![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
om_fatale posting in ![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}
om_mainSimon comes by and helps Alisha with her powers practice, but practice is interrupted by a crisis of conscience.
Alisha was pacing outside the mansion. Today was yet another day that Simon was supposed to stop by and practice her powers; try to get them under control. She had a little bit of hope because whenever she touched him, it didn't seem as bad. Kind of like the muted effects when she touched Jack and she knew that Simon didn't have the same blocking ability that Jack did. But that was only Simon. Anyone else she touched and it was the same standard 'I want to fuck you' shit that she always had to deal with.
Time, they'd told her, she needed time and practice but what they didn't understand was that practice made her sick. It was different when she actually wanted to have sex. At least then she could pretend. There was no pretending about what Moira and everyone put her through.
She hadn't told Simon she'd be meeting him outside, but she couldn't stand to be in her room anymore. She couldn't seem to get the words out that might convince Alice that this wasn't being selfish. At least, not in any way she could control. And so they kept their silence and Alisha felt more and more unwelcome. The longer it went on, the more she wished she'd never left the city.
Simon had made the most of the long bus ride from the city, reading up on some things for school, but he was glad when he finally got to the school. Even immersing himself in literature about something he so loved did not fully banish the trepidation he always felt when he was heading back to school for this reason. But he did his best not to linger too long on how he felt about these sessions, because helping Alisha mattered more. She was finally making progress, after all, something she had thought was an impossible feat.
He was surprised to find her outside the mansion when he walked up to it, and he gave her a small smile, eyes lighting up at the sight of her, as always. "Hi."
"Days like this," she said, breath visible in soft little puffs of air, "make me miss London. I checked the weather report. Eleven degrees. New York City? Negative two. In other words: fucking cold." She rubbed her gloved hands together. She was basically numb all over, but she'd still rather be out here than in her room. Knowing Alice, she would have made some kind of ice bitch statement. At least she knew Simon wouldn't go there.
"So why are you outside?" Simon asked, more amused than he was confused. He led the way inside the mansion, glad to return to somewhere warm himself.
She could have told him the truth, but then he'd try to 'fix' her relationship with Alice and she wasn't really sure it could be fixed. So she shrugged and pointed them in the direction of the kitchen. "So I could have hot chocolate when I got back inside."
"Isn't Dr MacTaggart expecting us?" Simon asked with a frown, amusement gone at the thought of what was coming. He would rather get the training session over with first, and then have a hot drink with Alisha, try to relax and find his footing again.
And Alisha was trying to do the opposite: avoid the inevitable for as long as possible because all she'd want to do afterwards was curl into a ball and pretend it had never happened. "Yeah, I guess," she hedged, really wondering if he didn't even want a drink before this started. She wasn't even suggesting they spike it. If they had it after, she was definitely adding something a little extra to the mix.
"We should - go," Simon stated, stopping by the stairs instead of following towards the kitchen.
Alisha grimaced and veered back in his direction with a heavy sigh. She started pulling off her gloves. "Fine."
Simon frowned a little, unsure why she would already be taking her gloves off, but he just nodded and started down the stairs towards the infirmary. "So how've you been?" he asked, because he cared, as they walked down the stairs.
"Classes. You know. You should come down for Thanksgiving. Apparently Jack's boyfriend is doing this thing where people who are staying home are going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show after dinner. I've looked into it. It sounds like...an experience." She grinned, but it was a bit weak. Once they were out of the staircase, she tucked her gloves into her pockets and took her coat off. The shiver she felt had little to do with the change in temperature and everything to do with not wanting to be where they were going.
"Where's the showing?" Simon asked. If they were coming to New York for it, he might go, yes. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't. He had every intention of using the Thanksgiving break to catch up on a lot of his school work.
"Someplace near here, I think?" she said, shrugging a little. "I'm not sure exactly. I can show you the post if you want. Why?"
"I'd have come if it were in the City," he replied as they reached the door to the infirmary, and opened it for her.
That made her pause and she tried to hide the disappointment she felt that he wasn't going to come. "Oh," she said instead and slipped inside so he wouldn't see her face fall.
Simon frowned a little at her reaction, but they had more important things to focus on right now, so he forced himself to let it go. He greeted Moira with a small smile and, some five minutes later, found himself securely strapped in place. He should have become used to it by now, maybe, but it still wasn't the case, and he forced himself to try and relax. Moira was just over there, keeping an eye on the proceedings, and Alisha had made a lot of progress. This would be fine.
"Tell me again why I agreed to move back to the school," she said when he was strapped down. She still wasn't sure. Everyone thought it would be better, but she couldn't figure out how. She felt out of place in a way she hadn't before she'd left. And now here they were and maybe they'd made progress, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
She ignored the instructions Moira gave her, they were always the same, and instead focused on Simon. "You ready?" she murmured and wished there were some other way to do this.
Simon nodded slightly, holding Alisha's gaze - for now. "Yeah."
She took a breath and then slid their fingers together, holding his hand. She wasn't sure why she'd done it that way except that she wanted him to know she was with him.
Instant arousal washed through him, the way it had the last few sessions, and Simon sucked in a breath, dropping his gaze and shifting pointlessly in the seat. Instant arousal, but nothing overwhelming, nothing he hadn't naturally felt before. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn't dangerous, and he was relieved that the restraints still served no point. "I'm alright," he stated after a couple of seconds, the pink in his cheeks as much of a flush as a blush as he glanced up at Alisha.
"No urge to get up and rip my clothes off?" she asked and then shook her head. "I don't know why it's like this only with you." Anyone else she touched and it was like she was back to square one. Maybe she was doomed to only touching Simon for the rest of her life. Well, Simon and the few others who she could touch without it being a problem. And whoever wanted to sleep with her before she touched them.
If at all possible, her rhetorical question tinged his cheeks an even darker shade of pink, but he focused on her next words instead. "Have you talked to the Professor?" he asked, forcing himself to concentrate on the conversation despite his arousal. "He might be able to help you figure it out." It was clearly something in her mind; Moira had said there was no physiological reason why he might be reacting differently.
"Okay, I know, but I can't fix it." And now she was the one flushing because she wasn't sure she wanted Simon to hear. And she definitely didn't want him to hear in front of Moira.
Simon frowned up at her, holding her gaze despite how much he wanted to kiss her just then. "Fix what?"
