xp_logs | Log: Dani and Kitty

Dani wandered into the rec room unable to sleep. She hadn't been sleeping a lot recently, so this wasn't anything new really, but the stess of finals was not helping. Either she knew her material for her business math final or she didn't at this point and she wasn't sure she cared anyways.

Kitty looked up from her laptop screen as someone came in, blinking as she shifted her eyes away from the glowing screen. "Dani, hey. What's up? Couldn't sleep?"

"Hey," she said somewhat distantly, surprised to see anyone still up. The journals had long since stopped being updated and everyone seemed to be asleep, "Yeah. I'm supposed to be awake right now...except no one bothered to tell me," she grinned a little, heading for the couch. "Why ain't you asleep?"

"Trying to find the bug in this program. It'll compile but it's not running. Figured I'd have gotten it by now, but it seems silly to have stayed up this late and not finished."

Dani nodded, completely not understanding what Kitty was talking about. It was something that happened fairly often when Forge tried to explain something technical to her too. "It due tomorrow?"

Kitty grinned at that. "That would be a much better excuse than the truth - this isn't work, this is what I'm doing to de-stress."

"De-stressing by doing...whatever...to your computer?" Dani repeated, boggled. "That sounds more like a headache."

"Ah, but it's an uncomplicated headache, or it should be, that doesn't argue with me, doesn't throw jello at me, and doesn't get graded."

She had a point there. "Or steal your socks," Dani added, looking over Kitty's shoulder at the coding. It looked like it was written in Chinese for all she knew.

"Or steal my socks," she agreed with a nod. "Although that one I'm an old hand at. My socks have been going missing in the sock wars for years. First it was 'Yana and Jamie, now it's Jubes. All the people I love are determined I should be sockless."

"Nothing wrong with being sockless though," Dani pointed out, "It's summer now, so it ain't so bad."

"Agreed. I survive without my socks and do stuff like this so I can survive without having to survive without my sanity... And that was way too complicated a sentence. So. How'd your math final go?"

"Ugh," Dani groaned, laying back on the couch and trying to get comfortable, "I think I failed it. Everything looked almost familiar...but almost doesn't count. Kept hearing Forge in my head saying the past didn't matter...didn't help."

Kitty made a sympathetic sound, moving her laptop off her lap so she could turn in her chair and get a better look at Dani. "No, can't imagine it did. Sorry you think you did badly."

She shruggged, noncommittal. "So I spend another year in high school. So what?"

"Yeah, but doing badly on a test is never a happy thing," Kitty said. "Especially not finals. Although I hope you only just think you did badly. I do that sometimes, think I do much worse than I do. Particularly with English."

"You're a genius though," Dani rolled onto her side, much more comfortable.

"Only when it comes to math and science. Gotta work my ass off in the humanities just like everybody else and my spelling sucks. My English grades at my old school were terrible because I didn't want to even try."

"Sounds like Forge, not wanting to try." Dani's voice was hard, she was still mad at him over what he'd said last night.

Kitty caught the anger in Dani's voice, but was pretty sure it wasn't directed at her. "Well, part of it was also that I was really lonely before I came here," she explained, distancing herself from the connection to Forge almost subconsciously. "My only 'friends' were the girls in my dance class who I'd only ever see for a few hours a week unless there was a show, and we were always really competitive when there were shows coming up."

"What'd you dance?"

"Ballet," she said simply. "Still do. I take lessons every week, although I don't perform much anymore. I've been dancing since I was five or six and I've done a lot of different styles, but always ballet."

"On your toes and everything?" she asked, impressed. Dani had only taken tribal dance when her grandmother had made her.

Kitty couldn't help the little grin. "Yes," she agreed, "on my toes... that is, on pointe, and everything."

"Don't it hurt though?"

"When I first started, yes, it did. But not as much as you would think. Pointe shoes are designed to make it as easy on your body as possible, and practice helps too."

Practice, always with the practice. "Like math."

That gave Kitty pause, but she nodded slowly. "Yes, a bit, I guess. Like a lot of things."

"So how come you dance? I mean, dancing ain't like computers or math or anything you're really good at," Dani asked, yawning. Now she was tired, figured.

"It was my mom's idea to start with," Kitty explained. "Even when I was little she thought I spent too much time inside with books and not enough time doing physical stuff, or interacting with my peers. She figured inrolling me in dance lessons would kill two birds with one stone, and I took to it. I do it now because it is different from the stuff that comes easily - physical exertion and creative exercises. And because it's fun."

"I ran track in high school," Dani offered. She'd never taken any after-school activities unless you counted chores or playing outside.

"Did you like it?" Kitty asked.

Dani shrugged, "Yeah. Ran cross country. Quit a couple years ago when I got a job though. Still tried to run when I had time though."

"You could again, you know," Kitty said. "When the baby's born, I mean. We don't have a track team now, but we didn't have a fencing team before, either, and now we do."

"This is a high school though. I might graduate."

"I'm pretty sure most of the colleges around here have teams, too," Kitty said, "and, if not, there's no reason why you couldn't run with people here even if you're not a student anymore."

That was a possibility, especially since she missed running. Taichi was good and fun, but it wasn't the same at all, "I got a online class at the community college for this summer. So we'll see what happens."

"That sounds like a plan," Kitty said with a smile. "One day at a time and take life as it happens. And all that stuff."

"Uh, yeah," Dani said through a yawn, "I think I'm going to try to sleep for a couple hours now, okay?"

"Good luck and sleep well. I'll probably head that way eventually, if this program doesn't still doesn't work."