Log [Alison, Scott] - Past, present and future...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Monday morning. Sometimes, it's easier to fall back on old patterns, even if you were busy reminding someone else not to. Alison sets today aside as a hiding out day, though Scott still finds her easily enough. They talk about Columbia, what Amanda is doing and how it establishes another pattern that is still far from over.



She was hiding out.

There were no two ways about it and she knew exactly what she was doing picking this spot too. Until it was Time, she would be hiding out here, sitting in the sunlight and breathing in the smell of living things growing and not moving or thinking as much as possible. And when it would be Time, she'd pick up her portable and avoid all the places in the mansion people might chose to congregate to listen to the news or generally go to during the day when they decided not to worry about the news, and make her way to her office and listen to the broadcast from there.

She had a good couch to curl up on and be miserable with there. It was about time she put it to good use.

It hadn't really taken that much of an effort to figure out where Alison would be. Somewhere away from people, certainly, Scott had reasoned, but she wasn't the type to flee to somewhere dark and enclosed when she needed space, generally. In fact, her tastes ran more to open, airy, and bright. Once he'd checked the sunroom, he then headed up to the greenhouse, figuring that was a good second choice.

And there, of course, she was. "All right," he said easily, approaching her. "This is where I say 'Are you okay?' and you say 'I'm fine', and then I say 'No, you're not', and you say 'Yes, I am'... well, maybe you don't say that, but I think the basic point still holds true." He stopped, smiling down at her a little. "This is where you ask me what my basic point was, because I just managed to lose you completely. Right?"

Alison opened her eyes to look up at him, the sun still warm on her skin even though turning her head meant partial shadows and a touch of a chill for a moment. "I'm not fine." She took a short breath and still offered him a poor attempt at a smile, though she gave up on it quickly. "In fact I'm feeling all sorts of not fine but I don't know what to call it and I'm wishing it could just be tomorrow morning, or maybe the day after and I really want to avoid the news or the radio but I won't and-" She stopped, not wanting to give in to the question that had been plaguing her, forcefully reminding herself that today wasn't about her. None of this was. "Yeah."

Scott sat down cross-legged across from her, distant enough to give her a little space, close enough that he wasn't going to have to raise his voice to carry on a conversation with her. "Deja vu," he said, and it really wasn't a question. "Only not really, Ali? These are two very different situations, for all their basic similarity."

"I know." Voice perhaps a bit too raw, Alison went on anyway, trying to pretend that showing Nathan that video hadn't stirred things up far more than she'd expected it would. She was failing miserably though and she knew it, Scott obviously had known it even without her talking to him about it and generally, she was a miserable thing and that was that. Of course he would have known. "She has support and no one will yank everything away from her and she's safe at the mansion and," as much as she hated to put it that way, "with people who accept her fully and understand..." She trailed off, refusing to simply go the easy route and say 'other mutants'. "I know it's different."

"And yet it's the same, too." Scott regarded her steadily. "You're both standing up in front of a hostile world and daring it to take you as you are. I don't know how things will go for her today, but if I had to make a bet? There will be some people in that crowd who support her, some who heckle her, and some who go away very quietly and think about what it all means." He smiled faintly. "It's that third group that's most important, you know. But it's the group that you and Amanda and anyone who's ever done anything similar will never hear from, sadly."

"I know. Unless she's very lucky, which might happen. Like when Jamie got here and told me how it had affected him." She'd kept that memory close to her thoughts, not questioning why it had kept her from outright losing it, these past few days. The knowledge that whatever else had been lost, she had affected at least one person. "I've made my choices since. I thought I was over it," she added, shaking her head helplessly. It wasn't fair that this would come back to haunt her now. "It's over and done with and so what if it was just a - flash in the pan. Gone." Whether she meant her career or the day she'd come out as a mutant, or something else entirely she wasn't even sure herself. "World keeps turning. And today's not the same. None of this is about me." So staying out of sight and reminding herself of that would be good.

"You're wrong," Scott said quietly, waiting until she looked at him to continue. "It's about you. It's about Amanda. It's about Nathan, it's about me, it's about every mutant at this school and everywhere else. It's about those poor bastards at Mistra too brainwashed to know what the hell they're doing." He shook his head. "Don't try and shut off your own reactions, Alison. In front of Amanda or the kids, maybe, but I don't see anyone you need to keep a stiff upper lip for around here, do you?"

Sometimes she hated it when people cut through everything that way, laying it open in one stroke and making it impossible to keep trying to pretend. Not this time, however. She was well aware of what was gnawing at her, even though she didn't particular want to say it out loud. Didn't like that it had been her first thought, upon hearing what Amanda planned to do. Shoulders sagging, Alison brought up her knees to herself, hugging her legs and looking down. "What if it was all for nothing?" The instant the words slipped out, Alison wished she could take them back. She was supposed to be over this. Past it, not thinking on it anymore. Stronger than this, now.

"It wasn't," Scott said, his voice quiet but absolute conviction in it. "It wasn't all for nothing. Amanda's attempt today won't be, either... but neither what you did or what she did will be for everything, either." Scott sighed, unfolding from the cross-legged position and stretching his legs out in front of him. "They're the grand gestures, Ali... the descant. I like that image, actually. The people that sing the descant put it all out there, right? Make themselves noticeable, take the risks, open themselves to ridicule or worse. But the song wouldn't be half as beautiful, wouldn't reach its listeners like it does if the descant wasn't there." He smiled, a little more strongly. "It lingers in the memory. Which is what it's meant to do."

