xp_logs | Doug and Amanda

Set this evening. Amanda comes by Doug's room looking for Marie-Ange. Finds that she's sleeping, so she drags Doug down to the kitchen for a little impromptu mother-henning.

It was probably too soon to be chasing this up, but Manuel's dream, prediction, whatever the fuck it was, it had deeply unsettled her. And made some things a lot more clear - why Manuel wouldn't talk to Marie-Ange about their inadvertant link, for a start. His fear had receded somewhat, but she could still feel it through the link - he was terrified of the whole thing. So Amanda had decided to try and get some answers, or some reassurances, she wasn't sure which, and so she was on a Marie-Ange hunt.

The French girl wasn't in her room, or in the sunroom, which left pretty much only one other place. Amanda tapped gently on the door of Doug and Jamie's room, not wanting to disturb anyone sleeping if she could help it - it had been an unsettling twenty-four hours.

Doug answered the door. Marie-Ange had finally settled down for a fitful nap. Doug knew that she had probably not slept at all the night before, and was disinclined to disturb her. The insomnia was bad at the best of times, after the trauma of the previous day, it was even worse. Not that Doug had had a very easy time sleeping himself. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw the gaunt face of Skippy, his dead-looking eyes. And he remembered the vengeful rage that had come over him, the things he had said before the last dupe dissolved in front of him.

As he cracked the door, Doug saw Amanda. "Amanda," he greeted her tiredly and warily. "What can I do for you?"

"I was lookin' for Frenchie, but it can wait if she's sleepin' - figured she'd be with you." Amanda frowned a little as she looked at Doug - he clearly hadn't slept very we! ll, and the faint traces of his aura that she could see were dark, ugly colours. "Actually, it can wait any way - how you holdin' up? You look like shite."

Doug shrugged. "Feel like 'shite'. But I doubt I'm alone in that regard. All that really matters is that everyone's okay." He kept his voice down, keeping an eye on Marie-Ange's sleeping form. "How about you?" he asked. "You have a run-in with the psychotic wannabe?"

"I went with the warehouse brigade, distracted 'em while the others got the munchkins out. Sort of over-did things with the magic again, but I'll live. Manny came off worse - he had some sort of overload when they all did that melty thing." Amanda rubbed her eyes tiredly, and for a moment looked just as tired as she felt. "You get any sleep? 'Cause I've got somethin' that'll help, if you can't. Helps me when the dreams get bad."

Doug rubbed the bridge of his nose tiredly. "I...got some. Dreams were pretty bad. _Yesterday_ was pretty bad. But at least I got a little sleep. I don't think Angie got _any_. Which is why I'm trying to let her sleep right now." He nodded wearily at Amanda's mentioning of what had happened to her and Manuel. "I don't think anyone got off unscathed by this one. Doc Samson's going to demand a raise, I think. He could probably write a textbook between all the psychological crises in this mansion." He smiled wryly, without humor.

"He'll be able t' buy his own bloody island in the Bahamas at this rate," Amanda agreed. She took another look at Doug and made a decision. "C'mon," she said, taking his arm. "Come down t' the student kitchen an' I'll make you a cuppa. You need a break, an' I owe you a mother hen thing."

Doug blinked, confused. He turned to look at Marie-Ange, still curled up in his bed. "What? I...I should stay here in case...and why do you owe..." He trailed off lamely, feeling silly for his complete inability to even finish a simple sentence. He sighed and trailed along with Amanda, not having much choice due to her iron grip on his arm. When they got to the kitchenette, he sat down heavily in a chair, leaning his head on folded arms on the table as Amanda bustled around gathering supplies from cabinets.

