Light absorption. Interesting.

Juliette apologized. Amelia waved it off. "It's not a big deal. I'm just glad nobody got hurt. It isn't like it was your fault they were hateful asses. You just, what, absorbed light like some sort of photosynthesis?" And they saw her. The rest was history.

Did that mean she was recharging? If her power worked like that, then that might make sense. She must have been tired. Amelia briefly wondered what Juliette did for a living where she might not get enough rest to keep her energy up. If her assumption were true, that was. She waited for a confirmation on that front.

Her drink was good. She nursed it as they talked.

"I would have stopped them, regardless of the situation." She added after Juliette had replied to her question. "By the way. I'd have stepped in. I'm not one yet, but I'm working on becoming a police officer." They don't pick and choose who they protect. If Juliette had used her powers to harm them, she would have had to respond to that, too.

Photosynthesis. She had never really thought of comparing her powers to how plants absorbed light. In a way, they sounded similar, but they had very different uses.

"Sort of," Juliette moved her head from side to side as she considered the similarities. "I mean, I absorb it through my skin like plants do, but I don't use the energy for food the same way the same way that plants do. Then again, it I do have to absorb it to maintain energy, so it could be argued either way." As she talked through it, she realized how similar the two things actually were. Much more so than she originally thought.

A police officer. That was interesting. She was the second mutant police officer that she had met so far. New York was an interesting place. Perhaps she even knew Sam or worked with him. After all, it would make sense for mutant cops to stick together to a degree. 

"That's great. The world can always use more good cops." Especially ones who wouldn't be prejudiced against mutants, but she didn't add that. There was enough hatred on the news of late, and she didn't want to bring it into a perfectly good conversation and ruin it. 

Argued either way. That was confirmation enough for Amelia.

She smiled at Juliette's cops response.

"So what do you do for a living?" She asked. Then held up one hand in the universal gesture for stop, small smirk tugging her mouth into a crooked bow. "Wait. Let me try some deduction and see if I can't figure it out." She racked her brain for a moment. "You're out late. You were tired. Needed to recharge. Probably just got off a long shift and didn't get much sleep. Nurses schedule, probably. And the scrubs," she laughed. "Yeah. That makes the entire deduction chain unimpressive, but okay. Are you a nurse?"

She was no Holmes. She was no Aurum, even. It would have been way cooler if the woman hadn't been wearing scrubs to give herself away! Ah well.

Her drink got sipped.

"I was almost a nurse." She added. "But law enforcement called stronger. The medical field is tough. You guys are kind of heroes."

Juliette threw up her hands in defeat and nodded her head. "You got me. A nurse I am," she informed Amelia. The scrubs were a bit of a give away, and it would have been a bit strange if a cop hadn't noticed them, but she was still a little impressed.

"I was almost a nurse. But law enforcement called stronger. The medical field is tough. You guys are kind of heroes."

"You're one to talk," Juliette grinned. "Law enforcement does a lot for the city. Not a lot of people have what it takes to do what you do." She had seen what a lot of the police had to deal with, and it seemed like it would be harrowing work. Especially for the ones without powers to fall back on.

"So, Amelia the cop, what brought you around the streets of New York so late at night?"

Heroes calling heroes heroes. "Of course, if either of us ever called ourselves a hero," Amelia joked. "We wouldn't be heroes. We'd just be people with huge egos. I just want to do what I can to help." She imagined Juliette was in the same boat.

The woman asked what she had been doing, out so late. "Good question." Amelia said. She took another drink. "What was I doing? Better yet, what was I thinking?" She shook her head with a mildly bitter laugh. Self-deprecation, thy name is Amelia. "I thought I would go on a date with a nice guy. A charming guy. A guy with a good personality, who didn't try too hard, wasn't pushy and rude. An intellectual. I was wrong on all counts. I walked out on him when the date went south. Bad date. Terrible person." It was terrible to say that the only thing he was good at was buying drinks... So she didn't. "I was out looking for a cab to take me home,"

"We wouldn't want to have huge egos, now would we?" Juliette laughed quietly and sipped her drink. It was a bit strange to have someone calling her a hero that already did so much to achieve the title, but she imagined that Amelia must have felt similarly.

