“Sorry, I’m so sorry. Gosh, I don’t know what’s in me this morning. I’m usually not so frayed at the edges,” Elizabeth blabbered, heat beginning to build up in her cheeks again. “It’s just that, well...” She gesticulated to underline and emphasize her words, but soon she ran out of words. Oh wow. If she’d thought it had been awkward just a few seconds ago, this was beyond awkward. This was beyonwkard.

Liz aimlessly brushed a strand of blonde hair out of her face and tucked it behind an ear. It immediately returned to its preferred position, once again obstructing her vision by 0.001 percent. “Gosh what’s wrong with me!” she whispered to herself. Normally she did pretty good with small talk and introductions with people. Why was this so difficult? Yeah, Aiden was weird for not being a dog person, but she’d met non-dog-people before and that had never hindered her ability to converse with them in a normal context.

So what was different? The only thing she could think of was--oh.

She stopped. She closed her eyes. She took a quick, deep breath and exhaled. She pushed the strand of hair behind her ear again. This time it obeyed her.

“Okay,” Liz said in a much calmer voice. In fact, her face was nearly a picture of composure. Even the redness in her cheeks was starting to fade. “Okay. Sorry, about that. That’s normally not me,” she apologized. “I might as well get this out in the open then,” she said with a bit of resignation blending into her tone. “I can possess animals and control their emotions.” It was the only thing that was different between this meeting and all the others: deliberately staying away from mutations. How could she make a connection with people if she was denying one of the very things that connected them in the first place?

“What do you do? I know this sounds weird and all, but this is just something I need to do.” She smiled shyly but expectantly, keeping her facade pleasant and attentive. Once this was over, she’d design a graceful exit for herself and then go and hide under her bed and never have to look another person in the eye.

No no no don't wander off with the stick and leave him alone to deal with the strange blushing person. He didn't know what was going on or how he was supposed to react to crazy people like this! Staring after the stick-occupied dog only kept him from looking insanely awkward for a little bit.

"It's okay," he tried to say, but that seemed kind of... pathetic given how s was blushing and stammering about how she wasn't usually like this. This in general or a specific this that he had not been able to notice? He was, after all, hardly the most observant person to ever wander around in sunglasses all day and night.

Liz finally seemed able to regain control of herself, and Aiden politely (and gratefully) let his attention wander elsewhere until she finished. Her repeated apology was accepted, as should be expected, with a faint nod, and then he turned back to her and a wonderfully bad time. Get... what into the open, exactly? Statements like that were dangerous and he didn't like them. At all.

"Um..." he began awkwardly, rather lost on how he was supposed to respond to that. Avoid talking about himself or avoid thinking about just what she meant by animal possession? Horrible decisions were so very, very horrible. It wasn't fair. Um. He really really didn't want to think about what she said. Maybe if he didn't think about what she had said then she wouldn't think about what he said, because if he held off any longer her was going to look like he was floundering or trying to get out of answering. He was, but coming across that way would be rude.

"Um..." he said again, then swallowed. "Well... I don't really know. Not the mechanics or specifics or anything. Snow just... Randomly shows up sometimes, mostly while I'm running or something. And I don't get cold..." he trailed off for a moment. "And somehow healing fits into that. I'm... Kind of missing something. Really doesn't make sense as it is."

Whew! Elizabeth was glad that was over! Now she didn’t have to worry about carefully sidestepping that issue. Really, what had she been thinking? She wasn’t on drugs or anything--wait, maybe that was it. If she engaged in recreational drug usage, maybe she’d be able to easily connect with society at large. Like, by having something in common with them.

Where did that come from? she wondered. She neatly tied up that train of thought and pitched it into a mind dump. She had more important things to focus on. Namely, the Curious Case Of A Mysterious Mutation. She’d been planning on running for the hills, but now Aiden’s....was “condition” the politically correct term?....had sparked her curiosity. This is what I get for spending too much time in some dog or crow’s head. But at least I’ve stayed away from cats!

“It snows when you move, you don’t get cold,” Liz repeated thoughtfully. “But you also heal? How does that work?” For a moment she thought she’d solved the case--Aiden was an ice manipulator, just like Mr. Johnson. But Mr. Johnson didn’t heal things, as far as she was aware. In her limited experience, mutants never had various gifts that weren’t connected to each other.

