Work Text:
Just A Note
by Pirate Turner
She trembled as agony and sorrow clutched at her heart. He wasn't supposed to have the power to hurt her so much. No one was supposed to reach her heart of ice, but just one look from his emerald eyes tore right through her every barrier. His words haunted her as she charged into her classroom and demanded, in a tone as cold and frigid as she was supposed to be, that her students take out pen and paper for a pop quiz. She ignored their groans at first and then silenced them with a firm statement that each moan she heard would encourage her to make the test all the harder.
She strode over to the window and turned her back to her classroom. She knew what each of her students thought of her. They feared her. They disliked her at varying degrees. None would ever love her or care about her, but she could live without their affection. She could. They couldn't hurt her like he did.
She growled fiercely and silently at herself, her blue eyes flashing. He shouldn't matter, but even as she rattled off questions, making them as hard as she could and her voice as icy and unemotional as possible, his words floated back to her.
{Let him fly to Moira,} Emma told herself as she began to walk amongst her students' desks, peering over their shoulders to see their failing marks. She had work to do here, lives to mold, futures to brighten while her own remained as dark and lonely as it ever had been before the Hellions. She stopped by Jubilee's desk and looked down, her head tilting slightly in curiosity at the words the young mutant scrawled over the otherwise blank sheet of paper. She reached over and darted down her attempt at an answer to Emma's latest question, then returned to the note.
Ms. Frost, the torn notebook paper read, much to Emma's growing shock, I know Irish can be a butt. He's a man, and all men are jerks sometimes. But please don't take it out on us. He doesn't know what he's missing out on. Let him go to Scotland; I bet you can do better.
It was only as she finished the note that Jubilee began to take notice of the presence hovering over her shoulder. She glanced up and gulped as her blue eyes met Emma's. She had intended to hand in the paper without a name on it and had hoped that Emma would not recognize her handwriting. All such hopes were now dashed, and she figured she was about to be grounded forever.
She stared at Emma, the color draining from her dark-tinged face, and then hurriedly wrote another line. Not all of us are careless jerks. Emma smiled for the first time that day, and even then sadness hinged on her weak grin. She gave Jubilee a single, slight nod as she cleared her voice and called out, "The next, and last, question will be for half the grade." She thought for a moment, then gave them a question easy enough that even those who had been sleeping through her class should be able to make the cut.
Her eyes met Jubilee's shocked expression again as she began to gather the papers. She smiled silently at her, her mind still marveling. Was it only Jubilee's way of keeping from failing her class, or did the girl actually care for her? She didn't know, and though she was tempted to read her mind, she was also afraid of what she might find therein. Regardless, the child had won the day for her classmates and succeeded in cheering Emma up when she'd thought it impossible. {You're growing soft, old girl,} she thought, {but maybe it isn't such a completely bad thing after all.}
The End