Alisha glanced at Moira. She was looking at some kind of computer and so Alisha ducked her head and murmured in Simon's ear. "Because I care about you. And don't want to see you be some mindless...animal." And then she dropped his hand and stepped back, avoiding his eyes.
Simon wanted to move, but the restraints prevented that, and his hands curled into loose fists. His gaze followed Alisha as she pulled away - his erection would take a few moments to wilt, for all that the arousal had receded. Nothing about this situation was much of a turn-on. "You care about more people than just me."
"I asked exactly two people for help with this, Simon. Because I didn't trust anyone else. Not with this." And Scott had shredded her heart.
"You trust us," Simon repeated, brow furrowed in thought. "Maybe that's why. Maybe that's the trigger."
"Well, if that's true, I'm screwed. I don't trust a hell of a lot of people." And Simon was pretty much it.
"You ought to talk to the Professor." Simon felt like he was a broken record, always saying the same thing. But she wouldn't listen. "He could probably give you mental exercises..." Triggers could be changed. What was unconscious could become conscious.
But for now, he felt awkward, strapped here when there was no cause. "Are we going to keep at it some more?" he asked, because she might as well let him out, if not.
"Things that have me chasing ghosts, you mean. You sound like I'm not trying." She leaned in and brushed her lips over his forehead and for a single moment, nothing. Her powers just weren't working. And then she leaned back and started undoing the restraints. She didn't even notice what had happened.
"Alisha," Simon said, eyes wide, before looking up at her. His tone made it very clear that something was up.
"I'm sorry for making you come all this way," she murmured, not looking at him. She hadn't meant to kiss him. She wasn't even sure why she had.
"Alisha," he said again, on the same tone. As she undid his second restraint, he sat up and turned to her. "I didn't feel it."
"Well...good?" she said, not understanding what he was saying.
"When you kissed my forehead," he elaborated, and by then, what had happened had hit him, and he couldn't help the smile that was tilting up the corner of his lips, happiness clear in his eyes. "Nothing happened."
She frowned when she realized what he was saying and then touched his hand tentatively. Of course, the power was back, at least to the way it had been for the last few weeks. She was safe enough from him reaching for her, but that was it.
Simon was about to protest when she reached for his hand, because it wasn't safe, but then it was too late. Fortunately, only the usual arousal washed through him, and he shook his head, pulling his hand back. "Maybe because you weren't thinking about it?" At least they knew that it was possible, now.
"Or because I was," she said, snatching her hand back as soon as she saw that look. She didn't like the thought of him lusting after her. Oh, sure, the thoughts she knew he had when it was just her, but not because of her power. Especially the look he got after she touched him. She couldn't stand that look.
"You were?" Simon frowned again, unsure what she meant. Wasn't she thinking about it every time she touched him on purpose?
Alisha pressed her lips together. "You get this look. And I just..." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
Simon held her gaze for a few seconds, then stood and turned to look at Moira. "Can we have a minute? No touching," he assured the doctor, who, after a beat, told them to call for her if they wanted to resume the session. "Thank you."
He waited until they were alone in the room, then turned back to Alisha. "It matters."
"You don't know what you look like after I stop touching you." Like he couldn't be done fast enough. Fuck, they had to tie him down. She shuddered and turned away.
"What do I look like?" Simon asked, still not sure how any of the pieces fit together.
"Horrified," she whispered.
Simon frowned; he did his best not to show how much he disliked the experience, but it seemed like too strong a word for it all the same. "I don't like feeling that because of your mutation," he agreed, of a sort. "So what were you thinking?"
"My 'mutation' is me," she said.
Simon was quiet for a second, before he asked, "What about mine?" It had felt like it, at first. Nobody ever noticed him, or remembered him. But he felt like that had changed. He had made real friends here, he had been seen - and he was still being seen, at school in NYC. People noticed and people cared. "What about Scott's?"
"You don't get it," she said, taking a step away and turning her back on him so he wouldn't see her face. "I deserve this." She spread her fingers and looked down at her hands.
"Nobody deserves this," Simon stated, stepping closer to her to lay a hand on her shoulder. "Certainly not you."
Her shoulder twitched when he touched it. "You're wrong. Punishment for my sins."
"Alisha." Her name was almost a sigh. He didn't move his hand away from her shoulder, but moved around her so that he could talk to her face to face. "You're the only one punishing yourself."
"Maybe," she admitted. "Doesn't mean I still don't deserve it."
"It means you think you do," Simon disagreed quietly, squeezing her shoulder in support. "And you're not just punishing yourself."
"It means I know I do," she retorted, shoulders slumping.
She might want to ignore the other thing he'd been saying, but Simon had no intention of letting her. He dropped his hand, keeping his eyes on hers. "What about the other people you're hurting? Do they deserve that punishment, too?"
"Who is it hurting, Simon? If anything, it's keeping me out of the school's dating pool." Which, as she'd decided after Scott, wasn't a bad thing.
"It's hurting me," he replied, frowning stubbornly, and hoping he wouldn't blush. "It's hurting everybody who'd like to be able to touch you. It isn't just about dating."
Why did he have to fucking say things like that? It made her feel all warm and crap. She glared at him for a moment before softening a little. "You wouldn't want to touch me."
"You don't know what I want," Simon retorted, beginning to grow angry with her attitude. "Why am I here, Alisha? If you don't want to help yourself, why am I here, trying to do what you won't?"
She flushed and looked away. "I don't know," she whispered.
Anger and guilt warred within Simon, and in the end, he turned away and picked up his coat. "Let me know when you figure it out," he said quietly as he pulled it back on.
She sucked in a breath. She'd never really seen him angry. Or, well, that wasn't fair. She'd seen him angry, but only ever at her. For her. "Why?" she pressed, grabbing his arm so he wouldn't leave. "I don't understand."
"I've told you enough times, Alisha," Simon replied, and gently but firmly pulled his arm out of her grasp. If she couldn't understand that he cared, if she still couldn't see how much damage she was doing to herself and to people who cared about her, he was out of ideas on how to help.
"But not why. What, do you fancy me or something?" Well, she knew that. Thought she knew that.
For some reason, that managed to spark Simon's anger all over again. "Yes, Alisha, that must be why I'm doing all this. Because I want into your knickers."
"That's what most of the people in my life want," she retorted. "So, no. I don't know why. Are you going to tell me or just fuck off?"
Simon sighed quietly, his anger as always short-lived. Sadness and exhaustion had taken over instead. "Let me know when you've figured it out," he repeated, and turned to go.
