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xp_logs2005-04-24 03:49 pm
x-foliate.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2005-04-24 03:49 pm
Scott and Paige (This can begin...)
Paige pops up to have her Talk with Scott. No screaming, but... it does not go well. Scott suggests that they try to ease her load and she does not take it well. Not sure what else I can say about this.
Paige hummed to herself a rather jaunty tune as she bolted up the stairs towards Scott's office. It wasn't so much an outburst of joy as it was a way of controlling everything else that wasn't. Who could be glum which humming? She just didn't think it was possible. At her quick pace, the door she was seeking came up fast, and Paige peeked her head around, looking in. "Knock knock!" she said as way of announcement.
Scott looked up, having heard the humming all the way down the hall. Paige, he processed, and an apparently bouncy Paige. Uh-huh. Now he was going to feel mean, if she'd managed to find her way into a better mood.
But he was really not beginning to think he had much option. "Hey," he greeted her with a brief, easy smile, waving her in. "Chair or couch. You pick."
Smiling at that, Paige settled into a chair, pulling her feet up to sit akimbo, spine straight and knees brushing against the arms. She wasn't going to fool herself into believing that things were back to normal; that Scott calling her up to his office made him her friend, her Captain, in any other way than the traditional sense, even if she would still call him so occasionally. "Thanks. Sorry I took so long, Lorna insisted I lewdify her cast Right Now since I was dragging her to my house at some point in the future. I'm not sure about the logic in that one, but it's hard to say no to her."
"Lewdify." Scott shook his head, cracking another smile. "I don't want to know, do I?" He leaned back in his chair, watching her. "So," he said just as conversationally, "what's going on?"
"It involves stick figures. And a hat. For an added bonus I threw in a corncob pipe. So, over all, probably not," Paige replied, grinning wide enough that NASA was currently advising Crest to give her a call. "Well. I'm almost done exams over at the college. Only one more to go. Jono's not doing too bad at his exercises. His aim is fantastic, and we've extended his reach by a couple yards. If he gets his body back, I'd love to help with his training exercises. He actually seems to be enjoying these, even if it's just because there's a pretty girl all shiny while he does them."
"Good, good, and I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if you were sufficient incentive, yes," Scott said, then paused for a moment before he went on. "But really, I was asking 'What's going on?' in terms of the outbursts on the journals lately."
Paige nodded in understanding as he spoke, raising her hand in apology. Oh, she'd come prepared this time. "Sorry, misunderstood. I guess it's just been exam stress. This is what I get for taking a full course load plus hours here as well. Didn't help that they booked two of my biggest exams back to back either. I only got the feeling back into my hand yesterday night."
Right. "This has been going on for a while," Scott said, "if it's stress. Quite a while."
"Well, exam period is over three weeks," Paige reminded him gently.
Scott shook his head. "All right," he said calmly. "Let's pretend for now that it is transient stress that will go away shortly. In any case, if it's bad enough that you're letting your usually meticulous self-control slip enough to allow yourself to sound irrational in public, repeatedly, I suspect you need to be cutting back on other sources of stress." He turned to his computer, calling up Paige's training schedule. "We can scale back on your training until you're finished exams and have some time to catch up on your sleep."
"No!" Paige cried out, leaning forward and ready to leap from her chair before she caught herself and slipped back into her relaxed smile. "No, that's really not necessary. I'll just stay off the journals, if you think I'm sounding irrational, and I'm sleeping just fine. You wouldn't want to mess up my schedule, would you? I worked very hard on my schedule and I'd have to make a new one and I really don't have the time."
Yep. He'd been right to be worried - of course, he'd known that for a while now, hadn't he? "Something is causing you to fly off the handle at people," Scott said patiently. "I try to stay out of what happens between students unless it shows signs of turning destructive - " Although that didn't mean he hadn't noticed the incident with Forge, or heard through the grapevine what had happened with Amanda. " - but you figuratively bit Betsy's head off for no apparent reason earlier today. It seems," Scott said, choosing his words carefully, "very out of character for you."
"People?" Who were these people and where could she find them to take a headshot so she could have some cliché dart targets? "I'm sorry you feel the way you do. In my opinion, I'm the one who made the joke to her joke, in the same tone and everything, and she's the one who decided to take it as an insult and fling back passive-aggressive tones." Paige took a deep, gentle breath, glad that Scott's mutation had nothing to do with hearing the pounding in her chest that she knew was a warning sign for an outburst. She only had to last a little longer...
"I'm not going to spend time dissecting the incident," Scott said, his voice low and even. "You admitted you're under stress. There's no need for your training to be adding to that, when taking at least a partial break could help you get over it faster." He offered another smile. "As much as I may have disliked being yanked summarily off-duty back in the fall, I'd be lying if I said it didn't help. And I'm not suggesting anything nearly as extreme here."
