Jean and Yvette - backdated to last Monday

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Backdated to last Monday - Jean checks up on Yvette following the return of her powers.




After the events with Derek and Haven, Jean wondered how the students involved were coping. Kevin, being a constant patient given his injuries, was pretty easy to figure out. But there were a couple, namely Yvette, that she thought about. The girl had gone from practically untouchable to human and back again. It had to have been quite the change.

Opening her mind, Jean searched for Yvette's mental signature and found it at the treehouse. She stood at the bottom, peering up toward the tree where the wooden structure peeked out among the foliage. The leaves were starting to have tinges of red and yellow among the green, hints of the fall to come.

"Yvette? It's Jean. Mind if I come up?"

A pointed red face appeared at one of the windows, blue eyes flaring brighter in greeting. "Dr. Jean?" Yvette replied, sounding a little surprised, but not displeased. "No, it is all right, let me come down - there is not so much of the space up here." And with that she disappeared from view, only to reappear in the trees branches, clambering down with practiced ease. "Hello!" she called, pausing in mid-hang from one of the lower branches. "Was there something you were needing?"

Jean stepped back to give Yvette some better room for her landing, instinctively studying the girl in her usual doctorly fashion. It had become second nature over time, to assess those around her. While their thoughts were usually kept at arm's length, background noise (unless it was really important), their physical well being was another matter. She had grown pretty adept at picking out the wrench in the cogs sometimes.

Even if lately it seemed she had become what Jean-Paul called 'the meddler,' and found her deductions wrong. Somehow she found herself wanting to don a mask and find a group of teenagers with a dog and a van to scare because of the title.

"Hi," Jean said, her smile brightening a bit. She shook her head. "Just wanted to check in on you, see how you were," she said. She left the reason why to the air. It was easy to guess.

And Yvette was a quick-witted girl. She dropped from the branch, landing in a crouch characteristic of Kyle or Logan, and then straightened. "After Derek," she clarified, her eyes dulling a little. Her face was, as always, hard to read, given her powers, but her tone spoke volumes. "It is hard, Dr. Grey. Very hard. But I try not to complain."

Jean gave her a soft smile. "It was a selfless thing you did. Many wouldn't have made the same choice," she said. Live a 'normal' life, able to feel the breeze on your skin, to hug someone without the risk of ripping them to shreds, or choose to go back to the way you were, to spare someone of the same fate?

"If you ever need to talk, though, you know where my door is," she said. The comments on the journals made by the others toward Yvette didn't escape her notice.

Sometimes Jean let them work it out amongst themselves, especially the graduates who still lived at the school. They were adults now. They were no longer supposed to be sheltered. They were supposed to be able to know how to walk in the world more wisely, and learn to take on the challenges that came upon setting foot on their new, uncharted landscape themselves.

But she couldn't completely ignore everything. It wouldn't be who she was.

Yvette looked uncomfortable. "It was not such the choice," she admitted. "When we found out about Derek, well, there was not anything else we could do but the right thing." And she had come very close to not doing it, she admitted to herself. Perhaps if Cammie and Kevin had not reclaimed their powers first, she might not have at all.

Jean walked over to the tree, taking shelter from the sunlight under its branches as she leaned against the trunk.

"And unfortunately, the right choice is often the hard choice," she said. She fell silent for a few moments before her eyes trailed up to the light red-splashed leaves on the trees.

"The reward for getting to wave the white flag of propriety is you get to feel like crap. The world is well and good and spins as it rightfully should, but your life is miserable. Doesn't seem like a fair trade, does it?"

Jean would never know what life was truly like for Yvette, she could only draw from her own experiences and try to relate. She certainly had a wide-array of happenings to choose from.

The irony of ironies was knowing every thought if she so chose but instead being completely wrong every once and awhile in certain situations as to a person's intentions. Jean-Paul was a good, vibrant example. She still cringed looking back at some of their more recent conversations.

Yvette started a little guiltily at having her thoughts spoken aloud, then nodded and scuffed at the ground with her long toes. "It sucks," she replied, using one of the expressions she'd picked up from Kyle. "But I have learned, there is little in life that is fair. So there is nothing for it but to make the most of things, yes?"

Jean's gaze drifted toward the ground, staring at Yvette's toes for a moment or two before she glanced back up to her with a slow smile.

"Yes, you're right," she said. She'd tried to tell herself over time that if there weren't bad things we wouldn't know what was good.

Even if their idea of bad could get oh so very bad.

"We do what we can. Because that's all that matters." But it would've been nice to have idyllic paradise.

"It was strange," Yvette said, after a moment. "Derek... he did not mind having my powers. Or any of the others. He thought it was good that he could help us by taking them. I wish I could be so... I do not know the word in English. Generous, perhaps?"

"He may have thought he was being generous, or noble, but he was taking on too much for him to handle. There comes a time when generosity must be forfeited if it means surpassing your limits and becoming a danger to yourself. His life was in danger and he was too preoccupied with what he thought was a good thing to realize that."

"It's a sad thing."

Her gaze drifted up toward the sun shining through the leaves.

"I try to believe in the old saying that fate gives us only what it thinks we can handle. We rise up to overcome the burdens we are given and if they are too great then we have friends to help carry us," she said, then smiled softly. "On my darkest days, sometimes I have my doubts. But I know the bad will not last forever. I know to cherish what I have been given."

Glancing back down, she let out a breath and laughed.

"Sorry, I was waxing philosophic there."

Yvette's eyes were glowing softly. "No, it is okay," she replied, softly. "It is... helpful, to hear such things. Sometimes I forget that I am not alone - when you must keep apart from others so as not to hurt them, it is easy to think you must do everything for yourself." She gave the teacher a small smile. "Thank you."

Jean smiled back gently, nodding a little.

"You're welcome," she said.

Some of what she told her were things she'd been trying to tell herself lately.