A Step Up from a Sailor Moon Band-Aid

[Jane]

It had taken her forever to pin Angie down. That might or might not have been due to Jane's own passionate avoidance of anything involving DM and Isaac's... whatever... and the periods reserved for freaking out privately in her room, but now she was On A Mission - a mission to find an Aussie and remove - well, reduce - the reason for the foremost problem.

She was even wearing her big-girl panties. They were bright red. And anyone who laughed at whatever gave her strength in times of difficulty could go push themselves off the observation tower, because they worked for her.

With the flat of her palm she knocked on Angie's door, though not too hard; even in winter, the skin on her hands was delicate, though it toughened up some. She might even leave the gloves off when she became more firmly entrenched in Genosha's "frost."

Nah. She'd probably entered it too late, anyway. Spring would be here soon.

She returned to more pleasant thoughts, away from the tiny interval when she could probably leave the island and go undetected. With any luck, I'll have the most disgusting person on the planet out of my system in just a few minutes! Angie's got to be able to cure souls, right?

...Right?

[Nightingale]

She had just sat down at the computer when someone banged on her door, and Angie blinked at the screen for a moment before calling out a response.

"It's open!" Apparently Dharma had thought of something for her to do. Or it was someone else - whoever it was, Angie wasn't particularly worried. This was, after all, an isolated island, and they hadn't had a proximity alarm in at least a few weeks.

Her notebook was still sitting open on the desk, her page of notes about Pyro's rather confusing family tree there for the world to see. She snapped it shut as the door was opening, since she didn't think anyone else knew about John's family, and she didn't really think that anyone else should until he decided to tell them.

If he decided to tell them. That he'd possibly been named after a mental institution wasn't exactly the sort of thing that Angie would have expected anyone to go around telling people.

Hitting the button on her computer screen and turning to face the person at her door, Angie smiled.

"What's up?"

[Jane]

Jane twisted the knob, hearing something snap shut inside the room as she pushed the door fully open. Resisting the urge to throw it the rest of the way open and seeing what was being snapped, she stepped inside a few feet and waved to the younger girl.

"What's up?"

"Not much," Jane said cheerfully. "Wondering if you could help me out. Dead Man claims I've got a piece of his soul in my head or something. It's pretty uncomfortable. Can you fix that? Because otherwise I'm pretty sure I have to... kiss him or... something... to get it out. And I'd rather avoid that."

Please say yes. I don't wanna kiss the icky creepy man.

[Nightingale]

"Wait, you've got a what? And you'll have to... Ew!"

Having a piece of Dead Man stuck inside you wasn't exactly what Angie would have called 'not much.' She would have called it downright fucking creepy, possibly even with stronger language. Angie didn't swear as much as some Aussies she knew, but that definitely deserved at least one swear-word, if not about eight.

"I'm not sure. Um? I can try."

She nervously tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear as she stood up. Was that a physical injury, or would that count as mental? She really wouldn't be able to tell until she touched Jane, but the idea of feeling a little bit of Dead Man... Well, Angie was pleased that the only time she'd touched him, he actually had been dead. 'Cause he was so creepy.

"Did you want to sit down?" The young Australian gestured to the bed, her face full of sympathy. Poor Jane. This was not a situation that Angie would have wished upon anyone.

[Jane]

Jane cringed at the ew. Her thoughts exactly. Ew ew ew ew ew.

She couldn't believe she'd almost done it.

AUGH ew.

"I'm not sure. Um? I can try."

"Thank you," Jane said, aware that she probably sounded a little manic. Jane always went a little crazy when under too much stress. "Oh my God. Seriously."

Be strong, big-girl panties.

She sat down on the bed as bidden, checking the urge to put her feet up, since it was rude to stick your shoes on other people's bedding. And kind of icky. Instead she braced her hands behind her, shrugging into herself a little.

"So how does this work, anyway?" Jane asked. "You don't, like, absorb it all, do you? I'm thinking that would be a little unfair."

