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Droopy eyelids. Blurry lights. Then, Erik wakes with a start.
Crystal had laid him out on a sofa in the library. This is where he comes to, and nearly bolts upright when he realizes he's awake. "Scheisse," he curses. "Verdammt, bloody…"
The whole affair is interrupted by another sneeze. This one, he catches by his arm, then pulls it back and looks around to see just where he's found himself, and who might be here looking after him.
*
While not actually a doctor, Moira is trained in extensive first aid and biology, so she has been hovering rather worriedly over Erik during his time unconscious. She's kept a light monitoring of his vitals, but over all it was just a rest and wait thing. He shouldn't be out ALL that long. "Would anyone like a drink? I can make us all tea, or something…" She offers to the room, Lorna especially, but her hostessing intentions quickly die away as Erik finally wakes himself up.
"Erik…it…it's alright. Just take a deep breath. You…you somehow lost control of your… gifts, back in the museum. It happens, it's alright." Even if it really isn't. Moira was still far too much mom-figure to say that aloud.
*
Crystal is sitting on the arm of the couch, ready with a gentle hand for Erik's shoulder when he starts awake. "It's all right," she echoes Moira, though she does exert a little bit of pressure to keep him from taking off. "It seems," she says with a rueful look between Lorna and Erik, "That the two of you have a similar set of powers. I suspect that you're both maintaining your own, independent magnetic fields, and that the interaction between them is what's setting him off. Do you think the two of you could focus enough to balance out the resonance?"
*
Lorna had settled onto the edge of a seat, chewing her lower lip and fidgeting with her hair, her sleeves, her pants and practically anything she could get her fingers on. She had taken off her coat with the Frost Institute's emblem on it at the door and had been fairly quiet the whole time she had been shown and explained to where exactly she was. She'd been calm, and not a single incident had occurred in regards to her powers on the way over either.
At the mention of tea though, she nods empathetically. "Yes, please. Do you need help? I could.. uhm.." She flounders as Crystal speaks and her eyes round.
"Really? Uuh-uhm.. I-I.." She exhales a shaky breath, reaching up to scratch the back of her neck. "I'm not exactly, well, not very good with this yet. It's new to me. I-I just started to figure out how to calm down.. mostly.." She grimaced.
*
"You're doing fine," Psyche tells her, giving that little boost of confidence, minus her abilities. She doesn't like to use them unless it's necessary but she's staying by the girl just in case things get off again, "And the way you grabbed control, calmed things down shows that you know what you're doing." Or that she can when she's not muddled. She looks to Crystal and Moira to see if she needs to do anything but the teen is pretty sure things are okay for now.
*
Logan takes a drag on his cigar, his brows furrowed, "Somehow. Right," he says, nodding in agreement at the offer of a drink. He leans back against the wall, his arms crossed over his chest as he listens.
*
Erik looks toward Moira first, then to each other person in turn. "It hasn't happened in a very long time," he tells Moira, with no shortage of offense. He hasn't spent the better part of his adult life mastering his abilities only to see them short circuit and for no apparent reason.
So, he doesn't bolt. Not yet, at least. Crystal's explanation draws him to look at Lorna, the girl he'd noticed earlier. She seems familiar somehow, like something out of a distant past. However, he shrugs it off as hallucination; Crystal did suffocate him, as it were.
"A decent supposition," he tells Crystal. "Except, there is no resonance right now."
Ignoring the offer of a beverage, Erik leans forward and finds his footing. He's moving slower than usual, but he aims to walk closer to Lorna, studying her with an intense look. "You can manipulate magnetic fields?" he asks.
Probably a bit more heavy handed than he usually is.
*
Moira is mostly quiet now. She doesn't want to push anyone and she's the only one in the room who doesn't actually have some sort of power. "You know…I think I will get us that tea. I can handle it. You all speak." She offers gently, before limping to the door and out. SHe trusts Crystal to be the other adult in the room.
