xp_logs | Log: Angelo and Jane - trauma, feelings, and being human

Jane is avoiding people but Angelo runs into her in the kitchen. Some secret feelings are revealed, but others remain buried. Jane is upset over something Angelo says.

Jane rummaged through the pantry, trying to find something that sounded good to eat. She hadn't felt much like eating lately, but she was hungry. The problem was that nothing sounded appetizing. She finally settled on a few saltines. Maybe she'd put some chocolate and lettuce on them. She hadn't been joining anyone for dinner lately because she didn't want to talk to people after what had happened. She was glad no one else was in the kitchen at the moment.

She was out of luck this time. Angelo had also headed to the kitchen for a late-night snack, and was now leaning against the door frame casually. "Hey, Jane."

"Angelo. Hi." She was too tired to fake any enthusiam about him being here. She felt guilty, too, about being such a bad friend. Jane nibbled on her crackers, avoiding looking at him.

Angelo frowned in concern, moving directly into her eyeline. "You okay?" he asked quietly.

Jane tried to work up the energy to smile at him, but she just wasn't that good at faking her emotions. She sighed. It looked like her avoidance of everyone was at an end. "I'm okay, I guess," she said, not really feeling okay, but also not knowing what she did feel. Other than scared, guilty, confused, and doubting.

Angelo raised an eyebrow at her, not convinced. "Really."

There he was being all sympathetic and stuff and he was her friend. But she really didn't know what to say, how to explain what was bothering her. "Well, as okay as I'll ever be, anyway." She finally looked up and met his eyes.

"Want to talk about it?" he prodded gently.

"I dunno. I guess. It's just. The thing with Jamie and the evil dupes and stuff. It was scary." In many ways, it had been scary, especially since she hadn't really known what was going on at the time. But what had scared her the most had been herself.

Angelo nodded. "Yeah, I think most everyone here'd agree with that. Did somethin' happen to you, then? Or d'you just mean the thing in general?"

She was reluctant to tell him. He wouldn't be her friend anymore if she knew. She could tell him part of it, though, maybe that would be enough. "It was scary. I had been taking a long bath so I missed most of it, and then I read what was going on and I ran into a whole bunch of dupes. And..." She stopped and looked down, wishing that she could just escape all of this.

Angelo paused, starting to figure out at least something of what must have happened, if not how. He hadn't heard anything about her getting poisoned, and she wouldn't be this freaked if she'd just escaped... "And?" he prompted softly.

"They melted," she said softly.

Angelo nodded. "Yeah - far as I can work out, they did that just when someone knocked them out. What'd you do to them?" he asked sympathetically.

At the time, as they attacked her, she had known exactly what to do, how to kill them. Like she'd done it before. It hadn't been like when Warren had breathed her in a little, she hadn't been trying to hurt him. With the dupes, she had known exactly how to hurt them, and she'd done it automatically. That was what scared her the most. How could she know how to do that by reflex? "I... suffocated them. I've never..." She had been about to say that she'd never killed anyone before, but really, she didn't know that, did she?

Angelo reached out to her instinctively, pulling her into a hug. "You've never done that that you can remember?" He sighed. "Lot of people did stuff that day they'd never done before."

She accepted his hug and buried her face in his shoulder. "It just hurts," she said, her words muffled in his shirt.

Angelo nodded, holding her loosely. "I know. Did for me the first time, too."

She hugged him tighter. "I'm sorry, I'm being like this and I haven't been a very good friend. Does it. Does it still hurt? For you, I mean."

Angelo sighed. "You got a right to be upset", he tried to reassure her, before answering her question, sort of. "The first time... I was real young, an' I didn't want to. That time... yeah, it does. Sometimes."

"I'm sorry," she said again. "What about all the mess with the evil dupes? Are you okay? I mean, I know you're okay here" she patted his shoulder as if to assure herself that he was physically whole "but what about in here" she tapped his forehead "and here," she said, putting her hand over his heart.

Angelo shrugged. "They had the kids. Wasn't a difficult choice to make", he said as if it was simple, choosing not to mention the part that was bothering him.

"I'm glad they're alright. I can't think what would have happened if. And everything. I'm glad everyone is more or less okay." She looked at him. "Are you in the 'more' or the 'less' category, Angelo?"

Angelo shrugged, face blank. "Sorta half an' half, I guess."

"Then I get to turn the tables on you. Do you want to talk about it? It might help." It had sorta help her, anyway, at least partially. Knowing that other people hurt made her feel not quite so alone, even if she really was alone. She dismissed the thought and focused on Angelo. "What happened during the fight?"

"Lots of dupes died", he answered flatly. "Got the kids out with Clarice and 'Yana, so I don't know how it ended, other than what I heard later."

