2073/Scotch: The Final Frontier

Scotch: The Final Frontier
Date of Scene:	11 June 2020
Location:	Charles' Office / Classroom
Synopsis:	Lorna comes to Xavier for therapy.
Cast of Characters:	Charles Xavier, Lorna Dane

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Charles Xavier has posed:
Charles Xavier's disposition has improved with the return of students and the resolution of some of the issues that were going on. He had kept a steady presence behind the scenes, letting the X-Students and others navigate the crisis and offering guidance here and there. At present he is just sitting in his wheelchair by the window, the sun drifting down over the horizon to bring about dusk and a glass resting on the arm of his chair.

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna had promised to stay on top of therapy.. but that had all fallen to the wayside as she'd tried to juggle helping save their friends from Sinister and manage her duties in Genosha. She hadn't been coping so well. Her guilt at not being enough, at the fact that their friends and team members had been taken.. and so abused? It hurt. And moreover, her inability to stand being in the medbay for any length of time left her just as frustrated. She waffled between anger, and wanting to continue to try to find Sinister.. and make him pay.. and her crushing depression that it was all meaningless anyways.
% To put it simply, she needed therapy if only to stop the downward spiral that once more threatened to overwhelm her. At least, if she wanted be of any use to anyone she would have to.

So she'd agreed to visit the Professor again for another session, and slipped into the office with a knock at the door and a light touch of her powers on the handle as she entered. Even if she didn't like the idea that much.

"Hi Professor.."

Charles Xavier has posed:
"Lorna," Xavier greets warmly, a tinge of exhaustion in his own tone after the long days and nights. "Please, come in, sit. I'm so sorry we haven't been able to keep to a steady schedule." He looks over to the young woman, managing to lift a glass bottle and pour a bit more into a second glass. "Join me for a glass?" He offers with a motion of the glass towards the seat near him.

"You know, I don't have to be a telepath to see the pain you're carrying."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna moved to take the seat as directed, a sigh pulling from her lips as she settled down and glanced at the glass in front of her. She shrugged one, and took it with both hands, passing it between her hands in a shared grip and she glanced down at the contents. "The whole thing with Sinister bothered me Professor." She admitted, and pursed her lips together into a thin line of thought.

"Our people were snatched.. just like that and it took us so long to find them.. if here isn't safe.. and Genosha isn't safe.. where else is left for any of us?" Her eyebrows furrowed together sharply.

"And I just.. I feel so damned useless. I couldn't do anything against the clones we fought.. and I couldn't handle seeing people in the state they were in. It still--" She broke off, "I still see Genosha's victims every time."

Charles Xavier has posed:
"We all felt helpless Lorna, but in that people worked together and our friends were rescued. You know, you feel this great weight for Genosha, I feel a great weight for all Mutant Kind... I think it's just that over the years I've learned to have faith in our people to find a way." Charles offers before he sips from his glass and sets it aside. "If you didn't see them I'd be worried you know. If you didn't hurt for them that'd be concerning. You're still not giving yourself time. Your mind and body, your spirit is trying to heal and every time you turn around it is being struck yet again by another blow from another location."

Charles leans back in his chair some and takes a deep breath. "The sun is setting. Want to go walk the Gardens and look at the stars while we talk?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna exhaled a breath as she set the glass down otherwise untouched, her shoulders slumping down as she listened to the Professor speak. "I have to carry the weight of Genosha, it's future, and my father's legacy.. whether I want it or not Professor." Her voice was soft, careful, and hesitant.

"And I've spent a lot of time thinking about just... just leaving again. Just.. walking away and not bothering with any of it. I feel like a failure one way or another." She reached up and rubbed her temples. "Because no matter what I do or not, people will always equate me to my father and what he did. And now everything I do just.. I don't know what to do." She grimaced and let her hands fall back to her lap as the Professor spoke of wanting to go out and see the stars. She shook her head.

"I'd rather.. not..." Too many people with extra sensory abilities and too many chances a student might overhear. Not that they couldn't if they truly wanted to here, but the illusion of privacy mattered.

