xp_logs | Angelo and Sooraya; Angelo and Yvette

After lunch, Angelo helps Sooraya with her English over a game of Scrabble.

Sooraya eyed the flat board on the table in front of her dubiously, listening to the sounds of wood hitting wood as Angelo mixed the small tiles together in a plastic bag next to her on the sofa. "I think I do not understand this game, still," she told him, leaning in to peer at the lettering on the board. Triple word score? Double letter? What did that mean? "How is it to win?"

"You win", he explained patiently, "by gettin' more points than me. An' you get more points by makin' longer words, or puttin' them in the right place on the board, or by usin' the letters that're harder to place. They're worth more."

"I think you will win, then," Sooraya replied, glancing up at him with a small smirk."But I will still like to play. It is time to pick our letters now?" She appreciated that Angelo was taking time out of his busy schedule to play this game with her - she enjoyed spending time with the young man, but he always had so much to do. At least this could be counted as English practice, so it wasn't as if it was a totally frivolous activity.

"It is, yeah. Ten letters to begin with. An' you never know, you might surprise yourself." He held out the bag for her to choose her tiles.

Very carefully Sooraya chose the tiles, counting to herself and placing each one precisely on the small wooden holder she had gotten earlier. This completed, she then began to scrutinize them, looking for possible words that could be formed out of the alphabetical jumble. It wasn't easy.

Angelo, meanwhile, set about picking out his own allotment. He grinned at her over the bag. "You get to start the game, too, if you want. When you're ready."

It was several more minutes before Sooraya was ready, but eventually she deliberately laid out five tiles in the middle of the board, spelling out "there". "It is also three," she said proudly, having debated over which word to use for quite some time.

"That's right", he said proudly, then cast a glance over his own tiles, trying to figure out what he could make starting from hers.

"Your school, it is going well?" Sooraya took the opportunity to ask then. "And the teaching, at the mansion?"

"Yep", Angelo said cheerfully. "Keepin' me busy, but that's the way I like it. An' the self-defence group are makin' good progress."

"I am glad to hear this. I think it is very important for to know how to do self-defense. And I think you are a very good teacher for this." Smiling, Sooraya plucked a few tiles and rearranged them, trying to find a word once again.

Angelo shook up the bag, absently, then chose his own replacement tiles. "I do the best I can. They're a good bunch of kids, though. Quick learners."

"This is good. Because if they are not, they will be beat off, yes?"

"Beat up", he corrected lightly. "An' we'd be hopin' it wouldn't come to that. But yeah, that's the danger."

Sooraya knew, in an abstract sort of way, that not every American school was quite like Xavier's. It made sense, actually, since she doubted the nation could've prospered so much if each place of learning was constantly concerned with fending off terrorists and demon attacks. Still, she wouldn't have wanted to be any other place.

Picking up a few letters, she laid them out on the board, leaving it to Angelo to tally up the score. He was winning, not surprisingly, but she didn't mind. This was fun.

"You're doin' well", he told her honestly. She might not be winning, but she really wasn't doing badly considering she didn't know the game very well. And she'd put down some good words.

"Thank you. I am liking this game. I will ask for Angel and the others to play it maybe sometimes. And Yvette. It is good practice for learning words." Sooraya glanced up at him and smiled shyly. "Thank you for teaching me."

"You're welcome", he said with a grin. "Anytime you want to play again, you just ask, okay?"

"Okay," she replied, blushing and dropping her gaze to her tiles once more. What was she supposed to do with three S's?

Later in the day, he takes Yvette on her very first trip out of the mansion since she got back from Kosovo.

It wasn't an uncommon sight, really - Angelo lounging in the doorway of Yvette's suite, come to check on her or fulfil a promise to go to dinner or just have a chat. So it was no big surprise when he appeared again today.

"Hey, chiquita. How goes?"

"Hello Angelo!" the smaller girl chirped, from the couch where she was treating herself to some television after doing her mathematics homework. "It is being going very well. For you, also, it is being going well?"

"Yeah, it's goin' well enough", he said with a smile. "Came to ask you somethin', if you're not doin' anythin'."

Yvette reached for the remote, carefully pressing the 'off' button with one gloved talon-tip. "I am being, how you say? Free?" she said, eyes alight with curiosity.

That got a grin. "Good to hear. You up for takin' that drive tonight, maybe? Go see my mom?"

There was the barest pause, in which Yvette's hair almost visibly hardened, before she nodded. Mr. Logan was right, she had to be brave, and Mr. Angelo wouldn't let anything happen to her. "I would be liking to be going with you, yes," she said, giving him another smile, although this one was a little nervous. "Should I be changing the clothings?" She looked down at the navy-blue pinafore she wore over Forge's bodysuit.

"If you want to", he said with an easy shrug, trying to help her be reassured. "You don't have to be formal about it, though. You wear what you're comfortable in."

Delaying would mean possibly chickening out, as Angel would say. And the dress was comfortable and pretty. "I will be leaving it," she decided, getting up off the couch and coming to take Angelo's hand. "Your mother, she is being knowing I am coming?" Since the arrival of a small spiky red girl tended to startle.

He squeezed her hand comfortingly, smiling down at her. "She knows I was askin' you. She'll be pleased to see you, promise."

This seemed to be enough for Yvette. No scaring Mr. Angelo's mother would be a good thing, although given her son's appearance, she wouldn't scare easily. "Then we shall be going, yes?"

***********

Angelo gave the seatbelt a slightly dubious look at the point where it might brush Yvette's neck... but she hadn't cut through it instantly, so chances were good it'd hold. Or he hoped so, anyway. "Ready to go?"

