Scott, Amanda - Monday morning
May. 23rd, 2005 09:11 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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xp_logsAmanda goes for a driving lesson with Scott, and during the course of distracting talk, a few things come to light. It also becomes pretty obvious that Scott is not one of Amanda's people, but she does take some of his advice. Within limits, of course.
He was definitely getting the hang of this whole Zen thing, Scott thought in amusement as Amanda drove, very carefully and if anything, a little too slowly, out of the garage. "You're doing fine," he said calmly, seeing the slightly whitened knuckles on the steering wheel "I'm actually not going to snap at you if you get closer to the speed limit."
"I've never gone backwards before," she said, forcing herself to try and relax as she finally got the car out to a point where she could straighten up and head down the driveway. There was a slight moment of confusion as she forgot which country she was in and had to switch sides of the road - she hardly ever opened the wrong door any more, but driving was confusing. "Just gettin' the hang of things since you won't drive on the proper side of the road like reasonable people." A brief, slightly tense grin crossed her face.
"We Americans and our wacky eccentricities," Scott bantered idly. "Just remember to look the right way at the right time." He hated having such lousy peripheral vision at times like this; he always had to actually turn towards the student, and that always made them feel like they were being scrutinized.
"Tryin' t' remember that, yeah," Amanda said, dutifully stopping and looking in both directions before pulling out onto the road that led past the school. Oops, yeah, other side of the road. As she proceeded, her speed increased, and she began to visibly relax. Nothing to this driving business. "This is easier t' do without the sirens an' the rest," she commented, apparently idly, but curious to see Scott's reaction. Something in her could never resist stirring up the staid X-Man.
"Well, duh," Scott said amiably, not batting an eye. "Nice, leisurely drives are enjoyable. Outrunning police pursuit... well, that can be fun too, but in an entirely different way." He let his eyes slide sideways to her, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "I lived on the street for a few years too, Amanda. I took my share of joyrides."
She couldn't see him looking at her exactly through the glasses, but no doubt he was enjoying her expression of surprise. "You did? I didn't know that..." Her ears turned red with unaccustomed embarrassment. "So there's hope for someone like me, yeah?" she said, making it into a joke.
Scott chuckled. "Hope in general, yeah." He paused to appreciate that yes, she was in fact a not-bad driver, however her experience had been gained. "I was sixteen when the Professor found me and brought me here. Ten years ago, now..."
"Gettin' old," Amanda said with an amused - and brief - glance at him. Eyes on the road was a good thing, she reminded herself. She was probably driving a lot more carefully than she would normally, but this was important to her. It was about gaining some independence and being able to take Meggan places when she wanted, instead of having to scrounge lifts. Not to mention the Saturday classes with Strange. "I remember you sayin' once there weren't that many of you here at first... this was when the X g... the Professor was startin' out with this whole school thing?"
Scott didn't miss the correction, but didn't comment on it, either. "Yeah, we had a very small student body back then," he said. "Half a dozen at a time, a few more occasionally - most of us were older. The school wasn't quite as much of a school back then, either." He chuckled softly. "I was the 'baby' of the group for quite a while."
Amanda raised her eyebrow at that, but didn't comment on it - the thought of Scott as a baby anything was a bit hard to grasp for the teenager, even though intellectually she knew it must be true. The same as there had been a baby Xavier at one point. She flicked on her indicator - well, meant to, she got the windscreen wipers first and hastily corrected with a muttered "fuck!" - and carefully passed a Volvo that was crawling along the road. "Must've been odd, only a few of you rattlin' 'round the place," she said at last. "I can't figure out if it would have been better or not. Less people t' get in yer face an' fight with, but if you didn't like the people you were with, you'd've been sort of fucked."
"Very different atmosphere, yeah," Scott said, taking mental notes on her passing technique. It struck him to tell her to relax again - but no, that was liable to have the opposite effect. "Really, it was more like... an extended family, rather than a school. It's why Hank and Ororo and Jean and I are as close as we are."
