Tarin was really getting angry at her now, despite the fact that she had tried to stay calm, tried to keep him from using more energy than he absolutely had to. He might be conscious, but based on the amount of energy she was feeling, she knew he had to be far from rested.

The biggest problem was that Lee really couldn't argue with anything that Tarin was saying. He definitely hadn't given her any reason to worry before that day, and he was nothing like Ryan was. But she had still immediately jumped to the conclusion that he was cheating on her, and hadn't listened to anything else. Yet another example of just how wrong she was, just how much she had messed up.

And yeah, Maine...To say it was a touchy subject would be a vast understatement. Kind of along the same lines as calling the mutant concentration camps a nice vacation spot. Once they had gotten back to New York and sorted things out, they hadn't even mentioned Maine.

Tarin was laying flat in the bed at this point, his eyes closing, though he was still arguing with her. Oh that stubbornness of his, did it have no bounds? But really, what else could she say to him? That he's right? That she was sorry for everything that she'd done to him, not only in all of that, but for everything she'd done to him in general? A month ago, she didn't know what she had done to be lucky enough to actually be with Tarin. Now Lee knew that she didn't deserve him, that he deserved so much better, and apologizing for everything certainly wouldn't make that break any easier.

Her back still turned, Lee paused, her eyes closed. "Get some rest, Tarin," she told him gently. "With how I feel, you need it. If you want to yell at me some more in a couple of days, I'll be still be awake."

With that, Lee started walking again. She, however, had heard the teen's words. "Don't worry, Calley, we're done," Lee told him as she passed, walking through the doors the nurses had tried to get her to go through hours earlier.

Turning to the right, Lee walked swiftly along for about twenty steps before she stopped, leaning heavily against the wall as she fought the tears that had suddenly sprung up into her eyes.

~ "Don't worry, Calley, we're done."

Calley jumped at those words. He'd been trying to ignore the yelling behind him; that had involved a great deal of purposefully not-hearing. Hence, he had missed the fact that Lee had walked his way again. And now she was headed out the door.

The door. Huh.

Calley cast a glance back towards the bed of her sparring partner. The guy seemed down for the count, really. Then he looked back towards the door. She had made it look so easy. She'd just... walked right through. Calley fidgeted. His legs went over the side of the bed. Then, in a quick hop, the rest of him followed. The door. There was no reason he couldn't go out the door, as long as he had an escort that didn't work for Hunter and would notice--and maybe even mention it to other people--if he went missing. Maybe he could even get to the Canteen, and get some food. Or the training rooms. He'd mentioned the training rooms to her. The training rooms had some pretty sturdy locks on them, on the inside. Lock + witness on the inside = unlikely that the Boss Man would order the door forcibly opened. Calley padded across the floor at a half-jog, balancing on the balls of his bare feet. It was a habit he'd picked up; Slate liked it because it made it easy to move quickly and quietly on just about any indoor surface. Carpet, especially, but the cold tile floor of the Infirmary and Halls barely made a noise under him, either. She was still in sight when he stuck his head out the door. Which was good, because otherwise he wouldn't have gone much of anywhere. As it was, he ended up bolting at double-time over to where she was, and leaning against the wall next to her with a minimum of paranoid looking left and looking right. Safe! Calley finally looked at Lee.

"Urk," he eloquently stated; "Umm, are you crying? Sorry. I just wanted to talk some more, maybe. I can go away. Sorry." He looked down the hall back towards the Infirmary, but didn't actually make a move to bolt back there. It seemed awfully far away, all of the sudden... He convulsively swallowed.

Lee jumped slightly when she heard a voice from beside her. She hadn't heard anyone coming up to her, hadn't really been paying much attention to anything once she had left the infirmary, so had been startled to suddenly find someone beside her. Sniffling slightly, Lee looked over to see Calley standing there, leaning against the wall as well.

"No, I'm not crying," Lee told him. Well, it wasn't a complete lie, anyway; the tears hadn't actually started falling yet. Her eyes were just...watering. Yeah, that's right, her eyes were watering, she was not crying.

Blinking the tears away, Lee took another look at Calley. He seemed nervous, sorta wary, as he looked back down the hall toward the infirmary.

"You wanted to talk?" Lee asked, wondering what would be so intriguing that Calley would follow her out here after being so upset by the fighting between her and Tarin. "What about?"

And then Lee got an idea, remembered something that Calley had said before Tarin had woken up. "You've been here a while, eh?" she then asked, her head tilted slightly as she looked up at him. "Mind showing me where I can grab some food? I should probably try and eat something."

~ "No, I'm not crying."

