xp_logs | Domino and Remy, Thursday night / Domino and Amanda, Friday morning

Thursday night. A still jetlagged Dom makes a food run to the kitchen and finds Remy letting one of Lorna's dinners go to waste. They talk a little and she passes along an offer from Bridge.

Moira and Nathan's kitchen had been rather empty - surprisingly so, but she supposed they'd had enough on their minds lately that restocking their shelves wasn't high on the priority list - so Domino had been forced to go downstairs to find something to eat. All she'd had in the last twenty-four hours had been plane food and fast food from a place in Heathrow when she'd changed planes. After food, then sleep. It had been a hectic week.

Remy sipped his coffee at the table, staring out the windows and into the black expense of the school's grounds. He'd gotten back a few hours before from a contact upstate, yet another in what was becoming an endless sequence of identical days. As much as he hated to admit it, even his gloomy predictions on how much of the intelligence net could be save seemed too high. Wisdom was just too good, and already he was shifting things through other channels, likely direct to the Hellfire Club council themselves. LeBeau could sense the flow of information, but couldn't find it.

With a sigh, he turned back to the plate that Lorna had left him. Even hurt and with other cooks in the kitchen, she always made sure there was something there in the same spot. For once, he had no appitite.

Domino spotted the man at the table and paused, raising an eyebrow. Fuck it, she thought and walked into the kitchen, heading over to the fridge. "Insert small talk here," she said, opening the fridge and not bothering with the 'ooh, look at me, I'm such an airhead' act. It became less plausible the older she got, anyway, and she was too jet-lagged to put any real effort in it at this point.

Remy darkly quelled his immediate response of what she could insert and where. "Not much for it myself." He settled on finally, not looking for another dance around with Nate's merc bunny. He took another look at the rissoto in front of him and pushed the plate away. Another coffee dinner was going to earn him a lecture from Lorna, but right now, he really didn't care.

"Looks like one of Lorna's dinners you're letting go to waste there," Domino said, glancing back at him for a moment. "I remember her making sure I ate when I was here hurt last summer."

"Not hungry. If you want it, go ahead." Remy looked back into his coffee cup and then outside again. "Lorna makes sure dat everyone eats. Dat's her thing. Almost a mutant power." He took another long sip, wishing that he was allowed to smoke in the kitchen, and too tired to be bothered going outside.

Domino got a bottle of juice out of the fridge and came back over to the table, sitting down across from him and pulling the plate over to her. "Came here to lick my wounds after running afoul of the Russian mafia, and a couple of days later Nate gets himself half-killed in that mess at Columbia," she said idly. "Wasn't a good week." She picked at the food, eyeing Remy. "You don't look like you're having a good month. Lots of running around playing clean-up, I imagine."

"Well, thanks to Wisdom, Wal-Mart has better intelligence den us right now. Not only are our nets burned, but we can assume dat he's given dem full profiles on de mansion and capabilities as well." Remy shrugged. "Not dat de Professor or Kuk seem to think dats something to worry 'bout. I've got one resource to apply, no support, and half de people here still seem to think dat either dis is all some big plan or dat Pete's still not willing to harm dem, which makes Remy de paranoid." LeBeau shook his head and reapplied himself to the cup. "So, oui, not a good month."

"I saw him in Boston last week. Hence the report in your database that you've probably already read, so I really don't know why I'm reiterating," Domino said. Definitely Lorna-food. Her voice was a little flat as she went on, although it wasn't directed at the man sitting across from her. "He's given up, basically. Or at least that's how I see it. Stopped trying. That was Nate's interpretation too when he took a look at my memory of the conversation, and he's known Pete for longer than I have."

"Given up? Non, he's sold us out, de fuck." Remy clamped down on his temper. He'd had this conversation before, and needed to stop letting it touch him. "So now he's got all de money and power he wants, and all it took was delivering de entire school over to people like Shaw."

Domino raised an eyebrow. "I'm no mindreader, but this is sounding as much personal as professional on your part," she said. "Although don't get me wrong, I live in a glass house when it comes to having a personal reaction to this, so I'm hardly throwing stones."

"It's all sorts of personal. De professional part is where de real danger is. Personally, I want to cut Wisdom's throat and pull his fucking tongue through de hole. Professionally, I need to shut him down because he represents a larger potential threat to de school den even dat Magneto." Remy put down his cup and leaned back. "It's so nice when de two come together. De only fly in de gumbo is dat Xavier won't allow de gloves off wit' Pete, and de fact is dat professionally, he's going to win. He's got de experience, de resources, and no limitations on what he can do in de field."

