xp_logs | Paige, Jean and some potato salad

x-foliate.livejournal.com posting in

Jean comes to check on Paige after reading this comment to Catseye. She is making potato salad. Why Paige hasn't made it up to her room is learned!

Flipping through the journal posts as a small break from the piles of reading she now had (The X-Men had certainly been far busier after she left than before) Jean arched an eyebrow at the discussion of what had happened in the library. She assumed from the general lack of alarm that whatever the smoke had been it was non-toxic, but she'd find Amanda later and make sure there weren't likely to be any long term problems. A comment from Paige caught her eye as she was about to shut the computer off, and Jean's eyes narrowed. "Can't tell you where I am, huh...?"

She paused for a second, then shrugged. Paige did say that Catseye could come find her. Jean would simply extend the invitation to herself. It took less than a second to find that, in fact, Paige hadn't gone that far, and flipping off the computer Jean stood and headed down to the labs, heading for the medlab kitchenette.

The kitchenette was really too small for this much work, Jean decided as she considered the girl bustling about before her. "Hey Paige," she said, smiling. "Wouldn't the main kitchen be better for this sort of thing?"

Paige's first answer to Jean's question was an inarticulate 'meep!' noise, followed by her spinning around, a rather sharp knife in hand. A rather large pot was sitting on the nearby element, filled with peeled, bobbing potatoes, one of which she had just grabbed and was working on dicing if the scattered pieces on the floor were an indication.

Her second reply managed to be a bit more with the full words, as she lowered her rather pointy piece of cutlery. "Hi. Um. Potato wedge?" she asked sheepishly, a question to the question, before remembering this was Jean after all; she was good with the understanding. "Well, I'm sort of doing the surprise meal thing. And it's not much of a surprise, if the surprised find the meal in the main kitchen. So. I have soup in my kitchenette, and the potato salad here, and the chicken in your room, by the way, sorry about that, and... well, you get the idea. Um. Hee?"

"The chicken in my room...? Okay." Jean grinned. "I'm a little surprised you didn't just take over the chem lab. Easily ninety percent of the residents never go down there. Just you and... wait. Who's the surprise for?"

"Well, see. That's the thing. It's sort of for my lab partner." Paige waited for the ah-ha moment before continuing, still grinning embarrassedly, and hoping that the blush on her cheeks would just Go Down already. "It was Forge's birthday on the weekend, but my e-bay seller decided that trying to screw me over on the shipping, just because of my sending address, would be the cool thing to do, so it didn't get here until yesterday afternoon. People I tell you."

"Anyway," Paige continued, picking up her mess and tossing it into the garbage, before handing Jean a knife, pointing her towards some green onions, and getting back to her potatoes, "I'm going to get some food in him, which is really saying something if he knows me and how little patience I have for cooking, and give him his gift tonight. It's just a little chicken, by the way. Teeny tiny. Unless your boyfriend eats it, in which case it's huge and I demand a new one pronto from somewhere with good food."

Jean laughed, taking the knife and setting in on the onions. "Noted. And it's a nice gift. For all you don't like cooking, you're certainly setting to with a will."

Blush just going down, that comment managed to set Paige off all over again. She absently wiped at her forehead with the back of her hand, just mindful of her knife. "Well, cooking is very much like Chemistry, isn't it? Putting things together, exact timing, heat and cold... I was the first girl, so I got a lot of the lessons from my Mama, but I tended to be too busy sneaking out to the barn, with or without a book, to take to it, I guess. Maybe I don't have the patience for it, or better yet, why bother when we have Lorna and her minions?"

The blush was too cute, but Jean carefully kept her amusement off her face. "Well, Lorna's headed off to college now. Besides, there are definitely some special meals which deserve a personal touch. Case in point."

"Just some, though. In the battle between fried chicken and curing cancer, cancer tends to win, you understand. That's rather hard if people are begging me to bread poultry." Paige wielded her knife like a shaking finger, grinning and without worry as Jean was a TK after all. "So no telling my secret. Or there will no making really interesting desserts for anniversaries for you, ma'am."

Jean chuckled. "Far be it for me to stand in the way of medical progress. I fully intend to be able to tell people I knew you when." Jean waited until Paige had finished with her cutting, dicing the onions while keeping an eye on the girl. When Paige had laid the knife down and the potato chunks were safely dumped in a bowl she said, "Oh, by the way thanks for cleaning your bedsheets and the other linens, but you know you don't have to. That's one of the many reasons we keep the medlab helpers around."

"I'll be sure to remember to sign something for you," Paige replied, nodding very seriously. Turning, she made her way to the small 'fridge in which she had already put a bowl of the correct amount of mayonnaise. "Well, I am occasionally one of those helpers, you know, even if not on the official sense. And things like laundry got me up and about and moving, gave me something to do, you know? Kept me sane."

"Which I am fully in favor of." The onions done, Jean swept them into a bowl and looked about for another way to help. "It just seemed that laundry is one of those things you do at home. So I wanted to touch base with you." The implication, that Paige might be starting to think of her room in the medlab was oblique, but not pushing Paige was still a priority.

Turning her head slowly, Paige regarded her doctor with curious blue eyes before smiling a little. Under normal circumstances, she wouldn't have picked up on that, and she knew it, but perhaps looking for certain reactions wasn't such a bad thing after all. Unless she was horribly wrong. That'd be embarrassing. "Honestly?" she asked, setting the mayonnaise on the counter and turning around to face Jean, leaning back. "I like it down here. It's quiet. I don't have to be... 'on' all the time."

"And I'm glad you feel comfortable down here," Jean said, smiling, relieved that Paige was willing to discuss the matter, at least a little. "Don't get me wrong, you are welcome to stay, not just as long as you need but as long as you like." Because, really, if someone still wanted to be housed in the medlab, chances were good they actually did still need it, from a mental aspect if nothing else. "I guess I'm just trying to say that, if you want, we can start trying to find ways for you to feel more comfortable up there, too. Other spaces where you don't feel you need to be 'on' in, either."

"I hear that's a very responsible type thing to do. I wouldn't mind in the least," Paige answered warmly, giving Jean a gentle smile. "I had a feeling you'd understand, somehow. I just have a fear of being wrong these days, for somewhat obvious reasons. Or else I would have brought it up earlier, I mean."

"The understanding is why they pay me the big bucks, yes," Jean said, smiling back. "Think on where and how you want to start, and we can talk about it with Charles tomorrow. For now, got anything else that needs chopping?"