Sense. Really. The only sense it made was that Liz was completely and totally insane. Nuts. Bonkers. Delusiona- no, he'd stay away from that one, since it had been thrown at him in the last month. Lunatic! That one was still safe.

Triggered by a traumatic event.

Yeah, if that were true, it would have activated several times in the past few months. Now would be a perfect example. "Fortunately for me, it's not trauma," he said between dodges. "There has been opportunity enough for that." Thinking about them would risk pushing this already seriously unpleasant event to the top of the post-crash list. He'd really rather not do that, because it would obviously mean he would have to go through such a traumatic thing. Now.

He did not want that.

He also didn't want to have to limp away from Liz, but his hip in particular was definitely throbbing as he hauled himself to his feet. While Liz fussed over the dog. Why, precisely, couldn't the dog have kept out of the way? When she finally got around to noticing him, he shot her as bland a blank look as he could manage. "Just bruised," he said flatly. Really. After all the effort she was putting into torturing him, something actually happens and she couldn't care less. However contradictory that seemed, however, he should get back to getting away from her. He took a few steps backwards, mostly confident about where the inanimate objects in the room were now. He hadn't seen any snowflakes, but then he hadn't noticed them in any of his witnessed episodes. He'd best just go with it, though. "Then you should be satisfied. Can I go?" Okay, his plaintive tone was definitely warming up now. There was a fair bit more that time.

“Oh no, you can’t go,” Elizabeth said earnestly as she shot to her feet. The large canine beside her followed suit. “We’re just getting started! I’m thinking that you don’t have to just run to make snow. I’m thinking any movement will work. Except tripping. Tripping doesn’t seem to work,” Liz said speculatively.

Liz decided that she needed to run another test. Since poking at his arm seemed to work, she was willing to try it again. Since Aiden was already up and in position, she deemed it time to begin.

So she charged him with a rain of flying fingers. Left! Right! Up! Across! Zig-zag! She spelled out her entire name in sign language in the process. She jabbed for his chest and poked for his shoulder. She flicked at his ear and then tried to flip his hair. She advanced on his ribs with tickling fingers and even went as far as trying to get at his tummy. She tried to match each move like a mirror image, secretly not trying to touch him, only wanting him to move.

She felt like a dog herding sheep. Speaking of a dog.

Liz opened her mind and pushed feelings at Rufus. Happiness and glee were the main two. Playfulness, a desire for attention, and a hyperactivity that made one want to jump up and chase people came in close second.

Rufus joined the chase, yipping and barking and panting with fun as he tried to catch and lick the guy his long-time friend was chasing. If Liz was right, they’d start seeing snowflakes soon, either from his dodging or from him trying to run away in order to escape. It was a win-win situation for her.

So she kept on poking.

Aiden's hopes, tiny and undernourished though they were, quickly caught fire and were instantly consumed in the despair of his continued entrapment and torture. Was escape really too much to ask for?

Maybe full escape was... but did she really just say she was giving up on making him run? Really and truly?

Nope. Way too good to be true.

He was a little slow on the first poke, feeling his shirt shift with the pressure before he twisted out of the way. There was no rest for the miserable, though, and Liz showed no signs of letting up. There was nothing to do but dodge, sidestep, avoid, duck - and almost win a limbo contest when she went for his hair, of all things, but then she was insane so he really shouldn't be surprised. Other than that first near-hit, he seemed to be managing pretty well, though he didn't have the time, breath, or concentration to try to figure out what exactly was going through Liz's messed up brain to be doing this.

Then the dog joined in. Apparently this horror looked fun.

Oh hey, now he could see the snow. From the looks of it, it had been going for a while. Oof- hit and drooled on by the dog. Distraction was bad. He had to focus more on his footing, though, since the snow was starting to cling to things and his footing wasn't exactly perfect anymore. He pivoted sharply around some obscure music-related device, found his foot slipping sideways, and twisted his descent into a backwards roll over one shoulder at the last second. He earned himself a spare moment with the increased distance and caught a surprisingly large snowflake on a fingertip, amazed despite himself and the situation.

