((ooc: Continued from Showdown; see A Grave Mistake for Tarin's side of the story.))

Sauerkraut snapped over the fire on the pan.

He could dye his hair and get all the tattoos stenciled into his skin he wanted. It didn't change the fact: that man was a damn pansy.

A spatula thrust and a flip. The wad of German invention landed on top of roost beef.

He wasn't even worth killing. That was the only reason that Tarin Brooks was still alive. Damned if the man in the 'You are my Sunshine' apron could think of another.

Frustrated toast slapped on top of the sauerkraut; another jerk of the spatula slammed the whole thing down onto a plate, next to the European definition of chips. Thousand island dressing on the side. Ketchup on the counter, next to the napkins. Rupert slid the plate across the table to Lawson, one of Insomniacs Anonymous' regulars at this time of night.

Two thirty AM. It was twenty-one hours since a roll of duct tape, dull and dark away from the city lights, had been wrapped around a set of emo wrists, and over a whiny mouth. The grave stone had been cold. So had the ground. This was New York, cowboy, not Texas. It was the man's own damn fault for dressing so lightly for his own funeral.

" 'Nother death in the family, Rup?" Lawson asked, wrapping his liver-spotted hands around the hot sandwich somewhat unsteadily.

"I wish," Rupert scowled, to which Lawson snorted a laugh that shook sauerkraut strands off onto his lap. He set down the sandwich to wipe it off with a white napkin and slow, deliberate movements.

"We got one of those in my family, too." He chuckled. "Barry. My cousin. No way I'm letting that geezer out live me."

"Try a two by four to the back of the head," Rupert deadpanned. Lawson shook with wheezy laughter.

It hadn't been a two by four. It had been a pistol whip in the Cemetery, Mrs. White.

The medium couldn't even stay conscious for a little beating. Wimp. Rupert remembered quite distinctly--in a foggy, dreamlike manner--that he'd still been hurling insults after taking much more damage than that, back in the man's apartment. Apparently the freak could take out loans, but he couldn't pay the interest. What did he really think was going to happen? That Rupert Kelley was just going to let that humiliation stand, to be a warm fuzzy memory for the murderer and his wife to laugh about in their old age?

"T'is is good," Lawson muffled through a mouthful of Rueben. "Y'u can really taste 'he zealot."

It was Rupert's turn to wheeze out a laugh. "Patent pending, Lawson," he replied; "patent pending."

By the time Lawson left, it was 2:55 AM. Five minutes until the end of Rupert's shift. Lucy was probably in the backroom already, writing poetry about dreamy unicorn men getting airsick on the way to Colombia. Even though he knew she had the x-gene--she'd gotten herself tested during Registration, as if to finally prove it to everyone--he still had trouble believing that her power was 'precognitive daydreams'. Maybe if he saw a vampire or a unicorn running around the city, he'd buy it. For now? Maybe her power was dormant, because the last time he'd checked, daydreaming in your classes didn't count as a mutant ability. She wouldn't come out of the back room until he was out of the shop, he knew. She'd been giving him the silent glare treatment since he'd snapped on her, months ago. Whatever. She was just another freak, in a city full of them. Unfortunately, Tarin Brooks was still among them.

Kicking the man in the ribs hadn't woken him back up. Rupert wasn't quite sure, in retrospect, why he'd thought that would work. It had felt damn good at the time, though. Not that it mattered. The medium hadn't needed to be awake for his execution. In fact, if it kept Rupert from having to put up with those doe eyes of 'my last thoughts are for Lee, oh, woe is our prematurely ended abomination of a marriage! Hark, the cries of our unborn three-armed children!', then it was actually better if the guy stayed out. A gun to the head only takes one man to pull the trigger.

It only takes one man to walk away, too.

Tarin Brooks. Medium. He became a murderer like clockwork, and he didn't seem to actually be interested in fixing that little power glitch of his. A man who was interested wouldn't keep whining about how interested he was. A man who was interested would go out and get himself some damn help, or a shock collar. One of his fellow Homo superiors had to have taken a souvenir from that bloody Camp raid. If no mutant in this city could help him, than he could at least have the decency to send an electric bolt through his system anytime his power activated. All the guy did was whine, whine, regret, whine. Wash the blood of his hands, and repeat. Even he agreed that he deserved to join his little incorporeal buddies.

