The X-Project

Laurie and Cece grab dinner and drinks.

Laurie waved to the bartender as she and Cecilia slipped into their regular booth at the back of the bar, Laurie still sporting her bright yellow scrubs that were a standard in the NICU. She’d at least had time to shower and change into a clean pair before she had to meet CeCe.

“So, did I tell you about finding Pam and Evan in the janitor’s closet last week?” Laurie said, relaxing against the booth with a happy sigh.

It felt like she’d been on call for a week, rather than just the past day. She was just hoping she didn’t get any calls while they were here, it did mean she couldn’t actually drink anything though. Luckily enough, the place had great pub food, which was mainly why she’d suggested it.

"You didn't." Cecilia smiled as she rifled through her bag for her phone. "But I can use context clues to figure out where you're heading. Medicine hasn't changed that much, I'd wager."

"Young, semi fit people in often stressful situations behaving as one does in such circumstances? Why, Doctor, I don't know what you're inferring." Laurie replied with a smirk, waving down one of the waitstaff for a menu - she already knew what she wanted but sometimes they changed things up. "Yourself? How goes the life? We haven't had much of a chance to catch up in awhile."

"Oh, you know me." Cece put her phone on the table and swiped a few times. Then she put the thing on silent and dropped it into her purse. "Seems like there's always work to be done these days. Folks at the mansion are busier than ever, and when there's downtime, I've got months of CME to catch up on." She wrinkled her nose and made a face. "I'm thinking I need a vacation soon, honestly. I've been feeling run ragged for a while. Since, I dunno. December." Since Honduras, anyway.

A waiter approached, smiling, and Cecilia cut him off before he could even speak. "Gin and tonic, fast. And the chicken sandwich."

"And I'll have the cheesy fries, a burger and a coke," Laurie noted and then waited for the server to leave. "I hear you on the work load, not that I don't read scientific papers for pleasure but studying and trying to make sure I remember enough not to flub anything on my rotations is driving me spare. Doug hasn't said anything but I'm pretty sure I quote surgical facts in my sleep."

"Nothing sexier than reciting your anatomy lessons while you're dreaming," Cece laughed. "I don't miss that part of med school, where they cold call you, and you're expected to know literally everything, all the time. Ugh." She wrinkled her nose. "I thought about doing that back at the lab, though. So many new faces — Jean, Sharon, whoever. Kind of feels like I need to make sure everyone's firing on all cylinders."

"I think they'd gag you and stuff you in a closet," Laurie replied with a laugh, sitting back in her chair. "Well, maybe not Sharon, she seems like an overachiever but then I am too."

"Clearly." The server dropped off the cocktail and the Coke, two straws and a few napkins. Cecilia grabbed hers and took a sip, then squeezed the lime on the edge of the glass into the drink. "But I think you have to be to do what we do at that place."

"I think we're all some definition of Stockholm syndrome," Laurie replied, taking a sip of her drink before leaning back again. "Anyone even remotely sane would have left years ago, or asked for more money, yet none of us do either. If I didn't trust the Professor's ethics I'd question that a bit more."

"Yeah," Cecilia nodded, "I hear you." She ripped the wrapper off the straw and began idly playing with it. "I've been — I mean, not seriously or anything," she looked up from her hands, "but I kind of started looking for jobs again."

"Really?" Laurie asked, not entirely surprised. Sometimes people needed something outside. "Anywhere particular? Or type?"

"I dunno, I mean..." Cecilia stuck the straw in her drink and took another sip. "I just miss the thrum of steady, constant surgery. And I miss feeling like I was helping people. Not that I'm not helping people," she tore the wrapper, "but you know, the mansion's got plenty of people, and I'm — I could be more useful somewhere else." Somewhere with fewer problems and complications. Somewhere that made it less likely that she'd be in a situation to do something stupid. Something rash.

"It can be comforting," Laurie offered, her gaze compassionate as she'd recognized the difficulties Cecilia had been going through for some time now. "To be able to know exactly what you'll be facing each day and exactly what is required of you even if you're still likely to push yourself beyond it, and even if the schedule is still as mutable. My rotations, and I imagine, my residency won't have quite the same white-knuckle constants that our Medlab roles require, even if they're not entirely without excitement."

"Residency will surprise you," Cecilia said, eyebrow raised. "I did mine after my first stay at the mansion, and it still threw me for a loop. That first year," she shook her head, her eyes staring blankly into space. "Ugh."

"There is that chance," Laurie admitted with a smile, playing with the straw in her own drink. "Although hopefully with less personal amputations."