... then the snowflake didn't melt, and then he noticed that his finger was white. And his hand. And he sleeve. And most of his legs.

He may have stopped paying attention to Liz at that.

Aiden may not have been paying any attention to her, but Elizabeth was definitely paying a lot of attention to Aiden. Purely in an empirical and Platonic fashion, of course. But oh was there a lot to observe! Liz had actually slackened on flailing at Aiden, directing most of her attention to watching the crystalline water form out of the air and fall around the trio. Rufus had begun snapping at snowflakes.

This was so cool (no pun intended). There was snow where there shouldn’t be. There wasn’t even a little mini-cloud, like the stuff they do in cartoons. It was miraculous. Weather manipulation on a small scale and indoors, no less.

Then she noticed how all the snow led to Aiden. He was to the snowflakes what Rome was to all roads. It also reminded her of piranhas swarming a cow in a river and stripping it to its bones.

But on a better look, it appeared that the snow was doing the opposite of what piranhas would’ve. Aiden was becoming shiny. He was quickly resembling a character from a cheesy ‘70s space-age film where everyone wore aluminum foil for clothes. Or a snowman. That would make more sense. “Keep moving!” Liz said excitedly. “It’s working! Don’t stop!” Most of her attention was on the snow, but she still kept Aiden in her sights. She was perfectly willing to renew the siege upon him.

“Has this ever happened to you before? Getting snow covered and such?” she quizzed him. All in the name of science. “It’s weird how the snow’s following you.” It wouldn’t even seem to stick to Liz or Rufus if it could help it. Yeah, it kept hitting her, but Liz had the feeling that it was more like it was just cutting its losses so it could get to its destination. Aiden. A.k.a., Jack Frost. There. She now had something else to call him.

This was so very, very wrong.

Didn't Liz see how wrong this was?

He didn't see how it could be any more wrong.

He was not supposed to change colour. People in general were not supposed to change colour. He definitely wasn't supposed to look glittery - wait. He fumbled for the edge of his sleeve, the simple action complicated by the lack of visual difference between it and his skin. It was hard to know for sure if he moved it, for the very same reason, but when he felt the cuff only a few inches from his elbow he had to admit it. His scar was gone. There had never been any tactile difference between it and the normal skin around it, and now there was no visible difference either.

Well, either it was gone or his entire body and clothing had turned into one big scar. Either way, he couldn't go around in public like this. There had to be some way to shut it off.

Liz's exclamation wasn't helping, though. He blinked at her, the tinted snowflakes meandering about like mad rather disorienting to look through. "Don't stop? I want this to stop!" He held out his arms, having to scrutinize the upper reaches of them to find even small flecks of colour. Before his eyes, though, snowflakes were drifting in and brushing across those spots, wiping them clear with an airy relentlessness.

Stopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopitstopit!

Aiden back away from the worst of the snow, somehow finding a wall and putting his back to it. "No, it hasn't happened before!" he snapped, wishing he could just fall through the wall and put an end to all of this. "I haven't been dragged around and assaulted recently!"

That....wasn’t the reaction Elizabeth had been expecting. Not in the slightest. The blonde blinked and backed up a few steps, holding her hands up in surrender. Aiden did not seem to be enjoying any of it at all. Despite the miracle that was happening all around him, he seemed to want nothing more than to turn off his power, shut down the snow, and probably run away from her.

Liz suddenly felt terrible. He never would’ve done this if she hadn’t literally pushed and dragged him into doing this.

Now he was against a wall. She deserved the level and tone of voice he used on her. Her smile had vanished and Rufus no longer acted under the influence of outside emotions. “Then....don’t move,” she said in a more subdued tone than she’d previously been wielding. Dodging and running--two advanced forms of movement--brought the snow. If he stopped moving, it should stop the snow. In fact, it already seemed like the snow was no longer falling as much as it had before.

“I’m sorry,” she said after a few moments of silence on her end. This was why she should never have brought up the subject of powers. It would’ve been better for everyone to have just walked away as soon as she’d apologized for getting too close with the flying stick. It had been a mistake to assume that everyone wanted to jump in and try to figure out exactly how their powers worked, doing anything they could to trigger them, especially since Aiden had clearly protested for most of it.

