Log [Alison, Hank] The best medicine...

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Late Saturday evening. After seeing the uproar on the journals, Alison decides that the best thing to do is to just go check in on Hank, really, and she proceeds to do just that.



The walk to Hank's room had passed, mercifully, without Alison encountering anyone at all. Of course, that might have simply been because anyone seeing her head their way had chosen to duck out of sight, considering the cloud of anger hovering around her thickly as she stalked steadily towards her destination.

Leaning on the door a moment Alison took a slow, deep breath and then another. It wouldn’t do to walk into Hank's room with her feelings so near the surface. After all, none of this was directed at him in the least. Heaven forbid, of course, that Hank actually be worried about the medical welfare of someone we already had to make stand down once on power use. Of course it could only be about him being tyrannical bastard. She snarled silently at the door at the thought, then closed her eyes, forcibly calming herself enough to knock on the door.

"Come in," Hank called, setting his book down rather gratefully. It was a struggle to read, right now, and... well, anyone who was coming to visit just now probably wasn't likely to call him an arrogant fascist or something. Just because he'd been worried...

Opening the door with a bit too much force, Alison stepped neatly inside, closing it shut firmly with the air of someone telling the world it had best keep out - or else. Turning around in that same, very precise way which screamed 'I want to tear someone's head off' to anyone who knew her well enough, Alison took one look at Hank and then sighed, shoulders slumping. She hated it when he had that air about him. Without a word she crossed the distance and slid over the arm of the couch to sit down, facing him, and opened her arms up to him with a small, sympathetic smile.

Hank smiled, wrapping her up in his arms and hugging gently. "I guess you don't think I'm being a mad medlab dictator, at least," he said, a little relieved. "Good." He hated to have Alison mad at him... students whining and fussing were much less important.

A fierce sounding mutter, lost in the hug, answered that question. "You are the kindest, sweetest soul I know and you'd think people would stop to think before ranting on or making assumptions about you like that," she added to whatever had been said first. A few more mutters followed, none of them loud enough for even Hank to hear, though he knew the pattern to those well. "You were just looking out for the well being of a patient." The statement was firm and Alison didn't let go of the hug in the least, having not a single doubt that he needed it very much.

He sighed, resting his chin on her shoulder. The hug was definitely helping a lot. "I was trying to, anyway. She was so exhausted, and the cuts... especially the one on her arm. She tries to do too much, and she won't say no to people..." He grumbled a little himself, producing a deep, wordless rumble from inside his massive chest. "And I never said she couldn't use her magic, just that the students couldn't be trusted to ask for it. I don't know why everyone jumped to that conclusion."

"There's a reason I quit being a counselor, Hank." Alison sighed, resting her cheek on soft blue fur, patting his back gently. "Most of the kids never bother to look beyond the surface of a statement. Or look for the bad by reflex or habit," or persecution complex, she didn't say out loud, "rather than assume, oh, that we might just care about them." It had been exhausting to have to fight to try and help someone, she remembered. "I hated being a counselor, by the time I quit. Pete was a good choice for it. He can balance it a lot better." Her lips twisted, just a bit. "And since he'd not all goody two shoes, some of the kids tend to respect him more and listen to what he says. Some even do so because they actually like him, as opposed to just because of the appearances."

Hank sighed. "And they all think they're all grown up and able to make their own decisions," he muttered. "Which is ridiculous. Most people do the stupidest things they'll do in their entire lives in their teens. Statistically, their judgment will never be poorer than it is now. And they wonder why we question it."

Frowning a bit at that, Alison finally just signed, shaking her head a bit before pulling back to look at him. "Everyone makes mistakes." And this had upset Hank more than any of those out there suspected, she realized - more than even she thought it would have. "I just learned the hard way to try and be there to pick up the pieces, as opposed to try and prevent anything. Whatever we do ends up never being good enough anyway," a faint edge of bitterness crept to her voice. "We're supposed to know everything and fix everything, and when we try it just gets thrown back at us." She smiled, a bit self-deprecatingly. "Yeah, I'm bitter. And it's not all of them. Some of the kids actually don't mind us trying to help."

Smiling wanly, she tried to push things aside - worries from events in the day, old memories she'd thought set aside better than this. "You look exhausted." Emotionally and physically, from what she could see. "You should get some rest now. I'll even throw in a lullaby," she offered, not entirely joking - she'd done that a lot, after all, after the accident which had led to him becoming furry and blue.

"I am tired," he admitted, smiling and touching her cheek. "And I'm probably just bitter about arrogant teenagers today, so don't worry about it." He yawned a little. "A lullaby would be very nice," he said softly. Her singing to him had comforted him a great deal, after his accident, when he'd barely been able to get through the days. It would be nice to have that comfort again now.

Alison grinned at that, broadly. There had been something of a tradition developed during those days, when she tried to tease a smile or a laugh out of the otherwise despondent man. "Russell's rules about the Doppler Effect and de Broglie's wavelength of matter, to the tune of Baby Mine*? Or just the good old traditional lyrics?" 

"The traditional lyrics, please." He smiled. "And I hope Miles has heard it... I'm sure it'll make him feel as happy and safe as it makes me feel."

"It's his favorite," she answered, throat tightening for no reason that she could understand. Hank needed a break, she decided. A vacation, time to not spend himself so much in the medlab - he hadn't taken a break in how long, already? Maybe she could talk to Madelyn about that, tomorrow. "And you got it."



~*~
* If you have never heard Baby Mine, from the Dumbo soundtrack, go out and get it by hook or by crook, and listen to it. Really.