Yvette caught the glance, and slipped her other arm through so the belt went under her arm instead, where it would be protected by her clothing. "Yes," she told Angelo solemnly, her heart hammering a little harder despite herself. She was sitting as far forward as the seatbelt would let her, perched on the edge of the seat so she didn't jab into the headrest (or the back of the seat, given her size), with the sharp points of her hair. "Let us be, how Kyle is being saying it, blowing this popsicle stand?"

He grinned and started the car, pulling out easily. "Yep! Off we go."

There was perhaps a little stab of trepidation as the school gates opened and they passed through. Yvette hadn't left the grounds since her second return; she'd been keyed up to go shopping with Mondo and Marie, but then the ill-fated field trip had sapped her courage. Now, with Mr. Angelo chatting to her about school and the rest as the snow-covered world swept past outside, Yvette found herself feeling a little less scared - and rather proud of herself that she'd gotten this far.

Although the temptation to duck as they passed another car was hard to resist.

The drive into the city passed easily enough, and Yvette managed not to duck all the way, to Angelo's quiet pride. It didn't seem like long at all before they were pulling up outside his mother's little terraced house.

Yvette's eyes had grown a little wide as they'd driven through New York - it was so big, and unlike parts of Sarajevo, so vibrantly alive and busy. As Angelo parked the car, she blinked at the house. It looked... homely, even with snow covering the tiny front garden. "It is being looking the nice house," she told Angelo, fumbling to unbuckle the seat belt, her talons too long for her to press the button easily.

"Here, I'll get that", he told her, reaching over to release the buckle for her. "Yeah, it is a pretty nice house. The Professor helped her find it."

She leaned back to let him reach without contacting her skin and tearing his sleeve, and blinked as his fingers seemed to stretch longer than usual. "Thank you," she said with one of those wry little smiles of hers, the one she had whenever her powers made things difficult - she was trying to see the humour in things. "It is being, how you say? The bad powers week."

"Been a bad week in a lot of ways, I figure", he said, returning the smile. "But you'll get back to where you were. You just wait an' see."

She nodded. "I am being trying, and Laurie is being helping, with her powers. She is making my body to be more calm, yes." She gave the door handle an appraising look and a hint of the puppy eyes appeared. "Can you be helping me with the door, too?"

"Course I can." He swung out of his own side and came round to open her door. "There you go."

"Thank you," she said, with all the gravity of a small, spiky judge as she climbed out. Then the front door of the house opened, and she ducked a little behind him.

"It's okay - " he started quickly, then just looked up at the approaching woman with a smile. "Hey, Mom. This is Yvette. She's a little shy." Yes, it was an understatement. And?

She peeked around him, shyness warring with politeness. Being rude was unforgiveable. And the lady looked kind, her expression warm. "Um, hello?" she said at last, her voice soft.

"Hello", Juanita returned with a smile, stepping a little closer. She didn't offer her hands, though, already warned by Angelo. "I'm glad you came. Angelo's told me a lot about you."

"Thank you to be inviting me." Heartened by the smile, and the fact the woman hadn't flinched at the sight of her, Yvette eased herself out from behind Angelo, forcing herself to stand as straight as she could. "I am being pleased to be meeting you, Mrs. Espinosa." Her accent mangled the surname a little, the sounds strange to her, but her eyes glowed brightly blue.

Juanita thought the tiny girl in front of her looked cute, actually. A little unusual, but still adorable. "You too, Yvette. Now... I've heard a little about the kind of things you like to eat, and we certainly have apples, but... well, let's see about getting you inside before we worry about that. It's a cold night."

The glow intensified at the mention of apples, and Yvette nodded, taking Angelo's hand again as they followed Juanita inside. No sense keeping them outside in the cold, even if she didn't feel it as much - Angelo certainly did. "I am being liking the food you are sending to Angelo, too," she said, a little hesitantly since maybe that was meant just for Angelo. "He is to be sharing with me, because I am making him to be eating when he is being forgetting."

Juanita laughed, glancing back at them. "Well, if you're managing to do that. I'd say you deserve your share of the food. Maybe I should start sending you your own."

"I am having the help. The, how you say? Army of the small girls?" Yvette peered around the interior of the house as Juanita led the way, approving of the tidiness of it. Her own mother bounced between obsessively cleaning and not doing anything, if she was in one of her moods.

"So I've gathered", she said, amused, as Angelo just shook his head at both of them. "I'm glad he has someone to look after him when I'm not there."

"He is being very busy and forgetting the eating sometimes," Yvette agreed solemnly, although there was a spark of mischief in that glow of her eyes. "But we are taking the good care. And he is being helping us to be learning to be safe, with the classes. It is being the fair trade?" It was obvious a lot of Yvette's English was coming from her suite mates.

"I do my best", Angelo spoke up cheerfully, patting one small covered shoulder. "An' you're comin' along well, Yvette."

The glow intensified until her eyes were two blue headlights. "It is being easier, that I am having the good teacher," she said, ducking her head a little bashfully.

"Best teacher in the world can only go so far", he pointed out. "You want to learn, that helps." Juanita smiled at them both and disappeared into the kitchen.

"This is being why I am here, to be learning," she replied. She was visibly more relaxed than she had been in the car, the harsh edges of her face beginning to smooth out a little. "And your mother is being the very nice. I am being glad you are bringing me, Mr. Angelo."

"I'm glad you came", he said with a grin. "I told you it'd be okay, see?"