xp_logs | log: Clarice & Kurt

After this post, Clarice heads down to see Kurt. She finds out more about everything and is generally guilty and upset. At least she gets it though

Clarice headed to Kurt's office trying not to look as worried as she felt. He'd said he wasn't mad at her, but Dr. MacTaggert was, and well...this hadn't been one of her better posts. She had meant to be funny. Obviously, she'd failed miserably.

Kurt was waiting for her, sitting in his office chair with the door open. Hearing her knock, he called out to her to come in.

"Hey, Coach," Clarice said softly, coming in the office. "I messed up," she knew better than to cuss at the moment.

He just looked at her seriously and didn't sugar-coat it. "To an extent, Clarice, yes. You did."

Sighing, she flopped down in a chair opposite him. Appearantly she was having an attack of the stupids again. Figured. "Everyone says it's a miracle, but God doesn't just raise people from the dead. And this isn't just amnesia-we-think-she's-dead, but this is dead dead. Like having a funeral and everything dead. And this isn't the second coming either, no rapture or trumpets and Xavier's is great, but I don't think this is heaven," she kinda knew her theology. Enough to make some sense of this or get her more in trouble, "So she's gotta be a zombie. She's a nice zombie?"

"We do not yet know exactly how she came to survive, Clarice", he reminded her patiently. "And even if she were a zombie - which I am assured she is not - can you not see why saying so on the public journal system was just a little tactless?"

Clarice nodded, sullenly, "It was supposed to be funny. Like in Shaun of the Dead."

"But the problem with that", Kurt pointed out gently, "is that Shaun of the Dead was nothing but a movie. Whereas Dr. Grey meant a lot to many of the people who are still here, when she was here last."

"And she's back, it's not like I wished her dead again or anything," Clarice defended herself, there were a lot of terrible things she could have said, if she'd wanted. She hadn't wanted to,"I know she's not a zombie. It's just really weird. Even for here."

He looked at her steadily. "Tell me, Clarice, what do you know about the circumstances of Dr. Grey's... death?"

Biting her lip she tried to remember, it hadn't seemed very important at the time, "Some X-Men hoorah during the Big Headache. She drowned, so random revival shouldn't be possible. Water in the lungs, brain damage, all sorts of things should be wrong with her...and nothing seems to be," now she was on more familiar ground.

"No, I did not mean the medical reasons for her death. I meant the circumstances. What she achieved by it."

"Oh, no. Not really," Clarice had a feeling that she was not going to like this and feel incredibly guilty afterwards. More so than she already felt.

He looked at her directly. "She died holding back a wall of water from a ruptured dam, telekinetically. And saved the lives of everyone on board the Blackbird at the time. Including Scott, Logan, Marie, Bobby, Jubilee, Artie, the Professor and myself."

Yeah, she felt like shit. "Yeah," she slid down farther in her chair, "Mind if I just go crawl in to a corner now and hide?"

"I did not tell you this to make you feel guilty", he informed her calmly. "Rather, so you would understand why some people reacted as they did. Theresa, for instance, would also have been on that plane if Piotr had not saved her from being kidnapped with the others."

Rolling her eyes, she sat up again, "We're Catholic. Don't try the whole 'I'm not trying to make you feel guilty' thing," Clarice shrugged, explaining "I was reading the Bible after she came back. It...makes you think, I guess. And it could have been a lot of people, Coach. It could have been ME before I knew how to use my powers. It could have been any of us any time we've been attacked."

He nodded. "I wanted you to understand why the joke was poorly received. That is all. Do you?"

Nodding mutely, Clarice headed out the door, guilty.