Rupert shrugged into his holster, and his coat. In that order. It wasn't the silenced model he carried with him on 'missions'; it was just a standard handgun, with a legal concealed carry permit filed in all the right places. No one could blame a former cop for wanting to defend himself. Particularly not a former cop who had testified against Isabel Duskmoor, at a trial that had ended in her acquittal. On the charges of murdering his fellow officers before his eyes, and stabbing out part of his lung? Not guilty.

The legal system couldn't handle mutants. Someone had to. That's all Rupert was doing.

So why the hell was Tarin Brooks still alive?

The mutant was pathetic, whiney, and full of excuses that not even he seemed to believe. Rupert had had three chances now. And the worst he'd done was walk away, leaving the guy tied up to a gravestone. He hoped the grave keeper had been late to work the next morning. A little time to think after he woke up was just the thing an 'I didn't mean to' murderer needed.

A little time to think wasn't helping Rupert. It was just building the pressure in his head. Something had to give.

The bell over the door jingled as Rupert was stepping out from behind the counter. If curiosity had brought this customer in, then she was about to learn a lesson.

There were splotches of red al over Sara’s t-shirt. Her white t-shirt! Well that was the last time she ever wore a white t-shirt. In hindsight she should known better because she always managed to drop things on them. She sighed. “What a waist.” She mumbled. Well at least the red stuff still tasted good. Sara pulled the front of her top away from her body, and sucked on the fabric. Mmm Ketchup.

Sara had opted for a change in diet, and a midnight snack. Something Johnny couldn’t help her with because midnight was way past his bed time and his families restaurant stopped serving guests at 10 pm. So the fast food joint it was, where Sara ordered at the drive through and happily ate her burgers as she walked.

Sara pressed her lips together staring at her shirt. She pressed her lips together and dabbed at the redish orange blob that now was part of her white top. She pored a bit of water from a bottle onto the area and scrubbed to make the stain lighter, but it spread out into a larger mark. That left Sara with two options. Get to her home for the night, and change the top, and forget she ever invested in a white shirt, or find a place that was still open at, who knows what time in the morning it was, and try to salvage the top.

Sara wrinkled her nose in disgust, at the thought of going into a business, but she wanted this shirt to last more than one time wearing it. The people inside where ever she chose to walk into would just have to deal with the way she looked.

It took her a few moments to find the café that was still open. Sara pushed her way inside, choosing to not look up at people she was sure were staring at her. “Is there a sink or a bathroom available to customerrrs – ah- errrr.” Sara looked up and Mr. Sunshine from the camps was right there. Sara blinked. Sara’s eyes narrowed and she remembered one of her last conversations with Raina. Sara had thought of things she wanted to do to Rupert, and those things were still evident in her mind, but here, face to face, she was at a lost for words. “I’ll find it myself.” Sara said as she moved to slip past Rupert.

Rupert paused in mid-step, his face flattening into a deadpan. Kitty's eyes narrowed back. And then the pleasantries began.

>> “I’ll find it myself.”

"Employees only," Rupert said, easily baring the way to the back, and the bathroom. Very easily: all he had to do was hold his ground. He was standing right in the way. What was she going to do, bite him?

If he'd been thinking, he might have thought twice about that quip; though his apron was hung up for the night, he'd just given away the fact that he worked at the little coffee shop. Oh, how the mighty Camp Supervisor had fallen; so hard, he'd crashed straight through his Detective ranking on the way back down, and landed out here, with New York's no-need-for-a-high-school-degree finest.

"You know," he continued to snipe, "I knew my evening wasn't complete. And then you walked in the door. This is exactly what I needed. Thanks." He gave a tight nod, his sincerity adding a nonstick coating to his deadpan.

Sara’s lips pressed together as the former camp supervisor stepped in her way. Was it possible he remembered the i-pod incident? Sara’s lips pulled back into a pointy toothed smile. Oh so he worked here now. “I thought you liked your old job.” Her head tilted and her voice shifted into a mock baby talk. “Don’t tell me the ikle Rupa, grew a spine.”

