Xaviers!

"Thanks. I'll try to remember to take a look at it." she says, her brave smile still mostly holding strong.

Some time later....

A tiny blonde came bursting through the door to Nailah’s room, a look of deep worry on her face. “Oh my god, Nai! Oh god this is...I should have been there.”

Haley bounded to the side of the bed, biting her lip as tears started to well up in her eyes.

Nailah looks rough. Rough enough that it's hard to notice her eyes are red from crying. But right now she's putting on a brave face again.

"Made it out, didn't I?" she tries to quip. "Even caught the bad guy."

Haley was trying to hold back the tears and give her friend a reassuring smile, but she was almost turning red with effort. "I should have been there. I'm so sorry I wasn't. Do...do you need anything," she sniffled, taking her friend's hand in both of hers.

"I... I don't know. Something to write would be good. Like a journal or something..." she says, giving Haley's hand bit of a squeeze. "I'm having... some trouble remembering stuff."

"Oh no... do you want me to take a l....I probably shouldn't. I'm not good at the brain shit," she sniffled.

"But I can get you a notebook and a pen...let me go find one," she nodded to herself, jogging out of the room.

A few minutes later, she returned with a pen and notebook that she probably stole from someone, but the notebook was blank and the pen was really nice.

"I'm not sure it'd work anyway..." she mumbles as Haley bolts out of the room.

"Thanks..." she says when her friend returns and hands her the notebook and pen. She puts the former into her lap and spins the pen between her fingers for a bit, looking at it instead of Haley.

"I did this to myself... Had to. Bashed my head into the floor till I felt it stop..."

"....you did it to yourself? Wh-why? What?" she asked, telekinetically pulling a chair across the room and taking a seat at her friend's bedside. "What were you trying to stop?"

"Hazard. He was in my head. Or would have been at some point. And I was forcing myself down the path towards that with my power. I couldn't defeat him cause he'd already won and my power was keeping me trapped on that path. But that future's impossible now." she says with a bitter smile that's not really a smile at all. "Because I broke myself."

“Hazard was a telepath?” she asked, not quite grasping the situation.

"His power changes all the time. I don't know how exactly he got to me, but I saw it... It..." her voice breaks a little and she cuts herself off. "It was like this perfect, unwavering line. But whatever he would have ended up doing to me, however he would have done it, it can't work if I keep forgetting."

“Babe, *you* can’t work if you keep forgetting,” she replied squeezing her hand. “Where is he now? I’ll fucking melt his brain and compact him into a cube for hurting you.”

"Over in the prison wing. I think... And anything's better than the future I saw."

"I don't see how this," she nodded down at her friend's prone form, "is much better than anything except you not being here at all...but I'm glad we're having this conversation."

"It is. It has to be. I... it's not like I knew what I was doing to myself, but it worked and that has to be good enough. C-cause I don't know how handle this if it wasn't..."

“Well if I turn him into a vegetable, then he can’t cause whatever you saw, right?”

"No." she says quietly, falling silent for a moment as she looks down at the white bedsheets covering her legs.

"That kinda escalation is what brought me here in the first place." she finally says. "And who knows what kind of power he'd tap into eventually that'd let him work around whatever you do to him. I mean I'm pretty sure he snapped his own neck during our fight. And if you break his mind now then who's to say you won't do it again to someone less deserving?" she goes on, looking up at Haley with a strange glow in her eyes, unfocused, almost staring through her. She's clenching her hand and digging her fingernails into her palm. The mirror in her mind's eye is sending pulses of pain through her head, but she can place the idea of Haley's lobotomizing Hazard in his cell in the mirror and trace the resulting cracks to get a glimpse of the consequences. Has to to keep herself from telling Haley to go and turn that lunatic's mind into mashed potatoes.

The strange echo or dejavu that Haley had often felt from Nailah when she used her power is gone, instead she can get a vague impression of the cracks of pain shooting through her friend's head.

