Chris had never eaten at a Panera café before, but he knew what they were. He hesitated a bit before he answered since they seemed to only have bread and sandwiches, but since they had sandwiches they were bound to have tuna. He remembered when he'd lived in Central Park, before he moved to the mansion, and had lived solely on canned tuna and an occasional pigeon.
"Yeah, sure," he said as they reached the bridge.

Chris picked up his backpack and his neatly folded clothes.
"I'll just... uh..."
As he turned around, he realized that Fade had turned invisible and that it probably meant that she was changing.
"...I'll go over there," he said, looking a bit uncomfortable. He took a long detour around the place where Fade has latest been visible and then stepped in behind a couple of bushes at the foot of the bridge. When he came back, clothed in his regular jeans and hoodie and big coat, Fade was visible and was just about to put on her shoes. When she asked if he'd been freaked out he looked away and scratched his neck, clearly a bit embarrassed.
"No, not at all," he said anyway. Then he cleared his throat and added:
"Anyway, it must be really practical to be able to turn invisible sometimes. What... is it like?"
He asked partly because he wanted to change the subject and partly because he was genuinely interested. There had been plenty of opportunities when he'd have liked to turn invisible himself.

The possibility that Chris had a different diet than Fade had never really crossed her mind, not until he looked a little different about wanting to eat at Panera. Sure, Panera had some hot warm soup, but Chris did not really look like a soup kind of guy. He looked like he ate fish, but he kinda was a fish, so what sense did that make? Maybe it did make sense, that he was a sorta fish who ate fish. Little fish are eaten by big fish, and he was a pretty big fish, right? Was that considered cannibalism? Like could an 8 foot man eat Fade but no one cares cause she's smaller? Fish had different ethics...

"I'm sorry, I jumped to that one too soon. What do you like to eat?" she asked, careful not to ask what fish he liked just in case he really didn't eat fish, then she would look like a real butthead. He asked what it was like to turn invisible. Now that was not really a question she had been asked before. "Oh, um... it's a bit odd. At first when I started using, I had to focus really hard, and now it's pretty much like second nature, I don't even realize I am invisible sometimes. Sort of slips my mind," she laughed. "Though I have thought I was invisible when I wasnt, that's a little different, those situations never really end comfortably," she said, leaving it open for interpretation. It wasn't that she would hurt them, it was that it got really embarassing.

Fade seemed to have noticed that Chris wasn't entirely enthusiastic about going to Panera's and asked what he would like. Frankly, if he could chose anything he could, he'd have chosen sushi. His first good memory from New York was from the time when Meld and Anthony had brought him to an amazing sushi restaurant... granted, that was before some mutant haters entered the place, fought against Meld and Anthony, tried to knife Chris until he managed to run away from the place scared witless, sustaining an emotional trauma (that came from almost getting killed and seeing people get sliced up by Meld) that had lasted for two days. But otherwise it had been nice.
Anyway, sushi was expensive and he'd eaten it recently, so tuna was okay for him.
"Well, as long as they got canned tuna I'll manage. Or chicken or ground beef."

He listened politely when she explained how it was to be invisible, imagining what it would be like. Being able to walk down the street without people looking at you, without people seeing you... it sounded like some kind of dream to him. But oh well, you couldn't have everything in the world.
When Fade had finished explaining, he nodded and said:
"Okay."
Loquacious, he was not.
A silver Subaru passed them, and Chris followed the vehicle with his eyes as it went over the bridge and continued on its own business.
"So... how do we get away from here?"

She thought about what kind of seafood they had at Panera and snapped her fingers once she had gotten it. With a smile on her face, since she had pieced together how to make it work, she said "Well they have salmon, do you like that?" If he didn't like Salmon, they wouldn't go. What has lots of fish? There was always Sushi, but Fade had never tried it before and people that went in those kind of restaraunts were usually great pick-pocket victims... uhum... back in the day. So it must be expensive. Wasn't sushi raw fish? Could you get worms from that? The possibilities of the diseases she could contract swam through her head. There were other fish places, like Long John Silvers! Although she did not know how fast food fish sounded to a fish mutant. It almost made her laugh.

As Chris watched the Subaru pass, Fade was more interested in the driver. It was a male, a bit older for her taste. Oh, and there was the kid in the back seat that gave away his age as well. Fade had never been one to recognize cars, hell, she did not even know how to drive one. Raph tried to- she shook her head a little to stop thinking about him. She had to move on at some point. She hadn't even been on a date since her return. Only thing close enough was her midnight conversation with the now taken Silver Streak and now this outing with Chris, which was furthest from romantic.

He asked how they were to get off the bridge and Fade remembered her cell phone and opened her jacket pocket to reveal her iPhone. It was one of the perks of being an X-Man, she got her own cell phone plus a little X-Communicator. However, the iPhone was a bit too complicated. She didn't have any applications on it, just a little contact book, notepad and a calculator. She didn't even know how to send text messages. There was always a new symbol on the top of her task bar, so maybe people were texting the technologically impaired redhead and she never responded. She did, however, know how to call a cab. She called and gave their coordinates. Hanging up was a problem, since she didn't know how, so she usually just put it back in her pocket and waited for them to hang up. "One's on it's way."

When she asked if he was okay with salmon he nodded. Salmon was okay, as long as it wasn't too fried or overcooked. He had never understood why it was such a big deal to burn your food to crisp and then salt and pepper and spice it until you couldn't even guess what it had tasted to start with. All cooked food tasted the same to him - and it gave him stomach ache. Okay, so he knew that regular people often got sick if they ate raw meat, but not always... Sushi was a really big hit, after all, and since it was possible to eat raw fish, why not raw chicken? Or meat? People had survived eating raw meat thousands of years before the fire even got invented, he couldn't see why it would be different now. He guessed it had to do with traditions and stuff.