*
Lorna's gaze shifts back toward Erik as the man rises and walks toward her, her green eyes round as she stares up at him with her mouth agape. To the viewers in the room at large, her youth and awkwardness made a rather stark contrast to the man before her, even though their features shared some manner of uncanniness that was remarkably similar. And then as he questions her powers and she shifts uncomfortably on the chair, dropping her gaze and chewing her lower lip. A hand rising to push her brown hair back from her features and tuck it behind her ear.
"I'm l-learning." She mumbled, "It just.. I.. I mean, it just started up the past few months… Before it didn't really happen.. I just sort of ignored it. Now if I get nervous or scared.. or upset things happen. But never anything like that.. It's normally just small things.. Paperclips, watches or clocks going wrong.. sometimes a chair will move or I'll knock over something.."
*
"I may be able to help, if needed," Crystal assures Lorna with a small smile. "It's not my strongest skill, but I can at least blunt the edges." Of course, then Erik is looming and she rolls her eyes, standing up from the arm of the couch to step just behind him and to his side. Once there, she reaches out to hook a finger at the back of his belt and tug him back half a step. Blunting the edges. "Erik. She's still learning. Gentle, please."
*
Logan shakes his head, "I don't know shit about resonance or none o' that crap. My powers don't work like y'all's do an' I'm thankful every day I get t'live on instinct instead o' just…figurin' out a buncha science shit," he says.
"Simple fact is, probably a good thing in the long term. Quicker the two o' you can figure out how not to bounce your zaps an' shit off one another, the better. An' the better t'have somebody else with teh same sorta powers as Lensherr here under our wing instead o' floatin' around gettin' turned into a super soldier or slapped in a mask and sent to robbin' banks. So, all told, bravo, good fuckin' days work, somebody pour me a god damn whiskey," he says. "Screw it, I'll do the last part myself."
*
Psyche is a little quiet as Magento gets aggressive, not knowing how to reach because the Erik she's seen around here is usually much calmer. Now Logan's response to the situation…totally Logan so she relaxes and waits to see if anyone needs her to help. So far, both seem to have a handle on this.
*
If it weren't Lorna's response that tamed the beast, Crystal certainly knows how. "There's a bottle of Jack over there," he tells Logan, pointing toward a cabinet that is locked for faculty use only.
He closes his eyes for a moment and takes more than a half step back. A look is given to Crystal; she'll understand it. He's not pleased with this whole mess, but he'll get there. "I must apologize," he tells Lorna, turning back to her. "This affair is bothersome to say the least. People could have gotten hurt. I don't imagine any of us are pleased with that, least of all myself."
Turning away, he reaches up to run a hand through his hair, a bit unkempt with the morning's pomade causing it to stick up a bit.
The way Lorna describes her manifesting abilities is haunting. Hauntingly similar to his own, only his involved a coin and something much, much worse.
*
The reed thin, elegant geneticist has gotten quite good at balancing objects in one hand so she can still easily use her crutch in the other. That means she's got an entire tea tray carefully loaded to be even weight on both sides and it's carefully balanced in one palm as she limps back into the room. Earl Grey brewing in the pot, habit she's picked up from the professor, and she makes her way back to the gathering of chairs. It's a careful dance to put the tray down without spilling it, but she's managed.
"Bothersome, yes…but none of us have excuses for not being polite. I'm sorry, young lady, you may have seen it on the card, but I'm Moira. I help teach here, at this school… I don't think I caught your name either." Moira now gently offers her hand, since her palm is free, and a reassuringly gentle smile to the young woman.
*
Lorna glanced toward Crystal and shook her head faintly, "I-I don't need help.. I mean. I do.. but I have a teacher. She found me and is making sure that I learn how to control myself. I just started though.. today was supposed to be my day off." She mumbled, green eyes lifting toward Erik as he apologized and turned away.
"It's alright," She chewed her lower lip, "I'm sorry that I got scared.. I-I just.. I thought I had lost control, but I hadn't been upset and it just sort of spiraled out from there.." She whispered, and then glanced toward Moira, a flush crawling up her cheeks.
"I'm Lorna, Lorna Dane. It's nice to meet you Moira."
