Trepedation -Jackeroe-

[Ann Hudgins]

Ann loved her trainers. Mr. Collier was fantastic, and with his determination to get her to be able to handle touching people she had improved greatly in that area. Ms. Vasiliev was amazingly nice to her, rewarded her with cookies and helped her insanely with her shields that kept other people's emotions from influencing her own, and making those shields stronger. She was happy with them, and she was happy with the amount of progress she was making after each session.

However, when she had admitted to Dr. Neville that she had had to give Zac the Heimlich, he was concerned about her own life as well as what would happen if that situation presented itself again. Ann couldn't live with the guilt if something bad were to happen to someone because of her inability to touch them, but she was also too vulnerable about it. So she had been transferred to a different trainer, for a time. His name was Jackeroe Connick.

Ann had no idea who that was, or how long he had been here. She hadn't had the nerve to ask around because she was slightly scared about it. Dr. Neville told her it was for the best, because he got results and quickly, and she would be best with him as her trainer. Ann was all for getting control of her power, but she was still extremely nervous about it.

Again, on the way to his different training room, she had to step out of her normal, safe routine and she felt the unease in her bones. She liked her routines, but that had changed, again. She reached out a pale hand and knocked on the door for a moment before she stuck her head in, "Ann Hudgins....I was told to come in here today." She said meekly with her eyes down cast.

[Jackeroe Connick]

Jackeroe was always getting stuck with new trainees. It was one of the best parts of his job, in his opinion. Most trainers picked their students, to a degree. Sometimes they would pass on a student to someone else, claiming their docket was full enough or that they didn’t feel like they would help the student. Jackeroe, however, took anything that came his way; he knew as well as anyone he was, for many of the students, a last resort. Because of that simple fact, he had made a vow never to turn a student away, no matter what. His schedule was never too full because he often worked his training sessions into the school day, and on weekends. He had no social life, he’d admit it now. He didn’t mind, though, he had enough social interactions in his day, between his coworkers and his trainees.

His ‘classroom’ wasn’t really a classroom as much as it was a place to store cool stuff- one of his problems when he was training was that he became bored or he had nothing to focus on. With a bunch of stuff around, he could easily point to something during training and tell a student to concentrate on ‘that thing over there’. It was littered with just about everything- there were pink lawn flamingoes surrounding his desk, a large Halloween spider dangling from the ceiling, record sleeves taped to the walls… There were bookshelves, filled not only with books but with statuettes, some of religious figures, like Jesus, Shiva, Buddha, or other historical people, like Lincoln and Gandhi. There were other scattered knick-knacks around- a snow globe from Graceland, a Japanese fan, a barrel of monkeys, a skateboard, and an electric guitar were just a few of the more mentionable items. One had to wonder whether this was an artfully arranged space or a place to keep useless junk. There were various seats around- a bucket chair, the passenger seat from a car, complete with seatbelt, various beanbag chairs… The middle of the room was cleared, though, ready to have two chairs pulled up to it. No one could say the trainer was an uptight guy.

Jackeroe was spinning around in the white chair behind his desk, however, reading as he waited for his new student to arrive. Her file said she was an empath- always troublesome to work with if you weren’t prepared for it. He was surprised she wasn’t given to him first. It was a hard life, being an empath, particularly one with her skill level. She sounded like she had progressed pretty far, but he wanted to hear about it from her before he made any assumptions. In fact, he disregarded most of her file anyway- he didn’t want to hear about her psychological evaluation or anything else. (No offense to Doctor Neville, but he wasn’t a fan of psychology). He’d have to scale her powers down severely at first, at least today. He knew that for a fact.

The knock at his door caught him unaware; he was so absorbed with his reading. He pushed his fedora back on his head as the door opened and waved at her, hopping up from his seat. “Well, Miss Ann Hudgins, I am glad you decided to show up-ah.” He popped the ‘p’ on the end of up, and grinned. No, he wasn’t putting on the ‘I’m-such-a-cool-trainer’ act, he was genuinely happy to see her. “You won’t believe how many people I have to chase down. It’s crazy. But come in, find a seat. If you aren’t partial to chairs there’s a few beanbags around. Or you can sit on the floor. I don’t mind.” He gestured to the room as he moved to lean on his desk, arms crossed as he studied her for a moment.

