((OOC: This thread takes place late January/early February.))

Tarin was nervous about letting her out of his sight, but Lee was insistent; she couldn't be with him 24-7-365. Not that she hadn't always enjoyed spending a lot of time with her husband, but she couldn't always be with him. Plus, she had stressed, Matt wouldn't let anything happen to her.

And, Lee reminded her husband just before he left her outside the bar, she was going to call him when she was finished so he could come pick her up.

So much of the time now, though she understood Tarin's worry, Lee felt like a little kid who wasn't allowed to do anything on her own.

That's what made this even better, Lee thought as she walked into the bar she had been in so many times before. But never like this, never during the day, when it was empty. It was kind of eerie. But she was going to actually be doing something here. Maybe nowhere close to world-changing like Columbia and Romania had been, but still doing something. Hopefully.

Before she had made it too far in, Lee heard a voice calling out as a head stuck out a doorway in the back. "We're closed!"

"I sure hope so," Lee replied as she recognized Matt. "How else are we going to get this taken care of?"

"Oh, Lee! I didn't realize it was this late already. I'll be right out, have a seat somewhere," Matt continued, waving his hand vaguely around the bar.

It really didn't take long for Lee to take a seat in one of the booths around the bar, somewhere she had never sat when the place was open, and for Matt to join her with a folder in hand, his business plan.

She was flipping through the papers slowly, glancing at what he had written there, but to be honest, there were a couple other things that were just as important, if not maybe more so, and those answers would not be found on these pages. She liked the man, but she really didn't know a whole lot about him, and liking someone as a bartender was much different than going into business with them.

"Before I agree to help with any of this, there's a few things I need to know," Lee said, her eyes still on the papers in front of her, trying to keep her voice as neutral as possible. "What are your feelings about mutants and adapteds? And what about the Church of Humanity? Are you a member?"

As she finished speaking, Lee finally looked up and at Matt again, trying to gauge his thoughts and feeling based on any facial expressions. He simply shrugged. "As long as they don't cause any problems, I don't really care who comes in here."

Lee shook her head at Matt. "That's business. I want to know about you. Are you, or have you been, a member of the Church of Humanity? And what about mutants?"

"Really, Lee, do I look like a church guy?"

"You never know these days," Lee replied, though she could see the incredulous look on Matt's face.

"After a Saturday night here, I'm normally lucky to get out of bed before noon. And, to be honest, I haven't really met any mutants to really have an opinion one way or another, but I don't have anything against them in general."

Lee simply nodded at that, it kind of made sense, except for the fact that he was wrong. "Alright, then," Lee said, turning her eyes back down to the papers in front of her, really actually looking at them this time. "And you're wrong, you know," she decided to point out. "You've met lots of mutants."

"And how can you be so sure of that?"

"Have you seen what this country is like, what this city has been like with how it treats mutants?" Lee asked slowly as she read, not even bothering to look up at the man sitting across the booth from her. "Most of them aren't going to go out of their way to announce to the world what they are, and for most of them, it's far from obvious simply to look at them. You've met, and talked to, and flirted with more mutants than you'd likely believe."

There was a silence there between them for a minute, and Lee used that time to read further in the business plan that he had handed her. ”Really, Lee, I don’t know what you think of me, but I don’t flirt with each and every woman that walks through those doors. Just the gorgeous ones.”

Even though she wasn’t looking at him, Lee could tell that as Matt spoke, a smile started spreading across his face, she could hear it in his voice. One of those teasing, flirty smiles of his. Lee didn’t say anything regarding that, though she did raise her eyebrow at his words as she flipped the page.

“As far as I can tell, this looks good,” Lee said, finally looking back up at Matt. “So what is the problem? Surely you can get a loan with this.”

”I can get one to buy the place, but not enough to make sure I can cover costs for the first month or two, and that includes making sure I have enough booze here to be able to sell.”

Lee nodded slowly as she turned her eyes back to the package on the table in front of her. “Were you thinking of doing any redecorating or renovating?” Lee asked, flipping through the rest of the package. “Keeping the same staff, or hiring new? What kind of security system is in place at the moment?” Then Lee looked up with a slightly embarrassed smile on her face. “Sorry, I tend to throw myself all in on things, and if I’m going to go into business with you, there’s going to be a lot of questions.”

