Madelyn, Manuel - Friday morning

[x-madelyn.livejournal.com]

Madelyn prescribes a change of perspective for Manuel in the form of a trip to Salem Center and the coffee shop. In the course of conversation, Maddie gets an object lesson in why some questions shouldn't be answered, and the nature of teenage boys.



Perhaps after the near-disaster of Alison's first outing this was being a bit too optimistic, but Madelyn had been considering this for days as she watched Manuel wandering around the mansion like a lost soul. The medlab staff were in the habit of discussing their patients over morning coffee and donuts, and the unanimous agreement was that Something needed to be done. And so it was that Madelyn was knocking gently on the door of Manuel's suite, dressed for outside and with the keys to one of the school's cars in her other hand. "Manuel? It's Dr Bartlet - Madelyn. Are you in?"

"I'm here." called Manuel. "Door doesn't lock." he added. Inside, he was sitting listlessly on his bed, a pile of CDs next to him. "Hey." he said to Madelyn. "Am I overdue for a checkup?" he asked her flatly.

Oh yes, this was way overdue. "No, not at all. I was just on my way into town and thought you might like a change of scenery, get off campus for a bit?" she suggested, tone friendly and non-demanding. "I've made it my mission to ensure our hermits get out and about occasionally, and you're in danger of turning into one of them."

"Is that permitted?" he asked with surprise, finally showing some signs of life. "I think I'm entitled to some hermitage." he said crossly, then sighed. "Never mind. Give me ten to get cleaned up first?"

"Not only permitted, but insisted upon by one of your personal doctors. I can even write a prescription if you like 'take one outing per week, before mold develops?'." Manuel's cross tone didn't phase Madelyn - he was a young man under immense pressure, and it was bound to come out. And hermitage wasn't such a bad thing, except she could see that path lead to him hiding in his room permanently. "I'll just wait for you out here," she said, indicating the common area of the suite through the open door. "Grab a warm coat, it's chilly out there."

Manuel nodded, and disappeared into his own bathroom. About five minutes later he re-emerged, wearing a very nice wool sweater and slacks, carrying a jacket over one shoulder. "So where are we going?" he said, finishing the last of a can of Red Bull and tossing the empty at John's door.

"I thought perhaps the coffee shop in Salem Center? It's not far if something comes up and I have to be back here, and the coffee's very good. And we could possibly go to one of the book or music stores in that area - they've got a decent selection." She raised her eyebrow at him. "How does that sound to you?"

"Sure. I don't have any money, though." he said with a surprising-to-him amount of bitterness. "So if you're buying, then I'm in."

"No need to worry about the money side of it," she told him, gesturing to the door. "I'll think of it as an investment in your mental health. Besides, you can always make it up to me next time I'm on nightshift - I accept any and all forms of sugar," she joked.

"Umm, okay." Manuel said dubiously, but he subsided as they walked
into the garage. "So which one of these is yours?" he asked her
curiously, indicating the fleet of cars in the Mansion's garage.

"The very boring hatchback over here," Madelyn said wryly, turning off the alarm of the small red car with her keyring. "At one stage I was having to lug a lot of books and equipment around and needed something with trunk space that didn't cost me a bundle. So I got Carmen here. She's not as flashy as say, Scott's car..." And here she pointed at the sports car sitting over by itself in the corner. "But she gets me around." Unlocking the central locking, she opened the driver's side and nodded at the passenger seat. "Hop in."

Manuel did as bid, buckling himself in absently. "I could use a nice cup of coffee. I like coffee. Discovered that the other day down in the kitchen." he babbled. "I should try something new - maybe I'll remember liking it."

"You know, that's not a bad way to think about it," Madelyn said as she belted herself in and started the car, hitting the switch for the garage doors as well. "The past - your past - is important for you to know, I can understand that. But perhaps rather than beating yourself into the ground because there are things you can't remember, and giving yourself headaches straining to, why not just experience things as they are? There would be less feeling like you've failed some kind of test when you don't remember things."

Manuel thought that over for a good long while -most of the car ride, in fact. "That's not a bad idea." he said as she grabbed a parking spot near the coffeehouse. "Not a bad idea at all. After all, that old life is dead, and I should get on with trying to make a new one."

Her smile was as much relieved as pleased - the long silence had been disconcerting. "One of the reasons I decided to ask you to come with me today, actually," she said. "I imagine being stuck at the mansion, knowing you're supposed to know things - people, places, the whole deal - and not... well, I can imagine it's frustrating. And not a little depressing." Feeding the parking meter some quarters as he got out of the car, she gave him another smile. "And by the way? We? Don't exactly have any history. You tended to avoid the medlab as much as you could, so we're not exactly close friends or anything. In case you were trying to remember."

Manuel smiled a somewhat embarrassed smile at Madelyn. "You read my mind." he said sheepishly. Then he looked at her again. "Did you?"