[Nightingale]

"No, nothing like that," Angie said as she sat next to Jane.

Her expression clearly said, 'Thank christ.'

"There's um... It sounds weird, saying it out loud, but there's like... an exchange of energy? I can feel what's wrong with you, but I don't take the injury or anything. I just... give you my energy and it helps to fix you up quicker." Obviously much more quickly than usual, and thankfully her energy did recover more quickly than most people's probably did. She'd still be left feeling tired, depending on how much energy she had to give, but...

"I don't even know if I can fix it, though. I mean, I can feel problems, even mental ones, but I can only fix the physical stuff." Mental stuff had to go to someone like Emma. This didn't quite sound like mental stuff, though, this was a little bit of Dead Man's life-force in Jane.

Ew!

Raising her hands slowly, she held them out as if offering.

"Erm... All it takes is skin contact, so..." Well, this felt kind of awkward.

Mainly because she really didn't want to feel the wrongness that having a bit of Dead Man inside you would leave.

[Jane]

Jane breathed a sigh of relief. She didn't want to give anyone else her... whatever. His whatever.

Ugh. It was like being pregnant.

NOT GOING IN THAT DIRECTION.

Jane thought about Angie's power, a little crease forming between her brows. She didn't know how any extra energy was going to help her... unless the life force ousted the dead force that was stuck to her soul, which it might. Like overcoming an infection - or a virus. Infections were alive; viruses weren't. She remembered that.

It was just a virus. An extremely gross virus that had an extremely gross dude following her around like some sort of creepy dead puppy, but a virus nonetheless.

"I don't even know if I can fix it, though. I mean, I can feel problems, even mental ones, but I can only fix the physical stuff."

"I'm not sure this is... mental, exactly," Jane said. "I'm not even sure if it's physical. He made it sound like a piece of his soul broke off."

Ew ew ewewewewew. Though it did answer interesting questions about the existence of the soul, or at least consciousness, but ew.

Jane peeled off her right glove, worming the silk down and exposing a pale forearm that never saw the light of day except in the shower, or when she rubbed through the skin on her wrist and had to slap some Neosporin on it.

"Erm... All it takes is skin contact, so..."

"Sorry," Jane said, slightly embarrassed, and then took Angie's right hand in a sort of arm-wrestling position.

[Nightingale]

Oh, ew. Grossgrossgross.

Yeah, there was definitely something... not right.

It made her skin crawl to think of it. Actually, touching Jane wasn't quite the same as most people - her skin felt a little different, and there was something unusual about her physiology that Angie could feel thanks to the diagnostic aspect of her mutation. It wasn't the kind of difference that indicated sickness, it was more like Pyro's increased body temperature - normal for Jane, but not normal for most people.

There was a cut on her back, almost healed, that Angie's power finished fixing. Other than that, she was physically perfectly healthy.

"Uhm?"

She looked almost guilty.

"I'm sure we can figure something out so you don't have to..."

Angie couldn't even say it.

Ewewewewewewewewew!

[Jane]

The look on Angie's face was not comforting.

At all.

Jane prepared herself for the worst. She wondered whether the worst would be 'sorry, no can do' or 'you've got some sort of incurable disease and you're gonna die like now.'

The former. The latter gave her an exit strategy; she was still above some forms of life with that much. Like President Bush. (Hey-o! Oh, wow, I really need to get a grip.)

Her back felt better, at least.

Can't fight crime with a whacked back. Or incite it, as the case may be.

"Uhm?"

Oh, honey, don't look at me like that or I'm gonna cry.

"I'm sure we can figure something out so you don't have to..."

"Aw, Christ," Jane said, her face falling. "Don't tell me that. Lie to me. Damn it."

She pulled her hands back, crossing them over her chest and trying not to feel crushed. The happy, peppy hopefulness was still hanging around a little, tempered with the onset of disappointment, which was always the worst way to feel it - the tightness in the top of her stomach mixed with the bottom-out.

