Kitty, Madelyn - very early Sunday morning

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Madelyn coaxes Kitty into resting from her vigil over Illyana for cocoa and donuts. And a very well-earned bit of sanity.

OOC: Set before a yet-to-be-posted log with Kitty and Illyana, hence the references.



Kitty let herself collapse back onto the couch next to the sleeping Jamie. Things were going to be ok, she swore to herself. She would make them be ok. She briefly eyed the computer in the room, contemplating going online, but chances were good she'd just see something that would make her angry, and she didn't want to post to say Illyana had woken, because a) she needed her sleep, and b) she wasn't supposed to have been in there, anyways. Besides, the computer was all the way over there on the other side of the room.

Maddie, on her way back from checking on Scott, paused at the sight of the woebegone Kitty. The poor kid had been in the waiting room all night; possible master of a demonic realm or not, Illyana was her friend and Kitty wasn't the sort to abandon friends. Too bad she didn't have any better news than "She's still sleeping."

"Hey," she said softly, so as not to wake Jamie. "How about I check on Illyana and then make us something to drink? You look like you could use it."

Kitty looked up, startled. She was still too wound up to sleep, but that didn't mean she wasn't above spacing off. She almost said something like, 'Oh, don't worry, she's just sleeping now,' but remembered again at the last second that, wall walking ability or not, she shouldn't have been in 'Yana's room. "Oh, that sounds... that sounds good, yeah."

Recognising the sleep deprivation spaciness from many an all-nighter, Madelyn smiled slightly. "Be two minutes," she promised, letting herself into Illyana's room. The girl was sleeping still - there were some anomalies on the readouts which indicated this might not have entirely been the case, and Madelyn wondered why Illyana hadn't hit the call button, if she had been awake. Unless of course it was only a brief awakening. Otherwise she was stable, no sign of internal bleeding or further damage... Tucking the blanket in a little where it had slipped down, Madelyn left, closing the door after her quietly and beckoning to Kitty. "She's sleeping. Which isn't a change, I know, but it's a good thing. Her body needs time to heal up and she won't be able to handle too much in the way of stress for a while." There was a very implication: you didn't stress her, did you?

"You're right, sleep is a good thing. And at least it's not a coma..." Illyana really hadn't looked good when she'd been brought in. Kitty avoided the implication entirely. Yes, 'Yana had been stressed by the conversation, but by the end of it things were so much better.

"Nope, no coma. Which is a very good thing. Why don't you come into my office so we don't wake your bodyguard here?" Madelyn gave her a hopeful look. "I might even have donuts left. And according to my kid sister, I make a killer cocoa."

Kitty nodded. "Donuts and cocoa sound good. Coffee sounds better, but it's late..." She leaned over and brushed a kiss to Jamie's temple, making sure his jacket was still covering him before standing up and following Madelyn.

"All part of my nefarious plan to make sure you don't kill yourself.by drinking Moira's brew," Madelyn said, leading the way to her office and gesturing for Kitty to sit on the Sofa Of Doom while she turned on the kettle and dug the cocoa out of its hiding place. "Here, fresh... this morning, I think. Haroun brought me a bribe," she said, waving a bag of donuts at Kitty.

"God, no. Dr. Mactaggart's coffee is scary. I tend to steal either Al's or Storm's if I need it." She dropped down onto the sofa, taking the bag. "Got a plate? And why would Haroun be bribing you?" she added, a random thought crossing her mind regarding certain bets being made on the kids' journal.

"Plate? Um, somewhere... ah-hah!" Madelyn triumphantly unearthed the aforementioned piece of crockery from under a pile of medical journals and looked at it critically. "I _think_ it's clean," she said, before passing it over. "Haroun? Oh, he came down this morning after my little mishap. Brought me donuts so I wouldn't kill him - I was pretty crabby with the whole having the headache of doom. He's such a sweetie." Madelyn knew fully well there was some sort of bet going on about Haroun's romantic chances - she'd overheard Clarice and Amanda giggling about something along those lines - and wasn't above adding fuel to the fire. Not when she was going to have Clarice put a ten on Alison for her.

Kitty nodded her thanks as she took the plate, mentally adjusting the odds. "How is your head, by the way? Better, I hope?" Only, of course, that led her to thinking about Remy which led to the fight with Angie, which led back to just how much today had sucked. Well, yesterday, now.

"Fine. Takes more than that to take me out of the game, that's for sure." Brushing away the whole Remy Issue - she'd read the journals, and knew it was a major sore spot with the kids, besides the whole incident with Jubilee and Scott - Madelyn finished making the cocoa and brought it over to the sofa, handing a mug to Kitty before sitting down. "So, on the whole scale of crap days, I'm guessing this one hasn't been exactly stellar, hmm? How're you holding up?"