*
Crystal gently squeezes Erik's shoulder as he takes that extra step back, moving away to help Moira with the tray. Mention of another teacher, though, gets a quirk of her brow and a look to the other adults in the room. Who else is gathering up…
"Her name wasn't Peggy, was it?" she asks, glancing over her shoulder as she pours a cup of tea. "I'm sorry. I'm Crystal," she introduces herself, bringing the tea over to the girl.
*
"I'm taking lessons too Lorna, it's nothing to get upset about. You had a moment but then you reigned it in before things got totally out of hand," Psyche gives her an encouraging smile, "I sometimes have moments too. And it's good you have someone helping you. I know that folks can't be with you every moment of the day but it's good that you have a support network."
*
Logan snorts as he pours himself a few fingers of whiskey, "I never needed an excuse to not be polite, Doc," he says. "Manners are just the lies folks tell when they gotta pretend to like each other. I'm nice to folks what're nice to me, mean to them what's mean to me an' shoot straight with them I don't know well enough to do one or t'other," he says.
*
A slight smirk is given in Logan's direction, "Yes, well, we have all been nothing but nice to each other, especially considering the circumstances, so names are worth knowing." Moira tilts her head to Lorna then, her smile returning, soft as before, "Lorna. It's a pleasure, despite the… circumstances." Her pale eyes flicker thoughtfully between Lorna and Erik, narrowing a moment on her long time friend. The shape of his nose, color of his hair, before she looks back to Lorna. There is some thought at the back of Moira's mind, but she doesn't voice it. She just has That LOOK in her eyes which says gears are turning. She moves to settle back on the couch herself, preparing a few cups of tea for around the room. "Lorna, how do you like your tea?"
*
Well, if anyone is going to call him on the carpet whose name isn't Crystal, it would be Moira. Erik looks her way dubiously.
When he turns back to face the others, he addresses them as a whole. "I think we all know what it means to 'lose control', as we say. What concerns me most? This was not like those times. I was not under any kind of… severe emotional distress, and a bloody sneeze isn't going to make me rip apart a museum." He shakes his head. "Something else is amiss, Doctor." He looks her way. "I will need to visit Doctor McCoy."
As they all introduce each other, Erik walks back toward Lorna. He offers her a smile, and a hesitantly lopsided smile. "My name is Erik, Erik Lensherr."
*
A shake of her head follows Crystal's question, and Lorna bites her lower lip. "No, her name isn't Peggy. I don't think it's rather polite to say who my teacher is.. is it? She's not exactly.. uhm.. a public person." She scratches her head again, fidgeting in her chair.
"Uhm, just plain thank you.. Would it be possible to call my roommate? I should tell her that I'm okay, we're both.. uhm.. well, we try to check in and that both of us are okay. I'll need a ride back to my dorm too if it's not too much trouble."
Then her gaze shifts back to Erik as he introduces himself and she smiled back without pause. "It's nice to meet you, well.. the circumstances weren't so nice.. but I guess it's a relief to meet someone that can do the sort of things I can. Even better that you sort of know what you're doing.." She mumbles.
*
"We'll get you safely back," Crystal nods to Lorna with a small smile. "Though it may be a bit…unorthodox, at least you won't have to take another long bus ride. There's a phone just down the hall," she adds, giving Erik a brief look of concern. The sneezing was unusual. She's usually the one who's caught a cold of some sort.
*
"Lorna… if whomever is teaching you… well, if they ever need help or support, and they are different as well, you can give them our number. We're a safe haven for any gifted people. Children or not. We try to offer stability here. At least you, and your teacher, will know you aren't alone." A reassuring smile echoes Moira's words as she hands the cup of tea in the girl's direction. "Go on, take it to make your phone call, we can wait. And yes, when you need to go, we'll send a car." She affirms Crystal's statement.
Then her eyes flicker back to Erik and she's studying the cut of his cheek bones a bit closer. Up to that nose. Her gaze narrows even more thoughtfully, giving him the look that says she's SO close to opening her mouth about something. They would, no doubt, talk later.