"But this is school stress. There's a difference. It's normal. This is stress that occurs at least twice a year! You can't take me off training, just like clockwork, because I'm smart enough to take a full course load. Don't make me choose like this. Please," Paige answered, a little of her calm slipping into something akin to panic. "I promise, I'll figure something out."
"And hopefully, before it comes around the next time, you'll have figured out some better coping-with-stress strategies," Scott said, raising an eyebrow. "What am I supposed to do this time? Let you work yourself into some sort of nervous breakdown just because you don't want to let go of the reins?"
Paige shook her head, her braid flying around to finally settle over one shoulder. "I will not have a nervous breakdown! I have one exam left and then I'll be fine. No more stress. And time to plan my exam studying schedule for the winter so this won't happen again," she explained, opening her hands pleadingly.
Scott closed his eyes for a moment. "Paige," he said patiently, "the physical effects of stress don't go away the instant the source is removed. You know that as well as I do." He studied her for a long moment. "Why are you so panicked at the idea of taking it easy for a couple of weeks?"
Sighing, Paige leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. Why was he not getting this? He of all people should be getting this. Maybe she'd been right after all; their friendship hadn't worked due to his not being who she thought he was. "I don't like wasting time."
"I share the sentiment, but that's not a good reason to continue driving yourself this hard when you're clearly having difficulties," Scott said more impassively.
"Mr. Summers, I'll be fine," she assured him, shrinking into herself, just a little, at his tone. "I'm sorry to worry you, but really. Just fine. Cutting me off now will only put me behind later, and then I'll be stressed trying to catch up."
Scott raised an eyebrow. "You're not on a deadline with your training, are you? Did someone give you a deadline and forget to mention it to me?"
"Not a deadline, but a projected steady increase according to my age, weight, mutation, situations... statistics in general. I could show you the basic equation I formulated, if you'd like. Moving away from the equation is moving away from my optimal performance." Paige continued to curl up, his look only adding to her unease. Why didn't he believe she could do this? Did he want her to fail? They'd already moved her training over from the physical to the mental, and now they were cutting her time... was this their way of easily letting her go?
Scott shook his head. "You are not a machine," he said, "and you can't live your life according to an equation." He stopped, giving her a long, assessing look. "I could give you the opportunity to rearrange other parts of your schedule to take some of the pressure off yourself," he said, his tone a bit on the pointed side. "I'd expect to see results, mind you. If the evidence that you're overstressed continues to be this obvious, you're not going to leave me with much of a choice."
Choking down her 'but' Paige nodded fervently, eyes going wide. One more chance. She could do this. "Of course, sir. I promise, Mr. Summers. I'll fix this, you won't see me overstressed again."
Scott realized his mistake. Too late? "Paige, I don't want to not see you overstressed, I don't want you to be overstressed," he said. "Have you talked to Doctor Samson or the Professor about stress-management techniques?" He offered her another smile. "I can speak from personal experience that what they suggest is pretty effective."
"Yes, I see Samson regularly. He's given me a book list and many of them deal with stress-management," Paige informed him, still using her best star student voice, laced with optimism. "And the Professor and I have tea occasionally. It's a good thing there is a washroom near his office, what with all the tea he drinks."
Scott shook his head. "I don't buy it, Paige," he said a bit wearily. Yes, he and Alison and Ororo were going to need to have another long talk about Paige. "But I'm willing to give you a little more leeway to try and address this yourself. Just keep in mind that I have no intention of letting you use team training as a means by which to drive yourself into the ground."
And now he was calling her a liar. "Thank you," she said quietly, a screeching U-turn from her previous tone. There was nothing else she could say to him. He wouldn't believe her anyway. Paige swallowed hard, a lump in her throat and unfolded herself, standing. "I should go. Dinner."
Oddly enough... he didn't feel mean after all. She had given herself away in all kinds of ways, sitting there, and he was more convinced than ever that they needed to keep a very close eye on her. He'd have to talk to Charles and Leonard, too. She was eighteen years old and he had no intention of seeing her shatter herself on impossible expectations, when it wasn't necessary.
"I'll see you later, then," he said mildly, turning back to his computer and the training schedule.
Paige stared at him a moment, almost as if waiting for something, her eyes going blurry from the beginning of tears. There was a click, his mouse, and Paige turned her head away before practically running out the door. Only when she had closed the door behind her did Paige allow herself a breath and with it a little sob. She looked down at her wrist; it was only four in the afternoon.