Kitty had dumped out the donuts onto the plate, so she offered them to Madelyn as she took the cocoa. "Yeah. On scale from one to suck, today sucked. But, on the positive side, I didn't actually lose my best friend back to Limbo, and no one pointed a gun at me, killed my boyfriend, or talked me into kidnapping anybody. So, yeah. It could have been worse." Maybe it was the sleep depravation. Or the fact that she hadn't actually slept in her own room for a week. Or maybe it was just time for it to be Kitty's turn to be Really Fucking Cranky at the world. God knew everybody else got to do it.

"Good to see you seeing the positives, kiddo," Madelyn said with a slight grin. If Kitty needed to be cranky, then that was what she got to be. God knows she probably needed it, before she exploded or something. "I can't say much for the whole Limbo thing, but as far as the rest goes? Not letting it happen. I've had quite enough excitement for one weekend and I'm declaring it No More Shit Day. What do you think?"

"Not letting it happen _again_, you mean." Oh, she was in a mood. Maybe it was the cocoa waking her up. She took another sip, trying to calm down, cause Dr. Bartlett didn't deserve to be sniped at. "And I'm all for No More Shit Day, but you do realize you're..." She glanced at the clock. "Um, four hours too late?"

"I was aiming more at Sunday as No Shit Day. Can't do a lot about Saturday, not having the time machine," Madelyn said cheerfully, apparently not noticing there was sniping. Or possibly not caring. "But hey, we've got the jump on Sunday. Four hours in, and no shit to deal with." She theatrically knocked on the coffee table. "Yet."

A deep breath helped, as did a bite of the donut, and it briefly crossed Kitty's mind that she hadn't had any dinner, and had skipped lunch in favor of her books. "Yeah, that's a good way of looking at it. Four whole hours of peace and quiet, and I bet we can make it until at lest six. After all, everybody's asleep."

"Now you're getting the hang of it," Madelyn said approvingly, reaching for a donut of her own and reminding herself that the gym would be a very good idea sometime soon. And possibly outdoors-ness. "Although, people asleep in this place? That's a novel concept. I've often thought of hiring us all out as test subjects for sleep disorder research. We'd blow the baseline figures right out of the water, give some PhD student a shiny thesis topic... There could even be a Nobel Prize in it." Madelyn nodded sagely over her mug - the fact she was wearing the shirt Scott had given her about killing for a Nobel Prize added irony to her words she wasn't unaware of.

"Hey, no stealing my dissertations. I figure Jamie alone is enough to get my a degree in paranormal physics. Of course, I'll have to create the field, first, but hey, gives a girl something to do." The donut was already gone, and a second one in her hand. Yeah, she'd been hungry.

"But the Nobel's so shiny, and it'd look great on my mantlepiece..." Madelyn pouted.

Kitty grinned. "Well, ok. You're right, it would look good. Guess I'll just have to earn my five Ph.D.s some other way."

"Somehow I don't doubt that you will," said the doctor with a chuckle. The her expression grew slightly more serious. "Just don't go about using yourself as a test subject into the effects of sleep deprivation, okay? I'd hate to have to use my sedatives of doom on you and tuck you in next to Scott."

Kitty blinked, then blinked again. Did she just say...? "Don't worry. I usually get enough sleep, really. Today is an aberration, on so many counts. Did you really sedate Mr. Summers?" Whoops. She hadn't meant to say that.

"Um, maybe?" Madelyn bit her lip - the hour was telling, and she had dropped her guard a little too much. Easy to, talking to Kitty - you tended to forget she was one of the kids and not someone like Cecilia. "Lets just say that after the last couple of days, Mr Summers needed some help sleeping, and I gave him that. But not a word to anyone else, you get me? It's hard enough to be a doctor in this place with all the doctor-phobics, without word getting out that we're drugging people willy-nilly. Not that we are," she added hastily.

"Of course," Kitty said, nodding. "I think you're right, he needs the rest..." And chances were good she'd be the next one on his shit list when he saw what she'd said to Marie-Ange. But in truth, she did kind of agree with Jubilee. Keeping them in the dark about stuff wasn't going to help. Leaning her head back against the sofa she sighed. "It's not that the world's gone crazy - the world's _been_ crazy. It's just getting harder."

"Everyone has limits - I think we're just reaching ours," Madelyn said simply, putting her mug down and brushing donut crumbs off her front. "It's been a hellish summer, and fall's not looking much better. People are tired, stressed, and scared. It makes them snap at each other, say things they wouldn't normally." She glanced across at Kitty. "Scott's attitude didn't really help this mess. Which was pretty much what decided us taking action. And Jubilee did have a point, about information. But there has to be limits, you know? How much we tell you, how much you trust us to know what's best. How much we try and let you guys have a normal life, without worrying about what's out there." She sighed. "Sometimes it's hard not to feel we haven't let you down."

