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As Gawain talked, some of Evelyn's guilt started dissipating. Suddenly, her doubts didn't feel so childish.

>>"The trust thing, that might change with training."

That was true with Locke, but Saph? She was pretty sure the opposite had happened.

>>"At the same time, it might not."

She wondered if that was her doubts showing through this time or his.

>>"So... what do you remember from what Saph told you? Or what his problem was with you being on the team?"

Once upon a time, she might have laughed at such a question. But that was before she met the memory eraser and scrubbed a few brain cells. Now that part of her memory was cut and pasted back together like clips from a movie. The more she tried to question what was missing, the more the record just skip, skip, skipped over the missing tape.

"He said I could have just toughened up with a few self defense classes. As a member of the x-men I would be asked to put myself in harms way for the sake of others, and that didn't line up well with self centered goals. And I said what I thought: that even doing good has a level of selfishness to it. You help people because it makes you feel good. There are emotional rewards. He didn't like that answer. Said it meant people who gave their lives for others were 'selfish'. Then..." She paused, the memories scooting forward. Something was missing... she picked up what she remembered. "We talked about fighting opponents who would be trying to kill you, and knowing to only seek disabling them as possible. And... Then I left."

A skip in a tape. A wrinkle, a piece of fabric stitched carefully over the memory. What had been there? What else had he said?

Evelyn wasn't exactly the best person to be put in charge of greeting New Mutants, but somehow, on that particular day she had stumbled onto the assignment. With the other x-men off on missions, or who knows where, the phone call had come in, and Evelyn found herself answering the phone after frantically trying to find someone better to address the buzzing machine. Mutant at the docks, needed someone from the school to greet them. Simple enough, right?

Wrong. After scouring the school, frantically looking for someone more official, the clock was ticking and no one was heading to meet the mutant. With her track record lately, she didn't exactly want to be the face of hospitality to someone just arriving in the city. The echoes weren't exactly the most polite or the most tactful. 'Hi, welcome to the city, wow you really have some suppressed anger issues, don't you? And that ego really needs to get looked at. Well, we have a doctor, but he doesn't fix that. Oh, there is a counselor, but last time I was around her I sorta ended up in the coma. Hopefully that doesn't happen to you.'.

This was going to go just perfectly.

So, after hailing a ride and bundling up, Evelyn did one last desperate sweep for someone more suitable. Luck would have it, she nearly ran over a face she had seen on the list of mansion greeters.

Wonder why else she looked familiar...

"Hey! You've done greeter duty with the school, haven't you?" She said in half-delight, half desperate. Without really waiting for a response, she grabbed the girl by the arm and shuffled her to the car while giving a quickly description of the problem.

Tactful. That was exactly what she was.

>>"You don't get to beat yourself up while I am still angry at you."

"Sorry... You can be mad, I'll put a rain check on beating myself up." She said. Part of her was joking, but she was pretty sure the other part of her was at least somewhat serious. She wasn't done beating herself up for this mess. Not by a long shot. Having playbacks aided in that. Relieve a mistake and you get to feel bad all over again.

>>"Look, we gotta talk about all this."

"I know..." She wiggled into a sitting position, leaning heaving on the wall for support. Still dizzy, but at least she wasn't craning her neck to see Gawain now. "Maybe...start somewhere easy?" Was there anything easy to talk about?

Evelyn woke a short while later, feeling twice as exhausted as she had when she passed out. The playbacks flickering in her mind were a jumbled mess, with images of sewer monsters overlapping with sunsets and paintings. She didn't dream, but the way the memories tangled made it feel like one big nightmare.

Opening her eyes, she squinted at the ceiling, trying to orient herself. Time, date, anything... The last memory she had to hold onto was talking to Gawain out on the grounds. This was definitely not the grounds.

Pulling the blankets closer, she rolled over and looked at Gawain. She bit her lip and sighed, shutting her eyes again. "I'm sorry..." It was really all she could say at this point. Maybe eventually it would stick, or mean enough. Until then she just felt like a broken record. This must have been how Gawain felt after the Gala disaster.

Evelyn's brain stumbled over all the words, and she let herself lean against the tree again. It was like a car exploded in her face all over again. She put a hand to her forehead and blinked. It was like she was desperately trying to hold together a sandcastle and water just kept pouring over the whole thing.

"I didn't go to Saphirus! After I joined the team, he called me to the Danger Room and wanted to see if I really should be on the team! And I didn't go to Forte. We already had that argument before. I didn't want to just turn to you and say 'hey, I'm quitting the x-men!' if I was just having cold feet or something! I'm sorry. I really really am."

This was just spiraling out of control. The bark was digging into her back, but she only felt it because the echoes kept clamoring about it. "I'm not saying you see the world in black and white! I'm saying the team in general does. I think I can trust you, and I think you understand me, but I that was sort of the problem! I needed someone who wasn't in the situation to just help give me an impartial look at things. And as much as I care about you, you can't be impartial about this."

It was like she was getting thrown around the sewers all over again. All the color had gone from her skin and she just felt defeated.

Evelyn frowned. She half wished it was about the property damage. That was easier to fix in the end. She crossed her arms and hugged her torso, then looked back at him. The echoes could read the unspoken question, and that just made it worse. She trusted Gawain, really. But she was still afraid of admitting the things going on inside her head. She was afraid of screwing things up between them, but the longer she was at the mansion, the more confused she was getting. She looked at the target and the echoes absentmindedly calculated what corrections Gawain could have made to hit the bulls-eye.

If only life worked that easily.

"When I first joined the x-men, Saphirus had a training session with me. He said he didn't like my reasoning for wanting to join the team. He said I had self-centered goals, and we argued. But part of me thinks he might have been a bit right. To be honest, I don't remember part of that training session now. Something went bad, I don't think my powers liked it, and awhile back, I had someone...I had someone erase that memory. I couldn't handle it, Gawain. I've had tons of close calls and bad memories, but something about that scared me and I couldn't handle it.

She didn't look at him, trying to finish what she was saying before she lost her nerve. It was far too much admitting at once, but once she started, she couldn't quite stop. "When the museum got attacked, Forte gave me a choice whether the guy who did it would live or die. And you know what? I hesitated. For a moment, I wasn't sure what I wanted. X-men aren't supposed to be like that. They aren't supposed to take revenge or kill people. I didn't talk to you because I talked you into letting me join the team, and if I'm not x-men material, people would question your judgement..." She kicked the dirt again. The rock moved a few inches.

"Sylar...Sylar knows what it's like to kill people. He knows what it's like to have a monster inside him, and knows what it's like to question who he is. He's also learned to accept who he is though and control his mutation instead of letting it control him. I just, I wanted to see from his point of view. He's more...neutral, than some of the x-men. I don't see things in shades of black and white, and everything is a lot of gray. I just kind of wanted to talk to someone who could see things that way too." She looked up, trying to keep her emotions in check. She felt guilty for not going to Gawain, but she also felt afraid of what he would think of her.

Hmmm well Evelyn is probably not on the best standings with the x-men after her and Sylar sort of blew up a car in the sewers <.< so she wouldn't necessarily be someone who would be in charge of welcoming someone to the Mansion. But she's nosy and wanders around New York a lot, the echoes could pick up on something happening at the docks and she could be involved in said shenanigans still.