xp_logs | Hank, Madelyn, Friday afternoon (Reply)

Hank and Madelyn head out of the mansion for a little while in search of coffee and a change of scene. They talk about a lot of things, including Jubilee, the coming funeral, and how Hank turned himself blue.

Hank tapped on the door, carefully not calling out and giving himself away by voice. He'd found the cane he'd made for himself when he'd sprained his ankle years ago - oak, with a steel core and steel knob at the top - so he wouldn't be reliant on walking on his knuckles. He'd put on his image inducer, too... he generally wore it, when he went into town, and he couldn't resist the urge to surprise her a little. She'd seen him wear it before, but only once, and she hadn't seen him up close, with the image of how he'd looked before the fur overlaid over his current appearance. He hadn't been the model-gorgeous type many at the mansion were, but he'd still at least been kind of cute, he thought. He kind of wanted to see how she'd react, to the old him.

Madelyn carefully replaced the arm in the sling with a small sigh of relief. It was still painful, but she was determined to not let it stiffen up too much, hence the proper wearing of the shirt. It was silly, perhaps, but she felt a small amount of pride in the fact she was actually properly dressed for the first time in a week. No sweats, no baggy shirts worn over the top of the arm. And she'd even managed to brush her own hair this morning. The prospect of getting out of the mansion for a few hours was enough to make her make the effort, it seemed.

"Coming!" she called, wondering who it could be and hoping it wasn't something urgent - she really wanted that outing. Opening the door, she blinked at the unfamiliar-yet-not man on her doorstep. She'd seen the face before somewhere she just couldn't place it... Then she remembered a framed photograph in Hank's office, and it clicked. "Hank? That is you underneath that, isn't it?"

Hank grinned. "Yes, it is, and I should have known you'd guess at once." He gave her a little bow, and caught her hand, dropping a small kiss on the back. "And you, my dear, make even a sling look charming."

She rolled her eyes at him, a smile breaking through. "Well, if I didn't guess before, I would have now with the outrageous flattery. Inducers always throw me off - I get so used to seeing you or Kurt without them it takes a couple of minutes to adjust." The face he was wearing was a pleasant one, but she found herself missing the familiar blue Hank - it was a little like talking to a stranger. "Are you sure about that leg, though? You're up for driving?"

"I'm fine. It still aches, but my movement isn't at all impeded." He smiled,offering her his arm. "Let me take you away from all this," he said gently. "At least for a little while." She was getting very annoyed by the limitations of only one working arm, he knew that... a change of scene was definitely what the doctor ordered. Especially with the funeral tomorrow...

"Away is good - I've been getting cabin fever. Although I have to go to Washington again next week for debriefing, and to follow up a few things," Madelyn said as she grabbed her jacket before closing the door and taking Hank's arm. She was such a cuddlebunny this week - she'd fallen asleep with her head on Jubilee's lap the other night whilst watching TV. The bruises were beginning to heal, although she was still a bit stiff and sore - the lack of activity wasn't helping that, either.

Hank patted the hand resting on his arm, and then leaned on his cane a little as they headed for the elevator. "Our work is never done, is it?" Hesighed a little. "There are times when I do wish life was more like television - when it's over, it's over, and everyone gets to go to sleep to prepare for the next adventure."

"There's always clean-up." Madelyn remembered a conversation with Scott, about the frustrations of not being able to prevent disasters, only deal with them after the fact. "Sort of an occupational hazard," she reminded him with a wry smile. "The best we can do is try and learn and adapt and prevent things from happening again - at least we didn't have the usual panic and flailing from the kids that usually goes on - I think keeping the older ones informed worked well."

"It really did. And I know there's always clean-up... I just wish we lived in a wonderful, magical world where it all happens offscreen so we don't have to deal with it." He smiled, patting her hand again. "Mind you, it would be a lot worse without you and the rest of our little group. Any job seems a little easier with such capable, intelligent, loyal friends beside you."

"Well, it took me a few days to stop sulking about not being allowed in medlab, but I reminded myself there's other stuff that needs doing that needs me doing it." The deluge of reports and emails and all the rest of the information from the taskforce had been more than enough to keep her occupied, she had to admit. She could very well have left it up to the government, but she'd started the job, and she wanted to see it through. Besides, it would be too easy for things to be swept under the rug and she was determined that wasn't going to happen. Not for the second gens stil under medical care, not for the Mistra personell, and certainly not for the directors. "Jubilee's been such a help - I'll almost be sorry to see her move out once the arm's working again. I'll miss the company, even if it comes with the belief vegetables are things that happen to other people."

