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Wednesday afternoon, Lorna visits the enfant terrible and takes him food. Remy is glad that she’s not a delusion.

After convincing Madelyn of her harmlessness, Lorna had taken the time to assemble some proper food to throw to the doctors three—left to themselves they had worse eating habits than most of the student body—and another plate that was more suitable for the convalescent then she’d hurried downstairs. Sticking her offering of sandwiches and fruit salad in the tiny medlab kitchenette firmly in front of the massive pile of donuts and twinkies that constituted food normally around the area, she tossed a short note in from of it all. “Real food good! Dessert can wait.” She was only dimly optimistic about the chances that it would get eaten and just hoped that it wouldn’t end up the subject of an experiment.

At least it wasn’t in any danger of spoiling from the heat. She reflected absently that she should have remembered the unnatural level of cold the med staff seemed to feel was necessary. Tugging her hair out of its ponytail to lie on her shoulders helped some but her jeans and silk shirt were decidedly unequal to the task. Parkas were more sensible attire down here. She took the second plate with her and found the only currently occupied room. She knocked on the door softly, not wanting to wake Remy if he was sleeping.

Remy's eyes swivelled to the door, not expecting to have visitors while down here. The looks from the doctors and the stillness of the ward made him assume that he was either locked in or no one had been informed of his 'recapture'. With more than a little curiosity, he croaked out 'Oui?' and struggled to sit up while the door opened.

Lorna poked her head inside, “Can I come in?” She frowned at him almost immediately. “Lie still, I’ll get thrown out if you hurt yourself.” She slid the rest of the way into the room and let the door shut behind her. She gave him a frank look and shook her head, “You know, the last time I talked to you, you were in a hospital bed. This has to stop.”

"De femmes like de wounded look. Make dem want to be affectionate." Remy said, a thin smile coming to his face on seeing Lorna. She paused as she saw him, gaunt and thin, half of his head wrapped in bandages and his hair chopped short and sticking up in spikes. "Didn't expect to get visitors, chere."

Lorna smiled in spite of how worried his appearance made her and crossed to his bedside, encouraging a chair to move itself there as well. “I think I’ll only really be worried about you when you stop with the outrageous flirting.” She set the plate on the table next to the bed. “I had to beg my way past Madelyn to get here. Where have you been? You never write, you never call?”

"Dat whirlwind party existence of mine, non?" Remy said, leaning back into the pillows. His eyes half-lidded, he allowed his muscles to relax slightly. Even if this room was monitored, he could trust Lorna to not try and turn him. She wasn't a threat. "Remy decided dat de demon hordes were a little too much. Figured even de streets were safer."

“I missed you,” she said simply then shrugged like the admission made her uncomfortable. “And I’ll have you know that was our one and only demon horde. Mostly we’ve been going to trouble rather than having it come to us.” She shrugged again, “Are you hungry? You look like I did six months ago.”

"Remy was never dat pretty." He said, and turned to the food. "You make dis?" She nodded and he slipped the plate across to his lap. The smells made his mouth water, and he pulled off the cover and dug in.

He ate like a starving thing. It wasn’t an unfamiliar feeling. Lorna leaned forward on her elbows and propped her chin on her hands, “I meant skinny. I have an eating disorder. What’s your excuse?”

"De further west you go, you run into dis weird custom dey have about paying for t'ings." Remy smirked. "Oui, I thought it was pretty crazy too." He continued to eat, his eyes sliding away from meeting hers.

“I’ve heard about that custom. Barbaric. I’ve even heard that people won’t just give you money so you can pay for things.” His avoidance didn’t bother her exactly though it was a bit worrying. Lorna decided to give up on finding out why he’d gone. “Luckily, I’m much nicer about feeding strays, even the feral ones who keep running. I’m horrible softie.”

"Remy sees dat." He said, returning the empty plate to the side table and leaning back. "How t'ings going wit' your boy? Or did dat change too while Remy out of town?"

“Changed and changed again.” Lorna smiled, as she always did when talking about Alex. “We had some problems but we’re working on it. Though if you’d come back last week I’d have been a mess and probably would have had to cry on your shoulder again.”

"Don't know if I could do dat as effectively today." Remy said, finally a slight tinge of seriousness creeping into his voice. "Been a hard six months."

