Logs ~ [Alison, Nathan] [Alison, Jean]

[x-dazzler.livejournal.com]

Mid-afternoon. While sticking to the quiet areas of the mansion, Alison stumbles upon someone else doing just that in the sunroom. There is talk of the team and one's limits - as well as those of others.

He was never going to get tired of this. Really. Nathan closed his eyes and just sat there, enjoying the warmth of the morning light pouring into the sunroom. He'd have to make his way down to the medlab in a little while for his rehab session, but right now, he had a serious sunlight deficit to correct. Idly, he wondered just how much of his mood, those weeks in the medlab, had been influenced by the lack of natural light. He wasn't Scott, but he liked being cooped up in a room without windows less than most people.

"You're going to turn into a beach bum if you're not careful," was the quiet remark, meant to be teasing but perhaps without the exact inflexion that required to the voice. Making her way to the windows, Alison leaned on a doorsill and looked outside, smiling a bit. It truly was nice outside. It called out to her and perhaps a jog wouldn't be a bad idea, for later.

"Sunlight deficit," Nathan protested with a smile, opening his eyes. "Seriously. Although I'm sure they were shooting me up with the requisite vitamins while I was down there; Hank's always complaining that I'm vitamin-deficient anyway, so I would think he seized the opportunity." He gave her a long, thoughtful look as she moved over to the windows. "I had the strangest dream last night."

A sidelong look greeted that remark, though Alison didn't comment on it immediately. "Having the medlab up above would be a bit touchy even at the best of times, sadly..." She went back to looking out the window for a moment, the reached over to open the upper portion, smiling at the pleasant breeze which immediately ran across the room. "Dream, huh?"

"Yeah. Although I'm not absolutely sure it was a dream." Nathan kept his voice light as he went on. "You know how I do whatever it is I do with the Askani, to let them manifest when they want? Apparently I've been branching out with that."

This time she did turn around, focusing on him entirely. "You've got that voice." Blinking a bit at his words she nodded slowly, waiting for him to explain further. He didn't sound horribly upset. No undertones to his voice that meant anything too bad was going to be talked about. Or so she thought, anyway.

"I've been talking to myself." He managed to get it out with a perfectly straight face; he thought that was something of an accomplishment. "Or a version of myself... maybe a part of myself? I'm not sure what to call him. I guessed that he was... uh, Cable, without the conditioning? And he sort of told me I was right..."

Oh, was that all? After everything else she'd seen and lived through, this seemed rather  mundane, all things told. "That you were right about what?" she asked, shifting a bit to settle in more comfortably.

"About what he was. Or who he was... I'm not sure how to put it." Nathan flexed his hand idly - that was turning into a nervous mannerism, he told himself as he made himself stop. "He was a bit of a bastard, to be honest. Which is only fair, given that he's me and I know I'm like that sometimes... and he wanted."

"You can be a bit single-minded when you've got your mind," her lips quirk at the entirely unintended pun, "set on something, yeah. What did that other you tell you about exactly. You still haven't told me that part." She smiled a bit though - he'd told her about the other self, at that.

"He told me a lot of things," Nathan hedged, but then shook his head, remembering one in particular. "Said something about how everything up until now had been me getting up out of the snow and picking up my sword." Which had been an odd metaphor, really.

Alison stared at him at those words, eyes widening slowly as she remembered what Askani had told her some time ago. And the dream Nathan had once unwittingly dragged her into. "The little boy lost in the storm..." A wave of both sorrow and relief accompanied those words, and Alison found herself smiling at him at that, eyes watering a bit. Trust Askani to precog the very words... or perhaps on some level, Nathan remembered that conversation, even though he'd not been present so to say. "Oh. That's good."

Nathan blinked, but made the connection. "Oh. Oh. I didn't even think..." He trailed off, shaking his head. "Strange. That if he was the Cable part of me, that he felt that connected to... the boy I was." He stared down at his hands for a long moment. "I'm talking in past-tense. I should explain why." He looked up at her. "I told him yes. That I wanted to be him. Which is what he wanted. He told me that he was what I'd been moving towards for the last year."

