Log [Alison, Scott] Debriefing...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Early Monday morning, after Nathan's training session. Alison and Scott go through a formal debriefing about the results of Nathan's training gauntlet, and then go on to discuss other subjects - and people.



Slumped back in the chair of the Briefing Room, Alison stared ahead. One breath and then another. She knew better than to question the exhaustion. It was merely the coming down from weeks of stress and worrying and planning about Nathan's training. And perhaps there was a touch of Columbia in there too. But now that the breakthrough had happened, she was crashing. Big time. Hands hanging from the arms of the chair, she stared ahead and didn't move, thoughts pleasantly calm and unhurried for the first time in a while. Nathan had understood what they were getting at. He was in the medlab now and would be fine. She'd still need to talk to him later, make sure the patterns stayed set. In a day or two.

But it was Done.

It was nice, to be in this state really. She wouldn't be the minute Scott walked in, but for now - it was pretty good to indulge.

Scott walked in, raising an eyebrow at the sight of her. "Did you get the number of the truck?" he inquired, setting a cup of coffee down in front of her and then settling down in a chair across the table.

"8377-2A." She smiled at that, then gave him a 'ooops' kind of look. "Wait. That's a file number! Wonder how that managed to run me over, mmm?" She eyed the coffee and then reached for it, cradling it carefully while taking a sip. Yes, the familiar fluttery sensation was taking shape slowly. Alison made a mental note to keep a feeler out for it, make sure it didn't take over at any time during the debrief, and instead focused on Scott. "Medlab report yet?" Which translated into 'Medlab yelled about me yet' or almost.

"Not just yet. They were giving him a pretty thorough going-over - this has been pretty tough on him physically." Scott smiled a bit. "I forget sometimes that he's better than a decade older than us."

"That's because sometimes he's not." The comment made perfect sense to Alison, even as she blew steam from the coffee gently, allowing herself to be distracted by the patterns in the mistiness. They were still at the chatter part of the debrief, and being relaxed was a good thing. "I think the bruises and the aches and the cracked rib will be a fair payoff. Much better than the alternative." She nodded firmly and took a sip of tea - oooh heaven. It was the Good Stuff.

"I'm satisfied with what we saw today," Scott said after a moment, reexamining his memory of what Nathan had projected at him. "Assuming Charles and Doctor Leary clear him, I say we take him off the reserve list as soon as he gets some rest."

Alison nodded at that, without hesitation. "It was the only thing keeping him off team. The rest he can catch up on, or balance out with experience." Now that the risks of Nathan hurting himself during a mission because of a mental mindset that didn't apply to what they did was abated... and that kept him from making clear choices, too - he was ready.

"I feel like I should be cackling evilly," Scott said a bit quizzically. "Not that I could see any other way to do this, but you do realize we just deliberately ran a teammate into the ground to teach him a lesson."

"Not… exactly." Alison set the coffee down with a touch of regret. She was done with it for now. "It wasn't about running him down. It was-" She paused, looking for the right words. "It was running his prior training into the ground, enough that he could see beyond it." That sounded just about right.

"Mmm." Scott sipped at his coffee. "I mean, it worked, in the end. Brought about the desired result, which is good, because God knows we could use him." He paused for a moment. "But in the spirit of self-evaluation... how could it have gone wrong?"

Alison was, without a doubt, very very glad she had stopped drinking the coffee. Her stomach had just indulged in that far too familiar 'let's relocate two feet elsewhere' sensation. "It could have worsened the situation," she said evenly. "Could have caused him to push his power too far and burn out again. Hurt himself physically, far worse than he did now. It might have ruined him, in terms of being on the team, for both his safety and those of his teammates. For starters." She took a shallow breath and feel silent. And didn't go into how it might have harmed Nathan in other ways, as well.

"I was worried we were playing into familiar patterns for him, especially when he got so unreasonably determined to get through the scenarios." Scott smiled faintly. "The look in his eyes, sometimes," he said with a small, aimless gesture. "Defiant and scared at the same time."

"I know." She took a slow breath, forcing herself to breathe deep despite the tightness. It had turned out right, she reminded herself. Brilliantly right. That's what mattered. The arguments felt rather empty, in the face of What Might Have Happened. "Telling him wouldn't have worked though." She'd told both Scott and Ororo that, when she'd first discussed this with them. "Had to use what he already knew and just - twist enough so that he'd get the bigger picture, once there was enough for him to get. Keep his nose to the details, then yank back just at the right time."

"He's going to need follow-up," Scott said briskly. "What do you have in mind?" He may have stressed the 'you' just a little, although she really didn't need reminding that this was her responsibility, since she'd taken it on.

