Yvette and Jean-Paul - Backdated to the night of the 5th

[x-cynosure.livejournal.com]

Yvette flees the tension indoors and runs into Jean-Paul. Not literally.



Yvette hated shouting. As soon as she could tell it was "safe", she crept out of the mansion, thinking perhaps to spend some time up in the treehouse. The air as bitterly cold and her breath fogged as she exhaled, eyes glowing brightly in the darkness. For a moment she was tempted to go for a run in the woods instead, but she knew people would worry if she disappeared for too long. The treehouse was close enough to count as being 'inside', and those who knew her well enough would check there if they missed her.

There weren't likely to be many people out and about in the cold once the sun went down, but Jean-Paul was one of them. He only just caught the furtive movement through the trees out of the corner of one eye as he headed back from his evening run, but, tense as things had been since the attack, he was unwilling to just dismiss anything that seemed like suspicious activity.

"Who is there?"

Yvette squeaked and leapt back, tripping over a branch and landing on her butt, her eyes flaring brightly in the darkness. "It is me," she quavered, knowing she had to answer to avoid something X-Man-like.

It was more the intense blue of the girl's eyes than the sound of her voice that sparked recognition in the older mutant.

"Yvette? What are you doing out here so late?" He headed her way, careful of his footing. Falling alone would be bad for his pride. Falling against the girl would not be good for anyone.

"I was taking the walk. There was the arguing..." Yvette sounded a little sheepish, picking herself back up and resisting the instinct to brush her bare hands against the seat of her pants - she liked this jeans. "I am sorry to be surprising you, Mr. Beaubier."

"It is all right. I was thinking too hard anyway." She was such a tiny bit of a girl, really. It was difficult to even think of being mad at her. "Who was fighting?"

"Nori and her parents. It was in Japanese, so I did not know what they were saying, but Nori was very angry." Yvette sighed a little. "Everyone is being angry and upset lately. Even the good times are not staying so long."

"It's been a difficult season for everyone here," Jean-Paul agreed quietly. "But it does let up eventually."

"Not always," she replied, sadly. "For Jay and Mr. Kane and Miss Moonstar, I do not think there is the happy ending." She drew a slightly wobbly breath and said the words that some might have thought, but few said. "I think they are being dead."

"I think they probably are too." Perhaps he shouldn't have been so surprised to hear the acknowledgment of such a grim possibility from the girl, given her history, but he was. "They will find the ones who did this...but that doesn't help much, I know. Sometimes, not at all."

"Jay was my friend. He was the strange boy sometimes, but he was my friend." The eyeglow dimmed, but Yvette was too armoured up to be able to cry. "He was not the fighter, Mr. Beaubier. Just a silly boy who wanted to play the music and be in love."

"Silly boy" about summed up Jean-Paul's impression of the young man; he couldn't really imagine the school's youngest Guthrie as a combatant and quickly shoved aside the mental assessment of how easy he must have been to...

"No. He didn't deserve to finish up like that. None of them did. I am sorry, Yvette."

She let out a small whimpering noise and closed her eyes for a moment, visibly fighting for control as her hair became long, deadly-looking spikes. "I want to be the X-Man," she said after a while, opening her eyes again. They blazed brightly. "When I am old enough. I want to stop the people who would do this, who would kill all those people in New York."

"I think you would do well at it. Though in that line of work, it is usually better in the long term to concentrate on those you help than on those who hurt. We are almost always too late to save someone, no matter how hard we try."

"But the ones you are saving are enough, yes?" was the reply. "It is enough, so to be going on?"

A few months ago, his answer would have been non-committal, perhaps a sardonic negative. Going into Manhattan, though, as small an amount of good as he'd managed in the face of all the casualties and destruction, it had not been so small to three families. It was not enough to make him want to put on the colors again, but it was a reminder that his old life had not been a complete waste of time.

"It may be the only thing that will get you out of bed some mornings."