The X-Project

Set the night after Marie-Ange and Doug arrive home from New Orleans (logs forthcoming), Amanda confronts Marie-Ange about the New Orleans trip, and gets ... well, nothing more than a confirmation that New Orleans is indeed where Marie-Ange went. Neither girl is happy about it.



The room was so empty, Amanda reflected, sitting huddled on her bed wrapped in a blanket. Meggan hadn't had much in the way of stuff to move, but all of it - the books, the toys, her rainbow collection of clothes - all of it was gone. The little trundle bed was stripped and awaiting removal back to whichever storeroom it had come from, and somehow the fact it remained only accentuated the emptiness. Curling up a little tighter, Amanda reminded herself this was for the best. Even if the teachers hadn't decided to move Meggan, she would have suggested it herself. At least until she was safe again.

And that was what it was all about. Making things safe, for Meggan, for herself. Making sure there were no weaknesses to exploit, that she'd have the ability to protect herself and her loved ones. Whatever it took, right?

Marie-Ange hadn't realized how -present- Meggan was until the little girl had been moved to her own room. It wasn't that Meggan was underfoot, it was more that when she was there, you could not ignore her. Even being small, something about her filled up the room.

Amanda had to be miserable, doubly so now on top of everything else. It didn't take gifts to know that, it was just plain friendship.

And Marie-Ange felt like the worst kind of friend, because all she could do was stand in the common room and stare at the places where things used to be and shuffle a deck of tarot cards. The riffling noise was soothing, and it gave her something to do with her hands, rather than clutch pencils until they broke, or tug at her hair.

Marie-Ange was out there - it was as simple as knowing the difference in feel between an occupied and an unoccupied room, even if the faintest ripple of sound hadn't reached her. A sound as familiar as the scent of Marie-Ange's favourite perfume, or the strip of light under her door too late at night. The shuffling of cards was as much a part of living with the pre-cognitive as getting used to her and Doug being insufferably cute on the couch and the peanut butter and chocolate obsession. Amanda debated staying where she was, curled up and alone and miserable, but something - the new determination born in a deserted college parking lot, perhaps - wouldn't let her do that. Perhaps she was as tired of hating herself as she was of everything else.

Sliding off the bed and shuffling over to the door, she cracked it open. She looked a sight, she knew, still in yesterday's clothes and her eyes puffy and red in a too-pale face. Not to mention the usual withdrawal-related weight loss - she was back to scarecrow girl again. But there was an edge of firmness in her voice as she spoke, almost daring Marie-Ange to take her best shot, if that was what she wanted to do.

"Kurt took the last of Meg's stuff a while ago."

"I noticed." Marie-Ange said, restacking the cards idly with one hand. She opened her mouth as if to say something, and then quickly shut it, shaking her head slightly. Even a platitude, even telling Amanda it would be over soon.. She couldn't say anything, even comfort might influence Amanda one way or another.

"It's for the best." Amanda came through the door, pulling her blanket around herself like a cape. Perhaps she was convincing Marie-Ange, perhaps herself. "She's not safe from me, not like this. She needs t' learn not t' rely on me for every little thing."

Instinctively, Marie-Ange dropped a glance down to the cards in her hand, shuffling away the face-up Moon that she'd known was going to be there as soon as she looked. Hopefully Amanda hadn't seen it. She glanced over her shoulder, looking for a likely place to put down the cards. They were just making it worse, and offered too much temptation.

Amanda made a noise that was half-way between a sigh and a growl. They'd always been able to talk, starting from that night last year after the love potion. What was getting in the way now? It was impossible to not catch Marie-Ange's glances around the room, the nervouse shuffling of the cards in her hands... Curling into a corner of the couch, Amanda tucked the blanket around her feet despite the summer warmth, and gave her room-mate a steady look. "Somethin' on your mind, roomie? I promise, you don't have any power I can use, so no suckin' it out of you."

"If you did, I would not be here... " Thinking about everything she could not say, Marie-Ange thought dryly, meant that when she did say something, it was probably one of the worst things she could. "It is... I do not have the right words for it." She hastily shoved the deck of cards in her pocket, and tried not to fidget.

