Yvette, Crystal//Yvette, Kurt - On Being Brave - Monday night

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Back home, and Crystal finds Yvette waiting to see Kurt, and gives her some unsettling news.



After what everyone had just been through, Crystal had expected to find Yvette hiding somewhere. However, she quickly found this was not the case as Yvette was not in any of her usual hiding spots. After speaking with a few people, Crystal found her suitemate in the Medlab's waiting area.

"Yvette, I brought you something."

Yvette looked up at the other girl from her crouching position on one of the chairs. Once again she was dressed in one of her special body suits, hands and feet covered, her face still the frozen mask it had been since the dinosaur park. When she saw the apple Crystal held out, her eyes brightened. "Thank you," she said gravely, then added, with concern. "Are you being all right? I am hearing that you are being taken also."

"Oh, I am fine." Crystal sat down in the chair next to Yvette's, placing the apple next to the spiky girl. "I was not harmed and we were not even held for a day-and-a-half. How are you, though? I was always in a group with others, but you were alone part of the time, yes?"

"Yes." Yvette's voice grew softer, and she reached for the apple, but didn't start eating it yet, rolling it between her long-fingered hands. "There was... how you say? The gallery of shooting? Like at the fair? I was being trapped with the sticky things. John is getting me out."

"Sticky things?" Crystal repeated, frowning. "Whoever did this certainly went through a lot of trouble to accomplish his or her goals. The people on Amanda's van were just placed into animals pens and left there with threats of what would happen if we attempted to escape, but you and the others who went on the trip to Las Vegas went through many obviously planned ordeals."

Yvette nodded. "It is being like the computer game," she explained. "Or the theme fair? Where there are the rides and the circus and the games? The sticky things, they are being too sticky for me to be cutting, and they are making for me to be stuck to the floor. It was hard to be breathing." She looked down at her hands, the apple between them, and pulled off one glove to start slicing the apple. "John, he is to be setting me on fire to be making the sticky things go away."

"Oh," Crystal said. What kind of a person would be cruel and sadistic enough to stick poor Yvette to the floor and make it hard for her to breathe? Who shaved off Medusa's hair and how were they able to do it? "I am glad that John was there and able to help you. It is good that you are back here now, where you are safe."

"It is strange," Yvette said, cutting off a small piece of apple and offering it to Crystal. "When I am to be waking up here, I am being very frightened and I am running away. Now? I am never wanting to be leaving." Her tone turned a little wry. "But that is not to be happening. If I am to not be the prisoner, I must be brave."

Crystal took the offered piece of apple. It was hard for her to imagine wanting to stay at the mansion, yet she could understand why the idea was so appealing to others. "I think you are brave, Yvette. Here you are, waiting to see someone, not hiding in a small space or in somebody's room. That is very brave."

"It is for Mr. Sefton. I am not wanting him to be alone, and his sister is not being here." Yvette ducked her head, suddenly shy. "He is doing much to help me. I am wanting to do the same."

"I am sure that he will appreciate it," Crystal told Yvette. "It is possible, though, that he might not want to see people right away, but if he does feel up to seeing someone, I am certain that you will be one of the people Mr. Sefton wishes to see."

The apple was suddenly requiring all of Yvette's attention. "He is being a very kind man," she murmured. "And I am liking him very much. I am hoping he is to be all right."

Crystal offered Yvette a reassuring smile. "I hope so, too. He has survived worse than this before."

"There was being much blood," Yvette admitted. "And he is being not awake on the big plane coming home."

Crystal nodded, having heard about this from Medusa. "Would you like for me to wait here with you?"

Yvette nodded, somewhat gratefully. "That would be good, yes. Thank you, Crystal." She glanced at the other girl. "I am thinking, this is to be making you to be glad to be leaving soon, yes?" She sounded a little sad.

"As a result of the events that occurred during the past few days," Crystal told Yvette, looking at the apple slice in her hand for a moment before looking back at the younger girl, "my parents have agreed to allow me to return home when school itself is over. I will be leaving the mansion early Thursday afternoon."

There was a long silence, and Yvette looked down, the glow of her eyes dimming slightly. "Oh," she said, soft and sad. "I... I will be missing you," she went on. "But it is good, to be going home."

"You still plan on attending Medusa's engagement party, I hope," Crystal said. "If so, you will be in Attilan in little more than two weeks, and you will see me then."

