Tuesday in the hallway

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Lorna moves out. Jamie helps. She continues to have trouble coping.


Jamie was wandering vaguely in the direction of his room, with the nebulous idea of either playing video games or seeing if Kitty was around, when he saw the boxes. They stopped him short. Boxes. With stuff in them. Outside Alison and Lorna's suite. Put that together with the way Alison'd looked like she'd been . . . well, no, she presumably got kicked in the stomach sometimes on X-Men missions and she'd never looked that bad coming back from those . . . and something was seriously wrong.

Since the door was open, he stuck his head in, and spotted the common room's only occupant pretty much immediately. "Hey, Lorna. What's the matter?"

Hangers clanged together as Lorna jumped. She stabilized them with a wave of her hand. “Hi, Jamie,” she said shortly. She looked pale and was wearing one of Alex’s shirts. Since obviously it wasn’t that it was laundry day, there wasn’t really any clear reason for her to do so. No makeup either. Behind her, the door to her room was open, much of the visible floor was covered in boxes.

And Lorna looked about as awful as it was possible to look without actually being dead--in fact, Jamie thought he'd probably seen livelier-looking zombies in movies.

Finding out what was going on could wait on finding out whether Lorna was in any shape to talk about it, he decided, pushing off the doorframe. "Want a hand with that?"

For a moment she looked like she was going to refuse then shrugged, “Sure, grab a box. We’re headed down to one of the singles.” She waved the hangers back into motion, relatively sure that most people knew better than to step in the way of a mobile wardrobe. Keeping half a thought on that, she turned and grabbed a box herself.

Jamie started in on one of the marked piles, figuring that was safer than testing his eye for who owned what. "Alex handling the other end?"

Lorna nodded, “Unpacking. Mostly I think he didn’t want to see me cry. Or something.” She sighed and started down the hallway.

"Understandable." Jamie fell into step next to her, a few dupes trailing behind with more boxes. "Must've been a bad fight."

She shook her head, “There wasn’t much of a fight. We just…can’t agree.” She stopped and leaned against the wall. “I’d have liked it better if she had fought back but I was the only one yelling.”

"That's the worst kind," Jamie agreed quietly. And there weren't all that many subjects that set Lorna off like that, but he wasn't sure how she'd react if he ventured his best guess. "What couldn't you agree on?"

“Manuel,” Lorna said flatly. She shivered though it wasn’t particularly cold. “Alison is training him. God only knows why.” She closed her eyes against the sudden stinging. She was sick of crying.

Jamie nodded, more surprised by the training part than the actual point of disagreement. Then he blinked--there weren't all _that_ many ways Alison could train--"She's letting him mess around with her head? After what he did?" he blurted.

“Apparently he’s going to get training anyway and better her than one of the kids. But don’t worry, she’s never alone with him. And she gave him her word.” Lorna could have given lessons in bitter sarcasm. “What he did was obviously not a big enough deal to my own goddamned roommate for her to tell him to fuck off.” Swearing from Lorna was always a bad sign.

Jamie let her vent, making a mental note to go get Alison's half of the story later on. "Me, I wouldn't've let him off the leash until I was sure he'd grown some ethics, but I'm weird like that about people who break my friends, no matter how many people they convince later that they were only trying to help." He scowled. "You have no idea how many times I've wanted to drop-kick that guy into a wall since February."

“’Charles is handling Ethics,’” Lorna’s mimicry of Alison’s voice was actually fairly good. “All Alison is doing is letting him mess with her head. I’m still not clear on why he has to be trained to get better at what he’s already much too good at.”

"God only knows." Jamie glanced sidelong at Lorna. "At least you're talking about it, though. I wasn't sure if I--if there was anything I was supposed to do better, or more, or something, to help you with this. And it seems like everybody else is worrying about _him._ I guess because they buy his version of what happened."

Lorna blinked and set her box down so she could give Jamie a hug. “I’m so angry I could scream, really. Talking is better than the alternatives at this point plus I know you’re not going to tell me I’m overreacting. Even Alex keeps giving me these looks like he’s afraid I’ve lost my mind.”

Jamie put his box down too, once hugging was on the agenda. "Mr. Marko's gotten a lot of free chopped firewood out of this--s' amazing how cathartic it is to hit things with an axe. No, you're damn well not overreacting. He hurt you and he's the one getting all the help. I just . . . I wish I'd figured it out sooner. And I wish I'd been able to figure out something else to do besides wait for you to want to talk about it."

“No one was ever supposed to know.” Lorna muttered, hugging Jamie tighter, “If he hadn’t made that public post no one would have known.”

"I think it might've taken me a little longer to figure out if he hadn't, but I was . . . kinda already suspicious by then," Jamie admitted. "It was remembering you'd started avoiding the kitchen even before the love potion thing that got me wondering. Is . . . there anything more I can do _now,_ though? Bug you to talk to Doc Samson about it, or just, y'know, be here, or show you where we keep the woodpile, or something?"

“I don’t know, Jamie. Honestly I don’t. I don’t want to talk about it and given that everyone thinks it was just a…mistaken impulse on his part, I don’t think I should. Hitting things is always good but I’ve got training for that.” She didn’t mention Samson. She’d still not brought it up with him. Not that he would let her avoid it much longer. “Mostly, just having someone here to tell me I’m not crazy is good.”

"I can do that." Jamie smiled sadly. "You're not crazy. And if you ever decide you do want to talk about it, there's at least one person who doesn't think it was an innocent mistake."

Lorna slumped back against the wall again, “It’s not even really that. It’s that Alison knows—she saw what it did to me and she’s still… It’s like she doesn’t even care, you know? Like he’s more important.”

Yeah," Jamie said glumly. "I don't think that's the way she really thinks, but . . . I can see where you're coming from. And I'm here for you whenever, you know that."

She sighed then bent and picked up the box. “Thanks, Jamie. And thanks for your help moving all this junk. I just…I can’t stay there knowing that she’s helping him.”

Jamie nodded. "No problem. I'd react the same way if, say, Magneto or somebody showed up and Doug started spending time with him. Just . . . don't let it be forever, if you can help it? I hate seeing the two of you miserable like this."

“Right now, I don’t know how I can forgive this. I don’t even know if I want to.” She started walking again toward the new room.

Jamie nodded, picking his box back up and leading the procession of dupes down the hall. "Not asking you to do anything right now." He paused. "Well, except maybe you wanna get some ice cream after you're all set up in the new digs? My treat."

Lorna shrugged noncommittally, “I’m not really hungry.” She pressed the box into her stomach which complained that it was still sore from the abuse from the day before. “Can I have a raincheck?”

"Sure. One rain check." Jamie paused. ". . . Do you mind, though, if I poke you every so often if you're not really hungry a lot?"

That almost got a smile out of her, “Please. I don’t need to be backsliding, now of all times. Having people hold me accountable is a good reminder.”

"Okay then. I'll be the annoying one." Jamie grinned. "I'm good at that."

“That’s why we keep you around.” She bumped him with her shoulder. “Thanks, Jamie. For everything.”