"You always did have a better sense of self-preservation than me," was Amanda's comment, watching Marie-Ange with eyes that were shadowed by the weight loss and lack of sleep. "An' maybe you don't have the right words... got the wrong ones? Or any words at all? You could probably draw me a picture, if you had to." There was the very faintest note of pleading in Amanda's voice - Marie-Ange was probably the closest female friend she had, and she had a nasty suspicion that wasn't going to stay the case. "Fuck, you could always do a readin'. Just... tell me? I can take anythin' you want t' say, just not this shuttin' me out, Frenchie."

"I am not..." Marie-Ange started to protest.. "Amanda..." She draw a long breath, staring down at the floor. "I cannot do a reading, and I cannot talk about it.." She shook her head and started to back away slowly. "I should not... I should not have told you even that."

It was an odd way of phrasing it, and fitted the code for 'pre-cog stuff'. Amanda went still, realising that there was a good chance Marie-Ange had known what was going to happen with Meggan, and... after. "Fine," she said at last, voice going remote. "Let's forget it, yeah? Change of topic - tell me 'bout your trip. How was it?"

"Wet." The entire trip had seemed to involve water somehow. The rainstorms, the flooding in New Orleans, Tante's seeming obsession with dragging her out to the swamp. "Doug pouted the whole way to the airport that he could not get cooking liek that at home." Before he had turned into Doug-the-laptop-zombie. More futures she couldn't talk about, lest worse ones come to be.

"An' how's Tante?" Wet plus food that Doug would pout about could only mean one place, and there was no other reason for Marie-Ange to suddenly go to New Orleans unless it was to do with Tante... Amanda was getting an uncomfortable feeling about this. Marie-Ange wouldn't tell her anything outright, but she had to figure out if the houdon was about to show up on the doorstep to strip her powers from her. "Get through the storms all right?"

The look on Amanda's face was not good. "She was... Tante. I do not think anything much could change her.." Maybe if she was vague... Not that it was working much so far. "Even the storms did not do much to change her. It was wetter, and smelled worse."

Confirmation. There was the briefest flicker in Amanda's eyes, and then we face went carefully blank. "'S not where I would've picked for you an' Doug t' make a trip," she said. "An' Tante's not yer favourite person in the world. Not havin' any trouble like before, are you?"

Marie-Ange's face crumpled. "Amanda, please do not ask these questions," she pleaded. Why was it that she could lie, utterly bold-faced to any number of teachers and authority figures, but not her friends? "It was not something I really can explain.."

In contrast, Amanda's expression hardened. 'It's not paranoia if they really are out to get you,' she thought with black humour. She had to be careful if she wasn't going to end up drugged to the eyeballs in medlab waiting for Tante to come and do what she'd said she would. "As long as you're all right," she said at last, with an almost careless shrug before beginning to unwrap herself from chair and blanket. "I should..." She stopped, not sure of what she should do. Just because they were your own didn't make secrets any less of a burden. But she was doing the right thing, even if no-one else would see it that way. She had to get cured. "Go," she finished lamely. "I should go, clean meself up. You know what they say 'bout too much mopin' - I'll sprout red wings an' start singin' God-awful country music an' quotin' Shakespeare."

Marie-Ange sighed and rubbed the bridge of her nose. The headache she'd had faintly all week, and probably would have for the next few weeks was not getting any better from this. "If I could tell you, I would." There was just too much risk in saying anything right now. Not for this. It could go wrong in a hundred horrible ways, and adding any more chaos into the mess she'd already seen put too much at risk.

Amanda paused in mid-departure, between chair and her bedroom door. "I know you would," she said quietly. "Still don't make it any easier." Pulling the blanket around herself more firmly, she headed for her room again. "Headache stuff's in the cupboard over the fridge, if you need it," she added, without turning around.

She couldn't even say it would get better, because it wouldn't. It would get far, far worse before it got any better. "Merci." The worst part, was that she couldn't even properly apoligize to Amanda for being distant. She had to be, because every moment spent around her made it all the more tempting to just tell her everything, and damn the consequences. To just the consequences sort themselves out without her having to see it.

It might almost be a relief. Except that it would be a short one, just before everything fell apart.