She looked like a quiet girl, and a mild one at that. If he had his way, he’d break her out of that shell. For today, though, he was only going over the basics, and then maybe a bit of training. He realized he hadn’t introduced himself and stuck his hand out to shake, then remembered she couldn't touch him just yet and withdrew his hand. He'd get to that soon enough. Instead of shaking her hand, then, he gave an elaborate bow. He wasn't about to let the lack of touching be an excuse for lack of manners.

"Well, I’m Jackeroe. Jack, if you prefer. Either one, doesn't matter to me." He gestured for her to sit, and he pulled up the passenger seat for himself, falling into it. “Before we do anything, we’d better get acquainted. So, you tell me about yourself, I tell you about me. Tralala. You start. Where are you from?”

[Ann Hudgins]

He seemed like a nice person, she would give him that. However. The random things around his room made Ann lift a small eyebrow. It was odd, to say the least, and reminded her of a garden shed or an attic, not a training room. She looked around, curiously, as she stepped in the room and let the door shut behind her. She looked back at him as he went on about chasing kids down. She hoped he was just exaggerating a little. Why would he have to chase his trainees down? Were they scared of him? When he suggested she take a seat in a chair, or bean bag, she nodded her head and muttered something that might have been a thanks, but was just nonsensical. What he had said worried her a little.

She moved over to the chairs with her slouched shoulders and turned to look at him when she caught movement in her peripherals. He bowed in a flourish and she glanced left and right when she tried to think of something to do in return. Instead of bowing so elaborately, she bent her knees a little and tipped her head forward minutely. It didn't even count as a bow, but it would seem that was the best she could do. She bit her lip a little when he introduced himself with only his first name. Ann had a thing about calling her superiors and elders by their last name with their title. Some teachers insisted otherwise, but it always made her a little uncomfortable. She would have much rather called him Mr. Connick, but he hadn't allowed her to do that. "Nice to meet you," she got out finally. She sank into her seat when he told her they needed to get acquainted, she knew that was coming.

"I grew up in Jacksonville, North Carolina, and lived there all my life until I came....here. My dad is a first sergeant in the Marine Corp and he has been stationed there since he enlisted like almost twenty years ago. I...took a lot of fighting classes when I was a kid instead of playing baseball or wanting to be a ballerina. I am an only child." Ann really wasn't good with these sorts of 'get to know you' things.

[Jackeroe Connick]

As Jackeroe sat and listened to Ann, he was busy making mental notes. Her body language and her tone were just as important as the words she was saying. He could pick up more from the look on a student’s face than he could from what they were saying, half of the time. From her body language, he could tell she was uncomfortable, and that made him think. Maybe she didn’t like talking about herself? Maybe he should’ve read that psych evaluation after all. Crap.

Jackeroe did listen to her, though, and when she was done, he nodded enthusiastically. “I have sisters you should meet, then. My sister, Rhodes, she’s a tomboy. She could kick my butt. And I’m her older brother.” He smiled and scratched the back of his neck. “North Carolina sounds nice, though. You must miss it.” He could tell by the tone of her voice and the way she described Hammel. ‘Here’ just wasn’t cutting it. “I grew up in Indiana. Sometimes I miss it.” It wasn’t a lie- he missed it a little. Most days, though, he was glad to be gone.

Jackeroe sat back in his chair and cocked his head to the side. Maybe he shouldn’t have started with introductions. “You don’t seem to like talking to me about home. Soooo, let’s talk about your power for a bit. Empathy is hard to work with. To be honest, Hammel should’ve referred you to me in the first place. So, tell me about what you have done to work with it so far. Give me a base to work off of.” He stood and walked to the side of the room, pulling a book off a bookshelf. “Do you have any trouble with your chakra points?” He asked, flipping through the pages. “If you don’t know what they are, tell me. I’ve met a few empaths that do and a couple that don’t.” He found what he was looking for, a diagram of human ‘chakra paths’. He put the book on his desk and went back to the shelf. “Some people take medication for pain they get from it, but, since you’re telling me you’re a fighter, I’m assuming that you would not...” He couldn’t find his book. He moved to a different shelf.

