Kurt, Yvette - Monday morning

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette finds a letter in one of the library books, and runs into its owner as she goes to return it. Conversation of the serious type ensues.



It seemed strange that learning another language apart from English was making things easier for her, but given English had its roots in a lot of German words, Mr. Sefton's classes were helping. As was using the English-German dictionary, and not the non-existent Albanian-German one. However, as Yvette took the heavy book down from its shelf and carried it over to the table she was working at, she was surprised to discover a piece of paper sticking out of the end. Someone's notes, she supposed, opening the book at that page and discovering instead several sheets of thin paper, written on in a spidery sort of hand. Old person's writing, her brain supplied as she carefully took it out. A letter, in fact, in German. She scanned the opening greeting to see whose it might be.

"Dear Kurt..." it began, and she had to make herself stop there. No matter what her curiosity about her favourite teacher, she wasn't going to start reading his mail. Instead, she decided to take it to his room, and leave it for him if he wasn't in.

He'd already realized his oversight, and this time it was more important than a scrap of paper scribbled on in an idle moment. He was hurrying back towards the library just as Yvette came in the other direction.

"Oh, Mr Sefton!" she exclaimed, holding up the letter. "I found this, in the book. It is yours, yes?"

He slowed and looked down at her, blinking slightly. "...yes. Yes, it is." He reached automatically to accept it. "Thank you, Yvette."

"You are welcome." She looked up at him, eyes glimmering with curiosity. "It is a letter from your home, yes? I did not read it, of course," she hastened to add. "But I was thinking you would not like to lose it."

"I definitely would not", he said with a smile. "It is from an old friend, so, yes, from my home."

"Then I am glad, to find it. It was in the English-German dictionary. I was doing my homework, for your class." Yvette gave him a small, shy smile. "It is helping, I think, with my English also. And now I am finding your letter. So it is twice the good thing, yes?"

"I think so", he agreed firmly, looking down at her thoughtfully. He hadn't missed the curiosity. "Would you like to know more?"

"About your friend?" She nodded. "If it is not rude to ask, I would like to know more, yes."

"It is not rude when I offered", he assured her. "But we should find somewhere to sit, first, rather than talk in the middle of the hall."

"Of course!" Yvette giggled at that. "The library is not so far, and my books are still there."

"Then the library it shall be." He made an oddly courtly gesture with one hand, ushering her back down the corridor.

She giggled again, eyes flaring brightly in her version of a blush. Once they'd settled down at the table she'd been using, her perched in her usual style on the chair, she gave him an expectant look.

"His name is Father Michael", Kurt began. "And he has been my friend since I was... oh, a little younger than you."

"That is a long time," Yvette said, and then clapped a gloved hand over her mouth. "Oh! I did not mean to say you are old!"

Kurt laughed at her, not unkindly. "It is all right, Yvette. Yes, it is a very long time, some eighteen years now. He was good to me, when we first met."

She ducked her head, embarrassed, but not mortified. "He was not..." She paused, not sure how to say it. Scared of how you look? It was something they both shared, after all.

"Not in the slightest", Kurt said quietly, a smile growing at the memory, even after all this time. "I was twelve, and it was raining, and he found me hiding in his confessional, looked at me, and offered me coffee and cake."

"He sounds like the nice man. And you have been friends all this long time?" She liked it when Mr. Sefton smiled. He was too solemn a lot of the time.

"All this long time indeed. He knows me better than... perhaps anyone. There are things even family cannot be told, but he... you know what a confessor is, yes?"

She frowned a little in thought - despite everything that had happened over the last few weeks, her skin was beginning to soften enough for facial movement again. Just hints, but enough. "It is the person you are talking to in the church, yes?" she suggested hesitantly. "When you have done the bad things, they are giving you the punishment?" Her upbringing hadn't involved much in the way of religious instruction, apart from her aunts' attempts at teaching her Muslim doctrines, against her mother's wishes.

"A penance", he corrected gently. "Not a punishment. It is not meant to harm you, but to help you atone for what you have done, by prayer."

She blinked at that. "Penance? That is my... how you say? The name my family calls me, only in Albanian it is Pendim." She glanced around, as if to make sure no-one could overhear, and then half-whispered. "They said I am my mother's penance, when she has lost her believing in God."

"...oh, Yvette." He looked at her sadly. "Caring for a child should never be a penance. That is not how it works. Even - especially - a special child such as you."

She looked down again. "It is... complicated," she said. "There was much that happened to my mother, that is shame to the family. In the war." She left it at that, making a waving-away gesture with one long-fingered hand. "Your friend, you are confessing to him?"

"From the time I became a Catholic", he confirmed. "He taught me many things about the acceptance I might find there. I had never found it from anyone outside my clan, before."

"Like the school, yes?" Yvette gave him a small smile.

"Yes, like the school, except... broader, in a way. I was the only mutant in the clan, or at least the only obvious one."

"And this was hard for you, yes?" she asked, with a certain personal insight.

"At times", he admitted quietly, "it was very hard. Usually I had my brother to protect me, but if he had other duties, or even did not want to spend every hour of the day with his little brother, as we grew older... and when I met Father Michael, there were other issues."

"You said you had the brother, and the two sisters, yes?" Yvette asked, wondering just what these other issues were but not wanting to ask. Mr. Sefton was a fairly private person, most of the time.

"That is right", Kurt confirmed. "Stefan, Jimaine, and Ge- Amanda. Jimaine is the youngest."

"It must be good, to have the brothers and sisters. Always someone to talk to, or to play with, like here at the school." Yvette shrugged a little. "Well, not the lately. Everyone is sad. Or angry."

Kurt looked at her in concern at that. "You have been lonely here lately, Yvette? Or is it that you are sad too, with all that has happened?"

"I have been... how you say? Processing? I spend time in the woods, or in the tree house. Everyone is making the processing too, so I do not want to get in the way." She gave him a wry little smile. "It means I study more, with the English and the rest."

"I do not think you are likely to ever get in the way", he told her honestly. "But if you have been studying more... at least that is one good side to it. Just do not spend all your time out there."

"Laurie... she is angry at Kyle, on the journals and I do not understand why they fight." That whole exchange had been incomprehensible to Yvette, between the language issues and the venomousness of it. "I do not want to make her angry at me, so I stay away."

"Has she said anything to you to make you think she would be angry?" Kurt asked. "I have not seen any such thing on the journals, aimed at you."

Yvette shook her head. "No," she admitted. "But she was so angry at Kyle, and she is not saying anything to me."

"Perhaps", Kurt suggested, "she does not want to lose her temper with you, who would not deserve it. If she has done so in public once, whatever Kyle said to get such a reaction..."

"Perhaps," she echoed, sounding sad. She missed her friend, wished she could help. Could understand. "Perhaps I should talk to her? To find out what is making her angry, so I am not making things worse?" It was something of a terrifying thought, but Laurie was her friend.

"I think if you do not, nothing between you is going to get better", Kurt advised. "After a time, it is easier to maintain the silence than to break it."

Ironically, this prompted another thoughtful pause, as Yvette turned Kurt's words over in her mind. "I think," she said at last. "You are being right, Mr. Sefton. You are the very wise man, I am thinking, to know so much. I will try to be... to talk to Laurie." Or at least present the opportunity, which meant going back to the suite for more than five minutes at a time.

"Good", he said approvingly. "I think all will be well, Yvette, as far as it can be now. In time."

"This is what Dr. Marcel is saying to me, also." She nodded at the letter in his hands. "I am lucky, to have two friends like your Father Michael, I am thinking."

"I was well-taught", Kurt said with a faint smile. "You could say we have both been lucky."