She'd thought of this enough that the response was automatic. "Give him just enough time to rest up without letting him snap out of the pattern. Talk to him. Point out his prior training has a scary amount of good to it. That it was just the extremes that pushed it too far." She smiled, just a bit. "Reinforce that he won't get punished for showing independent thought or adjusting to a situation in a way that isn't part of how we do things. That may take a bit longer though, still."

"I wish we could order up missions of a particular type," Scott said. "Getting him out to do something productive, soon, would be a good idea. But I wouldn't want to throw him into certain situations just yet. I'm not absolutely convinced that old habits wouldn't reassert themselves."

"No Mistra conditioning centers. Not for a long time. Those are mine." She blinked, realizing what she'd just said and carefully backtracked on her statement. "Yours. Until I'm back to active status." Or something, though she kept that thought to herself, wishing she hadn't slipped like that. "And nothing says we can't flag his file on the command level for certain types of missions." She'd been planning on doing that, for her own command team. Once they were fully active again - Alison wasn't bringing that up until she had reason to. Or rather, the right to, really.

Not talking about the possible consequences anymore had helped settle her down, she noticed and Alison eyed her coffee speculatively. "We need to make sure to wait just long enough before giving him active status again, so that he doesn't associate it to us rewarding him for thinking the way we wanted him to." That was important. She smiled a bit, suddenly. "He figured it out ahead of schedule."

Scott managed not to smile at the slip. "He did, didn't he? Well, so much the better." He took another sip of his coffee. "One last thing, before we move on to other subjects? If I get an aggravated phone call from Scotland, Alison, I'm handing the phone to you. Just to warn you."

"I've been expecting it," Alison nodded, perfectly serious. She'd already had Madelyn wave her arms and rant on, though thankfully it hadn't been entirely about Alison. Hank hadn't yet, so Alison was keeping the very comforting thought that Hank Got It close to her heart. But Moira... well. "I figure I ought to add a few 'dodging shotgun pellets' scenarios to my training this week." She pulled the mug of coffee close and cradled it once more. It smelled good.

"All right," Scott said briskly. "Now that that's settled... you've had a chance to look at Paige's training schedule? What do you think?"

"She's pulling a Paige and overdoing it. All in small increments, but across the map - seen her do it before." Alison took a sip of her tea, then breathed in slowly. "She's actually easy to nudge out of that, though, if you do it right. All we need to do is figure out where she'd placing the bulk of the heavier training she's doing that she ought to slack off on, and replace it with theory time. With us. Slow progression, so she doesn't kill herself trying to do everything at once."

"She needs less training and more contemplation. I've been saying that for a while now," Scott murmured. "I'm not so sure that us introducing theory to her will work, either."

A faint smile answered that. "We could be introducing the social habits of monkeys, that's not the issue." Paige she knew. Oh so well. "It's the time we'll be spending with her, and the attention we'll be giving her." She looked at Scott for a moment over the rim of her mug, having slumped back in the chair, not quite sprawling yet. "You don't mean just getting her to slow down a bit though, do you."

"No," Scott said candidly. "To some extent it's a similar problem as we faced with Nathan."

"I think I know what you mean." Alison looked down at her coffee mug pensively, finally taking another sip. "And I think we may have to go the same route, but... in a more traditional way. Give her the right tools, the right support. Hope the learning experience for her won't crushing. I'm not sure we can work it out through scenarios like we did Nathan."

"We certainly can't," Scott said, a bit more vehemently than he really intended. He stopped, took a deep breath, and then went on. "No. That would blow up in our faces, I think. Although getting her out there in the field on a regular basis would be for the best - on very carefully chosen missions, mind you."

"I didn't think you were saying we should," Alison pointed out gently, and then smiled. "I was just making it official that it wasn't on my list of things to do either." Tilting her head to the side, she finally gave in and nudged another chair closer, propping her feet up on it. That was far more comfortable, she decided. "It would. Paige needs to be right. If we hint that she's not, she'll just nod at us and keep going and not listen anymore." It was a matter of fact statement, a hint of fondness creeping through it despite Alison's best intentions not to let it. "I agree. Missions and gaining actual on the field experience will be the best way for her to learn."

"We'll make sure we keep her in mind if appropriate missions come up. Although we don't want to stint Wanda on field opportunities - that's someone who could be ready fairly soon for active status, I think."

She managed to swallow down the reference to two active field teams, this time. It was hard, though. Considering how little time she had spent on active team leader status, Alison was starting to wonder at herself. "Wanda's not exactly on the same trainee level as Paige, in a lot of ways." She paused, then grinned faintly. "We probably want to make sure to get that across to Paige as well. Wanda making team first she'll take beautifully at face value, but it'll nag at her." She blinked, then looked down at her coffee and laughed softly. "Look at me. And I've got what, all of a week as an active team leader under the belt?"

