He knew she knew what she was doing. That wasn't the problem. A tiny flash of annoyance ambled amongst the daisies with the concern and stress he'd been feeling before.

She wanted to take control, and talk to him before he did. Did she know he'd seen the guy snap a woman's neck? And kill several officers just minutes before? Sometimes, Kealey frustrated Shin with her sympathy for the devil. Catboy, and now this guy. Did she understand that he didn't want her to get ripped apart?

With the crowd like it was, her attentions were going to be spread thin, and she needed to focus. The last thing he wanted was for the guy to turn into a monster again, and kill her or him. Or anyone else.

Everything she was saying was too lenient. An officer by Shin stepped forward to undermine her. "Ma'am." He said. "We know you want to help, but right now, you're in danger. And in our way."

Suddenly, Shin had a flash of insight. "Baker, back off. She signed on for this. She's part of the team. And right now, she's working real hard to keep the man calm, to keep everyone safe. I trust her judgment. Even if I'm scared of him, and what he can do. This is the one who snapped a woman's neck and gave me a concussion the other day. We'll have to get that into the report."

He didn't like it. He wanted her safe and sound. But he trusted her. And didn't want people questioning her judgment. He could. He was her husband. He was allowed to have conflicting points of view. But she was an X-man, and working with them, and doing her best to keep the beast tame. She needed to be given some freaking credit, and some space.

A cop behind Shin motioned to another. "Johnson. Get the others, and calm this crowd down. This is getting out of hand again."

One of the officers with the twisty tie cuffs moved forward to cuff him. And that was when the crowd surged forward, despite police control. From somewhere in the crowd, a lightning bolt struck down. People stampeded in surprise. Shin's eyes snapped towards the light and the sound, and he lost focus. The shield vanished. As did the rope. Suddenly, there was nothing binding Daniel, and the noise on the scene was chaotic. The man with the key to the anti-mutant shock collar had time to blink before things got hairy.

Daniel watched as the Riot gained more and more fuel to it's fire. The Police Officers needed to fight back and that's when the mob charged forwards and the Cops went to counter them. He noticed that the tightness around his body seemed to all but disappear. His hands weren't tied. Daniel's eyes snapped to the Officer who had the key to his shock collar. Out of pure instinct Daniel charged forward, straight into the Police Officer taking his off his feet. As quickly as possible, Daniel fiddled with the key to get if off. He looked towards the Blonde and the Asian and ran.

His feet sped him away. Filled with desperation, he had no idea what he'd do now. The Police didn't know where he lived yet but he couldn't stay there long and work was off-limits. There weren't many options left. He could go to his parents house but he needed to find out just what 'this' was. Why did he kill people? How did this happen? Why him? Daniel took a turn down the street and dodged into an alley. They could of been following him. When he was sure no-one was he made his way back to his apartment. He had some things to think about.

Things with the crowd were very quickly amping back up to a level that Kealey wasn't going to be able to control. In fact, she decided, they had probably passed that point. Kealey could feel Shin with the other cops, and his feelings were something they were going to discuss at length...but there'd be time for that later. For now...

The shard bands around the man in front of her disappeared, and Kealey gasped, keeping tight hold on his emotions. The last thing she needed now was for him to freak out again and start knocking heads together in the middle of the crowd that was quickly pushing in their direction.

There were so many more people than there were cops. Standing her ground, Kealey started strategically targeting members of the crowd. People stopped in their tracks, blocking other crowd members and slowing the general progress of the group. At its best, it was hard to move when one lost all motivation to do anything...at its worst, the feeling was momentarily disorienting. It was a quick fix though, and Kealey knew she wouldn't be able to keep up both her tasks much longer.

Then suddenly it was decision time, because the guy was running. Kealey saw him bowl over the cop with the collar control and free himself from his collar. Most of the other cops were distracted, and now he was running.

There wasn't really any choice in the blonde's mind. If the crowd continued like they were, people on both sides were going to get hurt. They'd reigned in that monster once...they could do it again. This might be the only chance they had to stop more violence in the crowd.

"I think it's time to go!" she called to the police. "I can't hold them much longer."

He'd just let a violent murderer free due to a lapse in concentration. There would be consequences. Maybe they wouldn't fire him, but he would hear about it... and he wouldn't hear the end of it. All because he'd been distracted. All because... but this was no time to go into a downward spiral of self-blame. Things were happening far too swiftly, far too dangerously for that. The crowd was a problem. The cops were trying to deal with it. He could hardly hear anything amid the noise and violence. Some people stopped in the crowd. That was actually not a good thing, when people were stampeding. Some got hurt. A stopped body wasn't going to stop a mob.