Hank laughed. "I'm sure you will miss her. Did she tell you that she was waiting outside while I operated on your shoulder? She wouldn't leave until I assured her that you were going to be all right." He smiled at the memory. "She's a good kid. And she cares about you more than she'd admit to a relative outsider like me, I think."

"I felt awful about coming back so battered - she looked so worried. And you're not an outsider, not as much as you think; the fact she talks to you at all is a good sign, let alone about things that are bothering her. She doesn't trust very easily." They reached the garage and Madelyn sighed, looking at Hank's blue sportscar. "Stupid arm," she muttered. It was an expression she'd taken to using a lot lately.

"I'll let you drive it again as soon as you're better." Hank smiled, and opened the door for her. "Until then, you can at least enjoy the wind in your hair and the sun on your face. And overpriced coffee and cake, too, once we get there." He did up her seatbelt for her, trying not to make an issue of it. Not being able to do it herself must annoy the hell out of her. "And... she and I have become friends, I think. I'm glad... I like her very much. I offered to help her with her training, and she seemed to like the idea."

"Thanks," she said with a small sigh as he fastened the seat belt. Oh yes, this was definitely getting old. "Jubilee was saying something about trying to become a trainee - she didn't let on, but I think she feels she should have been with us on Youra."

"I'm very glad she wasn't," Hank said quietly, moving around to get into the car. "I know I can't, but I wish I could keep all the children from ever having to face such horrors as that. It's... frustrating, knowing that we can't really protect them." He smiled ruefully. "And knowing that it wouldn't even, really, be good for them, to be protected from all harm."

Madelyn was silent, thinking through her answer before responding. Hank started the car and was pulling away along the drive before she spoke again. "Part of me is terrified for her - the thought of her being there, seeing what happened, especially at the training barracks..." The image of all those bodies appeared before her eyes, still vivid but not accompanied by as much stabbing guilt as before. She was learning to deal with her role. "But another part is proud of her, that she's trying to pull her life together and do something good with it. And as long as the X-Men are on campus and there's that jet in the basement, there are going to be kids that see that lifestyle as a way of doing that good. As much as I want to make sure nothing ever hurts her again... she's growing up, and she'll not-so-eventually have to make those choices for herself." She wasn't sure if she was getting what she felt across - hell, she wasn't even sure what it was she was feeling. "If we can be there for her, guide her in those choices, make sure she knows all the consequences and that she's as best-equipped to deal with them... maybe that will have to satisfy us."

Hank reached over to give her hand a quick squeeze, smiling a little. "I know exactly what you mean," he said softly. "The urge to protect them is always there... but that doesn't mean we aren't proud of their courage." He pulled out of the gates, speeding up a little, enjoying the feel of the wind ruffling through his hair and fur. "But we will be there for her. Guiding her, if she'll let us, helping her through the inevitable mistakes... and reassuring her that we care about her. That's... important, I think. That she know she's loved and valued, even if she does make mistakes."

Madelyn nodded. "It's knowing that there's people who care that makes coming back home so important. I know it's that way for me." Her voice caught a little as she thought of Mick and Tim. Sometimes it wasn't enough. "The memorial service tomorrow - it's going to be hard on some of the kids. Jubilee, for one. It'll remind her of her parents." It was easier to talk about it in terms of helping someone else, she'd found.

Hank nodded. "It's going to be hard on all of us, I think," he said softly. "They always are." He wished he could comfort her, do something... but he wasn't sure how, or if she'd even want him to. "But it's important for all of us, too. And I'll do my best to offer comfort, if I can..." And not just to Jubilee, either. Alison and Madelyn, especially, were suffering over this, and they both meant a great deal to him.

"It's just... it's so damn unfair. All they'd both gone through, and everything in front of them... They lost that chance." Madelyn swallowed the tears - she didn't want to spoil the outing and there'd be a time and place for saying goodbye. "I'm probably going to be a bit of a mess - can you keep an eye on Jubilee for me? If I can't..." She made a vague gesture with the good hand. It wasn't that Jubilee was so demanding, but death and loss were big issues with her, and Madelyn didn't want to inadvertantly push her away.

He reached out to give her hand a gentle squeeze, wishing there was more he could do. "I'll be right there, for both of you," he said firmly. "If you'll let me. That's what friends are for... especially at times like this." He wasn't sure if either of them would let him... Jubilee got prickly when she was unhappy, and Maddie could take being self-reliant much too far at times. But he would try, and he'd be there.