Kitty sniffled slightly. "It's... it's so hard, you know? I've been working on the trust thing for so long, and I've gotten so much better... We all have. But at some point the trust has to be two ways. I mean..." She paused. "Yeah, we need to trust you to know what's going on and to do what's best for us, and it's good to try and have a normal life." The emphasis on try was slight, but it was there. "But at the same time... Whenever this comes up, everyone says they don't tell us what's going on because they can't trust us not to rush out and get involved. Which is stupid. Knowing what's coming after us doesn't make us want to be there whenever whatever it is gets here. It just gives us that much better and idea of when to duck."

"We're condemning the whole based on the actions of a few?" Madelyn suggested. "After Sarah, after Shiro... I suppose we're a bit on the over-protective side. We've nearly lost too many of you recently, and it's only been dumb luck that's stopped someone from dying. Permanently. I know I'm terrified every time a field trip's announced." She laughed, wryly. "As far as the case of Remy goes... We didn't _know_ much more than that, most of us. Pete had suspicions, yes, but he and Jake were convinced there was no need for concern. He had massive head injuries not two weeks ago - for him to even be walking, let alone scrapping with students and knocking out doctors is inconceivable. He caught us all by surprise, none more than I." She rubbed her still-sore neck ruefully. "But I'll talk to the staff, let them know your concerns. Because I do agree with you."

"I guess that's really all we want, or all I want. To be judged on my own merits, for my own flaws. And maybe to be trusted enough that there wouldn't be a problem with anybody feeling like they couldn't say 'look, we don't really know more than this'. Cause that's fare - nobody here's omniscient, not even the Professor." She shrugged and killed the last of her cocoa, eyeing the plate of donuts and trying to decide if she was still hungry.

"The difficulty there is a logistical one." Madelyn nudged the plate closer to Kitty with a grin. "Go on, Mom will tell me I'm getting fat again if I eat the rest. Which I will, if you leave them there." Sitting back, she went on. "I'm happy to judge you on your own merits and flaws, but say there's another incident and we decide to tell you what's going on... There's a significant number of you I trust not to do something stupid, but we do have some who would, for whatever reason. Do we leave them out of the loop for their own safety? And if we do, how do we tell the people we do trust? Individual emails? It'd be a logistical nightmare." Madelyn shrugged. "Personally I lean on the side of "tell all and sit on the troublemakers", but that would involve tying up someone who might be more useful elsewhere."

Kitty grinned, snagging another donut - she definitely wasn't worried about her waist. "Yeah, I can see that. Plus you'd get the cries of foul that some were getting different treatment than others and so on. Which you would think would be a bit of a 'well, duh' thing, but never manages to be. Too bad we can't just sit on each other, but we have a very poor track record at that, on the whole."

"To put it mildly. So, in the meantime, we muddle through and try and figure out the best way to manage. And sometimes we get it wrong. Like Scott yesterday," Madelyn said. "We're probably long overdue a Policy." Kitty could hear the capitalisation of the word. "My Dad's thing - all situations require a Policy. It may not work all the time, but at least you have something to amend as circumstances allow." Madelyn recited the words with the ease of frequent hearing. "Trust isn't an immediate thing, and we can't compel it from you, any more than you can demand it from us. But we can at least work on it."

"Well then, here's to working on it and muddling through, and I'd toast you, but I've run out of cocoa." It had been a long night, Kitty admitted to herself, so she was probably allowed a little bit of silly. "And yeah, policies can be good things. For instance, I believe I got to amend the school's pet policy just this last week."

"Indeed you did. And how." Madelyn chuckled, but a little uneasily. She'd had to deal with Freaked Roommate too much lately to be entirely comfortable with Kitty's new pet. And she really wanted her worldview to have a chance to stabilise before it got rearranged again. "How is the little guy? Got someone taking care of him while you're down here?"

"Um..." Kitty said, but realized that wasn't terribly articulate. "Actually, he's asleep in the waiting area with Jamie..."

"He is? Oh." Madelyn blinked. "That's... Well, he must be well-behaved, I had no idea he was even there."

"He's very well-behaved," Kitty said. "He's also very tired. The demons frightened him, I think."

"He wasn't the only one," Madelyn said, thinking of Cecilia and her plans to leave the school. She could see Kitty was anxious about her pet, and the reactions it got from people, and made a decision. Something to help with that trust thing. "Would you introduce me? If he's not too tired, that is."

"I think he really ought to sleep, but I can introduce you in the morning?" Kitty offered. "At that, I probably ought to get a couple of hours, myself. Thank you for the cocoa and the donuts. And the being sane thing. I don't get that a lot."

"What can I say? It's a gift," Madelyn said, with a chuckle.

Kitty grinned. "I'm glad. More people need that sort of gift."