"The Church of Humanity?"

Rupert unconsciously hunched his shoulders in a flinch at the woman's outraged words. He immediately forced himself to straighten back up, however, when he noticed she was looking at him.

"What the hell are you thinking?"

Casually, he set the eggplants on his wooden cutting board, and began to cut them into thin slices. He cleared his throat, to make sure his voice wasn't about to turn traitor on him by sounding guilty, or something equally stupid. This woman was a mutant. To be quite frank, he'd paid his debt to her kind in full. Not that he had owed them much to begin with: all he'd done was shoot a few of them, with the full weight of the law behind him. He'd even loved one of them at the time, but that 'love' was just him making another idiot decision without consulting his brain. The only thing he had left to do with that woman was get his jacket back from her. Once that was done, he had no reason to deal with her again. That it was taking him over three weeks to arrange getting that jacket back... was simply because he was busy preparing for the trial.

Rupert noticed that he'd already finished slicing the eggplants; the movement was so familiar, he'd continued it without thinking. He still hadn't answered Lee. He lifted up his eyes, and met her gaze with a defiant one of his own.

"What the hell are you thinking, Lee?" He pointed his knife across the room at the woman. "What, did you think they asked me to take on the job of Camp Supervisor because I was a bleeding heart mutant lover? Did you think I had a long track record of helping the little muties through the big scary legal crap they dig themselves into when they attack us?" That 'us' clearly didn't include Lee. "Or maybe you pictured me putting anti-Registration Law petitions next to the coffee machines down at the station?" He was using little waves of his knife to emphasize his words. That's what being part Italian added to a conversation--lots of hand movements. Lots of sharp, glittering hand movements. Rupert realized what he was doing, and set the knife down next to the cutting board. He wished he'd slammed it down. Setting it down just wasn't satisfying. He glared down at it for a moment, a scowl on his face, before looking back up. The twist of his lips was almost amused. "Don't be naive, Lee. I'm a damn zealot. That's all there is to it."

He turned to the cabinets on the wall behind him, and took down a large glass pan to cook the eggplant slices in. It banged against a few stainless steel pots on its way out. Now that was satisfying.

Lee stared at Rupert as she waited for an answer. As he stood there, cutting the eggplant. As he didn't answer. Just continued to cut the eggplant.

Finally, once the eggplant was all chopped, he looked up at her once again, and only then started to speak, asking her the same question. But as he did, he also pointed the knife at her, and Lee's eyes dropped from Rupert's face to the knife. Sure, she wasn't exactly worried about him actually killing her, he had already had the chance to shoot her and hadn't, but with how Rupert was waving that knife around as he spoke, it wasn't exactly encouraging, either.

But what was she thinking? No, she hadn't expected him to pass out petitions or anything, and she knew that Rupert was far from being a 'bleeding heart mutant lover', but she hadn't thought he would actually be part of the Church of Humanity.

"That's all there is to it?" Lee repeated Rupert's final statement. At least by this point, he had actually put the knife down, so she let her eyes move back up to Rupert's face as she got off the couch. "I'm sorry my very being bothers you so much. I won't bother you any more. And don't worry, I'll be back in Canada by this time tomorrow, so you won't have to deal with me at all after this." That said, Lee turned and stepped around the couch, making her way back to the door.

~ "That's all there is to it?"

Rupert ignored Lee's reaction, initially; he didn't even look up. He just set the glass pan on top of his stove--a little more loudly than was strictly necessary--with his back to the woman. Yes. That's all there was to it. So nice to see she'd been listening.

~ "I'm sorry my very being bothers you so much."

Rupert flinched again at those words, and turned around. "That's not what I--" He started, angrily.

~ "I won't bother you any more. And don't worry, I'll be back in Canada by this time tomorrow, so you won't have to deal with me at all after this."

