xp_logs | LOG: Angelo and Jane, today

Angelo finds Jane cutting herself, but it's not what he thinks. Then he explains some things to her and she loses a bit of her innocence.

Jane was sitting outside under a convenient tree, as she didn't want to freak anyone out about this. She contemplated her bare arm -- the arm that had been sunburned just an hour ago and was now back to it's regular paleness -- and then she contemplated the knife. It was a kitchen knife and was very sharp. She didn't really want to hurt herself, but she just had to know. She should probably go talk to Dr. McCoy about her powers for tests, but she wanted to know now. Jane took a deep breath and pressed the knife into her arm. She bit the side of her lip. It hurt.

Angelo was out for a walk in the grounds, getting some fresh air, when he saw her sitting under the tree. Drawing closer, he was just about to call out a greeting when he saw the knife, and frowned. Stopping not-too-near, he said tentatively, "Jane?"

Jane jumped a bit at the sound of her name, causing the knife to slip and dig in deeper than she had wanted. She winced and held back tears. It hurt. She put the knife down and held her hand over the wound before looking up at Angelo. "Oh, hi Angelo."

Glad she'd put the knife down but still not wanting to alarm her, he took a careful step forward and asked gently, "What you doin' with that?"

"Um..." She trailed off. She knew she should have gone to Dr. McCoy before experimenting like this and she didn't want Angelo to yell at her or think she was being stupid. She didn't know what to say. If she told him her theory that using her power somehow healed her, would he think that she was being stupid to test it out herself?

Angelo didn't much like her reluctance to explain, but was hesitant to prod. He settled for, "You done anythin' like this before?"

She blinked at him uncertainly. Did trying to figure out if she could make herself rain on the head nurse back at the institution count? Probably not. "Er, no..."

Angelo nodded, relieved. "Good. So, d'you wanna talk about why you're doin' it this time...?"

Jane sighed. It looked like she would have to tell Angelo how silly she was being. Unless she could put him off. Or maybe she could make him promise not to tell anyone -- especially any of the adults, who would give her a lecture about asking for help and stuff -- about it. "Um, well. Promise not to tell anyone?" She looked at him hopefully.

Angelo raised an eyebrow at her. "Maybe. Tell me what it is first."

Jane nodded reluctantly. Even if he did tell someone, she probably deserved the lecture. "Well, I was just doing an experiment, really."

Angelo nodded automatically, not really understanding yet. "What kind of experiment?"

Jane blew out a breath of air noisily. "Well, I went and got myself a sunburn in California. And this morning I was feeling a bit cooped up over studying for exams and stuff, so I decided to go for a relaxing glide through the sky as a cloud. And when I came back and re-formed myself, I noticed that my sunburn was gone. So, well, I know it's stupid but... I just wanted to see if it was just a sunburn-thing, or if any time I came back from my cloud form all my previous wounds were healed." She looked down at her bleeding arm and winced. "I know I should have talked to one of the professors or Dr. McCoy or something, but I just wanted to find out. There's so much about myself I don't know..."

Angelo let out a long breath in turn, relieved to find it wasn't what he'd thought. "You really shouldn't've done that alone", he told her. "What if somethin'd gone wrong?"

"I know, I know!" And she did know, really she did, but her powers were really the only thing that defined her and only her. If she didn't know what her powers were, how could she know anything about herself. It was bad enough that she didn't have any memories of her past, if she couldn't understand herself in the present, what was the point? "I just wanted to, I don't know, I wanted to understand myself more. And everyone would have told me to wait, you know? I don't want to wait to find out more."

Angelo sighed, not really exasperated, but wanting to make sure she wouldn't do it again. "How d'you know they would've told you to wait? Did you ask anyone at all?" With another sigh, he relented slightly. "Look, I'm sure you were as careful as possible. But if you'd cut just a little bit in the wrong place..."

She shrunk in on herself a bit. "No, I didn't tell anyone," she said in a small voice. "And I wasn't going to cut deep or anything, I just wanted to see. I'm sorry."

Angelo reached to pull her into a reassuring hug. "It's okay. Just, at least, make sure someone else is around next time you wanna see what'd happen, okay? Could've gone wrong so easily..."

She hugged him back, trying to make sure not to get any blood on him. "I will," she mumbled into his shirt. "And hey, at least I brought some bandaids in case it didn't work!" She geastured to the box of supplies sitting on the ground next to the knife.

Angelo laughed. "Well, good. You wanna finish off the experiment? Might as well."

"Yes, I do." She took a deep breath and abruptly dissolved, causing Angelo to stagger a bit from having the person he was loosly hugging disappear on him. Her clothes dropped to the ground and Jane wished for an instant that she had thought to do this in a less dirty place. She was learning about the importance of clothes, after all, and Lorna and Alison would be so disappointed in her if she got her new ones stained badly. Jane re-formed a moment later, still right next to Angelo, and immediately looked at her arm intently. The cut she had just made was gone! "Look! It worked!" she said, thrusting her arm up for Angelo to see.

