Claire Dumonde had become an expert at listening for rumors over the past few months. She was so desperate for news of her daughter, who had disappeared the night of the raid on Xavier's Sister School, that she had taken to hanging around the local coffee shops like Insomniacs Anonymous just to listen in on conversations and to hear the juicy mutant gossip. More often than not at that particular coffee shop the gossip tended to be centered around mutant activity for the simple reason that the goth daughter of the shop's owner, Lucy, claimed to be a mutant and wore her registration bracelet proudly as she waited on customers.

Claire still had hope of finding her daughter, and was certain she was still alive, though it was incredibly difficult to track her down. Katrina had called home on Christmas Day, but had only talked to her father, who had exploded at her over the phone line for being a mutant. Claire would never forgive him for that. She had been in New York ever since, listening for any random tidbits about mutant activity or scraps of news about the illusive Resistance.

Claire was relatively certain that her daughter was not at the camps, so she must be with the other mansion residents in hiding somewhere- perhaps with the Resistance. The trouble was, while nearly everyone had heard of the Resistance, no one had a clue as to where it was.

Whispers of the Resistance had been prevalent all winter, especially at local coffee shops staffed by goth girl mutant wannabes. Every time something unusual happened, from motiveless thefts to unsolved murders, from vandalism of national monuments to paranormal activity, the resistance was blamed- or given credit- depending on the teller of the tale. Some said the resistance was responsible for the death of Arnold Snapp, the supreme court justice who had supposedly died of a heart attack but had a closed casket funeral. Others blamed the supposed vandalism of the Statue of Liberty on the group, claiming they were terrorists- but one couldn't be certain. Liberty Island was currently closed and blocked from view for “official renovations”. Even the gruesome story of Anthony Faraguzzi, the guy who had worked for the police before killing himself and his wife, was attributed to the mysterious Resistance. The most outrageous stories, though, claimed that the Resistance would be attacking the Mutant Concentration Camps to set the mutant inmates free. That one had even turned out to be true, complete with tanks, aircraft, and armored personnel carriers.

In the weeks that followed the camp breakout, Claire watched the Erickson vs. the state of California case unfold. She listened to more gossip about Arnold Snapp than she cared to hear about. She sat in Insomniacs Anonymous when the verdict was announced and partook in the free celebratory coffee, sponsored by an overjoyed Lucy. She waited for news of the mansion residents and particularly the students.

Claire walked into Insomniacs Anonymous for what seemed like the hundredth morning in a row. She'd been their often enough now that not only did the owner, Bethany Marley, and her daughter, Lucy, have her order memorized, the other customers were starting to recognize her as well. Claire didn't care if that made her the craziest lady in NYC, the coffee shop was the best source of gossip in the city; no one talked more than patrons of an establishment with “anonymous” in the name.

Claire glanced around at the other customers as she walked in. Bethany was trying to interrupt a heated debate between Mr. Business Section and Mr. Sports Section about the economic impact of a new Yankees stadium to see if they actually wanted any coffee. There was also a fake-blond woman trying to convince the younger of her two sons to eat his pancakes. The boy, who looked about five was starting to look upset. Bethany glanced at him with the wariness of someone waiting for a volcano to explode. The older of the two boys, a dark haired eight-year-old, snapped his game boy shut, reached over to scrape the maple syrup off his younger brother's pancakes, replaced it with strawberry jam, and then went back to playing his DS. The younger brother happily began eating and the mother stared in amazement at her own children for a moment as if wondering who they really were before returning to her $6 coffee drink and her own sugary breakfast that was probably destined to be liposuctioned off at a later date.

Claire took her seat at the front counter and waited for Bethany to finish extracting an order from the two quarreling newspaper gentlemen. She didn't see Lucy around anywhere today and wondered idly to herself where the goth waitress was that morning.

One of the many things Sara had trouble doing, was making a decision. 2% milk or skim? Cafinated, or Decalf? Sugar? Mint? Cinnamon? Ok so she could make a decision on cinnamon. The feline nodded, and the poser behind the counter, who had been jumping at the chance to serve an obvious mutant, excitedly grabbed the cinnamon. Taking the liberty to mix Sara’s drink for her, rather than letting Sara decide what amounts were appropriate in her own drink. The story of her life.

“Just a little more sugar.” Sara said after taking in the sent of her drink, mingling with the chosen glasses of all the other customers. “No wait.” Too late. The moment Sara changed her mind, the equivalent of three table spoons had been sifted onto the top of her coffee. The poser behind the counter looked up with wide eyes. “It’s alright.”

