2013-02-23 Reflections and Resolutions

As is fairly common since her arrival a few weeks ago, Rachel Summers can be found wandering through the corridors of the venerable Institute, looking at the fixtures and the decorations, paintings and whatever, with a somewhat unreadable but mildly sorrowful expression. This time is no different as she looks up at the portrait of one of the teams that featured her parents and others, hands in her jacket pockets. "They look so young," she says aloud, not really paying attention to her surroundings all that much.
Coming down the hall is Jocelyn, a tall redhead who is dressed fairly casually today, though the black gloves worn indoors might seem a little weird. She's got a small book on Greek mythology under one arm, and she looks like she just came in from the cafeteria. The cookie in her other hand might be a hint to that too, of course, which she is casually munching as she hums a random jazz tune under her breath. All in all, she seems fairly happy and calm. She overhears the last little bit of Rachel's comments and glances over at the picture. "They do? They look like they always have," Jocelyn responds to the woman. There's a little bit of confusion in her voice, but she doesn't seem particularly bothered.
With a slight tussled, unbrushed hair look to her, Paige has been awake for about four minutes. Having arrived this morning to the Institute, she's certainly a fresh face. In fact, as she sleepily ambles about, slowly and respectfully, this is her first stroll through this part of the facility. The nap she awoke from was only about 150 minutes, only a drop in the bucket to a two hour sleepless stint previously. Our seventeen-year-old, just-out-of-Kentucky farm girl considered finding some coffee, but tossed away the idea. She didn't need that--she was tough enough. Bleary-headed, she heard some talking up ahead. It sounded like mumbles. Rounding the hall, ahead of her she saw two red-heads ahead of her in the hall. She slowed just a bit, not wanting to command too much attention in her just woken state.
After being essentially robbed of -his- set of student profiles earlier by Illyana, Doug had to wait a bit while another was made available to him. Playing it smarter this time around, digital copies were made, encrypted, and stuck on his smartphone. Try and steal -that-.
Seeing Jocelyn, Doug catches up with the younger girl, greeting her with a "Hello!", and following that up with an apology. "Listen, sorry about earlier. Long story, but I think we can discuss it, and..."
There was a quick nod at Rachel, as Doug blinks at the redhead. Seemed a bit old to be a student, but at the same time ... "Um, hello. You new here?" Then again, the X-Men seemed to multiply a -lot- every day, so for all he knew, this might have been one that showed up while he was... indisposed.
But when Paige comes by, Doug blinks. "Paige? Hey...!" He hadn't seen her in -ages-... probably the last time he'd ever seen her was whenever she visited Sam, or Sam had invited his classmates to visit his farm. Of course, that was practically a lifetime ago, before Doug died. And he hadn't managed to catch up to Sam recently, so not a word about Paige.
Not /seeming/ to pay attention to her surroundings is not the same as /actually/ not paying attention. Rachel Summers is an old, old hand at the Han Solo method of flying casual, doing one thing while looking like she's doing something else... even walking through memories like this. As soon as the others start approaching, her head begins to turn, almost creepily before Jocelyn even completes her first word. "I'm still getting used to things around here," she confesses, taking a step back from the portrait when Paige and then Doug arrive. There's no recognition on her face for any of them. "I'm fairly new, past month or so," she answers Doug's question. "Scott brought me in," she adds, jerking her thumb at the likeness of her red-lensed father in the picture. "Name's Rachel." Keeping the last name to herself for now, to avoid breaking any brains... at least for a few minutes.
"Jocelyn," the girl says, offering Rachel a gloved hand. Rachel wouldn't find her on any portraits. She was way too new, and hadn't actually found out about the X-Men yet, so you know, she was pretty low on the totem pole at current times. "And I am too. Mr. Summers just brought me in a week or so ago," she explains.
Jocelyn notices Paige briefly, but it isn't until she hears Doug's voice that she pays the girl any mind, since the man gives her a rather warm greeting. She shifts her bodyweight slightly onto her back foot, towards the stairs, when Doug addresses her. "Hello Mr. Ramsey," she says to the man calmly. "We could, though I think talking about it later would be better," the girl suggests simply.
A nod is given to Paige. "Hi there. I'm Jocelyn," she greets the girl warmly. She hadn't met Paige, but she hadn't met a lot of people, since she hadn't been here very long.