She could joke about it now, although at the time it had been...more than difficult, and if it hadn't been for the people in her life, she wasn't sure it would have been as easy to move on as it had been.

"Yeah," Cecilia said somewhat absently as she pushed her straw around the glass. And then she suddenly stopped, realizing what she'd said and realizing what Laurie said and then she started to blush rather heavily. "Oh, Laurie, I didn't mean — I'm sure it's hard." Her face grew hotter. "I didn't really... we've never really talked about it, but your recovery has been so..." She shrugged, at a bit of a loss.

"Oh, stop," Laurie said, waving a dismissive hand, the prosthetic one even, in Cecilia's direction before she took another drink. "It was a shock at the time, but easily replaced. Now, my brain, that would be hard to fabricate, I would think even a brilliant doctor would be hard pressed to recover from that. An arm is only as useful as what can be done with it. While I worried it might mean my hopes of a medical career were dashed, it would seem I am better then ever, give or take a rather draconian level of ongoing physical therapy."

None of what she said was a lie, she really did view it as less than an annoyance these days but it had taken time, and not a few nights of broken sobbing when it had first happened. She could imagine that Julian's progress would have similar moments of collapse.

"Well, that's a good way to look at it," Cecilia smiled. "I do so many medical things by rote, honestly, I don't know how I'd manage."

"I believe Doug was quite surprised at how many curse words I'd learnt from him during the first months after I lost my arm," Laurie noted, toying with the straw as she reminisced.

It had been difficult at first to accept that what she had lost was not coming back, and indeed the limitations she suddenly found afforded to her were galling at best, at worst they were the subject of a great many nights of truly black moments of despair. Through it all, she had had the support of their relationship, at first only Doug but later, Wade and Marie-Ange as well.

"I fear Julian has a very long road ahead, but perhaps his gift will make the loss slightly less total than it was for myself."

Cecilia sighed. "I hope so. And he's fortunate to be in a place where everyone's pretty supportive. Having people like that around makes things so much easier."

"As easy as such a loss will ever be," Laurie agreed and then smiled at her friend. "Look at us, out of the 'office' and we're still talking shop. So, anyone you have an eye on? I haven't seen you punching Arthur recently?"

"Oh, yeah, no." The older woman blushed. "That was a moment of weakness, to be sure." She pursed her lips as she fiddled with her straw. "I don't know what it is now, honestly. I mean, I like him, and I like his company — we spend some time together now, but it's not, like, romantic."

A beat passed. "I don't think. Whatever," she waved a hand, brushing all of that away, "it doesn't matter. He's a good friend."

"You know, if you wanted it to be romantic-like, you could ask him on an actual date, with fancy dinner and all that," Laurie noted with a grin, before she took another sip from her drink. "Or, you could proposition Namor, pretty sure he's never said no to some recreational tango."

"Oh God, there's a thought." Cecilia laughed. "No, hard pass. I know they're super different, but Namor makes me think of the other guy," she figured being that generic wouldn't rip the universe apart, "and I hated the other guy, may he rest in peace. So that 'tango' would be quite heated and exceptionally confusing..."

"I know, right? I'm still regularly having to pinch myself when I wake up sometimes, or Clint walks into my lab space."

Laurie could be vague as well, as much as she had gotten Clint back in the friend she currently had, she still missed the student she'd taught to shoot. It was a good different, but still different.

"Yeah." Cecilia wasn't entirely sure what else to say and settled for another sip of her gin and tonic. "It must make it easier having Doug to, like, help you gut check those feelings, right? I mean, you've got shared history for a few years."

"Wade and Marie-Ange also, I honestly don't know how sane I would now be without them all. It wasn't just the major changes, but my recovery from torture also, it makes a difference to have someone to touch when you wake up from a horrible nightmare in the early dawn. I still require confirmation sometimes that I have not lost years in a single moment of distraction, or imagined my release from that place."

"Yeah." Cecilia wasn't entirely sure how to respond to any of that. It seemed to require some sharing or mutual confession, which she wasn't up for. A trite apology would have been flat, and she wasn't willing to engage with whatever the poly-love-quartet situation was beyond a tacit acknowledgment. So she was grateful that, after a few seconds of silence, the server strode up with their food.

"Thank God," she finally said with a smile. "I'm starving."

"Saved by the food," Laurie responded in kind, moving her glass out of the way so the server could place her plate down. "So, who do you think from our current crop is likely to try and become a teacher first?"