Xaviers!

After a humiliating ride back tot he University, Miriam ends up at the medical center, although there is technically nothing medically amiss. Aside from lack of a pulse or breathing or any other signs of life she's quite healthy, much to the chagrin of the staff. She's also in a weird mood, which manifests itself in typical Miriam manner, although it got a little better now that she has a blood bag she's drinking like a bloody Capri Sun. She stopped hissing at the nurse at least who decided to avoid going in the room just in case anyway.

"We've got her locked down finally, I'm told." Sam says as she makes her way in. She's got a bandage on her arm now.

"I still don't know quite how to break it to Will."

"Suppose you really shouldn't have to anyway... I really just tried to hel--" she starts before stopping herself. "No. I wasn't. I missed Will and didn't want to be lonely..." she admits to herself as much as Sam, avoiding eye contact. For whatever that's good for between two telepaths.

"There's... other things I need to talk to Will about besides. A lot of things happened while you were gone."

Miriam is quiet for a moment as she actively fights back a series of biting remarks that are the first thing that comes to her mind. She even takes a deep breath, which briefly breaks the strange stillness of her body.

"I know you're neurotic about a lot of things, but are you really contemplating asking me for advice?"

"Look, I don't know exactly what lines you split Will down, but he's in a bad way."

"Will's been in a bad way ever since I pushed you to open that box. I just tried to split off the Will I first met, but clearly I did a shoddy job."

"Okay, so we were trapped in some sort of simulation that made us think it was real. Will woke up before the rest of us and I think he... wanted to keep us in it."

"So it was a pleasant scenario?"

"Some corny sitcom bit where I was his wife."

"Well, wives."

Miriam bursts out laughing. It's a little bit hysterical, the tension and emotional exhaustion spilling over.

"Oh. My. God. That is hilarious. You were surprised by that?"

"Oh come on, I'm not blind."

"Still at that point he knew it wasn't real."

"And now you're hoping that was my fault?"

Samantha sighs and pinches the bridge of her nose.

"I'm just trying to figure out what to do, Miriam."

"For all I know it actually was! Not everything I say is sarcastic..."

"I'm just... I'm not trying to blame you here, I'm trying to understand."

"Time enough to be cross with you when he's fixed, aye?"

"I was lonely. I lost everything and I thought I could at least have my friend back. I tried to split off all that Morrigan non-sense and the rest of the crud from that box. Especially this... stupid loyalty to you."

"I suppose it's only natural that isolated from the rest of him it'd be... more intense."

"Guess I'm not as good at compartmentalizing Will as your counterpart."

"Well I'm just thinking of it as... load-bearing, I guess?"

"If you had to push all your heavy feelings on one part of you, would you cope as well?"

Miriam just tilts her head and gives Sam a look.

"What? I'm serious."

"I know. I clearly wouldn't. Didn't."

"...is that what's been happening?"

"I mean I'm not trying to be dense here, but you don't make it all that easy to get to know you."

"I..." she starts and trails off, staring at the mostly empty bag of blood in her hand.

"Everybody leaves me. No matter what I try, I always screw it up somehow. The only ones who ever try to reach back out to me are the fucked up assholes. Trinity, Alessia, that bloody funhouse mirror version of me in Will's head. There's just... something broken inside of me and my power sends it out there like a fucking beacon. Everything I touch just turns to ash!" she bursts out, throwing the bloody plastic bag at the small window in the door, leaving behind a blood splatter.

"And like some kind of cruel joke now I need people more than ever or my brain shrivels up into a ravenous monster..." her rage breaks as quickly as it came and instead she's fighting back tears.

"So this time you decided you'd be the one to leave before we got the chance," she says, the realization dawning.

"Damn it Miriam, we're all a bit broken, but at least together we have a chance at making sense."

"Easy for you to say. Everybody bloody loves you here."

"Oh aye, the girl with all the voices in her head, who's such a bloody trouble magnet that the headmistress is accusing me of causing the nonsense that happened while you were gone."

"Oh I'm right popular."

"I don't give a damn about the head-mistress." she snaps a little. It's easy, almost comfortable, to slip into butting heads with Sam.

"I'm not saying you have no problems. You just... make handling them look easy. And you have Tereza and Will."

"And you could have had Wanda."

"But that's the problem, isn't it?"

Miriam winces at the mention of Wanda, glancing at Sam before turning her eyes down at her hands again.

"She deserves better. You didn't see what getting close to me did to her mind..."

"You still took away her choice, Miriam. She deserved better than that."

"I took away the pain..." Miriam insists, although she sounds less certain than she usually does.

"If we don't own our pain, what do we really own?"

"And I thought I was the melancholic one..."

"Am I wrong? Who really can get away with deciding our feelings are wrong?"

"You know that the answer to that is us. You think we shouldn't but you can't deny the fact that it's right there, just a thought away. I broke up with her, what good is the heart-ache going to do?"

"She'd be able to bloody understand what happened to her. She's been so confused since you left."

"I get it! Even when I think I'm being kind I hurt people. How is this supposed to make me want to stay exactly?"

"Because running away won't bloody fix it, Miriam! Running away got us right here, and if you do it again I just... I don't know what I'll do."