Log: Luck o' the Irish
X-Men: Movieverse - Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 9:57 PM
-------------------------------------------------------
It's not quite Thanksgiving yet, but with a crowd as large as the one Xavier's can field, and with a menu as ambitious as Madame Vargas', even this otherwise unremarkable autumn night is full of the scents of sweetness and savoury as pies and pastries begin to be baked. Even in the pristine expanse of the library, where bookshelves and armchairs and worktables house scatterings of students and staff alike, things just Smell Really Good. Add to it the crackle of logs in the library fireplace and the damp chill of the air outside, and it couldn't be a better night to sit before the fire in an armchair and catch up on old times. Therefore, Jean is doing just that, smiling across her teacup at an old familiar face very lately returned. "If I didn't know better," she murmurs, feet tucked up beneath her in a girlish pose. "I'd suspect ulterior motives to your timing in turning up."
Duffel bag stowed at his feet and cup of tea hot enough to burn the back of his throat, Sean's foot slips ever so slightly against his knee, crossed unpolitely up. "Do I ever have ulterior motives, Jean?" he questions, eyebrows rising in mild surprise. "You know me. Simple." A hand raises to scrub through red hair that's been blown about by the wind, grays running just as prominent these days as the copper strands.
"Simple Interpol agent and part-time superhero, that's you," Jean agrees, her eyes crinkled at the corners with just a faint hint of where crows' feet will grow in later years. "With no plans to make the most of the fleet of turkeys due to be roasted, -or- Charles' traditional post-dinner brandy for the grownups." Tea is sipped, and in a companionable silence she studies him, perhaps marking what changes, if any, have fallen upon him since his last pass through the school doors. Eventually, she offers up that "Your daughter shares your sense of timing."
"Simple," Sean repeats, the corners of his mouth turning up and the already forming crow's feet deepening slightly. He looks wearier than past, growing so every time he visits. There's an allowance of letting himself relax in the company, not trying to look as composed as he can be. "Theresa is here?" The question holds curiousity, but not the immediate need to go check on the grown woman. Perhaps in that pause, he senses something Jean isn't passing along.
"Unless you've got another daughter I don't know about," Jean confirms, although there's a moment's uncertain wobble to her smile as belated remembrance of Sean's family history sours the joke a little. Like the WASP she is, she takes refuge in sipping her tea until she can find a better line of response. A shortbread is snuck into the equation from a plate resting on the end table between their chairs. "She's here," she settles on, simply. "Taking a paid vacation from her job after a rough month's end," she sums up, with a flick of an eyebrow and a twitch of inflection that the Irishman across from her can probably guess at meaning 'Cover story here!'.
Green eyes harden for a moment at the joke, fingers pressing roughly into the teacup he raises to sip from as Sean waits patiently for Jean to change the subject on her own. Unsurprisingly, he does not answer if he has another child, but rather replies, "We all have rough periods." There is a question in the words, matching inflection on par. "An entire month?" A thoughtful look settles over weary features.
"I'm assuming," says Jean, lips quirked with a hint of wryness as she offers over the shortbreads with the encomium of "Moira's own recipe," as an aside to recommend them. "I wish I could tell you more, but I'm not really all that up on her new job. We were looking at some pretty tense situations in New York these past few weeks, though."
"Nothing you couldn't handle, Jean?" Sean questions in a way to invite her to explain. There is a soft noise that is in the same family as a laugh before he reaches forward to take one of the shortbreads as well and raise it to lips. Teeth nibble at it, before hunger overtakes him and it's devoured in a few bites.
"I wouldn't say we couldn't have welcomed another hand on deck," Jean demurs, with a tip of her chin and a smile at the death of the shortbread half-hidden behind fine Xavier china. "Since you are definitely missed... but we kept a lid on things. New York didn't go up in riots and flames this time, and we helped with that."
Jean escapes further questions as Sean levels an assessing look on her, as if checking her own state since he's last seen her. "It wouldn't be the only city to have riots or flames from what I've heard." He settles back into his chair without pursuing the subject further, a hand falling to drum against his thigh as he raises tea to rinse down remains.
"Boston," Jean confirms, with a brief smile more bleak than anything before her eyes go vague as she does a quick proximity check on any curious student minds. "I have no idea what the official story will be," she continues, once assured that young gossips are otherwise occupied, "But Boston was no natural virus outbreak, and she was caught up in dealing with it, somehow. So... she's here now," she sums up. "Recuperating. If she's prickly, don't go all Catholic guilt and blame yourself -too- much, mm?"