"Well," she said, "Thanks anyway, I guess."

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo...

[Nightingale]

"I'm sorry." God, Jane's reaction really hadn't helped her feel less guilty. There was nothing Angie could have done, though - yeah, lying might have made the sometimes-green woman feel better, but Dead Man still would have known. She still would have known - there was such an obvious wrongness that Angie couldn't imagine Jane believing a lie.

Ugh. Maybe kissing Dead Man was a small price to pay. At least that would be over quickly.

EWEWEWEWEW!

But the bit of his soul would stay there indefinitely.

Oh, god, what if he's wrong and it doesn't work? EW!@!!eleven!!@

It was a mark of Angie's distress on Jane's behalf that she even brought net-speak into her thoughts.

Without thinking, the young Australian threw her arms around Jane for a sympathetic hug. For all she knew, it would make things worse - she really wasn't experienced with this physical-touch-as-comforting thing, but it seemed like the thing to do.

"If there was anything I could do, I would, but it's not a physical problem per se. Maybe you could try talking to Emma before you do anything else, just in case she can help?"

It didn't seem likely, but anything was better than the alternative.

Oh, vomit.

[Jane]

"I'm sorry."

"S'not your fault," Jane said morosely. She couldn't help feeling that, yes, it was. How dare her power not extend to soul problems? How dare it?

All right, that was just getting into the realm of the truly ridiculous.

Jane was only briefly surprised at Angie's sudden hug, and far too desperately whimpery inside to be stiff; she hugged back thankfully, trying not to cry, because crying over having to kiss someone icky was very childish indeed.

Even if he was icky because he was dead.

"If there was anything I could do, I would, but it's not a physical problem per se. Maybe you could try talking to Emma before you do anything else, just in case she can help?"

Jane nodded, pushing her hair out of her face and then huffing when badly-cut and grown-out bangs fell back in. They floated up briefly and resettled, somehow even more inconveniently than they'd begun.

"She sorted out John, I guess she could sort out me," she said, though of course her situation was a bit different than John's had been. His was just run-of-the-mill crazy; hers was ick factor ten. "Do you have any idea where she is? I haven't seen her around in a while..."

Please don't make me wait for months to fix this. I'd really, really like to only be my regular crazy again...

[Nightingale]

"I don't know, to be honest. I think she's somewhere back in the US."

Angie chewed on her bottom lip for a moment as she thought about it. "She left after Pyro..." Wasn't crazy anymore. Or wasn't as crazy, anyway.

"Gill might know how to get a hold of her though, and at least then we can see if she's going to be back soon."

Because there was no way Angie was going to recommend actually going through with Dead Man's plan. That was just wrong, on about twelve different levels.

He's dead. And creepy. And dead. Ew!

"What... what if it doesn't work? Dead Man's idea, I mean."

She couldn't bring herself to actually say it out loud, but her pink cheeks accompanied the thought that he'd probably ask for... closer contact.

Necrophilia. EWWWWWW!

"I mean... do you even know how it got in there in the first place? What if you tried to set up the opposite situation or something?"

Anything had to be better than sucking face with a corpse.

[Jane]

As Jane despodently watched Angie think, she wished she could chew on her own lip. It always seemed satisfying, even when you started to get little sores.

She nodded; they both knew what she'd done for Pyro. It was like the Great Unspoken around the base, along with Don't Disturb Juggernaut While He's Watching Football and Never, Ever Eat The Leftover Tandoori Chicken If You Wish To Live.

"I guess I could try Gill," she said. "If anyone would know, I think it'd be him. Well, Pyro might, but he's off doing his thing or whatever."

Sombra, right? All the affronts against the Cause kind of ran together embarrassingly in Jane's head.

"What... what if it doesn't work? Dead Man's idea, I mean."

"Then I am waiting it out."

There would be no further contact. At all. There would probably not be the primary contact in the first place.

Images crawled into Jane's head unbidden and she shuddered, making very unfortunate faces.

