xp_logs | Crystal and Yvette

While waiting for Laurie during a visit to her mother in the hospital, Crystal questions Yvette on the younger girl's behavior toward her.

Crystal looked at the spiky girl setting in the chair next to her in the hospital's waiting room. Laurie was in Mrs. Collins's hospital room, leaving Crystal and Yvette in the mostly empty waiting room. Throughout the past two weeks, Crystal had done her best to keep her visit on a positive note, even if that hadn't always worked out. She hadn't missed the younger girl's... oddness toward her, but since Yvette hadn't said anything to her about it, she hadn't asked.

"It is nice that you have been coming to the hospital with Laurie," Crystal told Yvette, smiling. "It is good for Laurie to know that she has someone there for her."

Yvette was perched uneasily on the hard plastic chair, acutely aware of any exposed skin. "I am her friend, and I try to help her, Miss Crystal," she said simply. "It is very good of you also, to be bringing us to the hospital." Her tone was, as it always had been since Crystal's return, polite.

Crystal was leaving soon. Later that evening, in fact, right after she dropped Laurie and Yvette back at the mansion. She didn't know when she'd be back, and she didn't want to leave anything unresolved. You never knew what might happen or how long you might be unable to communicate with someone.

"Yvette, is there something you wish to ask me or tell me?"

Yvette glanced over at the now much older girl, blinking a little in surprise. It wasn't like Crystal to be so... direct. It wasn't polite. "I am not sure what you are... what you mean, Miss Crystal," she replied, correcting herself in mid-slip verb-wise. Her English had improved, but she was still not perfect. "Is there something to be wrong?"

"That is what I would like to find out." Crystal leaned back in the uncomfortable chair for a moment, then moved slightly forward again, her back resting against a cushion of air. "Is something wrong? If something is the matter, you can tell me."

"I... Have I done the wrong thing?" Yvette asked, frowning ever-so-slightly. The stress of Laurie's family problems, combined with her roommate's powers leaking when they were in their room, meant Yvette's skin had hardened again, making facial expressions difficult. "I would not like to be making you cross with me, Miss Crystal. If I have done something, I am sorry for it."

"I am not upset with you, Yvette." Crystal sighed slightly. "I thought maybe you were upset with me. Perhaps I was mistaken."

Oh. Yvette squirmed a little, ducking her head. "I am not upset with you, Miss Crystal," she said at last. "But..." She paused not sure how to go on.

"But what?" Crystal asked gently. She didn't want to offer any guesses as to what the problem was without giving Yvette the chance to ask it on her own terms. When Yvette had had questions about what Logan had told her, she'd been nervous and unsure, but she'd still spoken with Crystal about her concerns on her own.

"It is very strange!" Yvette blurted out. "When you left, you are being the student. Now, you are the grown-up, and I do not know how to be thinking!" Her tone was almost bewildered. "And you will be going home again, to stay, and I..." She ducked her head a little. "I do not know how to be, with you. You are the princess, and the grown-up, and you are not like the other people who are at the mansion. They are the university students, or the teachers. You are... the visitor, I am supposing?" She gave Crystal a pleading look. "Please, I do not mean to be rude."

"I am a university student, Yvette." Crystal smiled softly at her former suitemate. "I just do not sit in a classroom with other students. I even brought books with me to study so that I can continue turning in my assignments on the schedule I set. Not everyone at the mansion is a teacher or a university student, but yes, I am a visitor. I am not the first person to come to Xavier's for a visit. That is not quite the real issue, though, is it?" She paused for a moment, considering her words. "Yvette, when I left the school, I was a high school graduate. Regardless of what happened after that, I was finished taking classes at Xavier's. It is just... I would have been taking classes for maybe a month instead of two years."

"Then why did you come back?" Yvette asked, then clapped her hand over her mouth. There was addressing issues, and then there was just being plain rude. "I mean, you were happy to go, and you did not make the secret that you did not like it here. And now you are back, but you are not the same person, you are so very much older, and I do not know if I should be speaking to you as the person who used to be living in the suite with us, or the grown-up who is so very much above us now." She dropped her eyes, distressed, watching the skin on the back of her hands harden even more. Calm, she had to keep calm, or she'd be too spiky to do anything. "I am sorry, I do not have the right words."

Why had she come back? Pietro and Nathan had mentioned it, asked when she would visit and suggested people might want to see her. Crystal had felt that way, too, felt in a way that there was unfinished business. She'd also felt confined on Attilan and had wanted to go... somewhere. Anywhere. For two years, she hadn't expected to see anyone she'd met in New York ever again (other than Forge, of course) and then she'd been given the chance to see them again. So she had.

