xp_logs | Log: Forge and Paige, Saturday Night

After the rally, Forge presents Paige with a practical and exceptionally well-timed birthday present.

Forge shut the door to the supply closet, putting away the extra boxes of HeliX brochures and school materials that they'd used for today's rally. Today's rather successful rally, he reminded himself. Sliding his PDA out of his pocket, he read his email again.

Consider me all yours. Do feel free to shock and amaze me.

"Shock and amaze. Right." Forge mumbled nervously, rapping gently on Paige's door.

"Was wondering when you'd show up. You're quite a few seconds late, mister," Paige said as she opened the door, smiling. "And thank goodness it's you, that show of my brilliant hypothesis to the point of psychic making ability works much less when you're the Professor or somesuch."

Forge laughed, brushing his hair back from his forehead and putting on a serious expression. "Indeed, Miss Guthrie," he said in a credible imitation of Professor Xavier, "as a new telepath, we will need you to report to the medlab for your complimentary concussion." Snickering, he leaned casually against the doorframe, hands clasped in front of him. "So. Birthday, late as it is. I unfortunately have no picnic-making skill whatsoever, but... mind going for a walk?"

Laughing – because really, she loved Jean, Xavier and even Nathan and Rachel on occasion, but it was getting to be something of a habit – Paige nodded. "I thought ahead," she informed him, pointing towards her sneakers, which were already on her feet. "And I already said not to worry about the lateness. I like to think of it as getting two birthdays."

"Always one step ahead," Forge quipped, stepping aside and sweeping an arm to invite Paige out into the hallway. "And in case I didn't say it before, thanks for helping out today. If you and Dani hadn't reminded me to eat, I'd probably be passing out from hunger right about now. You guys really have been too good to me." He paused, weighing his next words carefully. "So I was thinking, you deserve something nice. You know, kind of a combination of birthday and thank you and all that. And with no further ado, and before I trip over this big old speech that I have been rehearsing and has nonetheless completely slipped my mind - outside?" He gestured to the steps that led up to the ground-level exit, the clear night sky visible through the window.

"We're your girls. It's what we do, because we want to. But thank you," Paige replied casually, giving him a strange sort of smile before it turned into a look of suspicion. Carefully making her way up the stairs as if they might fold up and turn into a slide like in the movies at any moment, she pushed open the door with her shoulder so that she could watch him out of the corner of her eye. "If a giant clown attacks me in a second I am so not responsible for where my very pointy joints end up. Just so you know."
"No clowns, I promise. One of the advantages to Jamie being on a road trip," he explained, "the definite lowering of clown-ambush odds. Besides, you're Indestructible Ninja-Girl. Clowns got nothing on you."

Opening the door to the sudden rush of cool and humid air, Forge stepped out onto the back porch, looking up at the moon with his hands in his pockets. "So when I was thinking of stuff for your birthday," he said as they started walking down towards the large fountain, where a small wrapped package was visible on one of the benched, "I tried to think of what would be perfect, and I was wracking my brain, but I came up with... well, you'll see."

"Clowns are somewhat evil, sugar. I've got nothing on pure evil," she shot back with a Han Solo smile.

Her eyes closed a moment before opening again, raised towards the sky, and she made a quick wish on the star she'd first seen. Old habits died hard. Somehow she managed to make it to the bench without tripping and sat down, gingerly picking up the present. Her finger slid under the paper, delicately raising the tape on one side. "You know, the way you handled yourself today... I was really proud of you. You've kept yourself so well together here, you know that? I wish I'd had your head when I first showed up. Hell, I sometimes wish for it now," she said just over the water as she unwrapped neatly, not quite able to raise her eyes as she spoke. "So whatever this is, thank you. But... getting to have you along for the ride, cheesy at this is sounding, and I'm sorry, is enough."

Forge sat quietly, letting that sink in. Thankfully, his impending awkward response was countered by Paige's look of perplexed astonishment as she drew her present out of the box. A simple square of black cloth, barely large enough to drape over her forearm.

"Don't worry, I didn't get you a handkerchief," he assured her, "It's... well, remember how I asked a few months back about how your powers work, and you joked about clothes not husking as well, and as appealing as that mental image is, well..." Forge blushed slightly, placing his hands over Paige's on the cloth, then pulling abruptly, tearing it down the center.

"Just watch," he said, as the cloth slowly began wrinkling, then reforming, sealing the tear as if it had never happened. "Memory cloth," he explained. "Tear it, rip it, shred it, and it'll completely reform into the original configuration in about six seconds. I designed it off of the material I made for Catseye, and since I happened to hear that you might be getting cleared back into training, I thought you might be able to use it..."

Paige sat for a shocked second, her eyes nearly black they were so wide, so amazed. "Oh my lord," she whispered under her breath, turning the cloth over in her hands. "This is... this is amazing. My head is going a mile a minute trying to figure out how you did this because it's genius and you're genius and no more accidental public nakedness, as fun as that was andandand- thank you!" She turned to throw her arms around him, hugging tight. "Thank you so much. You have no idea how much this means to me, especially now."

"Well, it took more work figuring out what you'd want more than the actual design, really," Forge admitted, trying to get brain and mouth to work in concert, what with Paige wrapped around him and all. "I know the team stuff's important to you, and when I heard they cleared you to start it up again, well..." He shrugged as much as he was able, "what you said the other day, about everyone looking at you and wondering and doubting you... I don't. No doubts, you can do this. And if I can help out, well... they kinda offered me the job."