"Some families, any way," Amanda muttered. The word was a sensitive one for her these days. "So McCoy was here too? I didn't see him in those photos that're up - hard t' miss someone as blue and fuzzy as him."
"Look a little closer the next time," Scott suggested. "Hank wasn't blue and fuzzy back then. That came later. You should be able to recognize him in the pictures once you know that, though." He turned his attention back to the road. "Take the next right," he said amiably. "We'll head into town. I want to see how you handle a little more traffic."
"He wasn't?" Amanda asked, but then the request sank in and she gulped a little. Open roads were easier, especially here, since they were nice and wide and not at all winding like some country lanes in England. Traffic that didn't get out of your way was another thing altogether. "I s'pose you want me t' stop at the traffic lights too?" she asked, again seeking refuge in humour as she dutifully made the turn.
"Preferably, yes. It always puts such a crimp in my day when I have to sweet-talk police officers." Scott glanced thoughtfully at her. "Hank's case was an accident, mind you, but I think you've seen some evidence for how mutations can change over time by now, haven't you? Jono being a prime example... there can be secondary mutations, too. Nathan told me once that his precognition didn't emerge until he was twenty. That sort of thing."
"Bah, you're no fun at all." She wasn't serious, though. The frown of concentration deepened as the traffic starting building up. "I hadn't thought 'bout it like that - makes sense, I s'pose."
He wondered if she'd twig to the fact that he was deliberately distracting her or not. "You ought to take one of the Professor's classes on mutation and society. They're not heavy on the science, and they give you a lot to think about."
"If I've got time." Amanda couldn't help a small sigh. "I need t' graduate, an' with stuff that'll help me get a decent job so I can help look after Meggan proper. An' that means no more wastin' time on stuff that's fun but doesn't get me anywhere. Like the languages." She braked as someone decided to pull out abruptly from a side street, and muttered some rather bad words in Latin.
Scott blinked. "And you don't think that the languages could help you do that?" he asked, mystified. "Amanda, we live a short distance away from one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Hell, think of the UN alone, and the sheer amount of work they need from translators and other language specialists." He smiled a bit, but kept his eye on the road. "Just because it's fun doesn't mean that it can't be valuable. You seem to have a gift for it, too. And really, you know, the kind of languages you've been doing are possibly even more applicable to 'decent jobs'. It was one of the reasons I was so pleased when Nathan decided to expand our language offerings beyond the usual."
"Like the UN would even look at someone like me. They want people with uni degrees, an' with the way things go whenever I have exams with people gettin' hurt an' the like, it'd take me the next ten bloody years t' finish anythin'. 'S already taken me two bloody years t' get even close t' finishin' high school." Amanda focussed on the road ahead, glad she didn't have to look at Scott. The flow of words continued, matter-of-fact. "An' I might be good at languages, but that's not enough for me t' pass. They take me too much study time, an' I just don't have that any more. Not with the magic as well."
Scott felt a sudden, inexplicable flash of dislike for the girl sitting next to him. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come, and he frowned a little, puzzling over it. She'd sounded a bit on the martyr-ish side, yes, but she was eighteen years old and had had a truly shitty last several months. He shouldn't have let himself react like that.
"I'm not your guidance counsellor," he said finally, amiably enough. "Thus I don't have to give you the speech about your thousand and one options... which is good, because I'm not particularly good at pep talks at the best of times."
Amanda, always sensitive to other people's emotional states, caught the briefest change, and her face hardened a little. Fine. She should have known better than to talk about it. "I've been talkin' with Wanda," she said, carefully pulling up at a red light. That would cover it - she changed the subject. "How am I doin' so far? I'd like t' try an' pass the test as soon as I can take it."
Not his protege, Scott reminded himself - not that he'd had much success with Paige, now, had he? Best to stay out of it completely. "Basically solid thus far, I think," he said calmly. "You're going to need a little more practice to stop looking so nervous. Think of the state examiner as a shark - he or she will be able to smell blood in the water." He glanced out the window, pondering. "I want to see how you park," he said finally. "Head to the mall?"
