Ty chuckled, but at the rest of her questions, he donned a more serious, sincere expression. "From what I can tell, you aren't crazy. Weren't. Whatever. Former FBI, kicked around, bullied, and taken advantage of by alot of people. You weren't crazy, you just struck me as the kind of person who got tired of taking **** from everybody." He cracked a little smile.

"From what you told me, she ruined your life, her life, and the life of someone you loved. Personally, I woulda just stabbed her and gotten it over with, but...well I think what she'd have to endure now is a fate worse than death." He stood up, walking over to sit closer to her.

"Day job? Let's just say...I'm self employed," he murmured. "Besides, I promised I'd see you through the end of this, so that's what I need to do."

Ty's answer provided Noel with profound relief followed by crazy panic. FBI agent? That thought jangled around in her head dislodging all others. FBI agents had to go through years of training, at least the ones that carried guns around did. "Maybe it's the drugs, but I feel like I just time travelled. Let me take a wild guess and say it's not 2006 anymore, I'm not in school anymore and, for once good news, all the finals I was worrying about last week are ancient history?"

This whole situation was making her feel tired right down to her soul. A fate worse than death? No, though thinking like that did erase any and all thoughts of potential revenge. Noel had done all this herself, from recruiting Ty to putting herself here. Freaking depressing. She'd crippled herself mentally, not as bad as it could have been, but still... She both wanted to hug Ty and push him down the stairs for all the scary truths he had. But again, it wasn't even his fault.

Noel reached up to touch the tender spots on her neck and strands of hair fell in her face. She couldn't reach higher than her neck without her torso screaming at her. She really wanted to feel out that throbbing spot at the back of her head, but had to settle for what she could get.

Okay. New, less depressing train of thought time. "so, beyond getting better and getting out of here, what's next?"

Ty winced a little, looking at her. "Uhhh...it's...2013," he murmured gently, his voice trailing off a little as the awkward silence set in. Now what...was a very good question.

"I'm...not sure," he admitted. I mean, I guess once they let you out of here, I take you home so you can fully recover, and from there...I guess we try to get your life back. Or get you a new one.[/color]" He paused, making a face. "That sounded bad. What I mean to say is, I can help you remember more, if you so choose. You'd told me in your message to do what I wanted, just not to lie. Well, I want what you want for yourself. I've no place to make you what I want. Man...this is kinda confusing..." He rubbed his temples, thinking as he sorta let his gaze drift out the window.

Twenty thirteen. It sounded so... future-ish. She did the math in her head, lost the numbers a few times and had to start over, but eventually came to a conclusion. "7 years. That... could have been worse. God. Just think if I'd gone back to being like 4 and eating glue." Yeah, actually she would rather not.

All the same it was a lot to process. What changed in 7 years? President, for sure. Businesses come and gone. The internet. That crap always moved crazy fast. Were they using holograms or something now? She wanted to see it for herself, but instead she was stuck in here. Like, drugs were good and everything, but she could be uncomfortable at home while playing with her hologram... thing.

"Screw it. Just fill me in on what I missed? While we get ready to go? General stuff. I'll figure out the details later." Noel pushed herself up to a sitting position and darkness edged in on her vision. If she could not puke, that would be great.

Noel swung her legs over the edge of the bed and held up her modesty gown. She focused on her breathing and the sound of Ty's voice while she got it together. Her lips were pale and she just wasn't sure she was up to escaping the hospital, but she really, really wanted out.

A nurse popped her head into the door to ask what they were doing, no doubt in response to something Noel's finger monitor told her. "I'd like my discharge papers, please."

It took some back and forth, most of which seemed to take something out of Noel, but she was stubborn and insistent even if she was weak. The nurse left to go got instructions and the discharge papers and Noel took that as a wonderful time to lean her side back against the bed.

In case Ty was wondering... "I don't have insurance. I mean, I didn't 7 years ago and I sure as heck don't have any on me now. The less time we're here, the better." Besides, it wasn't like she was a criminal or anything. They couldn't hold her against her will.

"Yeah, that would be alot worse." He stood up, stretching a little as he thought about their next move. "Missed? Seven years is kind of alot to process. I mean, in 2006? I was fourteen and just moving here. Well, the president changed, of course, and mutants like us are kinda a controversial thing. Oh! And cell phones are alot cooler now, computers are faster..."