“I met an empath that got horrible stomachaches, and he was also a very large guy. His trouble rested mainly on his Manipura chakra. He was also very timid. Then I met another woman from Kocher who had no idea what chakras were, and she had awful...” Jack paused to think. “Ajna. Ajna chakra trouble. Horrible insomnia.” He pulled a thin book off the shelf and sat it down on top of the other. “If you don’t know much about the chakras and what they do, I can give you a bit of reading. As for me, I need to brush up on it myself.”

The trainer toted the books over and sat them down, then fell back into his chair. “I’ll be frank, Ann. We should start you off with daily training.” The smiles and jokes were gone now. He had on his serious face. “There are two main schools of thought among power trainers- there’s controlling a power, and there’s enhancing a power. I work with enhancing. I don’t believe in fighting a power so that you can live your whole life without using it. I believe in integration: using your power to enhance your life. If you don’t like that option, you’re welcome to talk to someone about changing your trainer. I’ll warn you now, though- that’s the easy way out.” He leaned forward and smiled at her. “And you look like a person who won’t turn down a challenge. So. What’s it gonna be?”

[Ann Hudgins]

North Carolina was nice, honestly. Just not the area she was from. It was full of twenty-year-old marines making an ass out of themselves in public and driving cars that were slowly putting them into debt. They cluttered shopping centers and sidewalks with their load and expletive conversations. The scenery was....OK, for an on-the-coast city, but it was too flat for her. Ann liked hills and trees that actually had branches. She shrugged her shoulder when he said she must miss it (to avoid making an ass out of herself she hadn't commented on his suggestion of her meeting his sister), because she really didn't. She missed her parents, yes...to an extent, but they were still scum of the earth because of how they had treated her. She genuinely missed Aiden and his family, who apparently hadn't batted an eyelash at her being meta. However, the conversation she had had with him on New Years still played over in her head which made it awkward to imagine talking to him face to face again.

He was pretty perceptive in picking up her aversion to talking about home, mostly because she hadn't really spoken about her personal matters with anyone but Dr. Neville. It was easy to talk to him because she had been doing so about every day for the past several months. She adjusted herself in her seat when he switched the topic to her powers. She was about to open her mouth to start explaining, when he continued talking, about the chakra points. Ann had learned about as much as she could from the internet and some books in the library, as well as a journal the Head of Research had given her, she felt she knew enough to understand how her power worked and hadn't tried to further her research.

"Well yes, my powers work through the chakras, and I don't really feel pain isolated to one main chakra. It really depends on the emotions I had absorbed, because the emotions effect different chakras. I do....generally always have a bit of chest pain and insomnia, true. But also I..." she flushed slightly as she started to tell him and she started to back out, but he was her trainer and she needed to be honest. "My sacral chakra is...always..well--" more blushing. "I never menstruate." She let out a short breath once she let THAT out on the table and started to shift in the seat again, "my sleeping has regulated better over the past few months under Dr. Collier and Ms. Vasiliev." They had helped her so much. "It was Ms. Vasiliev's idea to creat a shield around my chakras to keep out other peoples, and it has helped me a great bit, though when I touch people...it vanishes. Dr. Collier helped me more in trying to touch people but I generally always end up fainting." She looked down at her desk as she explained and looked up when he sat down again, with several books in tow.

She liked the idea of daily training, because she knew that would bring faster results. However, she knew it wouldn't be as easy as that. It would also be hard. She fiddled with her jacket sleeves when he explained his thoughts going into training, and she could admit that it would certainly be easier to learn how to live with it instead of overcoming it, but Ann knew that wasn't a way to live. She was just now starting to taste a life, and she wanted more of it, and to not just live on eggshells like she is now. She looked up at him when he mentioned she looked like she liked a challenge. That was partially true, but she really just hated losing, especially to her own self. "I'd rather stay here. I agree with Dr. Neville in thinking that I need to be here, in case I am around someone that needs assisting and I can't pass out again like that. I mean, what if the Heimlich hadn't worked before I passed out? Then he would have died." And as much of a pig Zac was, she wouldn't have been able to live with herself, knowing she had caused the death of another human being like that. She had to overcome her power. She just had to.