xp_logs | Doug and Marie-Ange

Marie-Ange finally comes down to the Medlab to see Doug. The conversation does not go very well at all. I have no clue how to sum this one up. Five-hanky warning. This one _hurts_.

Marie-Ange had waited, very, very patiently for the doctors to pronounce Doug stable enough for visitors. Her patience had been rewarded poorly, as every time she had gone to speak to him, someone else was there, usually gesturing frantically or speaking to Doug in stern tones.

It seemed as if everyone had managed to get to Doug long before she did. So she had stayed up, and crept down to the infirmary at eight in the morning, just early enough that no one would be there besides one of the doctors, and late enough that hopefully Doug would be awake. A tiny petty part of Marie-Ange half-hoped that if Doug was awake, it was due to very cold medical instruments.

Doug was indeed awake, though it wasn't from cold medical instruments. Rather, it was a combination of several other factors. First on the list was that every time he closed his eyes he was back at the blood drive, hearing the crack of the rifle, feeling that mule-like kick to his chest, and then the descent into blackness, which, at the time, he hadn't known whether it was unconsciousness or death approaching. Second was the parade of people who had been through the Medlab the day before to tell him just how stupid he had been. It had been entirely too long of a day, and he was stuck in that place where he wanted and needed badly to sleep, but he hadn't gotten any.

At the sound of the door opening, he turned his head listlessly and tried not to flinch at the sight of Marie-Ange. He'd been expecting her every time someone else came in the day before, and he had a hunch that this conversation was not going to be any better for the amount of time it had taken in coming. "Hello, Angie," he said quietly, his breath hitching and a spasm of pain flashing across his face.

Marie-Ange had come down to the infirmary -angry-. Even after talking to Kurt, every time she thought about Doug, she just got furious all over again. But when she opened the door and saw just how pale and exhausted and in pain he looked, the anger fell back. She was still angry; she still felt outright fury that he hadn't said anything to her, but ... she couldn't bring herself to yell at him. Not now.

"You have not slept, have you?" She said, after a period of silence that felt far, far too long. "Have you been up all night?"

Even though she wasn't yelling, Doug was hyper-aware of the anger and pain in Marie-Ange's body language, and it was as good as yelling to him. He drew back into the pillows that were propping him up, biting his lip in an attempt not to cry. He knew from experience the day before just how much crying _hurt_ with cracked ribs, even after Amanda's healing. "I...I'm sorry..." he whimpered softly, his hands quivering.

There were so many things Marie-Ange wanted to say. "What were you thinking?", "Why didn't you tell me?", "How could you be so -stupid-?". But she couldn't. Not with Doug nearly in tears, not after having seen the white tape on his ribs, and the monitors and IV still in his wrist. And not with the lump in her throat from trying not to cry herself keeping her from saying any more. So she simply stood at the door, staring down at her hands.

Doug's hands continued to tremble in his lap, and his teeth dug further into his lower lip. He couldn't come up with anything to say, worried that he would set Angie off on a yelling fit. He had screwed up badly, and he knew it. He had no idea how to fix things, or even if he could. And he was just so tired...tears streamed slowly down his face as he stared off at one of the walls.

Marie-Ange let out a sigh, shutting her eyes against the prickle of tears. She couldn't - not after everything - bring herself to approach any closer. Shaking her head sadly, she took a step, back towards the door. It was just too hard, seeing Doug like this, not knowing what to say, not knowing what would make her stop wanting to smack him for being so stupid, and at the same time, not wanting to make him cry any more.

Hearing the soft tread of Marie-Ange's foot in the silence, Doug turned back to her. Seeing her hesitance and tears, the tears redoubled their movement down his face. "Angie?" he asked brokenly. "Please don't go?"

Marie-Ange paused, then leaned against the doorway. "I...do not know what to say." She shook her head, then crumpled into a ball, face buried in her hands.

Doug's eyes filled with even more tears at the sight of Marie-Ange huddled on the ground. Instinctively, he tried to sit up and go to comfort her, but his body had other ideas. A sharp flash of pain had him falling back against his pillows, the monitors he was hooked up to beeping almost worriedly. "A...Angie?" he asked, breathing shallowly.

Marie-Ange only wrapped her arms around her knees and continued to sob. It felt unreal. Her visions had said Doug would die, and she knew, she had been told that he had not, but seeing him was too much, seeing how close he came to actually dying was more than she could take without breaking down.

Angie needed him. That thought kept reverberating in Doug's head. Grimacing and grunting through the pain it caused, he levered himself into a sitting position and slowly swung his legs over the side of the bed. If she couldn't move from where she was, he'd go to her. The monitors he was attached to beeped wildly in protest and Doug assessed the distance between himself and his girlfriend, which seemed vast. "Angie..." he whimpered painfully. "I can't...please c'mere..."

Marie-Ange glanced up, to see Doug sitting, struggling against himself to try to get out of the bed. "Non. Do not ..." She shook her head fiercely, anger suddenly back at the forefront. "No more foolishness. No more stupid bravery."

