xp_logs | Log [Alison, Madelyn] Just what the doctor ordered...

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Wednesday, late morning. Set before this log and after Nathan's morning training session. In which Madelyn tracks down Alison and discovers something not to her liking, which really is the last drop as far as she's concerned, and then proceeds to live up to her redheadedness. Alison, for her part, goes for shades of Vorkosigan.

Okay, something was definitely Up. Nathan had been to the medlab after every training session he'd had, and while it wasn't serious or permanent, some of the bruising was getting spectacular. Add to that having to ice down Scott's knee the previous week, and even Ororo coming in for a slightly-sprained wrist to be taped, Madelyn's natural suspicion was coming to the fore and not liking what it was seeing. Alison, she decided. Alison would have some explanations, given she was the one running the scenarios for Nathan. Concerned, worried, possibly a little irritated but not actually annoyed just yet, she headed down to the briefing room down the hall - Alison would be there collating the results of Nathan's latest session, given Madelyn had just sent him hobbling on his way.

Alison was sitting in one of the known to be most comfortable chairs in the briefing room, though it was more of a 'having poured self into the chair and determined not moving was good and nice' rather than plain old sitting. Her own review of the session earlier was done and she was working on her own evaluation now. The one where she'd gone through the scenario, just after sending Nathan to the medlab. After which Alison had discovered an entirely new sympathy for pancakes and their sorry flattened lot in life.

"You have got to be kidding me." Madelyn's voice, coming from the doorway, was unimpressed. As was Madelyn herself - even from here she could see the careful way Alison was not-moving, and a few bruises already starting to show. "Don't tell me - you decided to run yourself through whatever scenarios you have been pushing Nathan through. Is there a particular reason for trying to pound yourselves into jello, or is that classified information as well?"

There was something about Madelyn's tone of voice which made Alison instinctively search for the exits - all of one, which was currently occupied by the good doctor, no less. Huh. Why do I feel like a cornered rat? "Aaah," she said intelligently. Right, try that again. "Comparison scale. There's a method to my madness, really." Well, Scott and Ororo thought it might work too. Alison herself was starting to think it might happen a bit sooner than expected, even, which she was very grateful for all things considered. "They're really really small bruises," she added tentatively.

"Comparison scale to what, exactly? The pounding Nathan's been taking? I'm assuming there's a point to all this. Not that I expect anyone to tell me what that is, but hey, a little warning in our medlab ears might have been nice, especially now we're down one pair of hands. Something along the lines of 'we're going to be beating the crap out of people in the Danger Room, you might want to stock up on ice and liniment'?" Madelyn managed to keep her voice even, but only through the Power of Sarcasm.

Huh. Madelyn was living up to redheadedhood beautifully, it seemed. "There was an open note on Nathan's file that he was in intensive training until the end of the month." Granted, that was Alison's rough estimate as to when the point would clarify itself in Nathan's head. She shifted a bit in the chair, making herself more comfortable - a bit. "Give or take. I've been making sure he goes to the medlab after every session, same as Scott or Ororo. And there hasn't been any serious injury from it either." Which was nicely refreshing in fact.

"'Intensive training'? Nice and vague, don't you think? Is this the sort of intensive training that could result in possible energy-beam burns, or the sort that might involve more blunt instrument trauma? Or maybe even a psionic overload?" Madelyn folded her arms over her chest, looking at Alison expectantly. "How exactly am I supposed to do my job when I don't know what to expect in terms of injuries?"

The wild urge to let her know that kitchen sinks to the head were to be expected was firmly repressed, lest Madelyn very much go boom. "Well. There is the fact that I'm trying to do something rather delicate involving a telepath, and I didn't want him picking up what by mistake." Alison tilted her head calmly, looking perhaps a touch apologetic. "And his range has been expanding - he picked up stray surface thoughts from you from the hallway, when you were tending to Haroun's concussion." The training files had been locked to team leaders only - that Alison couldn't deny. Madelyn was fully steaming ahead though and Alison wasn't really thinking there was any way to stop her. She leaned back, letting her go ahead instead.

Damn, logic. "You couldn't figure out a way of giving me a general idea? Nothing Nathan-specific, maybe more along the lines of 'we've got this running in the Danger Room, and foresee these sorts of issues'?" Okay, weak, but dammit, she wasn't wrong about this. "Hank and Moira might be MacGyver types that can cobble together a treatment out of thin air in ten seconds flat, but I'm not them. I've already told Scott I need information so I can prep properly, and I'm not getting that! It's bad enough we're in triage mode down there every couple of weeks, but you know what? There was a reason I left ER medicine when I did! It's called going in-freaking-sane from the stress!"

