Piers and Lorna, rec room

[x-polarisstar.livejournal.com]

Late Sunday, Lorna checks in on Piers and scolds him for being a terrible correspondent. They talk about recovery and embracing the inner self.



The gossip mill had taken a surprisingly long time to inform Lorna of the arrivals and since she wasn't on active duty she didn't a chance get to go through the entry logs security kept like usual. So it was late in the day when Lorna heard Piers was about and decided to track him down. She was mildly surprised when she found him in the game room. It wasn't as busy as it usually was, the foosball table was unoccupied for once and the ping pong table had only a couple observers. Someone was playing the Xbox much too loudly and she paused to turn it down with a warning look at the student before crossing to the corner where Piers was sitting.

Ian looked up and smiled at the familiar face. "Lorna," he greeted her amiably, glad to see her up and around under her own power. "I was just..." He hesitated, waving a hand around. "Watching, I guess."

"There's no law against that. We allow people to just sit and veg. It's encouraged even for some of our more stress prone inmates…I mean, inhabitants." Lorna smiled and flopped into a nearby chair. "How have you been, Ian?"

Ian raised an eyebrow, smirking at her. "Well, let's see. Spent the last few weeks in intensive debriefing and/or therapy... sometimes it's been the same thing. I got here this morning, and Ani promptly took me shopping. I'm not sure which was worse."

Lorna reached over and patted his knee, "You poor thing. You definitely deserve vegging time. How long are you going to be here?" She figured keeping the tone light would be appreciated and so let the debriefing and therapy comment slide.

"We're heading out tomorrow morning," Ian said a bit regretfully. "Was going to be tonight, but there really wasn't any need to rush, we decided. Or Dom decided." His gaze moved around the room again. "I don't mind. Let's me see a little more of the place."

Lorna nodded, settling back in her chair and tucking her legs to her chest just because she could since the cast was finally gone. "Well, I'm glad you're around at least a little bit. Gives me a chance to make sure you're all in once piece and everything. You really do suck at letter writing." She smiled.

"I warned you about that," Ian said wryly. "But I'll give you my new address and the decryption program before I leave. Should be able to email without people monitoring it from over there, at least..." That had bothered him, the constant scrutiny at the taskforce facility.

"That would be much appreciated. I probably don't need to keep tabs on other people but I accept my neuroses and embrace them." She laughed lightly. "Maybe without people spying you'll tell me more than that the food is boring."

"Food should be interesting, where I'm going," Ian said idly, watching the X-box player. "All kinds of things should be interesting..." He looked back at her, smiling a little. "North Africa," he said, figuring that was vague enough. "Lots of sun, nice beaches on the Mediterranean..."

Lorna rolled her eyes, "Right, like you'll be taking full advantage of that. While dodging bullets and having shady meeting with shady people." Lorna's vision of Pack missions were pretty well influenced by her travels with Remy.

"Actually, we may be doing more of the sunning than anything else, at least for a while," Ian said. "I gather we've got to lie at least semi-low for the time being." He shrugged. "Don't suppose we should be discussing the whys and wherefors openly, but I gather you probably know about that good friend of Nate's who's decided he likes to play royalty." Lorna was an X-Man, after all, and this Wisdom's defection was even more of a concern for them than for the Pack.

Lorna sighed and frowned, "Yes, indeed. So you'll be watching for more of that?" None of the kids were in earshot or paying the least bit of attention to the old people in the corner but Lorna kept her voice low anyway. "I hope you plan on taking sunblock. That pale skin of yours will fry, healing factor or no."

"Lots and lots of sunblock, not to worry," Ian said, then gave her a crooked smile. "I guess the plan is to stay under the radar, and for Bridge to help you all out by passing along information from friends, if and when it becomes appropriate."

"I'm hoping it doesn't ever become appropriate. This whole thing is such a mess. Every single piece of security has to be triple-checked now. I don't think Lee has slept since we found out and I know Remy's killing himself and Jake trying to sort it out." She shook her head. "Hopefully, this will be just a nice vacation for you."

"Vacation," Ian said, glad enough to let the subject drop. "That's what they were encouraging all of us to do, you know. Take some time, figure out what it is we want to do with our lives..."

"Find your zen, take up underwater basketweaving, embrace the inner you." Lorna nodded, "Don't they know that is incredibly boring, like, 99% of the time? Unless finding your zen means like skydiving or long trips to the Grand Canyon to look at geological processes."

Ian chuckled. "None of us who are out of the hospital took them up on it," he said. "I'm off with Nate's friends, Gavin's going back to school, Izzy's taken a job with the government..."

"Well, at least you're all keeping busy. Idle hands and all that." Lorna smiled, "How are they doing? Happy or at least content?"

Ian paused, then sketched in a few sentences what each of the surviving first-gens was up to. "... although I'm worried about Chris," he said with a sigh. "They've still got him in hospital. His burns were pretty bad, and his skin's normal skin, not like Gavin's. He's fairly depressed, too." Ian sighed again, rubbing at his jaw. "I imagine McCoy included in his report what happened in the medical wing. Ani wasn't the only one who lost the person she loved." He grimaced a bit. "I feel vaguely disloyal, running off and leaving him, but the others aren't going anywhere, and I had to get out of there. Was driving me insane."

Lorna shuddered, "Burns take a long time to heal and there's not a damn thing anyone can do about it. Having people around doesn't help much either unless they come bearing gifts of morphine." She rolled her shoulder automatically, feeling the scar tissue slide over the bone. "Don't feel bad about leaving. It's pointless to make yourself sick over something you can't help."

"That's what they keep telling us. That we shouldn't be feeling guilty about making choices about our own lives, rather than based on what the others need." Ian shrugged irritably. "Going to take a while to sink in, I think. No conditioning doesn't mean that the emotions are gone."

"No, it doesn't. But hearing it over and over is part of learning to believe it. Even though you think it's stupid." She smiled wryly, "It's like any traumatic experience. It takes time to get over and sometimes you don't want to. Getting over it doesn't mean that you have to give up the feelings. It's just learning about how much you are worth."

"So I'm told. Ferals are notoriously impatient, so you'll forgive me if I kind of wish it would happen overnight and spare me the trouble." Ian grinned at her, then shrugged, his attention going back to the room. "I envy you, you know. Living here. You and everyone else. Especially all these kids."

Lorna looked around the room as well, seeing the chaos and scattered toys, the two boys in the corner about to have an argument that would probably break the table next to them. It looked like a headache in the making to her. But from the feral's point of view? She smiled, "Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."