It would take a corner of his mind to up and decide to thwack him upside the head to help Nathan figure out he was moving beyond some things from his past... the mental image of the little boy lost wavered and faded, replaced instead with the solidity of the wall she was leaning on, the warmth of the sun streaming through the windows. "Of course he did." They all came from the same childhood after all. "So when you said yes… ?" She figured the portions of himself had merged back together, but didn't want to hazard the guess out loud.

"He was gone. But not, really...." Nathan tapped his temple lightly, almost speculatively. "There's this sense of balance that wasn't there before. Like there's solid ground in there, suddenly." He gave her a small, self-deprecating smile. "I slept... really well last night. I don't even think I dreamed."

Doing a giddy dance would be juvenile and silly, so instead Alison just nodded, and then ducked her head and turned to look out the window, smiling at herself. It was silly to feel proud of him, she thought - he was older for one thing. Right? But still. "Well... I'd say a sound sleep means good things, right?"

He gave her a long, steady look. "I'm coming back to the team," he said finally. Wondering if he was maybe stating the obvious - there were certainly a number of people around here who'd assumed that he was, long since. "I was pretty sure I was beforehand. Now I'm positive." Nathan took a deep breath, gazing out at the grounds and the blue sky beyond the glass. "'Don't wimp out on me just because you're tired'. That's what he said."

Something his internal self had decided Nathan needed, and something Nathan himself had realized he needed as well. Need being rife with sub-meanings as well, at that. "Mmm. There's a difference between stopping to catch your breath and all of that, though." Reminders weren't a bad thing, though she thought he knew now. Enough to figure out stuff on his own for sure, at that. "Heh. Don't mind me. It's something I've just been reminding myself of, lately. But I'm glad you've made the decision to come back for yourself." It merited saying.

"He said it would be an easier decision to make now, too," Nathan murmured, rubbing at his jaw. "That if I waited, the waters would be muddied, and I'd never be sure that I made the decision for the right reasons." He looked up at Alison with a very faint smile. "I was tempted to ask him if he was the precognitive part of me or what, too, but it slipped my mind."

"Or maybe you knew that you wouldn't get the answer to that question," she teased him lightly, offering him a smile in return. "It's good to now you make a decision for the right reasons..." She trailed off at that, gaze drifting away from him for a moment as her thoughts turned inward. "Mmm." Alison shook her head a bit, dispelling the mood. "How's the therapy going?"

"I think it's going well. Wears me out, though, and the pain's pretty constant. But I can live with it, especially knowing that it will get better." The faint smile came back, lingered for a moment, then faded. "I say that now. If you'd asked me right after a session, I might have sounded more pessimistic."

"It's the knowing the pain will get better that helps." She knew there was still a faint edge to her voice as she said that - the same one which had been present back then, when she'd kept reminding herself of that fact. "But if you want, I can stick around to remind you after a session, now and then." She continued peaceably. "Even if the pain makes you want to twist off the head of anyone reminding you of that."

He chuckled softly. "That might help." He was quiet for another long moment. "Some stuff... is going to have to go, I think. If I'm going to get myself back into shape... mentally, not just physically... I'm going to have to do some pruning."

Giving him a long look, Alison finally just nodded at him. It was almost odd, the synchronicity. Then again - perhaps not. There was Youra to take into account for Nathan which despite how it had affected everyone else, was bound to have had a few life changing consequences for him. To say the least. "Too much and you end up getting stretched so thing you end up - yeah. I think I know what you mean," she added softly. "Well, maybe I do. In general at least. What were you thinking of specifically?"

"Fewer classes next term. I overstretched myself this term even before Mistra started blowing up in my face." He shifted a little in the wheelchair again, wincing. "No more individual powers training beyond what I've already committed to, unless it's team-related. That's gone too wrong too often."