She was leaving. That woman--that mutant--that freak--was actually leaving. Rupert stared after her, with a scowl on his face. And he should care, why? Good riddance. Now he could go back to cooking in peace, just like he had everyday since the breakout. Just him, and Flipsy, and his stereo playing whatever he currently had in the CD player. If he did make his own noodles, he could draw out his cooking; if he turned on the TV and shut off his mind, he could easily ride things out until it was time to go to bed. Then he could stare up at the ceiling on and off until it turned from black to gray to pink with the rising sun. Then he could live through another day of his damn pathetic life as he waited for the Isabel Duskmoor trial to start. After that, what next? Would he go back to hunting down the freaks for a living, until one of them finally got him? Rupert felt that comfortable apathy he'd been practicing over the past few weeks settling around his shoulders like a blanket. Yeah. Yeah, he probably would. Not that it really mattered, either way.

Rupert watched Lee head towards the door. "Canada, huh? I hope you enjoy it." He said simply. He turned his head away slightly. "Sorry." Damned if he knew what he was apologizing for. She was just a freak.

Lee was already making her way to the door when Rupert turned to face her, apparently claiming that what she had said was true. But hadn't he said that very thing before? So what was the difference between him saying it and her saying it?

"You hate me because I'm a mutant, but that's not what you meant," Lee shook her head as she reached the door. No, of course it wasn't what he had meant, because Rupert was probably the biggest hypocrite that she had ever met. He hated mutants, was a member of the Church of Humanity, yet had helped the mutants escape from the camp. And had invited her for dinner, though like the breakout, he'd probably regret this too, if he didn't already.

Lee was reaching for the door handle when she heard Rupert speak again. "Yeah, Canada," Lee repeated as she pulled the door open.

And then Lee heard something that confirmed her previous hypocrite thought better than almost anything could. Rather than walking through the door -- she could have, pretending to not have heard Rupert's final word -- Lee just stood there, the handle slipping through her fingers and the door swinging closed again. "You're sorry?" See asked, her voice suddenly calmer than it had been, though she didn't turn to look at Rupert. "What in the world would you be sorry about?"

~ "You're sorry? ...What in the world would you be sorry about?"

The calm in her voice had an almost ominous quality, from where Rupert was standing. What was he sorry about? Good damn question. He'd asked himself that plenty of times, when he wasn't concentrating on ignoring it. What was he sorry about?

"If I had an answer to that," Rupert replied finally, and flatly, "I wouldn't be half the jackass that I am." He gave a short flick of his wrist; a gracious shooing motion. "So. Canada. Enjoy that. I can't say it was nice knowing you, but it wasn't a living nightmare." It's more than he could say of most of the mutants he'd met.

He started rummaging through his cabinets. He wasn't avoiding eye contact as she no doubt made her exit; he was just looking for the bread crumbs. Bread crumbs... There they were, hiding behind the liter of first press olive oil.

He turned around, bread crumb container in hand, and one stalling finger raised above it. "It's not what you think," he impulsively started. "The newsletter. It just came free with the two-year membership. Which," he started, clunking the bread crumb container down on the counter to better point a don't-you-start finger Lee's way, "is also not what you think. I got the membership, well, almost two years ago. When I was still a beat cop. The Church has good information about the communities they're in, but they don't spill it to non-members. I wasn't--I wasn't like this back then, thanks for assuming." For one thing, he'd gone jogging every morning back then. For another thing, he'd still had that shining edge of post-college idealism that leads a man to go jogging every morning like he was going to change the world and live to a hundred doing it. Thank you, mutant kind, for stabbing that hopeful optimism for the future right out of him.

He picked up the breadcrumbs again. He did not use that motion as an excuse to turn away from the woman again, thanks. He just didn't want to look like an idiot, and completely miss grabbing the thing. "You're still welcome to dinner, if you want." He did not sound subdued; having his back turned just naturally made his voice sound less on the offensive. "You can dump that thing in the recycling, if it bothers you. Or you can flip through it. As long as you realize that those writers are even bigger bigots than I am, it's actually a pretty damn funny read." He always got a kick out of it, anyway. That, and their shoddy editing job. The Church of Humanity newsletter was like a bad bi-weekly high school newspaper on high-gloss paper.

He didn't know what he was sorry for. Apparently, he thought it would make him less of a jackass, though. Lee wasn't so sure about that.

She had just turned back to face Rupert in time to see him shooing her out the door. Hmm, so even though he was sorry, he still wanted her to go after inviting her for dinner. Bloody mutant hating hypocrite.