Sara slid her money out of her pocket, and with the other hand, took her drink. The mutant bracelet slid down the girl’s wrist, making Sara’s lips press together. Now there was a decision Sara could make. Something she had the power to change. Even if she couldn’t change herself. “Thank you.” Sara said, her voice tight in the back of her throat. She pivoted on her heal, set her head down, and headed for a table in the back.

Some decisions were hard to make, but to have that power to make them, meant the world. Yet most overlooked the powers they had. Sara had the power to hide the scar that her wrist band had given her. So she had. Her right arm now had a leather cuff that covered her arm from the back of her knuckles, up to her elbow. She could cover up one thing that wasn’t supposed to be there. Just one little visual secret, not because she was ashamed of being a healer and having a scar, but because she had a choice to not let anyone else know something. If someone ever asked her why she wore a black leather arm band on her right arm, she had the choice to tell them. When it came to Sara’s mutation, she didn’t have a choice. She was stuck looking like a Halloween costume, and her healing just kicked in, without her permission.

Maybe that is what attracted her to the coffee shop. Sara hate coffee, but the curiosity about why posers did what they did. Why they made a choice to pretend.

Sara scooted sideways, into a chair that faced a back corner. Listening to the buzz of the room behind her as it slowly picked back up, and heads that had turned, slowly started to swivel back over their shoulders. Sara’s nose darkened as it blushed. Maybe coming here, had been a bad decision.

Claire was still watching the pancake family when the lion lady came into the coffee shop. Claire first noticed her when she realized that liposuction lady was staring at someone. Lucy practically tripped over herself to serve the mutant woman, and in the process revealed her bracelet (which she probably could have gotten removed three days ago) and got a bit overexcited about the amount of sugar that she put in the lioness' cup.

Claire found the exchange between them interesting, not so much because of what they said, but because both women were so different from herself. She, who had spent her entire life hiding that she was a mutant, had a hard time putting herself in the shoes of the waitress who wanted nothing more than to be acknowledged and accepted as a mutant so badly that she had voluntarily registered herself.

The lion girl was Claire's opposite in yet another way. She made Claire think about how her own past could have been so different. What would Claire have done if her own mutation had not been so easy to hide? Perhaps she would have been more vocal about standing up for mutant rights. Perhaps she wouldn't have sent her daughter away to a school in another state to protect her own secret. The memory of making that decision still stung, as she had yet to find her daughter.

Perhaps the lioness could help her. If she was bold enough to walk around New York City a few short days after the end of the Mutant Registration Law, perhaps she was part of the resistance or could give Claire a clue as to where the mansion refugees were. Maybe it was a long shot, but Claire was willing to grasp at any straws if it meant a chance of finding Katrina, no matter how awkward the conversation might be. The only question was how to bring up the subject with a complete stranger that didn't look like she was in the mood to talk.

Claire adjusted her chair slightly, so that it was in talking range of the lioness woman, but was still far enough away to respect personal space, “So, you must be pretty relieved that the Registration Law is gone.”

Claire pointed with her chin at Lucy, who had gone back to scrubbing out coffee pots, but kept stealing longing glances in the direction of the lioness by the window, “Some people, it seems will miss it. Seems odd, you know?”

It was a mystery, even to Sara, as to why she let herself walk in the open so soon after the camps. Before them, she was a hider. She liked being a hider. It made things about her so much more personal. Not out in the open, to be judged. It was possible that Sara was using this time, after the break out, to silently challenge a human. To find someone who was worth putting out her anger and frustrations on. Ten years ago, she had that person, but in the camps there was only the one guard at the end, that now rest in what ever peace he could find because of her.

During her months in the camps, Sara had tried to make Rupert that guard, that she could hate. She did have the sense that he had the authority there, but when they talked, he wouldn’t argue. She presented issues that he should state an opinion on and he didn’t say a thing. He just hid behind the i-pod. So he didn’t do what he was supposed to do, and make her hate him for the right reasons. Not even when she stole his i-pod, then destroyed it.

Sara sat there, staring at her coffee cup, as if it would suddenly leap off of the table and start performing tricks any minute. Wondering if she bought the cup, because she liked Tea better. Coffee was so bitter when the beans weren’t roasted at the right time. A lady off to the side turned in her seat to talk to Sara and Sara just stared at her for a minute.

“So, you must be pretty relieved that the Registration Law is gone.”

Blink, Blink

“Some people, it seems will miss it. Seems odd, you know?”

