Jameson winced as Ami brought up the fact that maybe the lizard guy had been a kidnapper, trying to drag him off into the night. It made more sense than he wanted to admit, and also explained why the guy had tried to snag him instead of simply taking his cash.

The teen groaned. Why did she have to go and be all mature about the situation? Bringing up the fact that it could happen to someone else had been a low blow.

"I know you're right." He said, "But you're encouraging me to commit social suicide here. They won't let me ten feet out of their sight for the next ten years."

This was serious business...but who would want to kidnap him? Sure his parents had money, but there were way bigger fish to fry in New York.

"I mean, my dad will probably want to be my college roommate now." His argument was getting more logical all the time.

He gave her a small, pleading look. The icy peas were starting to dull the throbbing of his forhead.

"Can't we go back to talking about your parents' restaurant? Or how much ass you kicked in the alley?"

Amelia sighed, glancing out the window as he whined at her. Okay, maybe it wasn't whining, but it sure wasn't being a mature manly man. He needed to deal with consequences. "If I hadn't been there," she said seriously. "I don't know what would have happened to you. If you're worried about your parents intruding upon your social life, then you really have your priorities messed up."

She tilted the root beer back and drank.

"As for the alley. I have no idea what happened. I'm pretty sure it wasn't me."

Lesson learned.

Jameson scowled slightly as Ami took him way too seriously. It had been easy to forget that she'd had a rough night and he'd apparently been playing the whiny teen a little too thoroughly for her taste.

"Sorry." He said. "Of course I'll tell them." He shrugged his shoulders, "I'd hate for someone else to get caught unawares."

As for the rest, Jameson kept frowning.

"You and I were the only ones there...and it sure as heck wasn't me."

He paused for a second, setting down the peas to open his rootbeer and take a drink.

"I was phased out and watching the whole thing from the other side of the alley."

So, he was a mutant. Now, what did he mean by phased? She put that question aside for the moment, to correct herself, because she might have just mislead him. He held up one hand as she managed her root beer in the other, resting it against the side of her knee. She held it fingertips up, looking at it like it might offer some answers.

"I do have a mutation... I sort of force push clothing. Usually, it lets me do things like shove it or pick it up, like I'm using John's ghost gloves." Homestuck reference. She just slipped that in there. "But usually, everything isn't visible. Or if it is, just barely... I have no idea who or what made that red thing. I was too mad to really comprehend."

Clothing, huh?

It was interesting, sitting here and talking so casually about mutations. It was still a bit of an odd thing for Jameson at school, and something completely separate from what he did when he had his weird lessons at the mansion. It was a small world though, and Ami seemed cool enough.

"Well, it looked like it came from you." He said, "And I just figured it was something you do. There wasn't anyone else in the alleyway."

He figured he owed her a bit of an explanation. Down went the root beer, on a coaster that was sitting on the coffee table, and the peas came back up to ice the goose egg.

"I can kind of jump out of my body." He said, then looked away a little bashfully, "But sometimes it just happens on its own, like tonight."

"So, you astral project... but you don't like it... because sometimes, it happens when you don't want it to, like tonight." She extrapolated. "Maybe you're right. Maybe it was me. If you didn't see anyone else, while you were having your out-of-body experience. How did everything look?" She asked.

Did he have anything else he could add to her mental photograph of the scenario. Because her's had been hazy, at best.

She had heard of mutations changing over time. Amelia knew some people who had dealt with them. But it didn't really make sense... at least, not to her right then.

Jameson nodded. She was much more savvy with the whole mutant thing that he was, in spite of his fancy mutant lessons. There were things that money couldn't buy.

"Pretty much." He said, "Can't do much with it. At least not yet, but I've been practicing."

As far as what he'd seen.

"Like I said, you threw your arms out and blam...there were the red things. I figured it was just what you did."

Jameson's eyebrows rose.

"But it's not?"

"Maybe..." Amelia trailed, looking at an upturned palm. "Not usually colors. And I don't feel stronger. And he hit the ground like something had shoved him. If I'd been able to connect with my power, I could have done that. I just couldn't. Kept missing... because it was hard visualizing something that's barely there hitting something that is. I've heard some things about power growths, and this doesn't sound like them. It just sounds like..." Bluh. What did it sound like? She felt stupid. She looked Jameson's way, and ventured meekly. "Like maybe, I could do colors all along, and just suck...?"

Maybe she would have to try that... if something so stupid were actually true.

Sucked?

Well...maybe...but that's not exactly how he saw it.

"I couldn't do anything with my power on command for ages Ami. I'm amazed you never heard about it at school." Actually...the thought made him feel a little bit better. Maybe he'd overestimated how socially life ending those early days had been.

"I'm just learning now. You saw that today. The fact that you could already do things makes me feel like a chump. I guess I need to take my lessons more seriously."

