Log: Laurie and Jennie

[x-wallflower-.livejournal.com]

Laurie returns some files to medlab and starts up an conversation with Jennie - they get to talking about finding what you want.



Laurie waited for the doors to the Medlab to open with a soft swish before walking through, casually tapping her fingers on a series of case files she was carrying. She’d been studying them in her spare time, and while she’d never take them into the mansion proper, sometimes the labs were a quieter place for study then the Medlab proper.

She greeted Jennie with a soft hello and a smile as she set the files down on one of the desks at the entrance to treatment rooms.

“How much longer are you on shift?” she asked.

It was agreed that Jennie come in and organize on Tuesdays and Thursdays, because it just made things run easier. Luckily it was quieter that it had been in recent years, but it was nice not to have to worry about things, and it helped Jennie feel like she was earning her keep instead of mooching.

"Just until I finish with the last of these files," Jennie tapped away at the keyboard. Excel was her friend and soothed her troubled soul. "What's up?"

“Returning case files before I get accused of keeping dossiers on people,” Laurie joked – not that that hadn’t happened in the past, but she had no real reason to be paranoid. Frankly, if she were going to keep dossiers on people; it wouldn’t be with easily found files. “How have you been? I heard there's a tiny bird fluttering around about possible drinks after work with the Medlab types if you were interested?”

"Would that tiny bird happen to be you?" Jennie asked innocently, batting her lashes at Laurie.

“That could be an accurate interpretation,” Laurie replied with an innocent look of her own, before pulling a drawer open in the nearest filing cabinet to start inserting the files she’d placed on the desk. “Especially if I can get the others to agree to it. I think a night out on the town would be good for all of us.”

"Well, I haven't seen the others yet, but you can count me in," Jennie tossed her ponytail over her shoulder and finished typing. "How are you, Miss Lauriekins? We haven't really talked in a while."

“Exhausted, and annoyed at how long physical therapy with my new arm is taking but otherwise happy,” Laurie replied, putting away the last file before she lent against the desk. “It could have been a lot worse, and having the connections we do made even the damage that was done a lot easier to cope with. And how about Miss Jennie? How have you been coping?”

"Well, at least our wackiness is good for something, am I right?" Jennie closed the browser out and logged off. Then she put her boots up on the desk. "I am coping well, considering I am a small business owner, and in the process of expanding, because apparently salsa is so highly in goddamned demand."

Jennie knew that wasn't what Laurie meant. But Jennie had been contrary, even when she and Laurie had been teenagers.

Laurie knew her friends and she knew when and how to push if she and they really needed her to, now wasn’t one of those times. Jennie would talk to who and when she wanted; and that was good enough for her. She’d long since stopped having an urge to mother everybody and everything that came past her, or stood still for too long. Not that she still didn't, if she were being entirely honest, but she'd gotten better at being obnoxiously mothering anyhow.

“Really? That sounds… Well, I don’t know if ‘fun’ would be the right word,” Laurie noted, pulling a chair of her own over so she could rest her tired feet. It would only get worse during her residency years, she knew. “And probably due to all that Zumba stuff; people getting a feel for it and liking it.”

"Goddamned Zumba," Jennie rolled her eyes. "A few classes at Mommy and Me and suddenly we all think we can dance,no appreciation for the art and majesty." Jennie rubbed her nose. "Oh God, Laurie, I am so bored."

“I hear you. Everyone with an internet connection thinks they’re a doctor these days, I feel like I need to put up a sign or something. Aren’t you back on full roster yet?” Laurie asked with a raised eyebrow.

She herself wasn’t, and she couldn’t say whether she would be again. It felt…she couldn’t really say, not if they really asked. Only that she wanted something more, or different maybe? Something the X-men couldn’t offer her right now, and considering she couldn’t even articulate what it was she felt was missing, she hadn’t gone out of her way to talk to anyone about it. Although she wasn't exactly hiding it either.

“Or is this more a ‘My life was full of danger and mystery and now I’m doing paperwork’ style of thing?”

