xp_logs | Topaz and Adrienne

Topaz and Adrienne have a slightly tense discussion in the midst of going over classwork. It's not as bad as it could be.

Topaz stayed in her seat even as the others filed out of the room, staring at her textbook as if it had offended her. Now did not seem like a good time to admit she had a question about the current unit they were working on. Especially given the teacher's current...feelings towards her. She should have just admitted last week she was having problems.

Well, no use in crying over the past. And even if Ms. Frost didn't like her, she was still a teacher and Topaz was still a student. She took a deep breath as she stood up, schooling her expression into one of complete neutrality.

"Ms. Frost?"

Adrienne winced when Topaz called out to her. Though she knew Tandy had initiated the emotion-draining, Adrienne couldn't help but hold Topaz responsible for agreeing to do something so unethical, regardless of Haller's assurance that she hadn't understood her actions to be so. In short, she didn't want to talk to Topaz; she didn't trust herself not to go off on the student, which she knew would do no good. "Yes, Miss Ashdown?" she answered curtly, frowning.

Yeah, Topaz had basically been expecting that. She didn't flinch or back down, though. Sure, there were plenty of people she could ask for help (and maybe a few who didn't think she was a horrible person), but the fact did remain that she was going to be here for two more years (provided she didn't do something to get herself kicked out first). They were going to have to interact at some point. Even if Ms. Frost did hate her.

"I was just wonderin' if you could clarify a few things we went over in class today." She paused for a brief moment before adding, "I can ask someone else for help though if you're...busy."

"I'm not busy. It's fine." She wasn't going to lose her job over a stupid kid, after all. If Topaz wanted help Adrienne would help her. But she wasn't going to be all flowery about it. "What are you confused about?"

Topaz looked down at her notebook - trying not to notice the rather frosty atmosphere Ms. Frost was giving off - and scanning her notes quickly for the place she'd marked. The sooner she got an answer, the sooner she could get out of here and make them both a lot happier. "When you were talking about finding the equation of a line...I guess I just didn't really understand how you got to the answer in the example problem." It was a hard question to put into words. And math had never really been her thing in the first place.

Adrienne sighed. "Well, stop acting like I'm going to bite your head off and bring your book over here," she murmured, picking a pencil out of the cup of writing utensils on her desk. "Why are you acting like I'm going to bite your head off?" she questioned, choosing to play ignorant to draw out of Topaz the teenager's feelings on what had happened.

Topaz twiddled her pencil between her fingers as she approached the desk with her notebook and textbook. "I don't think you're going to bite my head off," she replied honestly. There was no use in skirting around the topic - they all knew what had happened. "But I'm not stupid, I know I'm no one's favorite person, and I know why, and I'm not about to force myself on anyone who doesn't want me around." She deliberately kept her words vague, not putting Ms. Frost on the spot - though in all honesty, she was probably first in the line of people who didn't like Topaz at the moment.

"I know you're not stupid," Adrienne shrugged, "but I think you did an incredibly stupid thing and that you need to start being better. However," she added, appreciating that Topaz seemed guilty about what she'd done, "since you didn't do this stupid thing alone, and since being here, at this school, with people who want you to be better is the only thing that's actually going to make you be better, I don't think it's fair to say people don't want you around." Which she figured was a nicer way of saying 'the mansion's already the last stop for delinquents so we're stuck with you no matter what.'

Topaz bit down the first thing that came to mind, acknowledging that she was on incredibly thin ice and sarcasm didn't have a place here. "Yeah, it was stupid. But it seems like a fair assumption that if there was anywhere else for me to go, I'd be there already." She carefully kept her tone neutral, not wanting to cause any problems with Ms. Frost.

"Kid," Adrienne began with a wry smirk, Boston accent heavier than usual, "nearest I can figure that's the case for most of the people here. 'Certainly was for me." She leaned over Topaz's notebook and wrote a line of formula. "Okay, look here, first we have to write out the equation for the slope of 'm'."

"Fair enough. Last stop and all that, I suppose." Topaz's eyes followed Adrienne's pencil as it scribbled everything down. She wanted to ask about whatever it was Ms. Frost was alluding to. But it really wasn't her place. "And you plug the given coordinates in, right?"