Sara crossed the room as she spoke till Rupert now standing right in her way. “Well then Allow me to fill out an application.” With that Sara placed one hand on the counter and with a hop, swung herself her legs, and tail, sailed over the displays, and she landed light on her feet on the other side. Now for the stain on her shirt. She swore she could just feel it setting.

“See. No collar to zap.” Sara teased as she kept Rupert in her peripheral vision. Mockingly she waved her right arm that no longer had the band from the camps, but a leather arm brace that hid the scare the camps had left her with. Any one else telling her she had to go, and Sara probably would have listened. But Rupert was special this way. For some reason Sara just felt she had to prove that he had no power over her. That he never actually did.

>> “I thought you liked your old job. Don’t tell me the ikle Rupa, grew a spine.”

Baby talk. Rupert simply stared a level stare back. "Don't tell me Africa's sideshow got one too many head wounds. What a shame that would be."

The former Camp Supervisor held his ground as she came closer. A little too damn close, thanks. Not that he was willing to let it show, in more than a deepening of his scowl.

>> “Well then allow me to fill out an application.”

The scowl froze as kitty vaulted the counter. Freaks. No respect for other people's property, or normal bounds on movement. Why should he be surprised that she didn't need a door?

>> “See. No collar to zap.”

"Yours was a bracelet," Rupert corrected evenly. He remembered. She waved her furry arm at him, showing off that some kind of leather band had taken the place of her power dampener. He could hardly say it was an upgrade.

Muddy hazel eyes watched her with a suddenly withdrawn interest. Why the hell was he playing this game? It was late; his shift was done. She wasn't a murder. And he wasn't her toy. "What are you trying to prove?" He asked simply, already shaking his head as it came out of his mouth. "Never mind;" he answered himself, turning his back on the furred mutant.

He hooked a thumb over his shoulder as he pulled open the door. The bell jingled over his head. "It's on your left. Clean the fur out of the sink when you're done."

Sara started following her nose to the nearest bathroom.

"Don't tell me Africa's sideshow got one too many head wounds. What a shame that would be."

“right. Africa.” He still couldn’t get the cat bread right. She was a cougar. Not a big stupid African lion.

"Yours was a bracelet,"


“You remembered.” Sara didn’t know how to take that. The way he should have said the words was to mock Rupert but it came out as an even statement instead. It was hard to be happy that Sara had been remembered with the details like her arm band, but there was also some satisfaction that she hadn’t been forgotten. Actually the fact he was remembered felt like an accomplishment. Even with her unforgettable looks. Sara’s looks were the easy way out of remembering her. He remembered something that wasn’t the easy way out.

Sara paused at the entrance at the bathroom when he gave the directions. So her nose was right… She ducked inside, and did a quick scrub of her shirt using a dab of the hand soap. She was a little more satisfied and spent only about 30 seconds in the close walls that made the bathroom. Why did these places always have to be so cramped?

Sara exited the back the way Rupert had blocked, nodded to the man and his sand witch, and made her way outside. She didn’t know why, but she ended up following Rupert. “Still avoiding the arguments I see.” Sara started to poke. Just hoping to hit some sort of a nerve. “You know what I’m trying to prove? I don’t really know, but I know this. I wanted to hate you during the camps. I wanted hate you and even when I brought u subject that you should have thrown back in my face, you avoided me with that stupid i-pod. And then you still were a disappointment. Congratulations on that.” With that last comment, Sara lengthened her strides so that she passed Rupert and started pushing past him on the sidewalk. Tail flicking with every step, just behind her heals.

He had forty-two quiet heart beats under the streetlights before the cat came back. He heard the door bell giving its merry jingle again; he didn't have to look back to know what was following him. He didn't need to notice the lack of shoe steps, either, as her bare paws moved across the pavement. Kitty had put a rush order on her clean up, just to make his night complete.

Big surprise.

>> “Still avoiding the arguments I see.”

"Still trying to start them, I see." Rupert droned right on back.