"Mmm. I'm going to drop dancing, maybe. Or at least get someone else in full time to help Kurt and stand in as backup to replace. History of music won't be repeated - one shot thing, or maybe once a year. I'll see how I feel later on..." She was still keeping Jono as her TA, even if things weren't resolved yet - there had been encouraging news from Hank there and that was what mattered. "I'm still helping Dani with her training. It's really basic stuff anyone could help with and I think that the fact that I help her with Tai Chi means she's associating me to calm things in general. It's not a bad thing, that." She cocked her head to the side and smiled a bit. "I've already been seeing the difference with what I've cut down on so far," she offered, a touch tentatively. "It's been... nice."

"Three classes instead of six for me, maybe," Nathan murmured, then shook his head. "Something I can talk about with Charles, in any case." He stared out through the windows, his gaze very distant for a few moments. "And I don't know whether it's the fatigue talking, or what, but I think I need to watch myself with the kids, too."

"Huh." He had been doing a lot of processing. "Nathan?" The look he gave her was an invitation to continue, which she did. "It's just a thought, but did you ever think that the fact that you never had the chance to experience a normal teenage social structure on your own may be why... well, you've sort of been doing that here now?"

His lips twitched at the delicacy of her phrasing. "It's a interesting dilemma, isn't it? I've been relating to them on a level that has made a lot of them feel like they can talk to me, can trust me... but maybe that hasn't been the wisest thing to do." Nathan took a deep breath, carefully, then let it out again. "I get dragged into their patterns, too often. Instead of functioning within my own."

Ooh, so many things she could say here, some of them linked to her own experiences and some just from watching everything else going on - both before and of late, with the changes she'd slowly slid into her own habits and interactions. "Well, you're still," she paused, and shook her head a bit, "you were still working out your own. Sounds like you've figured out a fair bit of that lately, though."

"I've had a lot of time to think lately." He bent the still-bandaged arm back and forth at the elbow, ignoring the discomfort. "I can still be there for them. Can still love them," he added more quietly. "I don't think I could stop that even if I wanted to. But I need to remember there are things I can't do. Things I can't be, and shouldn't be trying to be. No matter how much... they might want me to be."

The long look she gave him spoke volumes, even if Alison didn't say what she was thinking just then. "I know." Or how much you wish you could do those things. "I know," she repeated softly, before reaching out to push one of the drapes a bit more, re-adjusting it to the sunlight still reached him despite the change in the shadows.

"I am what I am," Nathan said, and then laughed a bit hollowly. "Sounds hackneyed, doesn't it? But for all that I fussed and fretted about people asking more than what I had left to give..." He stopped, then shook his head again. Alison didn't know about those talks with Jack, but thankfully, she didn't look too perplexed by his comment. "You can draw lines when it comes to human relationships, too, not just in the field. Sometimes retreat is the right thing in both places." He paused, a faint, wistful smile flickering across his. "You'd think I'd have learned that love doesn't have to weigh you down. What I have with Moira, even before we admitted it to ourselves... it frees both of us."

"It's something we always keep learning," Alison murmured, looking down at her feet as she spoke. Impulsively, she wiggled her toes through the socks and smiled a bit, remembering the first time she'd figured out Haroun had apparently decided on a liking for her toes. It still amused her, that. As silly and simple as it was. Or maybe because it was silly and simple. "Sometimes it's not so much retreat as just balance, too." She looked up again, tilting her head to the side just a bit. "Whatever the relationship is, friendship or romance or even just acquaintances... there's a give and take that requires balance."

"I haven't always been a burden," Nathan muttered, more to himself than to her. There wasn't perfect conviction behind the words, but there was more firmness there that there would have been a week ago. "For all my catastrophes..."

"My life would be lesser for you not having been in it," Alison replied calmly. It was a badly rendered translation of the Askani version of the saying, but it was accurate enough nonetheless. And, as far as Alison was concerned, very true.

