Hunter offered Molly a smile and a nod as she left. “See you Wednesday,” he assured her. While he’d been training mutants for a while, he used to be able to mimic their abilities which was a great help. But he still knew a lot about mutants and felt he could help Molly. At the very least he could teach her meditation techniques.

“That’s right Andrea,” he said, “It will be a session with me. We’ll work on your self-confidence and if you want we can try and work on your mutation as well.” He had few ideas for her sight based paralysis. If it required her to look at people he knew tricks that would let you interact with people without making eye contact. But first and foremost he would help build her self-confidence.

"Right." She stated, tucking her pad and pen back into her purse. Wednesday at three... she would make sure to be a few minutes early. Her eyes stuck on him for a moment while she thought about what he had said. Working on her confidence was one thing, but she was wary of testing her mutations with another around. The baseball incident popped up in the back of her mind and she nodded slowly. "I... would like that." Maybe... she was just being overly cautious again. She would need to work on that as well, perhaps by herself... or maybe with Mr. Hunter.

"I will see you on Wednesday then. Good Day, Mr. Antonescu." Dipping her chin in a nod very much like the one Molly had given her, she turned and tugged the hood of her coat up securely around her hair, before rushing back out the way she had come. She paused once, to catch sigh of herself again with regular green skin, and sighed, before continuing. After a wave to the secretary, the Greek disappeared back out onto the street and headed for home.

Hunter smiled reassuringly at Andrea as she headed out. She didn’t seem convinced about working on her powers but then he was primarily planning to work on her self confidence. Perhaps after a session or two she’d be more willing to try and work on her abilities.

Having a moment of peace Hunter paused to reflect on the day so far. He’d met five new mutants and four of them had arranged sessions. Tomorrow he’d meet Shana and Meld and start doing what he could for them. All in all it had been a good day so far but he’d not seen any old faces yet. Time would tell how his return would be received by those who knew him.

Verdy had inspected the leaflet several times. On every side. She had even flipped it upside down to check it from that angle. It was, from every direction, legit. Or at least as far as she could tell. Few things, in life, are free, and to have a class promising balance, stability, come up at this time when she was feeling most confused and shaken…

It was almost as if it were planned.

She didn’t believe in fate, but this was something similar. She decided to check it out. If someone had gone to all the trouble of messing with her dreams, creating a ‘spiritual balance’ centre and printing fliers, they obviously wanted to meet her pretty bad. If not, hey it was something free.

She found the place with little trouble and stood for a moment outside simply observing how much glass was in the place. What was the owner trying to prove, transparency? Clear motives? Cheap lighting? Whatever it was, the point was made in a shimmering, shiny kind of way. The building was, on the whole, not very threatening.

The receptionist was a pretty young woman, and very pleasant. Approachable, as it were. Verdy marched right up to the desk and looked her full in the face.

“I’d like to see Mr Spiritual Balance, please.”

Because the last name on the flier was surely impossible for all but those possessing the most dextrose of tongues to pronounce.

Ellie couldn’t help but smile at the girl who walked in. Hunter’s surname had been a little bit of a problem for her as well at first. But now it rolled off her tongue effortlessly. Which was good as it was unlikely that she’d have gotten the job if she’d not been able to pronounce the boss’s name.

“Mr Antonescu is currently free,” she said pointing through the glass walls at Hunter, “Feel free to go straight through.” Hunter had spotted the new arrival and offered a reassuring smile from the meditation room.

The man who smiled at her from within was quite young and for a moment she almost reconsidered. What could a man barely older than herself possibly teach her. He looked friendly, though, and at peace. She decided to swallow her pride. Perhaps he had a mutation which assisted him in balance, spiritual or otherwise. Silently she reminded herself that it was free. Anything she gained from it was better than nothing, it wasn’t like she really had anything better to do.

Not having to fight for food, warmth and a place to sleep everyday had cut out a lot of the habits she had formed over the time she had been in New York City before she joined the mansion. There was flesh, now, over ribs which had previously been visible without effort. Working was one thing, and teaching the boss how to have a childhood another, but there was still plenty of time left over for not-thinking.