Almost as soon as he had said his rather crude good bye, Rupert had turned back to his cupboards, looking for something. Was it really any wonder why she had avoided getting to know people for as long as she had? Either they hated and shunned her for something she couldn't help, or she felt horrible for what she did by being around them.

He was facing away from her, probably hoping she'd just leave without saying anything else so he could forget that she'd even been there. Fine with her, she hadn't been expecting to actually eat decently that night anyway. Actually, until he had brought it up, Lee really hadn't thought about eating.

Lee's hand was on the door knob for the second time that night when Rupert started speaking again. Couldn't he just make it easier for both of them and let her leave in peace?

Turning her head, but keeping her hand on the handle, Lee saw Rupert looking at her once again, one finger held up as if to stop her from interrupting. So, he had joined almost two years earlier. Was that supposed to make her feel better? From everything she had heard come out of the man's mouth, it sounded like he still believed that same way, regardless of how long it had been since he had first started getting those newsletters.

And then Rupert did something Lee hadn't been expecting, especially after how he had shooed her toward the door mere minutes earlier. "You're a damn confusing hypocrite, you know that, right?" Lee asked Rupert's back, which was again all that was facing her, as she carefully took a couple, slow steps back into the apartment.

Waiting a couple of moments to see if Rupert would once again change his mind about the invitation, Lee moved back to the living room, pushing the newsletter to the far edge of the table as she reached for the remote to find that hockey game while Rupert finished up with dinner.

> "You're a damn confusing hypocrite, you know that, right?"

Rupert smirked as he liberally filled one bowl with bread crumbs, and cracked an egg into another. Eggplant slices dipped in egg white, then pressed into the bread crumbs until they had just the right layer; then into the glass pan with them, in a neatly overlapping row. Now for the sauce. The store bought sauce. Rupert frowned at the can of Prego as the sounds of a hockey game invaded his kitchen. Not that he was against hockey; it was just a foreign sound while he was cooking. Cooking with sauce produced en masse by a heartless corporation that no doubt abused their workers from the fields on up to the middle-management level. It just... wasn't right.

With the distinctly dissatisfied frown and squared shoulders of a man doing the best he can with what he's got, Rupert spooned in the sauce, dashing in olive oil and parmesan as he went. Freshly grated parmesan, thank you. It justified his squared shoulders. Naturally, a bit of ricotta joined the mix, just for kicks. How could he turn ricotta away?

Much grating of parmesan to top the eggplant slices later, the glass pan got slid home into the pre-heated oven for the next twenty or so minutes. Plenty of time to get the spaghetti done. Store bought--all store bought, from the noodles to the sauce. He tried not to think about it. It was easy not to think about things, when he was cooking.

With the spaghetti on a back burner and the parm nearly done in the oven, Rupert busily ran a clean dish towel over his little kitchen table, moving a backlog of ignored junk mail to the counter, and set it neatly with large white plates and silverware. He set down a few pot-holders in the center of the table, as well. A flurry of movement later, an oven and a burner deftly flipped off, and a large metal pot and a flat glass pan set lightly atop those pre-placed pot-holders on the table, and everything was ready.

Rupert ran a hand through the back of his hair, staring down at the table. There was really nothing else he could do, was there? No. Dinner was officially done. He turned his gaze towards the living room.

"It's done. Don't know how hungry you are; you can just serve yourself, if you want. Would you like anything to drink? I've got milk, water, juice--orange, apple, pomegranate..." He trailed off.

Dinner was served. Let the awkward eating of it begin.

Lee sat there on the couch, her eyes glued to the television screen in front of her. Rupert didn't seem eager to continue the little 'conversation' they had been having, and honestly, neither was Lee, so she just kept her mouth shut.

Lee also wasn't all that interested in the game. It was pretty much a just a distraction, something she and Rupert could pretend to be paying attention to (which is exactly what she was doing, pretending) so as not to have to actually pay attention to the other person. Pretty much the same as how she had treated every game that had been on since starting to stay with Robert. He was always too busy watching to talk to her, and he seemed content as long as she was there on the couch with him, at least looking at the screen.

