xp_logs | Angelo and Richard Forge, Monday afternoon

Angelo comes home to find Forge's father packing up his things, and makes a promise or two.

Someone had already been in the room to recover the school's equipment. Forge had always had a habit of borrowing things and conveniently forgetting where he'd picked them up from. But the small bedroom was still packed with books, magazines, and various devices in assorted states of assembly.

Richard picked up what looked like a small chalkboard, black slatelike screen inside a matte metal border. Tilting it in his hand, he let out a small gasp of surprise as tiny arcs of light scrolled across the screen, resolving into an image. His son, leaning against a tree, with a purple cat asleep on his shoulder. The image flickered, then slowly faded into another picture of Forge surrounded by his friends, clad in their graduation robes, standing around Professor Xavier.

He'd taken that photo only a year ago, Richard Forge realized, on the day of John Henry's high school graduation. And now he was packing it away with the rest of his son's things.

Angelo had heard a noise, entering the suite from elsewhere, and come automatically to see who was in Forge's room. If he'd known his parents were coming today, he'd not known exactly when... or blocked it out. He froze in the doorway now, not sure if he should speak up or just quietly back out.

"John?" Richard glanced up instinctively, then caught himself when he saw Angelo in the doorway. "Oh. I'm.. I'm sorry. I thought you were... no, of course. You'd be Angelo. I'm Richard Forge, John Henry's father. Professor Xavier asked if we would..." He paused, one shaking hand reaching up to smooth back his salt-and-pepper hair, tucking a loose strand behind one ear, the gesture a familiar one from father to son.

"There were papers that needed to be signed. And his belongings, of course." Richard looked around the room. "I hardly know where to begin."

"Yeah, I'm Angelo. I was just..." He trailed off with a vague gesture at the other bedroom. "You're, uh... you're takin' his stuff away?" He looked bleakly at the boxes and the other contents of the room.

"Yes... no." Richard sighed, then sat down on the lone chair in the room, hearing the crinkle of magazine pages under him. "His mother and I, we talked about it and when the Professor called... did you know he'd actually written up a 'protocol' for something like this? My son," he laughed quietly, "had a written plan in the event of his disappearance or de.. in case he disappeared. He hadn't told us about it, of course. We didn't know until Professor Xavier called us."

He looked up at Angelo, studying the young man. "He talked about you. Mostly to his mother, but he mentioned that you work with Nathan, with his organization. And with the... Richard paused, fingers moving as if searching for the right words. "What happened to the island, to Attilan. Both Charles and Mr. Summers have said they don't know what caused it. That there's no explanation." He turned back to the desk, fingers brushing the cover of one of his son's notebooks. "If John were sitting here, he'd be working to find out what happened, I know that much."

"That's... yeah, that's so much like For... John", Angelo said quietly to the words about the written plan, then nodded again. "I don't have the same talents he did, nobody here really does, but... we won't let it go until we know."

Richard nodded. "That's what he would do. They told us that if we wanted to take his things home..." He looked around at the disorganized room. "I think this was as much a home to him as we could ever provide. You know, I think I became closer to my son in these last few years that he lived here than I ever did in the sixteen years we lived in the same house. That doesn't speak much of me as a father, does it?" Before Angelo could answer, Richard put a hand up. "No, it's all right. I'm just... I was so proud of him, in everything he did. Whether or not I understood it." He picked up a half-assembled machine from the floor, turning it over in his hands. "I couldn't begin to tell you what this is. But it meant something to him. Everything meant something to him, even if he didn't always know how to show it. That much he learned from his mother and I, I think."

Slowly, Richard stood up from the desk, holding the picture frame in his hands. "Could you do something for me, Angelo? His things... could you just keep an eye on them? Until we know for certain? I... I'm told that we need to accept the inevitable. But I just can't. I can't accept it. He's my son. I don't want to believe he's... not without proof. You understand, right?"

Angelo swallowed, nodding again as he studied the picture frame rather than look at Richard's face. "Yeah, of course. I'd be proud to. Are you, uh... are you leavin' them just like they are, or...?"

With a chuckle, Richard shook his head and picked up a cardboard box. "The boy never could pick up after himself at home, his mother always spoiled him that way. I suppose it's only fitting that I'm cleaning up after him one last... one more time."

"I can help", Angelo offered suddenly, not moving from his place in the doorway until he heard the answer. "If you want."

"I'd like that," Richard said with a nod of thanks. "Just one thing..." He held up an odd conglomeration of circuit boards and wires attached to what looked like a dozen tiny pairs of shoes. "Do you have any idea what in the heck this is?"