Yvette, Angelo//Yvette Sooraya - Monday evening

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Homecoming - Yvette comes back to the school and is greeted at the door by Angelo.



It was a good thing he'd taken the time to check the journals, and seen Haller's announcement, or otherwise Angelo couldn't have known when, exactly, to be sitting on the main staircase, waiting for the door to open.

Yvette was tired - twelve hours was a long flight - but excited as well. It was good to be back, somewhere where she could go outside and not be afraid of what would happen. Which was why she'd scampered ahead of Mr. Haller, up the front steps and through the big front doors. "Angelo!" she exclaimed, seeing the familiar grey form sitting on the stairs. "You are being waiting for me?"

Angelo grinned over at her, producing an apple from his pocket and tossing it to the girl. "I was, yeah. Haller told us all when you'd be gettin' back, so I knew to be here."

She straightened from her crouch to catch the apple, eyes flaring brightly. Her face had resumed the stiffness of earlier, but she gave the impression she'd be smiling broadly if she could. "It is being good to see you again," she said, her accent more marked from the time back home speaking Albanian.

"Good to see you too, chiquita", he said with a smile, getting up and going to greet her. "An' I'm glad your mom decided to let you come back."

"She is being scared, after Smichov." Yvette's voice dropped a little. "I am being sorry she is not coming with me, but if I am learning well, maybe I am being going home again?" She brightened - literally, her eyes like twin welding torches. "But I am being with my friends again, and this is good." She reached out and carefully touched Angelo's arm with her long, glove-covered claws. "I am missing my friends."

He held carefully still, as much of not wanting to startle her as because he was afraid of her claws. He didn't cut easily, after all, and he hadn't seen for himself what they could do. "Yeah. Here you are, an' here to stay for a while. An' I bet she'll be able to visit, sometimes."

"Mr. Haller is saying he will help her to visit - there is being a... what is it? A Parent Day? When parents are visiting the school? Mama was liking this idea very much." Satisfied Forge's gloves were still working, she patted his arm a little more firmly, eyes narrowing slightly as she noticed the tauntness there. "I am hoping Angelo is being looking after himself when I am gone," she said, her soft voice comically stern.

"Angelo looked after himself pretty much as well as ever", he said honestly, as far as that went. "When I could, anyway. I, uh... know all about Smichov."

"You should be coming to my home with Mr Haller. Mama made him eat so much, he is being to explode!" A small giggle escaped her before she tilted her head curiously at Angelo. "You are knowing Smichov? The television, it is not being able to tell us much except that the mutants are all being locked up and then there is fighting."

"Moms do that", he said confidentially. "Now you're back, you can come an' meet mine when you feel like it. An'... yeah, I was there. So was Nathan an' Rahne an' Medusa, for Elpis."

Her eyes widened at the last. "That is being so dangerous!" she exclaimed. "Are everyone being all right?"

"None of us got hurt", he assured her hastily. "Breathed in a bit too much smoke, but that was easily enough fixed with a couple days on Muir."

She didn't let go of his sleeve, although the brightness of her eyes and the slight sharpening of her features eased somewhat. "Elpis is being your work, yes? You are helping the people there?"

"We did our best. Modt of what we were there for was to make a record, so people'd know what was happenin' inside. But... I don't know how much you saw on the TV, when things got bad?"

"I am seeing a little, but it is being enough." Yvette sounded worried. And regretful. "It is reminding Mama of the war and making her have the bad dreams again."

"Yeah, I can't blame her", Angelo said quietly. "It wasn't so good, at the end there. Most of the time we were workin' at the clinic an' tryin' to help with the fires."

"It is being good work." She patted his arm again. "The Red Cross is helping my mother and me - I am sure you are doing the same thing."

He smiled down at her, genuinely if still tired. "We did what we could. An' at least the Red Cross are in there now."

"Yes, this is being true." She considered Angelo again. "You are coming to have the dinner with me?" she said, making it more of a statement than a question. "After I am being in my room and saying hello to my friends."

"Sure", he said without even a hesitation. "You just come find me when you're ready to have dinner."

"Okay!" She patted his arm in what was becoming her alternative to hugging - her hair made that option too risky as yet. Then she peered through the still-open door and giggled again. "I should being helping Mr Haller now. He is being caught in the scarf my mother is making for him - it is very long!"

Angelo laughed, turning to peer through the front door. "Yeah, you go untangle Mr. Haller. I'll see you for dinner."

