xp_logs | Jay & Amanda (Reply)

Jay and Amanda discuss love and the difficulty of losing the ones you love. He finally convinces her to do something that Strange and Romany wouldn't be too pleased to hear about.

By now, the news of the fight between Jay and Kyle had spread around the school faster than that little Dukes kid could eat a pie. For his part, Jay ignored all of the looks he was receiving from people, whether condemning or sympathetic. But his time between the fight and now had made him think a lot, and he concluded that he had to speak with Amanda again. He had to convince her to conjure Kevin's spirit, because he had to speak with him. Because everything Kyle had said, however inarticulate, was true. He was brooding and he had to get over it already, and Amanda offered the only path to the closure he needed.

Steeling himself, he knocked on the door to her suite after class. Shiro's sister answered and let him in, offering him a combination of the awe-inspired smile she always wore when she saw him and his wings, and a slightly fearful look. She'd obviously heard about the fight as well. As she returned to her room, Jay walked up to Amanda's and knocked on the door.

Amanda was at her desk, trying to focus on algebra homework and ignore the magic books she'd put away on the bookshelf, away from casual temptation. It wasn't like she disbelieved Tante's warnings about the sort of person who used magic for everything, or even that she wanted to disobey. It was just... hard. The knock provided a timely distraction and she turned down the ear-splitting punk music before answering the door. Maybe it was Angelo, off to have a smoke and needing company...

"Oh," she said, upon seeing Jay. She'd heard about the fight of course - being a medlab helper, she'd had access to the medlab journal and the doctors' griping. Jay didn't frighten her, but she also had no idea why he'd show up on her doorstep. "Um, hi. You after Angie for somethin'?" Doubtful, except maybe if it was band-related...

Jay stood with his hands in his pockets, hoping to appear calm, friendly, and open. This was not going to be easy, so he had to keep this relaxed and gentle. "Nah. Ah, uh, was wonderin' iffn we could talk?"

"Um, yeah, okay..." Amanda said, more than a little doubtfully. "Come in." She stood aside from the doorway to let Jay walk past her, and closed the door behind him. As usual, her side of the room was a mess, although the desk was covered in school work rather than spells and translations and odd bits and pieces. "Ah, have a seat," she directed, indicating the desk chair which actually didn't have anything on it since she'd just been using it. For herself, she shoved aside a pile of dirty laundry and sat on the unmade bed. "What's up?"

Sitting down on her chair, he brushed his long hair away from his face and put his hands on his lap. Non-confrontational, but stiff. "Ah wanted ta apologize. For a few weeks ago? Ah shouldn't've asked then. Wasn't right."

Well, that was unexpected... Amanda shrugged a little. "'S all right. No harm done in askin', 'specially since I couldn't help you."

"Ah just wanna know, ya kinda knew where Ah was comin' from, right?" he ventured. "It's damn near impossible ta forget someone ya love so much, and Ah was thinkin' that ya've got the power to make him alive again, so ta speak. Not alive alive, but, y'know."

After a pause, Amanda nodded. "Yeah, I got you. This thing with Manuel losin' his memory... it was almost like him bein' dead, at first, with the link bein' down an' all. It was the worst feelin'..." Looking up at Jay, she gave him a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry... for yer loss."

Jay nodded but didn't reply. He hadn't come here for a sympathetic pat on the head. Looking down at his hands, he eventually continued. "So y'know what it's like. Ya wanna hurt whoever done this wrong to ya, and then ya wanna fix it iffn ya got the power. Or iffn wa don't, then try ta fix as much as ya can."

Another cautious nod - she remembered that night, and fighting so hard to save the pair of them, and the struggle to help Manuel afterwards. "Yeah, 's about it. Only sometimes there's limits t' how much you can fix."

"Don't Ah know it," Jay muttered mournfully. What she said was true; there were limits that prevented Jay from repairing what had gone wrong. But that didn't mean that there weren't others without those limitations. "And then iffn ya lose everythin', when no matter whatcha do gets ya nuthin' in return, it all feels kinda pointless, y'know? And ya start askin' yourself questions thatcha'd never thought ya'd even entertain."

Amanda frowned. That didn't sound good. "What kind of questions?" she asked, as gently as she could since Jay wasn't one of her people and she didn't want to scare him off. Whatever was bothering him, it had been enough for him to fight with Kyle. She doubted she could help, but if he was wanting to talk, the least she could do was give him a sounding board.

"Dumb stuff," he admitted, because that's what it appeared to be from the outside observer at least. "Ya invested so much energy and passion into someone, and then they're taken from ya, ya start to wonder what's the point of it all, y'know? If the man ya love with every last bit of your bein' can just disappear like that" - he snapped his fingers for emphasis - "why even bother ta do anythin' ever? S'all just a waste of time, anyway."