So that’s where she’d start. With connections. “Okay, what do you mean by healing? Like, laying-on-hands so that the blind may see and lame may walk kind of thing? Or like a crab growing back its own arm sort of deal?” she quizzed the lad. If only she’d had a notebook to write stuff down in. Detectives still did that, right?

Ai fidgeted awkwardly and wished so very much that Rufus would come back. Apparently he was too boring to keep the dog's attention, though, and going and begging him to come back would be....

Yeah, he wasn't going to try that one any time soon.

"I don't really know how it works..." Aiden replied quietly, scuffing a small dent in the ground with the toe of one of his slowly aging shoes. He still spent as little time thinking about that as he possibly could, since excessive consideration of the subject had a habit of resulting in either complete insomnia or nightmares replaying what he did remember of that day and a great deal he imagined about it.

Liz's questions did help a bit, though, and at least gave him some framework to build off of. "Just me," he said, a trace of bitterness surfacing in his voice. "All... all I really know is that... well... I..." He stopped to swallow, still staring and digging at the ground, before continuing in a marginally more stable, if softer, voice. "I was in a car crash. That late blizzard near the end of April." April 20th. "I... I woke up in the hospital, but I was already healed when the paramedics showed up." He played with the hem of his right sleeve for a moment, then set his jaw and pulled it up far enough that the white scar could glitter in the light in its eerie way somewhere between natural and totally and completely freakishly insane.

Maybe Elizabeth shouldn’t have asked about his powers after all. They seems to make him remember bad things. Reminded her of herself, actually. In fact, her powers appeared after her sister had died in a car crash. And that’s what I get for giving in to whimsical notions of talking about mutant powers. Good job, Liz. You’ve killed the mood. Again. For like the fiftieth time.

And then Aiden felt like he needed to take his shirt off--no wait, he was showing her his arm. And the scar on it. The shiny scar. Ooookay, that was strange. And since he was willing to go through with talking about his powers anyways, Liz decided to keep up her end of the bargain, even if she hadn’t actually made it.

Her brow furrowed a bit in a frown as she puzzled things over. “Okay, what do we got,” she said, making it a statement and not a question. “Freaky weather on the date of your manifested powers. Snow appears when you move....” She really wanted him to start dancing or something. For experimental purposes, of course. “....and you have some form of advanced cellular regeneration. Huh, that’s the tricky part,” she concluded. She stared off in thought for a moment.

Then she cracked her neck, stretched, and clasped her hands around her back. She began to pace in what she assumed was the professional pace of a private investigator. “So far, I’m thinking you control weather, at least to a certain extent. Your power may only extend to blizzards and snow--totally amazing, by the way. The only weird part is--” She stopped pacing and made a beeline to Aiden.

“--this!” she said, poking his scar with an extended finger. “But it’s not just any scar! No, any scar would just be white. This is....kinda sparkly. Huh, that’s neat.” Then a thought struck her and her eyes widened.

“I know what you are,” she said in a low and awed voice.

It was surprisingly interesting to watch Liz think. He didn't entirely agree with her phrasing, but the content was accurate as far as he could tell, and if she was pacing then she'd be far less likely to notice him hanging around awkwardly.

And then he froze when she suddenly shot towards him, caught off guard by her focus and vigour. What was she doing? Ooooh he shouldn't have gone along with this. He certainly shouldn't have shown her - hey! Why was she poking it?! Aiden reflexively jerked his arm away before his manners caught up and stopped it part way. Even if she was being weird and poking it, he had to be nice. Didn't he? Oh someone please say he didn't so that he could be rude and get as far away from all of this as he could.

All thoughts of escape fled, however, at Liz's low tone - and particularly at her words. She knew... what he was?

Well, he was a mutant. He'd already sorted that bit out. There was a particular phrase used to mark such obvious deductions, wasn't there? Something involving Sherlock Holmes. Hopefully he wouldn't have cause to legitimately consider having to use it aloud. It wasn't exactly a nice phrase, though it certainly did get the point across very quickly. For now, though, Aiden tried to slowly extract his arm so he could get the scar properly covered by his sleeve again. "And what.. is that?" he asked slowly, not quite completely sure he really wanted to hear the honest answer.

Say it. Out loud.

Elizabeth obeyed her inner voice. In the same, hushed tone, she said:

“A vampire.”

Then she cracked. “No, just kidding. Although that would definitely explain your aversion to heat....a coverup for a lethal sunlight allergy. Oh well, unless having strong blood-sucking urges is another aspect of whatever you can do, I think it’s relatively safe to say that you are not a member of the glorious undead,” she said triumphantly, as if she’d actually accomplished anything. She’d only pretended to know what he was because she’d been dying to actually use that phrase on someone.