Amanda privately thought an examiner wouldn't make her half as nervous as some of the lines of conversation had been. But she nodded, and used one of Strange's drills to try and calm the panic she felt at the thought of navigating the mall. "You mean I don't just leave it in the middle of some waste ground an' set fire to it?" she asked, taking the next left a little less confidently than she had the previous turns. A Buick honked at her, and she gave him the finger without even thinking about it.
Scott bit his lip, trying not to laugh. "Again, preferably not," he said, a little quiver of mirth in his voice. "Also, maybe mind the gestures, too? They're satisfying, but they might lead an examiner to think that you're harboring the potential for road rage."
Amanda snorted quietly. "At this rate I'll be tricking meself out with a Volvo an' wearing tweed," she snickered, turning into the mall parking lot after waiting for a suitable gap. The one she chose was perhaps a little close, but she wanted this over and done with. She glanced over at Scott. "Can we go down the back part where's there's lots of space? I haven't actually parked before an' I'd rather just have the lines t' work with first."
"Sure," Scott said after a moment. "I don't want to push you into close-quarters parking if you're not feeling comfortable with the idea just yet." He smiled. "The parallel parking part of your test's going to be a bitch - everyone has trouble with that - but we'll get in plenty of practice ahead of time."
"Thanks," Amanda said, heading for the less-crowded rear of the parking lot. She looked over at Scott again, expression serious. "I appreciate you doin' this for me," she continued. "Gettin' me licence... 's important."
"You're welcome. You've got good reason to get it as soon as you can," Scott said, then chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. "Why don't we try and do some extra lessons?" he asked. "Can't make any hard and fast promises, given how fast my life can heat up if something comes down the pipe, but barring catastrophe we should be able to fit in more than one a week."
It'd mean having to leave Meggan with someone yet again, and another chunk taken out of her free time, but like she'd said, this was important. "I think that'd work, yeah," she said slowly, trying to shuffle things around in her head. "Um, can I get back t' you about times? I'll have t' sort some stuff out, time-wise." She could always stay up a couple of hours later and catch up with her study when Meggan was asleep.
Scott made a contemplative noise. "Schedules," he suggested lightly, not sure she'd take well to getting advice for him. "Overdo it at first, schedule out every hour of the day. As things start to settle, you'll find you don't need to be quite as stringent. And things like extra driving lessons are worthwhile time-sacrifices for you, I think," he pointed out. "Given how much more flexibility your license will give you, time-wise, once you have it. No more having to schedule around other people's availability, if nothing else."
It was an indication of how swamped Amanda was feeling that she didn't get automatically defensive at the suggestion she hadn't thought of how useful the licence would be. "That was why I want t' get it as soon as I can," she said. "'S just tryin' t' juggle lookin' after Meg an' the make up classes 'm doin' an' Strange's stuff. I'm behind in everythin', an' now I'm settled, everyone's pilin' on the work so I catch up." She chose a likely-looking parking space and began inching her way into it, a fierce frown of concentration on her face. "An' I don't like leavin' Meggan - I said I'd look after her, an' it looks bad if I'm leavin' her with other people all the time." The car started drifting a little too far to the right, and she hastily corrected.
"She could always come along for the driving lessons," Scott suggested. "Seriously," he said, before Amanda could react. "You drive competently enough already that she's not going to be unsafe in the car with you. I certainly wouldn't mind having her in the back seat while we're doing this."
"I didn't even think... if it's all right, that'd be good." Amanda recovered her surprise quickly, and a look of honest relief crossed her face. One less problem. And it would mean Meggan would get used to cars and Amanda driving one too. Then she paid attention to what she was doing again, and realised she was parked diagonally across the space, and she flushed with embarrassment. "Um, think I need t' try that again."