"Yes, you will!" she affirmed, before dropping into that half-crouch again and scampering back out the door.



Up in her suite, Yvette finds Sooraya, also waiting for her.



Sooraya was sitting on the sofa in her suite, hands tucked between her knees as she eagerly awaited Yvette's return. She had been sitting there for some time, and at first she had tried to read, but her excitement had proven too distracting so she gave up.

It wasn't that she didn't have other friends at the mansion - everyone was her friend, really, but Yvette was special. For one, her circumstances were closer to Sooraya's than anyone else there, and that made the Afghan girl feel much more comfortable. She had been thrilled to hear that Yvette's mother had allowed her to come back to the school, and she had even written down a short list of events that had happened while she was away, just so she wouldn't feel too lost. Sooraya knew that feeling all too well, and wanted to spare her friend from it if she could.

Thanking Mr. Haller as he opened the door and left her and her suitcase at her suite - her suite, not a temporary guest place now! - Yvette's eyes flared supernova bright at the sight of Sooraya. "Sooraya, my friend!" she exclaimed, unable to smile due to the relapse of her mutation and wishing she could. "It is being good to see you!"

"Yvette!" Sooraya said happily, jumping to her feet. "I am glad you are here now. You are come on an airplane, yes? The flying was good?"

"It was... how you say? Charter flight? It is being private, yes? Mr. Haller is saying they will not be letting me fly on the normal plane." Yvette came in, awkwardly managing her bag with her oversized fingers and huffing something under her breath in Albanian. But her tone was light as she looked up at Sooraya. "Mr. Haller is saying I am not being missing anything but food that is bad and no room for his legs." She reached out hesitantly for Sooraya's sleeve, long talons encased safely in Forge's glove. "How is you? You are being well?"

"Yes," the other girl said, nodding and smiling widely at Yvette. "I am. Now that you are back, I am very good." She ached to babble all the occurances of the past month, but restrained herself, not wanting to overwhelm Yvette in her first minutes back at the mansion. "The classes of school are very hard. But I am liking them, still."

"Mr. Haller is saying they are needing to be testing me? For the English?" Yvette tugged Sooraya towards the couch - it had been a long flight and whilst the plane was comfortable, it had been tiring. "Mr. Professor has been making arrangements for me to be a proper student this time." Her voice was tinged with amusement. "And being a legal in this country."

"Oh! Yes! I am doing this too. So the gov-er-ment will let me stay." Sooraya plopped down on the couch, pulling her legs up beneath her.

"Being to stay is good," Yvette agreed emphatically, from her half-perch on the couch. "I am glad to be seeing my friends again - it was being lonely in Kosovo. When things are being bad in Prague, it is making people afraid. And angry, to the mutants."

"Kosovo is near to Prague?" Sooraya inquired, tipping her head to one side.

"Not very close, no, but it is having the history like Kosovo. Much war and unrest." Yvette spread her hands, the gesture oddly graceful with the long talons. "And people, they are being... nervous?" Her tone turned a little wry. "And my mother, she is being very nervous. Bad things are happening to her, during the war in Kosovo. She is wanting to be making me safe."

"Yes... it is what mothers do," Sooraya said solemnly. "But you are safe here now, yes? There will be no bad things to happen to you here." If there was one thing Sooray believed, it was the safety of being at the mansion, where so many good people dedicated their lives to the well-being of all mutants. "It is a bad that your mother is not coming here too. It is safe here for her too."

"She is being having no English, and her family is being there. But she is wanting to be visiting, when they are having the Parent's Day. Mr. Professor and Mr. Haller said they are being helping us." And if Yvette had to admit it, it was perhaps a small relief to be away from her mother's nervous mannerisms, her paranoia. But she'd never say it aloud. Her mother was a good woman, with her daughter's best interests at heart. "Sooraya, if it is not being rude, but your family... are they being finding them?"

Sooraya bit her lip, looking down at her hands thoughtfully at this. "There is trying to find... but it is hard. The country is very big, and my people are very small. It is not even a sure that they are alive." She let out a small sigh, then summoned up a smile for her friend. "But Nathan and Mr. Professor will still look. Maybe they will find them."

"The Professor is being the very clever man," Yvette said, her faith in Xavier's abilities unfaltering. She reached out and very gently touched Sooraya's knee with a gloved claw-tip. "And we are being, how you say? Looking out for each other."

Sooraya's smile grew as she patted Yvette's hand carefully. "Yes. Like a family is doing."