"Going to win at what?" Domino sipped at her juice. "I don't deny that there's all kind of shit he can and probably will stir up, some of which will almost certainly interact very badly with the sort of thing the X-Men like to do. But he didn't join the Hellfire Club to take out the school, LeBeau. The opposite... and before you say it, of course he could have been lying to me. But he's never been very good at doing that, with me... lying, I mean."

"Assuming dat he even gives a shit 'bout de school at all. Which he specifically pointed out he didn't." Remy shook his head. "Maybe you right, and Wisdom is over dere to protect us all. Who knows? We won't, because we don't have a chance in hell of catching up to him, or having de slightest clue what he's doing."

"I didn't say I thought he was there to protect anyone, except Amanda and Romany," Domino said a bit sharply. "Don't put words in my mouth. He just said something that made me think it was partially about counterbalancing Shaw. Because of what he did to de la Rocha." Her fingers curled around the bottle of juice. "Might be an excuse, or something he told me to soften the whole ripping my heart out and stomping on it trick he then proceeded to pull. I don't know. I don't care. As far as I'm concerned, whatever the fuck his motivations were, he's the enemy as long as he's sitting at the table with Shaw." She smiled, a bit tightly. "Insert unnecessary explanation of nasty past experiences here."

"Past experiences. Dat would make things so much easier." Remy got up and filled his cup from the pot, scowling slightly. Obviously someone else was filling the coffee maker these days, as the smell of something obvious prepackaged hit him. There were also some little purple hairs near it, speculation of which Remy put off for another time. "So, if Pete de enemy, we still screwed."

"Depends on where your paths intersect, and how," Domino said, picking at the food some more. "The X-Men are going to have a hell of a time if they wind up doing anything against the Inner Circle's interests." And the thought of Nate and Pete ending up on the opposite side of anything was not filling her with joy, to put it extremely mildly. "It depends entirely on him and Frost, I'd think, as to how much splashes back on the school if... or when that happens." When was probably a much better bet.

"Assuming dat Shaw isn't de one setting de pace for de whole time." Remy took a sip, made a face, and sat back down. "Or if, thanks to Pete taking our intelligence and flushing it, dat Magneto doesn't completely blindside us and turn dis place into a warzone. Pete's fucked de rest of dis school because we got half de chances of seeing something coming. Dat could easily get someone here killed."

"Bridge had to flush most of our European contacts, but we've got a whole network of contacts in the Middle East Pete knew nothing about. Ones that Rabin set up while he was still Mossad." Domino shrugged, a bit uneasily. She didn't like the man, but the Pack had agreed they had a vested interest in the welfare of the school, and told her to make the offer if the opportunity arose. "We lost most of our contacts in Russia, but we're still looking good in the rest of Asia. I don't know if any of that's useful, but we're willing to share. That's what Nate and I were talking about after you went looking for your bottle."

"Talk to Jake. He's got de Asian basis already. He'll plug dem in." Remy said, ignoring the bottle comment and giving her the opprotunity to avoid him. Besides, apparently she and Jake were old friends in any case.

"Fair enough. We don't want to see this place turn into a warzone any more than you do," Domino said. "And we learned a long time ago to step very carefully around the Hellfire Club." It struck her that utensils might be a good idea, but no one who'd care was around to complain about her eating with her hands.

"I killed London's Rook back in '92. Good times." Remy said sourly, returning his interest to his coffee. The stuff was burning a hole in his gut, but it was condusive to brooding.

"Shaw had me kidnapped when I was seventeen, to make Nate take a second contract from him. That all turned out very messily..." Domino trailed off, remembering. "Intersections," she said. "Make it much harder for the odds to fall in your favor." She offered a faint smile. "Probability doesn't get warped that far, unless you're me, or Wanda..."

"Or dis fucking school, it seems. Ten impossible things a week and counting." Remy took a long sip and reached for his pocket, scowling as he realised that he still couldn't smoke here. "Took dem almost thirty years to dig de Hellfire Club's claws out of de Agency. Even den, same problems."

"Maybe I ought to stick around?" Domino suggested half-whimsically. "Bring a little good luck to the proceedings..." She shook her head. "On the other hand, that would involve actually living in the United States, and why would I want to start doing that now?"

"I doubt anyone's power is enough to do dat." Remy groused, leaning back in his chair. "'sides, you end up one of dem X-Men inside of a month, like Nate."

