Vanessa & Sarah | Thursday morning

[x-copycat.livejournal.com]

Vanessa walks into the X-Factor office and unexpectedly finds their new Girl Friday back at work

With Lucas and Jean-Paul off in Colorado with Warren and company Vanessa was stuck in the office for the entirety of the day. She was anticipating a long day of being bored between consultations. What she wasn't anticipating was the young brunette at the reception desk, who must have slipped into the office while Vanessa had been downstairs in her flat. Apparently that key to the main door had come in handy. An eyebrow arched up, a curious expression coming over her face. "Have you decided to flee DC and you're hiding out in the office? I have to tell you, your job is the first place they're going to look for you. If you're hiding out because you've killed a man in Reno then I know somewhere we can hide you in Boston," she offered with a small upward quirk at the corner of her mouth.

Having learned her lesson from her first day on the job and her conversation with Bishop, Sarah was dressed much more casually nowadays at her job. He had been right, it was much easier to deal with your job when you were more comfortable yourself. She'd gladly jumped at the chance to work more shifts when she returned to Xavier's after Christmas, taking the extra time to work harder on the process of digitizing all the things in the office, payroll aside as per Bishop's instructions of course. She smiled when she heard another voice and looked up to see Vanessa. "Just trying to catch up on things. And thank you, I think, but I'm good!" Not that she'd ever planned to kill someone but she'd know who to turn to if it ever came up now. "How are you doing?"

"Are you trying to accomplish Lucas' dream of being completely digital?" She glanced over the desk's piles of files on her way to the kitchen area. Coffee was a necessity even though she had a cup in her hand from her favorite cafe in the area. If she didn't make coffee then she would just use it as an excuse to keep leaving to get more from Puccini. "Don't tell Lucas this, but we legally have to keep records for seven years and if the tech explodes I want to make sure we have the hard copy as back up. We can store it all in my place if he starts to pout." Hey, everyone needed their dreams and if Lucas' was to be entirely paperless then she would let him have his dream...and then keep the back up in case his dream failed miserably.

"Uh-huh, I sure am." Sarah patted the computer, she had put a good dent into the records since she'd been there. All of the originals were being put back into their proper boxes once she'd scanned them in, she definitely agreed that they should keep a hard copy around somewhere, as well as a back up of their hard drives. "I won't tell Bishop, promise, I'm keeping them all organized and together." Following Vanessa's gaze, Sarah looked into the kitchen area and then back. "I made coffee too, I thing the machine's getting used to me now. Or, well, I'm getting used to it, I guess." Thankfully it hadn't been the toaster situation all over again.

"So you're not going to cause it to spontaneously blow up?" She gave Sarah a considering look, then nodded. "Good to know. If you blow up my coffee maker then I may need to reevaluate whether or not I let you in the office or if I make you work from the stairwell. You just can't get in the way of the caffeine flow around here." The words carried a hint of warning with them but it was obviously in jest. Vanessa on too much coffee was a bit too energetic, to be honest, but she was good at cutting herself off before she began to bounce off the walls.

"Oh, no, I promise!" Her eyes went a little wide at the hint of the warning, which was totally in jest but she didn't want to disappoint Vanessa or anyone else there. "It's just the toaster at the mansion... I mean, we made up eventually, but it was bad for awhile. But I haven't burned any coffee yet and I won't if I can help it!" Please don't fire me, she thought, because she loved the job so far. Sarah smiled, trying to recover from her rambling. "But yeah, the coffee's on and it's good."

"Oh, we'll see about that." Vanessa smiled because the kid seemed really eager to please. She didn't want to scare the kid too much and Vanessa kept having to remind herself that Sarah didn't know Vanessa and company as well as Laurie had. "Has anyone called yet today or am I on paperwork duty for the foreseeable future?" she asked as she refilled her coffee cup with fresh coffee from the pot Sarah had made.

"Hmm, let's see..." Sarah turned to the little message pad she kept by the phone for jotting down messages for the office as they came in. "Oh, I have one here for you!" The message pad was made up of little pink slips that she could tear off to give to people, and she held one such slip up to wave at Vanessa. "Someone who has an appointment with you this afternoon called to say they'd be running a little bit late. I got a cell phone number from them if you need to call back, or I can too, if you need to reschedule or something."

"I don't remember who this person is." Staring at her name wasn't helping either. Normally Vanessa would never forget the name of a potential client but these days her head was full of infomercials and a general sense that the other shoe was going to drop any minute. "Where's the appointment book?" Bishop wanted to be digital but writing appointments down on paper was so much faster than dealing with the computer insofar as Vanessa was concerned.

"Right here!" Sarah reached down and pulled up the appointment book, which she'd also been using to write in the various appointments and schedules for each of them. She digitized that information too but it was much easier to just write things down the old fashioned way with pen on paper while taking messages on the phone, and then putting them into the system afterwards. It left a hard copy for backup purposes as well. Smiling, she handed the book over to Vanessa.