His tone of voice told her that there was, maybe, a bit more to it than that. She decided to toss out one of Doc Samson's favorite phrases. "And how did that make you feel?"

Angelo blinked at the unexpected bit of therapy-speak. "Uh... at the time, I wasn't really thinkin' about it that much. Had a job to do."

Jane nodded. "Did that make it better? I mean, if it was all about doing a job, you didn't feel anything but determination or something, right? If you're just doing a job, I imagine it wouldn't hurt as much. Or do I have it all wrong?"

Angelo chuckled bitterly, unable to help himself. "If only..." he muttered under his breath, not really meaning her to hear.

Jane looked at him closely. Now that she was actually looking, she could see that something was bothering him. "If only what? You didn't feel only determination or it still hurts?"

Angelo shrugged. "Bit of both", he admitted quietly.

Her arms were still around him, so she squeezed him a bit. Hugs always helped, in Jane's opinion. She stayed silent, just being there for him, hoping that her presence encouraged him to continue.

He sighed. "It was too much fun", he confessed flatly, not meeting her eyes. "I mean, I was angry. They hurt the kids, an' the original Skippy wanted Jamie dead, an' he might've hurt Kitty, too, in the wrong circumstances. But... it was fun. The fight."

Jane didn't really understand, but she could tell it was hurting him. "But lots of people enjoy fighting. Why do you think that enjoying it was bad?"

"I enjoy fightin'", he tried to explain. "Always have, always will. Even the way Sarah fights. But this was different. Never really enjoyed killin' people before, even if they weren't really people."

She tried to think it through. Enjoying killing wasn't something she understood personally, and she could see why he was upset about it, but she didn't want her friend to be hurting. "I think... Well, you enjoy fighting, so your body was responding to that. With the, um, brain chemicals and stuff and make you feel good. And you were also doing stuff to help people. I don't believe that would you enjoy cold-blooded murder, Angelo. That's just not you. But the fight wasn't like that, and I think what you felt was probably natural. You shouldn't be beating yourself up so much about it." Jane shivered. She hadn't enjoyed killing. It had made her feel cold and impersonal. What did that say about her? It sounded to her that Angelo's reaction had been much more natural than hers.

He shrugged. "'s just... I saw what Shiro said, an' what some of the others said to him about it. An' sure, he could've phrased it a lot better, but the basic idea was the same. Sarah, too."

"But that's... that's human, Angelo. Feeling what you did is human, and it doesn't make you evil. Nobody has a soul devoid of darkness." Not even me, she thought, no matter what Manuel said. "Some people may say that it was wrong of you to have fun killing, but maybe... maybe they are saying that because they're afraid of their own darkness? I don't know." She shrugged helplessly.

He bowed his head. "Don't know either", he muttered unhappily. "But I took a knife to that warehouse. What's that if not premeditated?"

"Premeditated, yes. But you cannot divorce yourself from what you were feeling when you left for the warehouse. I wasn't there, so I'm not sure, but I bet everyone was scared and full of rage, yes? I bet feelings were running high. Angelo, can you honestly tell me that you could or would take your knife up and kill someone who had done nothing in cold blood?"

He ducked his head. "I guess not. Well... there could be circumstances", he amended, remembering a warehouse, some years before. "An' I did want them hurt or dead for hurtin' the kids. But to enjoy it..."

"Is just a part of who you are," she finished for him. "And you, Angelo, are not a bad person. I don't think that what you feel can make you bad, it is what you DO that counts." Jane poked him in the shoulder to emphasize her point.

Angelo blinked at her vehemence, then thought about her argument. "But... you know what I did. An' yeah, couldn't knock 'em out without killin' them, but I didn't know that to begin with, an' I planned to kill them anyway."

"And they were planning on killing Jamie. And they'd already hurt people. And like I said, none of you were probably thinking too clearly, because it was scary." Jane shook her head. Angelo could be so silly sometimes.

Angelo grinned wryly. "Oh, I've been in scarier places. What I was, was ragin' mad that someone who claimed to be Jamie could put bruises on two little boys, for any reason."

Jane nodded. She hadn't really had time to be angry about it until later. She'd been mostly scared, for Miles and everyone else, and then after she'd melted the dupes, she'd been scared of herself. "Understandable."

Angelo started to pace, working things out in his head. "I mean... I was there when we found Miles. In Mexico. Kid was livin' in a cave, an' I don't even wanna tell you where he was before that. He's been through hell already, he doesn't need to get kidnapped an' beaten up by someone with his room-mate's face. Nor did Artie." He sighed. "An' if he'd got what he wanted, an' then Kitty'd wanted nothin' to do with him, 'cause she wouldn't've done..."

Jane hadn't known that about Miles. It made her sad. There was so much bad stuff in the world. But there was good stuff, too, like being here and having friends. "It would have been bad," she said to prompt him to continue. It was probably best that he talk about it. At least, doctors usually thought it was best and Jane figured they were smarter than she.

