xp_logs | Forge and Dani, the afternoon of the 14th

While most of the school is enjoying the Valentine's holiday, it's proving to be somewhat difficult for Dani, who's trying her best to be unhappy.

Forge rapped on Dani's door quickly. She hadn't been in her classes, and Ms. Monroe had pulled him aside and asked if he'd check on her. He'd emailed her, and she responded - didn't seem to be sick, she just wasn't leaving the room.
"Hey, Dani? S'me, Forge. Open up?"

"Go away," she muttered, loud enough to be heard through the door. She didn't sound sick and she wasn't really pissed or she'd be raving as opposed to muttering. She sounded depressed.

Forge rolled his eyes. He could basically figure out where this was going. Dropping his hand to the doorframe, he activated a small magnet, sweeping his hand to slide the deadbolt back. Opening the door, he stuck his head in.

"Sorry, couldn't hear you through the door. Sounded like you said 'Come on in, I've made frybread'. How come you skipped class today?" he asked, sliding himself into Dani's desk chair.

"I hate you," Dani informed him, rolling over in her bed to face the wall. She had an empty plate and cup on the floor, obviously lunch. "And you don't have frybread 'cause I didn't make any today."

"Yeah, I'd noticed that," Forge said, picking up the cup and plate and stacking them by the sink. "Which begs the question, how come? If you're not feeling well, you know you ought to be down with the doctors."

"I feel fine," she thought she did anyways. No physical hurts she could think of anyways, "You don't. You're too happy," the explanation were spit out with as much venom as she could muster, which wasn't nearly enough for the situation.

"Your empathy's on the fritz," Forge accused, "I don't think I've been too happy since I was six." He steepled his fingers under his chin melodramatically and perched on the edge of the chair, overlooking the bed. "My genius-sense is tingling, and that tells me that you're upset about something. And don't tell me I'm wrong, because I am never wrong."

"Not you, dimwit," the infantile insult made her smile for some reason, "Everybody is too damn happy. You claim to be a genius, but it ain't my power on the fritz."

Forge frowned, looking down at Dani's back. "Then what? Any particular reason you're all pissed that folks are happy all of a sudden? Come on, I do hold the local patent on irrational bitterness. If you want to join the club, we have dues."

Groaning, she rolled over, glaring at him balefully. "I'm taking your genius title away until you earn it back."

Forge smiled briefly, then dropped into the chair, lowering himself down to look Dani in the face. "Then level with me, no bullshit. What's bugging you? I know you got dragged out into the mall this weekend and you hate anything that has to do with the modern world, but that can't still be it. So what's the deal?"

"The happiness!" she whined, frustrated. Did she have to spell it out for him? "Not the stupid shopping trip or whatever. That was last weekend. And I don't hate the modern world. The modern world gave us anti-lock brakes and both manual and automatic transmission. Not to mention engines."

Oh, Forge suddenly realized. "Oh, you're one of those. The folks who take personal offense at a Hallmark holiday." He rolled his eyes. "You want to sit around and mope because some red letters on a calendar decide today's special, be my guest. I figured you'd have better things to do."

"I take offense at my husband knocking me up, kicking me out of the house, cheating on me and then trying to beat me and one of my best friends up!" She tried to sound angry, but couldn't quite manange anything more than sniffles, "And everyone is so happy I can't be mad." Grabbing the duvet on the bed, she pulled it up over her head, wallowing in peace.

"You want to talk about mad?" Forge growled, thumping his fist on the desk, "Who do you think you're talking to? Like I don't know what you're going through. Shit, Dani, I was there, I heard the stuff Sheldon said to you. But you are out of that, you got away from that life. You've got a better one, you're better now."

He stood up to walk past Dani's bed to the window, looking out at the sun setting through the grey clouds. "Doctor Samson told me that I could keep letting my situation define me, or I could define it. So I'm a scrawny short kid with a fucked-up genome who happens to be 22.5 percent steel and aluminum. If that's all I kept thinking of myself as, I'd never stop being pissed off." He lightly tapped his fingers against the glass, distracted by the counterpoint of flesh and metal in syncopation. "I still am, some days."

He turned around to look at Dani hiding under her covers. "And if you still think you're some pregnant squaw who's determined to think of herself as the trash people have told her she is, then you're doing yourself a disservice, you're doing ME a disservice for being your friend, and you're disrespecting the Professor and everyone at this school who's helping you to make your life better than it was. You want to be pissed at Sheldon - be pissed at Sheldon. Don't isolate yourself from everyone to do it."

"You don't get it!" Dani yelled, coming out from under the covers and sitting up, "It's Valentine's Day! The day everyone is supposed to be in love and be sappy! And all I want to do is be pissed at Sheldon and I am! But everyone is so happy, I can't be! I'm pissed and I can't seem to care! All I can do is drink my tea and meditate and hope that everyone is normal tomorrow!"

She got up, pacing the small room, "I want to be mad and I emotionally can't do it. It's like..." she opened the window letting in the cold air, "It's like being in some doped up fog. You know what things are supposed to be like in your brain, but you just can't see through it to actually see it with your eyes."

Forge just shrugged, picking up a knit blanket and draping it over Danielle's shoulders. "And what's being mad today going to get you, huh? You get mad, and you see everyone else all happy, and that makes you more mad, and you get pissed at yourself. Believe me, I know." He sat down on the windowsill and tapped his chest. "Ever since I noticed that boys and girls started liking each other, I knew I wasn't a part of that equation. The happier I saw people being, the angrier I got because I didn't have that. It turns on you, after time. Now?" he shrugged, "Sure, I'm one of the minority single folks on Valentine's Day, but so what?"

He grinned wide. "I get to eat all the extra cookies that Kyle can't. You take your positives where you can find them. So everyone else is happy - hell, you get to share that. Your power lets you. I would kill for that, some days, to know what that feels like."

"I hate you," she reiterated, deflating and wrapping the blanket around herself and wondering how she managed to have such a great tribe and friends, "You can have your genius title back."

"Come on down to the kitchen," Forge cajoled, "I think the kids' cooking class made little gingerbread boys and girls holding hands for Valentine's Day. We can go bite their heads off and drown them in milk."

Grinning, Dani headed towards the bathroom, "I need to brush my hair," she said, uncaring about her pajamas or socks. The bathroom counter was littered with bottles of hair products from her recent shopping trip.

As she vanished into the bathroom, Forge shut the window, then casually picked up the duvet and tossed it back onto the bed. "Meet you downstairs," he called, "I'll save you an unlucky couple to destroy."

As he walked out into the hall, he found himself smiling, passing a couple in the hallway seeking some privacy in one of the mansion's many small alcoves. "Genius, like misery, does love company," he quipped to himself, zeroing in on his date with a cookie.