Haroun and Alison - A Mission Of Mercy

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Monday morning. Set after this log.



She'd not actually changed into pajamas for this, though the sweats were near enough and the gray t-shirt she was wearing definitely had undertones of 'comfort clothes', along with the fact that she was hugging Abomination to herself while staring at the computer she had set up on the coffee table with conflicted expression. The tv-to-internet broadcast had been set-up and was clearly just waiting to start, but it was the unsent email blinking patiently up at her that she was currently looking unhappily at. Sounding pathetic about this was not something she wanted to do. Even if she did feel pathetic about it and then some.

Haroun, forewarned and forearmed by Scott, stopped by his room to get cleaned up before wandering over to Alison's office. His first three stops were unproductive - the Music Room, her room, and the greenhouse, but as soon as he got close he knew that that's where she would be. He couldn't explain it, but he just knew. Knocking lightly on her door, he waited patiently for her to unfunk enough to open the door.

A few moments ticked away, until finally the door opened just a bit, blue eyes glancing out not quite warily. "Haroun?" It was obviously him and Alison felt silly for looking at him like that - she hadn't even sent the email yet. And here she was still hugging the teddy bear to herself and looking forlorn, too, which was revealed for him to see as the door swung open a bit more, the handle of which she was hanging on to with her free hand so as to not just mug the man on the other side of the door without warning. It was a close call, still.

"None other." he said with a small grin that died upon seeing what state she was in. "Open the door, unless you want to just sit here with the door open to the entire world..." he grinned. She needed to lighten up, so he was determined to be funny.

She stared at him a while longer then moved out of the way, letting him step inside before closing the door behind him. "Mrf." There was the ghost of a reluctant smile on her lips, though it was hidden by the fact that she'd very much closed the distance between them to lean on him, Abi now held in one hand so that the teddy bear wouldn't be in the way. "Was going to email you," she admitted, the words just a touch muffled.

"A little ruby-quartz fairy suggested to me that a certain songbird might be a little down right now." he said, looking at her. She looked incredibly fetching wearing nothing but a pair of sweats and one of his sweatshirts. Incredibly fetching, indeed. Must not ravish the songbird. "So I thought I would stop by, offer you the dubious pleasure of my company."

She reached out to flick the lock on the door, as a statement of the fact that yes, his company was wanted and going away wasn't an option really. "Good." She blinked then pulled back just a bit to look at him, processing what he'd just said over. "Ruby-quartz fairy?" For all that she was feeling down, Haroun was doing fairly well at startling smiles out of her. She hid her face in the hollow of his shoulder once more, still smiling in amusement. "I'm never letting him live that one down."

Haroun grinned. "Good. He needs a little more friendly teasing in his life. Makes him feel all loved and stuff." he said, walking over to her office's couch and parking himself into it. "So come on, sit down, let's see what we can conjure up to make a sad songbird smile."

The lack of Haroun contact drew a faint murmur of protest though Alison wasted no time following him to the couch and settling right next to him, Abi hovering in between them for a moment before being neatly placed on the other end of the couch. "This," she stated, snuggling up to him, "is a very very good start."

"I thought you might like it." he said with a grin. He then cranked up the heat - he was fairly sure that she was a heat-junkie, and the sweat was a small price to pay. "So tell me about what's eating you? I don't think I got the full story."

"Mmm." She loved it when he did that and letting the heat sink in slowly kept her from any coherent thought for a moment. Which was, in fact, a very nice place to be when someone kept thinking too much. She dragged herself out of the haze, however, to try and answer his question. "Just..." She sighed, shaking her head against him a bit. "The whole thing has just brought back up a lot I thought I'd dealt with. Hadn't, I guess. Not as well as I thought, anyway."

"Tell me about it. Talk it through." he said, displaying his engineer's mind. He shifted slightly, to make himself more comfortable for use as Her Own Personal Pillow. Who knew hard muscle was so comfortable? "It might help."

"I don't know," she chuckled humorously, waiting until he'd settled in to do the same herself, allowing her body to go limp from the heat, slowly. She hasn't even realized how tense she'd been - only the creaking of stiff muscles slowly unwinding made her see it now. "It seems to involve a lot of me feeling sorry for myself." She took a short breath. "And now I'm trying to brush it off because of that. Gah. Let me start over."