"I mean... do you even know how it got in there in the first place? What if you tried to set up the opposite situation or something?"

Jane shook her head. "He said it got in there at Baltimore, when he got blasted," she said. "He pushed me out of the way and I guess he died so violently that his soul split in half. Or something. More like a quarter of it broke off, and I was the closest... receptacle. I don't know how I'd undo that, unless I shocked the bejesus out of myself, but the only reason he's still around is that he can't really die. Well... I mean, stop moving around. Whatever it is he is. But I can definitely die. Killing myself seems a little extreme, you know?"

If only a very little.

[Nightingale]

"Mmm." The noise was non-commital - personally, Angie felt that there was nothing extreme about killing yourself to escape the Dead Man.

"Except that he'd probably... You know, reanimate you anyway," she thought out loud.

Vomitvomitvomitgross. It seemed like he had complete control over his animates. Poor Jane.

"His life force isn't in his body. I touched him at Baltimore and he was very definitely dead. I guess... When his body died, and his life-force or soul or whatever it is that I connect to left... Maybe you helped to keep him alive or whatever the hell he is now."

Poor Jane. Angie's brain was screaming out that it was Jane's fault that the creepy bastard was still around, but it wasn't like she'd chosen to take a part of him.

"He's the only one I can touch, you know, without giving away all my energy." The young Australian looked decidedly miserable, though it was nothing compared to what Jane must be feeling. The one person in the world that she didn't want to touch if her life depended on it was the one person that she could without giving away a part of herself.

She shuddered.

"But you know, we will figure it out. Dharma might know more about souls and stuff, he seems to be a bit more... that way inclined?" She meant religiously - though Angie often referred to god or Jesus when she was swearing, the young woman considered herself agnostic.

"And he's good to talk to, anyway."

[Jane]

"Aw man, that was a step beyond," Jane said, pulling gross faces and folding her arms tightly over her chest. There would be no reanimated Janes. Ever.

Oh God. What if he did kill her and bring her back again?

She did have the decency to look abashed when it was suggested that she might have kept him alive. Well. Whatever he was. "His power, maybe," she said. "It's just that there's definitely a... part of him still stuck. I've been having these insane dreams - not like that - and he talked in my head before he got back here, and then he remembered it too... it's just so weird."

"He's the only one I can touch, you know, without giving away all my energy."

For a moment, almost all - she was still a little hung up on ew I have to kiss a dead guy, after all - of her pity was redirected in favor of Angie. That would suck. Especially since Angie was, what, seventeen? Eighteen? The hormonal years blew without alleviation.

And it looked likely that she'd never have any, unless she decided to stoop past the point at which previous stooping had been measured.

"I'm sure you'll learn to control it a little," Jane said. "There has to be some sort of meditative thing to help deal with that. Dharma could help you too, maybe? I think he likes that kind of thing. As much as he likes anything."

Dharma creeped her out a little. Well, not really; it was more like she was intimidated by anyone who could be that serene and so sure of his convictions at the same time. It was like talking to Buddha.

At least, she imagined it was, having never actually spoken to Buddha, except for that one time when she had been so drunk she thought the statue in Chicago's Chinatown had been one of her friends. And that time he hadn't spoken back, so.

[Nightingale]

Ew. Insane Dead Man dreams and his voice in your head?

Jane was a stronger person that she. Angie couldn't imagine dealing with that.

Because it was too gross to contemplate.

"Yeah, we've talked a couple of times about it, but he's... Um?" She thought for a moment about how exactly to say it.

"He's got all these ideas in his head, well, I guess they're not really ideas to him 'cause they're like... He knows. And they all just make sense to him but I have trouble wrapping my head around them. Sometimes I think he's an alien. 'Cause he just doesn't seem to be like normal people. Maybe he's just really old or something, though."

Her lips twitched into a smile. Yeah, Dharma was a bit weird by her standards - that whole serenity thing was just... incredible, really. A couple of times during Kata, she thought she'd caught the smallest glimpse of it, and she couldn't imagine feeling like that all the time.