"It'd be no problem at all," Scott said, "and yes." He managed to keep a perfectly straight face. "Practice makes perfect. And we have plenty of room to do it, here."
He was definitely getting the hang of this whole Zen thing, Scott thought in amusement as Amanda drove, very carefully and if anything, a little too slowly, out of the garage. "You're doing fine," he said calmly, seeing the slightly whitened knuckles on the steering wheel "I'm actually not going to snap at you if you get closer to the speed limit."
"I've never gone backwards before," she said, forcing herself to try and relax as she finally got the car out to a point where she could straighten up and head down the driveway. There was a slight moment of confusion as she forgot which country she was in and had to switch sides of the road - she hardly ever opened the wrong door any more, but driving was confusing. "Just gettin' the hang of things since you won't drive on the proper side of the road like reasonable people." A brief, slightly tense grin crossed her face.
"We Americans and our wacky eccentricities," Scott bantered idly. "Just remember to look the right way at the right time." He hated having such lousy peripheral vision at times like this; he always had to actually turn towards the student, and that always made them feel like they were being scrutinized.
"Tryin' t' remember that, yeah," Amanda said, dutifully stopping and looking in both directions before pulling out onto the road that led past the school. Oops, yeah, other side of the road. As she proceeded, her speed increased, and she began to visibly relax. Nothing to this driving business. "This is easier t' do without the sirens an' the rest," she commented, apparently idly, but curious to see Scott's reaction. Something in her could never resist stirring up the staid X-Man.
"Well, duh," Scott said amiably, not batting an eye. "Nice, leisurely drives are enjoyable. Outrunning police pursuit... well, that can be fun too, but in an entirely different way." He let his eyes slide sideways to her, a slight smile tugging at his lips. "I lived on the street for a few years too, Amanda. I took my share of joyrides."
She couldn't see him looking at her exactly through the glasses, but no doubt he was enjoying her expression of surprise. "You did? I didn't know that..." Her ears turned red with unaccustomed embarrassment. "So there's hope for someone like me, yeah?" she said, making it into a joke.
Scott chuckled. "Hope in general, yeah." He paused to appreciate that yes, she was in fact a not-bad driver, however her experience had been gained. "I was sixteen when the Professor found me and brought me here. Ten years ago, now..."
"Gettin' old," Amanda said with an amused - and brief - glance at him. Eyes on the road was a good thing, she reminded herself. She was probably driving a lot more carefully than she would normally, but this was important to her. It was about gaining some independence and being able to take Meggan places when she wanted, instead of having to scrounge lifts. Not to mention the Saturday classes with Strange. "I remember you sayin' once there weren't that many of you here at first... this was when the X g... the Professor was startin' out with this whole school thing?"
Scott didn't miss the correction, but didn't comment on it, either. "Yeah, we had a very small student body back then," he said. "Half a dozen at a time, a few more occasionally - most of us were older. The school wasn't quite as much of a school back then, either." He chuckled softly. "I was the 'baby' of the group for quite a while."
Amanda raised her eyebrow at that, but didn't comment on it - the thought of Scott as a baby anything was a bit hard to grasp for the teenager, even though intellectually she knew it must be true. The same as there had been a baby Xavier at one point. She flicked on her indicator - well, meant to, she got the windscreen wipers first and hastily corrected with a muttered "fuck!" - and carefully passed a Volvo that was crawling along the road. "Must've been odd, only a few of you rattlin' 'round the place," she said at last. "I can't figure out if it would have been better or not. Less people t' get in yer face an' fight with, but if you didn't like the people you were with, you'd've been sort of fucked."
"Very different atmosphere, yeah," Scott said, taking mental notes on her passing technique. It struck him to tell her to relax again - but no, that was liable to have the opposite effect. "Really, it was more like... an extended family, rather than a school. It's why Hank and Ororo and Jean and I are as close as we are."
"Some families, any way," Amanda muttered. The word was a sensitive one for her these days. "So McCoy was here too? I didn't see him in those photos that're up - hard t' miss someone as blue and fuzzy as him."