Angelo focused on her arm. "Yeah, it did. Well, that's somethin' you've learned 'bout your powers. Maybe best not to tell Dr. MacTaggart how, though..."

Jane giggled happily. She was giddy with the success of her experiment. "Yeah, that would probably be a bad idea." She bent down, picked up her clothes, and started to put them back on. "But see, it wasn't that bad!"

"No, it wasn't. But you didn't know that to start with", he reminded her.

She pouted a bit at him. "All's well that ends well!" she said blithely.

Angelo raised an eyebrow at her, a little perturbed by her apparent lack of realization - or perhaps simple lack of care - of the danger she could have been in. Trying a different tack, he asked, "How would you've explained it if it hadn't worked?"

"Well, I could have just said I cut myself making a sandwich or something. It's not like anyone would actually cut themselves on purpose, so no one would suspect, would they?" She was completely oblivious to Angelo's worries. She felt euphoric over her successful experiement, so she missed his sudden tenseness over her last statement.

Angelo sighed slightly, aware that he wasn't really getting through to her. "Not sure that'd wash, you know. It's kind of in an odd place to be an accidental cut..."

"Well, yeah, but why would anyone hurt themselves on purpose? I don't think anyone would have really noticed, Angelo."

Angelo winced at her words. He knew she'd meant nothing by it, but still... "It does happen, you know", he said as gently as he could. "People have their reasons."

The serious note in Angelo's voice finally got through to Jane. "Reasons? Like, hurting yourself to save someone else or something like that?" She frowned. Jane didn't think he meant that, but she couldn't guess what else it could be.
Avariel Wings: "Well, it's somethin' like that sometimes, yeah", he answered carefully. "Not always, though."

She just looked at him questioningly, trying to understand what he was saying. She knew that some of the people in the institution had hurt themselves, but they weren't well. "Do you mean like how mentally ill people hurt themselves? I had a friend at the institution that used to scratch himself until he bled because he thought that there were bugs crawling on him and the doctors had to make him wear mittens because even the drugs didn't help all the time."

"Again, somethin' like that. Only the people that do it aren't always sick enough to be in institutions..."

"Go on," she said.

Angelo sighed, realizing there was only one way he could get across what he was trying to say. "Well..." He pulled up his sleeve reluctantly, not meeting her eyes. "'s not for me to say who, but there's at least one other person in the mansion who does stuff like this, or has done, anyway."

Jane gazed at the burn scars and felt her heart breaking. Her good mood was suddenly totally gone. "Oh Angelo!" She grabbed him in a fierce hug. "I didn't know. I'm sorry."
Avariel Wings: Angelo hugged her back. "'Course you didn't. Not too many people here do, an' most of 'em found out by accident. It's okay."

"I don't understand why, though. Why do you hurt yourself on purpose?" She peered at him. "Nobody's forcing it on you, are they?"

"No", he reassured her hastily. "It's... kinda hard to explain. Easiest way is to say it's just another old habit I need to break, but I s'pose that doesn't really explain much..."

Jane thought about how hard his life would have had to be to make that a habit and felt her eyes tearing up. She hugged him again. "I'm so sorry."

Angelo returned the hug. "Hey. Nothin' you need to be sorry about - what was, was. I'll get over it."

"Is there anything I can do for you, to help you? I don't know, I'm sorry..."

He shrugged a little helplessly. "Just be around, I guess. The big crashes don't come that often..."

She took his arm, pushed up his sleeve, and gently ran her fingers over his scars. "I think that they happen too often, Angelo." She looked at him earnestly. "You were scared for me, scared that I'd cut myself too much. And now I'm scared for you."

He glanced down at the scars. "Those go back years", he pointed out. "'s not like I got them all in a few months."

"That doesn't matter. Actually, that makes my heart hurt more, to know that you've been hurting yourself for years. Can I be selfish and ask you not to hurt yourself for my sake? I don't know why you do it and it scares me." Jane paused for a moment. "Does Paige know?"

Angelo glanced down - he'd been hoping she wouldn't ask that. "Not as such. I mean, she's seen the scars, but I've got so many others..."

Jane frowned at him.

"I didn't lie!" he said defensively. "It's true - you wanna see?" He pulled his shirt up to display some of his older scars, turning to show her his back as well before letting it drop. "She didn't ask about these ones, in particular."

"Angelo..." she breathed out, shocked at all of his scars. She didn't know what to say. Jane felt an entirely uncharacteristic urge to hunt down and hurt the people that had hurt him like that. And to shake him for hurting himself. Jane was unaware of the silent tears running down her face.

Angelo turned back to look at her, and frowned when he realized she was crying. He pulled her into a wordless hug, trying to reassure her that he was okay.

Jane just cried more. She'd just lost a bit more of her innocence about the world.

Angelo sighed, holding her and stroking her hair in an attempt at comfort while he let her cry into his shirt, not knowing what to say to make it better.