Huh. That was a bit of an odd realization Lee had just had. Rupert hated her, she knew that, didn't really want her there even if he had invited her in for dinner. Yet, strangely enough -- or was it scarily enough? -- Lee felt more comfortable sitting on the couch of a self proclaimed mutant hater than in her own brother's living room. What was up with that?

~"It's done. Don't know how hungry you are; you can just serve yourself, if you want. Would you like anything to drink? I've got milk, water, juice--orange, apple, pomegranate..."

Lee turned her head to look back into the kitchen for the first time since she had sat down to see Rupert standing beside the table in there. And he had also offered her something to drink, like a real host would to a visitor. The words were simple enough, but Rupert looked extremely uncomfortable saying them.

"If you've got Coke, or some coffee brewed, that'd be great," Lee replied as she stood up and made her way into the kitchen. "Otherwise, water works."

Rupert had even set the table, Lee noticed, stopping a foot away. He had set the god damn table. As if this wasn't going to be weird enough already. Eating at a table like this was for things like anniversary dinners or when long lost brothers showed up, not for everyday meals. Hell, before she had started dating Tarin, Lee hadn't even had a table she could have eaten at. At least if they were eating in front of the TV tonight, she and Rupert could continue to pretend the other wasn't there, but no, he had to go and set the table.

Closing the last bit of distance, Lee sat down and started dishing out the food onto her plate. It smelled delicious. Once the food was on her plate, just before she started eating, Lee glanced up at Rupert. "You're really hating this, aren't you?" She asked softly. "Actually helping a mutant of your own accord?"

Lee took a breath as she picked her fork up, her eyes dropping to her plate as she continued. "Don't worry, I'll eat fast so I can leave you to your mutant hating in peace."

Rupert nodded at Lee's drink request, and headed over to his large stainless steel refrigerator. "Coke it is." He grabbed a can out for her, and poured a cup of water for himself. When he turned back, Lee seemed to be staring at the table like it had grown a tumor. An offensive tumor. Rupert came from a family that always set the table--he couldn't imagine what she was thinking. He paused uncertainly until she finally sat down, then shrugged it off and came over, setting her coke in front of her before taking his own seat. Naturally, he let her serve herself first, then dished out his own. It was while he was attempting to navigate a tangle of spaghetti onto his plate, balanced between the serving fork and his own, that her unexpected question came.

> "You're really hating this, aren't you?"

He looked up, his face puzzled. Just like with the table-setting issue, he honestly couldn't imagine what she was thinking. "What--?"

"Actually helping a mutant of your own accord? ...Don't worry, I'll eat fast so I can leave you to your mutant hating in peace."

Rupert's puzzled look morphed through a few strange contortions as he watched the woman staring down at her plate. He went past his usual anger to settle on amused. "Believe it or not, I don't think 'mutant hating' was on my calendar for the night, so you can take your time eating." He globbed the spaghetti down on his plate, returned the serving fork to the pot, and turned his dinning attentions towards cutting his eggplant into smaller pieces. "If you'd like to get out of here quick so you can get back to your zealot loathing in peace, though, then by all means--eat and run."

Rupert took a bite of the parm, chewing it over thoughtfully in his mouth. ...Not as good as it could be, but nothing he had to immediately toss out the window in shame, either. He'd just cooked a good meal. Let the little mutie try and ruffle his feathers; just let her try. He was the cook of eggplant parmesan; he was Zen.

Rupert had brought her over a coke while she was getting her food, but stopped in the middle of dishing his dinner out because of her question. His answer, when it finally came, was a bit of a surprise. Enough of a surprise that it caused Lee to look up at Rupert again. Lee had thought that mutant hating was a constant state of being for people like Rupert.

But then Rupert continued, though like her during half of their conversation, he now seemed be paying more attention to his plate than to her. So Lee let her eyes drop once more as she picked up her Coke for a sip. It was alright with him if she ate and ran so she could go on with her zealot loathing? The thing was, Lee knew what hate felt like, at least in regards to her powers, and she just did not feel that way about Rupert.

"Well, if that's not your plan for the evening," Lee said, picking her fork up once more to continue eating. "I hope I'm not keeping you from something even more important."

