Manuel & Yvette Friday Mid Morning

[x-empath.livejournal.com]

A very unexpected reunion, except both have difficulty recalling the other.


Brushing the heel of his palm over his right eye, Manuel rested his elbow on the arm of the chair, ignoring the stack of papers next to a few spread out before him. He was positively bored beyond belief, but his 'assignment' was to read up on current affairs and relay it back in both essay and verbal formats. He'd been at it all morning and by eleven, he was tired, lazy and dozing when he leaned his cheek into his hand. He hadn't realized he had fallen asleep, intending only to close his eyes for 'just a minute' that actually turned into twenty minutes. No one bothered him as they didn't think it polite to wake him and he looked like someone who had had a long night with little sleep. He believed his long night had extended into six months of long nights. A satisfying deep sleep came rarely now days.

Over by one of the shelves, a small, red figure was struggling to reach a book on one of the higher shelves. Normally Yvette would have asked for help, but no-one else was around except for the young man asleep in one of the chairs and she really wanted the copy of Great Expectations she was reaching for. Stretching as far as she could go on tip-toe, Yvette managed to snag the bottom of the book with one long finger, tugging at it gently. Unfortunately for her, there were several books balanced across the top of that one, and she she tugged a little more firmly to get it free of its fellows, she dislodged them. The resulting book avalanche made her jump back with a cry as several books clattered to the floor.

Jarred out of his slumber, Manuel's heart raced at the sudden cry until he found the source of the noise. His hands dropped down on the table, taking a moment to think. Annoyance flashed in his eyes before he realized her age. It had been a clumsy accident. Pushing himself out of his chair, he went to help her. "Are you alright?" he asked, setting his cane to lean against the bookshelves while he crouched down, finding one book at a time and stacking them.

"Yes. I am sorry to wake you, I did not mean..." Yvette bent to help, seeing the cane, but then she caught sight of his face, and she paused. "To be excusing me... am I knowing you?"

"I don't think the library is meant for sleeping anyways." His hand slowed in stacking the books as he regarded her. His initial response was no, but then he had the distinct feeling he did after another moment longer. She was very familiar as you didn't forget someone like that and a hand brushed his forehead. "What is your name?"


"Yvette," she replied, her glowing eyes narrowed a little in thought. She didn't remember meeting the rather thin and wan-looking young man before, but there was something so familiar about him. "Please, what are you called?"

He would remember those eyes, but even as he rolled it around in his mind, her name brought nothing but a blank. Yes, he would remember those eyes, but perhaps, his memory lies not with her, but her feelings. Never the less, he couldn't remember it and it was unnerving. "I don't think we've met," he said flatly and continued to stack the books. He only paused long enough to say his name. "Manuel."

The name pulled her up short. The boy whose return had caused such a fuss on the journals. "Are you... do you know Jennie? Or Marius?" she asked. The two of them had both seemed to have known him, from their responses on his post.

"Yes, actually, I do." He set the final book down and took a hold of his cane, using it to help him slowly stand. "If you pass them to me, I can return them to the shelf. They were up top, correct?" He held a hand out to take one book at a time. "Yvette, I know. Were you not called... something else?" he asked with hesitation in his voice.

She'd been in the process of passing him the first book, but at his last question, it slipped from her fingers. Memory of eyes that glowed red, a feeling of someone looking for her... "Penance," she said softly. "Penny." The name Marius and Jennie had used for her. The name the slaver had given them as hers.

"Penny," he repeated. A moment passed between them and then broke, Manuel bending down with some effort to collect the book she dropped. "Yes, I remember you now. You're older." He closed his mouth, realizing the absurdity of his comment and cleared his throat. He placed the book on the shelf and held his hand out to take another. "So they brought you here." It was a question as much as it was a statement.

"My powers... I was needing the training and to learn the control." she replied a little wryly, eyes locked on him as she passed him another book. "This is to be sounding strange, but... did you do something? To try to be helping me when I was in the coma?" She ducked her head a little. "I mean, I think I am to remember you, inside my head?"


He took the book from her and placed it on top of the other. Manuel moved fluidly, mechanical though he was watching her when he looked down. Silently watching, piecing it together. When she was in a coma. Manuel stopped, stared at her for a very long time. He tried. He remembered, but not all of it. "I don't remember," he finally admitted, but lied at the same time. "Coma?"

Yvette didn't remember it all either, but she'd been able to piece it together from talking with Marius and Jennie, as well as Mr. Haller. "Marius found me in Paris. With a very bad man. I was... how you say? Hiding, inside my own head. 'Coma' is not being the right word, perhaps. My English, it is not always right." Oh, the eternal frustration of trying to have important conversations in a second language she was still learning. "Like being asleep, only there was no waking. Marius, he b... took me away from the bad man and brought me to his friends. Jennie... and you." She bent to pick up another book. "I think... I think I remember you, calling to me inside my head, but I was too far away."

He recalled some of it and lifted a hand, brushing it over his brow, pressing down against the pressure forming in his temple and a headache was slow in forming. It was like knowing you had something important to do but you couldn't recall what it was. It would come eventually, but he knew if he forced it, it would only frustrate him. "I remember some," he started. "It's very vague." Their laughter, Jennie's panic and overwhelming sense of fear. The inhibitor's beep jarred him from the strain of memory and he dropped his hand, holding it out to take another book. Monotonous tasks kept him sane. He changed the subject. "But they don't call you Penny anymore?"

She shook her head. "Not so much now. Marius and Jennie, they do not like to remember that time so much. I think something bad happened. So they are calling me Yvette, or 'Vette, for the short." She handed him a book and tilted her head at him, concerned. "Are you well, Manuel? You are in the pain?"

He forced to loosen his grip on his cane and visibly forced to relax. "No, I'm fine." He smiled to show her that he was, indeed, okay as he said he was. "It was not a good time for the four of us." He merely confirmed it and moved the subject on. "Do you like being called Penny or Yvette? Would you mind if I called you Penny?"

"I do not mind if you are wanting to call me Penny." There seemed something... lost about him, something displaced, something she recognised. And if he needed to hold onto something vaguely familiar, then she didn't mind helping. "Here is the last book," she said, handing it to him. "Thank you for helping me to be cleaning my mess."

"You're welcome." He took the last book and replaced it, though pointed to the one she had in her hands. "I assume you are taking that one? Tell me something Penny. I cannot place your accent. Where were you born?"

"Yes. It is the one I was wanting to reach, only I am being too short." She sounded a little disgruntled at that. "I was born in Albania," she replied in answer to his question. "But I was being raised in Kosova, with my mother. You are not the American, either, are you?"

"Yes," he said after he considered it. "That makes sense. I'm from Spain - Spanish. You'll have to excuse me, I need to get back to work." He didn't really. Her presence was a welcoming distraction, though he felt a heavy weight and needed to sit without having questions of concern bombarding him. "Good luck with your read."