"So, it's fuck off. Jesus, Simon. What about 'I don't know' don't you get? I'm not bullshitting you." And now she was going to feel even worse than she did.
She wasn't listening, and she wouldn't until she was ready. Simon stopped in the doorframe, turning back to look at her. "Let me know when you're ready to keep working on this." That was all there was to it, really. He walked out, heading for Moira's office. He could use a short talk with his former mentor.
She stared at where he'd walked out and followed him quickly. "Damn it, Simon. I never said... I'll put in the fucking hours. This has nothing to do with practice and everything to do with..." She couldn't quite say 'us'. Because there wasn't. But he was, barring Scott, one of the most complicated relationships she had and she wasn't good at complicated.
Simon stopped and kept his back to her long enough to close his eyes and let out a quiet sigh. Then he turned around to meet her gaze again. "If you still think that your mental landscape has nothing to do with practice, then you've really not understood anything, Alisha. There's no point 'putting in the hours' as long as you don't put in the work."
"It's not like some switch I can turn off. I had..." She glanced at him. "Have things here I never thought I'd have. But I've..." Her eyes dropped. "Become someone I don't know how to come back from." She took a breath and lifted her eyes again, staring him down. "But you can't just say that I'm not trying at all. I don't just come here because I don't have anything better to do or because they make me. You want to know why you're here? You're one of the only people who make me think I could be better." She held out her hand without thinking. "Just...don't give up on me. Please?"
Simon hesitated a second, really tempted to take her hand. He could deal with yet another erection. But there was the possibility that she wouldn't be in control this time, and that meant that it wouldn't be safe for her. So he shook his head slightly, but at the same time said, "I'll never give up on you. But if you don't start telling yourself that you deserve better, you'll keep on standing in your way. You have to think that you can be better, or what we do is useless."
Alisha dropped her hand with a sigh. "Do you even know how ridiculous you sound? I can't just develop self-esteem because you say so." It would be easier if she could. If she could just have that confidence in herself she'd had before all this it would be fine. But she was beginning to suspect that it'd all been for show.
"No, you can develop it if you work at it, Alisha," Simon confirmed. "I can't do it for you. No one can."
"You don't think..." She took a step back. That hurt. That really...hurt. "If you don't even think I'm trying, then you can do what you were going to do and fuck off."
Once upon a time, this was the kind of tactic that would have worked on Simon. But he had grown too much, and he had gone through too much, to let it anymore. So he ignored the gnawing doubt in his chest and stood his ground. "You keep talking yourself down. All the time, Alisha. If that's you trying, then you're not trying hard enough."
"If I weren't trying hard enough, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have let you and Pietro convince me to come back to the last place I want to be. I wouldn't have even tried this in the first place. But you can't just tell me I have to get over something and I'll magically get over it." Fuck. She wanted to yell or tear her hair out or something. He was expecting so much so soon and it seemed as if he was just going to abandon her if she didn't give him what he wanted.
Her heart started to race at the idea of being alone again. Alone but for Moira and her ilk and that was even worse than being truly alone.
"Just say it, Simon. You're giving up on me like everyone else."
Simon just looked disappointed again. "That's exactly what I mean." He shook his head slightly, still holding her gaze.
"What's exactly do you mean? Stop speaking in fucking riddles." He was giving her a headache, but she needed to understand. She needed him to not go away.
"Alisha, I'm here," he nearly snapped, at a loss how to make her see anything she so clearly did not want to face. "I have been here. And I have been telling you the same things for a long time now. I'm not suddenly asking you anything." The words almost stuck in his throat, but he forced them out, the words that mattered most, if she would see them for what they were. "You should've been listening all along."
He didn't like that phrasing, "should've", the way it sounded as if he was blaming her. But it had been months and months, and he had been helping, here, and she still hadn't started to listen.
"If I haven't been listening," she cried, "then why don't you still beg to fuck me whenever I touch you?" Here he was saying she'd never tried when she had. It just wasn't easy and he didn't seem to get that it was a struggle just to come down here. She had to fight every instinct she had and then she had to fight her own feelings. And no matter what he thought, it wasn't just as easy as telling herself she deserved better.
"But that's about me, isn't it," Simon said quietly, wishing again, more than anything, that he could just reach out for her. But this was not what they had been talking about, and he shouldn't let her change the topic. So he turned the conversation back around. "About how you feel about me, and what you think I feel about you. I'm not horrified by you. And I'm not here because I've nothing better to do with my time. I'm not here to walk out on you." His voice shook a little as he went on, "But I'm not here to let you keep making excuses, either."
"You're acting like I'm half-arsing thing whole thing. The last time I did anything close to this hard, I ended up on your doorstep. I can't just wave a magic wand and say 'there, I don't feel like this'. But that doesn't mean I'm not..." She shook her head and backed up against one wall, sliding down it until she was sitting on the floor with her knees tucked up against her chest. "I am trying, but you can't just magically expect me to get over the things I've done. You want excuses, I can go back to pretending everything's fine. I can usually even fool myself."
"Why am I here, Alisha?" She might keep trying to take the conversation in another direction, but Simon would not let her.
"I already told you." She lifted a shoulder. "You make me think I can be better. Doesn't mean I still don't have my bad days."
"That's not what you said you didn't know," Simon shook his head, holding her gaze. "That's why you asked me. Not why I choose to be here."
"Because you're too fucking nice for your own good." That was better than thinking about the alternative.
Simon's lips twitched with the beginning of a smile, and he shrugged one shoulder, not looking away from her. "Probably." His tone made it clear that that wasn't the answer she was supposed to give.
"Are you going to keep standing up there and making me crane my neck at you," she asked, despite the fact that she wasn't looking at him, "or are you going to come sit down?" She almost let that stand as it was, but she could feel the silent pressure to give him another answer. The problem was that she hadn't quite been lying when she said she wasn't sure. She had ideas, including the fact that he fancied her. But she also knew that even if that was one of the reasons, it wasn't the only one. "And tell me why you're here instead of making it a guessing game."
Simon sat beside her with his back to the wall, part of him wishing he could just turn invisible and run away. He could, really, but he wouldn't. That was who he used to be. He felt like pulling up the hood of his hoodie, too, as if that meant that he would be less on the spot, but he resisted that urge as well, laying his hands flat on his thighs. "I'm here because I care about you." It was a very simple, and a very complicated answer. "Because you deserve a better life."