"Not at all," she assured him. "I'm not a mutant, like Doctor McTaggart, the redhead with the accent? I'm just scarily observant sometimes." She indicated the coffee shop. "Shall we?"

Manuel oh'ed sheepishly. "Sorry." he said apologetically. "If it makes you feel any better, I'm in the same boat you are." he added as they walked into the coffee joint. "So - what do you think I should try?"

"Well, it depends on what you feel like - coffee's a very personal thing," she replied, not wanting to give the impression she was expecting him to choose anything particular. He was just like anyone trying coffee for the first time. "It's probably a bit too cold for the iced stuff, but they do have a good range of regular coffees. Expresso if you like it really strong - that's a small, black coffee. Latte if you like your coffee milky, and cappucino is similar only with frothy milk dusted with chocolate on top. And there's other flavours you can add, like butterscotch," she continued, pointing at the syrups for that purpose. "Personally I tend towards strong white coffee with a lot of sugar in it - I have an appalling sweet tooth, as much as it makes Lorna cringe about what I do to coffee. Then again, I've been known to drink Moira's." Her own mind made up, she waited for Manuel to choose so she could order together. "And the Danishes are good here, if you're hungry."

Manuel looked at the menuboard, then at Madelyn, and then back at the menuboard. "Umm, there's a whole lot of choices." he said, a bit overwhelmed. "You pick? And I want to try one of those pound cake things. They look good."

“They do, don't they?" Stepping up to the register, Madelyn gave the girl behind the counter a grin of recognition. "The usual for me, Sarah, and a regular Jamaican Blue? And two serves of the pound cake. To have here." She handed Sarah a twenty, amused by the looks the girl was giving Manuel - definitely liking what she saw, and once she'd gotten her change, headed back to him. "They'll bring it to us, so we should just grab a table. Anywhere strike you as a good place to sit?" Giving him some degree of control - even if it was small and relatively unimportant in the scale of things - was a good thing, she decided. Too much of his life since the accident had been him trying to follow a script that no longer applied and that had large chunks of it missing.

Manuel looked around the coffeehouse, and gravitated to two overstuffed easy chairs around a low table. He flopped into one and propped his loafers up on the table. "Surprisingly comfortable." he said, testing the chair. "I've been in places like this before. Just - smokier? Does that make any sense?"

Madelyn nodded, taking a seat in the other chair with a little less flopping but still with a certain degree of relaxing. The school was her workplace - no matter how much she loved it, it was good to get away and have some free time, something she'd begun to realise with all the outings with Kurt she'd had lately. "It's a very European thing, the coffee house," she said, glad to see him more animated than before. "And there's quite the smoking culture. Growing up in Spain, I wouldn't be surprised if you'd been somewhere similar."

Manuel nodded. "That makes sense. Do I smoke?" he asked Madelyn with some amusement. "I don't remember." He tapped his fingers rhythmically on the arm of his chair as he talked - little did he realize that he was keeping perfect time with the piped-in music coming from the speaker over his head. "Where did you grow up?" he asked his companion with an easy smile.

"D'you know, I don't really know the answer to that one? Amanda smokes - like a chimney - but I don't really remember seeing you indulge that often, if at all." Sarah appeared at that moment with their coffees and cake, and Madelyn waited until they were settled before answering the second question. The girl's open admiration of Manuel was rather cute, she decided. Something to tease her about a little later. "Try it black at first, and if you don't like it, try cream or sugar. Or both," she said, pointing over at the table set up with every coffee accessory you could want. "I grew up in Philadelphia," she said at last, leaning back and cradling the coffee mug in her hands. "My parents live there still, in the house I grew up in. My older brother is married and has a family of his own, but my little sister still lives with them - she's in her first year of college."

Manuel nodded. "Pennsylvania, right?" he said with a pleased grin. "I remember where Philadelphia is. Birthplace of American democracy, first capital of the nation." he said with a grin. He picked up his coffee and sipped at it, and then made an appreciative noise. "No, this is _just fine_. A little weak, I think, but still pretty tasty."

"Next time I'll ask for stronger," she said with a grin. "And yes, that's right. Close enough for me to go home for the holidays, which hasn't happened for a while - my last job meant I tended to be moved around a lot."

"You're a doctor." he said with a smile. "That much is obvious. I don't think I'll be going home for the holidays - mostly because I have no idea where home is. I'm guessing that I used to live somewhere else before the Mansion - Spain, I think. Do you know if I have a family that should be notified of my accident? Maybe they're worried about me!" And maybe they'll know who his sister is.


"Manuel..." Madelyn began, and then hesitated. The headaches indicated a certain amount of psionic damage - nothing physical had showed up on her scans, beyond some minor nerve damage that was already healing. She wasn't sure how much information he could take, and how much he should know. "Your father... is aware of the accident," she said at last. "But it's probably best to leave it at that. There's issues there which you're probably not ready to deal with yet."