*
Psyche is watching all the adults around her and then just says what everyone else is thinking in the room, "You know…you might be related somehow. It's not just the powers, but the face too…you guys look a lot a like. And that's pretty cool." Let it be a teenager to let it out of the bag, "Maybe you guys have similar relatives." She then can tell that everything is wrapping up so she gives a little wave, "Anyway, it's nice meeting you Lorna. Hope to see you around." And then she heads out to go take a shower and go clear her head.
*
Erik's grin becomes more pronounced. "I assure you, Miss Dane, I'm typically much more in control of my abilities."
The man turns away then, but his eye is caught by Moira's hairy eyeball. He knows that look. That, paired with a sense of familiarity he captured from Lorna, a thing he can't quite place. Surely, more hallucinations.
"I think your 'kiss' was intoxicating," he murmurs quietly toward Crystal, a bit of a joke. He's then on his way toward Logan, about to request a pour of that swill, when Psyche speaks up.
Turning back to Lorna, he studies her for a moment or two. He had no siblings when he was taken away from his parents during the war, and she's far too old for that. No, something like that was surely out of the realm of possibility.
Claiming a glass, he turns to Logan. "I'm with you. This isn't the time for tea."
*
Lorna took the offered tea with care, nodding faintly to both Crystal and Moira in turn. "Alright, thank you.. I'll talk to her. And let her know." She wrapped both hands around her tea cup, sipping at it after gently blowing on the hot tea. Lorna was about to rise and seek out a telephone, shifting forward in her seat. Yet surprise flickered to life on her features though as Psyche spoke of a relation and her brows shot upwards, green eyes going wide.
"W-what?" Green eyes swung toward Erik and then back toward Pysche, head tilting to the side.
"Er.. I guess it's possible.. but I don't know. I mean. I don't really have many relatives. Uhh, I'm going to go call my roommate.. Please excuse me." She mumbled, rising the rest of the way from her seat and edging away from the group to go down the hall and find the phone as she had been told of earlier.
*
Crystal blinks when Psyche brings up the possibility, pausing to take a closer look at the girl. Granted, the Inhumans are certainly their own sort of experts on genetics. But mutants are something else. And then there's the age issue. She waits until the girl has gone down the hall before she looks to Moira and Erik.
"Do you think it's possible?" she asks in a low tone, curious. "She seems rather old for it, unless you're older than I realized, Erik. Though your powers do have a remarkably similar feel. Do mutations often share a similar facet within families among mutants?"
*
As Psyche just spills the exact thing Moira was thinking, the older woman coughs a heartbeat or two, heat rising up her cheeks. She flickers a quick gaze back and forth between Erik and Lorna even as the girl goes to call her roommate. Moira clears her throat at Crystal's statement, "In truth, there hasn't been a lot of study of multigenerational mutations because, well… there haven't been that many generations yet. But the alteration of the X-Chromosome would, logically, be passed down into the next generation if the mutation was beneficial enough that someone would breed. And similiar manifestations would be the same as having brown or blonde hair. They might not always be identical, but you are more *likely* to inherit a similiar trait than a different one…" Moira's voice is a touch more quiet a heartbeat later. "…And she does have your cheekbones, Erik."
*
Logan snorts, "I dunno. I had a kid pop up outta nowhere. Well, not outta nowhere, I remember knockin' his mama up pretty clear, her bein' my wife an' all. I thought he died, too, but then…well, folks in my family, we tend to get pretty hard to kill," he says. He hasn't been in touch with Akihiro lately, though - being a lousy father kind of ran in Logan's blood, too.
*
Two eyebrows shoot upward at Lorna's reaction, and Erik watches as the young woman departs. "That… would be a question for Hank," he answers Crystal, truthfully and without sarcasm.
Or a question for Moira.
It takes a long moment for Erik to remember the Jack Daniels in his glass. Such an American drink, more fit for shooting than for sipping. He has… much nicer whiskey in his room.
A bit of heat rises to his face at all of this. He rarely speaks of what happened to him during the war; he never speaks of what life was like when the war was over. He doesn't talk about how he escaped from Auschwitz, nor does he talk about what his life was like in the years after. He was… what, 14? 15?