"I don't hardly think so. Then again, if you'd asked me a year ago if Nathan would be doing something like this, I'd have thrown a straitjacket at you." She shrugged. "Things change. I'm tired of resisting it. At this point, with this latest mess, I'll be happy enough if I'm around to look back on it in a year, one way or another."

"I wouldn't count on it." Remy said darkly. "Way things are going, 'less dat luck of yours applies to everyone, we headed for something bad. Only now, we got no way to see it ahead of time."

"Well, there's what we call a defeatist attitude." Domino decided she was done nibbling, and got up, taking her juice with her. "I'll grab Jake about those contacts. He and I can get it sorted out pretty quickly. I'll offer him cake or something."

"You do dat. Homme sell his soul for a cheesecake." Remy didn't look up from the window as she left, staring sightlessly out over the dark grounds, trying vainly to figure out what to do, and coming up frighteningly empty.

Friday morning. Before the suite-move, Amanda steals a few minutes alone with Dom on the back porch.

"Still pretty here," Domino murmured, leaning heavily on the railing and staring out at the grounds. "Although you should see Tunis, little sis. I think the place is going to grow on me, bizarre local cultural mores or not." She looked sideways at Amanda, smiling. "The sky just goes on forever."

"I'd like t' see it one day," Amanda said with a sad smile as she realised that her days of running off with the Pack were probably over for a good while. Between Meggan, and... other reasons. "So, how're you dealin' with the whole Muslim thing? I'm surprised they haven't stoned you yet."

"Tunis itself is fairly cosmopolitan, all things considered," Domino allowed, "and contrary to how Nate and GW like to paint me, I am capable of restraining myself. Upon occasion." She winked at Amanda, then turned her attention back to the grounds. "Ani's already drooling at the idea of spending the next six months there just painting."

"Good t' hear, that you're not gettin' into trouble just yet - I'd hate t' transfer me worryin' t' you." Amanda blew a plume of smoke out over the railing. She was standing downwind of Domino, unconsciously mimicking her position leaning against the railing. "So Ani's joinin' you lot? That's good, she needs a pack, an' somewhere she feels comfortable."

"Ani and Piers, one of the other first-gens. He's feral too," Domino explained, then shrugged. "We're happy to have them both. Hell, we'd have taken any of the surviving first-gens who wanted to come, but the others have either made other arrangements or are too hurt to make any decisions about their lives just yet."

"'S good, that they have somewhere t' go if they want it." Amanda's tone, and expression, were unreadable. For good or ill, the school was now that one place for her - Alison's talk had impressed that on her. And the news of Pete's... 'defection' was too soft a word.

"And not just because any of them are probably the equal in the field of any of us," Domino said dryly, watching the smoke curl off the end of Amanda's cigarette. "Although that is a plus, if we get back onto the job market at some point." She shrugged again. "It's funny, we've been talking about taking a break since Nate left, and now we're finally doing it. I kind of like the idea, to be honest..." Her eyes were shadowed for a moment. "Did I tell you I was in the Sudan a couple of months ago?" Just before Pete left. "In Darfur, where the genocide's been going on."

"Well, yeah, there's that too." Amanda gave her a wry smile. "Never said I had the scary operative brain like the rest of you. 'S just the magic for me." She caught the change in Domino's tone, and raised her eyebrows. "Bad?"

"Probably the worst I've ever seen," Domino said impassively. "It... puts things in perspective. I couldn't sleep on the plane home. Sat there and stared out the window, thinking that I was twenty-three years old, and if I had all those years ahead of me to see worse than that, maybe I ought to do some rethinking." She leaned a little more heavily on the railing, giving Amanda a self-deprecating smile. "Then I got some sleep and came somewhat to my senses. I think I may go back, since we'll be in Africa for the immediate future anyway. Do a little pro bono work."

"'S funny, just when you think you've seen it all, as bad as it can get, along comes somethin' worse. People can be right monsters, when they want t' be." Amanda shifted, moving slightly closer to Domino and brushing her shoulder with her own. Not a hug, since neither of them were up for that, not with the knowledge of where Pete was now hanging between them. desperately ignored. But contact, all the same. "Even if it don't seem like much, doin' yer bit helps." Be it an explosion in the right place, or taking in a small furry girl. Meggan was with Nate right now - she'd left the two of them napping together on the couch. There might be photos later.

"Maybe Nate's contagious. He gave me this look when I told him what I was thinking of doing, you know. Proud sort of look..." Domino trailed off, wondering about that. Here Pete had decided that he was tired of doing the right thing, and she suddenly developed a desire to try filling his shoes on that score? There were probably all kinds of nasty psychological explanations behind that. "He tell you he's going back to the X-Men when he heals up?" she asked, casting around for a change in subject.