Calley glanced back the woman's way, tilting his head slightly, giving her a simple blank face, and leaving it at that. He wasn't exactly the cry police. If she wanted to cry and not admit it, he wasn't going to poke at things. Much.

~ "You wanted to talk? What about?"

Calley stiffened for the briefest of seconds, before he could force himself to relax. About what, indeed. The fun thing about adlibbing was that it tended to lead to more adlibbing. He decided to go with that truthful thing he'd been practicing, ever since a certain someone had promised he'd get an eye out for every lie he was caught at. Granted that the threat only held with that certain someone, but it was always good to be in practice, when eyeballs were involved. "I guess I don't know, really. It's just that it was sort of nice to talk to you, I guess. You seem interesting. And nice. And I guess if you're going to be out here crying, maybe it's not so nice to leave you alone. The Labs are pretty big and easy to get lost in and there's a lot of people here who pretty much just don't care about others. Umm," he corrected himself hastily, "not to say you were crying."

~ "You've been here a while, eh? Mind showing me where I can grab some food? I should probably try and eat something."

Calley pushed off from the wall with a nod and a smile. "Yay! No problem. That'd be the Canteen, 'cause I think the guy who owns this place is from across the pond, or something; I mean, it's just like a Cafeteria, but it gets called that instead. Canteen." He cleared his throat. "But yeah, it's just right this way about a hallway, then over two to the right, then straight one, then half a one to the left and third door on the right. But you can pretty much just follow your nose past the fist turn, especially around meal times." He gave a nod of agreement with himself, and took a step out to lead the way before turning to make sure she was following. He would love to go to the Canteen. Good ol' Canteen. Wonderful Canteen. But he definitely wasn't going alone. Crowded Canteen; easy-to-be-disappeared-from-if-no-one-cares Canteen. He was going to stick as close to Lee as was humanly possible. She was his life preserver. He tilted his head curiously. On that note...

"Hey. Since I'm really close to you now, should I be able to feel it? Your power, I mean."

Just what Lee needed right then, proof of another thing Tarin had been right about. He had told her he was sure people would like her, even with her powers, if they simply got to know her. She hadn't been so sure about that at the time, Tarin himself had seemed just about the only one, but Calley seemed interested in spending time with her, seemed to like her so far, and she had told him about her powers. Damn it, how many things was she going to be shown that she was wrong about, that Tarin was right?

Lee was about to correct Calley's comment that she had been out there in the hallway crying when he did it himself. No, she most certainly had not been out there crying. What few tears there had been hadn't escaped her eyes, and they were already disappearing thanks to her blinking. How could he say she'd been crying?

Calley seemed really eager to show her to the Canteen as he called it. As she stepped out from the wall to follow Calley, Lee couldn't help but think that he was extremely close to her, almost uncomfortably so. Or, she realized, maybe it felt like that because she didn't really want to touch anyone again. Like ever.

"It's a good thing you're showing me the way," Lee said, the slightest hint of a smile curling the corners of her lips despite her discomfort at his proximity. "Cause I think you lost me there somewhere between the second and third turns."

Calley was back on asking about her powers, though. Really, now what was so damn interesting about them? She was sucking his energy out of him, she had told him that she'd been the reason Tarin had been in the shape he was back there in the infirmary. Honestly, didn't the kid mind that?

"I..." Lee started, then paused to think for a moment. "I honestly don't know. I mean, if you were actually touching me, I'm sure you'd start noticing fairly quickly, but I really don't need any more energy, so I'm trying to take as little as possible. Stay around for a few hours, you'll probably head to bed early tonight. Just wish I could..."

~ "It's a good thing you're showing me the way. Cause I think you lost me there somewhere between the second and third turns."

Calley gave a little grin, clasping his hands behind his back as he walked a few steps backwards. "The Labs are kind of confusing, at first, I know." He said, quite self-importantly. "Stick with me, and you'll be fine." He didn't notice her discomfort at how close he was--which was definitely inside of the usual personal-space bubble. More accurately: the not-noticing was an active process, because even if she was a little uncomfortable with him being this close, he was pretty sure that being this close was the only thing keeping him from panicking and running the rest of the way to the Canteen. It seemed like a decent price to pay, especially from where he was standing.

~ "I... I honestly don't know. I mean, if you were actually touching me, I'm sure you'd start noticing fairly quickly, but I really don't need any more energy, so I'm trying to take as little as possible. Stay around for a few hours, you'll probably head to bed early tonight. Just wish I could..."

"Huh," he said simply, spinning on one heel to face the correct forwards-walking direction yet again as they came around a corner. "That really isn't much. So I take it you can't really control it?" He ducked his head. "Ah, not to pry, or anything. It's just the way you talk.

