Madelyn, Haroun - Wednesday night

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Following her 'visit' with Alison, Haroun finds Madelyn in the gym, doing her best to kill the heavy bag. He finds out just what it is that's been driving Maddie over the edge.



Haroun walked into the Gym, his sticker-encrusted medkit swinging loosely from one hand, his full waterbottle clenched in the other. He was looking for Madelyn, after she’d abruptly dashed out of the isolation room, and was greeted by the sight of her going to _town_ on the heavy bag. "Hey." he called out to her long before he got within her reach. "Want someone to hold the bag for you while you work out a little job-related stress?" he asked her with a smile.

She didn't appear to hear him at first, continuing to punch the bag, throwing in the odd elbow strike when punching just wasn't enough. But then the bag swung back too much after she added a knee into the mix, and she grabbed onto it, both to steady it and herself. She was drenched in sweat, the wisps of hair that had escaped her braid stuck to her face and her tanktop soaked through down the back and front, and under the arms. For a long minute she held onto the bag, panting harshly, shoulders heaving, and then there came a strangled, half-sob and she looked up Haroun. Not all the moisture on her face was sweat. "You ever have one of those days?" she quavered, trying to make a joke, but her voice cracked on the last words and she turned abruptly to slug the bag again, despite the pinkish stains starting to show through the tape over her knuckles.

"Often." Haroun said, dropping his kit and the waterbottle so that he could hold the bag for Madelyn. "How long you been down here taking it out on the bag?" he asked her casually. "Because you're bleeding through your hand tape. Want me to change that out for you?"

"An hour? Two? I don't really remember..." Madelyn seemed to register the pain in her hands and switched to a palm strike. "I had to get out of there. Hank and Moira have things under control." The tone in her voice spoke volumes, clearest of which was how useless she had felt.

Haroun just held the bag for her, and let her vent as she so very badly needed to do. "And you're not under control." he said flatly. "You want a real opponent, or is the bag enough for you?" he asked her.

A mirthless laugh broke from her. "When am I ever in control over anything in this place?" she said bitterly. A backhand strike, followed by the heel of the hand to where someone's nose would be. "I just have to sit..." A series of punches, despite the damage. "And wait..." Not satisfied with that, she stepped back slightly and aimed a roundhouse kick that jolted Haroun back a little. Followed by another. "And watch the people I care about..." Side kick, dropping into a couple of backhands. "In pain, because there's not. A. Fucking. Thing. I. Can. Do!" Each of the last words was punctuated by an increasingly weaker blow, a struggle to breathe past the sobs, until at last she dropped to her knees, shoulders heaving with the effort of trying to keep it all in.

Haroun moved the bag out of the way, and knelt down next to Madelyn to fold her up in a hug, heedless of the sweat and blood and tears that would stain his shirt. "I know." he said quietly, content to let her get as much of it out of her system as she could. "Let it all out, don't hold it in anymore..." he urged her.

"She's in so much pain... I've never seen anyone in that much pain. And I can't do anything!" Madelyn sobbed. "She's my friend and I can't help, and the worst thing is, I used to be able to! I had the power to help her and now it's gone and I have to watch her suffer!" Madelyn pounded the floor once or twice, opening the grazes on her knuckles and staining the tape on her hand with red. "I can't stand it, Haroun, I can't."

"Yes you can." he said quietly, keeping the hug going. "You're stronger than you know. Everybody needs someone to fall back on when things get tough. You've been strong for everyone else, now you can let me be strong for you." he added, pointing her chin up so he could look into her eyes. "You've done an amazing amount of good for everyone here. Without you, people would be dead or dying. Never lose sight of that."

"It's never enough," she managed, trying hard to rein herself in - now wasn't the time for hysterics. Not when any of the kids could walk in and see her. "I swear, Haroun, if I could I'd track Loki down right now and ask for that healing power back."

"I haven't had a chance to read the post-op on that mission - can you tell me about it?" he asked, unclenching the hug enough so that he could have a regular conversation. "And let me see your hands. You're bleeding."

"Iceland. Cerebro was picking up large numbers of emerging mutants, all at once, so Charles sent the X-Men in to investigate. Moira and I went as medical assist, and because Moira has so much experience with mutants, especially ones with difficult powers..." Her voice took on a crisp, factual tone, despite the residual sobs - Agent Bartlet giving her report – and she relaxed enough so Haroun could take her hands and start unwinding the tape. "There was... some kind of magical energy, and any ordinary human who got within range, got powers. Including Moira and I." She hissed with pain as the tape came free on her right hand, exposing bruised and grazed knuckles - she'd been at the bag for longer and harder than she thought. "Moira could feed and clothe anyone, summon everything she needed out of thin air, and I..." She winced, by this time it had nothing to do with her hands. "I got the power to heal any wound, cure any sickness. What I've always wanted ever since I wanted to be a doctor."

Haroun hissed. "Merciful Allah, what a gift! To have such a thing and then lose it again - I cannot imagine what torment your soul must have been in." he said sympathetically. He grabbed his waterbottle and washed out the cuts on her knuckles - not gently, but not excessively rough either. "I find that I wish to do bodily harm to this trickster-God who did this to you."

"They said the price was too high," she said dully, watching him work. "Our creativity, that's what it cost. The ability to imagine, to create new things..." She would have clenched her fist again, only it the numbness was starting to wear off and she was feeling the sting of an open wound. She settled for biting her lip instead. "I didn't care, Haroun. Loki could have had that - hell, he could have had anything he wanted of me - if only that gift wasn't lost to the world." She bowed her head. "Maybe that's what's going on, these past months... God's punishing me for my weakness."

