Log [Alison, Tim] Let's try this talking thing again...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Thursday afternoon. Alison nerves herself up to visiting the mansion's latest guest of the formerly Mistra persuasion, and updates him on what happened to his team during the mission. While there is no way to take what happened easily, she nonetheless finds he isn't reacting quite on the scale Nathan and Mick did when they got de-conditioned, either.



She had spent far too much time staring at the door before finally nerving herself to open it silently, crossing the threshold with ridiculous care. Tim was, from what she could tell, still sleeping - after a last moment's hesitation Alison closed the door behind herself, carefully turning the handle so the noise wouldn't wake him up, before ghosting her way to the chair next to his bedside, left there for the few people who might come to visit him.

She was barely seated when Tim's head turned towards her, his eyes opening. Hazel, weary eyes that nevertheless locked onto hers with a startling intensity and a flicker of what could only be defiance. "Didn't think I was allowed visitors," he said, his voice gravelly.

Alison, unable to quite help the reaction, blinked at that. Not quite what she'd expected - not at all, in fact. "Well, we haven't been advertising your presence at large, exactly, no." She settled down a bit more in the seat, trying to make herself comfortable. Clearly, comfortable wasn't inclined to make an appearance, and she settled for uncomfortable at that. "We wouldn't let the kids tromp in and out non-stop and wear you out, but the door isn't kept locked, either." Charles had stated it wouldn't be needed. And the medlab wasn't exactly lacking in security, either, at that.

Tim looked away, back up at the ceiling. "Apparently I'm a guest," he said, a hint of bleak amusement in his voice. "Xavier repeated that a few times." It was funny, really. He was a guest, just like the kids he'd been trying to take back to be conditioned... to die, Tim corrected himself harshly. Because most of them would have. Let's be honest here.

"You are," Alison agreed, pondering how to bring her legs up on the chair, even if she knew it was a defensive sort of gesture in this context. Wasn't happening, her side informed her. Not one bit. "We weren't expecting to run into your team, obviously. They all made it out." She thought he'd want to know - was dead certain of it, in fact. "Don't know if anyone had the chance to tell you yet..."

Tim looked back at her, before he could help himself. "Nathan couldn't tell me much," he muttered, his eyes narrowing. "He's as hazy on what happened as I am. I don't... remember much, after we flew into the storm."

"Mind go boom," she offered, a touch of wryness entering her voice despite her best efforts. "Not exactly surprising." Taking a shallow breath, she continued. "Nash was already set on making sure everyone got taken back safely before you pounced on Haroun and I." There was a touch of sorrow in Alison's voice, as she spoke the large man's name. Oh, to have brought him back as well - all of them, of course. "I made sure Konstantakis was easy to find too, before going to find you and Nathan." In short, to the point sentences, she let him know how each of his operatives had fared and in which condition they'd been left.

Tim listened, trying very hard - and failing - to keep his breathing steady as she laid it all out for him. If the helicopter had been intact, they would have gotten out. With their conditioning damaged by the aftereffects of this... Trojan  Horse that had destroyed his? "I wonder if they went back," he said more faintly.

"There was no way to follow them with our injured and the kids and I left the damn tracking units in the 'bird," Alison said, flatly and a touch bitterly. Another of the things she'd slipped up on, that she regretted now. Oh so much. It would have been deceptively easy to have Haroun just leave on there, should he not be able to sabotage the Mistra helicopter. "I'm sorry." The words weren't what she'd meant to say, or how she'd intended to apologize, but at least she was able to look him in the eyes as she said so.

"They probably went back," Tim said, not really hearing the apology. "Injuries like that... it's hard-programmed. Return to base for treatment." He raised a hand, rubbed at his eyes. "I can tell you where it was," he said neutrally, "but it won't be there now."

"Tell me anyway?" She paused, then shook her head. "They'll anticipate that. Set up someone to keep watch, in case anyone checks, won't they?" He hadn't heard what she'd said and Alison tried to nerve herself up to making sure he did, this time. "I'm sorry." And making sure she had his attention, she continued, though she had no clue how she managed it. "For not bringing the others back too."