"I'm not so great at controlling mine, either. Especially when I sleep--I pretty much shift whether I want to or not. If I get scared or drunk it happens sometimes, too. Err, not that I would ever go out drinking with a fake ID." His eyes rolled towards the ceiling reflectively, and he gave a small nod to himself. "Not ever again, anyway. Yeah... That was before the Bill passed, thankfully. Kind of awkward, though, since I'm the only shifter I know who can't seem to keep his clothes." He blushed. "Err, and that's probably enough about me.

"So where are you from? Sorry, but your accent is a little cool. I'm just from Jersey. Which is way better than New York, just so's you know--for one thing, our drivers aren't insane--but meh. All the cool stuff seems to happen here." Not to mention that he was both a little disowned back in New Jersey and a little locally employed right here at the Labs.

Lee shook her head when Calley realized that what she was taking from him really wasn't all that much. "Not really," she told him as Calley spun on his heel so he was actually walking forward once more. "But add that 'little bit' up, combine it with the little bit I get from every person I'm around, and it can end up being quite a bit.

"And no, I can't control it," Lee continued, her eyes on the floor in front of her as they walked along. "Well, I can't stop it, at any rate. If I could, I would. Maybe then I'd be able to sleep sometime in the next week. I do seem to be able to take more, faster, if I concentrate. But otherwise, no, no control."

Lee's eyes widened when she head Calley tell her about how he had problems controlling his powers. She couldn't help it; a guy she had just met, a teenager nonetheless, had just told her how, when he transforms, he doesn't seem to keep his clothing. Not exactly something she would expect to find out, nor something that she needed to know.

As they rounded another corner, Lee cocked her head as she looked over at Calley. She had an accent? That was news to her. Lee hadn't thought she had an accent, it wasn't like she was British or anything like that.

"Don't know if I should tell you," Lee said slowly, gazing at Calley with one eyebrow raised slightly. "Can I trust you? I mean, you're not going to go blabbing on me, are you?"

Calley turned a much, much darker shade of red as the woman's eyes widened. Umm... yeah. Yeah, that little bit about the clothes was too much information. "I have fur," he protested weakly. "Tiger shifter, remember?" It was just the changing-back that got awkward...

~ "Don't know if I should tell you. Can I trust you? I mean, you're not going to go blabbing on me, are you?"

Calley straightened up to his full height of five feet and eight proud inches as they walked. Which was a pretty good height for a Jersey boy, thank you very much, and the fact that nearly every other mutant he met towered over him by several inches couldn't take that away from him. It actually felt really strange that he was taller than Lee. Strange in a good-for-a-change way.

"I," he stated proudly, "am quite possibly the most information-reliable teenager you will ever met. I'm like a steel trap. Information comes in, and--SLAMO!--it doesn't come back out. For all your secrets and not-so-secrets, I am a fully trustworthy individual upon which to divulge. And," he finished, pointing a proud thumb into his chest, "I never lie. Ever." He grinned at the woman. "So most assuredly, ma'dam, I shall not partake of this 'blabbing about' of which you speak."

Despite the stress of the last few months, the last few weeks in the camp, and then the horrors she had seen that day during the breakout, Lee couldn't stop the smile from forming as Calley stated, quite proudly and matter-of-factly, that he was probably the most reliable teenager she'd ever find.

"You never lie?" Lee questioned, her eyebrow raising again, though the grin was still on her face. "So you'd just keep your mouth closed and not speak if someone ever asks?"

But really, what was the problem with sharing this information? If she was caught being in the country illegally, she'd just be sent back, and as far as she knew, Canada hadn't passed anything like the Registration Act yet. Plus, it's not like there was really anything she had to stay here for, now. That thought wiped the smile off her face finally.

"I'm from Canada," Lee told Calley. "Kinda hopped over the boarder, guess it'd be coming up on two years ago, now, and never went back. 'They' would probably more worried with the fact that I'm a mutant, but fact is, I'm not exactly legal here."

~ "You never lie? So you'd just keep your mouth closed and not speak if someone ever asks?"

Calley grinned over at the woman as they continued walking. "You would be amazed at how many lies a blatant subject switch will get you out of. 'Is your hair on fire?' is a really good one." He nodded in clearly pleased agreement with himself.

~ "I'm from Canada. Kinda hopped over the border, guess it'd be coming up on two years ago, now, and never went back. 'They' would probably more worried with the fact that I'm a mutant, but fact is, I'm not exactly legal here."

Calley gave a brief laugh at that. "That's kind of awesome. How many kinds of illegal does that make you, in this country?" He paused a moment, clearly in deep thought, before asking this life-changing question: "Have you ever seen a moose? I'd like to see a moose." He'd like to try being a moose, actually. Suddenly, that sounded like it might be fun.