Funny. This lady turns to talk to Sara as if Sara were a norm, or at least norm looking, but she doesn’t pull her seat up to the table Sara is sitting at. What!? Afraid I’ll bite? Sara thought to her self. Then again she was so wound up inside, who knows. Come to think of it, if one of the other people in the coffee house had pulled a seat up right next to her, she probably would leave. Funny how Sara was always half in half out that way.

“Yes and no.” Sara replied after letting the pause get awkward. Deciding that she chose this seat in the coffee shop, and she was staying no matter how long it took her to enjoy drinking the awful tasting stuff. “True, what they did is now something the law looks down on, but that just makes things harder to keep track of for the general public. It means when something happens to a mutant, it is either done secretly, or done by the government under the table.”

Claire shifted in her chair at the uncomfortable silence, ready to shrug and turn back to her own hot morning beverage if the lioness really did decide to ignore her. She wouldn't press the conversation if she was unwelcome. Before the awkward silence had crossed the line from thinking about a response into ignoring the original comment the lioness responded. Her voice was much more human sounding that Claire had expected, but it was what she said that surprised her.

The government did things to mutants secretly? Like Guantanamo Bay or secret laboratory experiments or what? In her years of being connected to the government, she had never heard of mutants being secretly captured. Of course, if it was secret, why would a senator's wife know about it? Suddenly a horrifying thought occurred to her.

“What do you mean? I've never heard of that before. Do... do they capture dangerous mutant criminals or take just any mutants off the streets? ” The expression on her face was horrified and she did a poor job of trying to conceal it. Her unspoken question was whether or not they would take mutant children. Her vivid imagination brought all sorts of horrifying possibilities to mind. What if the camps were merely a conspiracy to capture and experiment on mutants that could be useful to the government? Could a young illusionist be useful in some way? Oh God, she had to find Katrina. She felt like she was going to be sick. She was torn between rushing out then and there to continue her search, and staying to find more information. She still had no leads, and now had even more places to search.

For some reason the alarm in the ladie’s voice, made Sara’s shoulders relax. Not because she was enjoying the fact that what she had said, seemed to scare the woman, but because was she said made the woman concerned. Sara wasn’t talking to someone she should be hating. At least not yet.

“Mrs. I don’t know if they just take mutants for criminal reasons.” Now there was a thought. Had Sara been taken in because of a crime? She couldn’t of been the one committing it though, because she was in there before she could really make a memory. “I only know what I see and what I remember. Mrs. I don’t remember the beginning.” Sara just remembered that she was there and her eye contact dropped from the ladie’s to the black steaming crap in her cup. “No offence, but I really don’t want to go back to that part of my memories. I imagine, that they are still not all that picky for what they take, or who. They weren’t for the camps.” On that note, Sara took a sip of the coffee. Her mouth expression made a funny face, but she managed to swallow it down. Anything to stop herself from talking more. Funny how she was suddenly being more open.

Several trains of thought were running on parallel tracks in Claire's mind, each competing to be the foremost in her mind. The camps. The resistance. The government. Katrina.

The camps. The lioness woman had been in the camps. Claire felt the instinct to comfort the woman, but wasn't sure how or even if she would be allowed. The sad sounding lioness had lived through so much, she was probably tired of people feeling sorry for her.

That evil place had been a disaster from its conception to its death. Claire had opposed the Registration Act in the best ways that she could from the very beginning. Quietly from the background she had tried her best to influence her husband and other politicians she had known, trying to get them to support mutant rights without giving away the fact that she was a mutant herself. It had been a delicate balancing game and it hadn't worked out very well. Not even her thick-skulled husband would listen to her once he got a hold of an idea he thought was right. Then, once the bill had passed into law, it was revealed that the camps were already built and waiting for occupants. Claire had felt betrayed by the government that had clearly been ready to lock up mutants long before it was legal to do so. From the beginning the media had portrayed the camps as places where only criminal mutants were taken, but in the last few weeks it had been revealed that the only crime many of the mutants had committed was not registering themselves within the first 24 hours that the bill had been passed. Others had even registered and been locked up just because their mutation was too dangerous. Even a few children had been incarcerated, their only crime being the possession of an illegal genetic makeup and being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Katrina could have been taken there, but Claire was fairly certain that she had not been.

The resistance. If the lioness had been in the New York camps, she had probably been there when the Resistance had liberated the camp inmates. She might know where the resistance was located, a key that might help Claire find her daughter.

The government. It made the hair on Claire's neck stand up. The people who were supposed to be protecting the rights of its citizens had willingly turned their backs on a significant section of its population, or rather had stabbed them in the backs. They were not above secrets and lies to build mutant concentration camps under the noses of the American people, how could they be trusted to abandon their mutant abuse now? Sure, many mutants had been released, but how many had official death certificates written in a camp warden's handwriting who would have been better off dead? It was perfectly possible that the government had used the camps, knowing full well that they were only temporary, to locate and capture mutants that could somehow be useful to them.

