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[When Parker had heard there was a new teleporter malfunction, she'd been thrilled. Turning into a shark had been awesome, so ever since Rookie's announcement that they were acting up again, she's been hopping back and forth through the teleporters, just waiting for something exciting to happen
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Miss, you're a sight too young to go to jail, yes? Everything will be all right. Is there an adult there with you?
[oh my god so many babbies babbies errywhere. DIS TELEPORTER ISSUE............
( ... )
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[But he says this in the most off-handed way. Because really, it's entirely of no consequence if she says no.]
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You sent your cookies away.
[EXPLAIN, SIR]
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You, ah, heard all that, did you? I'm terribly sorry, that was clumsy of me.
[this is the face of true repentance. :(]
I have to take them back myself, it seems. The robots aren't programmed to return gifts, the silly thing just beeped at poor Alex here and went on its merry way. Of course, they're addressed to me, so it's my responsibility to return them. The card says they're from this... Harper and Bigg's, but I confess, I have no familiarity with such a place.
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You should keep them.
[and it doesn't matter whether he likes cookies or not, that's so very far from the point, because -]
You shouldn't waste food.
[This is not the voice of a child repeating what she's been told, with echoes of clean your plate, eat your vegetables and don't complain, there are people starving in Africa. This is the voice of someone who knows from experience.
You don't waste food.]
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His expression gentles, and his tone has lost that edge of 'look I'm trying to be nice', settled back down somewhere around genuine sincerity.]
You're right. That would be... inconsiderate of me.
[And of course he thinks of Erik, in Auschwitz, and yes, how spoiled he must look to a child that's never known the meaning of enough.]
Would you perhaps do me the honour of sharing them?
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But she knows he doesn't understand that, because she's seen plenty of people like him, people who don't have to understand, people who never have to think about it.
This still smells like a trap...except the other person had talked about the cookies too. It has to be real.
And you don't waste food...or refuse it.
She shrugs, carefully noncommittal.]
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[And suddenly all that Oxford education and the twenty-odd years he's spent as a telepath amount to the sudden insecurity of a teenager in the face of one young girl's obvious trauma. This had started out as a simple feel-good deed, but it's... progressed somewhat past that, now. And Charles isn't sure quite how to handle it.]
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She glances around the unfamiliar landscape, clearly battling internally - the urge to trust him and accept his help versus the solid knowledge that it's safer not to.]
If you leave them somewhere, someone else will take them.
[so matter-of-fact. That's just the way it is.]
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Do you have any suggestions, then?
[T-TRYING TO TREAT HER LIKE AN ADULT...]
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She thinks hard, trying to figure out a solution, because she really wants those cookies, but all her instincts and experience are telling her to be careful - in other words, distrustful. She shrugs, huge and exaggerated. I dunno.]
Don't you have a family to share them with?
[She may be stalling for time, a little, but mostly she's trying to figure out what his motives are. He doesn't even know her - there's no reason he should share them with her.]
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Charles shifts a little, rubs a hand across his forehead. It's probably clear when he starts talking that he really has no idea what to do with his words. herp derp how does I socialize sans telepathy.]
When I was very young, I met a little girl about your age. People had - had treated her badly because she was different than they were, and their ignorance made them afraid. We sort of-- adopted each other, I suppose you could say. But she isn't here, and I miss her a great deal. The boy you saw, Alex? He's also part of my family, and there's two others as well, though they're a little too far away for me to introduce at the moment.
[... right, babbling. tl;dr honesty at a twelve year old. THE BEST.]
-- What I mean to say is that I think my sister would be very disappointed in me if I didn't share in my good fortune, and the boys could hardly begrudge the loss of a few cookies, hm?
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But there's something wrong.]
She's not part of your family now?
[he'd said she wasn't here, after all. And she knows what that means.]
They sent her back.
[your parents.]
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[SO BLANK-- oh, no, he gets it. Raven's adoption was never particularly legitimate, there was never the option of 'sending her back', because Charles hadn't allowed there to be, with everything that entails.]
No, she will always be part of my family. She just... isn't here, in this place. I'm rather far away from home, you see. If -- when she arrives she will still be every inch my sister.
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She shakes her head, backing up (and taking the camera with her, of course, whoops). No, she can read between the lines. Being part of the family doesn't mean much, if you're not actually allowed to live with them.]
She's not here and now you have a new family. And when they're too different, and they make people uncomfortable, and it's not a good match and they're too troubled and you're unable to meet their unique needs, and it's just not working out, you'll send them away too!
[yeah, that's some very specific phrasing there. Three guesses where she learned it.]
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break his heart why don't you.]
I'm sorry if that's the impression I've given, but nothing in my life could ever replace Raven. I care a great deal for Hank and Darwin and Alex, but there's room in my life for all of them, and no one's going to be replacing anyone else. It's... not a matter of having a new family, so much as simply expanding on the one already there, yes?
[SAD CHARLES IN SNOW.]
That my sister is not here is a point of great sorrow for me, but believe me when I say the choice to be apart was not ours, nor was it one made by our parents or the authorities. I would never have surrendered her for -- any of those myriad reasons you listed.
[This is hard to talk about. The truth of the matter is, he has no idea what home is like right now. Alex is from a time when they were going after Shaw. Hank is from the same. Darwin is from the point of his death, and Charles--
Charles hopes that, if time continues onward in his absence, that Erik and Moira and Banshee will protect his little sister.]No one is sending ( ... )
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