It was time to do something big to shut the crowd up once and for all. He didn't like it. They probably wouldn't like it. He'd been wanting to keep the usage of his mutation to a minimum, so as not to offend the wrong people, but... people were getting hurt. Had gotten hurt. And it was time for action. Whipping out his sleeves, Shin's mind bent itself in a focus on creating a shard wall.

Now, Shard constructs take time to form. The wall didn't form in an instant. It didn't form in a second. It didn't form in three seconds, or four, or five, or ten. This sort of thing, with the size Shin was aiming for, was more likely to take a minute or two. Maybe that wasn't the smartest idea, when people were moving towards their group and officers were shouting orders for a hasty retreat. Bits of the wall WERE forming, though. Stripes of blue and stripes of red. Slowly, they built up in the way of the crowd... but hardly enough to stop them in their tracks. And... as the second section of the wall appeared, someone shook him. He glanced their way. It was Kealey. He couldn't quite hear what she was saying, but he got the message. This was stupid. The bits of wall vanished before it ever reached completion. Fine. He hadn't much liked the wall idea, anyways.

As they made a hasty retreat to the rendezvous point, Kealey couldn't help but scowl. That may have been the most ineffective she'd ever been in a crowd situation. The people had gotten angry again, the monster had escaped after hurting all of those people...and Shin had doubted her in front of all of those other police officers.

Something in the back of Kealey's head suggested that maybe there'd been an ulterior motive...something that had triggered the action beyond doubt in her capabilities. Unfortunately, the empathy wasn't in the mood to think about that. All that she could focus on was the moment when he'd said that maybe they were right and she should back down.

Once they were safe and sound at the rendezvous and the police were taking stock of the damage, Kealey looked around until her eyes fell on Shin. She focused on him for a moment to make sure he was as fine as someone in his position could be expected to be, then walked away pulling her phone from her pocket as she did.

"We'll talk at home. Be safe." She texted quickly, then made for home.

The cell phone's battery back came off as it hit the grass. A tear rolled down his cheek, and he brushed it away. Then, feeling foolish (and way too exposed), he knelt down to pick it up. The back of the cheap phone snapped into place.

There was still too much to do to text back. He was on-duty. He'd hoped she would say good bye before she left. The fact she hadn't had him more than worried. If she'd been present, she'd have had a head full. But she wasn't. And the tears weren't just on account of passive-aggressive text messages and absentee girlfriends. They'd lost a lot of good men... And he'd failed to keep that from happening. Suffice it to say that self-doubt was but one of the myriad emotions quashed down into the little triangle in the back of his mind. There was no time for any of those emotions. They had to be locked away.

He took note of what was going on, and helped however he could until his job was done and he could sign off. Then, he went home.

His keys made a metallic sound against the wood of the coffee table as he set them down on his way into the apartment. His wallet thumped against the wood alongside his cellphone, next. He'd submerged all of the previously-mentioned emotions during work. Now, all he felt was tired.

Kealey was in the livingroom, working on sketches for her design job with a reality cooking show on the in the background for noise when the key turned in the lock. Thor lifted his head from his bed in the corner of the room, but settled back down when he realized who it was coming through the door.

The blond had waited for her husband all afternoon, knowing by virtue of her wedding band that he was safe and sound, and simmering over the situation they'd found themselves in that afternoon. The worst part, was that it hadn't even been hard to keep herself from texting him again. That meant she was really mad. A shower hadn't cooled Kealey's temper, and her sour mood hadn't done much for her sketching. Everything was coming out in sharp angles and stark, contrasting colors.

When Shin walked in, he was tired, and exuding all the feelings that go along with it. Kealey couldn't blame him for that, it had been a hard day. They'd talk about what she could blame him for though. Talking was the only way to get the poison out...

"Hi." she said simply, head still buried in the sketch portfolio.

He was too tired to deal with anything else, so he simply said "Hi," on his way past her, into the kitchen. Cupboards opened and clapped close, then the sound of something rattling into a cereal bowl drifted her way. Then, there was milk. Milk got put away. He sat down on a chair in the living room and ate.

Cereal was always Shin's Go-To food when he was at war with the world.

The Asian didn't say anything further to his wife friend.