Haroun hissed again, and waited a few moments to apply disinfectant to Madelyn's cuts before he spoke again. "I don't believe that God is punishing you." he said quietly. "Imagination is precious. It's what makes us human. All of us." he said, looking at her urgently. "You made the right decision. It may not seem like it now, when people you love are hurt, but you can take what you know and improve it. That takes imagination, and you could never do it if Loki had stolen that from you."

"The decision was made for me - I was too weak, I didn't want to give it up. Not when I could have done so much with it. Alison, Manuel, Doug, those kids from Vermont, if we'd reached them in time..." She looked up at him as he crouched beside her. "You."

"Me?" he asked her with great surprise. "I haven't been injured lately. There is still good you can do with your imagination, Madelyn. There are people who need you, people who consider themselves your friends. People who love you. To let all of us down by becoming some sort of healing machine drone would be an unspeakable sin."

"Your legs, Haroun. I could have given you your legs back. Any illness, any injury. Hell, I probably could have given Charles the ability to walk again!" Madelyn laughed mirthlessly as Haroun wrapped her knuckles with some light gauze, then switched to the other hand. "But it's all hypothetical now. I'm just regular folks again." The tears brimmed again and she looked down at the floor, not wanting him to see her cry. Well, any more. "It was such a cruel joke. Give me that power, take it away again... And I haven't been able to talk about it because there was Asgard, then the stuff with Nathan, Doug, Vermont and then Halloween, and now this... It's like I'm having my nose rubbed in the fact I don't have that power any more. That I'm just human."

Haroun looked at Madelyn. "I think they made the right decision. Yes, I would give just about anything to have my own legs again, but not at that kind of cost! And I'm not immune to my own power - unless you think that you could have fixed that, too." he said quietly.

"I don't know," she replied, just as quietly. "Maybe." She watched him tend to her other hand, not bothering to wipe the sweat and tears from her face. "I can't keep this up, Haroun," she said at last. "Living from crisis to crisis, getting four or five hours of sleep on a good night... Even when Moira takes the night shift, I can't sleep more than that. I'm going to make a mistake, and I can't afford that, not in my field." Without realising it, she was slumping against him, taking comfort in his warm, solid presence, the strength in him. "I need a break, but I can't leave. Not when there's so many people that need me. And I can't leave Moira to deal with it - she's as close to breaking as I am. And Hank wasn’t exactly on vacation – he already looks beat."

"We will get you that break. We'll talk to Charles, find another doctor or two to help take the stress off. We'll even go shoot some pool sometime - I hear you're quite the shark at the game." Haroun said, trying to be comforting to his friend in need. He finally stopped talking and wrapped her up in another hug - but not before rebandaging her wounded hands. "Come on. Let's go get you cleaned up, then go get some real food not made by Krispy Kreme."

"Krispy Kreme is the _only_ food," she protested, but with a faint grin. She leaned into the hug, just short of clinging to him, then let him pull her to her feet. Looking down at her hands, she grimaced. "Moira's going to kill me."

"No she won't." said Haroun with a grin. "You can always blame me. I'll take the rap on this one so you don't have to." he offered. "Now come on - you stink and you need a shower." he said with just a hint of leer. "And a change of clothes. And then food."

She made to swat him, but the twinge in her knuckles reminded her hitting more things was a bad idea for now. Instead she settled for lightly bumping his arm with her shoulder. "Food if you join me - I can wait until sundown," she said, giving him a significant look that said she knew just how much he _hadn't_ been eating lately.

"If you can wait until after prayers, then I'll go ahead and have a bite to eat with you." he agreed with a smile. "But for now - shower and change of clothes. Want some help with either option?" he said with a grin, trying to at least get her to smile.

"And have Alison fry my ass when she's able? No thanks." She did grin a little at that, shaking her head at him. "Are you sure you don't need filtering again? You only proposition me when you do." She scooped up the towel she'd left draped over the bench press, using it to wipe the sweat and tears from her face. Her eyes were red, of course, but hopefully any kids they ran into on the way back to her suite wouldn't notice.

"You take _all_ the fun out of my life." he said with a mournful grin. "Besides - I got you to smile! That's gotta be worth something when I'm having my very cute ass lased off by Alison. And yeah, I'm sure I don't need it. Not much to get all worked up about – sadness and concern don't do it for me. It's the hot emotions that drive me over the edge, not the cold ones."

"You don't have to flirt with me to get me to smile - 'though that works too." Madelyn tucked her arm through his as they left the gym. "You do that just by being a very good friend. Now, I'm going to shower and get changed and perhaps take a nap while you're saying your prayers, and then we're both eating. Sound like a plan?"

"It does indeed." he said, relieved that she'd understood what he was trying to do. "Does this mean I can't flirt with you anymore?" he asked in his best little-boy voice. "Because that would truly be a sin."

"Ours is a forbidden love that we can't deny," she told him solemnly, before bursting into giggles. The laughter was a little too close to hysteria, but she felt the better for it any way. Whee, emotional rollercoaster. She definitely needed to start looking after herself better.

Haroun grinned as Madelyn giggled. "We just can't. I will eventually claim you for my own, you know." he said with a waggle of his eyebrows. "You would look stunning in a veil and silks. Tell me, can you bellydance?" he asked her as they walked back to her room.