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<> The Roof
Through a small little door accessed from the attic, one may stand or sit out here on a flat section of the mansion's roof on cool summer evenings, or anytime really, to think. Most of the mansion's grounds can be viewed from here as well as Westchester on, beautiful in the spring and fall when all things are blooming anew or the earthy, patchwork quilt of autumn lays across the land. Visible in the distance is the city skyline of New York.
[Exits : [Jump] to the Treehouse, and [In]side ]
[Players : Jean ]
No black cloud lingers of Monday's wrath. Nothing remains to savage distant lawmakers or the company they keep. Only something gray and diminished, curled in on itself, marks Jareth, beyond the movement of ascending steps. His fingers wait on the door, only for a moment before some lingering resolve pushes it open.
Jean's own thoughts are not really subdued, and not particularly diminished. Simply screened out of consideration for the other telepaths of the mansion, and kept firmly pointed to the task ahead of her. She doesn't turn at the sound of Jareth pushing the door open, instead keeping her eyes focused on the haze blurred New York City skyline in the distance as she stands on the edge of the roof. "Thank you for coming so quickly," is the greeting offered, careful and neutral. "I know if I were in your shoes, I'd probably be dragging my heels."
Conflicting propriety holds Jareth in the doorway, weighing directive and direction of movement. Soon enough, spurred by the propriety of punctuality, he moves to the edge himself - not entirely near. He stills, settling on some other point of that skyline, and a beat goes by. "Better that I come quickly."
A completely inopportune response to that flits through Jean's brain, but does no more damage than turning her expression odd for a moment, before the rogue thought is hunted down and summarily shot. There's no sense standing to remain imposing when you're up on a roof, and so she soon settles down with her legs over the edge and the eavestroughing digging into the bare skin of capri-clad legs. "It's appreciated, anyways. But I guess I have to ask you -- what would you do in my situation, Jareth?" One green eye peers up and over at him from over her shoulder, shrouded by windblown hair. "You're a friend, but I'm headmistress of the school, and I can't just give this a pass."
Only Jean and the distant skyline notice any such change. The skyline clearly reads every line on the chart. Movement beckons Jareth from the hazy buildings, to follow suit shortly after as his legs slowly fold and cross beneath him. Green meets blue-gray as the latter eyes slant to suitable angle, briefly, and then all the green he examines is the grass. A slow breath hoists his shoulders and lowers them again. "Do I get time to think? Ironic as it is to ask you to think."
"Think on your feet," Jean waves a hand, tone not unkind, but not granting that asked for privilege either. She's back to looking out at the city now, looming threat on the horizon. "A member of your staff, a person in a position of power, trust and responsibility, engages in sexual misconduct with a student barely a month graduated. No official rules have been broken, as the student is no longer a student, and isn't a minor, but it looks bad. The student may go, but other students and the rest of the faculty know too. What do you do?" she asks again. "How do you restore an environment where people feel they can trust faculty members to have pure intentions towards their stdents?"
Whatever rhythmic pressure Jareth's fingers exert on each other does not succeed in pressing answers from them. "I mean on my feet, just a minute to think." The gray indication of dispirited presence recoils further as mental images stir, pushed out to viewing. Students pointing, whispering. Teachers slightly refined in doing the same, but much the same. "I can think of some things I'll need to do. I'll start with the most accessible." No mention of easiest. He lifts from the grass again, waiting to meet that green regard again. "I'm sorry."
"Apology accepted." Jean's eyes do indeed find him again, steady and watchful, although her shoulders are eased somewhat by the lack of any bright ideas about defiance. Another inopportune thought arises (He only screws teenagers, he isn't one himself.) and once again sends her expression odd, before she once again exerts a telepath's rather scary level of self-control and stops thinking of the elephant in the room. "What now?"
Fractional and ephemerally brief, Jareth's brows pull down to puzzle over Jean's own display. Ephemeral as it is, he releases the clench of brows and looks skyward. Nor do answers fall from there. "Next, I think the students will need to hear something." He stares upward there until some small demon of recollection turns his attention to something scarcely older, no less pleasant. "How long do you think we have?"
"I'd advise an open letter to the general mailer," Jean murmurs, absent as she scans the evening sky for signs of the first star. "Apology, explanation... whatever. I don't envy you the writing of it. But I could require no less. And of course there will have to be a letter put in your file." But beyond that, Jean has nothing more to say. The spate of words ends in a sharp and hanging silence, inadequate. There are no stars out yet, and it's doubtful if they'd have answers if they were. The question asked of her likewise hangs for a bit, as Jean shifts her seat on the roof, hands between her knees. "Less than a month, now, probably." is the answer, given at last. "I won't be registering, 'nor a lot of the others. Given that some of us are outed... attention."
Teenagers mutter behind their hands once more, and Jareth's lowering of head from sky, when he does, is also a nod. "Don't envy classes at the start of the semester, either." He searches the sky only briefly this time, wisdom already proven absent from it. A glimmer of deeper dispiriting leaves a dark suggestion in the blue-gray eyes. "I'm not... Not just that." Blue-gray meets green again and holds this time. "Do you think we even have very long?"
"The law will be overturned," Murmured softly, absently, nearly lost to the eveing breeze, Jean stays with the new topic, turning possibilities over in her mind. "Tears the fourteenth amendment to shreds, for example. We just have to get a test case to the Supreme Court. And when X-ID dies, any dream of a functioning MRA dies with it. Making it work requires too much of the constitution to be ignored. But it's going to be an ugly little while 'til it does."