"You're too young a mother to know that every choice they make is y'own fault," is replied, the brogue deepening in his tired voice as Sean shakes his head slowly. It takes him a moment, but there is a soft curve of lips into a smile and a duck of his chin in thanks at the information. If she's looking to be assured, the fact that he remains in his chair rather than immediately checking on Terry is the most she is bound to get.
"My six year old son got sent home from school with a note because he was taping cutlery between his knuckles and getting his friends to take turns being Magneto," Jean recounts, with a lift of one hand to pinch at the bridge of her nose. "-That- I'm not claiming any responsibility for."
The story does enough, lifting hard edges from the man and eliciting an abrupt laugh at Nate's latest adventures. "That would entirely be your disreputable boyfriend's fault, lass," Sean agrees before finishing off the rest of his tea. Amusement does not fade from eyes at the words, however.
"That and it's harder to ape his father's powers," Jean reflects, with a pew-pew-lasers lift of a hand to rest at her temple, a la Scott zotting something. Spotting the last of Sean's tea disappearing, she glances down to his duffel bag and is recalled to her duties as a proper hostess, flashing him a smile. "I'm being polite, so I can only imagine the jet lag you must be dragging with you. Your usual suite's yours for the taking if you want it."
"After so many years, you learn ta push past the lil' demon," remarks Sean on the subject of jetlag, but there is a dip to fetch his bag and pull it up as he drags his own weary ass from the seat. Delicate china is set down remarkably easily before he turns to head towards the exit. "I'll be gone tomorrow for work, but I'm sure to be around for your American Thanksgiving. Goodnight, Jean." There is a sketch of an Irish salute, distinctly different from the American version, then he is moving out the door.
"Goodnight, Sean. Don't let the mutant teenagers bite," Jean bids, half-rising to see him on his way. The duffle might feel distinctly lighter for his progress out of the room -- jet lag experience or no, there's no reason Jean can't cheat a little to help a friend.
Surprise! Your daughter's here!
X-Men: Movieverse 2 - Tuesday, November 24, 2009, 9:11 PM
---------------------------------------------------------
=XS= Jean's Room - Staff Wing - Lv 3
Large and airy this end of the hall room; the door from the hallway bisects one wall. To the right, an office area complete with overstuffed bookshelves and a desk with computer, docking stations for peripherals, and piles of papers both research and student. To the left, privacy screens in black lacquered wood and white rice paper enclose a sleeping area containing a bedside table and lamp, and a double futon with many pillows and an addictively comfortable duvet. The outer wall features two bay windows with cushioned window seats on either side of a small fieldstone fireplace. An oriental rug stands in front of the hearth, with a small cream coloured sofa perfectly placed for a quiet evening in. There are two additional rugs in the sleeping and office areas, otherwise the parquet floor is bare. Walls hung with gray-blue wallpaper and with acccents in black and white, the simple empty space allows for both visual and mental tranquility, aided and abetted by candles scattered about on black worked-metal stands. A door on the left wall leads to a fairly nice bathroom, and a matching one on the right opens into a large walk-in closet.
(Exits : [O]ut )
Dinner is done, the students scattered, and the mansion quiet as it gets on a Tuesday night, albeit the Tuesday night before Thanksgiving. The noise of the student level is muffled by wood floors and thick carpeting as Terry shuffles down the hallway to knock on Jean's door. In her hand are a pair of socks--used, but not /smelly/.
"It's open, Terry," bids a Jean, after a moment's outward unfurling of her mind identifies the sock-bearing supplicant. She's abandoned her desk for the evening in favour of the couch in front of her fireplace, where a few pieces of well-seasoned birch are crackling merrily away. Desk abandoned, but not her workload, student papers are in the process of being converted from unmarked to marked with many a dip and flash of a red pen. (Jean cares not for padding delicate self-worth with green ink.)
Terry turns the knob and pushes the door in, flourishing the socks ahead of her. "I have clean socks o' my own now," she announces cheerfully, entering the room with a bounce in her step and a gloss to her mind courtesy of a day filled with frivolity and laughter. And no zombies. "Thank you for the borrow of yours," she adds as drops them on the floor and moves a stack of already graded papers to take their place.