Not quite ready to let go, she only did when she realized she was getting the shoulder of his shirt wet, moving just far enough away that she could brush back tears with the heels of her palms. "I'm so sorry, I'm such a girl sometimes. I'm not wearing any make-up, it should just dry up..." Giving him a smile that made it very obvious that her crying was in not way related to being upset, she continued, "It is important to me. And thank you. For supporting me. I know you must think I'm crazy sometimes, but. It is important to me, and that's all that matters to you."

"But of course now I have to ask if I'm allowed to come play when you're testing things that go boom. I'm rather fond of the explodey things and this conversation is really close to getting nominated for an Oscar."

Forge reached up to brush a spot of wetness off her cheek with his thumb. "Crazy? Yeah, but I just figure that makes you good company. And it makes you happy, and that's important to me." He paused, realizing that was the first time he'd admitted that out loud, even to himself. "You... I mean, I like it when you're happy, you know? It... I know it's been a hard few months for you. And as much as everyone tap-dances around the details, I know you weren't happy with things. So if whatever you've got now changes that, well... that's good, right?"

"I wish they wouldn't. I want to scream at them, all the lunatics who run around this building, for judging me of all people for getting help, and not even having the guts to do it to my face. For... for... tap-dancing." She waved her hand, gesturing to him for use of the word. "And Nathan tells me to just show them I'm better, but. I just want to break their noses, and I hardly think that equals sanity. But, sane or not, I am happy. And you're a big part of that, you know. Things were really fucked up when I went the way of the loon and they were no better when I came back, and it's only because of people like you that I'm managing to sort everything through, to stick to these new life philosophies the Professor has been handing me, to get some form of a life back."

Forge tried not to just smile and giggle like a loon at hearing that he was part of what was making Paige happy. "I... that's the way to do it. I mean, I know what it's like to just want to lash out at everyone who looks at you differently, that's... it's a lot of the reason my parents sent me here. I... there was some bad stuff. But it's the getting through it, being a better person even though they keep looking, keep staring - I never thought I could do it." He turned to glance at the mansion, then over at Paige beside him on the bench.

"I really couldn't without you guys. I mean, I never really had a friend before I got here. No one I felt I could trust, or talk to, or hang out with, or fall for, or see as an equal, or... yeah. And I'd be lying if I said you weren't a big part of that, too."

Smiling, Paige leaned into him, the scrap of fabric resting protectively under the hand in her lap. "We are possibly the most adorable two people in the world right now, you know that, right? To the point where I think I'm going to have to make a dentist appointment tomorrow," she said easily, contently even, as she watched the night sky; not too close, not too far. "One day I'd like to hear about the person you were before, but. This is good. This is really, really good."

"Adorable?" Forge smirked openly at the accusation. "Rachel is adorable. Meggan is adorable. You? You're..." he stopped, thinking a moment, "I am not finding the words here. What can I say, I'm a genius, not a poet. But you go way beyond adorable. Me, though. I mean, I'm just me."

"Scruffy?" she asked innocently.

Laughing, Forge reached around to tousle Paige's hair affectionately, then leaned in on impuse to kiss lightly at her cheek. "I'll have you know I shaved this morning, thank you. Apparently the genius gene's linked to the scruffy chromosome. And would it be really out of line if I said I really want to kiss you again?" he asked hopefully.

"Are you calling me scruffy, sir?" Paige asked, trying her best to act affronted as she slipped into a more 'Scarlet' version of her accent. "Ah'll have you know Ah am nothing of the sort. Not to mention that is no way to convince me that mild canoodling in public is the proper thing to do! And me, out here without an escort? Whatever shall Ah do! Help me find a hankie to wave around desperately."

Chuckling, Forge snatched the square of black fabric, holding it at arm's length away from Paige. "If you want it," he teased, "come and get it."

"Sugar, Ah do believe you are trying to get yourself right tackled," she teased, grinning wise enough to rival one of the stars for brightness. "Ah see riiiight through your plans. Special partner privileges and the like."

"Am I?" he responded right back, "because this may just be part of my devious master plan to make you think I'm trying to get myself tackled, only to have some amazing retaliatory plan to have you utterly at my mercy." He gave a theatric laugh, then ran his other hand over his chin. "I wonder if I should grow one of those outrageous mustaches just for these little supervillain moments..."

"I hear they used earwax to keep it in place and that's just gross, so. My vote is no." Having slipped back into strange newscaster voice, Paige considered this a sign that this was a splendid cue for pouncing and therefore did so, launching herself at the fabric design and very forcefully ignoring the part of her brain saying that she didn't need it anymore if she wasn't in her Southern accent.

Eyes widening in startled surprise, Forge found himself borne down to the grass by a fast-moving Paige, who was rolling to her feet an arm's length away, twirling the square of fabric in her hand dramatically. "Aw, no fair," he proclaimed as he let his artificial leg bear his weight, rising to his feet. "Oh well, best laid plans and all that. Thusly defeated, can I at least escort a proper Southern lady back to her room?" Suddenly realizing how that might have sounded, Forge coughed awkwardly. "And by that I mean TO the room. You to the room, you know. Not like, um... okay, can I just chalk that up to my completely dorky nature and forget it?"

"Did you say something?" Paige asked innocently, before pretending to notice his slightly crooked arm for the first time and looping her own through it. "Oh! How kind of you. Will you open my doors too? Lay your coat over puddles?"

"Of course," Forge answered plainly, "and I'll even find a proper calling card to leave on a little dish, and maybe burn down Atlanta on my way out. These things have to be done properly, you know."