Lee paused there for a moment and took a bite as she pondered whether to actually continue her thoughts. She was sure that Rupert wouldn't like what she had to say next, but the more she thought about it, the more Lee realized it was true. Plus, it's not like she'd really be in the position to run into him again after this; she was leaving not only the city, but the country, the next day.

Lee swallowed. "I don't hate you, Rupert," she said softly, gently, her eyes still on her plate as she spoke. "As strange as it is, you're actually one of the few people I can actually trust." Lee put another mouthful on her fork and lifted it halfway. "This is really good, by the way."

> "Well, if that's not your plan for the evening, I hope I'm not keeping you from something even more important."

Rupert looked up at Lee as he spun a twist of spaghetti around his fork. Spaghetti: possibly the most awkward food to eat in front of people you weren't comfortable with. It couldn't be convinced with knife or fork to behave. It was impossible to get it down to a neatly bite-sized portion; you always ended up with some of it trailing out of your mouth, no matter what creative trick you tried. He honestly wasn't sure if the woman was joking or not. Had she seriously thought he had been planning to sit around all night, contemplating the depths of his hatred for the freaks? He tried to picture actually doing that. The corner of his mouth twitched in a ludicrous smile. He really hoped that had been a joke, but he didn't know her well enough to tell. He settled for fairly neutral answer:

"I really didn't have anything planned. Maybe a Bowie CD and staring at the ceiling. How about you?"

She looked uncomfortable as she continued eating. Rupert went back to minding his own plate for the moment, and the continued wrestling match between his spaghetti and his dining etiquette. Her next words caught him entirely off guard.

> "I don't hate you, Rupert. ...As strange as it is, you're actually one of the few people I can actually trust."

Rupert stared across the table at Lee. He felt like he had something stuck in his throat, suddenly. He washed his last mouthful down with a quick gulp of water, but the feeling didn't go away.

> "This is really good, by the way."

"Thanks," he said. He cleared his throat, but the lump refused to move. "They nicknamed me 'Housewife' for awhile back when I was a rookie, until I threatened to stop bringing in food."

He picked up a slice of parm on his fork, and lifted it a few inches. He set it back down with a little click of metal on ceramic and a slightly disbelieving shake of his head. "Why?" He frowned at Lee; not angrily, but honestly confused. "Why do you trust me? I--I guess I'm honored, but... why?"

Listening to a CD and staring at the ceiling. Though she hadn't actually done that since she was a teenager, and though it wouldn't be her first choice of music, it did not sound like a bad plan for an evening. Maybe she'd have to start doing that herself once she got to Toronto. She didn't have her CDs any more, but Robert had put most of those songs onto the iPod he had gotten her for her birthday.

But what was she planning to do with the rest of the night? Like the whole food issue, Lee hadn't really thought about that, either. But really, what all did she have to do? She was already packed, all she had to do was get to the station the next morning. And it wasn't like Lee had a whole lot of money to go do something to keep herself occupied for the night, either. "I don't know," Lee finally answered with a shrug. "Probably just debating whether to look for somewhere to crash, or to actually go back to my brother's for the night."

Lee's eyes were safely on her plate when she had revealed that she didn't hate Rupert, that in fact he was one of the few people she could actually trust, so she did not see the look he directed at her. And, as had been her intention, her compliment about the food had allowed both of them to change the subject easily.

"I bet that threat made them stop pretty quickly," Lee commented.

Lee was in the middle of a bite when she heard a click from across the table, followed by "Why?" Finishing what was in her mouth, Lee set her own fork down and looked up at Rupert again to see a confused expression on his face as he again asked why she trusted him.

"Church of Humanity, Camp Supervisor, mutant hater," Lee started to list all the things about Rupert that should make her not trust the man, but her voice was soft and quiet as she did so. "You could have, and probably should have, turned both of us in that night, but you didn't. You told me about the breakout when you weren't supposed to. You could have shot me, I told you to shoot me, and you would have had one less mutant in the world to worry about, but you didn't.

"Honestly, Rupert, with all that, if I can't trust you, I can't trust anyone."

> "Honestly, Rupert, with all that, if I can't trust you, I can't trust anyone."