Rubbing her eyes, a mixture of excitement and confusion stumble across Paige's emotions. Someone who knows her? Scanning around, she sees Doug there. And, although his name escapes her, he is familiar. A smarty-pants guy, she thinks, one of Sam's friends! She is instantly calmer, and her body language shifts from a slow, guarded stumble to an easier stroll, as she moves closer. Well, this room was getting active, she thought, wondering if it was just that time of day.
Here she was, now for the first time in a school of mutants, and it was time to mingle. Yeah... mingle. With that thought, she turned to smile at Jocelyn who greeted her so effortlessly. "A-heya..." she said, trying to address both her and Doug, "Yeah, it's me. I'm Paige. I just... kinda... landed here," she said, both excited and hesitantly.
"Mmm... nice to meet you then, Rachel," Doug says with a friendly smile, his body language relaxed as he glances at the picture of Scott, followed by a wry smile. "He's hard on people, but he's pretty cool otherwise. Doesn't expect anything from you he wouldn't ask of himself, but he'll make sure to put you in the best position to succeed."
As Paige joins, Doug grins. She does seem a bit relieved to see him, if awkward, so Doug simply reintroduces himself, just in case. "Been ages since I saw you, you were a lot smaller the last time I saw you." Indicating himself, he grins. "Doug Ramsey. I was in the same class as your brother, I saw you a few times when you were visiting. This is Jocelyn, that's Rachel... all new students, I guess. Heck of a group this year we've got so far."
Glancing at Rachel, Doug tilts his head. "You here for the 'graduate' courses?" Compared to the younger girls, at least...
Rachel Summers hesitates once before accepting the handshake, as if it's either not a 'thing' for her, or it's an expression of gentility that is very lost where she comes from. "Nice to meet you," she replies to the others, since that's the polite thing to say, and mom was always about being polite to folks who weren't trying to kill you. "I know the feeling," she adds just to Paige, a slight sardonic quirk to her lips at that one. Then Doug expounds upon Scott's behavioral patterns, and she murmurs, "I know..." with an odd tone of voice. "And no... at least... I don't believe so. Haven't been in school for a long time." This time, her mouth quirks again, the sardonic expression self-directed. Private joke. "It's definitely still weird to me, seeing the place like this," she then says, gesturing with one hand to the hallway around them. "Intact."
Jocelyn releases the handshake and nods. "Good to meet you both," she says to Paige and Rachel. An eyebrow is raised when Rachel talks about seeing the place intact. "Intact? Well, I suppose accidents happen, but I've never heard of it having to be rebuilt," Jocelyn comments with a hint of confusion in her voice. She gives Paige a small grin. "I haven't been here long either. I'm still figuring my way around here and getting used to everything," the teenager explains to her. Though did that mean she was no longer the New Girl? Wow, that title didn't last long!
At Doug's introduction, Jocelyn glances at him briefly, just a little bit surprised. That wasn't exactly what she was expecting, though she was pleased by it. "We're in the middle of the term though, so we've got catch-up work like mad to do. Where are you from?" she asks Paige.
"Kentucky, born and raised... couldncha tell?" Paige said with a little blurt of casual pride. Turning her body to look at all three of them in the hall, a lopsided circle was formed where the group could face each other. "Sounds like we're all in a similar boat, huh? Hope we ain't got any leaks," she awkwardly mused. Continuing about herself, she stated, "I've been here only a few hours, I think. Like Doug here so elo-quently said, my brothers acquainted with the school... mister Sam Guthrie. Mutants run in the family." She started to size up the group, taking mental notes on them.
"Intact." Now Doug's smile is sardonic, too. More to do with mishaps and accidents and... well, Sam being Sam.
"Someone tell you tales about what we've been up to here?" Doug grins at Rachel, before indicating the various little nicks and stains in the building. "There's a story behind each and every one of those. And not all of it belongs to the students here. Ask the teachers sometimes, they're responsible for a good chunk of those."
Jocelyn gets a smile. "Ask around, and you might get a good story out of it. Like Paige here... she might have heard the story about the time Sam was practicing his powers and wrecked a -lot- of property around here." They didn't call him Cannonball for nothing. A bemused smile crosses his face as he grins at Paige. "He -did- tell you about that, right?"