"She'll be fine, an' you look all in, so I'm doin' the traditional Brit thing an' usin' tea as a cure-all." Amanda kept her tone deliberately light, glad in a way that Nate's almost-constant medlab attendance had given her practice at taking care of people without using magic. She turned the kettle on, setting two mugs with teabags on the counter. "An' yer lucky - this is some of Shinobi's stash of the good stuff, not that muck you lot call tea." She poked around some more and made a pleased noise when she found a stash of chocolate-chip cookies tucked in the back of the cabinet. Jake was right, food also made things better. "I ain't forgotten you helpin' me back t' me room that time after the attack," she went on, filling up the time needed for tea-making with chatter so Doug didn't feel he had to talk. "So I figure turn about's fair play an' all."

Doug sat quietly, content to let Amanda fill the conversational void for the most part. He was still struggling with the events of the previous day, and a series of very difficult moral and ethical questions that the events had raised in his mind. He ran a hand through his hair and sighed. "You don't owe me...I mean...gr. Words. Thank you, Amanda. You didn't have to."

"I know I don't have to. I want to," she said simply, setting one of the two newly-filled mugs in front of him with the milk and sugar beside and a plate of cookies between them. She sat opposite, taking a sip from her own tea and making a small, happy noise. "Tea good," she said, with a small grin.

Doug sipped his tea and nibbled on a cookie. "Mm. Yes, tea good," he murmured and smiled wanly in response. He met Amanda's gaze. "So how are you holding up?" he asked quietly.

She shrugged, a little uncomfortably. "Had me nervous breakdown already dealin' with Nate," she said. "Usin' magic t' kill, it ain't easy t' deal with. Doesn't help I've been runnin' meself ragged either. But I'm doin' okay. Lookin' after Manny is distractin' me enough, an' I've got Nate an' Pete - whenever he gets back - t' help out if I need it." She dunked a cookie in her mug and looked at Doug. "I heard you an' Frenchie got the X geezer out of the Box. Can't have been easy."

Doug's hands tightened on his mug. "He was there. He duped to even the odds, so there were two. One threw Angie into a wall. He tried to knock me out with his little poison glove. I managed to make one unconscious, and he...dissolved. The other one...I used his own glove against him." Doug shook his head, remembering the things he'd said to Skippy. He'd been almost as psychotic as the renegade dupe, in a way.

"That happened t' me too," Amanda said quietly. "I used a sleep spell, figured that was the best way t' take 'em out without hurtin' no-one, but then... goo." She pulled a face at the memory, more of disgust than anything else. "Those things... they weren't Jamie, not be a long shot. They were barely even human - someone'd done somethin', changed 'em, made 'em into nothin' more 'n cannon fodder. An' that's horrible, 'specially for Jamie, but we did nothin' wrong by killin' 'em, especially by accident." She stressed the last word. "You ain't a killer, Doug. Not by a long shot."

Doug shrugged. "I tried to immobilize the first one. He dissolved. The second one, though. I was...vengeful. He made it sound like he might have killed Alison and Nathan. I...kept taunting him. Even when he was going unconscious from the poisoned glove. I got down in his face and kept insulting him." He shivered. "Afterwards, I felt...dirty. So dirty. From the blood, and also from the way I was." Doug sighed. The skin of his forearms still showed some scratches from where he had scrubbed especially hard in the shower.

"The way you were? Human?" Amanda looked at him keenly over her mug. "Fuck, Doug, if I'd thought anythin' had happened t' Nate, I would've done a lot more 'n taunting 'em." Seeing his face darken, she set the mug down and reached over to touch his forearm. "Doug, mate, listen. Words are what you do, so it makes sense you'd use 'em. An' from the sound of it you were tryin' everythin' you could t' not kill these bastards. That don't make you dirty."

Doug sighed deeply. "I know that there wasn't really any other way. But the things that I said, Amanda...especially on the journal system...I wasn't thinking straight, didn't realize until afterward how easily he could have used my words as justification for hurting Artie and Miles..." He exhaled raggedly.

"See, this is why you nice types should let yerselves get angry more often. Saves a whole lot of blowin' up an' flagellatin' yerself later," Amanda said with a wry grin. "Look, you were angry an' you were scared an' you reacted. It happens. 'Specially with teenagers, or so those wankers in Social Services back home used t' tell me. An' nothin' happened t' the munchkins, they got out fine. An' Jamie's fine too, 'specially since you an' Frenchie managed t' get the X geezer out in time t' stop his head explodin'."