Things had actually been relatively quiet lately, other than Haroun using his head as a landing pad, hadn't it? Alison frowned a bit, thinking back on things. And there was more than a little frustration in the look in Madelyn's eyes as she spoke, which caused Alison to decide that she was being awfully uncooperative with the poor overstressed red head. "I'm sorry. I didn't think." There. Now, if she was reading things right, that should give Madelyn the perfect opening to tear off into the rant about 'people not thinking' and at least wear off some of the edge off the built up tension. She hoped. Or else this was a nuclear type situation and she should've run somehow when she had the chance.

"Great. You didn't think. That makes everything better." Madelyn was definitely not in the mood for anything even vaguely resembling reasonableness. "Medicine is the only thing I'm allowed to do around here, Alison. And I'm good at it. But I can't pull medical miracles out of my ass because someone didn't think to tell me there was a chance that Nathan might get that one concussion too many and I don't have the right anti-convulsant on hand to stop him fitting! Or that they were going to be conducting powers experiments in the middle of the night that ended up with weird explosions and us nearly losing two people and sending another one blind! I know I'm not on a team and never will be, but that doesn't mean I don't need to know what's going on! Or that I'm not going to be able to handle it - you all seem to think I'm some kind of helpless idiot just because I can't fire lightning bolts out of various orifices, but you're forgetting I spent a year and a half as an active FBI agent getting shot at and thrown into walls and fuck knows what else, and another year in forensics dealing with God knows how many ways people can make other people suffer and die!"

Listening raptly, Alison held her breath in sympathy - because Madelyn wasn't pausing to breathe and was getting alarmingly red-faced - and nodded meekly throughout the entire speech. Clearly, Madelyn had been way, way overdue on getting the chance to rant about this. Maybe more than overdue. But, and her conscience was clear on that score, Alison had been making sure Nathan was checked up on after every single mission. The fact that Madelyn was giving away tons of interesting little bits of information she might not have quite to clearly owed up to under other circumstances didn't go unnoticed either, and while all the time she looked as fascinated as one could get, a few plans and ideas were already taking shape and substance.

Oh, Alison was doing that infuriating listening thing at her, with the big eyes and the hanging on every word. Madelyn glared at her. "Stop that. I know exactly what you're doing, and it's not going to work, so you can cut the whole guidance-counselor Devil-Woman bullshit right now. I am not being irrational, or difficult, or even remotely unreasonable. I'm simply telling you I'm being left out of the loop on important information, and that it's going to effect my ability to do my job to the best of my ability. And considering my job is putting the people in this place back together after they've been bounced off the ceiling a few times, well, it's not entirely unexpected that I'm feeling a teeny bit frustrated?!" Despite her words, Madelyn's voice rose on the last word.

"I quit being counselor for a reason," Alison pointed out, not going into details however. You are not being irrational, difficult or remotely unreasonable." It was easy to agree with that, since it was the truth. "I wasn't willfully holding information from you, Madelyn. The reason why I was making sure to send Nathan in after every session, and that the sessions were postponed on the medlab say so at any given time, was because I wanted to be sure everything was fine and no one would get hurt. Which," she paused, giving Madelyn a faint smile, "probably only ended up exacerbating things which have been gnawing at you for a long time, right?"

"And then some," Madelyn grumpily admitted, finally coming in properly and taking a seat across the briefing table from Alison. "I'm still cross at you," she warned, waving a finger at her. "But maybe, maybe I'm taking a bunch of connected but not-your-fault things out on you." She grimaced, still inwardly seething, but realising that exploding at Alison was neither adult nor productive. "I don't like surprises," she said at last. "And the last few months were one nasty surprise after another. And now when we've finally got a chance to catch our breath and we've got - had - all hands back in the medlab, all I want to do is try and get some systems in place to avoid any more stress than necessary, and it feels like people are keeping things from me. Like this business with Cain. I still don't know what happened, and it's driving me nuts, since I
don't know whether this miracle cure of yours is going to suddenly reverse itself, or whether Cain's going to have another stroke or heart attack or whatever the hell that was, and I hate that feeling of waiting for the other shoe to drop. For once I'd like to prevent a medical situation or two, instead of doing emergency response, and I can't do that unless people give me information."

"There are some things I can't tell you though, Madelyn," Alison pointed out gently. "Because I don't know. I have faith that Nathan can walk out of those scenarios I'm putting him through without anymore than a few bruises and a dented ego, until he gets the point of it all. I can estimate until what point I can push in them myself, too." She paused, and looked a bit embarrassed. "And when I have to head to the medlab to get checked out after, which I was on my way, to do just so you know." She managed to point that out with enough dignity, or so she thought. As for the rest - it wasn't as though she could tell Madelyn why she knew she would be fine, memories washed in red gleaming in the back of her mind at the thought. The healing had been perfect - nothing less would have been tolerated. Alison rubbed the faint scar on her arm, remembering how the shards sliding out of her skin as Nathan retrieved them hadn't even registered on her sense, other than a vague discomfort that had soon faded as the wounds closed behind. It all still seemed so remote. After a moment, she realized she'd zoned out on Madelyn, and snapped back to attention. "Sorry. I was just remembering something. I'm fine, you know. The medical tests haven't said otherwise since."