Katrina. All her thoughts led back to Katrina. Claire hoped that she was safe with the resistance or with the camp refugees or with friendly people who were willing to take care of her and keep her safe. If the government had her... the idea was unthinkable.

Claire waited for a moment for all the thoughts to untangle themselves in her head. She sensed that the woman did not want to talk about her experiences, and would rather leave them behind, but perhaps she wouldn't mind talking about what happened afterwards.

“Honestly, I don't think the government can be trusted after this. I saw on the news, there were even some children in the camps when the Resistance came. Do you know what happened to them afterwards? Where did they go after that, before the law was repealed. Where are they now?” Claire's eyes were anxious, and she was honestly concerned about all the children, though there was one in particular she was most concerned about.

Sara worked the coffee around in her mouth. Swallowing when the acidic feeling wasn’t so sharp on her taste buds. Sara didn’t want to remember but it was so fresh in her mind and the mental wounds still stung. Less than a week ago she actually took a life of someone that was trying to take hers. Some one who had a pile of people, mutants, that could have been her. Mutants that could have still been alive if she had been found by the thing, that called himself a man, first. She still didn’t know what part of that she felt worst about. The fact she had taken the man apart, or the fact she hadn’t taken him apart earlier.

Then there were the younger individuals at the camps. She wanted to know of the children and that thought made all the lost faces swim their way to the front of Sara’s mine. Another curse to Sara. Her memory wasn’t photo perfect but when remembering a face, the detail was enough, she could draw the likeness to any person she had ever met. Sara sighed, and took another sip of her coffee. Even the reporters had been fed a partial lie, from what Sara could tell. People had kept a false truth going till near the end of the registration laws. When mutant rights activists, had gotten a hold of pictures from the camps, then a glimpse of the real truth had been seen.

“Look Miss.” Sara pinched the area just between the inner corners of her eyes. Careful that her claws didn’t extend. “I know there are groups around, and I know that they are reconnected after the break out. Those that we didn’t loose at put in the ground, are either still recuperating, in hiding, or home.”

Sara glanced back up at the woman trying to read the exact reason for her questions. Her ears flicked back and forth, pin pointing her heart beat from the others in the room. Taking in a silent count of her respiration. And even her sent, though that was much harder to separate from the rest of the BO. “Is there someone specific you are asking about?”

Claire had forgotten about her own coffee, sitting on her own table getting cold. She took a sit from it in an effort to look normal, though she wasn't feeling normal at all. She was anxious and worried, as well as a little excited that she might be getting somewhere in her search. If only the hope that was welling up within her would not lead to yet another disappointment.

“Actually, yes,” Claire spoke softly, not exactly wanting the others in the cafe overhearing the true reason she had been patronizing the shop every morning. “My daughter was at the mansion, then disappeared. I'm fairly certain she wasn't at the camps, at least at Christmas time, because she called and talked to my husband who wasn't very understanding. I've been searching for her all this time. Her name is Katrina, she's twelve, blonde...” Claire trailed off, looking expectantly, hopefully, desperately at the lioness' face, trying to read it for any sign of recognition, no matter how small.

Well the fact she was looking for her daughter seemed to explain a lot. It wasn’t every day someone just randomly walked up to Sara and started a conversation without turning it into a lets poke fun at the things with fur claws and big sharp teeth moment. Human nature, Either fear, or tease something that is much more powerful than you. With this lady, based on her vitals, that Sara had been listening to, had seemed different. Thus, the reason why Sara didn’t stand and just leave thirty seconds ago.

“There were people matching that description at the camps,” Sara began to explain. “but I my job was to do the laundry, part of that was knowing peoples names to make deliveries. I didn’t see a girl named Katrina on and of the lists.” Not even on the list that her and Shya had started that kept track of the names that wouldn’t be coming out of the camps. When Shya had been murdered, Sara kept the list going. In fact, the faces that she had connected with the names, were now, all drawn, on loose pages, in her back pack. Stacked together so that they would keep each other straight.