Doug snorted. "Angie's not doing much better with this whole thing. I don't think she slept at all last night. And I'm all over the place, emotionally. Nearly snapped Nathan's nose off earlier, swore at Shiro..." He grimaced.

"Well, lessee, you had t' kill somethin' that looked like yer best mate - twice - yer girlfriend had t' do the same thing, you ain't slept properly an' Shiro's a right git any way... You know what, Doug, yer allowed t' be all over the place. Fuck, you should've seen me this mornin'. Had a telekinetic wrestlin' match with Nate an' then ended up usin' him as a towel while I blubbed all over him. An' I'm more used t' this sort of thin' than you are. Well, the violence part of it, any way." Amanda squeezed his arm. "So stop beatin' yerself up 'cause yer havin' a perfectly normal reaction. Fuck, Pete's right, it's better that yer havin' yerself a mini nervous breakdown than bein' on top of the world about it."

Doug flexed his fingers on the table in a bout of nervous energy, closing his eyes against tears that were surging up again. "I know, I know you guys are right and it's better than not feeling anything at all, but..." He dashed angrily at a few tears leaking their way down his face and threw his hands up in frustration. "God, I'm so tired. Tired of the nightmares, tired of being an overemotional wreck..." He lay his head down on folded arms.

Amanda bit her lip, and then slid out of her seat and came around to his side of the table. Awkwardly, she put her arm around his shoulder. "It'll get easier," she said softly. "Not overnight - an' it's just been a day, Doug, even tho' it seems longer - but it will. In the meantime, talk t' Samson. Or better, talk t' Pete - he knows exactly where yer comin' from."

Doug nodded hesitantly. "I'll go talk to Doc Samson. And I'll try talking to Pete. Or Nathan. Maybe. We'll see." He reached out and took another sip of tea, then placed a warm hand over Amanda's and squeezed gratefully. "What about you?" he asked, looking up from his seat at her. "You talking to anyone?"

"No maybe 'bout it. Talk t' one of 'em - they know their shit." Amanda gave Doug's shoulders a squeeze and let go, returning to her seat, and her mug. "An' I'm doin' all right. I've got Strange goin' behind me back tellin' people t' make sure I ain't overdoin' the magic..." And here she winced, realising that yesterday - and this morning's - efforts were definitely that, and she was going to have to face some more fussing once someone realised that. "An' I'm havin' t' deal with the whole usin' magic t' kill thing. Think I'm gunna need t' talk t' Strange 'bout that as well, make sure there ain't one hell of a consequence 'round the corner for me. But..." And here she hesitated, not wanting to freak Doug out. "I ain't as upset as maybe I should be. There was a situation, there wasn't anythin' else t' be done, an' we did what we had to. I can't feel bad for killin' those things... somethin' 'bout 'em, there was somethin' really wrong about 'em, like someone'd twisted what made 'em people an' made 'em just things." She shrugged. "I can't really explain it. Call it witches' instinct or some bollocks like that."

Doug shook his head. "It's not just you. I could tell it wasn't Jamie. There were a hundred little cues. The eyes, first off. They just looked...dead. Then there was how gaunt he looked. Not to mention, oh, being batshit _insane_..." He grimaced. "But he looked enough like Jamie to give me nightmares."

"I saw what Jamie said in Shiro's journal, 'bout them still bein' him, still bein' human. I ain't sure 'bout that. They didn't look right, their auras, I mean." Amanda shrugged, and snagged another cookie off the plate. "Guess Moira'll find out one way or another. But you ain't wrong 'bout 'em bein' insane."

Doug grabbed another cookie himself, at a loss for anything more to say. They munched companionably for a few minutes in silence, then Doug smiled hesitantly. "Thanks, Amanda. I guess I needed this."

"See? I can mother hen, too. Just don't tell anyone, or I'll never live it down."