Vanessa scanned down the page until she found the woman's name, Melissa. "Oh, no, we won't reschedule with her. If Melissa wants to show up at one in the morning she can. Her eight year old's been missing for a week and the cops haven't turned anything up yet." She frowned and looked over the others coming in today. A paranoid mother wanted a background check done on her daughter's new boyfriend, an employee who thought her employer was doing something illegal and a lawyer who wanted them to look into whether or not someone was really injured or not. Easy enough. Melissa's case would be the hardest.

"Oh no, really?" That was heartbreaking to hear, and she could only imagine what that poor woman must have been going through. Bishop had warned her that there was a lot of sadness at their job, and Sarah realized that situations like that were what he was talking about. "I hope there's something you can do for her, that's awful." It certainly would be a difficult case if the poor child had been missing for a week.

"Maybe. I can try, and I will if she hires us. Not trying should be criminal." There was a conviction in Vanessa's voice that was rarely heard any other time. "Have we given you the run down of who generally deals with what 'round here? We're all capable of handling any of the cases that come through the doors but we tend to focus in specific areas. Have we got you a list or something so you know who you should try to schedule consultations with?"

"Yeah, for sure. Gosh, I hope the kid's ok." Sarah frowned, trying hard not to feel horribly sad on behalf of the poor child and failing miserably. She shook her head at the question, focusing on that instead. "I can write one down though, if you'd like to give it to me. Or e-mail it to me, whatever's easiest for you, Ms. Vanessa." Sometimes she'd prefix names with a Mister or a Miss, it wasn't quite as formal as sir or ma'am but still showed respect to the other person in her mind, and was something her mother had had her do at a young age.

The investigator smiled a little at the Ms. "If you insist on an honorific it should be Miss, not Ms," she told Sarah with a smile. "Though Vanessa really is fine. Vanessa, Nessa, Ness, Vee...I answer to any of them. And also to some odd food-based nicknames from Adrienne. Feel free to make up your own but at least keep it to something related to my given name in front of clients, aye?" Sarah tried hard to get it all right. It was cute, actually. Maybe she would decide to stick around on a more permanent basis when she was out of school for the summer or summat.

"As for the list, it'll help you in scheduling consults. Obviously if someone is in the field you can schedule the initial consult with Bishop or myself and we can hand it off as needed from there." She waited for Sarah to be ready with a pencil before rattling off specifics. "Anything criminal should go to Lucas. Robberies, burglaries, suicides, murders...anything that could involve police involvement. If we get contacted by any law enforcement agencies it should go to Lucas by default. He can farm it out from there or ask for help as needed. Any allegations against law enforcement in terms of discrimination should also go to him first. If we're getting contacted by Garrison for FBI business, though, that should probably go to me first since I have a stronger connection with him than Lucas.

"Jean-Paul takes a lot of the infidelity cases. In fact, he has barred me from them. He also most often runs down bail jumpers for bail bondsmen and the like. Mutant or LGBT discrimination should go to him first. As for me, anything dealing with missing or abused kids or domestic abuse should land on my desk first. Anyone wanting personal security can equally go to myself or Jean-Paul. We both do a fair bit of essentially bodyguard work.

"While she is mostly a consultant for the rest of us to call in Adrienne is our girl for anything corporate or business related. Embezzling, corporate espionage, employer-employee disputes, etc. She knows more about it than anyone else, but otherwise she is pretty much everyone else's bitch." Vanessa grinned. 'That's a technical term and official title, I'll have you know."

Sarah grinned and nodded at Vanessa. She didn't want to make any assumptions, even though Bishop had pretty much told her the exact same thing. "Ok, Vanessa." She'd probably stick with the still slightly formal full name for now but might adapt to nicknames over time.

Reaching out for her notepad, Sarah sat with her pencil at the ready, prepared to write down everything Vanessa told her. As names were mentioned she put down the name, underlined it, then added Vanessa's notes underneath each respective person. She frowned a bit at the mention of Garrison, remembering Hallowe'en and what had happened all of a sudden. Not that she held anything against him but holy awkward if he'd ever come into the office.

She raised an eyebrow at the mention of Jean-Paul barring her from certain files. "Really?" Sarah bit her tongue before she could ask why. It was none of her business, of course, but Miss Vanessa struck her as the type of person that no one could stop her from doing anything she wanted if she was going to do it, so she was a little intrigued. Still, professionalism dictated that she just write that down and continue on.

Professional or not, Sarah still couldn't quite stifle a giggle at the bitch remark. "Oh, ok, but I could never call her a b! Or anyone, really." Surely she wasn't expected to do so. Adri taught at the school and all, that would be just wrong to Sarah's mind.

"I think, given your student-teacher relationship with Adrienne, sticking to Miss Frost is probably the way to go there. No one will hold it against you for not embracing my foul-mouthed ways." Vanessa gave Sarah a somewhat crooked smile and sipped her coffee. An approving sound followed. "I am prepared to keep you around based on your coffee making skills." It was amazing how few people could actually make decent, standard drip coffee. They made it too strong or too weak or somehow managed to burn it all to hell. This was heaven for one sleep deprived as Vanessa was, though.