Charles Xavier has posed:
Charles examines Lorna for a moment then smiles, slowly folding the arm of his chair up and with some effort pushing himself to his feet. It takes him a moment to steady but once he has he nods, "Let's take a walk, trust me?" He adds the last part with a softness in his tone. "I think that maybe it's time for you to see something, to learn, and it will be much easier out in the gardens."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna crossed her arms as the Professor stood, her lips twisting into another thin line, turning white from the pressure she put on them. Almost like a child digging their heels in, or a stubborn horse refusing to budge. She did not want to go outside. She did not want to talk about her feelings as it was, but going outside where people might see her lose it? That didn't appeal to her in the slightest. She was shutting down, rapidly. The stubborn streak that her father held another shared quality between them.

But the Professor was pushing himself beyond his wheelchair and she couldn't help the secondary spike of guilt either. Torn between the two, she got up, but it also didn't take a telepath to see she didn't want to.

She went silent, arms still crossed, her gaze angled low and her shoulders curled inward.

Charles Xavier has posed:
It is not a terribly long walk, a quick step through the lobby and around a path to the garden area, one in which Charles doesn't speak at all. He struggles at times with his steps, it does take a strain for him to move but he does it. Finally, he arrives at a bench and sits down upon it, eyes upwards towards the stars that are beginning to develop in the sky. "You know I did run away, Lorna." The words are quiet and soft, "Out there. Fled. You think that the pain you feel is yours alone or a new one? While I was off... living for me, look what happened here?" There is a tremble in his voice as he speaks.

"I was not here for your father. I was not here for mutant-kind, I was not here for anyone. I have left these burdens that I took on and without a word I threw them off on to other shoulders." The bitterness in Xavier's words is present, "So I could go be by myself. To live some kind of ... some kind of life. All that pain, all that anger and hate you have Lorna that you are directing at yourself? It should be directed at the one responsible, for all of this."

"It should be directed at me."

Lorna Dane has posed:
The stars above would have been a gorgeous sight, the Mansion far enough from most light pollution of the city, and with a wide open expanse before them that stretched into woods and the lake without neighbor's lights to interfere. But Lorna didn't look up, her gaze was angled low, and she kept her steps measured in time with the Professor's. Her focus remained on his faltering steps, staying a pace behind and to the side, ready should he need it to catch him.

But as he made it to the bench and sat, she was slow to join him. She sat, listening to him and as his story progressed her eyebrows knit together and she stared at the Professor in open shock.

A noise escaped the back of her throat. "That's not true, Professor. You aren't responsible for the Sentinels or who sent them. You didn't make them. You weren't there. You couldn't have possibly done anything even if you were in the Mansion!"

Charles Xavier has posed:
Charles looks at Lorna, "I couldn't do anything?" He asks to her and lifts a hand pointing at the Mansion, "I couldn't have gone to Cerebro? I couldn't have put the helmet on and found the ones controlling the Sentinels and turned their brains into goo?" There's a slight harshness to his words, that bitterness still there on his tone. "Lorna, you kid yourself. It was a choice. A choice not to bring my full strength to bear. I could have ended this decades ago. Your father knew that." He takes a deep breath then, looking back up to the stars. "It is quite true Lorna. It is as true as anything you blame yourself for as well. So for every ounce of blame you throw on your own shoulders, an equal amount should be thrown onto mine."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lornba blinked, her eyebrows furrowed and her lips parting as she stared at Charles Xavier in shock and surprise. "How would you have known it was happening in the first place to even to that Professor? It happened so fast.. we couldn't even get out a message for help." She swallowed a thickness in the back of her throat.

His comment that he could've ended things long ago though.. and that that point between her father and the Professor...? She'd found herself stuck in that divide for years, between what she'd learned here and what her father had espoused.

"My father wasn't entirely wrong, but he wasn't entirely right either Professor. If he was.. then his methods would've protected Genosha too." She looked down at her hands.

"I was right there... I should've been able to do anything more than what I did... which was nothing."

Charles Xavier has posed:
"The same way I've done nothing, Lorna." Xavier motions to the seat next to him for her to sit, sliding on the bench some. "You have three choices, child," Charles begins softly, taking a deep breath himself. "Succumb to the sorrow, the guilt and the feeling of inadequacy relying on your rage to guide your every action; like your father. Turn, and run away. Find some place where you think your troubles won't follow you and be sorely disappointed when they do; like me."

