xp_logs | Crystal and Adrienne - On the Subject of Kidnapping

Backdated to the 29th. Crystal pays a visit to Adrienne to discuss the new teacher's e-mail reply on the topic of her recent journal entry.

Those accustomed to hearing it might have recognized the sound for what it was; Crystal's unique way of knocking on doors by sending three short bursts of air to hit the door. After 'knocking' to announce her presence outside the door, Crystal waited in the hall.

"Terry's not here!" Adrienne bellowed in response to the knock at the door, mentally cursing whichever of her suitemate's friends had come calling. She was sprawled out in bed, laptop set conveniently out of reach to sever her from any communication with people. After agreeing to go on yet another potentially life-threatening jaunt for Garrison, Adrienne was making good on her comment about hiding out until it was time to go. Except holing up in your room without human contact didn't work when people knocked on the door. And since no one ever knocked on the door to talk to her, it had to be for Terry, which was even more annoying. "She's not back until Tuesday! Go away!"

"I am not here to speak with Terry," Crystal responded from the hallway in a polite yet audible-through-the-door voice.

Frowning, the psychometrist rolled over so she could glare at her closed bedroom door. No one ever came to the suite to speak to her. But then again, she had turned her laptop off... maybe she'd missed a staff notice? "Who is it and what do you want?" she asked guardedly from the bed.

"It is Crystal, and I wish to speak with you," the aerokinetic told the psychometrist.

Adrienne pulled her duvet over her head to muffle a curse before throwing it off the bed. She was wearing black cotton capri pants and a red tshirt, quite unlike her normal attire, with no makeup. "Fine, gimme a minute!" Hurriedly she put on slate grey slacks and threw an unbuttoned white blouse on over her tshirt, swiped some mascara on her lashes and shadow over her eyelids, ran a brush through her hair, and slipped into a pair of red peep-toe pumps before opening the bedroom door and the door to the suite. "Did I miss a staff meeting or something?" she asked without ceremony when she'd opened the door to Crystal.

"I do not know of any staff meeting which you might have missed," Crystal said. "I am here to speak with you about the response you made to me when I questioned the content of your recent journal post."

Raising an eyebrow, Adrienne let a laugh escape her lips and left her hand on the door, effectively barring it. "Are you serious? Look, I really can't talk about the kidnapping with you. Sorry you wasted your time coming here."

"I believe that you misunderstand me," Crystal said calmly, although inwardly she did not feel that way. "I do not wish to inquire as to the nature of the kidnapping. I wish to know why you announced it on the journal as you did, even if you did not plan on revealing any of the details. There are quite a few people here, students included, who have been kidnapped on at least one occasion, and a number of them are sensitive about the subject matter. To speak of it the way you did... I really cannot fathom any reason why you acted the way you did, either in public on the journal, or to me either now or in your e-mail."

"'Speak of it the way I did'?" Adrienne scoffed, laughing again, "I wrote two words. If you think those two words were enough to dredge up some hidden trauma for the other people here who've been kidnapped, then lady, you don't give the people here nearly enough credit in the strength department. And if you can't fathom a reason for why I 'acted the way I did', then you must be pretty thick." She was mentally patting herself on the back for not slamming the door in the woman's face and collapsing on the other side in a fit of laughter. The reason for Crystal's visit seemed so unfathomable to her that Adrienne couldn't even seem to work up any indignation over the fact that Crystal was accusing her of acting inappropriately when she didn't have the first idea how she was supposed to have reacted to being kidnapped.

"You wrote more than that, but those two words of which you speak were inappropriate ones," Crystal told the older woman. "I know that this is not an uncommon occurrence, but I suppose I expected more from someone who was became a licensed teacher before becoming involved with this school." She supposed, after the new math teacher's previous journal posts, she shouldn't have been expecting that, but two journal posts in a row revealing supposedly confidential information had not sat very well with Crystal, and then there was the matter of Adrienne's seemingly smug e-mail response to her. "Certain people are more sensitive to certain subjects than others. The fact that they might not respond publicly and tell you this does not mean that they were not upset by what you said. In fact, it has been the habit of more than one student to hide when upset. Not everyone wishes to be the center of everyone else's attention." The young woman shook her head. "Ms. Frost, if you did not intend to answer any inquiries made to you regarding the kidnapping you mentioned, why did you mention it in the first place? No one who did not already know what happened would have even known there was a kidnapping had you not spoken of it in view of the school's students, staff, and residents."

"In case you haven't noticed, lady," Adrienne said with a shake of her head, "becoming a licensed teacher- even at Oxford- doesn't really train someone to deal with the sort of shit that happens here." Beginning to fume now, she took a step closer to Crystal though she kept her arm on the door to slam it quickly if necessary. "And if certain people have problems with what I said, they can deal with me. Who died and made you the fucking peoples' champion, anyway?" she said on a skeptical laugh, white tendrils of hazy anger curling in the corners of her thoughts. "Not to mention fucking journal censor! It's not your business in the slightest, you prissy little shit disturber, but if Garrison had meant for the kidnapping to be kept secret, he would have told me so, and I would have respected his decision." She shook her head again. "And did it never even touch your blissful blonde brain that maybe I mentioned it because I was upset?"

Crystal shook her head, choosing to answer the dark-haired woman's last question first, at least temporarily bypassing all of the rude comments that had been made first. "No. I am sorry, but it did not. I can understand that you were upset, but that is not a reason for posting such a comment on a school journal. I have been upset upon multiple occasions, but not since my first month at Xavier's as a student did I post any harsh words on my journal." There was no point in trying to discuss reason with Adrienne, Crystal realized. Calm, rational questions were not getting real answers. In all certainty, she would not get anything other than more impolite words by pointing out the other woman's flawed logic in referring to the kidnapping as both an event that was meant to be kept confidential and one that had not been expressed to her as worthy of being kept a secret.

"As for being the 'peoples' champion', as you put it... well, someone ought to, yes?" Standing in front of her, Crystal noted, was both the reason she had stayed at the school this year and the reason she was leaving. It was a tempting thought, she discovered, to consider staying again for this reason, but she had already given notice of leaving the staff, and as Scott had pointed out to her months ago, surely the staff members would not want her around, questioning and not trusting. With a polite nod to the psychometrist, Crystal took a step away from the doorway. "Have a good evening. I apologize for disturbing you."

"'That's not a rea'?- all I said was 'fucking kidnapping'!" Adrienne hissed with emotion, struggling to keep from shouting. "For the love of Christ, are you a fucking nun, then? Huh? You're just fucking perfect and you'd never post any 'harsh words'? Well how fucking wonderful for you! A nun and the peoples' champion! Well, you know, for a peoples' champion and a nun you're pretty fucking awful at actually caring when someone admits to being upset about something!" She slammed the door with gusto as Crystal bid her a good evening, closing it so enthusiastically that the coffee table in the middle of the room shook, upending a glass that had been left on it. Grimacing, Adrienne shook her head as the glass broke into several pieces and allowed herself a wan laugh. Hopefully when Terry returned the redhead would be a little more understanding of her than Crystal had been.

Well. Crystal shook her head lightly and turned from the door, heading down the hallway to her own suite. That was one person Crystal certainly would not miss when she left in two weeks. Hopefully, Adrienne would not use such tones and words when speaking to the students. It was a pity the woman couldn't seem to speak in a calm and rational manner; Crystal would have preferred to have been able to hold an actual conversation with the Oxford alumna, to see if she at least held a glimmer of the idea that the students were the important ones here, that they came first... or at least, they should. With an internal sigh, Crystal opened the door to her room and went inside, trying to push away all thoughts of the events of the past two days, at least for the moment.