Doug shied back from the anger in Marie-Ange's body language, falling back over onto the pillows and attempting to roll over to his side and curl up into a ball. He hissed in pain, but managed to roll over. "Sorry...sorry..." he murmured brokenly.

Marie-Ange let out a sharp breath through clenched teeth. She still wanted to yell, but every time Doug moved, she could see exactly how much pain he was in, and the last thing she wanted to do was make him hurt more. "Please. No more apologizing now." she said, in a near whisper.

Unfolding from the floor, she moved to the chair next to his bed. Torn between wanting to comfort him, and wanting to scream at him for being an idiot, she simply sat, clenching and unclenching her fists.

Doug's hands quivered in time with the clenching of Marie-Ange's fists, and he alternated sobs and whimpers of pain. "So sorry," he murmured, hearing Marie-Ange's injunction against apologizing, but unable to do anything but apologize more. And then apologize for apologizing, and so on in a vicious circle.

"Stop. Please." Marie-Ange said, not at all warmly. How was she supposed to feel any better when all her instincts were telling her to take care of Doug and make him stop crying, but that he probably didn't deserve it. This was not how this was supposed to work. He was supposed to apologize, promise never to do anything this stupid again, and let her scream at him for an hour. He was not supposed to be this pale, bruised or tired-looking. He was not supposed to -cry-.

Doug wasn't all that concerned with what he should or shouldn't be doing. "I'm sorry," he whispered softly. "I know you're angry. I know you want to yell at me, like everyone else has. And I know I deserve it. I'm so so so so sorry, love, I just...I..." His lips moved silently.

"You ... what?" Marie-Ange asked harshly. "Wanted to be the hero? Wanted to save someone?" She slumped in the chair. "Everyone else has not had to see you die over and over again for the last three months! Everyone else did not have to see their worst nightmares happen, over and over! Everyone else did not know!" She shook her head, braids smacking against her shoulders. "I told you about this. You knew, and you still did it anyway."

The way Marie-Ange said it made it sound so selfish. "No, it wasn't like that," he replied softly. "It wasn't about what I wanted. I saw it in the notes, and if I didn't go, Rahne would have _died_. I thought, if I was prepared for it, then at least I had a chance to change what happened. I didn't..." He sobbed. "I didn't want to hurt you..."

"If you had not wanted to hurt me, you could have tried telling me what you thought was going to happen." Marie-Ange folded her arms. "I believe you were the one who told -me- that I should not take so much on myself?" She shook her head. She should have -never- given him that notebook. "You -died-, Doug! Did they tell you that? Did the doctors tell you, that your heart stopped?"

Doug would have tried to curl into a very small ball if he hadn't known precisely how much it would hurt. "Yes, they told me," he answered very quietly, almost inaudibly. "I didn't...I couldn't...if I hadn't gone, Rahne would have died. And if I told you, you never would have let me go."

"You do not know that." Marie-Ange said flatly. "Merci, Doug. You have assumed the worst of me. Or else, I should congratulate you for developing precognition." She unfolded her arms and ticked items off on her fingers. "One, you are not precognitive. Two, I do not disvalue Rahne's life that I would just let her die. Three, if you knew there was going to be a shooting, why did you just not tell someone and have them watch for him? Four, you died. You died and I had to hear it and no one would let me see you for hours and even after they said you were not really dead..." She stood up, arms shaking. "YOU DIED. You died and I had to know about it and know that I could have stopped it if you had ONLY LET ME!"

Marie-Ange's words pounded into Doug, and he almost visibly flinched at each one. His mouth was moving silently at the beginning of her tirade, as if trying to get words out, but by the end, he merely lay there, tears continuing to roll down his cheeks as her voice grew louder. He deserved it, after all, he thought. He'd screwed up, badly, and there wasn't any way he could fix it that he could see.

As if she had burned out all her energy in the one fit of rage, Marie-Ange dropped limply into the plastic chair. A cold shiver went down her back, and she curled up, leaning on the edge of Doug's bed with her arms folded under her head. "You died. Why did you have to do that? Why?"

Doug shook his head. Honestly, when it came down to it, he really didn't have a good reason for why he'd done what he'd done. It had been drilled into his head over the past day that what he had done was stupid, arrogant, and careless, and he was exceedingly lucky to be alive. He wanted to be able to tell Marie-Ange something, anything to explain this away and make her not look so tired and sad and angry all rolled together, but he just had nothing. He bit his lip and reached a hand tentatively to brush softly against Marie-Ange's.

Her fingers twitched slightly at the touch, and then Marie-Ange's hand darted out to twine her fingers around his. Face still buried in the crook of her arm her shoulders began to shake, though the only sounds Doug could hear were faint muffled sniffles.

Doug had long since run out of words, and so he brushed his thumb softly across the back of Marie-Ange's hand, while lifting his other hand awkwardly to stroke the hair on the back of her head as he listened to her sniffling, tears of his own sliding down his already-wet face.

