Yvette and Julian - Getting To The Truth

[x-penance.livejournal.com]

Yvette runs into Julian down by the pool, trying to make waves, and rather than leaving him to it, she decides to get to the bottom of the recent drama. Sometimes near-death has a way of changing priorities.



Yvette had never been much of one for the pool area before her accident - with her powers, she was too heavy to swim and she couldn't always count on her classmates knowing that and not throwing her in as a joke. But with the knowledge the inhibitor would come off soon, she was taking as much advantage of the device as she could. Including venturing down to the pool on a particular muggy day. She wasn't planning on swimming - she wasn't skilled enough to do so alone - but she could always wade in the shallow end.

Several physics books, most of them uselessly filled with babble, lay scattered around his deck chair as Julian reached out with his mind and started the small tugs in the liquid atmosphere within the pool. Slowly he attempted the subtle push and pull motions that would eventually build a small wave. Quietly he whispered, "Come on...not again."
It always happened in the same way, the crest starting to overtake itself until it fell and collapsed the wave- sending a surge of water over the sides of the pool. "Damnit," he said, opening one eye as the water lapped at his feet.

Yvette stopped dead as she realized who it was at the poolside, and she might have left without Julian even knowing she was there, except that his latest attempt at wave-making sloshed enough water over the edges of the pool that her feet were engulfed by a small flood. Compared to the air, the water was cold, and she was still adapting to being able to feel smaller temperature differences - with a muffled squeal, she danced back away from the water, nearly dropping her book in the process.


Julian craned his head, trying to puzzle out who the girl was and froze when he realized it was Yvette dancing away from the wave. What could he possibly say to her now? She'd made it quite clear that she didn't want to see him, but he'd been here first. After a moment their eyes met and he blurted out, "Hey."

What she wanted to do was turn around and walk back out, but two things stopped her. The first was the politeness that had been drilled into her from birth, practically - it would be rude to just walk out without even acknowledging his greeting, as much as she wanted to be rude. The second was the genuine hurt she had felt at hearing what he had said to Angel, after the promise he'd made. She'd thought he was a decent person - the story Angel had told didn't make sense. And while she trusted her roomie to be telling the truth, she knew there was always another side to a story. She wanted to know Julian's - at least then she could feel better about being angry at him if she knew the whole thing.

Finally, after a long moment of just staring at him, the small girl gave him a small, polite nod. "Hello." She chewed on her lip for a moment, not sure what else to say. "What are you doing?"

It was more than he'd expected to hear from her, "Um," ended up being his only response for a moment. How best to explain what he was trying to accomplish anyway? Julian decided to just attempt to explain, "I'm trying to make a wave so I can teach some people how to surf." 'That was simpler than I thought.'

"The beach is being broken?" she asked, with just a touch of sarcasm - after all, she was mad at him. "That you cannot go there for the surfing?"

The original intent of this experiment had been to teach Yvette how to surf, but it was starting to get exhausting. Slowly Julian stood and picked up his towel. "It's all yours then." If she didn't want him there, he could give her some privacy.

She felt a twinge of guilt as he began to move off, his posture clearly stating he wasn't at all happy. Scuffing her toes in a puddle left by the wave, Yvette took a breath and, before he got too far away, suddenly asked: "Why were you breaking your promise, Julian? You said you would not try to make Angel hurt again, but you are saying the mean things to her."

The question caught him in midstep and he paused, turning his head slightly. Julian wasn't used to people around the mansion being so direct. After a moment he turned to face her soft features, "I only said anything mean after she started to...to..." he gathered himself and sighed. "Be mean to me."

Yvette blinked. That just didn't sound like Angel. Was Julian trying to make himself look better by lying, or was there something else going on here? Again, she wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt - he'd always been a decent sort of person, generous almost to a fault. But Angel being mean didn't seem to fit the story she'd been told either. "I do not understand," she said at last. "It does not seem to be what Angel is telling me. What is she saying to you?"

"Does it really matter, Yvette?" it came out angrier than Julian had intended. With a shake of his head he put up an apologetic hand, she'd done nothing to deserve that. "I'm sorry...I just...she just...." A sigh, "Okay, look, you seemed pretty firm on the whole I don't want to ever see you again thing, so I was trying to give you some space. Do you want that, or do you want to know what Angelica said to me?"