They'd reached the final corner. The unsubtle odor of spaghetti with marinara sauce hit Calley's nose. "Ma'dam Lee," he said proudly, sweeping his arm out towards an open door just down the hall, "might I proudly present the Mondragon Labs Canteen. Now serving... pasta, I guess. But they're usually cool if about making stuff if you specially order it. Unless you walk in as a tiger. They're tigerists in there." He narrowed his eyes down at the Canteen. "It's like being a racist, but even more selective."

"Well, I'm going to depend on your skill with blatant subject switches to keep my secret safe," Lee told Calley, giving him a slight smile as she looked over at him. "You're one of a handful of people who know, and I'd like to keep that number small."

But then he went on to ask how many kinds of illegal being Canadian made her, and Lee shook her head. "At least one too many," she told him more seriously. "Being an illegal alien i can deal with, being an illegal mutant isn't nearly as easy."

Apparently, though, that didn't end Calley's questions about her homeland. He certainly was a curious one, wasn't he? Regardless, Lee was not expecting that next question, and a laugh burst out of her before she knew it. "Only in the zoo," Lee replied. "Thankfully not up close. Not all of Canada is as remote as you think. Haven't seen an igloo, either." What was it with these American guys thinking that Canada was just one big, desolate track of wilderness and tundra, anyway?

Those thoughts led to others, though. Thoughts that Lee really did not want to be having, thoughts of another day, when she had been trying to convince a certain tattoo'd person that Canada was not just some snow covered wilderness. Or, at least that it wasn't year round.

Thankfully, at that moment they rounded another corner, and Calley announced that they had arrived at the canteen, which, at least according to him, was serving pasta. At the mention of food, Lee's stomach grumbled loudly. Maybe she would be able to eat, after all. "Sounds good to me," Lee said as she started forward, a bit faster now that she could smell the food and was actually feeling hungry again. "And point those tigerists out after we eat, and I'll teach them a lesson."

To her charge for him to keep her nefarious Canadian secret identity safe, Calley straightened himself up, squared his shoulders, and nodded the short nod of a military officer to his direct superior. Her secret, indeed, was safe with him. Unless he had some reason to tell it to someone, and ignoring the fact that his camera team had just heard all about it. He remained guilt-free over that last fact. She'd spoken in Mondragon Labs. One of the many, many cameras around here would have picked it up, anyway. His own necklace cam had just provided one more film angle. Smile!

Needless to say, he was thoroughly disappointed by her moose response. A zoo. Pfft. What was Canada good for, then? It was just like a pale copy of the US, with better health care, and a government that didn't try to actively repress its people, and... and yeah. Yeah. The point remained: he was disappointed she'd never seen a wild moose.

Oddly enough, she seemed disappointed, too. Or... depressed? It was a brief moment, but she got that look like her eyes weren't seeing him. Calley fidgeted looking at her, shoving his hand in his pocket. Squeee, the lime green squeaky hedgehog's rubber quills reassured him. His grin came back at her comment on the Canteen tigerists, and he gave a nod. "No need to point them out--every Canteen worker is pretty much a tigerist, or a tigerist-in-training. Or a soon-to-be tigerist. They pretty much take one look at me when I'm a tiger, and fill up with tigerism. I think it's something to do with all of my fur being that close to the food, and maybe the grabbing things off of the line with my mouth. I'm not sure how else they expect me to do it, though. I tried using my paws, but, umm... no opposable thumbs." He held up his hands as they went through the Canteen doors, and wiggled his thumbs in demonstration. "It was messy. Umm... yeah." That was probably enough on that topic.

((ooc: Time skip! If you mind, just PM me, and I shall cut the post off here. )

After they'd gotten their food--he'd kind of clung to her side during the food-getting process, but that hadn't stopped him from acquiring two hamburgers, one plate of spaghetti, a large chocolate milkshake, and a snickers bar. He was starting to get hungry. Ahem. To try that again: after they'd gotten their food and found seats, Calley decided to say something. It probably wasn't advisable to say, because it was something that showed that maybe occasionally sometimes he thought about things. That was something he'd prefer to keep on the down-low.

"Umm, sorry if this is out of line, but you kind of don't seem all that happy, sometimes. Not that I really know you or anything. And not that you're not justified about it--I mean, you did just get out of the Camps. But, umm, if something in the past sucks... You shouldn't think about it." Calley advised. "It's better to think about the future. Since it hasn't happened yet, you can dream it like it doesn't suck."

In the future that Calley dreamed, Hunter was dead.