Yvette paused. Leaving was... well, it wasn't something she was quite ready to think about just yet, but a promise was a promise. And Crystal was her friend. "Yes," she said, with just the slightest quiver in her voice. "I will be there. It will be good, to be seeing your home."

"You will be safe there," Crystal said with another reassuring smile. "There is no need to worry. You will not need to leave the palace unless you wish to do so, and I promise that no harm will come to you in my home."

"I am being sure it will be safe," Yvette replied, not wanting to seem rude, especially when it was Crystal's home. And she could be brave. "I will be glad to be coming."



Once she's allowed in, Yvette reassures herself Kurt is fine.



The doctor had said it was all right to go in, but still Yvette hesitated by the door, in case Mr. Sefton had gone to sleep again. He needed the sleep, after being so hurt. "Hello?" she called softly, just to be sure. If there was no answer, she'd go back out and keep waiting, at least until they made her go to bed herself.

Kurt raised his head carefully, blinking in the direction of the door. "...Yvette?"

"Yes." She came in properly, so he wouldn't have to strain to see her, approaching his bedside quietly. "I am being wanting to see you are the okay, but if you are needing the rest, I can be going."

"I do not need sleep enough you should leave this minute", he assured her, offering a crooked smile. "How are you?"

"Tired," she admitted, although she had denied it to everyone else who had asked, for fear they'd make her leave. "It is being the very long weekend." She reached out a gloved hand and touched the back of his, where it was lying on the blanket. "And how are you, please? You are to be making me worry, when you are falling over like that."

"Getting better", he promised. "I am sorry I frightened you - it was only that it was not as restful a two days as it was meant to be. And the injuries from before..." He gestured to them ruefully.

"It is being the very bad vacation, yes," Yvette said solemnly, eyes glowing softly. "But now you are home, you are to be resting, yes?" It would have been a pointed question from anyone else.

"I do not think I will have much choice in the matter." It was almost amused.

"You are probably being right," she replied, a hint of amusement in her voice. "You are being very brave, to be making the fight for us to escape, even when you are hurt. Mr. Dayspring, he is being hurt too, when he is making things break with his head."

"There was nothing else that could be done, hurt or not", he told her, would-be lightly, then hesitated. "Yvette... you will not let this scare you so much you do not want to leave the house any more, will you?"

She looked down, biting her lip a little. She'd been asked that before, and she'd been trying to be brave, to give the right answer. "I am being frightened," she admitted at last. "But when I am being in that place, I am being brave. I am not to be hiding, or making for other people to be having to save me all the time." When she raised her head, her eyes were glowing a little more. "I am to be helping Jan, and to be fighting the robots with the others. When I am to be scared, I will remember that I can be brave, also."

"I did not mean to say you should never be frightened at all", Kurt said, looking at her levelly. "That is not what bravery is. In that place, you were very brave, and if you do not let it stop you doing things you want to, then you will continue to be."

"I will remember, yes," she promised, and then asked, sounding more than a little pleased. "Mr. Sefton is thinking I am being very brave?"

"It is as you said", he pointed out. "You did not run away, or hide, and you helped other people, I hear. So yes, I think you are."

Her eyes flared nova-bright, and if she'd been able to, she would have been smiling broadly. "I am happy, that you are thinking this," she said, and then ducked her head, overcome with embarrassment. "That is to say, thank you. I am being trying very hard to be learning."

"You have no need to thank me", was all he said, lifting his good hand to pat her gloved one. All he'd done was see what was there and comment on it, after all.

Another flare of light from her eyes, and she shifted from foot to foot. "Of course. I am to be silly. But I am glad you are to be saying this," she stammered, barely hanging on to her English. "You are to be resting, so I should to go. Do you have the need for anything? I can be getting it for you?"

"Nothing you should bring", he said with a faint smile. "Except your company, when you have the time. It is dull, down here, sometimes when no one is visiting."

"I would like that, very much, yes," she replied. If her eyes glowed any brighter, she'd blind someone.

"Then if the doctors let you in, come whenever you would like."

"Thank you." Yvette was too tongue-tied to say anything else, so she resorted to touching his good arm briefly and carefully. "To be sleeping well, and not to be letting the bed bugs bite," she said, remembering something Laurie said sometimes. "I will be to see you in the morning, yes?"

"Yes", he agreed easily. "And you sleep well too, Yvette." He was worried about all the kids having nightmares, after everything that had happened.

She gave him a nod, and a little wave. "I will. Good night, Mr. Sefton." And with that, she scampered away.