Xaviers!

After what had happened at Trinity's place Miriam hasn't really felt like spending much time at the school. At least it was easy to recognize Sam's and Will's minds in the masses and avoid them most of the time, but she isn't feeling up to being on guard all the time, so instead of the Xub she's found a small pub in Maldon where she's not sitting at the bar, slowly draining a bottle of wine. Trinity's probably hundreds if not thousands of miles away at this point. The thought of catching her herself had been a cute idea, but not exactly something that seemed very realistic. The woman had ressources and connection while Miriam had nothing but the desire to fit in with those kinds of circles. Instead she was where she belonged, courtesy of her mother. In a shitty pub, surrounded by people that wouldn't know class when it fell into their beers.

She feels a drunken urge well up in somebody at the other end of the bar and she turns to cut him off before the dock worker can even open his mouth. "Why don't you just go back to your table and bite your tongue." she glares at the man, watching him look confused for a moment, then pained as he grinds his teeth into his tongue and turns away.


((open))

"Harsh, roomie. Could have at least humored him for another bottle of wine," a southern drawl said from over her shoulder.

"I can pay my own damn wine." she mumbles to herself, not even turning to look at Haley. "Hi Haley." she says, not putting much effort into masking the sigh that comes along with it.

Haley didn't have to be a shitty telepath to know what that tone of voice meant.

"I...can go fuck off if you want," she said, frowning a bit.

"That depends on how much shit you want to give me if you don't."

Haley sighed, sounding more than a little hurt as she turned away, "I...guess I'll see you back at the room later or something."

"Did Sam send you to look for me?"

"No. I just came to have a drink with a guy I met online and he blew me off. Saw you and thought I'd say hello."

"Anybody who'd invite you to a place like this isn't worth your time anyway."

Haley shifted her purse on her shoulder and looked around appraisingly. "Guess so..."

"Why would Sam be looking for you?"

"To berate me about the kind of friends I make, presumably. She'd probably be right too." she says and drains her glass in one go before reaching for the bottle to refill it.

"Feel like I'm out of the loop on this one..." she said shifting her weight from one foot to another uncertainly. "We...don't have to elaborate on that if you don't want."

"Let's just say the only reason I didn't get stuffed into a holding cell as well when Team Self-Righteous came kicking down doors is because Sam was only slightly pissed. Or maybe she plans on holding that Damocles Sword over my head, who knows."

"I mean, I only skimmed the mission debrief, and I barely know Sam..."

Or you, the girl I sleep several feet from every night.

"...but I mean. Doesn't seem like you really did anything that bad to warrant being pissed at you about."

"We'll see..." It was really only a matter of time until Sam went into Will's head again and when she unearthed what she'd seen of someone who looked an awful lot like herself torturing the poor shapeshifter... "Not like she has to be right to be pissed at me."

"Well if she is, she's an idiot," she proclaimed, deciding to just stick up with her roommate. It was certainly easier to assume everything was fine instead of questioning the loyalty of someone she lived with.

"Yeah, better not piss off your roommate. Who knows what she'll do otherwise." Apparently the answer to that snarky question is 'catch a glimpse of Haley's thought-process without the blonde girl really noticing. Not that she's doing it entirely on purpose, but it's still kind of unsettling just how easily she seems to have passed by Haley's defenses.

"...I."

They weren't kidding in training your shields DO suck...

"...look, I try to stay out of your head and I try to keep my crazy from leaking out in the room," she said pointing to her temple, "so could we maybe not beat me up over my subconscious shit here?"

"Your shields don't suck. Probably. I've had too much wine to shut you out. If that bother you then I don't care. No one crawls up anybody else's arse if they use their powers. That honour's reserved for the teeps."

"Yeah, well, inner monologue usually is inner for a reason, so don't fucking hold it against me or get pissed if other people freak out about it." she grumbled.

"Thanks for the lecture, Pintsized. You memorize that from when someone told you that?"

Fucking bitch...

"No. Just common sense."

"And that seems fair to you? No one else gets this much crap for using what was given to them."

"Life's not fair," she shrugged. "Is it fair that no mutants can use their powers at all in America or a bunch of other places without getting put on a list? Is it fair that girls have to be the ones that worry about getting pregnant when we're hooking up? I think lots of shit that I'd be fucking mortified if I ever actually said. So do lots of people. Just because we can hear that shit doesn't mean we should."

