Todd would spend most of Elizabeth's senior year working, studying, and creating new art for his portfolio. They still spent time together and she was usually helping him study during that time. She reflected once that helping him to study was teaching her better habits; being able to skate through her courses without cracking a textbook had fed her own inclination toward laziness. For Todd's sake she attacked helping him study with the fervor of a office supply fanatic. She helped him take his notes, color code them, and created flashcards that a scrapbook enthusiast would have envied. She suspected her own scores were improving as a result.
Elizabeth elected, against much protest from her teachers, not to take AP English her senior year. She selected the basic English course so she could have more time for other priorities, primarily courses she taking outside of high school aimed at preparing her for a job as an emergency medical technician. Elizabeth and Todd could often be found working on separate subjects or levels of the same subject, but still together. Elizabeth found that it comforted both of them to sit together even while they didn't speak to each other.
Todd had Christmas Eve off of work while Elizabeth was on the school's winter break. They had relative privacy because many of the Institute's students were home with their parents. They were cozied up in front of the fireplace together, sharing the same blanket. Elizabeth held her mug full of hot chocolate with both hands while she watched the flames. She'd sent out all of her college applications and she would wait the next few months for letters of acceptance or rejection. Dr. McCoy had convinced her to apply to all of the places she wanted to go, even if she didn't think she would be accepted or could afford to attend. Todd had an arm wrapped around her waist under the blanket and he watched her.
"I can get a pretty cheap studio or one bedroom in Peekskill, where I'll probably be going to college for the first few years," she was telling him, "Once I complete my EMT training and pass my test I can get work. There are EMT jobs available in White Plains, across the Hudson."
"That's a toll bridge," Todd told her, "That'll get expensive real quick."
"I know," she said, "But I need to go to school and I need to work. If I'm lucky maybe something will open up near Cortlandt or something."
"You'll need to pay for a car," he pointed out, then began to rattle off a list of things he figured she wasn't thinking about yet, "Rent, utilities, cell phone bill, groceries, gas, car insurance, renter's insurance, internet, and tuition."
She sipped her chocolate and tried not to have a panic attack.
"You lived on your own, sort of, for a while," she pointed out, "When Mystique was gone for so long, you boys were on your own."
"Yeah, me, Pietro, Fred, Lance, and Tabitha," Todd nodded, rubbing his cheek against her hair, "Taxes make a dent in your paycheck; you won't be taking home what you make hourly. That was a shock to me when I got my first check. Food will work out to be around a hundred dollars or so eaxh month if you're careful and if you can cook without burning the food or poisoning yourself. Eating out will be out of the picture. You'll basically want to spend three dollars a day on food, if you can. You'll want to look for a place that's less than a grand each month, probably a studio that's five hundred square feet or smaller. You won't be able to afford anything more than a few hundred a month for transportation. A new car is out."
"Driving a junker, living in a closet, eating only the cheapest food that I can make myself," Elizabeth mused, "I think I can get a job making twenty-five thousand annually. Do you think I'll be able to make it?"
He shrugged, "You can always come back here, if you crash and burn."
Elizabeth actually winced, "Coming back here means dropping out of college. I really don't want to do that."
"Potatoes are a good buy," he told her, thoughtfully, "They last forever on the floor or in a cabinet. You won't go hungry with them, even if you get mindlessly bored. You'll have to give up your obsession with hormone-free, antibiotic-free, cage-free everything and force yourself to eat your leftovers before you make anything new."
"Those breakfast burritos I like are only a dollar each," she told him.
He smiled, "Sure. You could eat one of those three times a day and your grocery budget would be okay. But you'd probably develop some kind of deficiency or something."
"Cup noodles, the instant ramen, are really cheap, too," she murmured.
"Yep," he agreed, "Sometimes you can get family packs of frozen chicken for around a dollar fifty per piece of chicken. Five pounds of potatoes is a little over two bucks and that's about fifteen potatoes."
"If I eat a burrito for breakfast, noodles for lunch, and I alternate a baked potato or a piece of chicken for dinner then that's," she trailed off, trying and failing to do the math in her head. He thought the furrow between her brows was adorable.
