xp_logs | Angelo and Yvette, Wednesday afternoon

Yvette comes out to find Angelo on the dock. Serious talk is had and progress is made.

He'd been backsliding on the cigarettes again, and Angelo knew it perfectly well. He was trying, he really was, but after everything that had happened... at least he wasn't slipping out to the dock more than once an hour?

There was a small sound at the door as it opened, and then Yvette's voice came hesitantly: "Mr. Angelo? I am sorry to be interrupting, but I am being done with those papers you wanted me to translate..."

He glanced round at her, half-smiling as he lowered the cigarette. "You're not interruptin', Yvette. This isn't alone time, it's just Nate won't let me smoke inside."

Oddly enough, she remained hovering at the door, instead of joining him as the half-smile might have usually invited. "Oh. That is okay, then." It didn't sound like it was, however. "Is there something else you did want me to do?"

"...not that I can think of right this second", he said after a moment's thought, giving her a slightly odd look. "You could ask one of the others if you're bored?"

She gave a small shrug. "There does not seem to be much else that I can be doing - perhaps I should go back to the mansion and practice my English some more with someone." Certainly with all the new staff, there wasn't a lot Yvette could do that wasn't already being handled, apart from translation from Serbian or Albanian. Her hands, for example, made filing tricky.

Angelo nodded. "Fair enough. It's already got a lot better, y'know."

"Thank you." She turned to go, but then paused and looked up at him again. "Your friend, who was hurt... is he any better now?"

Angelo went still as stone at that, hand frozen in the act of lifting the cigarette for another drag. After a moment, shakily, he finished the motion before answering. "He's just about as much better as he's gonna get."

"I am sorry. That he was hurt." She paused again, obviously wrestling with something, and then made herself say it. Dr. Samson had told her talking to people was a good thing and she was tired of tiptoing around Angelo. "Mr. Angelo... are you still angry at me?"

That got a look - sharp, but more in confusion than anything, before he remembered. It seemed a long time ago, now. "Ah, Yvette... I was never angry with you. Not even really with Laurie."

She flinched a little at the sudden movement, but held her ground. "It did seem you were angry at us," she said softly. "When you were saying such things on the journal. But we did not know that your friend had been hurt. Laurie did not mean any harm."

She was scared of him - and that was a sharper pain than he'd expected, before he reminded himself firmly that maybe she should be. "I know. I was just... angry. But not with you."

Her eyes dimmed slightly at that and when she spoke, there was something... disappointed? "But you are the teacher, Mr. Angelo. And I thought you were the friend, also. This is not how the teacher and the friend is acting, even if they are angry, yes?"

"Probably shouldn't be", he admitted. "But I'm not perfect at anythin', even bein' a friend."

"No-one can be perfect, no. But when we are being responsible for the other people, we must be responsible for ourselves, also." Yvette shook her head. "But this is not the normal school and I do not know all the customs of America."

"America's got more customs than you could ever know, not growin' up here", Angelo said wryly. "Even New York's a different place than where I grew up. An' I... really wasn't okay, that week."

"What I think is the right thing to be doing is not always what others think," she explained. "But perhaps, if there is the other time you are not so okay, you do not read the journals? Because we cannot all be the mindreaders like Mr. Dayspring."

"Yeah. I try to do that, when I'm thinkin' straight enough to remember it's a good idea. But sometimes when things really get bad, I don't." There were still enough broken places in his mind to make that true.

"Then perhaps that is the time you need to be talking to someone the most?" she hazarded. "I do not mean to be telling you what to do, Mr. Angelo, but to see you saying such things..." She gulped a little. "It was like when Miss Dane was using the powers Shiro, to me. The person I was trusting doing something to make someone be hurt."

"I've done worse things than that", he said quietly. "An' I don't just mean years ago. I don't want you to be scared of me, Yvette, but maybe you need to know what part of me's really like."

"Then perhaps you should not be the teacher, then," came her response. "Mr. Angelo, I do not care if you were the bad person before. Many of my friends have done the bad things and I give them the chance if they are wanting to be better. But to be a teacher... it is more than to be showing the students how to do a thing or to tell them when they are doing wrong. It is being the example. And if you cannot be controlling these bad parts of you that make you angry at a student for the silly little joke, then I cannot be respecting you as the teacher." There was a certain determination in her voice, and she faced him down with her eyes glowing brightly. "You did stop being the teacher when you were not being okay, but if you want to be the teacher again, this is the thing you must remember."

"I've thought about givin' it up", he told her honestly. "I started it 'cause Lorna asked me an' I thought it was a thing worth teachin', but there's that an' then there's bein' a teacher, an' they're different. I don't think I think like a teacher."

"I do not think many of the teachers think like the teacher," she confessed wryly. "But again, this is the strange country to me and things are not how they are in the schools in Kosova." She regarded him again and then gave a small nod. "It is good, that you are thinking. Many do not."

"Some people say I think too much", he said wryly. "But thanks."

"Only sometimes. Sometimes you do not think so much before you are typing," she reminded gently, but there was a small lifting of the corner of her mouth. "I am glad we could be talking. I did not like to be frightened of you, Mr. Angelo."

"I didn't like it either. But when I'm not bein' like I was then, you can always come talk to me."

"As long as you are not making the habit of being so?" she asked, still teasing slightly, but with an edge of seriousness.

"I'll try not to where any of you can see it", was the only promise he could give.

She nodded. "This is enough."