She surprised him by squeezing his hand back gratefully. "And I'm glad to have a friend like you to lean on, when I need." She smiled ruefully. "I know I'm not always the best at that. Alison has been reminding me."

"The best at what? Leaning?" He smiled back at her. "I'm happy to be leaned on, whenever you need me." For once, he didn't make a joke of it, omitting references to the size of his shoulders and so on. He wanted her to take him seriously, this time. "You're my friend, and you're very important to me. I know I can lean on you, when I need to... I'd like you to feel that you can do the same."

"I'm learning to lean. I've spent so long having to rely on myself, prove I could do the job, not letting myself show any weakness... It's a hard habit to break." Madelyn squeezed his hand again. "When I do need to lean, you're definitely on the list, Hank."

"Good." He beamed at her. All right, it wasn't much in the way of encouragement, but it was something. "And I'll be there, tomorrow, if you do need to. For both you and Jubilee."

***

The coffee shop wasn't as good as The CoffeeQuake had been, but it was still pretty good. Madelyn sighed with pleasure as the familiar smell of roasting beans wafted over them. Luckily they had Hank-sized chairs as well. They attracted a few stares as they came in, and Madelyn wasn't sure if it was her battered condition or Hank's obvious mutancy even through the inducer. She met the looks blandly, and the starers looked away quickly. "I'll grab a table while you order the coffee?" she suggested.

"But of course," Hank said cheerfully. "And they have several delightful looking cakes, too. May I tempt you to a slice of black forest cheesecake? Or perhaps whatever that one is with all the chocolate cream on it?" Cakes were half the fun of buying coffee... the coffee itself was a bit of a secondary attraction, given how much marvellous coffee was usually to be found at the Mansion if you looked.

Madelyn chuckled. "Surprise me," she said, taking her diet into her hands, but hey, this was all about the spoiling. Leaving him to it, she found a couple of seats over by the window - it was strange how she kept craving sunlight, even the thin light of early spring. With a tired sigh she sat, glad to be not jolting around - her shoulder was complaining at her slightly. She was sitting with her face tilted towards the light and her eyes closed as Hank returned.

Hank took a moment to appreciate how beautiful she looked with the pale sunlight glowing on her skin, then rather reluctantly interrupted her bask in the sunshine. "Cheesecake for the lady," he said cheerfully, setting that and her coffee in front of her. "And chocolate cream thing for me. If you don't like it, we can switch... and even if you do, I want a little taste." He sat down opposite her, and grinned. "I got a couple of double-takes," he added. "When I'm in my furry splendour, it only really takes one glance. Like this, I often get two."

"Ooh, thank you. That does look good." And not overly rich either, which was good - obviously Hank had remembered she'd been on invalid-type foodstuffs for the past week and gone for the easier to digest option. Stirring sugar into her coffee, she gave him a contemplative look. "I was meaning to ask you before... that's how you used to look? Before your accident?" She knew he hadn't always been blue and furry, but she didn't know the details.

Hank nodded, sipping his own coffee. "Until I was in my mid-twenties, yes," he said slowly. This was still a difficult topic, but... well. Most people who were close to him knew about it, and he didn't really mind (too much) talking about it to people he was comfortable with. "My original mutation was as you see me now... altered musculature and bone structure, mostly. The blue colouration, fur, claws, and so on, happened when I was twenty-six."

"I can't imagine how hard that must have been... to look in the mirror and see someone completely different." Madelyn face and tone was full of sympathy. With a small smile, she added. "I have to admit, it's a little odd, seeing you like that. I've gotten so used to you being blue and furry, it's almost like talking to a stranger."

Hank smiled ruefully. "Sometimes I still look into the mirror and get a shock, realizing that that blue guy is me," he admitted. "It.... was very difficult. The fact that it was self-inflicted didn't help." Admitting how very stupid he'd been was always the hardest part...

"Self-inflicted?" Madelyn asked, surprised. She'd only ever heard of some sort of scientific accident, and hadn't really wanted to push.

Hank nodded. "It's... a long story," he said softly. "To boil it down to essentials... I found myself in a crisis situation, without the X-Men around. I'd been working on a formula which would, I thought, accelerate mutations to higher levels... and a partner-formula that would regress them. I took the first - which had worked fine in all the tests - planning to use my anticipated heightened strength and agility to resolve the crisis, and then take the second to return myself to normal afterwards. The first formula worked, although not in the way I had anticipated. The second... did not. Nor could I find any other way to reverse what I'd done."