"As for infidelity, I have a problem with people who are unfaithful to their spouse or significant other. Jean-Paul knows those people piss me off and has taken it upon himself to take those cases so that I don't...I don't know, physically assault someone?" She shrugged. "I suspect he assumes my fuse to be much shorter than it is." Than again...lately her fuse wasn't as long as usual.

"Yes, that's definitely for the best, I think." Sarah nodded, smiling just the same at her comment. She looked visibly relieved as Vanessa approved of her coffee making skills. "Phew, I wasn't quite sure how to make it, really, but the machine isn't that bad to figure out at all." From there on out she'd make it exactly the same way since it seemed to be a big hit.

"I can understand that, yeah. I definitely have a problem with that too." Sarah's parents had been split up for quite some time now and, while she didn't really want to know the answer or look into it any further, she'd often wondered if one of her parents had been unfaithful to the other. She'd been ten when they divorced so it hadn't occurred to her then and now she would never ask, she'd be better off not knowing, but part of her always wondered and hated the thought. "That's probably for the best then. I bet you can kick all kinds of ass when you want to." Sarah nodded, she definitely wouldn't want to get on Vanessa's bad side.

A smirk appeared almost instantaneously. "Aye, I can kick some ass when I want to. I can also take someone out from up to a mile away if I can find a good vantage point." She said this causally, as if it was nothing at all. "I have some very handy mates who have taught me some very useful skills, we'll say."

"Have I told you that you're awesome and that I never want to be on your bad side lately?" Sarah grinned, testing the waters with a little joking. It also didn't hurt to suck up to a person who could do all of those things because wow, Vanessa was a real honest to goodness bad ass, not how Sarah pretended she was with Layla.

Vanessa laughed and patted Sarah on the head on her way to her desk. She didn't sit down but rather snagged her laptop off the desk where it laid by the keyboard of her desktop and headed to the back to hide in the nook where the beanbag cars lived. "Unless you are planning to go evil, attempt to kill me and mine or aid someone in doing so, or generally go out and try to hurt people who don't deserve it I think you're safe, little bit. Besides, if I kill the help who will I get to answer the phones? I'll be stuck doing it. Do you have any idea how much that ruins my attempt at being stealthy?" She sighed, flopped down onto the couch, and shook her head. "Jesus, it would be like asking to be found out while trying to get incredibly compromising photographs of people."

Sarah grinned at the head patting, taking that as a good sign. She watched Vanessa as she got settled in on the couch with her laptop. "That's true, that's one of many, many reasons not to kill me." Nodding emphatically as she went along with the kidding, she thought about that for a second. "Maybe if you had a Bluetooth headset? But no, you're right, not killing the secretary skips all of that hassle. And lets you continue to take, uh, compromising pictures." She didn't really want to know what Vanessa was talking about, but she came close to asking just the same.

"Compromising photos pay bills 'round here, little bit. Do not underestimate their power." She said this complete with a finger wagging in Sarah's direction.

"Yes ma'am. I mean miss!" Sarah paused and thought it through once again. "I mean Vanessa." She gave a wry smile to the other mutant's finger wagging. "Is there anything else I can do for you? Just say the word!" She was eager to please, though it occurred to her maybe Vanessa just wanted to work in peace and quiet.

"Bounce?" she asked in a hopeful tone, then wrinkled her nose and shook her head. "No, that isn't the word. Sing? Vibrate? Dance? Run?" She took a sip of her coffee and frowned at the cup. When did more than half of it disappear. The hopeful look was back as she held out the cup. "Coffee?"

"...ok!" Sarah started to bounce a little in her seat, then stopped when Vanessa started rattling off other words. She got to her feet, going over to Vanessa to take her cup from her. "I most certainly can get that for you. Do you take any sugar or cream in it?"

"Nope, just black." She grinned when Sarah actually took her cup to refill it. 'I like you, we're definitely keeping you. Not that you actually have to be my coffee wench but I did just get comfy over here. Anyway, I'm just going to sit here and do boring, administrative stuff until I'm needed for a client."

Sarah practically beamed at the praise, almost is if it were a secondary mutation. "Aww, shucks, it's nothing, really!" Maybe she was spoiling Vanessa but she didn't care, being a coffee wench from time to time was more than alright by her. "Alright then, I will hold your calls in that case unless they're urgent." At least that's what she anticipated she should do.

"Oh, you don't need to hold calls. I just meant I'm not really doing anything that important," Vanessa clarified quickly. "I just like hiding in the corner. So if you have questions or stuff comes up or you get sick of the silence and want to put on music or talk or whatever it's fine."

"Ok then, I've got you. Can do, boss, I should be ok." She'd just be digitizing things which she could do quietly all by herself without interfering with Vanessa's work. It was good to know that if she wanted to put on music or to ask Vanessa anything it would be ok, however. She smiled as she walked back and handed over the mug back to her. "Just let me know if you need anything else, even if it's more coffee." Coffee wench to the rescue!