Angelo, Yvette - Thursday lunchtime

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Set way before this log, Angelo comes by to talk about her impending departure. She's nervous about the implications, but another discovery makes everything better.




Lunchtime, and the first glance at the journals showed Angelo Yvette's post. He took just enough time to scan over the rest of it, then it was back up and off to Yvette's suite.

He couldn't let her go without saying goodbye, after all.

For her part, Yvette was packing. Or contemplating packing - it wasn't like she had very much. Basic clothes, some books that had been given to her... She looked up at the knock, wondering who it might be. "Come in!"

And in he came, at least a little way, leaning on the doorframe with a smile. "Hey, chiquita. Goin' off home, are you?"

Yvette nodded. "Mr. Professor is telling me today. All the arrangements have been made and a teacher or two will be going with me, to be making sure I am safe." The glowing blue of her eyes dulled a little, and there was the slightest hint of a pout. "I am wishing I could be bringing you all with me. I do not want to leave my friends behind."

He dropped into a crouch at that, closer to her height so he could look her in the face. "Hey now. You're not leavin' us behind, even if we can't go with you this time. An' when you're settled, in a while, maybe some of us can come visit. Or maybe you'll come back."

"That is what Mr. Professor was saying, that I could come back and learn being a mutant." Yvette's head drooped a little, though. "I am afraid my mother will be angry that I am being gone for so long and she will be making me stay at home. Before, she was afraid I would be hurt, so she was being keeping me inside. And I was not being so..." She gestured with a long-taloned hand. "Spiky."

"It wasn't your fault you were gone at all, let alone for as long as it's been", he pointed out, frowning. "You didn't run away, did you? So it wasn't your fault."

"No, I am not running away!" It was said vehemently. "They are taking me. I am afraid it will be happening again, only Mr. Professor is saying he will be making to fix things." She gave a little shrug. "I am being nervous, I think. I do not look how I used to."

"Yeah, I get that", he said quietly, hunkering down and wishing he could hug her. "First time I went home after I came here, I was terrified."

There was a definite air of spikiness about Yvette, the more unsettled she became. "But your mother was not being afraid of you, is she?" she asked, voice trembling a little.

"My mom never saw me after I manifested, until Marie brought her here. But no, she wasn't. You so sure your mother'll be afraid of you? Of you, not for you?"

"I do not know." Yvette seemed to hunch into herself a little, looking down at the floor. "I am being... how you say? Scary to look at. Sometimes, I am looking in the mirror and being frightened too."

"It's not forever though, right?" It was all the reassurance he could give. "I thought you said they said you could learn to control it."

"If I study, yes." Yvette looked up, face as unreadable as ever. "This is why I am hoping my mother will let me come back to the school. I am not being able to learn in Kosovo." A hint of humour entered her voice. "And Tommy is needing someone to read with."

Angelo chuckled, settling more comfortably on the floor. "Yeah, well, I hope you get to come back too. Just think of all the side trips I'll have to make Nate take if you don't."

She sat next to him, scooting as close as she could without endangering him with a careless movement of her head and the spikes of her hair. "You will be making sure you are eating while I am not here?" she asked, tilting her head at him. "Or am I asking Miss Rahne and Sooraya to be giving you food?"

"Miss Rahne does that anyway, when she thinks I'm not", he said, amused. "But just for you, I promise to eat."

"Good. You are working too hard." She was feeling calmer, this was good.

Calmer was definitely good, so he pursued the topic of conversation. "I always work too hard, chiquita. Too much to do any other way."

"There is always being work. I am thinking Mr. Dayspring, he is being a bad example to you." There was a hint of a twitch at the corner of her mouth. "I am hearing Miss Ororo calling you 'Sancho'. This is from the 'Don Quixote', yes?"

That got her a surprised look, with an edge of pleased. "You're a smart one, chiquita. Yeah, it is - you ever read Don Quixote?"

"A translation." She looked up at him, eyes glowing brightly. "Mr. Dayspring, he is being your Don Quixote, yes? Chasing of the windmills?"

"He says he's not that bad, an' most of the time it's true. But... yeah, that was the general idea. He's my Don Quixote."

"He is being lucky, to have a Sancho like you." Again that slight twitch, a hint of a smile where her face had been as immobile as a china doll's.

Angelo started, "Yeah, I'm lucky to have a Don Quixote like..." then trailed off, looking at her sideways. "Yvette, did... did you just smile?"

She blinked at him, and raised one talon tip to her mouth. "Mr. Haller is saying Laurie's powers could be helping me," she said, wonderingly. She knew she'd been getting less hard, but this was an actual landmark. "Her power is making my body relax when she is being relaxed. I was hoping it was changing me, but I was not being sure..." Again, that faint lift of the corner of her mouth, traced by her finger tip this time. "It is being true!"

Angelo grinned broadly, reaching out to tap her gloved hand. "Too right it is. An' there, you've got somethin' to show your mom when you go home."