"I do not wish for you to be uncomfortable," Crystal said. "I have changed, that is true. In some ways, I am the Crystal you knew, and in other ways I am not. I came to visit because I believed people would want to see me, and perhaps I wanted to see people as well. it is one thing to know that very little time passed for other people and another thing to actually see it. I am, as you have said, a visitor here. I am not a teacher at Xavier's, and I am not here to be 'above' you. A large part of why I stayed in New York this extra week was to be there for Laurie, even if my 'being there' is simply providing her with a ride, not questioning her, and being fully prepared to lake anyone who might try to give her a hard time." She grinned just a bit at her last statement.

"It is good, to see you," Yvette replied, eyes glowing faintly at the lake comment. "And the problem, it is mine. I should not make it yours. But it is hard, not knowing. You say you are not here to be above us, but in a way, you have always been so - you have so much better the control of your powers, and you are not needing to learn as much as we are. And I am, how do you say? The baby of the group?" Yvette sighed a little. "It is too confusing. But I am glad, that you have been here for helping Laurie. She is needing her friends at this moment."

Crystal nodded. "I worked hard to have such a level of control over my abilities, to discover what I could do with them and practice the variety of ways in which they can be used. It did not happen overnight or even in a year. There was very much to learn about what I can do too, I just learned a lot of it at an earlier age than most people." That was one of the things she wasn't sure if people understood; just like everyone else, her powers had not come with a manual or a magic "perfect control" switch. She had worked hard on refining her abilities, had been able to fly and play with air pressure at an age at which most mutants hadn't manifested yet. "I will be only a plane ride away, perhaps even just a teleport away at some point in the near future. If you or Laurie or anyone else needs me, all you have to do is let me know and I will be there for you."

"I must confess, I do not understand why you were the student at the school," Yvette said softly, embarrassed at voicing these thoughts. "You did not like it so very much, and you did not need to be learning with your powers. It seemed very strange you should be there." She shrugged a little. "And now you have become the graduate, as you are saying, so you do not need to be there again. Except to be seeing your friends." Her eyes moved to the door of Mrs. Collins' room. "Laurie, she is thinking she made the cancer, with her powers. Doctor Grey-Summers told her this is not the truth, but I do not know if she believes it."

"If that is what Dr. Grey-Summers told her, she should believe it." Crystal's voice was firm. "Dr. Grey-Summers would not lie to her in such a manner." Whatever she believed about the school and the people there, now or in the past, she'd be hard-pressed to believe that the doctor would lead Laurie astray this way, even in a well-intentioned attempt to spare the girl's feelings. Things had a way of coming out, and the backlash of such a lie was bound to be exponentially worse in the long-run than an admission now would be.

"Yvette," Crystal continued, unsure as to whether or not the change in topic had been Yvette's way to keep her from actually explaining why she had been at the school, "is how to control and improve powers all that is taught at Xavier's?" She shook her head. "It is a school for mutants, yes, but it is an actual school as well. It has an education program beyond learning how to use, or perhaps not use, the abilities granted to mutants by their genes. Xavier's provides an environment for young mutants to learn about their powers while at the same time gaining an education with the intention of allowing them to complete the classes necessary in order to earn a high school diploma. While I could have continued, and finished, my education in Attilan, when I met Mr. Summers's brother Alex in Hawaii, my parents decided that they wanted me to finish my secondary education abroad, at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters."

It seemed strange to Yvette that Crystal's parents would insist on doing such a thing even when their daughter expressed unhappiness about being at the school, but it wasn't for her to say so. Especially when Crystal's parents were dead now. "I see," she said, ducking her head a little. "And it is not... how do you say? Relevance? It is not relevance now? You have finished being the student, and now you are to be going home again."

"Relevant," Crystal answered. During her time at Xavier's as a student, she'd been careful to avoid correcting Yvette so that the other girl wouldn't think she was being rude. But now, Yvette had made it clear that she wasn't sure if she was using the proper word, and phrased it in a way that made it perfectly fine to 'correct' her. Crystal gave Yvette a nod, sighing inwardly. "Yes, when visiting hours are over, I will take you and Laurie back to Xavier's and then I will return to Attilan."

"It has been good, to be seeing you again," Yvette said, then glanced up as the door to Gail's room opened and Laurie appeared, looking weary. Immediately, Yvette slid off her chair, to go support her roommate. "And you are not disappearing again, so this is also good."

Crystal hadn't intended to disappear, and she didn't have any intention of disappearing again. Who knew what could happen, though? She couldn't promise to keep herself from disappearing, but since the exact way she had disappeared the first time couldn't happen again, and given the chances of the island disappearing twice under diffferent people's powers were quite slim, Crystal was fairly certain disappearing from the world was not in her near future.

"Yes, very good," Crystal said softly, standing up as Yvette went to Laurie. She watched them for a moment, then focused on Laurie, recalling the fact that Laurie's seventeenth birthday was the next day. Smiling a bit, she had a thought. Crystal was leaving shortly, but perhaps she could help Laurie celebrate her birthday before she left. At the very end, Yvette had seemed to be more herself, more at ease with Crystal. Hopefully, she'd want to come, too.