Adrienne shrugged. "Well, last stop until you figure your sh... stuff out. Then, I guess the sky's the limit as to where you go. Or that's what the school's supposed to make you believe, if you wanna listen." She spoke casually, as if she didn't necessarily believe what she was saying. She didn't want it to get out that she believed it, after all. "Yeah, plug them in there and there," she nodded, pointing with her pencil at the paper.

"Or until you turn eighteen. Then it probably doesn't matter if you've figured it out yet or not." Which was basically what Topaz was biding her time for now. Two years. She copied what Adrienne was writing, putting the coordinates in the right place. "I think this is where I got lost," she added apologetically.

Cocking her head in an amused manner, Adrienne snorted. "Eighteen? I guess you're still kind of new here. No one ever leaves. They stay here while they go to college or to work. Or sometimes I guess they move into the city, but in that case they stay on the journal system and they're usually back whenever they want free food or use the cars or Danger Room or what-have-you." She looked at the equation again. "Oh, yeah. Here. The slope's undefined, so since both points have equal 'x' coordinates, it'll look like this..."

Topaz couldn't quite stop her eyes from widening - just a bit. "No one ever leaves?" She repeated before quickly looking back at her notebook. "So that's x, and y is...?"

"Here's 'y'," Adrienne explained, scribbling a little and circling some things. "And yeah, I guess people leave; they move back home, go off on adventures, get jobs all over the world. But usually they keep in touch. Even the stubborn ones who thought they were just biding time here. That seems to be what happens when you're surrounded by people who just refuse to give up on you."

Strangely enough, Topaz's mind chose that moment to flash to Amanda. And Kurt. No. Everyone gave up eventually, right? And what, was Ms. Frost a telepath too? "Or what happens when you just get too attached. All right, and after you plug the numbers in you...solve, right?"

"Yep, solve away, while I try to figure out what you mean by 'what happens when you get too attached.' Are you saying you don't want to get attached to anyone here? You get that sometimes people get attached to you even when you don't want them to, right?"

"Not if you give them reasons not to." Topaz said the words so simply as she carefully worked out the answer. She was aware that she was starting to say too much. It might have been time to consider wrapping this up. Hopefully she'd get this right.

"Yeah, that's true," Adrienne nodded. "Sometimes people just aren't worth the effort; they're rotten to the core. That's what someone I know says. But it's weird how there's always someone associated with the school who will make the effort no matter what. I guess people have different ideas of what the 'core' is. In other words," she murmured, taking her eyes off the notebook to look at Topaz, "people here want you around. I know it's weird, but get used to it, because it won't go away. Trust me." Sure, maybe she hadn't wanted Topaz around before this conversation, but she appreciated that Topaz recognized she'd done something wrong, and the self-deprecation was something Adrienne was all-too familiar with from her experiences with kids like Inez and Cammie, so now it seemed more important to Adrienne that she prove Topaz wrong than prove her right.

"Everything goes away eventually." She carefully finished working on the problem, meticulously writing out each step, keeping her eyes down as she said the answer. "Three over zero." She had no idea if it was right. It looked right.

"Yes; three over zero," Adrienne nodded. "Excellent. And I can see how you might think that," she shrugged, even though she had no idea why Topaz would think that. Adrienne didn't know precisely what she'd been through, but it probably wasn't all that different from what many of the kids who ended up here had been through. "But believe me, it just isn't true. Or ask Tandy if you don't believe me," she suggested with a smile.

Topaz's eyes skimmed the notebook page for a moment, looking over the work in the two different hand-writings. "I think I get it," she said finally, giving Ms. Frost a polite smile. "Thank you for helping. I'm sorry for taking up your time."

"Don't be sorry; it's my job," Adrienne shrugged. "And hey, Miss Ashdown?" she added, mirroring the polite smile. "Like I said before, I think you're a smart young woman, so I'm certain this goes without saying, but if you're ever stupid enough to use your powers on someone I care about again, even if they beg you to, I promise the consequences will be quite severe. Alright?"

"Understood." Topaz met Ms. Frost's gaze - for probably the first time since the beginning of the conversation - as she answered. "It won't happen again."

"Excellent," Adrienne held Topaz's gaze for a moment- not threateningly, but more respectfully- as she nodded, then went back to the task of packing up her computer.