"Into business with me?"

"Well what else would you call this?" Lee asked. "I'm not just going to be the money. If I do this, I want some input on decisions. So, renovating and security?"

"I figured at least a coat of paint, eventually upgrade the sound system in here, but that can wait till things are running smoothly later. For security, there's alarms on all the doors, and cameras, as well as a couple cameras on the tills and the office. They're old, though they do the job."

As Lee listened to Matt speak, she pulled out a small pad of paper and a pen and started jotting down notes. "We'll have to upgrade that, then," she murmured as she wrote. "Probably a few more cameras, and better quality so we can actually make out faces clearly if we need to." Pausing for a second, Lee finished her notes before looking back up at Matt with a smile. "But go ahead, call and make another appointment at the bank, I'm in." Then her smile widened. "Congratulations, Matt, you're a business owner."

"Why go to the expense of upgrading a system that works perfectly well? And you do realize that just because you decided to help doesn't mean we've got the loan, right Lee?"

"If you say it doesn't," Lee replied with a shrug. "And the current system might have always been enough in the past, but that doesn't mean it will always be enough. I'd rather have it before we find that we need it."

It didn’t take long for Matt to get the appointment. The day after she had met with him, she’d gotten a phone call saying that they had an appointment at the bank first thing the next morning.

Mornings still weren’t great for Lee, but at least she had had the entire night with Tarin, so she was starting out with some energy compared to if she had been alone. But still, it was quite early when she met Matt down in the lobby.

”Good morning, Lee.”

“We need to get coffee,” Lee stated as she made her way to the door, zipping her jacket up around her stomach as she went.

“Well, aren’t we chipper in the mornings?” Matt teased as he followed her from the building.

At least she was feeling much more herself, and much more awake, by the time they made it to the bank, and she was able to smile at the woman whose office they were led into. A couple minutes later, after the woman had typed into her computer to bring up Matt’s file, she looked across the desk. ”And what were you hoping to do today, Mr. DeVries?”

Lee sat back in her chair as Matt spoke with the woman, telling her what the plan was. Lee was quiet, but she saw the quick glance the woman made in her direction, that sort of ‘you expect her to be able to help you’ expression as she took in the short skirt and shoes Lee was wearing, despite the fact that it was winter, and she was very much pregnant.

And then the woman turned her attention partially to Lee. ”Alright, let’s get your information so I can put it on the application.” Lee simply raised her eyebrow, though the woman didn’t even notice since her attention was already back on the computer. She could only guess she was in a rush to get them out so she could get to her ‘real’ customers. So Lee answered all of the woman’s questions calmly, patiently. If anything, she gave the answers just a tad slower than she needed to so she’d annoy the woman more.

But finally, the woman seemed to have everything she needed and went silent, so Lee decided to push things just a bit. “Oh, when you run the application, could you increase the amount by another $75,000?” She was casual as she asked the question, but could hear Matt choke slightly when he heard, and the bank woman’s eyes shot to her in surprise.

”Another- Lee, what are you thinking?”

“We need to upgrade the security, and if you want to upgrade the sound system too, we may as well do that at the same time,” Lee replied, turning her head to look at Matt. He looked quite shocked, an expression which only got worse as the woman behind the desk spoke again.

”I can do that, but with the interest rate, the payments-”

Lee didn’t even look over at the woman when she interrupted her. “Don’t worry, Matt, I know what I’m doing. I wouldn’t put me and Tarin on the line for this much if I didn’t, and didn’t think you’d run the bar well enough to make it and more back.” Then Lee turned to the woman behind the desk, a hard look in her eyes. “And how about you run the application before trying to scare me with interest rates? Or, if you’d prefer, we can go to my bank to get this loan, and I’ll be putting a complaint in with your manager.”

Lee just heard a little ‘hurmph’ sound as the woman turned back to her computer once again. ”But another $75,000?” Matt asked in a whisper, and Lee saw him leaning over the arm of his chair toward her.

Lee just nodded at him. “If we’re going to do this, we should do it right,” she told him, reaching out to touch his arm. “I’m trusting that you know more than how to mix drinks, you’re going to have to trust me on some things.”