining to be able to do things with one hand and still keep her other arm from losing any muscle was difficult. She was also very much aware that she was the world's worst patient.

Amanda grimaced. "Sorry, didn't mean to pry. Old habit from the medlab days."

"No, it's okay. I meant more that my therapist says I'm doing well, but I feel as if things are moving slowly," Laurie replied, her smile soft and her shrug eloquent. "I've never been happy to cruise but I suppose this injury is teaching me to be patient. Enough about me, what about you? You lost several people who were important to you, I would think that would take adjustment."

At the last words, the witch moved back to the kitchenette again, busying herself with mugs and tea bags. "Everyone lost someone," she replied sadly. "I was lucky - at least Meg and Kurt came through and I didn't have anyone closer to lose. But yeah, it's hard. Not a day goes by when I don't find myself wishing Remy or Wanda or 'Ro were here. Even Doc Strange." She took a quick gulp of tea to wash down the sudden lump in her throat. "There's some times where I don't know how I'm going to go on without them - they did so much for me."

"You go on because you must, and they would be angry with you if you didn't," Laurie responded, watching steam silently rising from the kettle as it began to boil. "And eventually some of them return; if not in quite the way, or the people we knew. At the very least you currently have a Wanda, and there's a chance that somewhere out there, there's a Remy, or an Ororo - at least till proved beyond a shadow of a doubt that there isn't. So, hope then, I would think, is what keeps us going. At least, it's what keeps me going even if it's a small thing. I let circumstance take it from me once, thought that I'd never see any of you again. I killed a man because I'd given up everything of myself to him to survive, and found it was a lie."

Laurie paused at the last, sighed as she reached for an arm to rub in her uneasiness and placed her hand in her lap instead. It felt like it had been years but she knew herself that she was still recovering, still struggling against everything she'd gone through, and continued to go through.

"Sometimes we just have to hope for things to go better, that's all."

"We made a choice, and we're living with it. Considering that choice meant an entire universe was saved from destruction, I'm leaning on the side of it being a good decision, no matter what the sacrifices we made." Amanda's tone was pragmatic. "But yeah, the Wanda thing is fucked up. Some of the others, it's not so bad - they're so different it's easier to remember they're not the same people. But this Wanda is so similar to ours... it takes some effort to remember she isn't sometimes, and that's when it hurts." The witch snorted. "I could probably manage some teenage heart throb version of Remy better. How about you? How're you coping with the whole frankenberry cat thing, as Angie calls it?"

"I'm not - well, not really. I haven't even attempted to talk to Clint yet, despite him being around, and trying to convince his former boyfriend to 'suck it up and get help' so to speak." Laurie was well aware of her hypocrisy, but she figured as long as most people didn't know she was being hypocritical, then she was safe from any 'intervention' style arrangements. "I looked up my family when we first arrived here, had Doug do some record diving for me. It would appear that my father, such as he was, doesn't exist in this world, or if he does, not as he was. My mother appears to be alive and well and working for Charles Xavier's mutant underground - but since I haven't attempted to contact her in any form, I can't say for sure in what way she is working. I expect that if she's anything like my former mother, she'll turn up on Xavier's front lawn to scold me about familial bonds and how a good daughter would not leave her mother uncontacted for a month."

Amanda raised her eyebrow at Laurie's confession of "do as I say, not as I do", but it wasn't surprising - Laurie was particularly good at ignoring her own advice. "Might want to watch where you step with telling folks to suck it up," she replied mildly. "That's not going to go down well with some, and grief's a tricky thing to mess with." She thought of Adrienne, so hurt and angry and impossible to talk to. Then another thought struck her. "Oh, bloody hell. I hadn't even thought about families... I should probably check up on mine, see what's what." For Kurt and Meggan's sakes, at least.

"Well, it wasn't in those exact words, more that he needed to talk to someone rather then sitting in his room brooding about it," Laurie explained wryly, remembering the rather tense and angry conversation that had spawned. "I could say 'yes, you should' but even I'm aware of how deeply hypocritical that would be given what I just said."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that was coming out pretty strong with you again," Amanda replied, snorting. Then an idea struck her and a wicked gleam came to her eye. "Finish up your tea. "I've got a cunning plan."

"I'm nothing if not predictable in my vices," Laurie replied as she finished her tea as ordered and placed the cup down on the saucer, an intrigued look gathering in her eyes as she grinned at Amanda. "So, is it so cunning you could put a tail on it and call it a weasel?"

"So cunning it has a degree in cunning from Cunning University," was Amanda's counter. "Come on, we're going to take a bit of a stroll, you and I." She got up and held out her hand to pull Laurie out of her seat if she resisted. "It's time to meet some folks."