"He is?" Manuel said with a strangled voice. "But... " His headache came roaring back with a vengeance. "Excuse me." he mumbled, and just managed to make it to the men's room before emptying his stomach into the toilet. Wiping his mouth, he returned and dropped heavily into his chair. "Ugh." he said, still looking a little green and definitely clammy and pale. "What were we discussing before I got sick?" he asked Madelyn, praying that his stomach would calm down
and leave him be.

"Here," Madelyn pushed over the glass of water she'd gotten from Sarah when he bolted, half-expecting that sort of reaction. No, definitely too soon - the fact he didn't remember what they'd been talking about was an indication his mind wasn't ready to deal with things yet. Especially his father. "Are you okay? We can go back if you're not feeling well."

"No, we can stay for a little longer. I'm going to have to not drink the rest of my coffee, though." he said, looking at it mournfully. "My stomach's a little upset right now." he said apologetically. "And my head really hurts. Did you bring aspirin?"

"We can come back another time and continue the experiments with coffee," Madelyn assured him, fishing a bottle of aspirin out of her bag - she carried one with her as a matter-of-course. "Here. These should help," she added, passing the bottle over.

Manuel shakily shook out three aspirin, and dry-swallowed them with a grimace. "Lets just hope these work. I feel terrible." he confessed."My head is just pounding."

"Water," Madelyn said, pushing the glass closer with a face. "Dry-swallowing gives me a wiggins, to quote Jamie."

Manuel killed the glass of water in one smooth swallow. "More, please?" he said, handing her the water glass. "I got really thirsty all of a sudden, and the coffee holds no appeal right now." he said by way of an explanation. "It seems to help."

"Well, throwing up does have that effect..." Madelyn got up and returned with a jug of water and a fresh glass. "So," she said, trying to think of a non-traumatic topic of conversation - with Manuel, it was hard, everything was such a minefield. "In the interests of new experiences, anything I can help you with?"

Manuel blinked and blushed scarlet all the way to the tips of his ears. "Uhhhh." he said intelligently. "Food is a bad idea right now. What did I do for fun, anyway?" he asked with frustration. "Is there a music store around here?"

Madelyn blinked, then blushed a little herself. She so hadn't meant it like that, but yes, she could see how it could have been taken the wrong way. Especially in the mind of a teenage boy... "Music we can do - there's a rather good store down the street from here," she said, finishing her coffee. "Perhaps a movie as well, if you're not too overwhelmed after the music store?"

"I suppose so. I remember cinema, as in I know what a movie is, but I can't really remember ever seeing one." he said with a shrug. "Be a good place to fill that particular gap." he said with as much of a smile as he could muster. He stood up, and was suddenly horribly reminded of what Madelyn's innocent question had provoked inside of him. He was fervently hoping she wouldn't notice - but a treasonous part was hoping she _would_. There was nothing wrong with his imagination as far as he could tell.

Living in a school full of teenagers, it wasn't the first time that particular reaction had occurred, nor would it be the last. Ignoring it completely, Madelyn stood, rummaging around in her bag for the car keys whilst Manuel got some control over himself. "Okay, all set," she said, giving him a friendly - but not too friendly - smile.

Manuel ran through multiplication tables (at least he remembered _those_!) and did anything and everything in his power to get himself under control. He had at best modest success - there was a girl behind the counter who insisted on smiling at him. Damn her! Still, he got outside without re-enacting the Penthouse Forum or being shamed off the face of the planet. "So what do you like to listen to?" he asked Madelyn as they headed to the Music Store.

"According to some of the kids, 'that lame Eighties crap'. 'Though they pipe down quick enough when I point out half the popular releases out at the moment are Eighties songs re-recorded." Madelyn kept a straight face, although there was a twitch at the corner of her mouth at Manuel's 'problem'. Perhaps a Talk from Hank might be in order? They had no idea what he remembered and how much, and to see the normally supremely-controlled Manuel in such a situation was unusual. "My brother's a musician, plays jazz piano in a number of clubs in Philly and such, and he sends me a lot of compilation CDs he thinks I might like, so I've acquired a bit of a taste for jazz and blues as well."

Manuel grinned. "Interesting. I know that I like music a lot, so I've been trying to get reacquainted with as much of it as I possibly can." he said happily. "Maybe I could borrow some of yours to give it a listen, see if I like it or not?" he asked.

Madelyn nodded. "You'd be welcome," she said as she stopped at the music store and pulled open the door. "Actually, there's a thought - this store has a bunch of headsets set up with different types of music on each one, for people to see what they like...That might help you."

"Well, I like most of the stuff I found in my room." he said with a grin. It was amazing - he was feeling so much better already! "So I'm hoping I can discover some new stuff that I will really like as well."

"That's certainly the idea," Madelyn said, waving him into the store.