"He's still good to talk to, though." Even if he did confuse the hell out of her sometimes and leave her wondering what she'd come to talk to him about in the first place.

Now she was wondering what the hell they'd been talking about in the first place.

[Jane]

"Just really old," Jane said. "Aliens? The world's pretty weird, but I don't think he's an alien."

The world was indeed very weird; for one thing, the dead were about and walking. And hitting on poor defenseless young... well, not maidens. Celibate-for-months-ians?

Wasn't that depressing.

"And maybe the problem is you're thinking too hard," she said. "Isn't that the whole... meditation thing? Let it flow? Or is that Zen. I have no clue. You could get Emma to hypnotize you into thinking you're not a mutant, maybe, when she gets back? Like, a placebo cure?"

It might work. In alternate universes where bullshit things like hypnosis worked.

"He's still good to talk to, though."

"Yeah, I went down and saw him a while back. He's just so very... you know. It's hard to deal with after a while. That and it's hard for me to imagine a world where you don't have to worry about things. No matter how little it matters in the end, it always matters in the middle."

[Nightingale]

"That's a good idea, actually." Getting Emma to make her think she wasn't a mutant... Well, if it worked than she'd have to be able to control it somehow, wouldn't she? But if it didn't work, if she was still giving away her energy, than it was just a part of her mutation and there was nothing that could be done.

The idea of encouraging Emma to mess with her head wasn't exactly appealing, though.

"I don't know that Dharma doesn't worry about things... I just don't think any of our stuff is big enough for him? If that makes sense? I don't know. Maybe he doesn't. Old, yeah." Or an alien. Either explanation worked for her. Maybe that was just a part of his mutation, being a serene freak.

"But yeah. Sorry I couldn't help, but if you do have anything you need me for... Or you just want to talk or whatever... You know, I'm always around." It felt a little odd to be offering her ear when Angie clearly didn't have an understanding of what Jane was going through, but she did it anyway. At the very least, she'd be able to 'ew' and cringe with Jane about it, and she really couldn't see someone like Dharma doing that.

[Jane]

"No, it's fine," Jane said. "Well. I mean, sort of. You get it. But it's not your fault."

Sigh.

Disgustingly, she was almost getting used to the extra presence. Still dreaming like she was on some sort of prolonged acid trip, of course. But as the days and weeks slowly trickled by with the extra bit of whatever in her head, she almost became accustomed to it. She wondered if it would feel strange for it to be gone.

Good, probably, but perhaps strange, especially if it took much longer.

"And be careful what you offer," Jane said, pushing herself up off the bed - somewhat surprised at her slight renewed vigor; the cut on her back was gone, she realized - "I'll probably take you up on it."

At least one person on the island would make girly yucky faces with her. Jane missed that. Missed real friends, not... comrades, or whatever everyone on the island was.

[Nightingale]

"I wouldn't have offered if I didn't mean it." Angie gave Jane a little smile, standing up to return to her computer. Seemed like the sometimes-green woman was about ready to leave - which was understandable, they all seemed to have things to do and girl talk didn't really count. It was still a bit of a disappointment, though - with Aurora gone, Angie felt like there was a huge gap between her and everybody else, and she didn't even have Juggernaut to talk to.

So, while everyone else was training or whatever it was that they were supposed to do, Angie had decided to do her bit for the cause by hopping back on the internet and doing some research. There were a couple of pro-mutant chat rooms that she had a habit of hanging out in, as well, just in case there was someone in there that started talking about the Brotherhood...

Well, she felt like she should be doing more than cooking and acting as a walking first aid kit. There wasn't exactly too many injuries on Genosha, although with the new training thing that Pyro had mentioned, there might be a few more. It just felt like there was more Angie could do to help, since her mutation wasn't always useful.

"I'll talk to you later then, maybe."

[Alrighty, I'll let you and Dead Man do your thing? ]