The analogy he'd used was a pretty one, that normally would have appealed to Alison, tremendously so. Her frame of mind didn't give her room for that though, just yet. She looked up at him, the sunlight streaming on her face unnoticed. "Not if no one remembers. Where am I now? Does anyone even think about that day, other than me? What kind of grand gesture is it if even a year later it doesn't mean anything to anyone? I did it because at that time things were getting so bad from the backlash of what Magneto did that someone had to do something. Something big, something that would make people stop and think, see mutants as something other than some nameless menace. I knew what would happen. I knew what the sentiment in the studios and the recording companies was. I just couldn't keep pretending anymore. So I gambled."

"And how do you know you lost? How do you know that no one remember?" He leaned forward a little. "How many people in this country are going to watch that memorial," he asked steadily, "see Amanda's speech, and remember what you said at the concert? They build on each other, things like this, Alison... don't think of them as isolated acts."

"It's hard not to when-" she stopped, and then shook her head, breath escaping her in a long sigh. "You're right. It's ironic, really. There I was, telling Nathan it wasn't about him earlier. And that what Amanda was doing is important."  And then there was Pete, who had lost so much more, not even a week ago. Hugging herself a bit more, she stared at one of the leaves in her field of vision, almost edged with a halo from the light pouring through the windows. "I'll be okay. It just took me off balance when I saw her post and I've been... scrambling since." She did a lot of that, sometimes - too much, she felt. "I'm going to go and watch the broadcast later, in my office, I think."

Scott nodded. He could understand why she might want to watch it alone, so he didn't push. "You know, you can know for sure that it made a difference to more than just Jamie," he said, then smiled as she looked at him. "I admired the hell out of you for it."

Alison tried to smile  back, despite the tears suddenly taking over at his words. "It was so hard. And it took me so long to work up to it and finally just-" she paused, wiping at her cheeks. "I- thank you." It meant a lot, that he'd say that. She hugged herself more, aware that she was trying to make herself smaller somehow, had been since she'd come up. And wished she could just nerve herself up to go find Haroun to lean on him, regardless of anything else going on between them right now.

All right. Enough of this safe distance crap. Scott got up, but only enough to shift over to her side and settle back down again, putting an arm around her shoulders. "My lot in life," he said. "To be surrounded by more courageous members of the opposite sex than I can shake a stick at. It's really very intimidating, you know."

A half-laugh, half-sob greeted that, even as Alison leaned against him without a second thought, not quite huddling but coming rather close to it. "I just do things because I have to," she murmured, shaking her head but not wanting to start getting into that topic too much. They'd been over that ground before, after all. "And I'll be curling up on the couch in my office with Abomination. In ratty old pajamas I think. It's not really hiding out - it's just...being very quiet. Nothing intimidating about that."

He smiled. "Shall I stand guard at your door? Or better yet, get Haroun to do it?"

She looked down at that, biting her lip. Alison was entirely reluctant to go into the 'are we talking or not' thing she was wondering about since Saturday. Especially since she'd never had the chance to drop by and see him as she'd meant to, what with the fire at the café and all. Edged politeness when all she wanted to do was crawl into his arms and hide wasn't something she wanted to risk. "I've been... I was really snappy at him on Saturday." Neither of them had been at their most brilliant, but Alison knew she'd had more than her fair share in things.

"I won't push," Scott said gently. "But just make sure you ask yourself if it would really matter to him, whatever happened on Saturday, once he knows how this is affecting you." He leaned in a little closer, hugging her tightly. "Either way," he said, more firmly, "I would happily do the guard dog thing anyway."

"Of course it'll matter to him. I- I'm just a big chicken," she muttered, leaning into the hug, looking utterly miserable for a moment. "And Amanda needs someone keeping an eye out for her a heck of a lot more than I do. I haven't seen official assignments on that but you're sending someone..." It wasn't a question, but hearing the confirmation of that certainly seemed to be something that might help Alison feel a bit better. Some.

"Ororo's handling it, quietly. Remy had a good point about not alarming the students," Scott said, and then smiled a bit sheepishly. "Technically, I can't really do the guard dog thing during the memorial. I need to be down listening in on the coms..."

She smiled at that, just a bit. "I figured." It had been why she hadn't been accepting the offer outright, too. Being still off active duty was probably the only thing that allowed her to do the hiding out she was going to be indulging in, too. She tracked time mentally, and then nudged him slightly. "You probably have to head down to that soon, too."

"I do," he said. "Warren's down there now keeping an eye on things, but you know me and my control freak tendencies... although I think I did well in that sense, letting Ororo handle this." He hadn't wanted to overcompensate for what had happened at the blood drive.

"Different faces there. Not like I could have gone myself." She said it steadily enough, all things considered. "And Lebeau did mention it mostly seemed quiet in his email." The 'you never know' hung between them for a moment. "It'll go well. She has support. Now and during and after. No one knows she's planning on coming out, on the outside. It'll be okay."

"I have a certain amount of faith in that myself," Scott said firmly. He hugged her more tightly and then let go, getting up. "I'll check on you afterwards?" he said, and despite the inquiring tone, didn't really mean it as a question.

"Okay." She nodded at that, no wanting to contest anything nor minding in the least for that matter. "I'll be heading down to," hide out and not call it that, "my office in a bit. Take care."