Nathan and Yvette - Friday afternoon

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Visiting the Elpis office to show something to Nathan, Yvette winds up asking some interesting questions about history and truth.




To all appearances, Nathan appeared to be in a much better mood this
morning than he had for some time. It might have had something to do
with the ever-shrinking pile of files in his inbox - he had been
making some serious headway, these last couple of days - or perhaps
with the single, folded piece of paper stuck where he could see it
every time he looked up. Whatever it was, it got a smile, every time
it was in his line of sight.

Yvette had been busy over the past few days, between the floods in
Iowa, helping with the Blackbird and making sure she kept up with her
summer school work. But she still had time for Elpis, as was exhibited
by her trotting down the path to the boathouse, several books held
carefully in her arms. "Hello!" she called as she reached the office
door. "Who is being home today?"

"Just me, Yvette," Nathan said as the door opened. "Juliette's on a
day off, and... well, actually, I'm not sure where everyone else is."
His smile was slightly teasing. "An quiet office, what a travesty."

"Shh! You will be making the jinx!" Yvette warned him in a similar
teasing tone. "I was finding some interesting things in the library,
and I was thinking to share. Are you not busy?" she asked hopefully.

"Nothing that can't wait," Nathan said easily, setting the current
file aside. He encouraged everyone who worked in the office to do
their own research if something caught their attention, especially the
volunteers; one never knew when something interesting might be turned
up. "What did you find?"

Laying the books carefully on his desk, Yvette perched in the chair
opposite, socked toes curling over the edge of the seat. "These are
the basic language learning books for Albanian and Serbian," she
explained. "I was asking my mother to be sending them, to be helping
the other people? And this is the very good history of the war and the
things the Red Cross was doing - I thought it would be helpful for to
be understanding what the people have been going through, when we are
trying to help with the mutant things. There is very much the
suspicion for the different things because of it."

"Language books are always helpful," Nathan said, taking one of them
and leafing through it. "As is background material. I may read it
myself - my experience in the Balkans was a little earlier than that.
And, well, in a different area entirely."

"And so many of the books are, how you say? The personal angle? So
they are not always so good with the details," Yvette said wryly. "I
am seeing the fighting on the Wikipedia, for the example."

"It's not history yet. So the personal angles are all very fresh,"
Nathan said, picking up the next book. "Oh, they'll still be there,
even twenty or fifty years from now. Less noticeable in what's
written, but sometimes that only increases the influence they have."

"Because they are thought to be the fact only?" Yvette asked,
curiously. "There is the saying, yes, that the history is being
written by the winning people?"

"More that it's written at all. Think of it this way," Nathan said
after a brief pause. "If you were going to write the history of the
school, what would you include?"

Her eyes dimmed slightly in thought. "I think I am seeing what you
mean," she said. "Even if people are very careful to be telling us the
losing stories when we are coming here, about the demons and the
people going bad and the evil relatives. They are, I suppose, the
being careful stories?" She thought some more. "I think I would be
trying to tell all the stories. The school as well as the exciting
things the team is doing."

"And what if you were writing your history ten years from now? If, God
forbid, some of the team had been killed in the interim - their
stories, if you used them, would be second-hand. Or forgotten
entirely." He wasn't sure how they'd gotten onto this subject, but she
seemed thoughtful about it, and critical reading wasn't a bad skill to
be developing.

"But there are the journals and the reports, yes?" she pointed out.
"Things that people are being leaving behind. The historical record,
yes?" Her eyes brightened slightly, echoing her slight smile.

"There are, and they're useful - we need them to know anything. But
you always have to remember that those were written, as well. People
chose what to say, what not to say, how to phrase what they were
saying." Nathan paused again, then nodded to himself. "Think about the
government reports we read. How often we have to look for what's
not said, to tell us what's really happening."

"It is the same with the X-Men reports?" Yvette asked, wondering. "But
yes, there are many things people do not say on the journals because
they are shy, or afraid of looking like the fool." She thought of her
own journal, little-used as it was because she wasn't sure what to
say. Her earlier entries seemed so childish now.

"Sometimes we don't say things we should in X-Men reports. Sometimes
we say things we wish we didn't," Nathan said, and snorted softly.
"For instance, my encounter with a Hungarian coatrack will probably
live forever in infamy."

She giggled a little despite herself. "I think I am hearing about this
from the trainee people," she admitted. "But there is also the silly
thing to be happening. Like Jay nearly drowning in the floods because
he did not fly so well."

"Right. If Jay was writing a report about that, he might be honest, or
he might not be entirely honest," Nathan said, almost in a
drawl. "Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying that people regularly lie
in things they write for posterity, although it happens. More often
it's a case of spinning the truth. Or leaving a few key things out."

"How can we ever be sure of things, then?" she asked. "In the history, I mean."

"Events are one thing. What they mean, or why they happened, is
another. Especially when you're putting history to work, like we often
do with our research, you always have to allow for the fact that you
could be wrong, or not seeing the whole picture." Nathan smiled,
spread his hands briefly. "Best guess is all we've got. That's why we
don't ever stop researching, or making new contacts. Additional
information adds to the picture."

Yvette nodded. "I think I am seeing. Having as much of the information
to hand so we can be making our own decisions, yes?" She tilted her
head. "Is it the same for the X-Men? Sometimes it does not seem like
there is much time to be collecting all the information."

Nathan didn't answer right away. "Sometimes," he finally said,
"there's no time at all. That's why we so often get hurt. We... jump
into things, because we're needed, and so the situation is usually
very unstable. Fluid," he corrected himself, and was silent for a
moment. "You learn to live with the risks, but never easily. That's
also why we train so hard, to be prepared for what might
happen. Mr. Summers and Ms. Munroe dream up potential scenarios for
us."

"It takes the special sort of person, to be dealing with so much that
is not sure," Yvette replied, a little pensively. She was thinking of
Laurie. "Especially when you are the person who needs things to be
certain."

"We all have our ways of dealing with it," Nathan said. "The training
helps. If you know you can be prepared to face most things, it makes
you more confident. There's always the stuff you can't prepare for,
though. Being injured, seeing friends injured - or worse."

"Or sometimes it is making the person more bossy," Yvette said with a
small, wry smile. "I am sorry, Mr. Dayspring, I did not mean to be
making the sad talk."

Nathan made a slightly awkward gesture, but the look in his eyes was
bordering on sad. "It's all right. I don't mind talking about this
stuff." Nice safe generalities. "I think it helps with understanding.
Some of us don't talk a lot, about what we do... it creates a divide
sometimes."

"It does," Yvette agreed softly and a little sadly. "But sometimes
there must be sacrificing, yes? To be doing the greater thing?"

Nathan's smile was only slightly strained. "Well, hopefully less
sacrificing, more living when it's all totaled up."