It wasn't a simple answer at all for Alisha. The people who 'cared' about her always wanted something from her. Even if they meant well, they seemed to want something. She wasn't sure what Simon wanted, wasn't even sure he did want something, though she knew his answer would be a definite 'didn't'.
She slid a little more down and rested her head on his shoulder. "I know I should just forget the things before, but sometimes...I'm not a nice person, Simon. You know that." Better than most of the people here did.
"You shouldn't forget them," Simon replied quietly, reaching to lay his fingers on her sleeve. "No one should ever forget their past. But you should focus on your future. You deserve one."
"When you say it like that," she whispered, "I almost believe you." But it was more than that. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that doing something would help and that if she couldn't fix the mistakes she'd made, at least she could move on from them. "Don't go see Moira." No good would come from that conversation, despite what Simon might think.
Simon frowned at her last words, turning his head to look at her. "Why not?"
"Because we were doing okay without her." Because she was afraid if he left, he might stay gone. "I lose my confidence and you...do your thing." She sounded slightly hesitant because she still wasn't sure how he managed it when most other people couldn't. "And I get back on track."
"I'm not sure what you mean," Simon admitted after a few seconds, clearly still very confused.
"You make me believe..." She shook her head. "I don't know how to explain it." That not all hope was lost for her. That someone out there knew what she'd done and he still cared.
"What has that got to do with Moira?" Simon asked, still unclear about any of what she was saying. Why wouldn't he go and talk to her if he wanted?
"Because you're going to go there and tell her...I don't know. That you're done with me. Or maybe that I need to start seeing other people." Or worse, he was going to tell her that Alisha's self-confidence was shaky and they were going to have to talk about it. She didn't want to talk about it with someone she barely knew. Someone she didn't want to know.
"Alisha..." Simon sighed, closing his eyes. One step forward, two steps backward. That was what it kept feeling like. He opened his eyes again, and shifted his shoulder so that she would have to straighten up, and he could hold her gaze. "You never listen. I'm not done with you, I won't walk out on you. And you will need to work on this with other people, at some point. But Moira - she's -" How could he put it? "I go to her for help. She's my - support?"
She had him and he had...someone else. She wasn't sure why that thought disappointed her a little. "Right, well. I suppose when I make you want to bang your head against a wall, the last person you'd want to talk to about it is the person who made you want to do it in the first place." She shook her head. "And you're wrong. I do listen. Everyone else always ends up leaving." Pietro had been so bothered by what she'd told him - and Scott and Simon - that he'd stopped talking to her for a while. And then there was Scott and the less she thought about him the better. She was used to ending up on her own. She wasn't used to Simon's stubborn insistence that he was saying or the part where he actually did stay.
"You don't listen, or you'd trust my words," Simon replied quietly. "And my actions. Who's left? Apart from..." Scott, if she wanted to see it that way. But he'd always had a girlfriend, he'd always had Lydia. Was not returning feelings really akin to leaving?
"Trusting anyone is hard," she said quietly. "Especially after him. Just because I don't do it easily, it doesn't mean that I don't try, just like the fact that coming down here gives me hives but I still do it. You're expecting things to come easily for me." It seemed like he was expecting her to be the Alisha Daniels who could have anything and that was the problem. If he wanted her to make progress, she couldn't be that person. She had to be this. Who trusted only after she'd kicked and screamed the whole way. Who'd only ever been used or used in return. Who was still that girl who'd become someone else in order to survive secondary school.
"It's terrifying to be that..." Vulnerable. Her lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
"I never said you weren't trying at all, or that things should come easily," Simon replied with a sigh. This conversation was going round in circles, and she was still using Scott as an argument to justify things that had already existed long before that had happened. "You keep saying you trust me, but you don't. Trust is never supposed to be easy. I trusted Sally, Alisha, more than you know," he admitted, his voice a little thick at that. He'd never really talked to her about it. "Trust isn't easy for anyone, but it's necessary. And you can't ask me not to open up to the people I trust."
"You don't say it, but you sound disappointed, like you think I should have it all fixed by now." Her voice got a little sharper. "And don't say that. Fuck, Simon. I keep telling you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. But it's not just black and white. I'm a work in progress. What I feel about you is a work in progress. But when you say that you're leaving and...and...what the hell was it? 'Tell me when I've figured it out'? What do you expect me to think? That you're not leaving and not coming back? I had a bad day and it sounded like you were done."
Part of Simon wanted to be point out that he'd never seen her have a good day, and that that was the problem. Another part of him wanted to point out that she was nicely evading the issue of her asking him not to talk to Moira. But the former was too likely to make her spiral down into more of the same, or worse, and the latter... was it worth arguing? He would go and talk to Moira if he wanted to, and that was that.
In short, he was too tired to bother arguing anymore, and he'd never been very good at standing up for things anyway.
"I'm not," he simply replied, leaning his shoulders back against the wall and dropping his head slightly. "I'm sorry I gave you that impression."
Slowly, almost tentatively, she rested her head on his shoulder. "I am trying, Simon. And I do know that some people here are...different than they were back home." Some people. And then there were the people like Lil. Like Jeanne Marie. And especially like Cersei. She couldn't stop herself thinking of Damon. With him, it would be so easy to go back to her old ways of just not giving a shit.
"But right now, you're about the only person I think gives a damn about whether I do this or not." He wasn't, but he was the only person who's opinion she trusted. The teachers were almost non-persons to her, Sirius was with her with or without her powers, and Pietro... He might have been the reason she's started this whole thing, but she didn't trust him enough to tell him what was going on anymore, so he didn't even know whether she'd made progress or not.
"So, tell me I can do it, yeah?"
"Of course you can do it," Simon readily supplied, and he had to believe that, or what would he be doing here. "I'm not sure there's anything you couldn't do, if you put your mind to it. But I'm not. I'm not the only person who cares."
"I know that here," she said, tapping her head, "but sometimes not here." She tapped her chest and then sighed. "Look, go talk to her if you have to, but don't leave. We can try again and I'll try to be..." Her face twisted a little. "Optimistic."
"Confident," Simon replied quietly. Confident mattered a lot more than optimistic. "I'll go get her, if you want to try again."
"Confident, right," she muttered and moved away so he could get up.
"I'll get Dr MacTaggart," Simon told her after pushing up to his feet.
"Okay," she said and took a breath as soon as she was gone. She'd faked being confident for so long, she could be actually confident now, right? And he believed in her. He believed in her when she wasn't sure she did in herself. That mattered. She could do this.