He looked up, gazing at her for a long moment before he smiled, a bit tentatively. "Likewise," he said softly, then went on more briskly. "I suppose this is where I start working on forgiving myself for being human."

The words brought a reaction Nathan perhaps hadn't expected. A sudden, wide grin, with a hint of something that said 'about time' to it. "I think you've already made a pretty big step you're not even seeing right there, but I'll agree with you and leave it at that," Alison said, trying to dim the smile a little bit at least. She liked the wording of that sentence.

"You're too kind," Nathan said dryly. "I expect to backslide. Feel free to point it out to me when I do."

"Well, since you're asking, I think I can do that just a bit." The aswer was serene, and Alison was about to say something else when her eyes fell on the clock on the far side of the room. "Huh. Look at that." She pushed away from the windowsill and gave Nathan a sheepish look. "Training session in the Danger Room. And then I have my medical eval... I'll see you later?"

Nathan nodded, smiling again. He'd sit here and enjoy the sun until it was time to go down for his rehab session, he told himself. Still had a number of things to mull over, after all.

~*~

Early Evening. After the training session in the Danger Room and having a bit of time before her medical evaluation, Alison decides to sneak out to show Marie-Ange the look of the design the redhead made for her new leathers. She ends up running into another redhead else instead and her plans are rather derailed in the process.

Taking a deep breath, Alison closed the door to the Danger Room. The exercise had been arduous to say the least and she could feel her skin still thrumming from output of the sonic generators now integrated to her new outfit, but it had gone well and she was... rather happy about her performance, at that. She'd done well. Scott had muttered something about taking her out to play pool one of these days, with that corner grin that meant his sense of humor was most certainly kicking in and then some, too.

A grin escaped her at that and she headed down the hallway, looking rather like a small child who had just been handed a lollipop. The bounce shot had been neatly done, she remembered, revising through some of the highlights of the training session in her mind, testing her legs as she walked for any sign of soreness. There wasn't anything that stood out as bad, even, or that required specific work - it had been a general exercise meant to push her aim and shoot skills as well as team work, and she'd done well by all standards. A hum escaped her and instead of heading for the lockers she decided to step out to show off the looks of the uniform to Marie-Ange. Skulking about the school in leathers to find the red head was probably silly, but she thought there would be amusement at that anyway. Unzipping the front of her jacket, Alison peeled it off and slung it over her shoulder, the cool air of the corridor brushing against her now bare back pleasantly after the heat from the workout. She snickered as the door opened in front of her, remembering the looks of surprise from all those who had been at the training session in which she'd premiered the look.

Jean blinked and stepped back, startled as the door hissed open, apparently unconnected to her attempts to get it to do so. For some reason her passcodes to the team level weren't working anymore - she
wasn't going down to train, of course, but Charles wasn't in his office and she needed to speak with him, and mentally yelling with no ability to project or aim was just so undignified. But it was clear that the door had opened for an entirely different reason than her asking it to, and that reason was standing right in front of her.

"Alison," she said, startled. "Have they changed the regulation leathers?" It was a very stupid question, but then, she was feeling very off balance about the whole situation.

"Hey," was the first, automatic reply. A sidelong look was granted to the panel by the door by reflex, since there wasn't much reason for Jean to be standing in front of the door other than the facts that 1) she'd been trying to get in and 2) her codes were no longer active. Or even existent in the database at that.

"No. I just changed mine recently." Since Youra, where hers had been severely mangled, though with no harm brought to herself. She lifted a hang up, waggling her now bare fingertips though the knuckles were
obviously not only padded but also protected with some sort of shell for extra cushioning. "I'm going through gloves at an impressive rate for one thing, and the back..." She trailed off. There weren't any words to explain really, and 'in tribute to someone' seemed rather... weak. So instead she smiled just a bit and shrugged. "This suits my sense of style better." Cocking her head to the side, she stepped out, letting the door close shut behind her. "Were you looking for someone?"