"Every two weeks you can spend about two fifty for potatoes, about ten on chicken, about fifteen for burritos, and fifteen on instant noodles," he supplied, "That comes to about fifty every two weeks. If you have any extra you should spend it on butter or stock up on cheap spices."
"No money for sodas," she said mournfully.
"Yep," he nodded, "You'll lose weight, probably, not that you should be losing weight."
She shrugged, "I have trouble keeping weight, actually. Remember that time I was sick for three days straight? Dr. McCoy almost put me on an IV because I wasn't keeping down liquids for a while. I lost thirty pounds and two shoe sizes."
"Your feet shrank?" he asked, incredulous.
"Yeah, I had wide feet," she told him, "Apparently, they were chubby."
"Ain't a damn thing on you that is or ever was chubby," he grumbled. Elizabeth considered him for a moment. He'd always been skinny but over the last few months he'd started to fill out. He wasn't fat but he had added some muscle. He'd always been a soft kind of skinny. Now he was leaner, more toned. He'd probably never bulk up like Logan or Scott but she preferred it that way, honestly.
"Why are you so grumpy?" she finally asked, "You're skinny, too."
"I didn't used to know where my next meal was coming from," he told her, "I'm not naturally skinny. That's how I know what life's like without money for food."
Elizabeth set her chocolate aside and squeezed him, "It gets better."
"Sometimes it does," he nodded, but he was grim, "I know it could have gone differently for me. I might have chosen to stay with the Brotherhood and my life would've been utterly different. I was going to give up my art when we met. I wouldn't have had anything else."
"Well, you didn't," Elizabeth rested against him.
"I never thanked you for what you did that day," he said, slowly, "So, thanks."
"You're welcome," she told him, "But you don't need to thank me. When it counted you had the talent and you made your own choices, it was all you."
He shook his head ruefully. She didn't get it. He figured that was okay. Sometimes he wondered where he'd have ended up if she'd just left a few minutes earlier that day. Nowhere he wanted to be now, he decided. He gave her a considering look. The ripples of her messy blonde hair were cut short, highlighting prominent cheekbones in a heart-shaped face. Her finely delicate body was stronger than it looked, a byproduct of living and sometimes training with the X-Men. Her blue eyes were beautiful because they were kind, usually.
"So, you're moving away to attend college next year," he redirected the conversation back to her future plans, "Sounds like having a roommate might help you out, financially."
"Yeah, but then I'd have to find one," Elizabeth answered, oblivious.
"Maybe, or maybe you've already got a candidate," he told her, starting to smile, "I haven't got plans that I can't change."
"You?" she asked, "Really?"
He nodded, "I could submit my portfolio to a few parlors out near the college and see about apprenticing near Peekskill. I can work someplace, or a couple of places, part-time. It would split the rent on a studio or one bedroom in half. On your budget, that opens up another six hundred. Plus, I can take public transit or we can split using and paying for the car. "
"I'd have to put that extra into savings," she considered it, biting her lower lip anxiously, "Just in case we hit a rough patch." She worried a little about him being a less than reliable roommate but she didn't bring it up. He knew how to make a little stretch a long way and she knew how to save her pennies. She realized she hadn't ever told him about her money in savings. She was prepared to spend it if she needed to spend it, but she was hoping she could get by without losing all of it.
"It would be there for you, in any case," he told her.
"Do you want to live in Peekskill?" she asked, "What about the X-Men?"
"I didn't qualify, again," he sighed, "After thinking about it, you might have been right. I don't like training so hard physically. I just want to kick butt and take names."
"You can't do that without training," she prodding and tickling him with quick, merciless fingers.
"I care more about my art," he told her, gasping and trying not to squeal. He tried to keep her hands away from him. It was a fairly quick wrestling bout, which he lost.
"I win," she declared, triumphant. She'd wrangled him onto his face on the floor, with one arm professionally twisted behind his back.
"Only because I don't want to hurt you," he groused into the carpet, irritated.
"Uh huh," he could hear her grinning, "Couldn't have anything to do with me having more than a year of training on you."
He rolled his eyes, "Uncle. Now let me up."