"Not in so many words, but I figured he would - 's too important to him t' just stop, even after what happened with the last mission." Oh, there were all sorts of landmines here - Youra and Nathan's state of mind then wasn't exactly comfortable either.

"I'm liking what I hear and see when I talk to him these days," Domino said thoughtfully, after a moment. "He's steadier than he's been in a long time. Since before he started having those damned visions, even. I think he's sorted some stuff out, finally... and seeing Mistra go down is probably helping, even given what happened." Oh, she was not having a craving for a cigarette. Really. She needed to remember she'd quit years ago. "Funny world," she said. "Things have changed so much..."

"'S good t' see - he was so..." No, not using the word 'broken'. "Adrift, before. Tryin' t' find his place - looks like maybe he's found it. At least he's stopped blamin' himself for every little thing." Amanda snorted wryly, and took the last drag on her cigarette, noticing the little looks Domino was darting in the direction of the smoke. "Here's a change for you - I'm cuttin' back on the fags. Down t' a couple a day, from a pack an' a half. Two on me bad days." The grin she gave Domino was half-proud, half-cynical. "Can't smoke 'round the little bit, can I?"

"Good for you. Cold turkey isn't for everyone, and yeah, you shouldn't be smoking around the kid." Domino smiled a little, thinking about how they'd left Nathan and Meggan. "I was kind of flummoxed to hear about her, but she's really sweet, Amanda. I'm glad you've got her here where Moira and the other experts can help her."

"Apparently I can do some things right after all," Amanda said with another of those grins. The talks with Nathan and Alison had hit her hard in the confidence, but she was determined to show everyone she could do this. Especially when they felt she couldn't. "Seein' her in that cage like that, the way she latched onto me... I couldn't leave her." Not this time. There'd been enough leaving, Amanda decided.

"You'll have to send me pictures. Promise you'll send me pictures? I'll set up your laptop with everything you need to send right to one of my new accounts..."

Amanda chuckled, relaxing slightly. At least she wasn't being cut out of the loop. "The cutest ones I can find," she promised. "Need t' practice the people shots any way, an' once Meg's used t' the flash, I'll have the perfect subject."

"Ah, good." Domino pondered for a moment. "Mina's talking about getting pregnant," she volunteered, out of nowhere.

"Takin' Moira's example, is she? If she an' Nate don't get a move on, the baby'll be makin' a surprise visit t' the weddin'." Amanda was amused. "You still goin' t' that, whatever they decide t' do?"

"Of course I am. We all are," Domino said firmly. "And I gather it may be sooner than you think. Date-wise, I mean... Moira was chirping happily at me when I got in this morning."

"Good. Didn't know how big this disappearin' act was gunna be." There was no accusation in Amanda's tone, just a certain relief - she knew why the Pack had upped stakes and moved to Africa, and a remote part at that - admittedly she wasn't trained like they were, but she had hung around Nate and Dom and Remy and... other people long enough to know what was going on. Pete going to... those people meant that the Pack had to cut ties and lay low.

"There's no reason for... anyone to be interested in us if we're not actually working," Domino said delicately, then laughed wryly. "Although we may have to take a rather indirect route there and back. We should make Theo swim."

"Nah, he'll have that wet dog smell all through the ceremony," Amanda joked, and nudged Domino gently with her shoulder again. "Dom? Can I ask you something?"

"Sure, sweetie."

"This... what's happened. That's not gunna change us, is it?" Amanda was pretty sure she knew the answer, but then again, a lot of things she'd thought she was sure of had turned out wrong.

Domino blinked at her. "You're... oh, you are serious, you brat." She took the cigarette away from Amanda, setting it on the railing, and caught her up in a fierce hug. "Of course not. Not for a second."

"Just wanted t' make sure. People're funny sometimes," came Amanda's somewhat muffled reply, her answering hug none the less tight. When she pulled back, her eyes were bright but no tears were shed. "I know, I'm a plonker sometimes."

"You are. And a silly bint." Domino ruffled her hair, then rubbed at her own eyes briefly. "I may not be flying in as often anymore, but you'll still see me. And we both know how to use email and that nifty little secure chat program, yes?"

Wrinkling her nose in pretend annoyance, Amanda smoothed her hair back down, smiling. "You really want that much of my shite spellin'?"

"Your spelling has gotten much better, I hate to tell you. You're downright literate at times these days," Domino said with a chuckle.