Haley winced at the sensation.

“Babe, I’m not a doc but like...maybe don’t use your future sense thing if it hurts that much...” she cautioned, eyes narrowing in concern as she watched her friend dig her nails into her own hands. “And maybe squeeze the pillow instead?”

Haley reached out and gently brushed a few errant strands of hair out of her friend’s face.

The lights fades from Nailah's eyes and her whole body seems to go a little slack. She winces when she unclenches her hand, looking down at the couple beads of blood she drew and quickly closing her fist again before Haley can see. "It just... it's different now and if my memory's all messed up I... I need to figure it out. I need something to rely on. For all I know we've had this conversation already yesterday and you're trying to get me to give you the go ahead on wrecking Hazard..." she says, sounding a little apologetic and a lot paranoid.

"Do you want me to go in your mind and see if I can help?"

"I'm not sure that'd be a good idea..."

“I’m getting way better at being a teep, and I totally won’t touch anything without asking first, but your brain, your rules,” she smiled reassuringly.

"It's not that I don't trust you. I'm just afraid of getting locked into that future again..."

“But how do you know that just because you see it it’s going to happen? Are all of your hunches 100% right? I mean like...I know you can see stuff in a fight that’s like...really cool and helps you avoid punches and shit, but do you really know that your predictions for further out are really accurate?”

"I just... know. It's hard to explain. It's like looking in a mirror and getting this perfect image one step ahead of myself except it's not just that but movements and thoughts and dejavu and everything and it's me doing it. It's like a reflex almost cause I've already done it in the future and I'm just seeing it in the past. But now... now the mirror's all broken and the images are different and I can feel the cracks like... like forks in the road?"

"Cracks in your brain, even in the...shit...what the hell is that word...metaphorical sense are like, probably not good, babe." Haley frowned.

"We're X-Men and we're Team Blonde, and we aren't gonna let some bullshit future happen on our watch."

"Of course it's not good..." she says, voice cracking a little. "But I didn't know what else to do and now I'm afraid of un-doing it..."

"We have to," she sniffled, eyes glistening, "I need my bestie in one piece."

"I'm still me, yeah? I'll just... need some help, remind me of the important things. I can trust you, right?"

“Of course,” she sniffled, wiping her eyes with her outside hand and grabbing Nailah’s with the hand still inside the hospital bed, giving it a reassuring squeeze.

"Thanks... I'm... I'm really scared." she finally admits.

“I won’t let anyone hurt you, Nai. I’ll keep you safe. That’s what partners do.”

Nailah just nods silently, sniffling a little.

"S-sorry, the painkillers are making me all gooby and this is... it's a lot and I'm scared I'll just go through it all over again tomorrow and the day after that and so on..."

“I’ll repeat myself until I’m blue in the face if I have to, but hopefully they’re able to fix your memory here...they’re supposed to be like really smart here.

"Right..." she mumbles. "Thank you so much for coming out here, Haley... You're the best."

“Anyone that puts up with me is the best,” she smirked. “We’ll figure this out. I know it. Do you need any snacks or drinks to make you feel better?”

“....I can probably stay for a little bit longer, but I might have some explaining to do about why I took one of the jets out here without completely asking.”

"You stole the jet for this? Jeez, Haley..." she says and for the first time cracks a genuine smile. "Some snacks would be cool, I dunno if there's a vending machine out there anywhere or a cafeteria or anything?"

Haley giggled a bit, "I mean...stole is such a strong word. I just...you know. Came here and forgot to file a flight plan."

She popped up, wiping her face of any lingering tears and sniffling a bit. "I got you. I will return with snacks that will piss all your nurses off."

"Not too hard to play the pity card on them." she manages a chuckle. Maybe not everything is horrible if she has a friend like Haley looking out for her.

Haley departed, and returned as promised with an armful of snacks and three different bottles of soda floating behind her.

"I didn't know what you felt like, so I got like one of everything."