"Fine," Madelyn said with a tired-sounding sigh. Damn logic again. Pinching the bridge of her nose, she went on: "You're fine, Nathan's fine, Cain will be fine and I'm apparently a paranoid lunatic. Terrific. I'll just go back to those team evaluations so at least you have full info when you're making up these training exercises, and forget all this. Or should I leave that to Hank, seeing how he's actually team?"

Everyone and their kid brother were being snippy at her lately - and apparently it was the people she expected that the least from who were doing so, no less. Nathan didn't count there, since he wasn't exactly without ample reason. But it left someone feeling rather tired, after a while. "Did I say you were being a paranoid lunatic?" she inquired mildly. "No. No, don't remember doing so."

"No, but I'm feeling like one, since I'm chewing you out over a bunch of stuff neither of us apparently has any control over." Madelyn sighed again, a much larger one this time, and looked over at Alison apologetically. "And I can't even blame it on PMS, either. It's just... You ever have the feeling that you're being put in a box that doesn't quite fit, and most of the time it's fine, you make do, but sometimes you need to stretch, and you can't?"

For a moment, Alison thought she might laugh - not at Madelyn, but at herself really, because of all the memories the mental image of that brought forth oh so clearly. "Oh. Yeah. Just a bit, every now and then." Her mind skittered away from applying the concept to herself, refusing to linger on the thought. Regarding the past or the present. "Course, if people don't know you're feeling stuck in a box, it's hard to do anything about it - at least in terms of offering to help change that." She offered the last gently - if Madelyn wanted to do more, it was a simple question of figuring out what the more was and putting into action, from Alison's point of view.

"I've tried. The problem is, there's any number of perfectly good reasons to keep me in the medlab and away from anything even remotely resembling danger." Madelyn didn't miss the twitching of Alison's lips, and kicked herself for the Blatantly and Stupidly Obvious. "The primary one being I'm human. There's this general assumption that as such I should stay at home and knit bedpan covers with Moira, since without superpowers I can't possibly protect myself or anyone I'm with. Even after Vermont." Madelyn couldn't help the slight pout, childish as it was. Besides, she felt childish, railing against something she couldn't actually do anything about without a handy Firefountain again.

She was talking gibberish, Alison decided serenely. If Madelyn wanted to be put to use, Alison was damned if it wasn't happening. Besides. FBI training. There was the faintest squeal of pure glee somewhere in the analytical part of Alison's mind. Mine! All mine! "What? You can't go out for on the field information retrieval? You don't know more procedures on that than easily four or five team members put together?" Alison wasn't mocking, exactly - just gently incredulous. "You don't have contacts in the government still that would widen those we already have by a fair bit?" She remembered how many people had greeted Madelyn cheerfully, when they had been to the FBI offices for Alison's deposition. "It's not all just missions and bouncing around like demented ping pong balls, Madelyn. That's just the... obvious stuff. Geez Madelyn. If anyone knows all the work that goes into what we do, it's you, no?"

"And you think I haven't already pointed this out? That it's not on my file, the one that I know the team has access to?" Madelyn sighed again. "I use what I can, when I can - like with finding out the status of Jubilee's parents' murder case - but I don't know what's going on mission-wise, or intel-wise. Pete tends to use his own resources, which is understandable, given the whole black-ops thing, and it's been made pretty clear I'm not to go poking around with anything Mistra-related in case I foul something up. But I can't really offer my services when I don't even know if they're needed, can I? And Scott made it pretty clear Hank was going to be the doctor-on-call for anything mission related, all with perfectly good reasons, so I took that as being sent back to my bedpans and that was that."

"I'm the brand new baby team leader, remember?" Alison leaned back in her chair, trying to hide the acquisitive gleam in her eyes, ignoring the gleeful little dance of 'mines' in the back of her head. Wouldn't do to scare off Madelyn until she had her truly and well lured into her trap. Which meant maniacal laughter was right out as well. "Which means I've been trying to catch up with years of old and creaky leader type stuff. I've been through most of the team files," there was still one part of Haroun's file she meant to ask permission about, however. "And I was being all devious and reminding you, since you didn't seem to be telling me all you could do." Alison considered things for a moment. "You know, actual mission footwork rarely gets talked about in x_team," she pointed out. "On the other hand, if you don't mind doing prelim prep work and advance intel... or getting asked really weird questions about so and so every now and then..." Alison dangled the lure out temptingly, a bland, questioning expression on her face as she did so.