Rachel Summers gives Doug something of a puzzled look. "No, they didn't need to." Gesturing to Paige for a moment with just her chin, she says, "Mutants run in my family too. I grew up in this house..." Glancing at each face for a moment, she makes a decision, shrugging a bit fatalistically. Either they'll believe her or not... "I'm from the future, a good quarter-century s'far as I can tell. It's all approaching white vertex for me, but yeah." She points to the team portrait, specifically to Scott and Jean. "In that future, which depends on whose time travel theory you prefer, it might not be /this/ future... a good twenty five years from now, this place is a radioactive crater, and far too many of our people went up with it and became blue nonagon." She shrugs a bit. "The little nicks and dings... I can barely remember them. Or much of anything else, for that matter, other than the basics. Who I am, who my friends are, who they aren't..."
"I'm from Detroit myself. I've been talking with Rogue, so I guess the southern accent didn't quite click my ear as it should have," Jocelyn replies to Paige with a nod. "Seems like we're all in the same boat then, yeah". She shrugs a little bit and moves the book she has over to her other arm for a moment.
"Oh, I'm sure I'd hear a few stories from the teachers if I ask them and they're in a sharing mood," Jocelyn adds to Doug's statement. "Though I'll concentrate on making sure I don't wreck anything first".
Then Rachel's words hit her. "Future?" she asks, more shock than anything in her voice. "You mean, actual time travel exists?" Hey, she's seen demons and green people and all sorts of crazy things in the mere week or so that she's been here. Time travel? Well, okay. That's possible, she supposes. But it does hurt her poor, non-scientific head a bit. Doug, being the adult and resident expert on weird stuff, gets a look from Jocelyn as though to ask for verification that she's hearing this right.
"There's gotta be half a dozen stories o' Sam tearin' places apart," Paige said mirthfully--it was unclear if she was proud or embarrassed about this. In general, she was feeling much more at home and not nearly as nervous about being here at the Institute, something that she'd thought about quite a lot growing up. And now she was sharing time with two girls who would in all likelihood would be her new classmates! Joceyln, friendly. Rachel, grim.. jaded? Why WAS she so jaded for? But just as she was about to ask, Rachel offered a rather clear and justifiable explanation. One that made Paige's heart feel like it was falling like a dropped stone.
"My...my god. Th-that's gotta be another world than this one. This place, we're here to make a difference." The sadness in Paige's voice was real--and she was really denying this as a possibility, not because she thought Rachel was 'wrong' or 'crazy' but simply because the highly optimistic, self-determined Kentucky girl couldn't emotionally handle the idea of living in a world where that could happen. Bordering on cognitive dissonance, Paige tried to change the subject without sounding rude... "What can you two do, 'zactly? In so much as abilities."
Arching his eyebrow, Doug glances at Rachel's body language. Yes, he was checking her out, but no, this was more of an appraising look, as though wondering if she were perfectly serious. Which, since she -was- actually from the future, meant her body language showed she -really- believed it. That, or she was insane.
"Oh," Doug wrinkles his nose as he considers, eyes going back to the picture. "... Wait, that means you know what happened to -them-, do you?" he asks, before glancing at the other two girls, particularly Paige's crestfallen expression. "Ahh... remember, there are always possibilities..."
So he was quoting Spock. So sue him.
Rachel Summers nods once to confirm Jocelyn's statement. "Yep, I was born in the future," she says with another shrug. "As for how I /got/ here, I don't know... those of us left didn't have any time travel gear with us, and all that kind of tech was either destroyed or confiscated. The feds, basically. Non-mutants turned on us and all hell broke loose. Laws got enacted, people got jailed, then worse. Of course, we fought back. Paid for it, but we never gave up." She glances up at the painting again. "Who, mom and dad? They're fine, last time I saw 'em." Then, her green eyes fall on Paige. "Well, it /has/ to be another world. My coming back here no doubt created ripples in the fabric of the continuum to generate a new time stream from what would have happened originally. Sorta like that movie reboot with the space ships. Star Trek or something." She doesn't seem to be overly upset about all of it, other than a wistful look for her parents on the portrait. Sort of homesick for a moment, but then she shakes it off. "My powers are like my mom's," she says, gesturing to Jean Grey's image. "I'm not used to seeing her without any grey hair, pun entirely intended... And dad's got a full head of hair here... weird. But yeah."