Right, lasers. Not so much with the gloves... "Charles, yes," Jean answered, "he's not in his office but the door wasn't accepting my passcode." She hadn't actually meant to mention it to Alison, it had just sort of slipped out as she mentally reached out for verbal  footing and missed rather badly.

A glance towards the panel, Alison blinking once before turning to nod at Jean in a matter of fact way. "The codes cycle now," and if there was a brief hesitation there, one could pass it off on one's imagination, "and only team members and trainees, with supervision, have access to the team areas now. Part of the new security procedures..." Shifting her weight absently, Alison continued. "Charles isn't there at the moment. Entries are logged and I didn't see him listed," she added by way of explanation.

Jean took a breath to say something and then stopped herself. There was something... Alison's shields were too strong for it to be anything she had thought, but something in her words, in her tone... Her eyes narrowed as she got it - what she had said wasn't a brush off, it was the absolute truth. Only team members had access, and Jean was no longer considered a team member. Jean, who had been an X-Man practically since before there were X-Men. Jean was not, and this... this... this washed up rock-star was. Jean could feel her emotional control heading out the window and tried to focus past it, tried to shut it away to deal with later, with minimal success. But it was enough that she could answer, "Ah, well then, he must be out. I'll just have to wait until he returns." And her voice didn't even shake.

There it was again, that shifting of emotions, similar to the one she'd thought seeing the last time she and Jean had spoken. It wasn't just her imagination, though - there definitely seemed to be something going on, directly involving her at that... and well, the dislike had seemed almost palpable there until it had been smoothly tucked away, at that. So, no. Not her imagination. For some reason, Jean had taken an intense dislike to her.

Oh well.

The chat had been nice, but now her search for Marie-Ange was most certainly foiled in terms of timing. She had just enough time to take a shower and then wander to the medlab for her physical, a final follow-up on the now healed injuries she'd earned… that weekend. "Well. It's been nice, and I hope you find Charles soon, but I have to go shower and then head over to the medlab for my physical..."

Oh hell, Jean had forgotten about that. But that was work. She could be professional about work. As she'd told Manuel, she would hardly be a very effective doctor if she could only treat people she was immensely fond of. "If Charles is out he is out and I can talk with him later. I believe your appointment is scheduled for three thirty, and I have some things to finish first."

Blink. "I'll let him know you were looking if I see him." Another blink. There'd been mention of something changing on the medical schedule, she remembered that clearly... Oooh. That. "That's right. You're in charge of the team physicals now." Alison murmured the words, as much to herself as to Jean really. "Well - I'll get showered and be there for three thirty then." The pointed remark about Jean having things to do seemed to require that. She reached towards the panel without ever looking at it, thumbing in her code absently, intent on heading back towards the locker room. "See you then."

Jean nodded. "Until then."

---

Jean closed the program on the computer and shut it off. The weekly diagnostics on the machines had come up clean when she'd run them, but Hank had gone over them anyways during the night shift and made a few adjustments, all of which had now been logged. One of the younger students had come in with a skinned knee and a deep desire for a better band-aid than could be gotten upstairs, so she only just had time to get Alison's file out and skim it over again, checking to see if there had been any new additions made since the last time she'd seen it.

Other than the notes relating to the mission on the 3rd of April, there was nothing new there other than the following check-ups to monitor the injuries that had been incurred then. The last notes clearly implied that Alison should be fine for the following check-up - as evinced by the skip in the woman's step as she crossed the threshold of the medlab.

Alison nodded in polite greeting, still enjoying the simple feeling of being able to walk, distributing her balance correctly, without hurting. At all. The usual latent discomfort at being in the medlab was there, of course, but she was more than used to it, though usually she had the banter of whoever was the doctor on duty at the time to help keep herself from focusing on it overmuch...