Alisha was pacing outside the mansion. Today was yet another day that Simon was supposed to stop by and practice her powers; try to get them under control. She had a little bit of hope because whenever she touched him, it didn't seem as bad. Kind of like the muted effects when she touched Jack and she knew that Simon didn't have the same blocking ability that Jack did. But that was only Simon. Anyone else she touched and it was the same standard 'I want to fuck you' shit that she always had to deal with.
Time, they'd told her, she needed time and practice but what they didn't understand was that practice made her sick. It was different when she actually wanted to have sex. At least then she could pretend. There was no pretending about what Moira and everyone put her through.
She hadn't told Simon she'd be meeting him outside, but she couldn't stand to be in her room anymore. She couldn't seem to get the words out that might convince Alice that this wasn't being selfish. At least, not in any way she could control. And so they kept their silence and Alisha felt more and more unwelcome. The longer it went on, the more she wished she'd never left the city.
Simon had made the most of the long bus ride from the city, reading up on some things for school, but he was glad when he finally got to the school. Even immersing himself in literature about something he so loved did not fully banish the trepidation he always felt when he was heading back to school for this reason. But he did his best not to linger too long on how he felt about these sessions, because helping Alisha mattered more. She was finally making progress, after all, something she had thought was an impossible feat.
He was surprised to find her outside the mansion when he walked up to it, and he gave her a small smile, eyes lighting up at the sight of her, as always. "Hi."
"Days like this," she said, breath visible in soft little puffs of air, "make me miss London. I checked the weather report. Eleven degrees. New York City? Negative two. In other words: fucking cold." She rubbed her gloved hands together. She was basically numb all over, but she'd still rather be out here than in her room. Knowing Alice, she would have made some kind of ice bitch statement. At least she knew Simon wouldn't go there.
"So why are you outside?" Simon asked, more amused than he was confused. He led the way inside the mansion, glad to return to somewhere warm himself.
She could have told him the truth, but then he'd try to 'fix' her relationship with Alice and she wasn't really sure it could be fixed. So she shrugged and pointed them in the direction of the kitchen. "So I could have hot chocolate when I got back inside."
"Isn't Dr MacTaggart expecting us?" Simon asked with a frown, amusement gone at the thought of what was coming. He would rather get the training session over with first, and then have a hot drink with Alisha, try to relax and find his footing again.
And Alisha was trying to do the opposite: avoid the inevitable for as long as possible because all she'd want to do afterwards was curl into a ball and pretend it had never happened. "Yeah, I guess," she hedged, really wondering if he didn't even want a drink before this started. She wasn't even suggesting they spike it. If they had it after, she was definitely adding something a little extra to the mix.
"We should - go," Simon stated, stopping by the stairs instead of following towards the kitchen.
Alisha grimaced and veered back in his direction with a heavy sigh. She started pulling off her gloves. "Fine."
Simon frowned a little, unsure why she would already be taking her gloves off, but he just nodded and started down the stairs towards the infirmary. "So how've you been?" he asked, because he cared, as they walked down the stairs.
"Classes. You know. You should come down for Thanksgiving. Apparently Jack's boyfriend is doing this thing where people who are staying home are going to the Rocky Horror Picture Show after dinner. I've looked into it. It sounds like...an experience." She grinned, but it was a bit weak. Once they were out of the staircase, she tucked her gloves into her pockets and took her coat off. The shiver she felt had little to do with the change in temperature and everything to do with not wanting to be where they were going.
"Where's the showing?" Simon asked. If they were coming to New York for it, he might go, yes. Otherwise, he probably wouldn't. He had every intention of using the Thanksgiving break to catch up on a lot of his school work.
"Someplace near here, I think?" she said, shrugging a little. "I'm not sure exactly. I can show you the post if you want. Why?"
"I'd have come if it were in the City," he replied as they reached the door to the infirmary, and opened it for her.
That made her pause and she tried to hide the disappointment she felt that he wasn't going to come. "Oh," she said instead and slipped inside so he wouldn't see her face fall.
Simon frowned a little at her reaction, but they had more important things to focus on right now, so he forced himself to let it go. He greeted Moira with a small smile and, some five minutes later, found himself securely strapped in place. He should have become used to it by now, maybe, but it still wasn't the case, and he forced himself to try and relax. Moira was just over there, keeping an eye on the proceedings, and Alisha had made a lot of progress. This would be fine.
"Tell me again why I agreed to move back to the school," she said when he was strapped down. She still wasn't sure. Everyone thought it would be better, but she couldn't figure out how. She felt out of place in a way she hadn't before she'd left. And now here they were and maybe they'd made progress, but not enough. Not nearly enough.
She ignored the instructions Moira gave her, they were always the same, and instead focused on Simon. "You ready?" she murmured and wished there were some other way to do this.
Simon nodded slightly, holding Alisha's gaze - for now. "Yeah."
She took a breath and then slid their fingers together, holding his hand. She wasn't sure why she'd done it that way except that she wanted him to know she was with him.
Instant arousal washed through him, the way it had the last few sessions, and Simon sucked in a breath, dropping his gaze and shifting pointlessly in the seat. Instant arousal, but nothing overwhelming, nothing he hadn't naturally felt before. It was uncomfortable, but it wasn't dangerous, and he was relieved that the restraints still served no point. "I'm alright," he stated after a couple of seconds, the pink in his cheeks as much of a flush as a blush as he glanced up at Alisha.
"No urge to get up and rip my clothes off?" she asked and then shook her head. "I don't know why it's like this only with you." Anyone else she touched and it was like she was back to square one. Maybe she was doomed to only touching Simon for the rest of her life. Well, Simon and the few others who she could touch without it being a problem. And whoever wanted to sleep with her before she touched them.
If at all possible, her rhetorical question tinged his cheeks an even darker shade of pink, but he focused on her next words instead. "Have you talked to the Professor?" he asked, forcing himself to concentrate on the conversation despite his arousal. "He might be able to help you figure it out." It was clearly something in her mind; Moira had said there was no physiological reason why he might be reacting differently.
"Okay, I know, but I can't fix it." And now she was the one flushing because she wasn't sure she wanted Simon to hear. And she definitely didn't want him to hear in front of Moira.
Simon frowned up at her, holding her gaze despite how much he wanted to kiss her just then. "Fix what?"
Alisha glanced at Moira. She was looking at some kind of computer and so Alisha ducked her head and murmured in Simon's ear. "Because I care about you. And don't want to see you be some mindless...animal." And then she dropped his hand and stepped back, avoiding his eyes.
