Sunday, February 4, Crystal and Pietro at Le Bernardin

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During Pietro's reprieve, he asked Crystal out to dinner at one of New York's top-tier restaurants. During the meal, they try and fail several times to escape from the topic of mansion insanity.



Crystal gave a polite nod to the waiter as he finished taking their order. One thing on the menu that had received a raised eyebrow and nearly evoked a snicker was turbot: Organic chilean turbot; shiso-maitake salad; lemon-miso broth. Thanks to Garrison and what he had surely thought was amusing, Crystal was sure that she could never think of turbot without recalling the utter silliness of his "thank you" e-mail to her and Medusa. Crystal decided against ordering it; instead, she chose the pan roasted monkfish complete with confit peppers and fiery "Patatas Bravas" and chorizo-albariño emulsion. The rack of lamb had been tempting, but this was a restaurant well known for its specialty of seafood.

Pietro, after much deliberation, chose the wild striped bass with fiji shrimp, and smiled across the table at Crystal as the impeccably courteous waiter stepped away. "Quite a more civilized atmosphere than meals at the school, don't you think?"

"I think that almost any place else has a more civilized atmosphere than the school's cafeteria," Crystal said. Luckily, no one had decided to throw food at her on her recent foray into the jungle that was the cafeteria at lunchtime, and if anyone had made any comments about hickory smoked anything she hadn't heard it. "Their version of the proper dining experience is, ah, interesting. Usually loud, too. Amusing to observe at times, yes, but not always."

"Well, I'm not sorry to miss it." Pietro snorted softly. "Not that I wasn't a touch rowdy when I was growing up, but I have in fact, and now I prefer calmer meals." He shook his head. "So how has the recovery been from the latest bout of freakish insanity? Everything settling back down, I hope?"

"Which latest insanity would that be?" Crystal asked, looking serious and innocent at the same time. "The one that involved various school residents spending over 30 hours in a shared dream of a world without mutants but containing a talking seagull who exploded into chicken nuggets, a magical phonebook, constant invasive touching, and a me who wasn't me at all? Maybe the surprising insanity that led me to write multiple e-mails and make numerous journal posts without having anyone jump on me and allowed me to have an actual decent coversation with Ms. Dane? Or perhaps," she added, lowering her voice, "you mean the one about a certain psychopath being caught the same week you were granted a temporary reprieve from being forced to remain on school grounds?"

Pietro chuckled. "Either or both. I'm glad to hear you've been able to take advantage of the opportunity, though. Let's hope things continue to go this well for you. Without, please, any more artificially-induced comas."

Crystal shook her head, smiling slightly. "I should have known it was too much to hope that I would be able to make it through the year without something like this happening. No more comas for me, thank you, and I am still planning on making it through the year without falling prey to any of the other seemingly typical rites of passage at the school. Waking up in the medlab after a long 'sleep' was one time too many."

"So no kidnapping, no explosions, no possession, and no alternate dimensions. That sounds like a solid list and I applaud you for it." Pietro's lips thinned. "The worst thing about all this, I think, is that it's just more ammunition for the superstitious idiots and their supposed field trip curse."

"You forgot being tossed into the lake," Crystal replied. "I think that is one of the unofficial ones, and I also plan to refrain from being involved in that one. But yes, my current goal is to graduate from Xavier's without having any of those things happen to me... except maybe for the alternate dimension one. That sounds interesting. As far as the field trip curse goes, I am fairly certain that we will still end up having field trips. Amanda said we should catch a break sometimes, and for my part, I will go on just about any field trip if only to show that I am not afraid."

"Being tossed, certainly. Swimming, in the summer, on the other hand, might be nice." Pietro smiled wryly. "And while I can't but applaud your courage, I would take it as a personal favor if you'd avoid alternate dimensions if at all possible, no matter how interesting. My vanity is carrying the weight of too many worry lines already."

"Yes, swimming is by choice, being tossed is not," Crystal said. "I believe that the trips into alternate dimensions are also usually not by choice, but I will do my best to stay in this reality and avoid shared dreamworlds and alternate dimensions. I would not want to be responsible for causing worry lines to anyone. My family was quite worried last weekend and Medusa was quite overprotective for the next days."