Tim pushed himself up to a sitting position, wincing at the way the room seemed to lurch around him as he did. "Little ambitious of you, isn't it?" he asked, wheezing a bit as he shifted back on the bed, so that he could lean against the wall. His ribs hurt. "I suppose this is where I apologize for throwing you into a tree, too? I do remember that."

Alison flinched at that, though she managed not to let the rest of what his comeback generated show through. "Imperatives," she said shortly. "I should be thanking you for keeping it at that, wouldn't
you say?"

"Thank me?" Tim snorted, letting his throbbing head rest against the cool metal of the wall. It felt like his skull was too small. "Spare me. I managed to keep a little flexibility in the situation; that's hardly an achievement. Just another damned loophole."

"I wasn't giving you much room to play with by then," Alison pointed out, calmly. "I managed to give Nash enough room to walk away entirely." She wanted, no, needed to know - even though she'd already had hints, from some of the reports filed. "How many of you played the loopholes to that extent? Nash walked away soon as I pointed out the leave no one behind imperative probably had precedence. Konstantakis could have shot me in the head but took a body shot instead."

"Depends on the situation," Tim said tightly. "On who you are, what you're doing. How clear the orders are." He looked at her bitterly, too tired and sick at heart to bother masking it. "How much pain you can take and still think, because once you can't think the hardwired conditioning kicks in and you might as well be a fucking robot."

"Nash wished me luck." She smiled, just a bit, wishing somehow that she'd had a chance to bring more of them back. Even just one more - but how did you chose? She nodded at his words, though. Alison remembered only too well to which extent they'd had to go to show Nathan that things had changed. The impulse to reach out wasn't quit e there however, in reaction to his pain - muted. It took her only moments to realize why. "You're not reacting like Nathan did. Or Mick." The blank terror wasn't there, nor the inability to anchor himself. There was nothing left of the conditioning trying to drag him down. Nothing left at all. The Trojan Horse had done its work well.

"Well, let's see." A flash of cold humor, amid the bitterness. "I lost my conditioning completely in what, a couple of minutes? There one minute, gone the next. I didn't have it half-there and festering for months or years on end. Didn't have it put back and broken again, either." He still wasn't quite sure how the hell Nathan had survived that. It hardly seemed possible. "If I wasn't handling it a little better, I'd be ashamed of myself."

His head was starting to pound, not just throb. He winced, resting it in his hands for a moment. "Kleenex," he muttered. "Think I'm going to need it momentarily, here..."

"Lean forward a bit," she murmured even as she reached to pluck a few Kleenexes from the box on the nearby table, the flashback to telling Nathan that not so long ago oh so clear. Sitting on the edge of the bed she offered him the tissues, keeping a close eye on him after he took them.

Tim obeyed without thinking, shaking at the sensation of pressure behind his eyes. She'd passed them over just in time. "Haven't had a powers overload like this before," he muttered faintly, his voice muffled by the tissues. He could feel the blood starting to soak through them already. A weak laugh slipped out. "Different kinds, but this is new..."

A small disposal bag was set beside him, the bio-hazardous materials symbol on it gleaming brightly in the room's lighting. And more Kleenexes were soon proffered, Alison tilting his head to the side ever so gently to see if maybe ice might not be a bad idea, though still keeping him leaning forward just a bit. "Only time I had a powers overload, I blew up a mall." The quip was over bright perhaps, but for the first time perhaps, Alison found she could say it without feeling as though something might crush her in any second.

Tim gave a weak laugh. "I know. Read about it, at least..." He closed his eyes, trying to concentrate, almost instinctively - but it didn't work. The emotions wouldn't allow themselves to be pushed down and away. Xavier had told him that would happen.

"Hey, made you laugh. Knew I should have started a betting pool." The mix of emotions on his face was something she knew - everything welling up without control, too much of it all to deal with.