"Ah, Alison, right on time," Jean said, looking up with a smile as her professional Bedside-Manner mode slipped into place over any other feelings she might have. Jean was proud of the fact that very few things or people could disturb her professionalism when it came to medicine, and was determined that Alison Blaire was not going to be one of them. "Come in, take a seat."

Unzipping the hooded cotton zip-up she was wearing, Alison walked to the chair and did as instructed, relaxing back in the chair slowly. She stretched her neck absently, and then focused on Jean - this was the doctor's dance to lead, as it were after all. Biting back on the chitchat she usually indulged in when in the medlab was hard, but she'd manage.

"So how have you been feeling?" Jean asked. "No new problems come up during training?"

Lips quirking slightly at that, Alison shook her head. "I don't usually get injured in training." Unlike some, she favored being careful about that sort of stuff. Which now meant a house would fall on her head during training, or something, just to teach her better. "I keep that for missions and stuff." No doing it halfway there, too. "The session earlier went fine," she continued, a bit more seriously. "Ribs felt fine and generally everything else too."

"Of course not," Jean agreed affably, "but it is always possible for old injuries to be exacerbated or revealed through pushing yourself too hard. But I'm glad to hear things are going well. If you'll change into the dressing gown," she indicated the one laying across the examination table, "we'll take a look at those ribs."

A short nod and Alison rose to her feet, dropping the jacket on the chair. The door was closed and clearly she wasn't concerned at all about changing in front of Jean, as shown by the way she neatly stripped out of the cotton jogging pants and camisole set she was wearing, keeping the socks on in tribute to the cold floor. The dressing gown was slipped on with a faint wrinkling of the nose, and finally Alison wandered over to the examination table, though she merely leaned on it, waiting for Jean's instructions. "All ready."

Whether or not Alison was comfortable with it, Jean had years of training in discretion and giving people space without going anywhere and she managed to give off the 'paying you no attention vibe working over here on this machine' until Alison said she was ready. "X-rays first. We'll get a look at how those ribs are doing."

Of course. Alison reached up behind her neck and undid the clasp of the golden chain she hadn't thought to remove - the Arabic character glinted in the light as she carefully set it down on top of her clothing, and then followed Jean to the small X Ray room linked to the office. The obligatory padded vest was set in place once Alison was lying down on the table and if she felt uncomfortable in the room, weighed down by the vest, Alison didn't say anything out loud about it.

Jean stepped behind the screen to the controls and the machine whirred and clicked a few times. "There we go," she said. "Now let me get a look at the bruises. Stiffness going away, I presume?"

Pushing up to sit on the table, Alison nodded. "Yes. Been doing the exercises Hank gave me every day now, and the bruises are almost all gone." She hadn't covered the ones still lingering faintly on her face, after the shower, knowing she was coming in to see Jean after all. "I don't even notice it unless I really pay attention to it. Wearing the leathers in training helps, too. They're snug enough around the ribs to help out, there."

Jean came to stand in front of Alison, very lightly turning the other woman's face to get a closer look at the very faint remains of the bruises. "Yes, the swelling is almost all gone. Any lingering soreness?"

"Eating is no longer the challenge is used to be," Alison answered a bit dryly, unwittingly falling back on her habit of bantering in the medlab. "It's fine mostly. Yawning reminds me it's there, or leaning on my hand when I'm reading. That's about it." She started to swing her legs a bit then checked herself and stopped.

But Jean smiled an honest smile at the banter. "Glad to hear that," she said. "We have enough residents skipping meals, although most of them have less cause. And your arms?" The marks there were even fainter, although she could see a few small blue spots from blood clots which hadn't been broken down yet.

"Food is good," Alison muttered, her face clearly reflecting her thoughts at that particular habit some had. "Takes a lot to make me forget about that." She stretched out both arms for inspection, cocking her head to the side. "Only started using them in sparring to block again this week, with some extra padding, but I haven't felt a thing out of place, really." After a short pause, she reluctantly continued. "Hank said my pain threshold has changed though, since what happened last year." She looked down at her arms and shrugged. "Probably already noted in my file, but - yeah."