Date gone wrong. Juliette had experienced her share of those. She felt sort of bad for Amelia, recalling similar memories of her own. Those times hadn't usually ended in drinks with strangers she had just saved, though. "That's too bad. I would take a gang of angry guys over a pretentious **** any day."

"So as a cop in training, what kinds of things do you typically do?" She changed the subject, not wanting to dwell too much on bad dates.

They both shared a laugh over the ego comment. "Yeah," she agreed. "Wouldn't want that."

Amelia laughed out loud at Juliette's comment. Yeah. Totally. "Sometimes it's easier to deal with a bunch of unruly thugs than it is to deal with one dumb ass." She agreed. "Appreciate the effort to make my night or interesting, by the by." Her mouth turned up wryly as she joked.

They moved on. "As a cop in training... Did you ever see the movie, or movies, police academy...?" Mentally, she went over a brief synopsis of that franchise. Goofing off. Comedic timing. Funny men. Police doing wild antics. A lack of scrutiny about who they hired. "Yeah. It isn't much like that. Basically, I've been taking courses about law and self defense and gun training, amidst the other things. Ethics. Et cetera. I've been busting my ass getting up early, taking classes, and working out the past eight months. I'm right about to take the exams." She smiled confidently. "It's pretty rough stuff. It's a good thing I'd had some experience with gun control and self defense from before I started. I had a great babysitter... And took aikido classes on the side. Once I pass the exam." She smiled. "After that, I'll,have to work alongside a field training officer for a month while I'm on probabtion. Which will be fun!"

The fact she had some training with Mirror and the X men went unsaid. Not due to careful discussion. Due to focusing on other things.

"So what kind of nurse are you?" She asked. "I mean, I know there are your classic nurses who help with patients at the hospital, but you've got your EMT technicians. You've got your emergency room nurses. I'm sure there are others."

Juliette's mind flashed briefly to watching a movie titled Police Academy late one night after it came on t.v. It may have just been that it was late at night, but she didn't remember it being very good. It made a lot of sense that actual police work wasn't anything like that. It was encouraging, too, that the police of New York weren't trained like the ones in the movie were. Or, rather, were not. "Well, best of luck on your exams," she grinned and raised her glass to Amelia, taking another sip afterward.

>>"It's pretty rough stuff. It's a good thing I'd had some experience with gun control and self defense from before I started. I had a great babysitter... And took aikido classes on the side. Once I pass the exam. After that, I'll,have to work alongside a field training officer for a month while I'm on probation. Which will be fun!"

Juliette coughed slightly as she listened to Amelia, but recovered quickly. It seemed rude to have that kind of response to what she was saying. What kind of babysitter taught kids self defense? Certainly never one she had seen. She supposed it was probably a different world for kids growing up around other mutants, or the ones with visible mutations.

>>"So what kind of nurse are you? I mean, I know there are your classic nurses who help with patients at the hospital, but you've got your EMT technicians. You've got your emergency room nurses. I'm sure there are others."

"You can specialize in just about any area," she nodded. "I'm an E.R. nurse myself, so I work with a lot of trauma patients and do a lot of first aid. From what I can tell, though, you guys - police officers, I mean - have been doing a good job of keeping people out of there lately."

Amelia raised her glass and toasted to her success. "Thanks!"

The look Juliette gave her went completely unnoticed. Why would she even think that Miri had been irresponsible teaching gun safety. If she had simply given Amelia a gun without any training, then THAT would have been irresponsible. But gun safety? It had come in handy when the dead had risen from their graves on Halloween.

"Here's to both of us." It was Amelia's turn to toast something. "Two women who put others ahead of themselves." She drank. And seriously contemplated getting another drink, because hers was getting low.

"So, what do you do for fun?" She asked innocuously.

>>"So, what do you do for fun?"

"For fun..." Juliette gave herself a moment to think. She hadn't given herself a lot of free time recently, and what little she had had been consumed by bank robberies, META bot malfunctions, and hold ups. Not exactly what she would call a good time. Before her life had quickly become an insane series of events and she had free time, though, she had enjoyed doing things.

"I like to run," she said with a smile. "Anything outside, really. And I like to read."

She took another sip of her drink, noticing that she could see the bottom when she tipped it up. It was almost time for another one.

"And you?"