At the touch of Doug's hand to her hair, Marie-Ange flinched and buried her face further into her arms. "Why? Why, Doug?" She asked, desperately needing an answer, but not expecting one. She couldn't understand, not why he thought so little of himself, why he didn't trust her enough to tell her, why he had done this at all.

"I..." Doug sobbed, the tears continuing to fall. He'd cried so much in the past day, but he didn't seem to be anywhere near cried out. "I don't know, Angie," he admitted brokenly. "I thought I had it all reasoned out, but I just don't know anymore..."

Still refusing to look up, afraid she'd meet Doug's eyes and get angry all over again, Marie-Ange mumbled something in incoherent French into her arms, then reached up to pull Doug's hand out of her hair. It wasn't soothing, it was just frustrating and a little annoying and she almost -wanted- to stay upset.

It took all the willpower Doug had not to pull away completely from Marie-Ange after her rebuff. He carefully placed the hand that had been removed on his lap, and left his other hand holding hers, though it quivered more than a bit with the emotions running wild through his head.

He hadn't meant for it to turn out like this. He hadn't wanted to die, he really hadn't. He just hadn't seen any other way. And now everyone was so mad at him. He'd just tried to do what he thought was the right thing. And everyone had just kept beating into his head how stupid he'd been. He KNEW how stupid he'd been! And everyone was so mad, and their body language had just hammered at him, and he couldn't even comfort his own girlfriend now...Racking sobs tore uncontrollably through Doug's body, and he couldn't even stop to realize how much they hurt, he just kept sobbing and sobbing, the pain from his stomach contributing to the circle of guilt and pain that fed his sobs and made them louder and more violent.

Crying hadn't moved Marie-Ange. Neither had silence, or apologies or even Doug trying to do the stupid hero thing -again- and get up to comfort her, despite his injuries.

But anguished sobs did. The loss of that control Doug had seemed to try to maintain, hearing - because she had not yet looked up to see - him give in and let go of whatever he'd been holding back, that did.

Looking up slowly, she reached out, pressing her hand against Doug's cheek, brushing away as many of the tears as she could. "Do you trust me?" she asked, barely audible.

Doug managed to quiet his sobs long enough to gasp out a "Yes" before the riptide of emotion pulled him back under and he clung to the one hand that was in his and leaned into the other that was on his cheek.

"Would you make me a promise?" Marie-Ange asked, just as quietly. She didn't bother to let Doug answer that question before continuing to explain. "Never again? Promise me, never again. No more making plans without telling me. Trust me to listen, please.. No more thinking your life is worth less than anyone else's..." Her voice caught and she shut her eyes, trying to hold back more tears. "No more leaving me alone."

Doug nodded slowly, breathing shallowly and trying to stop sobbing. "I promise, mon coeur. No more plans without telling you. No more thinking my life is worth less than anyone else's." He paused for a moment, sensing the enormity of the last condition, knowing that it would probably put a permanent seal on his relationship with Marie-Ange. "I can't promise forever, love. I'm not immortal," he said slowly. "But for as long as I can manage, I promise that you will never ever be alone." He pressed one hand over the one Marie-Ange had pressed to his face, and clung to the other like a drowning man to a piece of driftwood.

Marie-Ange stopped, looked up and stared, mouth moving silently. She shook her head slowly, unable to speak, and the thoughts in her head too rapid to make sense of. Slowly, taking an enormous amount of care to avoid bumping into Doug, or even to cause him to let go of her hands, she stood; then just as carefully sat down on the edge of the bed.

Doug was so focused on Marie-Ange that it was easy to read her lips. "He can't mean...no...please, be true..." were what she said. He carefully did not reply, trying not to think about the enormity of the promise he had made. Honestly, they were probably far too young to be even _thinking_ about such things. So he remained silent and watched her slowly sit on the edge of the bed. "Love you," he whispered.

"I love you too..." Marie-Ange said, just as softly. "Even if you are an idiot." Yes, it was probably petty, and unnecessary, but she was in no state of mind to think before speaking. Eyeing the bed speculatively, she frowned and shook her head silently. It was probably too small, and Doug was still so badly hurt...

The speculation in Marie-Ange's eyes was obvious even to someone who couldn't read body language. Shifting over awkwardly, Doug patted the bed next to him. "Stay?" he asked tentatively. "I know it's morning, but...I didn't sleep very well last night. Nightmares," he admitted.

"Will it help?" Marie-Ange asked quietly. "I...want to, but I do not want to hurt you and make you sleep even less." And Doug really did look exhausted, though how much of that was from being yelled at and how much was from physical fatigue, she couldn't tell.

"God, Angie. I...please?" he asked, letting her see just how tired he was. It would be a strange reversal for them, as Doug was normally the one to comfort Marie-Ange and chase her nightmares away. He clung to her hand and drew her closer to the bed.

And an hour later, when the medical staff came to check on Doug, and to do the routine morning vital sign checking, they found him asleep. His head resting on Marie-Ange's chest, with his arms wrapped around her waist, while she dozed, stretched out on the bed next to him.