Oh, she was being played. And worse still, it was working. "I know what you're doing, you know," Madelyn pointed out, leaning back in her seat with a slight smile. "If you think you can use me, then great. And maybe I haven't been upfront in advertising what I can do, but honestly, with people like Pete and Jake and Remy around, my skills seem pretty pathetic - I don't have huge underground networks and all the rest of it. But I do know people. Fred Duncan, for one. He's in charge of mutant affairs at the Bureau - anything connected to a mutant, it goes through him. It's how we retrieved Remy after his misadventure with the brick, although whether that was a particularly successful job remains to be seen." She shrugged. "But if you want me, use me, weird questions and all. I'm more than a dab hand with a suturing needle."

Of course Madelyn knew what she was doing. That was the beauty of things - pulling it off with people knowing exactly what was going on and stepping ahead of their own free will anyway. Wheee! All mine! And she'd probably have to share at one point but for now, she was perfectly content about being possessive about this. And regardless of what it meant in terms of danger, Alison was simply the last person who could reproach Madelyn on the issue, really. "I'll need you to review your personal file and update it. Add notes too, the small details that aren't there but could be useful, even if it's 'knows every pattern of tire this side of the border' or something. List the contacts you still have and those you might have. We'll need to make this official with Scott and Ororo, but you'll probably want to start reaching out to see how things are there soon as that's done." Clearly, Alison wasn't expecting a no on this. "One last thing." She gave Madelyn a somber look. "What you do in medical isn't negligible. I remember very well who was there to help me when I should've died. And you were one of those people." It had to be said. It was too easy for one to discount oneself that way.

"I'll start on my file tonight - the contacts might take a little longer, but I should get a list of them to you by the end of next week." Unknowingly, Madelyn's posture had straightened, her tone becoming businesslike. Getting back into agent mode. "And if I say something along the lines of 'Hank and Moira did most of it', I'm going to be buried in Lifesavers again, aren't I?" she added, with a hint of a grin.

The changes weren't hard to notice, both posture and voice shifting gradually. Alison didn't comment on it, instead returning the smile with one of her own. "I knew I was forgetting to do something this week." The reply was innocent enough, though Alison decided that literally filling Madelyn's office with lifesavers one day would be a more than worthwhile prank. "Flag your file to my attention when you're done? That way I won't miss it in the middle of everything else I've got going now." She shifted a bit in the chair, finally giving in to her body's request to move or stretch or do something before the stiffness settled in entirely.

"Sure." Madelyn watched Alison move with a keen doctor's eye and came to a decision. "We're good. And now I've had my happy little scream at you, how about that check-up? You never know, I might prescribe massage from a hunky Moorish man." Then she sobered a little. "And I should apologise for yelling at you - it wasn't fair. You just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and I shouldn't take out my frustration on my friends. It won't happen again."

"Well - as a friend, you should be able to vent to me and not get stuff thrown at you for it," Alison said, tilting her head to the side. "And as a team leader, well - if you can't ask me to give you a chance to do more or blow off steam, who can you ask?" Alison shrugged it off, simple as that. And then frowned at the mention of Haroun. And said nothing, frown deepening as she contemplated the prospect. There were rumors about what had happened the previous day, and though she didn't have details about what the argument had been about, she was still less than pleased with the entire thing.

You'd have to be blind to miss the frown, and Madelyn grimaced a bit. "That whole ridiculousness yesterday?" she asked. When Alison gave her a another frown, she shrugged. "Haroun called the lab, asking for a stretcher and full kit, then cancelled it. That sort of thing tends to arouse the nosy bitch in me, so I went and tracked him down and tried to talk to him. The most I got was he'd been 'sparring' with Nathan again. But he was in too foul a mood to really get much more than that."

"That's what I heard. That's all I heard." It was all Alison felt like saying on the matter as well. It didn't help that she'd buried herself in work since the return to Mexico and hadn't even had the chance to talk to Haroun since. Or rather, hadn't made the time, if she was at least honest with herself, since despite all the excuses it could have been done if she'd pull herself to it instead of avoiding the issue entirely. And now she wasn't sure she dared just yet, because she'd snap at him, most likely. A sigh escaping her before she changed the subject. "You were saying something about a check-up?" She offered Madelyn a crooked grin, apparently setting whatever had been bothering aside at that.

"Come into my parlour, said the spider to the fly," Madelyn replied with another answering grin, certainly feeling much better, even if Alison wasn't.