He paused when the nurse came in and Noel mentioned discharge papers. Then not having insurance. "Uhhh...in that case, we need to get outta here like ten minutes ago," he muttered, stepping out for a minute. When he came back, he had a wheelchair with an "IT'S A GIRL!" balloon on it, and a pile of pink blankets.

"I know you hardly remember me, but...how would you like to be the mother of my daughter?" he cracked, winking with somewhat of a sly grin. This had to be one of the dumbest ideas he'd ever had.

She did some more fuzzy math while Ty ducked out of the room for a bit. He was legitimately 21 and Noel just felt 21. Oh dang. She probably looked old now. She would have to ask Ty if her tattoos were all stretched out now. No wonder she had decided to play brother and sister.

> "...how would you like to be the mother of my daughter?"

Blink. "Oh that is some sick kind of genius. Help me out?" She directed him to take down her IV and then she wrapped it in a pink blanket. "I think she has your eyes, dear" Her power just didn't know what to do with that one so it registered somewhere in the neighborhood of lie. She frowned. This would take deception to get out. "I don't think I can lie believably right now. Or ever again since my power manifested as a kid." Hopefully that wouldn't be an issue.

With a little help she got situated in the chair and traded her hospital gown for a draped a pink blanket over her chest. She put the "baby" under the blanket like she had seen ladies do at the beach. Nobody was about to tell a new mother not to feed her baby.

"Let's roll." As humiliating as the chair was, Noel knew she wasn't making it out of here without one.

"That's me, some sick kind of genius. Well, sick, if nothing else, heh." Ty chuckled, assisting her as she'd asked, grabbing the IV and helping her wrap it to look like a newborn baby.

"Luckily she's got her mom's face," he joked, wincing a little as she mentioned lying. Oh yeah, right.

"Yeah. The fun part's going to be getting past the nurses," he murmured, taking the wheelchair and pushing it as best he could with a limp. They made it down the hall decently, but once they got to where the exit was right down the hall, Ty cursed under his breath. The receptionist knew his face... Casually, he pushed his 'wife' toward the exit and out of the automatic doors.

"Excuse me, you can't--"

Ty didn't stay for the rest of that sentence, pushing the wheelchair into the parking lot and looking for a decent car. They were short on time, and Ty found one that was unlocked--and had the keys in it. Maybe he wasn't unlucky after all!

He helped Noel and the 'baby' into the car and jumped into the driver's seat, throwing the car into gear and speeding out of the parking lot before anyone came out, hopefully.

"Okay, so...I don't know exactly where you live...just the building. So I'm going to take you to Sanctuary, where I stay. If you're comfortable, that is. I could sleep on the floor, and the bed's yours while you recover. But before that...we need to ditch this car and any trace that we had it..."

Noel for her part just kept her head down and tried to look happy as well as completely exhausted. The last part wasn't hard to pull off. Being really ecstatically happy about an IV was a little harder to pull off especially since she realized that she wasn't quite sure where "home" was.

Ty brushed everybody off like a champ, but was a tad panicked as he all but dumped Noel into his car.

They zoomed away and Noel relaxed, but Ty only seemed to get more tense.

"Sanctuary is fine." Was that like a church? Didn't matter. He was being incredibly sweet and totally like a brother when he offered her his bed.

And then, he dropped the bomb.

"DITCH THE CAR!?" She hadn't meant to say it that loud and it sent her into a coughing fit which hurt so much it made her tear up. She barely remembered to keep the pink blanket in place to keep herself modest. "You... stole..." She huffed and puffed and tried again at a lower volume which worked better. "You stole this car?" Okay. They could like pull over now, right? No wonder he was tense.

"I can walk. My legs are fine. How far is Sanctuary?"

Ty took a deep breath. Right...she'd forgotten that. "Yeah...I've got a confession to make. I'm kind of...a thief. Well, I've started to stray away from that but...we were in a pinch so I did the first thing to come to mind. I got shot in the leg last month and I'm not a hundred percent healed, so...running wasn't an option for me right then..." He spoke the truth, but he felt like such a creep now. She trusted him, and now she knew he was a punk. A thief. Just some piece of scum who took a hiatus from stealing because he couldn't seem to hack it anymore.

"I'm sorry. It's not too far now," he murmured, pulling the car over, parking it, and shutting it down. He climbed out, then opened the door for her, hiding the tear that threatened to force its way out of one eye.

A thief. Noel chewed on that thought for a moment, but decided that... well, he was honest about it. He wasn't in denial and he legitimately believed he was moving away from that kind of life.

