Supposedly Persi was healthy now.

Mostly, anyway. There was still you need to eat more and drink more and aren't you tired yet? like Persi was apparently exceedingly fragile now, but it was all the sort of healing that was supposed to happen just with daily life anyway. Not real healing; not burns or cuts or broken bones or bruises, so Persi was supposedly healthy and back in his (not Aiden's, and when had that happened? And why?) room.

He didn't feel healthy, though. He felt tired and kind of dazed, like he wasn't ever totally awake, and he never felt like moving at all. Which made sense, if he was still healing or whatever, but it was annoying. And food still hardly ever sounded good, so it was kind of hard to fix it.

More annoying was his head. Or his thoughts, whatever. Persi couldn't quite get ahold of most of them--or didn't want to, since when he could it usually meant he spent the next several hours trying to hide under the blankets of his bed, so that no one would see him if he started crying. He didn't often, but it always felt like he would, and it wasn't like he had anywhere else he wanted to be, so he ended up staring at the inside of blankets with his mind screaming incoherent circles of what happened why didn't it work it should have worked what was wrong why didn't it work what's going on? Was it not supposed to work? (Was everything he'd ever believed wrong after all?) He couldn't quite touch that question; every time he got near it he just... couldn't.

Right now, though, he might be supposed to be somewhere, so while the thoughts were there, Persi was trying to ignore them. At least he knew where things were in the Mansion; finding Miss Gemma's office was less like finding and more like a flashback. He still wasn't sure if he was actually supposed to be there, though, so he knocked before going in. "I... don't know if I'm still supposed to be here?"

Persi was back in the Mansion, and Gemma felt guilty about it, against her better judgment. When did she start not checking if parents who picked up Mansion students were psychotic mutant-hating monsters? It happened before. It was probably going to happen again, if she did not get her stuff together. She did not, and Persi was hurt. Once again.

Gemma, for all intents and purposes, was a law-abiding citizen. Engaged to a cop. She did not approve of acts of vigilantism. But she sure as hell felt like if an industrial lawnmower accidentally rode over said parents, she would not shed any tears.

She was jolted out of her fuming by the knock on the door.

>>"I... don't know if I'm still supposed to be here?"

"Yes you are" she nodded, waving him in as she stood. She fought the urge to apologize. He would have to talk first.

"Tea, or hot chocolate?"

Oh. Well, okay then. Persi had mostly been expecting a no--it didn't make sense for her to keep an appointment time for him when he wasn't supposed to be coming back anyway--but having at least one thing not completely freaking out at him was nice. Even if it was awkward to start with....

"Hot chocolate. Thanks." Persi hadn't figured out why Miss Gemma always offered him something to drink or eat, but there was only so often that he could refuse without it being rude. He'd have suspected it was part of the you-must-eat-always thing, except that had only happened recently and she'd been trying to give him stuff as soon as he met her, so maybe it was just something she did with everyone.

Either way, it didn't actually make much difference. Persi still wasn't too fond of standing around being awkwardly silent, especially when he ought to be polite anyway. "How are you?"

>>"Hot chocolate. Thanks."

Gemma nodded and started making hot chocolate. There was a reason she offered hot beverages to students who came to her office. It gave her something to do in the initial minutes instead of staring awkwardly until the student worked up the courage to talk. It also have something to the student to fiddle with, and punctuate the conversation. Hot beverages were a very versatile prop for hard conversations.

"Please, take a seat.

>>"How are you?"

"I'm good" she nodded, handing him to hot chocolate mug and sitting down on the armchair opposite from him "Welcome back to the Mansion. I am... I'm sorry things went the way they went. I know living here again is not ideal. But I am glad that you are here."

She was honest about it, and still feeling more than a little guilty. But it was a start.

...Well how was Persi supposed to answer that?

"I'm...." Also glad? Annoyed? Vaguely terrified? Really, really confused? That last one was definitely true, but Persi was pretty sure it wasn't the correct response. "It's... fine. I don't mind...." He also didn't really know what he was talking about anymore. Persi shut up.

At least the hot chocolate was a good distraction. Staring at it was slightly less pathetic than staring at the floor. He should probably say something, though; ignoring Miss Gemma wasn't polite either. Even if he couldn't think of what exactly to say. "It wasn't that bad." He thought. Probably. It didn't seem like it had been. Everyone else seemed to think it was, though. Persi had no idea anymore.

>>"I'm.... It's... fine. I don't mind.... It wasn't that bad."

Gemma sighed. Bad was a relative term. For everything Persi had gone through, he probably had a different definition. Still, even if they were monsters, losing your parents was not something people dealt with easily.

"Well, I am glad you are back" she nodded finally "You probably already know the drill, right? I wanted to talk to you about meetings. I know that there is a lot of stuff that is not comfortable to talk about, and I know that on some of those you will need time. But for a lot of reasons, for now, I would like you to come see me more often. Every day, every other day maybe? It's not always going to be talking about the hard stuff. I just want to make sure that you keep talking. To me, or to someone else. Do you understand why I am asking this?"

Oh good Persi didn't have to think of what to talk about now. That was nice. Enough to not really be bothered about what she was asking, since it wasn't like he was doing anything else, anyway. "Not... really? I guess because...." Actually, Persi didn't have a guess. Something to do with because that's what people are expected to do, but it wasn't making it into words. He shrugged instead. "I don't know. I can though, I don't think I'm doing anything else except class." And it wasn't like Persi put a whole lot of effort into that.

>>"Not... really? I guess because.... I don't know. I can though, I don't think I'm doing anything else except class."

"All right then, let's just say you check in after school ever day, for now." she nodded with a smile "You don't have to come in for a full session, we can still have those once a week. I just want to make sure you are doing fine, and that you are keeping up with stuff."

She poured some tea for herself before she continued.

"One thing that I want to you know is that things tend to go easier when you have stuff to occupy yourself with. Classes definitely count. But if you take up something else too, training, a hobby, a sport, or something like that, it will help you organize your life on a schedule. That's a good thing for you. Believe me, I am speaking from experience."

"Okay." That would be easy, especially if Miss Gemma really did just want him to say hi, I'm still fine most of the time.

Part of Persi's mind wanted to ask experience? You have the experience of losing your family and being guilty for not caring enough and doubting God and not being able to die when you ought to? but that part was nasty, and just because Persi hadn't managed to get rid of it didn't mean he had to let it talk. Instead he shifted. "Drawing?" It was a hobby, at least, but he wasn't sure if it counted for the schedule part.

>>"Okay. Drawing?"

Persi limited himself to one-word answers, but at least he was not fighting the conversation. Gemma nodded with a smile.

"Drawing works. We have art classes, and also some other students who like to draw."

So, he had a hobby. It was a shaky start, but a start.

"So... is there anything that you would like to talk about?"

He knew her enough by know to understand the question: She was not asking if he wanted to talk, she was asking what he wanted to talk about first.

"Alright." Persi did know there were others who liked to draw, though he hadn't seen Evelyn any time recently, and probably wouldn't see Aiden often anymore either. But it was good that art counted, since he wasn't good at anything else and didn't really like them enough to stop art for them, anyway.

"Not really...." Persi shrugged. There wasn't anything he wanted to talk about. Or think about, really. There were things his brain kept trying to think about, but Persi didn't want to and couldn't put them into words anyway. Nor should he be thinking about them. (Unless they were right, but if that was true....)

He was supposed to think of something to talk about, though. It wouldn't be fair to make Miss Gemma think of everything. Just because he should think of something didn't mean that he could, though. "Maybe... I dunno. Is there something you want to talk about?"