Charles lifts his eyes to look at Lorna, the moistness of his eyes visible, "Or do what both your father and I worked for. Find a way to be better than us."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna sat, her shoulders hunched forward as she leaned her face into her hands. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes, struggling to process his words and block out the screams that haunted her constantly even now, months later. "How can I find a way when you've spent your life trying? When my father spent his life trying? It's too much." Her voice hitched and caught in the back of her throat, and her shoulders trembled faintly. This is why she did //not// want to be outside.

She had a feeling she might lose it.

"I //failed// and people died. And now those same people expect me to lead them? To rebuild and be their Queen? I don't deserve any of it. Why did I live when so many others didn't?"

Charles Xavier has posed:
"Because you did," Charles responds to her quietly. "Because you were strong enough to survive. Not that others weren't strong, but in this situation, you were. And they are looking to you to lead them, because you are strong enough to. And they are putting the weight on your shoulders to rebuild, to be their rock, because you are strong enough to be."

"Lorna, sometimes the most difficult thing is seeing what everyone else sees in you. You are strong, capable, and compassionate. Your heart aches for people. Why wouldn't people want to follow you? Where you see failure, others see someone who is willing to pick up the pieces."

Charles hand lifts up to gently fall on her shoulder if allowed, "I want to tell you it will be all ok, that everything will work out. But this isn't some story, some fantasy. I don't know that, and I'm not going to lie to you. What I will tell you is this though; I won't ever quit believing in you."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna shook her head, her eyes closing shut and the fires of Genosha burned behind her eyelids. The screams and their dying pleas echoed in her ears. She was there, and she was not. Logically, she knew she was not. That she was sitting on the bench outside the Mansion and the Professor was trying his best to make her understand that it wasn't her fault. That she //was// a good choice to lead Genosha's people..

But all her mind supplied was the damning words of the dead that cried out for her help.

The Professor's hand might as well not be there for all that she noticed it. Her mind slowly spiraling into the chaos of her memories blended with her nightmares. A choked sound escaped her throat, and she struggled for breath.

Charles Xavier has posed:
"And yet..." Charles' voice whispers, or is it his mind? "You still stand. Beaten, buried beneath the pain of all this guilt, all this suffering that you take on yourself. And you stand. It is ok to cry Lorna, it is ok to feel." His hand squeezes that shoulder gently, "You know I will never think less of you for it. Your actions didn't bring this, just like you said to me."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna wasn't sure if it was in her mind or spoken to be heard. The Professor's voice resonated with his gentle tones.. and one way or another she found herself trapped in the same cycle of her memories that had plagued her since Genosha's fall. The same ones that caused her to wake in the night screaming, and with her powers curling about to fry any electronic close to her. Many a lamp had perished that way.

It wouldn't take more than a brush of the minds for the Professor to see it. To see the worst parts play over in her mind. But at least, perhaps he could direct it, make her see beyond what her nightmares told her.

Lorna Dane has posed:
She had been in the Council chambers. The tall dome above sparkled with light and a litany of colors that flooded the room of white marble and a heavy set of desks and chairs. A mural of colored glass painted them all in a multitude of colors and it was her favorite part of the room. For all that she'd spent hours in there already arguing the same points about Genosha's immigration policies and the opening of a new school. It was all she could do to stay awake and focused, to not lose her temper and storm out. She was //so// bored.

And then.. the rumbling. The whole building shook. And her first thought was that it had been an Earthquake. She needed to get to a doorway, right? Someone screamed that they needed to get out, that the glass was cracking.. They'd run and as soon as she was outside on the steps of the Council building, she'd been in the middle of it. Buildings were burning, and collapsing all around her. Smoke billowed up into the late afternoon sky, and above it all was the face of a giant Sentinel peering down at her and the others as they scattered and screamed. A Council member was blasted beside her, and she was caked in the fine dust and ash that remained of him. Another was crushed beneath the massive marble pillar that held up the building behind them. She stared in shock, and the Sentinel's voice blared out all around her. "NONHUMAN ENTITY DETECTED." On repeat. Over and over again.