She flushed, and looked down at the ground again. "I was angry," she said at last. "When I was sending the email. And hurt. I thought I could be trusting you, that you were my friend, and then to find out you are having the new stupid fight with Angel... I was feeling like you were lying to me, to make me like you." She looked up, meeting his eyes with her own soft brown ones. "But you are not that sort of person. Or I do not want to believe you are. So there must be the other side of the story, yes? And I would like to be hearing it." She gestured to the loungers. "Please, to sit and talk? I am sorry for being rude to you."

Hesitantly, Julian started back toward the pool and took a seat next to her on the pool loungers. "Okay. That email hurt me more than the fight with Angelica by the way." Running a hand through his hair, "After blaming me for the set-up she rubbed it in my face that her parents love her more than mine do."

"That... does not seem like the sort of thing Angel would be saying." Yvette frowned again, not at Julian but more in thought. Obviously there was some sort of miscommunication here, since Julian wouldn't just lie about something like that, but neither would Angel do that. "Please, I am not saying you are lying, but perhaps you are taking something the wrong way? What is she saying exactly?"

"She was pretty clear about it- I mean, she was talking about she's already a trainee and I won't be able to be until October...and...and...." Was that really it? It sounded so stupid spoken out loud. "Well, that was it really. But it's totally what she meant, I'm sure."

Someone else - Kyle perhaps - would have responded with disbelief and a loud 'are you on CRACK?!' Yvette, however, was skilled at controlling her reactions - when a sudden change of mood could result in potentially injuring someone, she had learned to be. So instead she blinked a few times, and then said, hesitantly: "Ah, perhaps I am not understanding the English so well. You are saying that Angel said she is already a trainee, and that means that her parents are loving her more than yours do to you?"

Blushing the shade that Yvette usually was, Julian looked at the calming waters of the pool. "Well when you put it like that...but...." He had told her about the letter right? "Oh, shhhooot," he nearly cussed, catching Yvette's eyes before finishing the word. "She didn't know about the letter...we weren't talking at the time."

"Letter?" Yvette asked, still not really following. Apparently Julian's train of thought was on a whole different track than hers.

"Oh, yeah, sorry." He looked dazed, "Okay...so, a while back, I called home and they wouldn't talk to me, so I left a message about joining the team. A little while later, I got a letter." A lump rose in his throat, "It was a business letter that summarily shot down the request- rather...um...well, it was actually dictated to my dad's secretary. He wouldn't even sign it. I'm not..." he shut his eyes, "apparently, I'm not worth the time."

"Oh, Julian, I am so sorry..." The incident between Julian and Angel was temporarily forgotten at the sight of Julian, usually so good at hiding his feelings, on the brink of tears. Yvette reached out hesitantly, not sure if he would appreciate the contact, and laid her small hand over his. "Your parents, they are wrong, Julian. You are very much worth the time."

"Yeah, but not to them...and not to Angel." A sniffle and a wipe of the eyes later, "Look, I'm sorry that I was mean to her...and it sounds like it wasn't for any good reason."

"What is the saying? We cannot be choosing our family, but we can choose our friends? Just because someone is the parent does not mean they should be allowed to hurt us like this." Yvette hesitated, then added in a confiding tone. "My new kidney, it is from my father. He was in prison for the war crimes, to be executed. When the teachers are asking him to help me, he is saying no." She sighed. "It was hurting, to know that even when he was going to die, he would not help me to live. He might be the man who is making me, but that is all he is being." She squeezed Julian's hand. "I know it is hard, to be feeling like your parents do not want you, but you are having the friends here who are caring. And it helps, to talk about it. Perhaps that is the problem with you and Angel? You are so worried about your parents and she is so worried about me, that you are both very tired and stressed, yes? And this makes people to be angry without thinking." She gave him a small, wry smile. "Like I was, when I am emailing you."

Julian nodded, sniffling again, "Yeah." He was NOT going to cry. "So, hey," he cracked a phony smile, "you wanted to know what I was doing with the wave. Callie, Fred and I had this idea to take you to the ocean and I'd teach you how to surf. When you got mad, we were going to, sorta," he made a wobbly hand gesture, "kidnap you out of your room Then Callie figured it'd be a bad idea. So I was trying to figure out how to make it work in the pool."

"The doctors probably would not have liked it, no. But it was the very nice idea. Thank you." Yvette recognised the signs of someone trying to pull themselves together, and let him be. "So you are learning to make the waves, for me?" She smiled. "We cannot be letting this effort go to the waste - I am not such the good swimmer, but I am sure you can be the lifeguard for me, yes?"

Wiping a tear away, his smile became genuine. "Of course I can. Can't let anything bad happen to you or Angel really will kill me," he winked, hoping the sarcasm had been clear.