Paige hummed to herself a rather jaunty tune as she bolted up the stairs towards Scott's office. It wasn't so much an outburst of joy as it was a way of controlling everything else that wasn't. Who could be glum which humming? She just didn't think it was possible. At her quick pace, the door she was seeking came up fast, and Paige peeked her head around, looking in. "Knock knock!" she said as way of announcement.
Scott looked up, having heard the humming all the way down the hall. Paige, he processed, and an apparently bouncy Paige. Uh-huh. Now he was going to feel mean, if she'd managed to find her way into a better mood.
But he was really not beginning to think he had much option. "Hey," he greeted her with a brief, easy smile, waving her in. "Chair or couch. You pick."
Smiling at that, Paige settled into a chair, pulling her feet up to sit akimbo, spine straight and knees brushing against the arms. She wasn't going to fool herself into believing that things were back to normal; that Scott calling her up to his office made him her friend, her Captain, in any other way than the traditional sense, even if she would still call him so occasionally. "Thanks. Sorry I took so long, Lorna insisted I lewdify her cast Right Now since I was dragging her to my house at some point in the future. I'm not sure about the logic in that one, but it's hard to say no to her."
"Lewdify." Scott shook his head, cracking another smile. "I don't want to know, do I?" He leaned back in his chair, watching her. "So," he said just as conversationally, "what's going on?"
"It involves stick figures. And a hat. For an added bonus I threw in a corncob pipe. So, over all, probably not," Paige replied, grinning wide enough that NASA was currently advising Crest to give her a call. "Well. I'm almost done exams over at the college. Only one more to go. Jono's not doing too bad at his exercises. His aim is fantastic, and we've extended his reach by a couple yards. If he gets his body back, I'd love to help with his training exercises. He actually seems to be enjoying these, even if it's just because there's a pretty girl all shiny while he does them."
"Good, good, and I wouldn't be too terribly surprised if you were sufficient incentive, yes," Scott said, then paused for a moment before he went on. "But really, I was asking 'What's going on?' in terms of the outbursts on the journals lately."
Paige nodded in understanding as he spoke, raising her hand in apology. Oh, she'd come prepared this time. "Sorry, misunderstood. I guess it's just been exam stress. This is what I get for taking a full course load plus hours here as well. Didn't help that they booked two of my biggest exams back to back either. I only got the feeling back into my hand yesterday night."
Right. "This has been going on for a while," Scott said, "if it's stress. Quite a while."
"Well, exam period is over three weeks," Paige reminded him gently.
Scott shook his head. "All right," he said calmly. "Let's pretend for now that it is transient stress that will go away shortly. In any case, if it's bad enough that you're letting your usually meticulous self-control slip enough to allow yourself to sound irrational in public, repeatedly, I suspect you need to be cutting back on other sources of stress." He turned to his computer, calling up Paige's training schedule. "We can scale back on your training until you're finished exams and have some time to catch up on your sleep."
"No!" Paige cried out, leaning forward and ready to leap from her chair before she caught herself and slipped back into her relaxed smile. "No, that's really not necessary. I'll just stay off the journals, if you think I'm sounding irrational, and I'm sleeping just fine. You wouldn't want to mess up my schedule, would you? I worked very hard on my schedule and I'd have to make a new one and I really don't have the time."
Yep. He'd been right to be worried - of course, he'd known that for a while now, hadn't he? "Something is causing you to fly off the handle at people," Scott said patiently. "I try to stay out of what happens between students unless it shows signs of turning destructive - " Although that didn't mean he hadn't noticed the incident with Forge, or heard through the grapevine what had happened with Amanda. " - but you figuratively bit Betsy's head off for no apparent reason earlier today. It seems," Scott said, choosing his words carefully, "very out of character for you."
"People?" Who were these people and where could she find them to take a headshot so she could have some cliché dart targets? "I'm sorry you feel the way you do. In my opinion, I'm the one who made the joke to her joke, in the same tone and everything, and she's the one who decided to take it as an insult and fling back passive-aggressive tones." Paige took a deep, gentle breath, glad that Scott's mutation had nothing to do with hearing the pounding in her chest that she knew was a warning sign for an outburst. She only had to last a little longer...
"I'm not going to spend time dissecting the incident," Scott said, his voice low and even. "You admitted you're under stress. There's no need for your training to be adding to that, when taking at least a partial break could help you get over it faster." He offered another smile. "As much as I may have disliked being yanked summarily off-duty back in the fall, I'd be lying if I said it didn't help. And I'm not suggesting anything nearly as extreme here."
"But this is school stress. There's a difference. It's normal. This is stress that occurs at least twice a year! You can't take me off training, just like clockwork, because I'm smart enough to take a full course load. Don't make me choose like this. Please," Paige answered, a little of her calm slipping into something akin to panic. "I promise, I'll figure something out."