"She was very distressed while you were unconscious. I can only imagine the state she'd be in if you vanished entirely." Pietro shook his head with a quiet snort. "And clearly I still need work on my conversational skills; this is supposed to be a nice dinner out, and the first thing I think to talk about is crisis situations."

"It is fine; I do not mind. But, a change in topic then?" Crystal suggested. "Have you enjoyed the past week? I know what it is like to be trapped at the school and I know that it is not fun at all."

"I've enjoyed it very much," Pietro replied, gratefully seizing the topic change. "Even just the taste of freedom was . . . just exhilarating. Like the horizon opened up as soon as I stepped off the property." He smiled, just a little smug. "Also, I was able to find room to really cut loose, just for the fun of it. I believe there were some people in rural Arizona who were quite perplexed by the mysterious dust clouds out in the desert."

Crystal smiled. "It is very good that you had and used the opportunity to have a vacation of sorts. Perhaps the people in Arizona were not sure what to think of it, but oh well. Staying on campus for an extended amount of time can lead to insanity as well as watching and quoting strange videos online." Dr. Tran was truly frightening.

Pietro grinned and held up a warning finger. "We're starting to veer dangerously close to the topic of mansion insanity again. So, hmm." He sat back thoughtfully. "What else did I do. . . well, I thought it would have been pushing it to hop a plane to England to visit the caravan, but I did find this very nice old Bulgarian couple in Ohio who run a very homey little hole-in-the-wall restaurant. Not the same as visiting family, but at least it was familiar food."

"Yes, it is understandable that there might have been some concern on the part of certain government types if you left the country," Crystal replied, smiling as she shook her head. "Without direct permission from them, that would have been inadvisable. When the tracker is removed permanently, you can visit your family and go wherever you want."

"I am trying not to go too far out of my way to be unreasonable. Even if it is occasionally amusing to give Cooper a little indigestion--which is not something either of us ought to be troubled with tonight, unless it should be from eating too much," Pietro segued smoothly as the waiter approached with their food. "This looks excellent, thank you."

Crystal waited quietly as they were served and thanked the waiter while examining the the tastefully decorated plates. "Yes, the food looks wonderful, but I for one do not plan on overeating. Thankfully, I do not have the much-famed mutant metabolism that appears to require a person to partake of nearly unlimited amounts of food within a small space of time." She tried the monkfish and nodded her approval.

"That's more of an energy-projector thing," Pietro noted. He stacked a small piece of bass atop a bite of shrimp on his fork and put it in his mouth, eyes widening slightly. "Hmm, well, that certainly justifies the reputation. And I don't eat much more than an ordinary person myself, as it happens. Quality over quantity."

"An energy-projector thing that leads said energy projectors to embark upon hot-dog eating contests," Crystal said after taking another bite. "Quantity over quality in that case, but they seem to enjoy them. Part of the culture here, I believe." She speared a few potato cubes on her fork. "I take it all in. They seem to think that I do not, but I do."

"Doesn't that sound familiar," Pietro murmured, his voice very dry. He took a sip of the (really quite excellent) wine that the sommelier had recommended for his meal. "Even groups of outsiders have their outsiders. There are some facets of merely human nature I'm not sure we'll ever be rid of."

"I never felt like an outsider until I came to the mansion," Crystal said softly. "The opposite is true for most people, I believe, but for those of us who do not receive the same warm, welcoming reception the others receive... " She shook her head. "I apologize. I did not mean to get back into a discussion of the insanity at the mansion. I have just thought that it is odd that it is only at a school for mutants, a supposed haven for us, where I have ever felt like an outsider."

"It isn't odd at all," Pietro replied, then paused for another bite of shrimp. "In fact, I'd say it's precisely because you've never been an outsider before that you are here. Most mutants find themselves isolated by their mutation. Even if they don't, for whatever reason, have to bear the social stigma . . . the manifestation itself is almost invariably surprising and not a little traumatic. The reaction for most of us when we discover our powers is 'oh my God, what's wrong with me?' What you're seeing at the mansion, I think, is a kind of survivor bonding: they've all shared a difficult experience that you haven't, and to them that marks you." He smiled. "Even as traumatic as your actual manifestation experience was, the fact remains that you knew you were going to at some point. You were prepared for it, your powers were celebrated, you had your family to share them with and to act as examples for how mutants act." He shrugged. "Personally, I think you're better off. Your school days will pass, but your family is yours for life."

