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[x-firestar.livejournal.com]

Bart comes by to check on Angel after the weekend she's had and they discuss New York. Thankfully, Bart has an ace up his sleeve and Angel feels a lot better about the move.



Knocking on the door to Angel’s room, Bartholomew Jones shifted the weight off of his bad leg. Even sixteen years later the football accident that tore his knee to shreds still haunted him. He’d learned to get by, falling back on photography that had started as something to get him out of his depression and had turned into an obsession that had landed him a career.

He glanced at the papers held in his hand. A career that was about to save his family if it all worked out.

“It’s open,” Angel called out sounding as tired as he had ever heard her.

“Hey, baby,” he said as he came in and shut the door behind him. The room was in shambles, not such an odd occurrence since Angel tended to be forgetful about putting things away, but this had a deliberate feel to it.

She glanced up from putting some things in a box and immediately scooted around the mess to come and cling at his waist. “Hi daddy,” she replied, voice muffled in his chest.

Hugging her tightly, he steered them towards an empty spot on the bed. “How’re you holding up, Angel?”

Shrugging, Angel plucked at the strings on her shirt. “I’m doing okay, I suppose. It’s happening so fast that and I haven’t really had time to sit down and take it all in, you know?”

“Did you call the twins?”

At that, Angel immediately brightened. “I did and, dad, they were so supportive, if really sad that we weren’t going to be in high school together. They’re already plotting to come and visit.”

The twins, Jacob and Julip Travers, had been best friends with Angel since kindergarten. They did everything together and that included the swim team and photography. Angel had been scared to call them, scared to tell anyone about her being a mutant but Bart and Elizabeth had both manage to talk her into calling.

“Are they going to call the rest of the team?” Bart asked.

Angel nodded. “Yeah, they said they understood about the short notice and Jacob didn’t even tease Julip and myself about crying—just a little bit—on the phone with each other.”

“Wow, he really must be upset if he’s refraining from tormenting you two,” Bart said, skillfully avoiding the poke to the ribs from his daughter.

“Of course he’s upset, he’s losing me, remember. He says he lost his easy date to the first year dance.”

“Oh. The horror.”

“Daddy.”

“Just kidding, little angel, just kidding.”

“You haven’t called me that in ages,” Angel said, sniffling a little bit as she wormed her way under his arm again.

“You haven’t given me much chance. You’ve grown up so much, it makes an old mans heart proud.” Bart kissed the top of her head. “But I’m not ready to let go quite so soon. Here, I need you to take a look at these papers and tell me what you think.”

Untangling herself from the hug of death—it was nice to have such a solidly built person for a dad, it meant the upper half had been her jungle gym for as long as she could remember—Angel took the papers. Curious, she sat back and started to read them.

“This…it’s an offer of employment from the New York Times to be one of their photographers?” she suddenly shrieked.

Bart glanced up to see Angel frantically rereading the document and smiled. “Do you know what that means?”

“…that we’re going to New York?”

“Yes, that we are going to New York.”

Angel stared at him and then flailed, sending the papers flying as she threw herself around his neck. “You are the best daddy ever!”

“Well, I do try…”

After a few minutes of shrieking and crying, Bart finally got Angel to settle down a little bit. “What about mom? And how long have you had this? You didn’t say anything!”

“One question at a time, Angel,” Bart chided but was still smiling. “Your mom is going to stay here and visit when she can. With her travel schedule, though, we’ll probably be seeing a lot of her. And I’ve had that a few weeks but I didn’t say anything because I knew that you were happy here. Getting hired on at the Times is fantastic but it wasn’t enough to uproot you from everything you’ve ever known.”

“But now that I’ll be going to the school in New York,” Angel said in awe, “you can accept the job and then be doing something so totally awesome and be near me! All at once even!”

For the first time since Sunday, the smile completely reached her eyes. “I think…I think I can do this.”