Marie and Angelo: Delivery

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Angelo delivers a letter to Marie. They talk about the past week before he remembers to give it to her and she turns a bit pale when she realizes where it’s from.

He'd found the letter when he was going through the staff mailbox, and since there was only one and he'd been wanting to talk to Marie since the group got back from Prague anyway, Angelo decided to just take it up to her. A few minutes later, he was knocking on her door.

"Come on in," she called out, half expecting to see Garrison walk in. The two had been catching up since his arrival at the school and she'd been reminded of how much fun the two of them had had in Canada. A surprised smile spread across her face when she caught sight of her guest. Quickly crossing the room, she gave him a hug. "You doing ok?"

He considered that and shrugged, hugging her back. "I'm doin' about as well as you'd expect. You?"

"Actually, probably doing better than Ah have been for a while now," she said with a smile. Between catching up with Garrison and getting good marks on her papers, things had been looking up for Marie. Not to mention that she hadn't been set on fire or had to take a teammate or student down in...well, a few weeks. "One of my psyc professors is looking for a research assistant and Ah was thinking of doing it, if Ah can manage the time."

"Oh, that's gotta be good", he agreed, managing a genuine smile even through the tiredness. "An' like Storm says... the team fits round your other stuff, not the other way round, so there's that for the time."

Shrugging, Marie glanced away. "Maybe that's how it's supposed ta be, but it doesn't always end up workin' like that...though now that we've got some new members, it should get back to being like that." She smiled sheepishly at him. "Ah mean that in the best way possible...Ah wouldn't do it if Ah didn't love it...it's just been a busy season, y' know?"

The smile turned wry at that, and he glanced just a little aside. "Yeah, I know that one. Seems to be a thing here, about never gettin' to stop even if we wanted to."

"If we could stop, we wouldn't be doing what we do in the first place," Marie replied. "And there Ah go again. Must've been somethin' in the coffee this morning." She gestured over to the couch and then moved to sit there herself.

Angelo didn't hesitate to join her, dropping onto the couch somewhat more heavily than usual. "So other than that... what else did I miss, this last week?"

"Have you had a chance to meet Garrison yet?" When Angelo shook his head, she continued. "He's on loan from Canada. We hung out a lot when Ah was up there, so we've been catching up now that he's here." She kept a smile on her face, though her eyes didn't hold the emotion as she continued. "Don't know what you've caught up with on the journals...things exploded there after the riot. And after Pietro got here."

The remnants of his own smile vanished at that. "I read it", he said flatly. "Didn't really feel like answerin' anybody. Especially Marius an' Julio."

"You may have noticed Ah was kinda quiet on there too...Ah don't know what Ah think yet, in all honesty. It's just...hard." Marie shook her head, one gloved hand clenching. "But hopefully you an' Nathan showing them what happened and talking about it will help at least clear up the Smichov related stuff."

"If they listen", he said grimly. "They all seemed to be pretty damn sure they knew the way it was."

"And weren't we like that when we were their age?" she asked, arching an eyebrow. "We knew everything, better than everyone and didn't need to listen to anythin' anyone else had to say."

"We were, at that", Angelo acknowledged, with a half-laugh half-wince at the memory. "An' is it bad I'm thinkin' things like "when we were their age" when I'm maybe three or four years older than any of them?"

"Ah know...the first time Ah called them kids and realized that, Ah felt silly...then Ah realized that Scott and 'Ro aren't all that much older than us either." Marie grinned mischievously at him and winked. "Ok, maybe they are, but if you tell them Ah said that Ah'll toss you in the lake. Again."

"You do an' you're goin' right down with me", he retorted, more lightly. "Again."

"We'll see about that. Ah've been trainin'," she said completely deadpan, before breaking out into giggles. "You know though, we really should do a DR session together, once you've got time," she said when she'd stopped laughing.

"For that, I'll make time", he promised, then finally remembered the letter. "Oh, hey - got somethin' for you."

Extending a gloved hand, she took the letter curiously, paling considerably when she glanced at the return address. It was from Meridian and considering the last piece of mail she'd gotten from that neck of the woods, her anxiety immediately shot up.

He looked at her sideways, worried. "Everythin' okay?"

"It's from h..Meridian," she said softly, setting the envelope gently down on the couch between the two of them. She clasped her hands together, staring at the letter in silence for a minute before pulling her eyes away from it to look at Angelo. "Ah just...well, y' know the last one Ah got." And then what happened once Ah got there.

"Yeah, I remember", he said quietly, eyeing the letter. "You gonna open it?"

"Maybe?" she offered, then sighed. Rising to her feet, she walked over to the desk and pulled out a letter opener. Returning to the couch, she picked up the letter and slit the top of the envelope. She stared at the open envelope, not pulling out the letter, then hesitantly held it out in Angelo's direction.

He reached for the envelope automatically, then stopped, with a careful look at her face. "You sure?"

Twisting the gloved material on of her hands, she nodded, though her face was doubtful. "But if it says anything vaguely like 'Fire from the sky, etc.', just tell me it's about puppies and kittens and then mail it to Marie-Ange," she joked weakly.

He smiled humourlessly, taking the letter. "It says anythin' like that, I'm burnin' it. Precog's more trouble than it's worth as often as not."

"Now that's something Ah agree with, a hundred percent." She held her breath while he scanned the letter, letting it out when he held the piece of paper out for her to take. Marie's hand shook as she reached out for it and she took a deep breath before reading it herself.

Dear Marie, Your Daddy and I miss you so much. I wanted to call or write earlier, but your Daddy said we needed to give you some time to think on things first. I know we didn't handle things right. We could've done better and we should've. We let you down, plain and simple, and that'll always be my biggest regret. But you know what I don't regret? I don't regret the day Irene knocked on our door and asked us to take you because that was the happiest day of my life...the day you became my daughter. You're still my daughter Marie and you always will be, even if you never talk to me again...

Marie wiped a tear away from the corner of her eye, before quickly scanning the rest of the letter. "They want me to come home for Thanksgiving," she said, her voice barely above a whisper.

Angelo considered that, nodding slowly, and gave her a few minutes before he asked, "D'you think you might go?"

"Ah...Ah dunno. Ah want to, but Ah'm scared." She folded the letter gently, seemingly afraid that it would vanish, and slipped it back into the envelope. "What do you think?"

"I think... you should give them one more chance", he said quietly. "From what they're sayin' here... yeah, they made mistakes, but they didn't mean any harm by any of it."

Marie was quiet, another long pause filling the room. When she finally spoke, her eyes were closed. "Everyone deserves a second chance."

"Some more than others, but... yeah." He smiled faintly. "An' you know, in the scheme of things... what they did really wasn't so bad."

That earned Angelo a weak smile in return. "Compared to...well, yeah, you're right." Afterall, she'd forgiven her best friend for much worse - in a heartbeat. Why was it so much harder for the people she'd always thought of as her family? No. she corrected herself. The people who were her family.