Fingers press to each other again over the fold of Jareth's legs, independent now of any relation to his companion but no less intent than before. "And until then, we move as though we're walking on ice thin as paper." Turned away for moments prior, he swings his attention to fix on Jean. "You saw what I thought already." As much question as statement. "Someone like me doesn't dare be found." His hands separate, moving in the air for some release of conviction, which is not there. "I could have every government on Earth hunting me to fill their own designs... or just hunting me." Rather than hands in air, his eyes seek in hers that means of unraveling conviction. "I can't stop a world, Jean."
"So don't try," Still absent, still staring up at the sky, Jean's words seem to be passing from brain to lips as a mere afterthought. "Just live your life. Draw your line in the sand, and walk it. Walk like you've got an army at your back," she suggests, before a snort of fey laughter escapes from her. "And don't look back -- they might be gaining on us."
Tension, in whatever portion, seems to drain with the words into the evening air - not entirely, but the bend of Jareth's shoulders now might be measured more loosely. The breath he releases comes easier, though perhaps only a tree below notices his wonder that it does. "I try. I just worry." What tension left empty abruptly fills with a blackened humor, caustic and biting. "Just wait until they start trying to make cybernetic supersoldiers, and I will. Fly, monkeys, fly."
"You've been watching Battlestar Galactica again, haven't you?" Jean wonders, meeting black humour with black humour of her own, and a wry, wry grin. With a sigh, she leans back against the tiles of the roof, head resting on folded hands, and continues her hopeful stargazing. "I'm thinking Gattaca myself. Which means we can play all sorts of shell games with vaccutainers of blood, if it comes to that."
Fortunate for the same tree that it lacks any true observation, target as it is of Jareth's darkly corrosive smile. "Maybe too much of the Borg or the Terminator movies." His own arrangement changes little, arms poised across knees and hands between. "I don't imagine that version would catch on so well among street performers." The smile droops away, but pitch-shaded mirth remains. "If it comes to that, should I just arrange for the systems to function like what equates to potheads?"
"...What?" Systems? Potheads? Jean is lost, and looks to Jareth for confirmation.
Back for an encore comes the smile, edged and honed. "Some system has to analyze the vials of blood, and it can't do it very well if it has no greater coherence than Cheech and Chong after a really good party."
"-Oh-." Enlightenment. "It's worth looking into, I'd say. Write up some initial investigations and turn them in," Jean suggests, in a measured tone and just a little less vague. Overhead, the first star of the night appears, and she awards it a small, secretive little smile. "Hopefully, it doesn't get that far," she murmurs, the smile sublimating away.
That edged smile stretches again. "I'll send something right to your desk." Jareth follows the indicative gaze and settles on that first of stars. "I hope not. The Founding Fathers will stomp out of their graves and hitchhike straight to Montreal." Images pass, of people in line, vials being drawn and line proceeding, until within the line appears to be... "Alyssa's leaving."
"I think it will be good for her if she does." Jean says, serious and almost silent. "We've done our best to try and keep her safe, teach her how to keep herself safe, and she--" But Jean doesn't finish that sentence, simply repeating "I think it will be good for her. We've been keeping a lot of the graduates here longer than we really should. Times like this," she muses, with a pause for a black laugh. "Can you blame us for wanting to keep the chicks near the nest?"
The smile now is faint, a wan shadow. "No. No, I can't. If I were a chick myself somewhere away, I'd probably fly back, make myself a nest nearby, and walk to the next branch over to ask mom and dad if I can borrow the laundry detergent." Jareth chuckles, equally wan, and turns back to Jean. "I hope she doesn't think we're just abandoning her or outright throwing her out, though."
"She's still a teenager," Jean murmurs, firmly, although her tone is free of accusation as she says it. "How she feels can change with the weather and the phases of the moon. But I'll make sure there's a housewarming for her, and see that there is Kraft Dinner in her cupboards."
A single exhale of dry laughter evaluates a concurrence. "Phases of the moon or angle on a sundial." Jareth evaluates further with a simple nod. "I think she'd appreciate feeling like she hasn't been cut off." Another beat goes by, and he begins drawing up a leg underneath him, another breath released. "I'd better get writing."
"The last thought flung in my direction from her was an 'Oh, fuck off'," Jean recounts, eyes tracking as a few more stars appear. She squints, and the Big Dipper is guessed at, finger pointing at where stars not yet bright enough to show will appear. "So I think I'll watch from a distance until the phases of the moon and the angle on the sundial align right. But I won't keep you further, Jareth."
Hands and Jareth himself rise nearly in unison, the former hoisting out to the sides. "She had a lot of emotion to handle. You know how well teenagers think when running on emotion. She still values you, though, I'm sure, and she'd rest more easy knowing your door is still open." The hands lower, and Jareth lingers a moment longer. "I'm glad it's still open for me." And he starts for the door.
"That was never in question." To what part of Jareth's statement Jean replies is left open-ended. The night is cool and quiet, and her eyes are for the stars. With a sigh, she shuts them for a moment, driving away outside thought, until she can resume her meditations on the infinite with greater peace.
ICly Wednesday night. Jean summons Jareth for a talk, which eventually meanders. Things end well.