He sighed again. "The guy was insane. Someone'd done some real bad stuff to him, an'... I don't know if anyone could've brought him back. If he'd done what he thought he needed to, an' Kitty still didn't want him... he'd've hurt her."

"I'm glad it's over." She shivered.

Angelo nodded grimly. "Right there with you. Wish it'd never happened - for Jamie an' the others, more'n anyone. An' the squibs."

"Yeah... I wish there wasn't anything to hurt people in the world, but it's a silly wish, I know." She sighed. "Maybe I should just wish that I could help people? Like you and the others who saved the kids."

Angelo shook his head. "Don't wish you could help people like that", he told her, eyes dark. "It's... not necessarily a good thing t'be able to do. Or not to be able to do it without thinkin', anyway."

Jane winced at his words, and hoped he didn't see it. That was the problem -- she did seem to be able to hurt people by reflex. And she was good at it, too, like she had done it before. Ever since the police had found her wandering naked all those months ago with any memory, she had wanted to know more about her past. But maybe it was something that was better left buried. "It good that you can protect yourself and the people you love, though."

Angelo shrugged, looking at her with some concern. "Yeah, I guess. Once you're there, you're there, an' I am. But it's not... well, at least, the way I got there isn't somethin' to wish for."

She patted his shoulder. "If you think what you felt is so bad, then just don't do it again. There! Problem solved."

Angelo chuckled, trying to keep bitterness out of it. "What I did isn't the problem, not really. I'd do it again, for the boys an' Jamie an' Kitty. Or any of them, really. I just don't wanna be the kind of person that gets fun out of killin', when it needs to be done."

"Um. Okay, but I don't know if you can change who you are. In my sessions with Doc Samson, he says that even if I may not like it, I have to accept that I may never remember my past. He says that you have to accept who you are -- the good and the bad -- to really live life. That probably goes for you, too."

Angelo nodded, a little reluctantly but accepting that it made sense. "Maybe you're right. Doesn't mean I can't try, though."

"Of course!" Jane bit her lip before speaking again. "I guess all we can do is try our best to be better people, and accept it if we can't be. I think that's probably just... human."

He laughed again, with only a slightly twisted note to it. "Human. Heh. Funny thing is, it's only since I found out I'm not human that I've wanted t'change. Or since I came here, anyway, I had other things to worry about before that."

Jane looked at him sadly. "Not human? That's not very nice."

He shrugged. "Well. We're not. There's no shortage of them - out there and in here - as would agree. Humans an' mutants both. Doesn't mean we can't be good people, I know that" - he carefully didn't say "now" - "but we're not human."

She looked away from him. What he'd said made her feel really bad. She wasn't human? Jane felt her eyes tearing up. Did being a mutant make it so that she wasn't even human now? She'd never thought of it that way before. What was the point of anything then? She already knew that some people hated her and other mutants for being what they were, but now even one of her friends was saying that they weren't human? Jane felt a pain inside of herself that she'd never felt before, except it seemed like it had always been there. Angelo's words hurt something deep inside her.

Angelo frowned, worried by her tears. "Hey. I didn't mean... it's not necessarily a bad thing. Means we're different, not lesser than them. Just different."

"I don't want to be different! I'm already alone, I'm already too different!" Jane was practically yelling at him.

"You're not alone", Angelo answered levelly. "We've talked about this before. Maybe you were, but you're not now, any more than I am."

He didn't understand. He, at least, had a past. She had nothing. She was nobody. Even her name wasn't really hers. And now he was saying that she wasn't even human on top of all that. Jane was suddenly too weary to think about any of this any more. "I'm tired," she said, avoiding looking at him. "Here, you can have the rest of my crackers, I'm going to sleep." She pushed the crackers at him and started to leave.

Angelo blinked. "Hey. Jane. I didn't mean it as a bad thing, you know that." He put out a hand to stop her going, trying to make her look at him.

"Sure," she said, shrugging his hand off.

He sighed. "Jane. I do get what you mean, you know. But look at it like this - you don't have a past, but almost everythin' in mine was wrong. An' then I lost it all anyway. I was here for months 'fore I could even work up the nerve to have someone tell my mom I was alive. An' I'm not sayin' that's easier or harder than what's happened to you, but it sure as hell hurt." He looked at her honestly. "If it makes you feel better, okay, we're human. Different humans, whatever. God knows I'm facin' enough different worldviews since I got here, why not add one more to it."

Some of the darkness inside of her shifted and went away. Jane turned and blindly reached out to hug Angelo, trying not to cry. "I just want everyone to be happy," she whispered.

Angelo hugged her back, glad she didn't seem about to storm out anymore. "I know. Think that's what we all want - but it'll take work, if it's gonna happen at all."