"God, Hank... I don't..." She didn't know what to say. To have such a thing happen was hard enough - to knowyou were responsible for it. It was unimaginable. "I'm so sorry," she said at last, nothing but compassion inher face.

"So was I," he said ruefully, stirring his coffee aimlessly. "I was... badly depressed, for some time afterwards. Alison and Moira between them managed to coax me out of my apartment, eventually... and, later, Moira managed to convince me to stop trying to change myself back, when an attempt almost killed me." A bald summary, for the nightmare period that he had spent in a haze of suicidal misery. "I came to terms with it, eventually, and I'm comfortable enough tojoke about it now.... but I still look in the mirror and get surprised, sometimes."

There was cake and coffee in the way... Nudging them aside carefully, Madelyn reached over and touched his hand, feeling the warm fur beneath her fingers eventhough she couldn't see it through the inducer's illusion. "I can't imagine what it must have been like," she said softly, making a mental note to talk to Moira.

"Like a nightmare that I couldn't wake up from," he admitted. She was easy to talk to, even about this... and he turned his hand over to curl around hers gently. That helped, too. "It still bothers me, now and then... it's why I didn't take that dying-Kyle-blue prank well. It hit... much too close to home."

"I had wondered about that," Madelyn admitted. "I didn't understand why you reacted the way you did, especially considering you're usually the king of pranks..." She smiled ruefully. "You do know none of us would ever hold the way you look against you, right? The kids weren't meaning to imply being blue and furry was a bad thing."

"I know. It was just... remembering the shock of seeing myself, that way. Of realizing that I was blue and furry. It's terrifying, to look in a mirror and see a reflection that you don't recognize." He managed a weak smile. "And I'm sorry. I brought you out today to cheer you up, not to tell you my troubles." He squeezed her small hand gently. "You make it easy to talk about it, though. Thank you."

Madelyn blushed a little, looking pleased. "You're welcome," she said with a smile. "And hey, I already dumped on you in the car - it's only fair." She was joking, mostly - there was no obligation here, only two friends being there for each other over coffee.And speaking of coffee... she glanced at the cup, and then at her hand. Damn. She was going to have to let go. "I need a straw," she remarked with a mock-pout.

"You do." Reluctantly, he released her hand. "Now, see, if you'd been clever, like me, and gotten a leg injury, you'd still be able to type and hold hands and so on." He smiled ruefully. "Not that I like mine a great deal more than you like yours, I imagine. It hurts, and it's annoying. At least Amanda's made sure there won't be any blood-poisoning infections."

Picking up her cup and sipping at the lifeblood it contained, Madelyn raised her eyebrows at the last. "Amanda...?" She knew Hank had had his problems with their resident witch. Then curiosity kicked in. "What did it feel like? I've been trying to study her healing magic, tracking recovery rates and so on. First hand accounts of what it's like would be another piece of the puzzle - I'm determined to work out some empirical data on this or explode my brain trying."

"She kicked me in the leg, trying to get to Nathan, when we first got back. She felt bad, later, when she realized, and offered to do a healing for me. I agreed, on the proviso that she did just enough to ensure it wouldn't get infected." He smiled a little. "It actually feels quite pleasant.. warm and a bit tingly. And it eases the pain noticeably while it's going on."

"She kicked you?" Madelyn almost growled. "In the injured leg? It's a good thing I didn't see that, or it'd take more than a healing..."

"She kicked me in both legs... I was holding her back, and I think she has... well... less than pleasant emotional associations with being grabbed and held by large men." Hank smiled ruefully. "She didn't even realize it was injured until the next morning... and at least she didn't punch me. I've had that happen before, coming between a patient and a loved one."

"I think every doctor has had that, although I think I'd prefer a punch to a Doc Marten boot to a stab wound." Madelyn set down her coffee to pick up her fork and taste the cheesecake. "Oh, this is really good. Impeccable taste as always, Dr McCoy."

"Better the leg than potential marring of my rugged but handsome face," Hank grinned, trying his own cake. Mm. Chocolate gooood. "And I do my humble best, Doctor Bartlet, I thank you. Besides... I think we can both use a little treat, after this last week."

Madelyn thought there wasn't enough cheescake in the world to make up for the previous week, but she appreciated the thought. And it was good to get away from the school for a while. "You know, I really think we do deserve this," she said with a grin. "We did, after all, kick some major medical ass this week."

"We really did. We kicked ass, we stitched stitches, we took temperatures, and we wantonly practiced medicine in the face of all the odds." Hank grinned, toasting her with his coffee. "And after all that, we've kept our devastating good looks."