Simon wanted to move, but the restraints prevented that, and his hands curled into loose fists. His gaze followed Alisha as she pulled away - his erection would take a few moments to wilt, for all that the arousal had receded. Nothing about this situation was much of a turn-on. "You care about more people than just me."
"I asked exactly two people for help with this, Simon. Because I didn't trust anyone else. Not with this." And Scott had shredded her heart.
"You trust us," Simon repeated, brow furrowed in thought. "Maybe that's why. Maybe that's the trigger."
"Well, if that's true, I'm screwed. I don't trust a hell of a lot of people." And Simon was pretty much it.
"You ought to talk to the Professor." Simon felt like he was a broken record, always saying the same thing. But she wouldn't listen. "He could probably give you mental exercises..." Triggers could be changed. What was unconscious could become conscious.
But for now, he felt awkward, strapped here when there was no cause. "Are we going to keep at it some more?" he asked, because she might as well let him out, if not.
"Things that have me chasing ghosts, you mean. You sound like I'm not trying." She leaned in and brushed her lips over his forehead and for a single moment, nothing. Her powers just weren't working. And then she leaned back and started undoing the restraints. She didn't even notice what had happened.
"Alisha," Simon said, eyes wide, before looking up at her. His tone made it very clear that something was up.
"I'm sorry for making you come all this way," she murmured, not looking at him. She hadn't meant to kiss him. She wasn't even sure why she had.
"Alisha," he said again, on the same tone. As she undid his second restraint, he sat up and turned to her. "I didn't feel it."
"Well...good?" she said, not understanding what he was saying.
"When you kissed my forehead," he elaborated, and by then, what had happened had hit him, and he couldn't help the smile that was tilting up the corner of his lips, happiness clear in his eyes. "Nothing happened."
She frowned when she realized what he was saying and then touched his hand tentatively. Of course, the power was back, at least to the way it had been for the last few weeks. She was safe enough from him reaching for her, but that was it.
Simon was about to protest when she reached for his hand, because it wasn't safe, but then it was too late. Fortunately, only the usual arousal washed through him, and he shook his head, pulling his hand back. "Maybe because you weren't thinking about it?" At least they knew that it was possible, now.
"Or because I was," she said, snatching her hand back as soon as she saw that look. She didn't like the thought of him lusting after her. Oh, sure, the thoughts she knew he had when it was just her, but not because of her power. Especially the look he got after she touched him. She couldn't stand that look.
"You were?" Simon frowned again, unsure what she meant. Wasn't she thinking about it every time she touched him on purpose?
Alisha pressed her lips together. "You get this look. And I just..." She shook her head. "It doesn't matter."
Simon held her gaze for a few seconds, then stood and turned to look at Moira. "Can we have a minute? No touching," he assured the doctor, who, after a beat, told them to call for her if they wanted to resume the session. "Thank you."
He waited until they were alone in the room, then turned back to Alisha. "It matters."
"You don't know what you look like after I stop touching you." Like he couldn't be done fast enough. Fuck, they had to tie him down. She shuddered and turned away.
"What do I look like?" Simon asked, still not sure how any of the pieces fit together.
"Horrified," she whispered.
Simon frowned; he did his best not to show how much he disliked the experience, but it seemed like too strong a word for it all the same. "I don't like feeling that because of your mutation," he agreed, of a sort. "So what were you thinking?"
"My 'mutation' is me," she said.
Simon was quiet for a second, before he asked, "What about mine?" It had felt like it, at first. Nobody ever noticed him, or remembered him. But he felt like that had changed. He had made real friends here, he had been seen - and he was still being seen, at school in NYC. People noticed and people cared. "What about Scott's?"
"You don't get it," she said, taking a step away and turning her back on him so he wouldn't see her face. "I deserve this." She spread her fingers and looked down at her hands.
"Nobody deserves this," Simon stated, stepping closer to her to lay a hand on her shoulder. "Certainly not you."
Her shoulder twitched when he touched it. "You're wrong. Punishment for my sins."
"Alisha." Her name was almost a sigh. He didn't move his hand away from her shoulder, but moved around her so that he could talk to her face to face. "You're the only one punishing yourself."
"Maybe," she admitted. "Doesn't mean I still don't deserve it."
"It means you think you do," Simon disagreed quietly, squeezing her shoulder in support. "And you're not just punishing yourself."
"It means I know I do," she retorted, shoulders slumping.
She might want to ignore the other thing he'd been saying, but Simon had no intention of letting her. He dropped his hand, keeping his eyes on hers. "What about the other people you're hurting? Do they deserve that punishment, too?"
"Who is it hurting, Simon? If anything, it's keeping me out of the school's dating pool." Which, as she'd decided after Scott, wasn't a bad thing.
"It's hurting me," he replied, frowning stubbornly, and hoping he wouldn't blush. "It's hurting everybody who'd like to be able to touch you. It isn't just about dating."
Why did he have to fucking say things like that? It made her feel all warm and crap. She glared at him for a moment before softening a little. "You wouldn't want to touch me."
"You don't know what I want," Simon retorted, beginning to grow angry with her attitude. "Why am I here, Alisha? If you don't want to help yourself, why am I here, trying to do what you won't?"
She flushed and looked away. "I don't know," she whispered.
Anger and guilt warred within Simon, and in the end, he turned away and picked up his coat. "Let me know when you figure it out," he said quietly as he pulled it back on.
She sucked in a breath. She'd never really seen him angry. Or, well, that wasn't fair. She'd seen him angry, but only ever at her. For her. "Why?" she pressed, grabbing his arm so he wouldn't leave. "I don't understand."
"I've told you enough times, Alisha," Simon replied, and gently but firmly pulled his arm out of her grasp. If she couldn't understand that he cared, if she still couldn't see how much damage she was doing to herself and to people who cared about her, he was out of ideas on how to help.
"But not why. What, do you fancy me or something?" Well, she knew that. Thought she knew that.
For some reason, that managed to spark Simon's anger all over again. "Yes, Alisha, that must be why I'm doing all this. Because I want into your knickers."
"That's what most of the people in my life want," she retorted. "So, no. I don't know why. Are you going to tell me or just fuck off?"
Simon sighed quietly, his anger as always short-lived. Sadness and exhaustion had taken over instead. "Let me know when you've figured it out," he repeated, and turned to go.