"Hey, I learned on the job too, Alison. You get used to it." He turned his attention to his coffee for a moment, savoring it. "Pride's a funny thing," he said suddenly.

Looking up at that, Alison smiled just a bit. If anything, she knew about pride. In some areas of her life, there was a scary amount of pride, even. She just nodded slightly in response to his statement, posture relaxed, knowing she didn't need to do more for him to understand that she would be receptive to what he'd have to say.

"It's so often paired with such a lack of self-confidence. Even in the people who deserve to be proud of what they've done and what they can do."

The nod he received was perhaps a touch more cautious, this time, Alison suspecting where he was going. But she wasn't about to shut him out. If there was anyone's assessment she trusted, it was Scott's - he'd trained her long enough, had known her long enough for this. Had seen both the best and the worse of her.

"You've never used it as a defensive thing, though," Scott said with a slight smile to match hers. "Did I ever tell you, that was one of the reasons I thought you'd be good at this job?"

The coffee, curse it, went down wrong. Alison made a strangled noise and carefully put the mug back on the table, trying to not breathe so as to not worsen things until she had at least made sure there would be no mad flying cup of doom involved. A careful cough, then another saved her from the worse of it, thankfully. "Really?" It still came out far too strangled a sound in her own estimate, but it was clear enough. And she still suspected they were all on crack for thinking of her first on this.

Scott nodded. "Charles told me once... you need a clear inner eye to do this--our job." And now he was making her uncomfortable, so, moving on... "Anything else we need to chat about while we're here?"

There was a relief in the veer of discussion, especially since Alison felt awkward about protesting her suitability for this when everyone thought she'd do just fine. "Ah." Another slight cough seemed to be all that was needed for now, though Alison left the coffee where it was for now. Just in case. "Actually, yeah. Mad-"

"Madelyn," Scott said, and then chuckled a bit ruefully. "She and I have talked. We need to talk more. Any suggestions, though, for right now?"

"Already cornered her," Alison paused and snickered, "or more like got cornered by her in terms of investigating what happened at the café HeliX used to meet in. More the official side of things." They'd started a file on that, though for now it was surprisingly hard to get anywhere. "Looks like there's interference at some levels. The adult FOHers covering their for their kids perhaps. We're not sure."

"Mmm." Scott shook his head, sipping at his coffee again. "We'll have to stay on that. Can't make it a top priority, but given the implications..." He shrugged, sighing.

"We're keeping it in the FOH files in the database for now, anyway." Alison stared at her coffee for a moment, then smiled just a bit. These sessions still felt odd, only she had to stop to think about it, to realize that. "She's working on her file to update it for us. Once that's done, which I expect will be soon, we should probably sit down and see what else we can ask of her. I'm emailing Pete with her in copy on that later today."

"Getting used to the mental juggling of fifty different open files at once yet?" Scott asked wryly. "It took me a while, at first. But yes," he said with a nod. "We need a list of 'What Maddie Can Do For Us'. And then we need to use her shamelessly."

Which, of course, was exactly what Alison had already had in mind. "We just have to make sure she doesn't overdo it." She paused, then looked down at her hands. "Or overcompensate."

"No," Scott said dryly, looking straight at her. "We can't have that, can we?"

Blink. Wait a minute... Alison, somehow, did not pout at him. This she was very proud of. "I'm being careful!" She was, too. Regular medlab check-ups, not entirely about her power anymore but just to make sure she wasn't impeding her own training (and that had nothing to do with her knowing she might push too hard, not one bit). "And I was going to start Haroun and I on specific team work training this week, by the way."

"Good," Scott said crisply. "Because while I'm delighted to have our oh-so-handy full-service psi on the threshold of active status, I'm just as interested in seeing our third team leader back in the saddle."

She smiled at that, resisting the urge to oh, double her schedule. Knowing she was the one holding her command team from active status was gnawing at her, despite all the doubts she had about being a team leader, when she stopped to think about it. "Telescopic sticks," she said instead, with a great deal of satisfaction.

Scott laughed and shook his head. "We can talk weaponry later," he said, rising. "Right now, why don't we do the leaderly thing and go look in on our test subject?"

She didn't quite race the room at that, but the entire tremor running through her body at the suggestion did rather hint that she came close to it. "Ok! We can go do that!" Rising to her feet, Alison looked serious. "Still not done. Almost but not quite." There would be talks with Charles for Nathan, and with Jack probably. But she had something to tell him herself, which she hoped would be just at the right moment. This timing thing was hard on the nerves, really.