Liz whirled around and marched off a few steps for dramatic effect. From her new point of view, she could see Rufus lying on the lawn a dozen or so yards away, happily chewing on the stick. She felt his joy. But she had a job to do! Which made her turn in Aiden’s direction once again.

“Okay, I’ve got an idea. Since getting fancy scars is really weird and doesn’t seem to have anything to do with anything, let’s explore the stuff you know,” Liz stated, as if she were checking things off a list. “Snow sometimes falls when you run, correct? Let’s see you run, then. I mean, you’re dressed for it and all.” She peered at him expectantly, her arms crossed quite professionally.

Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

"A vampire."

...

...

...

Well, at least he didn't have to wonder if he had to be worried about her honest answer or not. She didn't have one. Just to make sure that she knew that too, though, he reached over so that sunlight spilled onto his hand. "Darn, no smoke and flames," he groaned, then found his shoulders kind of twitch in an almost laugh. That did serve to ease the awkwardness, at least. "And I must say that I prefer chocolate over blood. Not even a big fan of rare meat."

He surreptitiously withdrew his hand and wiped the fresh sweat off it onto the side of his t-shirt as soon as Liz spun around. He had no idea what she was up to, but he was starting to just chalk any oddities up to Liz being, well, Liz. The decision made it much easier to just shrug off anything weird she did. Like her current movements - oh, she was back. He hadn't been drying off his hand. The very notion was absurd.

He nodded as she spoke again, figuring it was easier to just go with it because she might, after all, be able to come up with something he hadn't been able to think of.

Or not. His expression fell flat. "Are you trying to kill me?" He glanced pointedly at the sun beaming down nearby, a cheerful sight still for essentially anyone else. He was so not running again. At least until evening, anyway, once things had cooled off again, however figurative the term was this summer.

Elizabeth stopped for a moment. Then she smiled and laughed. “Pish-posh. Why would I try to kill you? We still need to run some tests on you,” she said in such a passing manner. “Although I guess an autopsy would still provide quite a bit of information. Huh....” she trailed off. Nah, it probably wouldn’t fly. Best to save that option for later. Liz told Aiden as much.

But the idea of sunlight made Aiden wring his hands. Aww, the poor thing! He was nervous! For what reason, Liz couldn’t decipher. Unless he really was a vampire, but she was ruling that out for the moment. Well, she might as well carry on. “No, you don’t need to like, run in the light. Good grief man, that would be counterproductive! Any snow that fell would probably melt before it could freeze!” she said, letting her arms swing out to express what she thought of his mistaken impression.

“I think you should just run in place, like right here,” she said. He didn’t seem to be melting while under the tree, so she just assumed he wouldn’t die if he ran. “Maybe that’ll work. Unless ya wanna walk with me to the mansion and take advantage of its wonderful air-conditioning? Because it’s only going to keep getting hotter out here.” Back to crossed arms and professionalism.

Besides, either way, she hoped she’d see snow. And that was a grin she forced herself to not let show. It would ruin her business-like front.

Er... tests? That didn't sound very promising. Whenever he read about people wanting to experiment on others, it invariably went badly. Especially for the person being experimented upon. Unfortunately, though, things seemed to go even worse when the would-be victims tried to protest or resist in any noticeable manner.

Still... she was talking about autopsies, and that really did not bode well.

So... be really nice and hope and pray and sign away his worthless soul on the off chance that it kept him on her good side long enough to escape unscathed (and alive)? Sounded like a plan.

Of course, what if she killed him by accident? She clearly didn't get that it was too hot to run, in or out of the shade. "I really don't think running now is going to help anything," he said tentatively, hoping she didn't decide now was a good time to try out the autopsying. "It's not exactly a frequent occurrence, and... well...." He trailed off, scuffing one shoe against the ground a little again as he hesitated. "I... don't really like running in front of people," he finished awkwardly, admitting the primary reason for his autopsy-risking hesitation.

You know, going back to the mansion and its overload of people (read: all properly air conditioned spots were always occupied by at least one other visible person, and therefore unusable) might be the best thing right about now. At the very least, there would be witnesses if things went weird. Oh! And since running indoors was usually frowned upon, going inside was a very good idea. "If we can get inside without frying, that's a pretty good idea." Darn, that was probably too much feeling. He should have been more neutral and less interested in going inside. Hopefully they could just amble safely back to the mansion and then he could weasel away and get back into his natural habitat.