It was eighteen or nineteen years ago.
To hell with that. Erik knocks back the whiskey like the finest of Yanks, and comes to realize exactly why these Americans drink their booze this way.
"Thank you," he tells Logan, speaking specifically of the whiskey. Only then does he turn back to the others, frowning. "My cheekbones?" he asks Moira, before turning a look Crystal's way. "I'm thirty three, by all accounts. Unfortunately, the Nazi's burned my birth records."
Salty, a bit.
*
"Fascinating," Crystal muses, nodding to Logan's example. "Speaking of which, Moira, I'm not sure if Charles had the chance to tell you, but I was going to offer to share some blood samples if you'd like to look at them." A beat. It's been very busy lately, it's possible she's forgotten who knows what. "He did tell you I'm not a mutant, yes?"
Erik's reaction doesn't go unnoticed, though. And for what it's worth, Crystal doesn't actually seem bothered by the possibility. She steps back to his side, rubbing a hand reassuringly at his back. "Well. I imagine we could find out, if you both wanted to. And if not, then you still share similar abilities. I'm sure she'd be grateful for your help with hers."
*
A slight nod to Crystal, "Yes… he did bring it up. But, with transitioning to working with the Weapon-X program, I've…not been around here as much as I'd like. I can't risk them tracing me back here, so it's been a fun little juggling game getting home most nights." Whether anyone else knows that Moira's begun working for Weapon-X undercover in efforts to get information and, eventually, dismantel them, it's not clear. But she's not bothering to hide it.
She then looks back to Erik, her expression a touch more sedate, both accepting and not really pushing. But still thoughtful. "…Erik… I won't push it, but… If there is a possibility that you had…relations… as a teenager, I think it is distinctly possible you and she are related. I'd be happy to offer the proper testing, if you'd both want it. It… might also explain why your powers have such reactions to each other. But I also realize that time is probably… not one you care to think upon, either."
*
Its not entirely too complicated. Erik doesn't like to think of himself as the reckless, delinquent boy he'd been after the war. He's made efforts to grow into a much different man. It's helpful to have encouragement from both women, especially considering how disrespectfully he treated their gender when he was a teenager.
So, he pours another drink, shooting half of it solely for the sake of liquid courage. "Yes," he admits drily. "It's possible."
*
"Well, she's a lovely girl," Crystal says, smile faint. She leans in, pressing a brief kiss to his shoulder. "You don't have to think about it if you don't want to, Erik. Whatever the truth is, it's long past the time when there's much of anything you could do about it. But if you want to find out, then I'm here."
*
The smallest of nods comes from Moira in return as Erik says it's possible. She makes a mental note about that, but doesn't push further into the past. Not now. She just takes a small sip of her tea and exhales slowly, though Moira's comment about it being long past does draw a look from her. That is not something she agrees about. "…It's late tonight. We'll get the girl's contact info and…and if you decide you want to know, we'll pursue it then. I just know it probably is awful to be alone in all of this, even if she's found another teacher. It might be healthy for both of you to find out." Well, apparently Moira didn't have the willpower to stay COMPLETELY quiet about her opinion. Another sip of tea, though, and she pushes herself into standing. "I should go call the car for the girl, she'll probably want to get back into the city before too late." And then they'll know where she lives, too.
*
Erik turns at Crystal's affection, providing her with a warm smile and a nod of appreciation. He might find himself disagreeing too… no one can discount the terrible things that war can bring. It tears families apart, in more ways than a few.
"I should retire," he tells them. His appreciation for Moira's efforts is there, and while it goes unspoken, it can be discerned in his eyes. He replaces the bottle in its locked cabinet, and takes the dirty glasses with him. "You'll be staying here tonight, I hope?" he asks Crystal.
*
Crystal's smile curves at the question. "I've no duties anywhere else," she replies. With the prospect of an Asgardian alliance gone, her sister and cousin found, there is nothing to pull her away from the mansion and its people. "I'll go draw a bath," she says, moving to gather up the tea set. "I think we could all use a break after that eventful afternoon."
*