Streak rolled into the cafe. Literally. After the camp breakout he had been forced to stay in wheelchair for a while because of surgeries that he had undergone. Once the doctors had finally given Streak permission to get out of the hospital area, he had. He had fought numerous times about being in a wheelchair but they said that he needed to use the wheelchair until his stitches came out to keep stress off the wound. Streak rolled up to the counter, looked up at Lucy and said, "Hi, um. I'll just take some pancakes." She wrote down his order and said with a smile,

"If you'll to a table I can bring them to you once they're ready." He moved over to the by the cash register, a little clumsily since he was still getting used to the wheelchair, and handed her his money. She reached out and took his money. When she did that her bracelet fell to around her wrist. Streak saw it and immediately his face went from a smile to sombre almost evil look. Ever since the camps Streak thought that any mutant that would voluntarily register for the camps was a traitor and Streak despised them.

As he turned around to find an empty table he saw Werecat talking with some lady. From what he could hear it sounded like they were talking about the camps. He hadn't seen her since the camps and thought it would be good to catch up with her. He wheeled over to her and pulled up to the table. "Hey Were, how've you been? I haven't seen you in a while." He whispered the first part to her because he wasn't sure how much the Were had told the other women. Lucy brought over Streaks pancakes and smiled looking at the little group that was here. Although Streak looked like a normal human except for the fresh scar on his face that was that was actually facing the lady so that she could see it easily. He slowly started cutting up his pancakes and ate them.

Sara noted the man coming in, sitting in the wheel chair. She hadn’t been paying attention to him though, until he rolled up and chose to it at her table. Absentmindedly, Sara’s ears flicked back. It wasn’t that she didn’t like company. Ok maybe part of her didn’t. But she wasn’t exactly use to this. Strangers coming up to her and talking. It was nice. But at the same time, Sara had trouble quite knowing how to take the tones in their voices. They were pleasant, with some concern, and they voiced these emotion in a place so public.

"Hey Were, how've you been? I haven't seen you in a while."

Sara’s ears flicked forward again, in response to her recognizing Steak’s voice. He couldn’t help but blink for a moment. Then focusing on his sent. “Surviving.” Wow he’d been messed up. “I didn’t recognize you at first.” For some reason Sara hadn’t put together that Streak could look, well, not silver. All of those months during the camps and seeing the silver man, it just never occurred to her. A ping of jealousy spiked in the pit of her stomach. Even a sense of betrayal, though logically she couldn’t say Streak betrayed anybody. He wore so many scars now, because he hadn’t. He stayed and even had gone back to help, and that is why he was still healing. Gilt flooded her thoughts because she knew she didn’t have that proof. Her mind jumping from one thing to another of a few seconds. “How have you been doing?”

Claire breathed a huge sigh of relief when the lioness said that there was no girl at the camps named Katrina. The evidence had pointed to Katrina being elsewhere, but it was another matter entirely to have the fact confirmed by someone who was actually there.

Before she could respond, she was distracted by a new arrival at the table. The new member of the party was a young man in a wheelchair who looked like he'd recently been in a fight and he definitely looked worse for the wear. His wounds had been treated and were healing, but even halfway healed they definitely drew attention. Claire winced when she saw the nasty scar that transversed his face as he joined the lioness' table. It looked like it still hurt.

With the arrival of the battle scarred newcomer, Claire had suddenly become the third wheel. The polite thing to do would be to turn back to her own table and let the two friends talk. After all, she was only a random stranger in a coffee shop. Except that she wanted to still talk to the lioness. She hadn't really talked to anyone more than a few minutes since coming to New York, and even if the lion lady didn't know where the resistance was, she was both kind and interesting to talk to.

“Hello,” she greeted the newcomer. “We were just chatting. I'm Claire, by the way.” Claire stood and held out her hand first to the young man in the wheelchair, then extended it to the lioness. “I didn't realize you were meeting someone.” She stood by her chair, ready to give the two of them privacy if they wanted.

“Surviving.”
“I didn’t recognize you at first.”
“How have you been doing?”

"Most people don't now." He said a little grimly. "It's good to hear that you made it out okay. Raina was especially worried and I didn't see you after the breakout. I've been healing. Obviously. the doctors wont let me out of this stupid wheelchair until I get my stitches out. It's pretty frustrating but I'll manage." Streak said. He took another bite of his pancakes. Then he realized that he'd completely ignored the lady Sara had been talking to before he showed up. She then piped up.

“Hello,”
“We were just chatting. I'm Claire, by the way.”
“I didn't realize you were meeting someone.”

Streak cleaned his hands and turned to her. He grasped her hand and shook it. "I'm Streak." It'd been so long since he had used his real name that he'd almost forgotten it. He preferred this one anyways. "She wasn't." He took another bite of his food. "This is the best food I've had in a while. But then again anything tastes better than hospital food. We met at the camps and this is just a coincidence. Your welcome to stay." He said lastly as Claire stood up to give them some privacy. "So what were y'all talking about?" He said nonchalantly.