"Oh I've been full roster for a while now," Jennie said, stretching out her arms. "They're making 'commander' noises at me again, which I am not sure I am ready for. No, it's the..." Jennie trailed off and looked at a space above Laurie's head. "The dance studio was Marnie's dream, and I was there to help her out. And now, I feel like I'm getting too far down the rabbit hole.Like I'm leading this double life, and it's all nice and safe and boring. But soon I'm going to have to tap out on one or the other, you know?"

“Remember when we were teenagers and I gave myself pneumonia trying to do too much?” Laurie mused with a grin before nodding at Jennie’s explanation. “I’ve had to make that choice a couple of times now, to varying degrees of success. What it comes down to is what parts of your life are the ones you can’t live without? Basically, it’s like that Walking Dead episode said. You’ve got to figure out what it is you want, and it can't be what you think other people want, or what you think you should want or even what you’d like to want. Once you figure that out, then it’s easier to choose what stays and what has to go.”

"Yeah, but what I want is no longer an option for me," Jennie looked at Laurie, and for a moment she just looked... tired. "It's just cobbling pieces together, and trying to leave the past in the past."

Laurie hesitated for a second, wanting to give Jennie a hug and tell her that it would be alright, but that was an easy way out. The truth was that it might not be; and saying else wise was just about making herself feel better, not Jennie.

“It’s hard to lose like that, and to still want the things that can’t be anymore,” Laurie responded carefully after a moment, trying to work out how to say ‘I’ll listen as long as you need’ without sounding twee. “I’m here whatever you need, or decide though; even if it’s just to take you out for the night and get you to sing stupid pop songs with me till we almost puke laughing.”

Jennie smiled, but it didn't quite reach her eyes. "I just ...ugh. I miss what I had, but what I had got a lot of people I cared about killed. How can I miss that, when it mean that it harmed so many people?"

Dating Doug had been a benefit in a lot of senses, especially in helping with Laurie’s often obliviousness to other people’s emotions and expressions. Doug was good at judging her moods before even she was aware of them, which helped any number of situations. But human questions were still hard, specifically because they were human and thus messy. They were unlike the structure of a virus – or the mere biology of the human or mutant body. There were so many variables, and so much that could be wrong or could even be right given only an inflection of a word, or the arch of an eyebrow.

“When you were back there, doing what you were doing, were you happy?” Laurie asked, gaze focused fully on Jennie now, hands resting in her lap as she gave full attention to the question. “I mean, did you feel needed in what you were doing? Did you feel like you had a home?”

"Honestly? Yes. And no offense to Xavier's, but in some ways it felt like more of a home than this place did. I wasn't a teenage fuckup or Vegas trailer trash. I was just another misfit toy, that had a job to do. That solved problems, occasionally thumbed our noses at the establishment, and solved mysteries." Jennie adjusted a cup of pens on the desk, twitching the pens into place. "I had a place in the world where I fit. And now I don't. Just a square peg in a bunch of round holes."

“Then maybe you need to make your own place?” Laurie noted, but it wasn’t an unkind question. “Xavier’s is not always the best place for everyone, and while it can be home – it doesn’t have to be the only home, or even the main home of everyone here. It might not be the same as the place you miss – and believe me, no matter the pain, it’s okay to miss a place where you were happy, where you had a home – but you can certainly look into doing something similar here. The X-men certainly don’t have to be the place you stay just because that’s where you were before you left.”

"Clint and I were talking about maybe... doing something like what we both used to do, but here? Not sure how that would work, and I've already got a lot on my plate." Like trying not to get killed. "So we'll see."

“Well, if you ever need a half-trained doctor to tag along, let me know,” Laurie said with a grin, but she gave Jennie a slightly concerned look. “And I am here, whatever you need, even if it’s not that. So, what do you think anyway? Talk to each of the Medlab types individually or just throw something up on the x-staff page?”

"Probably just grab them, some of them don't check their pages as often as they should," Jennie sighed and adjusted the papers on the desk. "Shall we go find them?"

“I’m thinking the answer to that is always yes.” Laurie said, straightening from her standing position and gesturing for Jennie to go ahead of her.

"Oh we few, we happy few," said Jennie, but this time the smile reached her eyes.