"So, it's fuck off. Jesus, Simon. What about 'I don't know' don't you get? I'm not bullshitting you." And now she was going to feel even worse than she did.
She wasn't listening, and she wouldn't until she was ready. Simon stopped in the doorframe, turning back to look at her. "Let me know when you're ready to keep working on this." That was all there was to it, really. He walked out, heading for Moira's office. He could use a short talk with his former mentor.
She stared at where he'd walked out and followed him quickly. "Damn it, Simon. I never said... I'll put in the fucking hours. This has nothing to do with practice and everything to do with..." She couldn't quite say 'us'. Because there wasn't. But he was, barring Scott, one of the most complicated relationships she had and she wasn't good at complicated.
Simon stopped and kept his back to her long enough to close his eyes and let out a quiet sigh. Then he turned around to meet her gaze again. "If you still think that your mental landscape has nothing to do with practice, then you've really not understood anything, Alisha. There's no point 'putting in the hours' as long as you don't put in the work."
"It's not like some switch I can turn off. I had..." She glanced at him. "Have things here I never thought I'd have. But I've..." Her eyes dropped. "Become someone I don't know how to come back from." She took a breath and lifted her eyes again, staring him down. "But you can't just say that I'm not trying at all. I don't just come here because I don't have anything better to do or because they make me. You want to know why you're here? You're one of the only people who make me think I could be better." She held out her hand without thinking. "Just...don't give up on me. Please?"
Simon hesitated a second, really tempted to take her hand. He could deal with yet another erection. But there was the possibility that she wouldn't be in control this time, and that meant that it wouldn't be safe for her. So he shook his head slightly, but at the same time said, "I'll never give up on you. But if you don't start telling yourself that you deserve better, you'll keep on standing in your way. You have to think that you can be better, or what we do is useless."
Alisha dropped her hand with a sigh. "Do you even know how ridiculous you sound? I can't just develop self-esteem because you say so." It would be easier if she could. If she could just have that confidence in herself she'd had before all this it would be fine. But she was beginning to suspect that it'd all been for show.
"No, you can develop it if you work at it, Alisha," Simon confirmed. "I can't do it for you. No one can."
"You don't think..." She took a step back. That hurt. That really...hurt. "If you don't even think I'm trying, then you can do what you were going to do and fuck off."
Once upon a time, this was the kind of tactic that would have worked on Simon. But he had grown too much, and he had gone through too much, to let it anymore. So he ignored the gnawing doubt in his chest and stood his ground. "You keep talking yourself down. All the time, Alisha. If that's you trying, then you're not trying hard enough."
"If I weren't trying hard enough, I wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have let you and Pietro convince me to come back to the last place I want to be. I wouldn't have even tried this in the first place. But you can't just tell me I have to get over something and I'll magically get over it." Fuck. She wanted to yell or tear her hair out or something. He was expecting so much so soon and it seemed as if he was just going to abandon her if she didn't give him what he wanted.
Her heart started to race at the idea of being alone again. Alone but for Moira and her ilk and that was even worse than being truly alone.
"Just say it, Simon. You're giving up on me like everyone else."
Simon just looked disappointed again. "That's exactly what I mean." He shook his head slightly, still holding her gaze.
"What's exactly do you mean? Stop speaking in fucking riddles." He was giving her a headache, but she needed to understand. She needed him to not go away.
"Alisha, I'm here," he nearly snapped, at a loss how to make her see anything she so clearly did not want to face. "I have been here. And I have been telling you the same things for a long time now. I'm not suddenly asking you anything." The words almost stuck in his throat, but he forced them out, the words that mattered most, if she would see them for what they were. "You should've been listening all along."
He didn't like that phrasing, "should've", the way it sounded as if he was blaming her. But it had been months and months, and he had been helping, here, and she still hadn't started to listen.
"If I haven't been listening," she cried, "then why don't you still beg to fuck me whenever I touch you?" Here he was saying she'd never tried when she had. It just wasn't easy and he didn't seem to get that it was a struggle just to come down here. She had to fight every instinct she had and then she had to fight her own feelings. And no matter what he thought, it wasn't just as easy as telling herself she deserved better.
"But that's about me, isn't it," Simon said quietly, wishing again, more than anything, that he could just reach out for her. But this was not what they had been talking about, and he shouldn't let her change the topic. So he turned the conversation back around. "About how you feel about me, and what you think I feel about you. I'm not horrified by you. And I'm not here because I've nothing better to do with my time. I'm not here to walk out on you." His voice shook a little as he went on, "But I'm not here to let you keep making excuses, either."
"You're acting like I'm half-arsing thing whole thing. The last time I did anything close to this hard, I ended up on your doorstep. I can't just wave a magic wand and say 'there, I don't feel like this'. But that doesn't mean I'm not..." She shook her head and backed up against one wall, sliding down it until she was sitting on the floor with her knees tucked up against her chest. "I am trying, but you can't just magically expect me to get over the things I've done. You want excuses, I can go back to pretending everything's fine. I can usually even fool myself."
"Why am I here, Alisha?" She might keep trying to take the conversation in another direction, but Simon would not let her.
"I already told you." She lifted a shoulder. "You make me think I can be better. Doesn't mean I still don't have my bad days."
"That's not what you said you didn't know," Simon shook his head, holding her gaze. "That's why you asked me. Not why I choose to be here."
"Because you're too fucking nice for your own good." That was better than thinking about the alternative.
Simon's lips twitched with the beginning of a smile, and he shrugged one shoulder, not looking away from her. "Probably." His tone made it clear that that wasn't the answer she was supposed to give.
"Are you going to keep standing up there and making me crane my neck at you," she asked, despite the fact that she wasn't looking at him, "or are you going to come sit down?" She almost let that stand as it was, but she could feel the silent pressure to give him another answer. The problem was that she hadn't quite been lying when she said she wasn't sure. She had ideas, including the fact that he fancied her. But she also knew that even if that was one of the reasons, it wasn't the only one. "And tell me why you're here instead of making it a guessing game."
Simon sat beside her with his back to the wall, part of him wishing he could just turn invisible and run away. He could, really, but he wouldn't. That was who he used to be. He felt like pulling up the hood of his hoodie, too, as if that meant that he would be less on the spot, but he resisted that urge as well, laying his hands flat on his thighs. "I'm here because I care about you." It was a very simple, and a very complicated answer. "Because you deserve a better life."
It wasn't a simple answer at all for Alisha. The people who 'cared' about her always wanted something from her. Even if they meant well, they seemed to want something. She wasn't sure what Simon wanted, wasn't even sure he did want something, though she knew his answer would be a definite 'didn't'.
