Crystal and Jennie - Jinxed

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Backdated to yesterday. Crystal visits Jennie, who tells Crystal it's safe to move back in. Crystal says she doesn't want any more kidnappings this year and Jennie tells her she just jinxed it.



Crystal knocked softly on the door to the room that had, once upon a time, been only Jennie's. Then Crystal had shared the room with Jennie, then Jennie had been gone, then they shared the room again, then Jennie had been gone again and Crystal had chosen to vacate the room. With Jennie's latest return, Crystal had still been staying out of the room at Jennie's request. She hadn't wanted to risk letting Jennie have a breakdown without anyone there to help her, but Jennie seemed to be doing a lot better this time around.

"Jennie? May I come in?"

"Yeah, come in." Jennie looked up as the door opened. She was in the process of making her bed. Dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, she gave the other girl a smile as she entered. "Hey Crystal, how's the leg?"

"Have I reached the point yet where it is permissible for me to give the response of 'it is fine'?" Crystal queried, a small smile on her face. "I have no desire to be crippled for life and I am following the doctor's orders. I should be able to walk on my own, without crutches or the use of my power, just in time for Medusa's engagement party."

"It's a customary thing. What people do when their friends are injured and such. You should let me sign your cast one of these days." Jennie finished making the bed with her patented pillow trick, and then sat down on it. "By the way, I think it's safe to move back in. My nightmares seem to not be the screaming type, so I won't wake you up."

"Is that why you did not want me to stay in here?" Crystal asked, frowning. "You should not have had to go through that alone, Jennie. If that was your preference, I can accept that, but I hate to think that you suffered through these nightmares all on your own."

"Well," Jennie ducked her head, slightly embarassed. She didn't quite know why she didn't want Crystal around for the nightmares, perhaps to spare the younger girl some of the trauma she narrowly escaped. "I know you want to help, but nightmares are something I can't control, and I don't know if you can help. Plus, I think I needed alone time to process."

Crystal nodded. "I can understand wanting to have alone time. That is what I wanted while you were away, and that is what I wanted you to have this past week. I am only sorry that I was unable to prevent people from disturbing you while I was in class and that there was nothing I could do to make this time less... nightmarish, I suppose."

"Can I tell you something? One of the things that ...helped when we were there, was knowing that you'd at least gotten away. So, you did help in a way." Jennie shrugged. The thought of Crystal being forced to undergo the process was not something Jennie could bring herself to contemplate.

"I did not 'get away' so much as I was left behind and no one returned to take me away," Crystal pointed out. "I suppose they had what they came for and did not need to risk returning, but I am glad that I was able to let people know what happened right away, even if my knowledge did not actually help with finding you."

"You got away and let people know we were gone." Jennie shook her head. "Don't feel bad about that, the 'not finding us.' They found us, if not by the means that they had then possibly by the info you had. Dude, I mean..." Jennie sighed. She was amazed at the guilt that so many people felt at their disapearance. Jennie didn't blame any of them. The only person to blame was the man who took her.

"They found you, and this is all that is important now," Crystal said, finally taking a seat on her bed. "You are not allowed to be held against your will ever again. Please. Twice in less than a year was two times more than it should have been."

Jennie snorted. "You're telling me, I bookended the school year with two kidnappings. How about that?" Much better than the previous year, in which there were two deaths. "Crystal, you have my solemn promise that I will not be held against my will if I can't help it."

"The school year is not over yet," Crystal pointed out. She still didn't really consider what had happened between Jennie and Marius last summer to be a kidnapping as no one had actually meant to hold anyone against his or her will. Marius had left the school by his own choice, Jennie had run into him, and things had gone downhill from there. "There are still a few weeks remaining before graduation. Hopefully no one else will be kidnapped between now and then and we do not actually end the year with students being kidnapped."

Jennie rolled her eyes. "Aw man, now you jinxed it."

Crystal looked at Jennie, startled. "I... what? No. No more vanishing students requiring a search and rescue effort. Saying that this should not happen will not make it so. That is silly. My words have no bearing on such a future event that will not happen."

"The universe is a strange and mysterious place. I made a crack about being kidnapped again a couple of months ago, and lo and behold the universe delivered. Just remain vigilant. I have done my time, so I have no worries."

"In January I stated that the field trip curse was over because nothing horrible happened to the people who attended that field trip," Crystal reminded Jennie. "All of the participants then ended up in a shared comatose dreamworld. That was because of events which had already been set into motion, not because of what I had said upon our return. At least we were out on our own two weeks ago and not on a field trip; I would have hated to further the belief in the field trip curse."

"I'm just sayin', universe has a balance to it." Jennie leaned back on her elbows. "It's a part of my DNA even, stuff that you do that you think has little consequence, can turn out to be something big."

"The butterfly effect?" Crystal asked.

Jennie snorted. "Something like that."

Crystal still didn't believe that saying something should or should not happen could change the course of events that were already underway.. The "dreamworld" would have existed whether or not she had made her journal post about field trips, but she wasn't about to push the point with Jennie.

"Care to write that on my cast?" she asked with a small smile. "The 'little consquence, something big' part, I mean."

"But of course," Jennie said gamely. Reaching for a marker that was held in an old coffee mug on her desk, she uncapped it and sat down on the other girl's bed. She began to write on the cast in her neat, curly handwriting.

"Jennie do you really want me to return to the room?" Crystal asked. "The school year is almost over, you have been through a lot, and if you need your space I can see about continuing my stay in Monet's suite."

Jennie didn't look up from Crystal's cast. "I'm not even going to dignify that with a response. It's not like this is your room too or anything."

"It will not be my room for much longer, though," Crystal said. "Although, since you are going to moving out and getting your own apartment, I suppose it will not be your room for very much longer either."

It was very, very hard for Jennie to not roll her eyes. She was not going to go through Crystal's complex about being unwanted for the one-hundred-millionth time. "Do whatever makes you happy," Jennie said finally. Finishing the girl's cast with a flourish. "Personally, I don't care if you stay here or not, as long as you're comfortable."

Crystal gave Jennie an odd look. "I am leaving the mansion after graduation. I thought you were, too. That is all I meant, that we will both be moving out of this room after we graduate."

"The room silly, if you want to leave and stay in Monet's suite I find I have ceased to care. Yeah, we're both having to move out of this room after we graduate anyway, but unlike you I remain until that fateful day." She didn't mention the fact that now thinking about moving out of the room left her cold. A part of her disorder meant she did not like change, and moving so soon after what had happened was something that made her so anxious she just put it out of her mind alltogether.

Crystal examined her newly decorated cast. "I will always treasure it," she said solemnly, "or at least until it is removed. Perhaps I can keep it even then."

"Hang it above the mantlepiece, it would be a charming conversation starter." Jennie capped the marker and set it back in it's mug.

"I was thinking more of keeping it locked away in a trunk in my closet," Crystal said with a small smile. "Just to have, not to look at constantly."

"Yes, as I am fairly certain it's how you would like to remember your year here." Jennie flopped back on her bed. She rubbed absently at her eyes, she hadn't bothered to wear makeup all week. There was no point, really. "Ugh, tired."

Crystal could take the hint. "I will leave and allow you to get some rest."