The situation was even more serious than Kealey had initially thought. The sound of Shin pouring cereal was even irritating to her right now, and everyone in the surrounding apartments was in a good mood. A few years ago, she'd have been happy to be able to tell her emotions from everyone else's, but tonight she'd have been happy to have someone else to pin the whole thing on. It was hard, being angry at Shin, but sometimes it just happened.

He returned to the livingroom and sat down, and Kealey kept right on working with her sketches. If he didn't know she was upset about something, he deserved the silent treatment. At least for a while. Usually, Kealey was willing to make nice and compromise...but nothing about what had happened today was okay. The wife knew that her husband had had a difficult time today, and she wanted to be there for him, but he needed to realize some things for her too.

He ate cereal.

And thought of his dead friends. He had a lot on his mind.

He'd been yelled at, and even if he hadn't been partially blamed, he felt the insinuations in the looks some of the other officers. It wasn't his job to call up their families. He was glad for that. He should have sliced that monster's head off back in the alley, or shot him in the back instead of making him think he would. But not all of his emotions were so happy. He was also beating himself up for thinking such thoughts as a human being.

Kealey had to frown a bit at the feelings she was starting to register from Shin. She wanted to make him feel better, but at the same time this was really important to her. Those emotions though...they made it hard. The blond tried to keep drawing, but she pushed too hard and the tip of her pencil broke, streaking black across the sketch she'd nearly finished.

Heaving a deep sigh, she set the sketch book aside and took a moment to rub her temples. How did one even start a conversation like this?

It was simple. You didn't.

IN his bed across the room, Thorn whuffled and flopped over onto his side. A walk probably wasn't going to happen any time soon, so a nap seemed at the top of the order.

His right hand pushed off the chair as he got up and strode into the kitchen. The sound of a sink running was followed by the sound of a bowl getting slid into the dishwasher. As he came back into the living room, Shin's eyes fell on her. Kealey looked stressed. Maybe not as stressed as him. Maybe more stressed. How that worked, with her empath abilities and the separation of emotions, he wasn't going to ask about. It wasn't like they needed to measure each other to find out who was more of a mess.

"Kealey," He broke the ice. "I didn't mean to make you look weak in front of the other officers. I was worried about your safety. This mutant we ran into. I'd run into him before. He'd nearly killed a woman, and I failed to save her. If not for her mutation anti-Voltorbing her, she'd have been dead on account of me. I screwed up today, too. I wanted you safe. But I know I made you look bad... I tried to make up for it, but it was too little, too late. Next time, I'll be better about my choice of words. I have complete faith in you. The one I lack faith in right now is me."

After that towering inferno of words, he sat down again, hands resting weakly at his knees. Clenched.

Well damn.

Yes. This was damn-worth. It was something else when you spent hours working up a great tirade, and lots of self-rightiousness in a big balloon of angst...then had it deflated by a well-placed dart of reason and apology.

Like the metaphorical balloon, Kealey deflated right there on the couch. She wasn't ready for cuddle and tears yet, but at least some of the tension from the day was melting away. Now, she was actually able to see how worked up Shin was.

She still stung though.

"You don't help either of us when you do that." she said softly. Admonishing her husband was such a rare occurrence, that the blond really didn't know how to go about the activity. "And you know word will get around."

She looked up and over, "Please don't put me in that position again. Do you think I don't worry? It's part of the job, and you're just going to have to learn to trust me."

"I won't," He said, about the position. And "I do." He said, about the trust. "I love you, Kealey." He said, about the general nature of the Universe. "And it probably doesn't help to get crushed by self doubt."

It still hurt, though. It was still a terrible situation. The entire city was in a terrible situation. Turmoil was a good word. It was awful. Police officers, being looked down upon, judged because of someone or something that happened, with no damning evidence as to how the actions of some could denote the actions of the many. And those poor officers and their families. And how he could have saved them. All of the different things beyond just those were like Atlus's burden. As he shoved off the seat and plopped down next to Kealey on the couch, he tried to shrug it.

"Things will get better." He said. And tried to feel it. As further confirmation, and because it helped to say it, he said "I know."

Kealey shook her head at her husband and sighed, leaning against the back of the couch. He was so hard on himself sometimes that it was hard for her. Kealey didn't know what to do right now, short of using her power to make him feel better...and that was something she'd never even suggest unless he asked.

Things like this were hard, and they were just going to be hard.

"Doubting yourself makes it worse, because next time you'll hesitate, and you can't hesitate."

Kealey frowned, "He didn't know what he had done." she said, "And he needed help. Not what he'd have gotten from those officers."