Here was as good a place as any, plus, it was free. Perhaps she would take up classes at the mansion and finish her higher school education eventually, but for now she was ok in the job area and didn’t need to try and learn other subjects as well as remember everything she could about the filing cabinets or the things the head-receptionist was busy teaching her.

She slipped into the room quietly with only a smatter of nerves. Was it polite to bow? To shake hands? To be the first to introduce herself? She opted for the latter with the option of the middle and the first only if he did. She smiled. Smiling was surely permitted everywhere.

“Hello. My name is Verdigris.”

To jump straight in with the whole spiel that she needed balance because she couldn’t stop thinking about her three-year-old-boss in ways that weren’t exactly conductive to a healthy, friendly relationship. Add to that the fact that he was a telepath and that she really, really didn’t want him to know that particular thought process and it just got longwinded and strange as an introduction to why she was there. She opted for the short and simple version for the silver-eyed man. Mutant?

“I think I’m in need of some balance in my life.”

There, not at all awkward or too forward. Balance, after all, it was what was advertised as the service (or one of) provided by the big glass building and the young man inside it.

Yet another new face. “Pleasure to meet you Verdigris,” he said with a smile to the girl who walked in, “I’m Hunter.” He extended a hand. So she was in search of balance. There were various ways to achieving balance, the main one being addressing whatever it was in your life that was disrupting your balance.

“Well balance is what I try to provide,” he assured her, “I can teach you some meditation techniques that will help you clear your mind or, if you are willing to reveal the imbalance in your life, we can arrange a one on one session to focus on the issue.”

Smiling worked. Apparently so did shaking hands, seeing no sign of a bow she wrote that one off but happily offered her hand to the young man. Who thankfully had a first name far easier to pronounce than his last. ‘Mr Spiritual-Balance-Man’ was a bit of a mouthful. Hunter it was.

Mr Hunter was a balance artist, he could help her. He didn’t know what her issue was, but he was willing to help. She felt relieved, she didn’t know she had been worried about it, but lacking that worry was a nice feeling. Clearing the mind sounded like a good option, a way to find a better resting place for the confusing feelings than in a shoebox under the bed in her mind. It could only last so long against someone like Slate, if he hadn’t seen through it already.

“Both sound pretty good…”

She scuffed a foot awkwardly on the floor, trying to order her thoughts to explain in a way that wasn’t creepy. Or at least, not the most creepy way of explaining.

“I like someone I know. Which would be fine, but he’s my boss… and there’s a bit of an age difference. I could handle that myself, except he’s a telepath, and I keep dreaming about him, I can not think about him when I’m awake, but asleep? No chance. I don’t want him to know that I’m so confused about it. I don’t want him to know at all, at least until I figure out what I really feel.”

There, not too weird. The fact that the age difference was the reverse to what was usually the case, her being seventeen years older than him instead of him her was simply another spanner in the works. Could he even feel? And one of the questions that haunted her the most… did she really like him? Or just the opportunities and acceptance she felt from him.

She had never felt like this about Andy. Who technically had a much greater influence on what had happened to her so far.

An interesting problem indeed. The awkwardness with her boss was something he could talk to her about and work on over time. What interested Hunter was the fact that her boss was a telepath. Before Hunter had simply relied on his own telepathic abilities to fend off psychic attacks. However since his powers were turned inward he had to learn new methods of keeping people out of his head.

“The emotional issues with your boss are something that time and someone to talk to will help you figure out,” he assured her with a smile, “But resisting telepathy is something I actually know a little bit about. Even if you possess no innate psychic abilities there are techniques you can use to make telepathic intrusion much more difficult.”

One of his favourite ones was he always had the following thought circling in the back of his mind. ’The below sentence is true. The above sentence is false.’ As a telepath skimmed your surface thoughts they’d pick up on this and usually get stick for a while. The looping failed logic of such a statement makes it quite tricky for a telepath to just push past. Sooner or later depending on their skill they’ll brush the sentence aside but it normally gives him sufficient time to erect other defences.

