Fourth Time's Never the Charm

[hellfire_empath]

It took a couple of days after her disastrous meeting with Athos for Brooke to set one up with Rachel. For one thing, she'd needed to calm her nerves down a little bit - the meeting had truly been difficult and Brooke had never felt so off of her game in her entire life. For another, there had been the clean-up to consider. The turtle had left quite the hideous mess for Brooke - scorch marks included! - and it had been hard work for the brunette to clean all that up. 

I'm never taking Sharona for granted again, Brooke mused as she knocked on the door of Rachel's office. Such a hearty constitution when it comes to hard manual labor like that. 

She smoothed down the skirt of her dress and glanced again at the clutch she'd discovered while shopping that weekend. It was meant to look like the cover of one of Brooke's favourite books, L'Arrache-cœur. It was a French novel about a psychoanalyst who moved to a village where absurd things occurred. Not quite like the Institute, really, though thematically, it fits in some ways, she thought wryly. 

She took a seat outside of the office, flashing back to many of the other meetings she'd had with Rachel here since her arrival at the Institute not so long ago. And really, who knows how this one will end?

Comments

[nohoundsallowed]

"It's the best advice I can give at the moment." She not going to admit she was a little surprised Brooke cared so much about... someone so completely not in her social sphere. Also, he turned into turtles, which Ray had picked up as very scary to the socialite.

"Even if it doesn't work right away, it'll help in the long run. Don't give up. You're doing a good job with all of them."

[hellfire_empath]

They were terrifying for her.

Even when they were dead and in soup.

But this was...at some point down the line, Brooke had actually gotten invested in this. Why, she couldn't really say. He was, after all, outside of her social sphere.

In as much as that was true, though, Brooke was also starting to realize that in some way, the turtle was part of one of her social spheres - the mutant one.

If she was ever going to be someone that the mutants could look up to, she was going to need to start helping those in need.

"Thank you," she said, finally. "For that last little...thanks." She smiled at Rachel. "I needed to hear that."

[nohoundsallowed]

"You're welcome. Anything else I can help with?" All in all this had been one of the easier and more pleasant meetings with Brooke in her office. They had certainly come a long way since the first one.

[hellfire_empath]

"No, I think...I think that's it for now." Brooke stood up and smoothed down her skirt. "But thanks for hearing me out," she said. "I needed to vent, and talk out loud at someone." And considering that she was in this predicament because of Rachel, well, who else was better to talk to about all of this anyway?