Elizabeth blinked. Why didn’t Aiden like running in front of people? She looked him up and down really quickly and couldn’t detect a reason why. He wasn’t overweight, he wasn’t scrawny--he looked like he was in excellent shape, or at least good enough to not be awkward in motion. He was wearing shorts so she could tell that he didn’t have a prosthesis or anything, unless it was a mighty good one. Liz peered at him. “You don’t run like a girl, do you?” she questioned, narrowing her eyes a bit and leaning forward.

It didn’t really matter to her if he did. Pot calling the kettle black and all. If he did, she’d make him get over it. No one there was going to judge him, unless another student came by. THen they might judge him. But Liz wouldn’t. And maybe she could give him pointers on how to run like a guy. So there. It would be educational for him and entertaining for her.

And she’d get to see the snow.

He’d agreed to go to the mansion. Liz wasn’t going to let him back out. “Let’s get on with this, shall we? Time’s a-tickin’ and the day’s a-wastin’! Let’s get inside!” Liz stated, leaving no room for a word in edgewise, much less a complaint. She whistled for Rufus and called out, “Hey Rufus! We’re going in. Wanna come with us?” The dog looked up from where he’d been busy nomming on his stick and bark excitedly. He leaped to his feet and bounded over to them, grinning with delight.

“We just have to make one stop first,” she told Aiden before latching on to his arm like a leech to a wound and then pulling him along behind her. She had to get her flute.

Once they’d done that, Liz mercilessly marched to the mansion with her prisoner guinea pig test subject patient acquaintance in her wake and a canine on her heels. They passed through the massive main doors and through a labyrinth of halls and blessed air conditioning before finally making it to Elizabeth’s impromptu laboratory.

A music room. Complete with a piano, music racks, and a wide open floor. Perfect for her purposes.

“What do you think?” she asked Aiden as Rufus went over to sniff the piano. “It’s slightly soundproofed and should be much easier to work with than outside.” At least for him. Liz hadn’t even broken a sweat out there. But she wasn’t the weird one who ran with blizzards and sported sparkly scars. “Now run.” They might as well get to it, right?

Run like a girl? Aiden shared some of his blank confusion with Liz for a moment. "Uh... no... I just don't like running near people." Why would he run like a girl? And if he somehow did, since he would probably know about it, wouldn't he have already worked to fix the issue and thus no longer run like a girl?

He should have taken the comment as his chance to escape, though, because there wasn't even time to draw breath between her next flurry of words and her grabbing his arm and literally dragging him off. At least the dog was coming too, right?

Surely there was some way out of this? He probably couldn't outrun her, assuming he somehow managed to break her grip, given his current condition and the fact that that was what she wanted anyway, so of course she'd do her best to keep up. Outrunning the dog was almost certainly out of the question. He didn't feel like getting tackled by a dog. So... that left enduring? That was... not the most pleasant forecast he had ever had to face. Not by a long shot.

So... what was going on? Why did Liz need a flute, or whatever that was? He had very carefully kept himself out of band classes in school, so he was wary of trying to say what it was for certain. Oh hey, not-heat-ness! Hm. It would be nice if he could actually feel cold, instead of this weird and frequently dangerous system of "snow isn't melting" or "how fast is the snow melting." Although, to be specific, this was still in the melting range, just low enough that he could handle it without issue. Why did there have to be so many people hogging the cool air?

Wait wait wait wait NO. What were they doing in a... music room? He was fairly sure this was a music room. It matched anime and manga music rooms. He did not want to be in a music room. At all. Ever. Just no. No no no no no. He backed away from Liz. "I'm not running in here," he protested. Music rooms made people do musically things in front of people. That was the whole point of music, to perform. He was not going to perform anything for anyone!

Really, after all the time she’d put into getting him to come here. Elizabeth reared her head back and quirked an eyebrow. “Then where else are you going to run? This is the best place for it,” she rationally explained. “Look, it’s nice and big and wide open. Nothing to get in your way. Nobody else will be coming down--way too early for that.” Unless, of course, you set your alarm too early and decided to practice playing a flute. But hey. “Besides, it’s a scientific fact: music rooms are always the coldest places in any school. So it’s perfect for you.”