Resisting seemed like the wrong word… it made it sound like Slate was attacking her mind, going through closed doors and stepping over ‘caution’ tape to the private areas. It was really more like leaving a book open on your desk. Someone walking past might not mean to see the pictures printed there in bold colours or read the big red writing scrawled across every page, it just happens. Especially if the pictures happen to be of that person, or their name graffitied with little hearts and question-marks.

“I think… I don’t want to lock him out, just close a few areas off so my washing isn’t hanging in my sitting room, or hanging out on the street demanding attention, to use a crummy metaphor.”

A very crummy one. Not only was she a desk, she was a house too. Lovely.

“I trust him not to go looking, but I need to bring those thoughts in I think, so they aren't right there at the front of my head. I usually can manage it if I’m awake, but sleeping is… difficult and then I remember my dreams, and that's harder than not thinking.”

She was making less and less sense the more she spoke. She decided it would be wise to stop now, if not several sentences ago.

She didn’t intend to keep her telepathic boss out of her head but rather wanted to keep her surface thoughts clear of the feelings for him. “If you don’t suspect that your boss will just push his way into your mind and drag out what he wants then there are some techniques that will help you control your surface thoughts a little better,” he suggested.

“You say the main issue is your dreams. You remember them and they stay near the forefront of your mind. Well if you took the time to resolve what the dream meant to you then you’d be less likely to have it near your surface thoughts that telepaths can pick up accidentally.” Hunter thought it was an odd request. It was a lot easier to keep a telepath out of your mind than to push one out. Generally people sought to resist any telepathic intrusion, keeping even their surface thoughts off limits. Verdigris however wanted to simply lean up her surface thoughts. Showed a lot of trust in her boss that he wouldn’t simply look at what she was trying to hide.

Control, that was something she could definitely work on, if it rid her of recalling dreams while in the presence of Slate even better. She nodded slowly at his explanation of the problem forgetting her dreams, -which she was yet to figure out the reason behind- and considered his solution.

“Resolve how?”

She was fairly sure prancing straight up to Slate and announcing that she had feelings for him which may have stemmed from the lack of a paternal figure through much of her life and the fact that now she was settled she was missing James would be awkward. Very awkward. Probably more awkward even than him glimpsing the dreams that haunted her. Other than a confession she wasn’t really sure exactly how one resolved an issue like this. Which is why she was here, for help.

“Working on it is going to take time,” Hunter told her, “I don’t offer immediate cures. Most people who do fail to deliver. What I do offer is help in dealing with problems that unbalance your life. If you are free Thursday afternoon from three then we can arrange a private session where we can work on resolving your dreams and clearing up your surface thoughts.”

The dreams were probably conflicted feelings. Until Verdigris was sure how she felt it would play on her mind and often be in her surface thoughts. Once she admitted to herself how she really felt about things it would be easier for her and she wouldn’t have to worry about her feelings always bubbling to the surface.

She nodded slowly. She had plenty of time, especially if it meant that she could avoid some complicated moments before they happened. She would fix those dreams, 'resolve' them, as it were. She really liked her job so far, she didn’t need her subconscious confusing things. It was time she worked out what she felt, truly felt, about the matter.

“Thursday sounds lovely, thankyou.”

Her nerves might betray her a little, but she was determined to see it through. Control was a good thing and she would achieve it, with Hunter’s help.

“I will see you then, is there anything I should bring?”

She dusted off her hands on her pants and offered on to shake again. For such a young man he seemed to know a lot.

“You won’t need to bring anything,” he told her with a smile as he shook the offered hand, “I’ll see you Thursday.” Hunter would walk Verdigris out. Her problem was certainly an interesting one. Originally he had thought he would be teaching telepathic defence. It had turned out that she was actually going to help her resolve her feelings.

Once she had gone Hunter did find himself wondering who this telepathic boss could be. Telepaths were rare and they were oft sort after. Many either ended up in the employ of powerful people or powerful people themselves.