Rupert had to take a moment to digest that. Finally, he gave a short, self-deprecating laugh. "Be careful what you say, Lee--someone might confuse me with a half-way decent man." That was about the last thing he'd expect to hear out of the mouth of any mutant. Rupert was beyond startled; he was humbled. I'll try not to betray that trust, he thought to himself. Honestly, could he trust himself to stick to that self-promise? He didn't know. Since she was moving to Canada, it would probably never be called into question, fortunately.

Her plans for the evening were even less awe-inspiring that his own. He remembered, vaguely, that she'd dodged his casual question about hotel prices so near to Central Park, but he hadn't made any leap of logic long enough to make him suspect that she really didn't know where she was staying that night.

Given his recent perspective jarring, this left Rupert in a position to do something else he'd probably regret, in a moment of supreme self-loathing:

"Listen, if you don't have want to go back to your brother's tonight, I... I mean, I've got a couch." He was gripped with the need to fully clarify something: "You just need a place to stay for one night, right?"

Lee was looking at Rupert at this point, had been actually been looking up at him as she spoke, so she saw the look of slight surprise come over the man's face. Well, even if it were true that she felt she could trust the cop, it had to be the last thing he was expecting to hear.

"Don't worry, I won't spread that horrible rumour," Lee told Rupert, an actual smile crossing her face for the first time in she wasn't sure how long. The smile didn't last long, though.

If she had shocked Rupert just a moment ago with saying that he was one of the few people in the world who she could actually trust, it was now his turn to shock and startle her when he offered, though rather reluctantly it seemed, his couch to her. As if the offer of dinner hadn't been enough of a surprise coming from him.

"Yeah, just one night," Lee said softly, her head tilted slightly as she looked across the table at Rupert. "I'm going to be going to get the train to Toronto tomorrow morning." Lee stopped speaking, picking her fork up again to continue eating. Couches weren't exactly the most comfortable places to sleep, but it was still better than the 'beds' they had provided at the camp, and she'd already been sleeping on Robert's couch the last week. And a couch would be far more comfortable than a park bench if it had come to that.

"Thanks Rupert," Lee said sincerely, glancing up at Rupert once more. "I'd really appreciate that."

From there, their conversation followed with its established grace and the expected awkward silences bridging the gaps between topics. The good thing about talking over dinner: when in doubt, you could always pretend that the food was just that damn good. Rupert wasn't about to kid himself on that note, though, not when half of his ingredients had been processed by multi-million dollar corporations.

The end of dinner was a minor blessing.

He shuttled their leftovers into the refrigerator with all his other leftover meals from that week, and put their dishes into the dishwasher with an internal shudder and a mildly unclean feeling. He'd used that dishwasher two, maybe three times since he'd first moved into the apartment, years ago--like cooking, he considered washing dishes by hand to be stress relief. It just felt right, and if you did them after every meal, it wasn't hard in the least. Especially not for a bachelor. He made the wise decision to not hand wash his dishes tonight: it saved on questions like "If you have a dishwasher, then why in the world...?" and, even worse, on the possibility she would offer to help. The dishwasher was the lesser of two unsettling possibilities.

He made a quick side-trip to the closet next to his bathroom, and came back with a spare set of sheets. The couch wasn't a fold-out, but sheets tended to fit on anything with enough tucking. Strictly speaking, the couch didn't need it... but knowing what he knew about that couch, even Rupert felt a little dirty laying on it, sometimes.

"So, if you need anything..." Rupert said, setting the sheets down on a couch arm, "I think I'll be down the hall, in my room. I've got some case files to look over--now that the Camps are done with, it's back to my actual job." This was a blatant lie and a complete truth at the same time: he did have files to look over, but they weren't his cases, like he was trying to imply. Not just yet. Captain Cynthia Myers was trying to get him back up to speed on mutant crimes from while he was off in the Camps; they were all cases that the other members of the Mercy Task Force had taken care of.

"If you get thirsty or hungry, feel free to rummage in the 'fridge--it's all fair game. Just don't let Flispy trick you into feeding her."

Rupert stood for another moment, before simply ending this social nightmare: "So, sleep well, I guess."