"Fun is for people with a lot of free time," she said with the hint of a smile. "I practice aikido. I go to the shooting range and keep sharp. I spend time at the gym and I run too. But most of that is also for work." Alongside classes and studying. "I guess when I have downtime, reading and the Internet are fun enough. And friends."

She finished her drink and added morosely. "Not dates, clearly. If tonight was any indication." It hadn't been fun. If anything, scaring away the men had been more fun. Now what did that day about her?

"This is fun, though." She added, motioning for the bartender to hook her up with one more. She liked spending time with friends.

"Trust me, you're not alone in with the bad date track record," Juliette laughed. She could think of a few examples, mostly from college, that she would have rather just not remembered. At least Amelia's had ended in a somewhat better way, though.

"This is fun," she nodded in agreement and followed Amelia's lead in getting another drink. Her first had been very good, but it was starting to look a little low.

Her fingers tapped the side of her glass while she waited for a replacement. She turned to Amelia and asked, "okay, real question time. Thoughts on Utopia?" Maybe it was the drink in her system, or the fact that she knew they were both mutants, or maybe it was the extra adrenaline in her system from the fight, but she didn't seem to feel nervous to bring up such a divisive topic.

Her brow crinkled at the question. It was unclear what Juliette thought of her own question, and when you get into topics like this, it was always a good idea to tread carefully or know your audience. Amelia started slow.

"I could give you the long answer," she drawled. "But in short, my opinion is... Negative."

She let that sit for a second, then elaborated. "I consider myself NYPD, even though I haven't gotten accepted yet. Though I will. And my duty is to New York. So Utopia isn't for me, regardless of my situation. They might need cops in this Utopia thing, but that also isn't for me. And I think it's a massive step backwards in civil rights, proposed by an enigmatic millionaire that someone really needs to run a background check on. That's my short answer." She swirled her ice. If he woman asked, she could go long.

Two fresh drinks were passed across the bar to the two women. Juliette picked hers up and took a sip, savouring the flavour for a minute as she listened. In all honesty, the answer had not been what she expected for Amelia. After the run in with the angry mob, she would have figured she would have jumped on a society free from prejudice because of a gene. At least, that's how she was feeling.

"I would have pegged you to go the other way," she admitted after a moment. There was no sadness or disappointment in her voice, only curiosity.

"I don't know," she continued. "The idea of a society where no one has to worry about where and when they show their powers sounds pretty good. Never worrying about being chased down the street by a drunk angry mob because you needed a little bit of energy. Then again, it sounds a little too good to be true. And I see where you're coming from."

Cue brief pause for another sip. "I guess I would say I'm on the fence about the whole issue. What would be your long answer, though?"

Pegged the other way. Interesting. She wondered why she gave off that vibe.

Juliette shared her own opinion on it, and Amelia listened respectfully. She accepted her new drink, and began working on it as she sat.

A society free from worries over being attacked for being different. Yeah. That was nice. That was the positive spin on Utopia she had heard. But Juliette acknowledged that it seemed a little too good to be true. That pleased Amelia, for some reason. It was likely the fact that the women was intelligent enough to ask questions and think for herself, rather than be lead like a sheep. It spoke well to the quality of Juliette's character. Yeah, that must have been it. Smart, and pretty. And on the fence.

Amelia nodded at her. "Yeah. I can understand your position. I agree, a society free of hate is something we should all of us strive for. It's something Martin Luther King Jr. fought for. It's something so many other civil rights leaders before, and after, have risked, sacrificed, lived or lost their lives for. But here's why this is the long answer. Because it's heavy. Mutant rights are a civil rights issue. I put us in the same ballpark as all the other groups that want to be treated with basic human decency and equality. And that's why I don't feel positive about Utopia." She paused, and drank, because she felt like she needed one for what she was about to say. "Utopia is about creating a community somewhere out there that is only mutants. I know of a couple of other famous men that created small communities for certain groups. It didn't really work out for them, as I recall." She made direct eye contact with Juliette for a moment, and smiled weakly, so as to try and show it wasn't hostility backing her statements, just concern. "It's an idea. Maybe even a good one. But I feel like we should be working towards equality, not segregation. Do you get what I'm saying?"

It failed in New York before with the camps, and again in Romania. She'd heard stories she was glad she'd never had to live through. And the parallels in history brought really unpleasant comparisons someone just had to mention. In the right light, they were incredibly jarring. It was nothing personal. They were just there.