She spotted a faint scar on Alison's arm and her memory offered her the appropriate notes from the woman's file - Sabertooth, Magneto. Mistra. Jean might not like to admit it to herself, but Alison was holding her own as an X-Man." Yes, it is," Jean said simply, "but that can have both its good sides and its bad ones. It looks as though you've been taking very good care of yourself, though, and as long as nothing abnormal shows up on your x-rays I'd say we can take you off the medical list."

"Off the medical list." Alison smiled faintly at that, lowering her arm once Jean was done. And swung her legs a bit this time, giving herself that much leeway, suddenly deciding not to dampen down on everything just because of what she'd perceived later. "Good." She was perking up at the thought, distinctly so.

"Just let me get some vitals for the records and you're good to go," Jean told her, amused by the leg swinging. She picked up the blood pressure cuff and slipped it around Alison's arm, settling it on a patch of arm that had slightly fewer bruises.

"Yes ma'am," was the obedient reply. Habit wasn't a bad thing, really, and in the medlab whichever doctor was there ruled as far as Alison was concerned. It was How Things Should Be and suited Alison perfectly well at that. The leg swinging stopped for as long as needed for Jean to take her pressure, and then resumed, subtly so. "Are you taking over my sound checks too?" Alison asked curiously.

The numbers were noted and the pressure released from the cuff. "Depends on when you do them," she said, moving to note the results down. "We decided that it didn't make sense for you to have to schedule them around our schedules, so whoever is on duty when you want to do them will supervise. Could you hop on the scale for me?"

"Sounds good," Alison agreed amiably, slipping off the table to head towards the set of scales. "Have to work on my no injuries record," she muttered lowly, standing still as Jean ticked the weights steadily towards a state of balance. "Needs to get longer." It wasn't half as bad as some of the more regular residents of the medlab, but still.

"Every doctor worth their salt would like to be out of work," Jean said, writing down the numbers, "but I'd say the four of us are pretty much guaranteed never to be." She looked up from the file and smiled. "And I think you're done. Unless there's anything else you're worried about?"

Starting to shake her head no, Alison suddenly stopped, considering. "Well..." She headed back towards the chair with her clothes, absently starting the process of getting changed. The room felt a touch chilly still and she wanted to be back in her warmer clothes, suddenly. The chain was picked up first, and held in her hand carefully. "Do you have anything for the odd bout of nausea?"

Jean blinked for a second, then nodded. "Anything stronger than Pepto-Bismol, you mean? Certainly." She pulled one of their prescription pads out of the drawer and dropped it next to Alison's file - she'd fill it out of the mansion's supplies, of course, but that didn't mean they were lax about their record keeping. "Do you know what it's a symptom of? You're in far too good health for it to be the flu."

She knew only too well what it was a symptom of. The thought slid away from the surface of her mind even as it took shape in her mind, hidden underneath layers of what still felt like ice to her, when she was able to notice it. "I don't think it's the flu... just happens every now and then." And because it was a valid excuse and in it's own way perfectly true, Alison continued. "Maybe it's related to the stress."

Jean couldn't figure out why Alison was suddenly thinking about ice, but that, too, was probably related to the stress she was under. "Quite possibly," Jean agreed. "Ok, then. Go ahead and get dressed and I'll go get the meds." She stepped out of the room, mind flicking through possibilities and automatically discounting all of the ones which had painkillers or numbing side-effects.

Memories curled under the cover of the shields set in her mind and Alison dressed slowly, taking her time - the methodical way she put on each item of clothes and the slow, steady breathing almost akin to one putting on armor before going to battle. The chain was put on last and she kept her hand on the pendant for a moment, before finally shaking herself a bit, ready to head outside the office to accept whatever medication Jean had finally settled upon.