Tim concentrated on breathing deeply. One of the exercises Nathan had shown him. He had to keep it together here. He was not going to fall apart. All reassurances aside, this was not a place where he could afford to do that.

"Betting pools, huh?" he managed, a little more calmly.

"Hey. It's a school. It's not just the kids that carry bets on what the staff might or might not be up to, y'know." She tilted her head for a moment, eyeing him pensively - the breathing pattern was familiar and she smiled at that, just a bit. The nosebleed seemed to have ended, too. "There's something else that goes with that exercise. It'll help make keep things..." she paused, stumbling over a word that had unique meanings in Askani that didn't quite translate to English properly, "I guess balanced and together, would be the best way to say it." She raised one hand slightly, light glimmering every so slightly at her fingertips.

Tim watched her, half-warily. "Show me?" he asked, a bit uncertainly. It would be something else to focus on, at least. Awkward as conversations with... well, anyone were, it was better than staring at the medlab ceiling.

A small nod answered him and Alison didn't wait beyond that for more - he hadn't said no outright, seemed open to the suggestion and it was, quite simply put, nagging at her that the exercise be complete. The pattern was etched slowly in light, Alison having to reverse it for his benefit, using her fingertips at first to carve the path in thin air. Eventually though her hand lowered to rest on the bedside, the pattern continuing on it's own - the pattern bringing her the usual sense of serenity, even as she continued to build it, eventually looping and then segueing into minute changes. Stability without excluding adaptability.

Tim watched the pattern form, fascinated despite himself. "I think I see," he muttered, paying attention to how it was formed, rather than just the end result. "Matches the breathing exercise, doesn't it? You teach Nate this?"

Her lips quirked, and Alison, despite her best efforts, was unable to repress the smile or the pure amusement that flowed along with it, the after trail of light not quite fading yet. "Well. That one is more like someone showed it to me so that Nathan could be nudged along on a few things. But he already knew others." Alison paused, an impish glint in her eyes. "Ask him about Audrai, sometime."

"Okay..." She was being enigmatic. He hated it when women were enigmatic; it made him nervous. Tim gazed at the pattern in the light, then looked back at Alison. "You didn't come in like I expected, on... up north. If I hadn't..." He stopped, then shook his head slowly. "If we'd had orders," he said more slowly, "we could have killed a lot of you fairly easily."

"If you'd had orders," Alison replied softly, "we might not have been fighting the same way." When someone was obviously trying to find a way out of things, one tended to try and help that. Then again... "It was... a bit like when we went to get Mick, only not? We had a priority in getting the kids out, and the team that rescued them. But we don't fight to kill, either. And we all know about the conditioning. And we've been sure for a while now that all of the first generation conditioning is degrading."

Tim flinched. "You... how?" He drew back almost instinctively. "They've been... calling us in for... tune-ups - " Oh, how he hated that damned euphemism. " - more often. And I... after Vermont, mine... it's why I couldn't do anything when Mick ran. They had me... it took a few sessions to fix..."

"Small things." She kept her voice low and soothing at his reaction, not moving at all in return. "Details across the map in some of the behavior and the reactions, which put together gave an overall picture that makes it... inevitable, really. Comparing first gen to second gen behavior, too." She remembered talking to Nathan on the porch, suggesting they just go out and find Mick. Bring him back. "It's why we went after Mick."

Together. Keep it together, damn it. Tim closed his eyes, thinking about the pattern, tracing it over in his mind. It helped a little. Maybe. "I can't... it's too hard to talk about this," he whispered. "I can't think clearly..." He was still trying to push the emotions down and away, and it still wasn't working...

Alison reached out, carefully placing her hands over his - not holding or restraining, though his reactions weren't the same as what Nathan and Mick had undergone after deconditionning and she wasn't sure what his reaction would be. "Breathe. Go over the pattern in your mind. And then rest." Voice following a regular beat, similar to the one Audrai had used when showing her the patterns while dreamwalking. "There's no rush."