Chris had little experience with cell phones and Mp3-players and small gadgets like that - he had no friends to call and no outer ears that could keep the earpieces on place and his fingers weren't made to push delicate buttons - but he still recognized the iPhone.
"Oh, cool," he said and then waited patiently as she made her call. Then she put the phone in his pocket. Chris weighed back and forth on his feet, not really sure what to say as they waited for their ride. He wasn't good at small talk, but he didn't like long silences, either. And he wasn't really sure Fade would want to talk to him anyway. But on the other hand she'd seemed willing to talk earlier.
He finally managed to ask:
"Uhm.. So how long have you been at Xavier's?"

Chris said he was fine with Salmon, but by the looks of it, he would be a little picky with the salmon. "K, so then what about sushi? Or Red Lobster? Joes Crab Shack maybe? What sounds good?" she asked. She could get something hot from those places as well and crab dipped in butter sounded amazing at the moment. She thought of a few more seafood places but waited to see if he wanted to continue thinking along the lines of seafood. The iPhone rang and Fade clicked it on to hear the cab driver announcing he would be there in 2 minutes. She thanked him and hung up, pulling her bag closer so she could just jump in and get out of the cold.

The cab pulled up and she opened the door and scooted in. Guys usually opened doors for her but she hated the car door to be opened. Instead, she did something polite instead by scooting so the guy didn't have to walk around. Though plenty of girls have shaken their heads and said "women never scoot." Well, those women obviously didn't mind spending an extra minute just to get in the car because of some lame automobile traditions concerning gender. He asked her how long she had been at the Mansion and she had to pause on that one and think so. How long had she been there? Should she count the breaks she took or count it all cummulatively?

"I've been there for about four years now, on and off. I was there for a while, then I left because my boyfriend disappeared and I went looking for him. I returned and left again a couple more times, but I've accepted he's not coming back where ever he is and I've moved on. So now I'm at the Mansion for good, I hope," she nodded. Her lack of confidence on whether or not she would stay or not had been on her mind for a while. It was tough for a thief, such as herself, to just quit cold turkey. Those times that she left, although she did leave to look for Raph, she had turned to thieving through the duration of her Mansion absense. Hopefully, that behavior was completely weeded out.

Chris brightened up visibly when Fade actually proposed sushi. He kind of wished that he had said that earlier so that she wouldn't have had to guess what he would like, but he'd thought it would be less of a bother for everyone if he'd gone to that Panera place and just picked out something he could eat, or waited until they got back to the mansion.
"Sushi would be great, actually." Then he added a "Sorry..." for dithering so much.

The cab arrived Fade took place in it. Chris sat down beside her, stretching out his legs in front of him and clutching his backpack in his arms. The cab pulled away from the bridge and he turned his head slightly to see it disappear behind them.
When Fade explained that she'd been at the Mansion for for years, breaks included, he nodded. He wasn't sure if he wanted to stay there himself for so long, but it would do for now. Besides, it wasn't as if he had any actual plans or knew where to go after he finished school. Which could take a while, considering his low grades.
Chris looked out of the window, watching trees and buildings sweeping by. He had another question, something he'd meant to ask for a while, but he didn't really know if he should ask it or not. After some hesitation he turned towards her and blurted out:
"Is it true that you are an X-man...X-woman? I mean, some kid in my class said you were, but...you know, everybody talks so much."

He brightened up considerably when she offered sushi. Mental note: Panera Bread vs. sushi, no contest to Chris. "Don't worry about it, sushi sounds awesome right now," she smiled. She had never tried sushi until she actually had money to pay for it. While she lived on the streets, she had money, but she never liked to spend that on too much food, especially if she smelled like homeless and ate like homeless and tipped like homeless Jenny would. As they pulled away, she noticed Chris watch the scenery leave. So he was one who looked behind him to make sure something disappeared instead of just focusing ahead? Cab rides could tell alot about someone.

The next question was one of pride, and also a bit of hesitation on her part. She had no problem at all telling Chris she was an X, but she did not know how the cab driver was. It really didn't matter, he didn't have her address or name, she would pay with cash. "Yeah, one of them. I was on the team back then with Tricity, Deltoid, and some others who have left since then. When I left and came back, there were a lot of new members who I didn't know. I've still been trying to fit back in with them. Though when we need to, we know exactly what the other team member is made of," she smiled. She remembered the time she was readmitted to the X-Men, when she first met Shawn and Sam, the sexy S's, but even with new members, her mind tended to trail to Raph. She knew she needed to move on, but it was always hard to forget him.

She seemed to hesitate a bit, and Chris caught on why pretty quickly. Oh, right, the driver. Chris felt a bit stupid - maybe it wasn't such a good idea to go around and talk about it among regular humans. He had problems remembering what was "public knowledge" and what should stay inside of the Sister School.
But then she answered anyway, mentioning some names he hadn't heard before and about trying to fit in with the new group. Chris looked down on his hands.
"Yeah, I guess."

Outside, the scenery was changing rapidly. More and more buildings popped up - they were already in the outskirts of the town. Chris had been thinking a lot about the X's - if you were a young mutant it would be weird if you didn't. Of course he thought they were cool and so - who didn't? - and that they were doing an important job, co-operating with the cops and showing the world that mutants could be more than just weird freaks who spent their days cowering in fear or violent crazies who used their powers to bully regular people. But joining them wasn't an option. He wasn't past his "weird, cowering freak"-part yet, and if he couldn't stand up for himself, how was he supposed to help others?
Chris looked up at Fade briefly - her eyes had changed color again (he'd only recently noticed that they did that) into some kind of bluish green - and said solemnly:
"It's a good thing you're doing. Helping people."