"Wait. You got shot?" She hadn't really noticed... she should have noticed. "How long? I mean, you're not like oozing?" Did she need to take care of him?

He pulled over and walked around to help her. "Ty... hey." She stopped him from hobbling and made him look at her. "Beggars can't be choosers. So what if we ride off into the sunset in a stolen car? You're not selling it for parts or anything and the owners were stupid enough to leave their keys inside. This is LA, for Pete's sake. It was just begging to be stolen."

"It was like...last month. I met this guy with a limp, accidentally used my mutation on his hat, and he ended up using me to hunt down some psychopath. When all was said and done, he gave me a limp to match. I should be back to my own in a couple more weeks. Shoulda been healed by now but I can't stay off it," he forced a smile.

He looked at her, listening as she spoke. He laughed at the last part. "Noel? This is New York, but I understand. What makes me feel bad is the fact that....well, maybe I like stealing or whatever. There are times I don't even know what I'm becoming, or I'm scared to know. Oh well, Sanctuary's not far from here. We can leave the car and walk. Though we should probably make a point never to step into that particular hospital again."

He started walking, occasionally glancing back or listening for sirens--just in case.

Mental note: make Ty stay off his feet.

Also, New York? She looked around to verify even though he was not lying. It smelled different. The buildings were more squashed and less stucco, fewer palm trees too, but she hadn't been in every corner of the city. She realized that she was holding onto some kind of hope that this was still her city instead of foreign territory.

'FBI is federal. They could have sent me anywhere.' Rationally it made sense, but it didn't make her feel any less lost. Now she felt like a time and space traveller who just jumped clear across the US. There was literally nothing and no one that she knew here excepting her new friend Ty.

He hobbled. Noel just moved like everything hurt. By some silent agreement they both stayed quiet and kept a very slow pace. For Noel, it was taking almost every bit of her concentration to keep herself upright, moving and modest. Ty seemed worried that they were followed since he kept glancing over his shoulder.

"I can understand the impulse to steal, but it doesn't mean I approve. It's a cheat, just like our abilities are a cheat. It's not exactly helping anyone but ourselves." And by her tone, that was also not an acceptable course of action. The problem was that she wasn't sure how else to do things right now. This was was a smoggy, dangerous wonderland. And Ty? The red haired rabbit.

They turned a corner and she saw it then. Sanctuary. The red queen's palace?

"Stealing is a lifestyle I'd picked up. Used to be how I survived, but evolved into a...guilty pleasure, if you will. But, my power, I mostly use to help people. In fact, the only people it's really ever hurt is me. You know, sometimes I accidentally see things that I really don't want to see. I don't really see it as a cheat. Our mutation is part of who we are, something life gave us. Like any other talent. It all depends on how we play the hand we're dealt," he explained, thinking on this, himself.

Sanctuary came into view, and he led her through the Golden Doors, pointing out the mess hall, the rec room, and pretty much anywhere else of interest before finally getting to his room. As far as rooms go, it was simple. Bed, coffee table, TV on the dresser, nightstand by the bed, a recliner against a wall, and clothes scattered about.

"Well...this is it. Make yourself at home as long as you need to. Sorry it's not very extravagant." Then he had this random thought. Clothes. She'd need clothes.

"We'll need to get you some more clothes at some point...Until then...I'm pretty sure my shirts might fit you..." he mumbled.

Stealing as a lifestyle choice. She just didn't get it. But she wasn't about to dis the one person in the world she knew right now. That could come later. Maybe. Probably.

Past the golden doors everything sort of blurred together. She didn't have the brain power to be observant.

All she wanted to do was flop down on the bed and wake up next Tuesday, but there were several problems with that. First, flopping would no doubt hurt her more than it was worth. Second, there were clothes on the bed. Third? Ah screw it.

Noel didn't exactly flop, but she did sort of tip over and land on her side. She kicked off her shoes which she only just now noticed had holes where the toe used to be.

"Ty. It's fine. Shhh." Noel cuddled with her IV bag which sorta defeated the purpose since it was a drip, but hey it was cool to the touch and anything that made her burn feel less hot was okay by her.

"Not sure I ever said thank you." Because she had sorta put a whole lot on his shoulders. If she could just get comfortable, she probably wouldn't be awake right now. "I'll have to owe you one."

((And a little bit later: Trust me, I'm a Professional))