During her intricate explanation of why the boy had nothing to stand on (although plenty to run in) Liz had set her flute and things down on a nearby chair. Now she was standing, her arms folded and her weight shifted to her right leg, angling her body in a don’t-cross-me kind of way. It was just a show. But he was going to run.

Even if he was trying to get away from her. If that was his intent, he should’ve been backing towards the door, not to the other end of the room. Maybe he has a learning disability or something. That would explain why he can’t understand that running is what he needs to do so make snow. Silly boy. But what else could she expect?

She’d have to do this the hard way.

The blonde marched right up to Aiden and invaded his personal bubble for the umpteenth time in less than an hour. She began trying to roll up his sleeve to gain access to his scar. “Okay, so you won’t run. That’s okay. We’ll work on that later. Right now we’re going to figure out what makes you heal. I’m betting you have something beneath your skin that just bubbles up, like sap in a tree or something. Let’s see what happens if we prod at the scar,” she courteously informed him.

Luckily, her nails were nice and long.

Liz's logic was entirely lost on Aiden. He didn't care if there was space or a lack of obstacles because he was not going to run. It was already too late for there to be a lack of people, since Liz was already present. And he really had nothing to go on but her word on the so-called scientific fact about music rooms and temperatures, though he suspected that a walk-in freezer would be of rather lower measurable temperature. He didn't really spend enough time in music rooms to evaluate the perceived temperature (not like it would help much now) and he really did not want to change that.

What the hell was she trying to do now? He backstepped as quick as he could, but Liz moving forward was faster than him moving backwards. And easier to dodge obstacles; stepping on the edge of a music stand and jabbing himself in the leg with it kind of slowed him down a bit. Snatching his scarred arm away was much easier though, since he did have maybe six inches on the girl. "Are you insane?" he asked, not sure if his tone should be enraged or plaintive. He had a bit of both, just in case, but the enraged was so rusty it kind of fell into dust on the way. The plaintive wasn't in much better shape by the time it escaped, to be honest.

With a quick glance behind him to see where he could go, Aiden sidestepped Liz, his arm and his accessible scar (assuming she didn't notice the one on his face or realize that the one on his arm ran all the way to his collarbone, which was rather harder to put out of reach) well out of reach. "If there was something that bubbled up to heal me - which makes no sense at all - it would work all the time," he protested, glancing behind him again to dodge around the piano. "It doesn't. It's only happened the once." He had a horrible feeling that telling Liz he had been unconscious at the time, possibly excepting a few seconds, would turn out insanely bad for him.

He might just be saved by the handful of flakes starting to drift around him, but he was too busy to noti-

No, wait. They were gone. Aiden had missed seeing Rufus behind him and tripped over him. He nearly succeeded in recreating his awareness level during his last healing episode too, but he saved his skull from meeting the floor a little too much. Shoulder and hip not so much, but he'd live. Hopefully.

This kid had some moves. Try as she might, Elizabeth was unable to catch hold of him. What was the problem? All she wanted to do was perform an experiment on him.

Nevermind. That sounded like a problem.

So she’d rephrase it. Whatever. “My hypothesis makes a lot of sense--you just don’t see it yet,” Liz explained as she continued to advance with flailing fingers. “So maybe you can’t heal on the spur of the moment, but maybe it’s only triggered by a traumatic event or a strong emotional or stressful reaction. Hence the car accident and the accompanying shiny skin,” she said as she barely missed his sleeve.

Silly boy--he needed to pay more attention in school. Liz was on a roll and he was too busy disbelieving everything in the world. Every step she took forward was followed by two steps backwards for him. Metaphorically and literally.

Then Aiden fell and Rufus yelped, but not before she watched a flake melt.

But priorities.

“Rufus! Are you okay, boy?” she asked as she rushed to the wary dog’s side. A wounded expression was on his face and he stared at Aiden from several feet away, the exact distance he could leap after being tripped over. “It’s okay, boy, you’re not really hurt, are you?” She stroked his head before running her fingers through his fur, soothing him with her mind every bit as much as with her touch. He stopped quivering shortly and soon began enjoying the attention.

Check on Rufus? Check.

“You okay?” she asked the fallen lad on the floor. “Probably not,” she answered for herself. “Are you bleeding? Anything feel broken?” Because she actually was capable of feeling concern and she couldn’t assess his injuries. Although, since they had mentioned healings....

“You wouldn’t happen to be feeling stressed or anything, would you? Like, if you’re bleeding somewhere, maybe you can heal it?” she suggested most helpfully. “By the way, I think I saw some snowflakes.”