"That would make sense. If you're here, that changes things," Jocelyn replies with a thoughtful look on her face. She was willing to entertain the idea of it being possible, and Rachel certainly seemed to believe it. "I haven't had any experience with time travel myself, but I don't think that's common technology yet," she adds. She pauses and looks at the picture of Jean Grey. "Sorry, I haven't been here long. What powers are her's?" Jocelyn asks.
In response to Paige's question, she turns to the girl. "I'm an energy absorber. I can absorb pretty much any type of energy and shoot it back out or enhance my physical form. I can also see energy around us," Jocelyn explains to her. "How about you?" she questions.
Listening to Rachel's story and the world she came from stings a bit, but she again resists the urge to think about it. At least for now. But she couldn't help but comment: "So, I reckon everything seems pretty surreal, huh? Like a Disneyland. I heard about Jean Grey and Scott Summers; they're some of Sam's personal heroes for sure. Whatcha gonna do now that ya get to walk 'round a world free of ruin?" she asks earnestly, despite the grim subject.
Looking at Jocelyn, she responds, "So if you got hit with a laser, you can bounce it back? Yer kinda like a mirror!" she spouts, trying to sound amusing. "Me, I'm a shedder. I can study an element, or a substance, and try to copy it in my skin." She wonders if that makes any sense, describing it. "What do you do, Doug? Sorry but I don't remember anything but yer intelligent demeanors."
"Hnh... there's been laws that've been talked about, but haven't been fully enacted..." Doug muses, as he glances towards Rachel, pondering the time ripples. "Yeah, a lot like Star Trek, all right."
Tilting his head to look at the picture, Doug blinks. "Your mom's -Jean Grey-?" The mental image of Scott Summers going bald, on the other hand... well, Doug quickly looks elsewhere, a smirk crossing his face. Somehow, he thought, Scott Summers as a Professor X with red glasses didn't seem -right-.
Jocelyn's question is left for Rachel to answer, as it was her -mother-, after all. Instead, Doug grins at Paige. "My power's translation. Any language." And wait for the inevitable disappointment...
"The physics I was taught seem to imply that," Rachel affirms with a nod to Jocelyn and then realizes that not everyone knows what her parents can do necessarily. "Telepath and telekinetic, mostly," she replies belatedly. "The sort of mutant that the feds hated the most, because they were all afraid folks like me would read their minds without permission and learn all their dirty secrets. As if I wasn't taught better than that," she adds disdainfully. Then her gaze slides over to Paige. "/Very/ surreal. Especially seeing people happy... well, /reasonably/ so if you go to Manhattan itself... but... it's weird." She glances over to Doug and nods. "Jean is my mom... but I don't know if the local Jean /here/ knows who I am..."
"Ahh, okay," Jocelyn says. Well, she's seen some people with those abilities around, so Jocelyn doesn't worry too much about those. "Thanks. Sorry, like I said, new here and I don't know everything yet". She offers the woman a casual shrug. "I suppose I can see a situation where a government would fear that. Heck, I'm pretty sure my city's mayor would have a heart attack at the very thought, but half that town is corrupt, so that isn't a shock". No, she doesn't miss living in Detroit all that much.
She gives Paige a nod in response to her question. "That's the theory, though I haven't tried absorbing a laser yet. I'm not quite sure that'll be an enjoyable experience. Maybe I'll get lucky and it'll be a weak laser," the girl jokes to her. "That sounds like an interesting power. So, you can become water or stone or things like that?" she asks.
At Doug's explanation, Jocelyn gets a thoughtful look on her face as she looks over at him as a few things click into place. "That's a rather useful ability," she says to Doug as she starts to put some pieces together.
Paige considers Doug's powers for a moment. "You could single-handedly negotiate peace cross the whole world, huh?" she smiles, a whimsical tone in her voice, though she was serious. “Too bad guns'll talk louder than words." Her words brought her somewhat back to the uneasy feeling she got hearing Rachel's past, a mental image of a giant crater sliding into her mind's eye. Right where they stood, she thought, while the others spoke. She reminded herself of her recent mantra--her determination to make a difference in the world. Oh, how easily Paige personalized all of the world's problems...