"'Cause it's not always gunna feel like that," Amanda pointed out. "'S bloody awful, I know, but if you never bother again, well, that's it, ain't it? You close off yer options, so there never is any point. You've probably heard this before, Jay, but... you've got t' move on. Yer alive. That's somethin', at least."

Sheer force of will prevented Jay from rolling his eyes and snapping at her. Yeah, he'd heard that many times before. "But it ain't that easy," he insisted, his voice steady. "'Movin' on' would be like betrayin' him, and Ah can't do that. Ah'm supposed to what, put all the memories and feelin's Ah still have for 'im and put them in a little box so Ah can look back ten years from now and remember the 'good ole days'?" Sighing, Jay shook his head, his hair falling over his face. "Ah didn't even get ta tell him goodbye."

"Not right away, no," Amanda said, with a rather helpless gesture of her hands. How did she end up giving Jay bereavement counselling? "'S probably not for me t' say, but this boyfriend of yers... I don't think he'd want you t' spend the rest of yer life mournin' him. Not if he really cared 'bout you," she offered hesitantly.

"Ah know that'cha'd be sayin' the exact same things that Ah am iffn y'all were in mah shoes, God forbid," Jay said slowly, finally ready to get to the heart of the matter. "And ya'd be thinkin' the same thoughts Ah am, 'cept you ain't got no healin' factor ta stop ya from really hurtin' yourself. So Ah gotta ask again. Will you try that spell o' yours? Please."

"I already told you, I can't," Amanda replied, although not quite as definitely as she could have. "I don't have that kind of power."

"But you do!" Jay insisted. "Ah saw it on your journal. Back in November, when ya summoned that freak who'd abused you. Ya said that he was really powerful, butcha still managed ta do it. Kev ain't no wizard, so it can't be that hard, can it?"

"But..." Amanda began, but there was another voice, her own in the back of her head, pointing out that she'd done that partially drained, and still managed... "'M not s'posed to," she said lamely. "Rack... that was a once-of, an' me teacher gave me a right bollockin' for it. 'S serious shite - messin' with the natural order of things."

Jay detected the tone of her voice and jumped on it. "Why not? Y'all're supposed ta do good things for other people, right? Try ta balance good and evil and all that. Ah know it sounds selfish of me, but whatcha'd be doin' would help me lots. Ah know this is serious mojo for ya, but Ah wouldn't be askin' iffn Ah wasn't convinced this is the only way for me."

"Well, with this healin' ban, I ain't runnin' on empty all the time..." Amanda caught herself and shook her head. "No, I can't, an' I shouldn't even be thinkin' of it. I know this is important, for you, Jay, but you don't know what you're askin'. 'S bloody dangerous, even if I do have the power t' do it."

"Amanda, please," Jay pleaded, leaning forward and looking at her directly in the eyes. "Ah'm beggin' ya. Ah just need ta tell him one last time that Ah love him and Ah need to hear him say it back ta me. He pulled a Romeo on me 'cuz he thought that his papa done killed me. Ah lost the most important thing in mah life that night 'cuz of someone's ignorance and blind hatred. How can he be at peace iffn he died so violently for no damn reason? Please."

"Jay…" Amanda began, intending to say no again. Except she remembered Manuel thinking she was dead, and the regrets he'd had that he'd never been able to tell her that he loved her, even if he hadn't said exactly that at the time. The pain he'd gone through. That pain was echoed in Jay's face now. "If I did... you'd have t' promise that'd be it. That you wouldn't do anythin' t' hurt yerself after, all right?" she said instead. If she was going to do this, then at least she had to get a good result from it.

"Ah swear to ya," Jay said solemnly, hand over heart. He had expected to feel giddy and excited when he finally got her to agree, but instead there was a sense of mild apprehension. Was he really doing the right thing? Too late to back out now, as he had already invested too much energy into this. "What do Ah need ta do?"

"This is so gunna get me into trouble..." Amanda muttered under her breath, even though there was a part of her thrilling to the idea of doing this. A major spell, helping someone who needed only the help she could provide, giving him a chance to move on... "We can't do it inside - the Prof'll pick up on what I'm doin' an' might stop us. An' I'm gunna need some time, t' get stuff ready." She was going to have to ask Forge to do his thing on the spell - without the emotional connection that she'd had with Rack, and the fact this boyfriend of Jay's wasn't a magic user and so immune to the use of his name, she was going to need all the power she had. "Out in the woods tonight, 'round midnight, yeah?" She hesitated, then went on. "An' I'll need somethin' of his. Somethin' he had on him all the time, that meant somethin' to him."

Jay nodded. "Ah got just the thing." He reached into his pocket and carefully pulled out a small golden cross on a gold necklace. "This was his," he said, his voice growing soft, "wore it all the time. It'll do?"

Amanda nodded, and reached out her hand for Jay to give her the cross. "That'll do fine," she said with a certain amount of finality as her hand closed over it. For good or ill, she was committed now.