"Look a little closer the next time," Scott suggested. "Hank wasn't blue and fuzzy back then. That came later. You should be able to recognize him in the pictures once you know that, though." He turned his attention back to the road. "Take the next right," he said amiably. "We'll head into town. I want to see how you handle a little more traffic."
"He wasn't?" Amanda asked, but then the request sank in and she gulped a little. Open roads were easier, especially here, since they were nice and wide and not at all winding like some country lanes in England. Traffic that didn't get out of your way was another thing altogether. "I s'pose you want me t' stop at the traffic lights too?" she asked, again seeking refuge in humour as she dutifully made the turn.
"Preferably, yes. It always puts such a crimp in my day when I have to sweet-talk police officers." Scott glanced thoughtfully at her. "Hank's case was an accident, mind you, but I think you've seen some evidence for how mutations can change over time by now, haven't you? Jono being a prime example... there can be secondary mutations, too. Nathan told me once that his precognition didn't emerge until he was twenty. That sort of thing."
"Bah, you're no fun at all." She wasn't serious, though. The frown of concentration deepened as the traffic starting building up. "I hadn't thought 'bout it like that - makes sense, I s'pose."
He wondered if she'd twig to the fact that he was deliberately distracting her or not. "You ought to take one of the Professor's classes on mutation and society. They're not heavy on the science, and they give you a lot to think about."
"If I've got time." Amanda couldn't help a small sigh. "I need t' graduate, an' with stuff that'll help me get a decent job so I can help look after Meggan proper. An' that means no more wastin' time on stuff that's fun but doesn't get me anywhere. Like the languages." She braked as someone decided to pull out abruptly from a side street, and muttered some rather bad words in Latin.
Scott blinked. "And you don't think that the languages could help you do that?" he asked, mystified. "Amanda, we live a short distance away from one of the most cosmopolitan cities in the world. Hell, think of the UN alone, and the sheer amount of work they need from translators and other language specialists." He smiled a bit, but kept his eye on the road. "Just because it's fun doesn't mean that it can't be valuable. You seem to have a gift for it, too. And really, you know, the kind of languages you've been doing are possibly even more applicable to 'decent jobs'. It was one of the reasons I was so pleased when Nathan decided to expand our language offerings beyond the usual."
"Like the UN would even look at someone like me. They want people with uni degrees, an' with the way things go whenever I have exams with people gettin' hurt an' the like, it'd take me the next ten bloody years t' finish anythin'. 'S already taken me two bloody years t' get even close t' finishin' high school." Amanda focussed on the road ahead, glad she didn't have to look at Scott. The flow of words continued, matter-of-fact. "An' I might be good at languages, but that's not enough for me t' pass. They take me too much study time, an' I just don't have that any more. Not with the magic as well."
Scott felt a sudden, inexplicable flash of dislike for the girl sitting next to him. It was gone almost as quickly as it had come, and he frowned a little, puzzling over it. She'd sounded a bit on the martyr-ish side, yes, but she was eighteen years old and had had a truly shitty last several months. He shouldn't have let himself react like that.
"I'm not your guidance counsellor," he said finally, amiably enough. "Thus I don't have to give you the speech about your thousand and one options... which is good, because I'm not particularly good at pep talks at the best of times."
Amanda, always sensitive to other people's emotional states, caught the briefest change, and her face hardened a little. Fine. She should have known better than to talk about it. "I've been talkin' with Wanda," she said, carefully pulling up at a red light. That would cover it - she changed the subject. "How am I doin' so far? I'd like t' try an' pass the test as soon as I can take it."
Not his protege, Scott reminded himself - not that he'd had much success with Paige, now, had he? Best to stay out of it completely. "Basically solid thus far, I think," he said calmly. "You're going to need a little more practice to stop looking so nervous. Think of the state examiner as a shark - he or she will be able to smell blood in the water." He glanced out the window, pondering. "I want to see how you park," he said finally. "Head to the mall?"