>> “You know what I’m trying to prove? I don’t really know, but I know this. I wanted to hate you during the camps. I wanted to hate you and even when I brought up a subject that you should have thrown back in my face, you avoided me with that stupid i-pod. And then you still were a disappointment. Congratulations on that.”

"Yeah. Thanks." Rupert's steady step slowed for a moment as he actually processed that; so the cat had failed to hate him? That was cute. He was failing to hate her, too. As freaks go, she just wasn't the big leagues. Petty insults were her thing; this was no Isabel Duskmoor. He only had so much energy, to hate like that. The walking carpet just wasn't worth it.

That tail started flicking in front of him. She was outpacing him. Real hard to do, when your competition had a limp and a breathing problem. What was she trying to prove?

"Have you ever stopped to think," Rupert began quietly, "who the hell turned off all your damn collars and bracelets, when the break out started?"

Hell. He didn't know what he was trying to prove, either.

Just like Rupert could hear the lack of Shoes, Sara had, Sara could hear his lack of lunge capacity, and the different beat his feet made when he limped. Her right ear twitched back to listen to him as she speed a head.

"Have you ever stopped to think, who the hell turned off all your damn collars and bracelets, when the break out started?"

Sara stopped in her track just as her right ear flicked back and twitched at that memory. Her arms crossed, and she tilted her head enough she could look over one shoulder at him. “Yeah and every time I think on that subject I wonder exactly what that person was thinking and what side they were really on.”

There was just something about the way Rupert had asked that question that made Sara have to go on and see what he did. “Or maybe they were some idiot who didn’t know what they were doing or what they really wanted. Because you’d have to be missing some brain cells to not know the possible violent outcomes in that situation. You know. Death. Dismembered body parts.” Sara’s lips tightened as she thought back on the memories. “As many mutants as they saved, there were probably as many lost that day.” Not to mention the grave yard that had grown during the camps.

“If you ask me, that day, everyone’s blood splattered on that person’s hands. I tried very hard not to kill that day, even while the x-men didn’t care about that.”

Feline eyes were cast back over one shoulder; Rupert met them dead on with his own muddy hazel gaze as they continued this lovely chat-and-stroll.

>> “Yeah and every time I think on that subject I wonder exactly what that person was thinking and what side they were really on. Or maybe they were some idiot who didn’t know what they were doing or what they really wanted. Because you’d have to be missing some brain cells to not know the possible violent outcomes in that situation. You know. Death. Dismembered body parts. As many mutants as they saved, there were probably as many lost that day.”

Rupert's mouth tightened down into a thin line. Right. Anyone with half a brain cell would have seen it: that mutants weren't really human at all. They weren't animals, either. They were exactly what their radicals said they were: Homo superiors. Cats had invented cruelty. Humans had added in retribution. Mutants were evolving it into an art form, and only an idiot 'missing some brain cells' could have missed out on what their favorite color of paint was. Only an idiot who'd been trying hard to believe that some of them were different; that given the choice between getting revenge at the price of possible recapture, and simply leaving, they'd choose to leave.

Missing some brain cells. He had drowned in his own blood for a long while, back on a blood-covered sidewalk in front of the Sanctuary. The cat didn't know how true that might be.

>> "If you ask me, that day, everyone’s blood splattered on that person’s hands. I tried very hard not to kill that day, even while the x-men didn’t care about that."

One word lodged in his brain. " 'Tried'," he repeated, hollowly. "That's great, cat. 'A' for effort. What, did someone step on your tail? Cat-call at you? Did you have to test a little theory about how many ways there are to skin a human?"

The guards at the Camp had been a load of sadistic pricks, dredged up from the gutters of society; most of the mutants there hadn't done anything to deserve their imprisonment beyond resisting registration. Rupert had looked at that situation, lived through that situation, and not realized his basic mistake until the end: mutants weren't people. Cockroaches could be pretty damn innocent too, but that didn't stop his heel from coming down.

So the cat had moved beyond her little pond of petty theft, into the lake with the big fish: she was a murderer. She'd killed a human. His gun felt heavy in its holster, under his coat.

Why hadn't he killed Tarin Brooks?