At school? What? Did he think she went to some school for mutants? They went to the same school. Why was she fixating on that tiny thing, instead of something more useful, like the situation at hand, or facts?

Fact: She had shoved that guy over.

Fact: Whatever had happened, it had been red.

Fact: She'd been mad. Real mad.

And Fact: ... Not all of it had been caused by her anger towards the lizard man.

She had felt powerless. About him, sure, but that wasn't it. She'd felt powerless because she hadn't been able to keep Gawain her's. How he'd strayed, hadn't come to her first, and as far as she saw it, how he'd cheated on her emotionally by going to another woman first to deal with 'well, shit, I died'. he should have come to her first. They shouldn't have broken up. Maybe she was stupid and overreacted, but... there was no way in hell him going to another woman to deal with his emotions rather than her was okay. Especially if she got him hammered to deal with the pain. Underage drinking was Not Okay. It was not.

Somehow, she entirely missed everything Jameson had been saying. She found herself brushing a stray tear from the corner of her eye.

Dammit. Why did every big thing that had to do with her mutation have to in some way be related to him? She made a mental note to kick his ass about it, and get her shit together, because there was no possible way she'd let her powers revolve around one kid.

"I'm sorry. What?" She asked. Dammit, single teared-up eye. Why u no stay dry?

Ohgawd, now she was crying.

What the hell had happened?! One second they'd been talking about powers and sharing mutant things, the next she'd had that single tear plopping out of her eye like girls always did. It was a gift, probably one of those things they took girls aside and taught them at school when all the boys were busy doing other things.

She'd had a break-up. She didn't care about his social woes or his problems with his powers. Jameson didn't know why it bugged him, but he sighed.

What had he been saying? He shook his head, "Nothing important."

She stopped those tears, just stopped them. There would be no sniffling or tear-shedding over Gawain. She was so over that X-nerd. Wouldn't let him influence her, or her mutation. Some girls spent days crying their eyes out over breakups. That took too long. That was lame. She might let herself be sad about it, but she wouldn't... wouldn't... oh fine. Maybe she'd still be human, because just getting over it like a snap was way too cold. But, she would stop crying. Because that was probably freaking Jameson out.

For the second time in a minute, she apologized. "Sorry," she smiled weakly, brushing at her eye to clear it. "I just remembered my first time using my powers was with my boyfriend, and thinking about her caused this, too."

She knew it didn't make sense, but she was sure that was the reason seeing literal red had made her powers work like that. And she'd have to work on that, so it didn't require her to get angry just to use her powers that way, because that seemed ill-advised. And just as sure as she was that he'd caused it, she was that sure she could recreate the effect. One hand tilted, palm-upwards, and facing towards Jameson. She gave it an ounce of focus, and pictured a hand with in a specific color. Just like that, the hand appeared in front of her, see-through, but shaded with a red filter. It hovered and flexed as she flexed her hand with it. A tiny sniffle of a laugh escaped her. "See? Red."

This...Jameson could deal with. It wasn't that he was self-centered, but it was hard to sit in a room with someone when they were stuck in their own head and ignoring everything you said. Ami was going through a rough time, the teen got that, but he hadn't done the whole "serious relationship" thing so his schema with the material was a little limited.

Ami pulled herself together, and Jameson watched as she moved her hand. The shadow-type-hand appeared over her palm, and Jameson had to grin. He was impressed.

"Does it have to be red?" he asked, then he got serious.

"Also Ami...you don't have to be all stoic if you don't want. I get it, and I can be a shoulder if you need one. It's the least I could do, right? You kind of saved my tail back there."

"Am I being stoic?" She laughed weakly. All of a sudden, the hand's color changed. "Blue."

She supposed this was a pretty cool new toy, and one she could practice all she wanted... later. But they still hadn't contacted anyone about that stalker, and he was changing the subject. Or she was. Which she planned to. Because he hadn't commented on her ex-girlfriend/boyfriend, and she had given him way too much information. And she didn't really want to talk about him/her, or her feelings, sooooo.

"Thanks."

Fine. She could put the subject change on the back-burner for all of a second, to be nice to him. He was putting himself out there, too.

"I thought you were being pretty stoic." Jameson admitted. Part of him wanted to launch into a tirade about how hard break ups were and how difficult it was going to be for her to get through everything. That's what tended to happen in sitcoms...right before the girl burst into tears and guy looked like a fool.

He needed to be more suave here. The girl needed a shoulder that was only kind of a shoulder. It was slowly becoming Jameson's mission.

"And it's not a problem." IT really wasn't, like he said.

Now, they'd been avoiding what had happened long enough that his parents were probably going to get home any second.

"So, we decided we were going with the truth about this whole thing, right?"