"You have a few years of raiding my wardrobe you've missed out on now," Jean murmurs, snorting softly as the dropped socks trigger an explosion of cat from underneath the coffee table to pounce on them. A hand waves even as Terry helps herself to a seat, and Jean sets aside the current essay under her guns to give Terry a smile that, while tired, seems quite at peace with the world. "It is," she says. "Very good to see you."
Terry's long-sleeved t-shirt sparkles NYC in red rhinestones against a black background. She tugs her shoes off against the toe of her other foot and pulls her feet up to the cough seat. "It's good t' be here," she says simply, wrapping her arms around her knees and smiling across them at Jean. "Everything and nothing has changed here."
"Students come, students go," Jean agrees, with a glance out the windows to make sure that none of them are trying to escape currently. "The staff remains... or at least the ones that don't run off to join your people."
Terry sucks in her lower lip and looks abashed as she rocks back on her heels and wiggles her socked toes at Jean. "It's definitely a career change."
"I admit I have an unlovely moment of envy every time I hear from your group," Jean admits, the tired look about her deepening for a moment, before the steady and practiced calm she's wearing wicks it all away. "Although... not so much after this last business of yours, from what I can piece together from my end."
Terry drops her chin to her knees and scowls, mien and mind's desert darkening under thunder clouds while she desperately tries to sweep the details under the sand. "It was not a good thing, Jean. It was not what we are, but it was necessary. It was... desperate." She turns her head to face the fire, staring at the flickering flames for a long moment before adding, "I do not ever want to be back there again."
Perhaps out of politeness, perhaps out of self preservation, Jean's mind furls in on itself as Terry's thoughts grow darker, dialed down to the merest mental finger kept on an emotional pulse, the merest wrap of warmth and comfort to settle on those weighted shoulders. "Hell on earth," she says, tone oddly precise. "That's what it looked like from the outside. I saw some of the data on the virus..."
"I don't know what all they sent you back, but it was no better on the inside." Terry looks up, another thought sparking bright off something undulating in the darkness. "I never told you thank you. For while I was here. As a student. Thank you."
A look of soft surprise, genuine if not entirely flattering for its existence, touches Jean's features at the thanks. A small smile follows after, and she nods once to Terry's look. "You're welcome. I know we weren't the easiest to live with when you first showed up, but I have to admit you're one of the students I'm most proud of. And I'm glad I get a chance to brush up against what you're doing now, from time to time."
Terry's nose twitches and she drops her head back to her knees before the blush staining nose and cheeks is noticeable. "Aye, well, I was the one who wasn't easy t'live with. But..." She burrows her face deeper into her knees and continues, "I would not be doin' this if it weren't for here. And I /am/ glad to be doin' it." She scrubs her eye with her knee cap, then peeks a bright eye back up at Jean. "Maudalin' and depressin' done with now?"
Jean Grey is not given to overabundances of hugs, strong psion that she is. Thus, it's a very deliberate sideways shuffle on the couch that precedes a firm offer of her arms, and the assurance that "I can take maudlin and depressing for a while... remember my usual groups are emo teens who actually -do- have a case to make that people hate them for being born," she quips. "But I can do subject changes too."
Terry leans into the contact, though it is not a hug by any stretch of the imagination. "Subject change then, please," she decides with a laugh. "What did you tell Madame Vargas? She told me I wasn't allowed in the kitchen t'morrow."
Jean will take the contact. There's a faint hint of relief that she's not ended up with a Terry uncharacteristically plastered all over her as she settles back in her seat and glances over towards an electric kettle is lairing on her mantle. "Oh, not much. Just mentioned that you might be interested in preparing traditional UK style vegetables... there was some sort of cursing in Hungarian."
"There is no appreciation for the potato," Terry mourns, following the glance, then falling off the couch to go retrieve the kettle for her. She leans over as she hands the kettle off and brushes a quick kiss to Jean's cheek. "I've got to go hang up some o' the clothes I got t' shake the wrinkles out. G'night."
"Rest well," Jean bids, cheek twitching beneath the peck as she smiles, and the kettle accepted and hefted to check its water level. "And give my regards to that coworker of yours. He keeps lingering in shadows."
There is a decidedly non-commital "hmm" at that instruction, and Terry wiggles her fingers as she lets herself out of the room.
Homecoming conversations.