That was when she started to run, to run for the palace, for her father as people screamed all around her. The man that had sold her a loaf of bread at the bakery was decapitated in front of her. A mother and child reached out for her. She couldn't figure out where to turn. Who to save. She wasn't a hero. A princess. She was just a scared, overwhelmed person, running for their life. Behind her electromagnetic barrier she was safe from the Sentinels, from the debris that rained from cracked and destroyed buildings.. But it couldn't block out the screams.

It couldn't stop the ashes that caught in her mouth, nor block out the cries of people that pleaded for help. The palace far beyond exploded into a ray of green light and it was gone. All of it was gone.

And she'd done nothing.

Charles Xavier has posed:
"Have you ever asked yourself, Lorna, what you think you could have done differently?" Charles' voice presses through quietly to her, asking it as the images roll over. "What was the alternate action that you didn't take, the one that you blame yourself over missing?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
The images played over again, in a tumbled mix as her mind shifted around. To the first point, when she stood there on the steps of the Council building. She blinked, and the whole of the destruction was paused in her memory. "Here." She breathed, her face wet with tears either in her mind or in reality.. possibly both.

"I should've acted right then. Once I'd seen the Sentinels.. I should have done something. Anything. Their bodies are metal." She reached out a hand, her fist glowing with green energy.

"I could've done something to stop them. Distract them. Anything. Anything would have been better than what I did." She breathed, her senses in her mind were alight with magnetic power, and she could feel the metal frame of the giant Sentinel.

"I've trained for so long.. and I couldn't act when it mattered most. When people were screaming for me to save them."

Charles Xavier has posed:
"Anything is not an answer Lorna. Be specific, show me what you should have done," Charles repeats quietly. "Show me where you believe you made your mistake. Should you have turned and ripped one apart? Would that have ended the threat? Put things to their conclusion?"

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna squinted through the blurry tears that stung her eyes, the memories of smoke that swept through the air. She exhaled a breath, and lifted into the air, the memory shifting perspective as she moved. Her hands spread out and she reached out to blast a concussive blast of pure electromagnetic energy at the Sentinel, over, and over, and over again. Her lips peeling back into a scream as she threw everything she had at the memory of the giant Sentinel.

In her mind it fell backwards into an explosion of sparks and collapsing into the building behind it, flattening it out completely as the massive robot fell. There were others, small, more standard models all around. It wasn't just the single Sentinel.. and even with her attacking the memory... there was still chaos all around her.

Charles Xavier has posed:
"They were not going to stop unless you could stop all of them, or their mission was accomplished..." Charles whispers softly to her. "You are stuck child, in this loop of memory in which there is no escape. You have a belief in you that you could have done something differently, and you could have, but that it would have altered the end results. It is possible, yes. But freeze where you are in your mind, look around, not through eyes of pain but through the eyes of a leader. This is not a situation of winning, it is a situation of surviving."

Lorna Dane has posed:
Lorna floated on the magnetic currents, wearing the last royal garments she'd worn in Genosha. The ones that had burned away and fallen into rags in the weeks after the destruction. Her gaze swung around as the Professor's voice told her to look around. She saw the magnitude of the destruction all around her. "I could've saved others. I-I could've given them time.. maybe.. maybe they could've escaped.. o-or..." Her voice cracked.

The sad truth was all around her. Genosha was doomed the second the Sentinels had attacked. They'd surrounded the island, and the giant 'Wild' Sentinels had rained down destruction on a scale that she alone could not have stopped. It would have only left her exhausted, broken, and possibly cost her, her life in the process.

And that guilt.. that she'd done what had led to her survival... was a hard pill to swallow.

Charles Xavier has posed:
"Your father suffered from it as well. Survivor's guilt. The feeling that it isn't deserving to live when others have died," Charles speaks again, his voice perhaps a bit echoing. "It isn't a pain any different than many feel. Acts of great destruction that bring about great pain often have survivors, and guilt that is carried with them."

"However, Lorna, what you need to see here is also important. You survived. You were not defeated by the Sentinels, that means Genosha did not fall. It was struck, yes. Beaten, yes, but as long as the people can see someone rise up to stand again, there is hope. That is why they turn to you, in you they see hope for their own survival, their own ability to overcome this struggle."

The voice softens, "Let your tears fall for those who are lost. They deserve those tears. But let your heart be strong for those who live on, they need you now more than ever."