She slid a little more down and rested her head on his shoulder. "I know I should just forget the things before, but sometimes...I'm not a nice person, Simon. You know that." Better than most of the people here did.
"You shouldn't forget them," Simon replied quietly, reaching to lay his fingers on her sleeve. "No one should ever forget their past. But you should focus on your future. You deserve one."
"When you say it like that," she whispered, "I almost believe you." But it was more than that. She wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that doing something would help and that if she couldn't fix the mistakes she'd made, at least she could move on from them. "Don't go see Moira." No good would come from that conversation, despite what Simon might think.
Simon frowned at her last words, turning his head to look at her. "Why not?"
"Because we were doing okay without her." Because she was afraid if he left, he might stay gone. "I lose my confidence and you...do your thing." She sounded slightly hesitant because she still wasn't sure how he managed it when most other people couldn't. "And I get back on track."
"I'm not sure what you mean," Simon admitted after a few seconds, clearly still very confused.
"You make me believe..." She shook her head. "I don't know how to explain it." That not all hope was lost for her. That someone out there knew what she'd done and he still cared.
"What has that got to do with Moira?" Simon asked, still unclear about any of what she was saying. Why wouldn't he go and talk to her if he wanted?
"Because you're going to go there and tell her...I don't know. That you're done with me. Or maybe that I need to start seeing other people." Or worse, he was going to tell her that Alisha's self-confidence was shaky and they were going to have to talk about it. She didn't want to talk about it with someone she barely knew. Someone she didn't want to know.
"Alisha..." Simon sighed, closing his eyes. One step forward, two steps backward. That was what it kept feeling like. He opened his eyes again, and shifted his shoulder so that she would have to straighten up, and he could hold her gaze. "You never listen. I'm not done with you, I won't walk out on you. And you will need to work on this with other people, at some point. But Moira - she's -" How could he put it? "I go to her for help. She's my - support?"
She had him and he had...someone else. She wasn't sure why that thought disappointed her a little. "Right, well. I suppose when I make you want to bang your head against a wall, the last person you'd want to talk to about it is the person who made you want to do it in the first place." She shook her head. "And you're wrong. I do listen. Everyone else always ends up leaving." Pietro had been so bothered by what she'd told him - and Scott and Simon - that he'd stopped talking to her for a while. And then there was Scott and the less she thought about him the better. She was used to ending up on her own. She wasn't used to Simon's stubborn insistence that he was saying or the part where he actually did stay.
"You don't listen, or you'd trust my words," Simon replied quietly. "And my actions. Who's left? Apart from..." Scott, if she wanted to see it that way. But he'd always had a girlfriend, he'd always had Lydia. Was not returning feelings really akin to leaving?
"Trusting anyone is hard," she said quietly. "Especially after him. Just because I don't do it easily, it doesn't mean that I don't try, just like the fact that coming down here gives me hives but I still do it. You're expecting things to come easily for me." It seemed like he was expecting her to be the Alisha Daniels who could have anything and that was the problem. If he wanted her to make progress, she couldn't be that person. She had to be this. Who trusted only after she'd kicked and screamed the whole way. Who'd only ever been used or used in return. Who was still that girl who'd become someone else in order to survive secondary school.
"It's terrifying to be that..." Vulnerable. Her lips formed the word, but no sound came out.
"I never said you weren't trying at all, or that things should come easily," Simon replied with a sigh. This conversation was going round in circles, and she was still using Scott as an argument to justify things that had already existed long before that had happened. "You keep saying you trust me, but you don't. Trust is never supposed to be easy. I trusted Sally, Alisha, more than you know," he admitted, his voice a little thick at that. He'd never really talked to her about it. "Trust isn't easy for anyone, but it's necessary. And you can't ask me not to open up to the people I trust."
"You don't say it, but you sound disappointed, like you think I should have it all fixed by now." Her voice got a little sharper. "And don't say that. Fuck, Simon. I keep telling you. I wouldn't be here if I didn't. But it's not just black and white. I'm a work in progress. What I feel about you is a work in progress. But when you say that you're leaving and...and...what the hell was it? 'Tell me when I've figured it out'? What do you expect me to think? That you're not leaving and not coming back? I had a bad day and it sounded like you were done."
Part of Simon wanted to be point out that he'd never seen her have a good day, and that that was the problem. Another part of him wanted to point out that she was nicely evading the issue of her asking him not to talk to Moira. But the former was too likely to make her spiral down into more of the same, or worse, and the latter... was it worth arguing? He would go and talk to Moira if he wanted to, and that was that.
In short, he was too tired to bother arguing anymore, and he'd never been very good at standing up for things anyway.
"I'm not," he simply replied, leaning his shoulders back against the wall and dropping his head slightly. "I'm sorry I gave you that impression."
Slowly, almost tentatively, she rested her head on his shoulder. "I am trying, Simon. And I do know that some people here are...different than they were back home." Some people. And then there were the people like Lil. Like Jeanne Marie. And especially like Cersei. She couldn't stop herself thinking of Damon. With him, it would be so easy to go back to her old ways of just not giving a shit.
"But right now, you're about the only person I think gives a damn about whether I do this or not." He wasn't, but he was the only person who's opinion she trusted. The teachers were almost non-persons to her, Sirius was with her with or without her powers, and Pietro... He might have been the reason she's started this whole thing, but she didn't trust him enough to tell him what was going on anymore, so he didn't even know whether she'd made progress or not.
"So, tell me I can do it, yeah?"
"Of course you can do it," Simon readily supplied, and he had to believe that, or what would he be doing here. "I'm not sure there's anything you couldn't do, if you put your mind to it. But I'm not. I'm not the only person who cares."
"I know that here," she said, tapping her head, "but sometimes not here." She tapped her chest and then sighed. "Look, go talk to her if you have to, but don't leave. We can try again and I'll try to be..." Her face twisted a little. "Optimistic."
"Confident," Simon replied quietly. Confident mattered a lot more than optimistic. "I'll go get her, if you want to try again."
"Confident, right," she muttered and moved away so he could get up.
"I'll get Dr MacTaggart," Simon told her after pushing up to his feet.
"Okay," she said and took a breath as soon as she was gone. She'd faked being confident for so long, she could be actually confident now, right? And he believed in her. He believed in her when she wasn't sure she did in herself. That mattered. She could do this.