"I have had similar conversations with other people at the mansion this week," Crystal said. "This week has been an interesting one for me." A small smile found its way onto her face. "I believe that this has been an unofficial 'talk to Crystal' week. My own doing, I suppose, even if a couple of them sought me out to speak with me. I know from speaking with people beforehand, too, that the general assumption at the mansion is that my entire life has been... I am not sure even how to say it." Crystal regarded her potatoes, quietly chewing before looking back at Pietro and continuing speaking. "One party after another, perhaps? Easy is what they say, the type of life people wish they had. Even my original manifestation, I am not sure what they believe it was, something nice and pretty and nonviolent I am sure."

Crystal gave a light shrug. "I am not in the habit of correcting them; I have no desire to play 'my manifestation was worse than your manifestation' with the mansion residents. Others have had much more traumatic experiences; and it does not really matter what mine was; as you have just said, I had been told in advance that I was a mutant. There was an initial shock when it actually happened, yes, but no surprise of 'what was that'? Yes, Medusa and I knew exactly what was going on; we had no thoughts on what was wrong with us, we were glad that it happened already, even if the circumstances themselves were surprising and not what anyone could have expected. You did not always know that you were a mutant, but you were glad when you realized that you were." She smiled again. "That, I believe, is the difference. Medusa and I accepted it right away, and most mutants do not. They do not wish to be mutants; instead of accepting it they fight it and wish for it to go away. It is quite unfortunate that this is the way things are, but I am glad that a couple of the others who were part of the dreamworld are now more accepting of themselves. And yes, I will be finished with school at Xavier's in four months, and then I can go home to my family."

"Well, if I ever get too preachy, feel free to shut me up somehow," Pietro replied wryly. "I think you have an excellent point about acceptance. Hopefully we'll be able to create a world someday where all mutants will see what they can do as a gift." His forehead wrinkled at her last words. "Not for good, I hope? You'll have your duties in Attilan, and your life there, of course, but I'll miss you when you're gone, and I should very much like it if you were to find some excuse to visit, from time to time."

"Attilan is not a prison; it is my home," Crystal answered. "I will not be locked away there; I will be allowed to leave whenever I wish without making excuses. However... as it stands right now, my current plan is to stay in Attilan for quite some time. I am thinking it will be quite some time before I will want to leave. I believe that I will need time to recover from Xavier's, and that is without knowing what the next four months will bring. Besides, you can always come visit me. I hope that you will not be required to wear the tracking device for much longer, and I certainly hope that it will be off permanently by the summer."

"That's true enough--and visiting you would at the same time be a vacation for me from the mansion." Pietro smiled. "I just hope I won't end up abusing the privilege . . . right now, 'cabin fever' barely begins to describe my condition."

"At the risk of returning to the topic of mansion insanity," Crystal said, laughing lightly, "I will reiterate what I pointed out earlier tonight: remaining on campus for a long period of time is a path leading straught to insanity. However, as I stated only minutes ago, hopefully it will not be long before you will be allowed to leave the mansion at will, and then you will not need to suffer from cabin fever. Be warned, though," she told him, pointing a forkful of patatas bravas at him for emphasis, "if you start talking about not being a doctor or a maccodity, I will... well, saying I would run would be silly, would it not? Instead, I will fly up high and then proceed to flee."

Pietro raised a bemused eyebrow. "Since I have no idea whatsoever what a 'maccodity' might be, I daresay you're in little danger. I'm more likely to hole up in my suite and plot revolution." His lips quirked. "Genetic bias, possibly."

"Its just something rather silly that was discussed by the students a couple of weeks ago." Crystal shook her head and shuddered slightly. "Jennie went 'stir crazy' and starting quoting an idiotic short video, one I had the misfortune of watching. Holing yourself up in your suite will not help the feeling of being confined to campus and you already do that enough anyway, even if it is without the plotting revolution part."

"Yes, but I've probably set foot on every inch of the mansion grounds three dozen times now, and the novelty, I can assure you, has worn off. Another couple of weeks in my suite shouldn't kill me." Pietro smirked. "Or make me start quoting horrible videos."