"And you'd be mortified why? Because it's something that went through your head. Because it'd scare yourself if it wasn't so easy to pretend it's not there. No one knows after all. That's why everyone's terrified of us. Because we're a mirror you can't escape. We tear the veil of all the lies we tell ourselves and they can't handle what's underneath. Everyone goes through their lives telling themselves that they're 'good' because they can't stand the idea that they might not be. It's everywhere, it's a stink that wafts from everyone. Them, you, me. To look away is just yet another lie you tell yourself. You were meant to see this or you wouldn't have been given these powers."

Haley remained silent for a long while, mulling over her roommate's words and looking at her carefully. "Maybe...you've got a point," she finally conceded.

"And I'm done having people blame me for it. I didn't ask for it. And you wanna hear something really fucked up? When it manifested they dragged me off to the 'dangerous mutants' loony bin for years. The guy who ran over my sister with his car got fourteen months. Fourteen months! Not that they ever told me or even let me know his name, but it's pretty bloody hard to keep secrets from me."

"Really? Just for being a telepath?" she said, suddenly wondering if she should be as open about her powers with everyone.

"For panicking. For..." She seems to hesitate for a moment, almost as if she's trying to remember something. "I was eleven years old. I didn't have the capacity to grief, much less express my feelings. And then I felt her, right here." she says, tipping her temple with a manicured fingernail. "For just a moment she was right there but then they drowned her out. Everyone else who'd come to stare at the accident and not one of them actually cared. Not until I made them. Or tried to anyway. I was just a kid clumsily swinging a tool around I knew nothing about. I got tangled up in their minds until X-Corp showed up and shot me with a tranquilizer." she says and drains her glass before filling it again from the bottle.

"When I woke up Norma was gone along with everyone else but they still bounced around inside my head. Ghosts, fragments, memories of other people. They didn't lock me up and they did help me but I had to piece it together myself and it's still all... jumbled. I asked them, begged them, really, to tell me about the people that had been there but they wouldn't budge. I don't know what happened to them. Maybe they were trying to keep me from finding out how badly I'd destroyed their minds, maybe they were scared of letting me find out what I'm capable of. In the end I think they were just worried I would try to track down the driver." she sighs and keeps herself from rolling her eyes.

"But you know what I've come to realize? They were right. Deep down that's exactly what I was hoping for. Maybe their telepaths saw something in me that I didn't even realize myself but if I knew where to find this man I don't think I could stop myself from making sure he never forgets what he did that day. So there you have it. A human kills a little kid because of a phonecall that couldn't wait and the mutant gets years of therapy on a secluded rock because they're scared. Scared of what the traumatized girl who made a dozen people scream and cry until their voice died might grow into."

"Holy shit," Haley frowned. "That..."

She struggled to find words and wasn't coming up with anything even remotely helpful to say.

"...I'm sorry you had to go through that." she finally settled on. "I...I dunno. Maybe it's better not to try and focus on revenge? I mean. It's awful. But. Would finding him and doing that bring her back? And unless he's a sociopath the guy has to feel awful about what he did. There's not really any excuse for it. You've gotta think that the memory of what he did is going to sit there and eat away at him. I mean. That's just how normal people work. Hell I feel guilty for smashing the car of bitch who stole my ex, and even though she sorta deserved it...still didn't get me back my boyfriend or my ex-best friend."

"It's not about bringing her back. I know nothing's going to change what happened. Maybe I just want to make sure it is eating away at him after all these years." she says, the implication of what she's afraid she might do if he's not hanging thick in the air.

"Might be healthier to just tell yourself that it is. I mean. There was a guy my dad knew that blew his brains out after he hit someone with his car when he was shitfaced and driving drunk." Haley added, clearly uncomfortable with the whole conversation.

"That's just a human sentiment that people cling to to deal with not being able to know for sure." she says gloomily.

"Well the alternative is torturing yourself more of less...so it seems like kinda reasonable I guess." she said trying to help.

"It is, but usually you don't have to let go of the possibility."

"So say you somehow find this guy and break his brain. What's that actually accomplish?"

"Justice? I don't know. Probably nothing."

Haley shrugged, "I dunno. Just seems kinda pointless to hold onto something like that in the hopes that if you find they person you can maybe get some sort of justice or something."

"Gotta hold on to something or you get lost in everyone else's thoughts."

"....you don't think it might get easier as we get more used to the powers to sorta shut people out?" Haley asked a bit of concern in her voice. "I...kinda thought that would get better just like my TK did with practice and stuff."