Amanda privately thought an examiner wouldn't make her half as nervous as some of the lines of conversation had been. But she nodded, and used one of Strange's drills to try and calm the panic she felt at the thought of navigating the mall. "You mean I don't just leave it in the middle of some waste ground an' set fire to it?" she asked, taking the next left a little less confidently than she had the previous turns. A Buick honked at her, and she gave him the finger without even thinking about it.
Scott bit his lip, trying not to laugh. "Again, preferably not," he said, a little quiver of mirth in his voice. "Also, maybe mind the gestures, too? They're satisfying, but they might lead an examiner to think that you're harboring the potential for road rage."
Amanda snorted quietly. "At this rate I'll be tricking meself out with a Volvo an' wearing tweed," she snickered, turning into the mall parking lot after waiting for a suitable gap. The one she chose was perhaps a little close, but she wanted this over and done with. She glanced over at Scott. "Can we go down the back part where's there's lots of space? I haven't actually parked before an' I'd rather just have the lines t' work with first."
"Sure," Scott said after a moment. "I don't want to push you into close-quarters parking if you're not feeling comfortable with the idea just yet." He smiled. "The parallel parking part of your test's going to be a bitch - everyone has trouble with that - but we'll get in plenty of practice ahead of time."
"Thanks," Amanda said, heading for the less-crowded rear of the parking lot. She looked over at Scott again, expression serious. "I appreciate you doin' this for me," she continued. "Gettin' me licence... 's important."
"You're welcome. You've got good reason to get it as soon as you can," Scott said, then chewed on his lower lip thoughtfully. "Why don't we try and do some extra lessons?" he asked. "Can't make any hard and fast promises, given how fast my life can heat up if something comes down the pipe, but barring catastrophe we should be able to fit in more than one a week."
It'd mean having to leave Meggan with someone yet again, and another chunk taken out of her free time, but like she'd said, this was important. "I think that'd work, yeah," she said slowly, trying to shuffle things around in her head. "Um, can I get back t' you about times? I'll have t' sort some stuff out, time-wise." She could always stay up a couple of hours later and catch up with her study when Meggan was asleep.
Scott made a contemplative noise. "Schedules," he suggested lightly, not sure she'd take well to getting advice for him. "Overdo it at first, schedule out every hour of the day. As things start to settle, you'll find you don't need to be quite as stringent. And things like extra driving lessons are worthwhile time-sacrifices for you, I think," he pointed out. "Given how much more flexibility your license will give you, time-wise, once you have it. No more having to schedule around other people's availability, if nothing else."
It was an indication of how swamped Amanda was feeling that she didn't get automatically defensive at the suggestion she hadn't thought of how useful the licence would be. "That was why I want t' get it as soon as I can," she said. "'S just tryin' t' juggle lookin' after Meg an' the make up classes 'm doin' an' Strange's stuff. I'm behind in everythin', an' now I'm settled, everyone's pilin' on the work so I catch up." She chose a likely-looking parking space and began inching her way into it, a fierce frown of concentration on her face. "An' I don't like leavin' Meggan - I said I'd look after her, an' it looks bad if I'm leavin' her with other people all the time." The car started drifting a little too far to the right, and she hastily corrected.
"She could always come along for the driving lessons," Scott suggested. "Seriously," he said, before Amanda could react. "You drive competently enough already that she's not going to be unsafe in the car with you. I certainly wouldn't mind having her in the back seat while we're doing this."
"I didn't even think... if it's all right, that'd be good." Amanda recovered her surprise quickly, and a look of honest relief crossed her face. One less problem. And it would mean Meggan would get used to cars and Amanda driving one too. Then she paid attention to what she was doing again, and realised she was parked diagonally across the space, and she flushed with embarrassment. "Um, think I need t' try that again."
"It'd be no problem at all," Scott said, "and yes." He managed to keep a perfectly straight face. "Practice makes perfect. And we have plenty of room to do it, here."