"And hopefully, before it comes around the next time, you'll have figured out some better coping-with-stress strategies," Scott said, raising an eyebrow. "What am I supposed to do this time? Let you work yourself into some sort of nervous breakdown just because you don't want to let go of the reins?"
Paige shook her head, her braid flying around to finally settle over one shoulder. "I will not have a nervous breakdown! I have one exam left and then I'll be fine. No more stress. And time to plan my exam studying schedule for the winter so this won't happen again," she explained, opening her hands pleadingly.
Scott closed his eyes for a moment. "Paige," he said patiently, "the physical effects of stress don't go away the instant the source is removed. You know that as well as I do." He studied her for a long moment. "Why are you so panicked at the idea of taking it easy for a couple of weeks?"
Sighing, Paige leaned back in her chair, crossing her arms over her chest protectively. Why was he not getting this? He of all people should be getting this. Maybe she'd been right after all; their friendship hadn't worked due to his not being who she thought he was. "I don't like wasting time."
"I share the sentiment, but that's not a good reason to continue driving yourself this hard when you're clearly having difficulties," Scott said more impassively.
"Mr. Summers, I'll be fine," she assured him, shrinking into herself, just a little, at his tone. "I'm sorry to worry you, but really. Just fine. Cutting me off now will only put me behind later, and then I'll be stressed trying to catch up."
Scott raised an eyebrow. "You're not on a deadline with your training, are you? Did someone give you a deadline and forget to mention it to me?"
"Not a deadline, but a projected steady increase according to my age, weight, mutation, situations... statistics in general. I could show you the basic equation I formulated, if you'd like. Moving away from the equation is moving away from my optimal performance." Paige continued to curl up, his look only adding to her unease. Why didn't he believe she could do this? Did he want her to fail? They'd already moved her training over from the physical to the mental, and now they were cutting her time... was this their way of easily letting her go?
Scott shook his head. "You are not a machine," he said, "and you can't live your life according to an equation." He stopped, giving her a long, assessing look. "I could give you the opportunity to rearrange other parts of your schedule to take some of the pressure off yourself," he said, his tone a bit on the pointed side. "I'd expect to see results, mind you. If the evidence that you're overstressed continues to be this obvious, you're not going to leave me with much of a choice."
Choking down her 'but' Paige nodded fervently, eyes going wide. One more chance. She could do this. "Of course, sir. I promise, Mr. Summers. I'll fix this, you won't see me overstressed again."
Scott realized his mistake. Too late? "Paige, I don't want to not see you overstressed, I don't want you to be overstressed," he said. "Have you talked to Doctor Samson or the Professor about stress-management techniques?" He offered her another smile. "I can speak from personal experience that what they suggest is pretty effective."
"Yes, I see Samson regularly. He's given me a book list and many of them deal with stress-management," Paige informed him, still using her best star student voice, laced with optimism. "And the Professor and I have tea occasionally. It's a good thing there is a washroom near his office, what with all the tea he drinks."
Scott shook his head. "I don't buy it, Paige," he said a bit wearily. Yes, he and Alison and Ororo were going to need to have another long talk about Paige. "But I'm willing to give you a little more leeway to try and address this yourself. Just keep in mind that I have no intention of letting you use team training as a means by which to drive yourself into the ground."
And now he was calling her a liar. "Thank you," she said quietly, a screeching U-turn from her previous tone. There was nothing else she could say to him. He wouldn't believe her anyway. Paige swallowed hard, a lump in her throat and unfolded herself, standing. "I should go. Dinner."
Oddly enough... he didn't feel mean after all. She had given herself away in all kinds of ways, sitting there, and he was more convinced than ever that they needed to keep a very close eye on her. He'd have to talk to Charles and Leonard, too. She was eighteen years old and he had no intention of seeing her shatter herself on impossible expectations, when it wasn't necessary.
"I'll see you later, then," he said mildly, turning back to his computer and the training schedule.
Paige stared at him a moment, almost as if waiting for something, her eyes going blurry from the beginning of tears. There was a click, his mouse, and Paige turned her head away before practically running out the door. Only when she had closed the door behind her did Paige allow herself a breath and with it a little sob. She looked down at her wrist; it was only four in the afternoon.
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Nice work all around, guys.
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Yeah, I'm probably ruining something for somebody by pointing out all the more subtle cues, but I'd rather you see where she was coming from. :)
So anyway, the fact that you feel for Paige, even though she's tumbled to this state, is incredible. Thank you so much; you've obviously invested a lot in the character herself. Love ya, Jazzling.