She understood why he didn’t want to know more about his powers. When her empathy had developed, she didn’t have a choice. She’d had to learn how to control her powers, and therefore learn about them, or else she’d go crazy. But her possession power had made her feel similar to what she was willing to bet what Aiden was now feeling. When she first possessed something, it had been after her sister had died. She’d possessed the family cat, traumatizing it in the process. She’d sworn to never do it again to something, at least for as long as she was at home.

How would she have felt if someone had come along and forced her to start possessing every animal she could lay her hands on? Terrible, that’s how.

“I’ll just leave....” she said softly, moving over to collect her things.

As stressful as the current situation was, the drastic change in Liz's mood made a distinct impression on Aiden. With a moment to calm down, he could see the difference in the amount of snow in the air already. Okay. The snow was going away. He could deal with that. He just had to breathe and consider this rationally before Liz left still upset. Making people upset was bad.

So. Snow. He had already consciously accepted that he made it snow in small amounts and under certain, heretofore unknown conditions. He was cool with that, right? As much as he could be, all things considered. So, was there really a problem here? He couldn't agree with Liz's methods, but the autopsy thing must have just been a joke he'd taken too seriously. This was just the way she was. Some people were like that.

Okay. Time to panic was over. A few deep breaths and everything would be fine.

... That didn't usually work, but apparently his internal pep talk thing had kicked enough rationality and reason into the rest of him and so booted out the whole panicky thing. Okay.

"Wait." He took another breath as he stepped away from the wall. Not much, but a little. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean - I... I don't do well with, well, new stuff." He went to shove his hands into his pockets, only to remember he was wearing shorts and didn't have any. He awkwardly folded his hands behind him instead, distantly enjoying the feeling of not sweaty skin for once. He could find good things to this with just a little effort.

Okay. Snow was tapering off. Might even not be appearing anymore, just drifting around still. "You don't have to go. I... just need time. To get used to things." He pushed a bit of snow around with a toe.

Elizabeth took up her sheet music from its pile, flipped it perpendicular to the desk it was on, and began tapping it along the hard edge in order to straighten the stack up. She rotated the stack on its side to do the same to it. The blonde opened up a manilla folder and slid her music into it, a precaution against losing any as well as keeping it all organized. Once she had that and her flute, she was ready to leave.

She paused at Aiden’s words, her back still to him. A sideways glanced revealed Rufus gazing at her with concern. Pushing the words aside for the moment, the girl realized she needed to look after Rufus first. It would do nobody any good to bleed up her feelings into the canine companion. She gave him a small smile as she reinforced the barriers around her mind, curtailing the constant flow of feelings in and out. Tighter than a beaver’s dam.

Then it was done and she didn’t have anything else to stall with. Her thoughts collected, she turned around. A plastic smiled was smeared on her face. It was one she’d learned how to use long ago, to prevent people from getting to her. “No, no, it was all my fault,” she said calmly. Strain was still evident in her voice. “I should not have attempted to push you into doing anything. I apologize. It was not my intent to make you uncomfortable.”

The blonde began walking to the door, but stopped just before leaving. She glanced back at Rufus, who was still lying on the floor. She arched an eyebrow. “You coming?” she said softly, knowing full well he could hear her and being pretty sure he understood. The shepherd cocked his head and stared at her for a moment before putting his head down on his paws. She’d take that as a no. “See you around,” she said quietly to the dog.

“Would you mind letting him out if he wants to?” she asked Aiden, only half turned back to see him. And with that, she no longer had any reason to remain in the room. She should’ve avoided this whole thing from the start. She shouldn’t have tried playing fetch with Rufus. If she’d only stuck to her flute, none of this would’ve happened and everyone would’ve been better off.

Liz glanced one last time around the the room before stepping out into the hallway. There wasn’t anything she could say, right? See you around? Nice to meet you? My condolences for our introduction? No, it was better to not say anything.

And so she was gone.