Paige decided to try to have the whole group shake off onset of a doomsday mood she was assuming they had, like her. "Can't we try to have these moments have some meaning?" she vaguely and awkward proposed to the group, her eyes shifting momentarily to one of the other photos on the wall. It was a class photo, full of mutants, faces full of cheer. Paige decided to consider this a symbol of what the school had to offer, and she returned to look upon the eyes of the three gathered around. "We can make the promise to never let anything like that happen," she declared, trying to convince herself as much as the others.
Well, they didn't go -that's all-?, at the least. At least Doug didn't tell them that it extended to body language as well as computer languages... although he had a nagging suspicion that Rachel knew, especially if she had her mother's powers... well, at least until she declares she wouldn't. "What about Scott? Does he know?"
There's a grin at Jocelyn and Paige. "Well, that's part of the thought they had when I signed up to work for the United Nations. Though people are more interested in their own thoughts than the thoughts of others... right, Rachel?"
At the comment Paige makes, though... Doug winces. "Let's not bring up guns, okay?" Considering he died by one, he really wasn't in the mood to consider -that-. "Let's just... yeah, work on a future without guns, hopefully."
"I hope things don't turn out the same as I remember," Rachel says with a bit of a shrug, glancing mostly at Paige for a moment. "He's the one who found me, or rather, I found him at the grocery store, but yeah, he knows. He told me he and Jean aren't together in this reality... so already one major difference from where I was... but since /my/ versions of them are still alive and fighting the good fight, the local ones don't owe me anything. It's nice to have backup, tho." She nods once more to Doug. "Most people who hate telepaths like me assume we're as unethical as they are."
"I'm not so much into the exploding building thing myself," Jocelyn responds. "I'm good with not rolling over and letting things end up that way. But I'm stubborn that way," Jocelyn says. She glances down at her phone as it beeps at her. She picks it up and starts fumbling with it as the alarm goes off. "Oh, stupid thing. How do you...there!" She finally locates the 'Shut Up' button, aka the 'off' button on her phone's screen that kills the alarm. "I've got to get going. I'm supposed to be in the gym soon. It was good meeting you both. Mr. Ramsey, we can talk later," she says to the man. Then she heads off.
Attempting to push her positivity more into the room, by hook or crook, Paige decides to show some cheer. "I'm pretty glad to meetcha'll... this conversation got me me thinkin' about how fragile things can be. Whenever somethings tough, there's always something else that's tougher... and we gotta be ready for that," she pronounces, as if she were practicing her motivational speech writing for the first time. "And we have the chance to devote ourselves to a protected world, together!" she concludes, but then remembers to add, "Presumin' that I enroll here, of course."
She waves to Jocelyn, genuinely thrilled to meet another classmate. Seeing Doug, hearing Rachel's story. She decides that this isn't just coincidence. And she begins to contemplate, for the first time as an actual, tangible reality, what she's got to do to feel like a worthy student here. She's got to be her best... nay, she's got to be THE best. In her own head, she swears she will be.
Rachel's words tells Doug that, indeed, she must have read -him-. Though to be fair, he wasn't trying to control his body language, so she could just as well have read his expression. A sheepish grin crosses his face as he nods at her, before waving farewell to Jocelyn. "No problem," he says.
Turning to Paige, Doug can't help but grin. "Is this normal for the Guthries, or are you just a lot like your brother?" he teases, body language now positively cheery at her words. "And if you do enroll here, I'm sure Sam will be thrilled. Especially since you know -all- the stories about what he was like before he came here." There's a smirk. "At least you don't seem as -nervous- about the city as he was..."
"It can be fragile, but even when it was the worst for us where I'm from... we still held to the ideals that this place represented," Rachel says with a satisfied nod, giving a casual farewell wave to Jocelyn. She smiles faintly at Doug's enthusiasm for finding out more this Sam person's past. "That's a worthy enough goal for me for the moment. And I've been keeping my eyes open. Dad trained me as much as mom did, after all." She looks at the other two intently for a few moments, Doug less than Paige since his body language changed there and she didn't want to embarrass him any. "I need to get back to my reading... my arrival didn't change history, things were already different, so I need to learn about what's changed since whatever nexus point caused the shift to purple octagon. Later, skaters." With a parting wave of her own, she makes her way to wherever they hid the library this time around.
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