Damned if it mattered. That man wasn't in front of him, now. Sara Nobes was. And she was a murdering freak, too.

((ooc: Rup would know your full name from the Camp paperwork, right? If not, editing == no prob.))

" 'Tried',"

Sara’s right ear twitched so hard she felt it thump against the side of her head.

"That's great, cat. 'A' for effort. What, did someone step on your tail? Cat-call at you? Did you have to test a little theory about how many ways there are to skin a human?"

Sara was trying to keep her composure but in front of Rupert and with what he had just said, she was struggling. The camps were terrible, he was there, and at one time even if he was a guard, why couldn’t he make her hate him then, rather than now? She slowly turned around with her arms crossed. “If that were true, I would have personally hunted down all of those guards in the camps.”

Sara wasn’t enjoying this. She wanted to run, but for some reason she felt a need to prove her innocents. “It was either him or me, Rupert.” She breathed in to try and calm her thoughts and stop her ear from twitching. “You know how sick some of those guards were. I tried to run, and he wouldn’t let me go. So it was him or me.”

Sara’s eyes flashed in the dim light and she remembered the people that man had found before her. She remembered specifically not looking at their faces, but what she had seen, their hands, told her all she really didn’t want to know. The image was still so vivid. “Forget it.” Sara said. Forcing herself to turn and start walking away.

>> “If that were true, I would have personally hunted down all of those guards in the camps.”

Rupert came to a stop as the cat gave him the crossed-arm stare. He let a mocking twitch at the corner of his mouth let her know his opinion of that. "So kitty's got restraint. She only needs to kill one guard before she feels better. Why don't you turn around again, so I can pat you on the back."

>> “It was either him or me, Rupert. You know how sick some of those guards were. I tried to run, and he wouldn’t let me go. So it was him or me. ...Forget it.”

"Him or you," Rupert waited to snipe until after the cat had turned. "What the hell use are those powers of yours if you still think like that? You were faster than any guard there. Stronger. And you can heal, last I checked. Have a good night, Sara. No need to justify the blood on your paws to me."

They had reached Central Park; Rupert turned off of the sidewalk, and began cutting across on one of the paths. It was the quickest route back to his apartment. This late at night, the place was deserted. And he had a gun. What did he have to be afraid of--a stray cat? The thing should know better than to follow him. She wasn't the only murderer out tonight.

Sara was walking away and Rupert was walking away, and this conversation was over. So why was Sara finding it harder to make her feet walk and keep walking. She bit her lower lip and glared at the side walk. She spun around and stalked back to the path Rupert had taken.

No!

Sara felt the mental leash she kept herself on tighten and just as fast as she had spun around, she stopped. Glaring into the dark and willing her feet to just turn around. Because it was stupid to follow. She knew anything she said wasn’t going to change anything. By now, the man would either disagree with her, because he was obviously cozy in his own mind set, or he’d find another source for ignoring her. At the same time, she couldn’t ignore what he just said.

"Him or you,"

He hadn’t been there, he didn’t know how much stronger crazy mad men could be than her.

"What the hell use are those powers of yours if you still think like that?”

Sara had been asking that her entire life. Her jaw tightened and she wondered when she hadn’t thought like that in some way. Them or me had been a fraise that described the story of her life, but she where at the break out, it was her life or Scyth’s the past had been they keep a couple of bucks or Sara starved. They got thrown to the ground, or Sara got stabbed.

“You were faster than any guard there. Stronger. And you can heal, last I checked.”

By all means, with the way Rupert thought, Sara should have no qualms at all with the human race. Scars stick Even if not all of them are visible. Sara itched at the brand on her right shoulder blade.

The more Sara thought about things the more she just couldn’t walk away. She chose to walk along the trees, off to the side of the path Rupert had taken. “I’m not defending my actions but strength, speed, and healing aren’t everything.” She yelled as she caught up to the former camp guard, whatever. “ok so lets make an analogy. I’m going to force your head under water for 30 seconds every day and that’s not going to hurt you at all because even with your messed up breathing, you’ll have enough air capacity to hold your breath long enough that it starts to burn before you get back through the surface of the water. But you know what? You get to deal with that little bit of annoyance every day and you’ll survive. You would just have the luxury of knowing when it was coming, that it would only be once a day, that you’re strong enough to live long enough to get your next breath, naturally you should have no problem with this, and I bet you’d still want me dead.”