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, trying to organize her thoughts - and not wallow further. Somehow. "A lot of the talk that's been going on... it just made me feel as though whatever I'd done or managed to accomplish was non-existent. The whole... everything. All of it, all that happened after. That I just threw everything away for nothing at all." She was tensing up again, and very much hiding her face against him as well.

"No hiding." he said, then carefully nudged her so that she wasn't hiding her face anymore. "And I think you're dwelling on the negative. Caught in a feedback loop." he explained. "So look at it this way - you may have been ahead of your time. Blazing the trail that Amanda is making wider, more accessible to the next mutant after her. And the next one, and the next one."

Resisting the urge to hide again, Alison nodded slowly. "I know." But knowing and snapping out of it were two different things entirely. "Ahead of my time, huh?" She repressed another in an endless line of sighs and then held her breath, soaking in the heat without a second thought. "I was never good about being a back-up singer." It was, really, the best analogy she could come up with. "But I can't really compare it to that, can I?"

Haroun shrugged. His music didn't tend to use them. Or involve much singing. Screaming and howling were more his speed. "I'm just trying to make you feel a little better about the whole thing." he said. "This - I am not good at." he confessed. "But I am trying, because you need it fairly badly."

This drew a smile from her - not from amusement as the others so far had been, but a mixture of fondness and a touch of growing calm, along with a host of others things which remained undecipherable. "I'm glad you are," she murmured, a fingertip pressing to his chin lightly before her hand fell back to rest on his chest. "it makes a difference, that you try. Makes me feel better." It didn't solve how she felt - there wasn't much that would make it right, until she worked it out. That and having the time to do it. "I didn't want to be alone, really."

Haroun made a show of looking around her office. "You didn't want to be alone, so you locked yourself in your office?" Only to a female would that make logical sense. "But hey, I'll take my victories where I can get 'em."

"I didn't know how to ask to not be alone." Admitting to that wasn't exactly easy. She'd been giving it a try though, and she snuck a look at the computer screen - yep, the email was still there, half written out and as of yet unsent. "Well, not without sounding incredibly whiny." Pride was very much a factor in this, yes. "Didn't want to sound whiny."

Pride was something Haroun was very familiar with. "I see." he said neutrally. "A good thing, then, that the Ruby Quartz Fairy arrived when he did and pulled me out of a firmware update to the primary radar array when he did." Haroun noted. "And you don't have to worry about pride with me. You've seen me ranting and raving while having blood hormone levels reduced forcibly. I think I can handle a little whiny from you."

"Okay." And perhaps her voice was just a touch small on that reply, but she did mean to take it to heart. She'd never really looked at it that way, either - and he was right, particularly taking those moments into consideration. "You'll probably have to remind me a few more times on that one," Alison admitted. "But since I'm being good about it now... would you stay to watch the broadcast with me?"

Haroun nodded. "Since my plans for today got flushed by the Ruby Quartz Fairy, yeah, I think I can do that. But you'll forgive me if I get bored, public speaking and speechifying isn't exactly my idea of a good time."

"I just meant in a 'to keep me company' sort of way," Alison said, thoughts going blank as she tried to not take his statement in the worst possible way. Which wasn't exactly easy to do, for some reason, though she ignored the sinking feeling that went along with it and kept her voice even. "Unless you'd rather go back to the 'bird...?"

Haroun shook his head. "Nah. Think I'll stay right here and be a spaceheater for a time." he said contentedly. "Already backed out the software change. Besides, the instructions were shit, and you're sparing me from a very unproductive day spent swearing at the computers in the hangar."

It was the undertones in his voice more than his words which got through to her, drawing a small smile in return. "Aah. All right then. Saving you from having to try and talk the computers into your point of view is something I can do," she added teasingly. "While very selfishly keeping you to myself." They were far too overdue for time together, anyway, regardless of anything else.

"Like I've got a long queue of people demanding my personal attentions." he said with a grin. He snuggled up closer to her and closed his eyes for a moment, to just enjoy the Moment they were having. Things like this made up for all of the crap in his life, he decided.