“I never would have guessed.” Lorna raised an eyebrow at him. “I thought this was just a really poor fashion choice.”

"Ain't been t'inking much about de latest fashions, chere." He said, and surprised her by reaching out to take a lock of her hair between his fingers. He rubbed it between them, looking down on the pale green strands running across them. "Dis Remy remember."

She reached up to cover his hand, watching him with a touch of concern, “As opposed to things you can’t remember? Is there a lot of that?”

"T'ing dat Remy shouldn't remember, because dey never happened." Lorna felt his hand start to tremble under hers. "Maybe dey nightmares. Or just delusions. Just don't know 'xactly what's real anymore. Thought maybe even you might be a false memory.”

She shifted to the edge of her chair, knees against the mattress. “I feel real to me. How do you know that it all isn’t real?” She kept holding his hand, bringing it down from her hair to rest on the bed between them.

"If it is real..." Remy's voice trailed off, and Lorna saw the one thing she would never have expected to see in his eyes: fear. He dropped his eyes down to where their hands lay, trying to will the shakes away. In a rough voice, he choked it; "Can't be real. T'ings like dat can't be real."

Now she was really worried. She’d seen Remy sarcastic and beaten and using those to cover for what he was really feeling but seeing him scared? Lorna reassessed the problem then and there. Something was obviously very wrong. “Can’t is different than shouldn’t,” she said carefully, watching his face, “I’m beginning to believe there is very little that can’t be real.”

"De images come." Remy said hollowly. "Even de drugs and alcohol only stop it for so long. Dey always come back. Close you eyes, and dey come. Sleep, and dey come. Dere only one way t' make dem go away." He stopped there, and a quick look at those bandages told her his method.

Lorna suppressed a shudder. “Maybe you need to stop running from them and face them. Get past them and see what’s on the other side.” She felt like she was offering fortune cookie wisdom but recent events had made her believe that running was a horrible option.

"Don't think dere is an other side, chere." Remy said, taking a deep breath. Lorna suppressed an urge to shake him as she could feel him hiding away the fears behind his bullshit. One thing that she knew were emotional shields. "Guess dis place hasn't changed much,” he said, deliberately changing the subject.

Lorna pressed her lips into a firm line and remembered Madelyn’s no raised voices rule. She took a deep breath and let him have his way. “Not much, no. Same people, slightly different drama. Some of us have even made a little progress towards growing up.” She glanced down, “Or out in some cases.”

"Out? De army matching away?" Remy said, slowly composing himself as they chatted about inconsequentials. "Bet dat makes de Prof a bit nervous."

“A couple have left, yes but we’ve picked up new recruits. Though I don’t think of myself as an army girl.” Her lips quirked as she admitted to being on the team. It was almost an apology. “I don’t think the Professor is worried except for them. He has a lot of faith in people. More than I would expect from someone who can read minds.”

"Or change dem." Remy shook his head. "I don't know, Lorna. It's just dat, since I came here de first time, nothing makes sense any more. Maybe it Xavier, or maybe not. But-" He stopped, taking a deep breath. "Maybe Remy don’t know what he talking about."

“We hardly ever know what we’re talking about. Nature of the human condition.” She shrugged, “I think you should work on getting better physically. It’s a lot easier to face what’s wrong when you don’t feel like hell all the time. In this case, I do know what I’m talking about.”

"You look better, Lorna." He said, touching her cheek lightly with two fingers. "More in your own skin. Dat your boy's doing?"

She nearly nodded then tilted her head to the side with an odd little smile, “My doing, though I had a lot of people helping. It’s still a daily struggle, especially the eating thing. I couldn’t do it without help but I did have to do it myself.”

"Bein. Least one t'ing hasn't fallen t' hell." Remy said, dropping his hand. He yawned and lay back. "Don want t' be a poor host, but Remy going t' fall asleep in a minute. You do me one favour?" She nodded. "Make sure you don' disappear after I wake up?"

“I promise. No disappearing.” She stood and leaned over to kiss his unbandaged cheek, “I’ll tell the doctors three to call me if you need me. I’m happy to prove I exist.”

"Merci," He said, touching her hand and closing his eyes. "Merci." He repeated before slipping back into sleep.