Sara chuckled as she passed Rupert on the path, getting a head of him, and she pushed herself back out in front of him on the path. Every day people are killed because others don’t understand the concept of him or me. Because society believes that they’re strong enough to endure poking. Even if the only thing that touches them are words. It’s why kids feel the need to bring guns to school. "I could do a lot of worst things."

>> “I’m not defending my actions but strength, speed, and healing aren’t everything.”

Well look who couldn't stay away. Really, it must be Rupert's animal magnetism. He stared dead ahead as she tromped through the grass next to the path, totting out her analogy like a defense. The fact that she felt the need to defend herself showed just how badly that defense was holding up, in her own mind. Got a few unresolved issues, kitty?

How about instead of water, we make it blood.

Instead of every day, instead of knowing when it was coming, we make it whenever some damn freak got the idea in their head.

Let's keep it Rupert. But hell, why not toss in his friends and coworkers, too? Why not toss in all of New York's humans? Hell, let's share and share alike--get the whole world drowning in blood. Get a law enforcement massacre. Get news helicopters swatted out of the sky. Get buildings being destroyed. Get a fire starting, to roast an ex alive. Get a fifteen year old kid with a knife and a problem being murdered over spare change.

Get out of Rupert's face, cat.

>> "...you’re strong enough to live long enough to get your next breath, naturally you should have no problem with this, and I bet you’d still want me dead.”

Was he strong enough? He wasn't going to die of old age, that was for sure. That had been a given from the moment he'd passed his exam to join the NYPD, seven years ago. Everything that happened since then was just another page in that nonfiction. It wasn't about the next breath, or the one after. It was about making them mean something. Did he want the cat dead? Yes. Was he strong enough?

She chuckled as she passed him. Getting ahead of him. Stepping onto the path in front of him, her back turned. His hand knew its own course. His limping step didn't hesitate as the metal slid easily from its holster. The grip was warm from being kept close to his heart.

>> "I could do a lot of worst things."

"So could I," Rupert said quietly, into the silence left by the gunshot.

Physically Sara didn’t feel a thing. Emotionally, well,.. That’s what caused her to be stupid in the first place. Wasn’t it. There were things that hurt much worst than getting stabbed. Luckily for Sara, getting shot in the head wasn’t one of them.

Sara’s ear didn’t even have time to flinch from the sound of the gun, when she was gone. Her body just sort of collapsed on it’s self in an awkward heap. From one side her head, her hair acted like a paint brush, painting the sidewalk with blood and seeping brain matter. On the other side stared a head. The pupils of her golden amber eyes had contracted into tight slits. The last of the air that was trapped in Sara’s, body hissed out through her neck that had twisted it’s self into an angle that was only found comfortable by those that had no reason to care about comfort.

Then there was no breath.. .. ..

There was no heart beat.. .. ..

There was nothing.. .. ..

The steps that approached the body were uneven; a slight limp of black shoes on paved park path offset them. They paused next to the body. A warm barrel pointed down towards the furred creature's chest. He didn't stoop down to check for a heartbeat. She was a healer; of course she still had a heartbeat. He could see how this would go: he'd stoop down, and she'd spring back up.

There was no breath.

One black shoe nudged the body in the ribs. Drew back, and kicked. The lioness' corpse shifted forward and rolled back again, limply. He set his foot back down. Then he crouched down, and set out a hand to check.

There was no heart beat.

Muddy hazel eyes watched that hole in her head. It wasn't closing. Slowly he stood, and put his gun back in its shoulder holster with a numb hand. Spring was around the corner, but the tail end of winter was still cold. It took him a few tries to get it in. His mouth opened in a sneer to say something; some last quip about her abilities, and the use of being a freak. It shut again What was there to say? He'd actually killed a healer. Buttoning his jacket closed against the cold, Rupert stepped over the growing stain of blood, and kept walking.

He felt nothing. Nothing he could recognize, anyway.