He trudged across the foyer, intent on reaching his room and the sweet nap that awaited him there after a long day. On a whim, he decided to check the announcement board. There seemed to be a lot of chatter around lately, excited chatter that was companion to something exciting happening. Something that if it was exciting enough, could be posted on the announcement board.

Kai scanned the obnoxiously bright pieces of paper, trying to remember if this or that yellow one was new. Then he saw it.

“School wide dance?” he asked of no one in particular. He wondered if it would actually be fun or just lame. Back home, the only dance was the senior prom, and he obviously had never made it that far in school.

Maybe if Carrick was going to go, Kai might pop his head in and check out this ‘dance’ situation. And who knew, maybe it would actually be an appropriate place to wear those leather pants that were still hanging untouched in his closet.

Class was over for the day which meant that it was time for Amber's usual afternoon nap. Unfortunately, try as she might, she only ended up tossing and turning, completely unable to actually fall asleep. Finally, after nearly 45 minutes of that, she gave up, put her robes back on, and resigned herself to an afternoon of boredom while she waited for the sky to begin to darken so that she could make her way home, back to Sanctuary.

Amber's immediate thought was that if she was going to be forced to remain in the Mansion, she may as well find someone to spend the next few hours with so she wouldn't be quite so bored. The idea of practicing hunting as a dinosaur also occured to her, but her memories of accidentally almost eating a lizard mutant in central park scared her very firmly away from that idea. Hunting in a mansion full of mutants was most definately not a good idea.

Wandering the hallways, instead, was what she thought best. Someone she recognized, would surely appear, woudn't they? Just as the thought flittered through her mind, Amber spotted a very familair figure. "Kai!" she yelled out, then reddened instantly as she realized that the name had come out far more excited and loud than she intended it to. In fact, there were now a couple of other students staring in her direction.

He was perfectly happy zoning out in front of the news board, happily daydreaming of nothing in particular when all of a sudden his calm was shattered by a loud cry of “Kai!!”

It was Amber! His very favorite person who could turn into a dinosaur. And she was greeting him so enthusiastically. Kai mustered his energy to greet her in kind. “Hiya Amber, what’s up?” he asked cheerily. He turned the rest of his body to face her and leaned back against the wall, one leg bent so that his foot rested against the wall as well. His power stance accomplished two goals: 1. Looking cool, and 2. making sure he wouldn’t fall over.

Kai, sweet boy that he was, didn't mention either her blush or her overly enthusiastic greeting. He greeted her in return and, if it wasn't quite as enthusiastic as her own greeting, it was at least cheery enough. She pointedly ignored the staring students and walked up to him. With any luck they'd get bored and stop staring as soon as they realized it wasn't very exciting anyway.

Amber caught a glimpse of the flier currently held in Kai's hand. A flier that was rather familiar, since she recalled seeing the posters on the walls of the Mansion. Posters having to do with a school dance. She froze for a moment. Was Kai going to ask her to the dance? Would he really do such a thing? Realizing she was acting funny, she took a mental breath of calming and relaxed herself.

"C-couldn't sleep so I'm j-just wandering around. You d-doing anything?" Her nervousness always did make her stutter worse.

His ears virtually pricked up when she said the word ‘sleep’. Sleep? I like sleep! he thought, rather incoherently. He daydreamed slightly about his fluffy bed waiting for him just upstairs, then shook the cobwebs out of his head.

“Sorry, I’m kinda dead on my feet,” he scratched his head, trying hard not to yawn. He didn’t want her to think that he was yawn on account of her. It wasn’t Amber’s fault that he’d spent all his free time that morning working with his power and then realized that he had about a bazillion appointments he had to go to. One with the lawyers, one with the insurance company rep., and one with the contractor who was going to help him rebuild his shop. Going to, he scoffed, If I can come up with a ridiculous amount of money.

He just couldn’t quite understand the insurance company’s problem. So what he was only sixteen? He was the legal owner of the shop. And it was attested to that it wasn’t his fault that it had burned down. They should have just processed his claim already, but no. They were stalling. And the longer they waited…

He shook his head again. “Uh, I’m a little scatterbrained today. I think I’ve been thinking too much.” He rubbed his temples where the beginning of a headache was forming. “How are you? Stuck at the mansion for a while?”

Amber noticed that Kai really did look dead on his feet. Didn't normal people who could actually go out during the daytime tend to sleep at night? "M-maybe you should have a nap and get more s-sleep." She might have scolded him if he didn't look just so adorable.

"Are you g-going to the dance?" Amber asked, pointing at the flier in Kai's hand. She hadn't been planning on going herself, but if she could somehow convince Kai to go then it might just be worth it. Everyone at the Mansion seemed much nicer than the children at her orphanage, so surely a dance there would be a much more enjoyable proposition.

"What have you b-been thinking about?" Amber hoped it wasn't problems with his flower shop which she had, unfortunately, had some small role in destroying. She honestly hadn't meant to and it wasn't like she could have expected Kaitlyn to show up and accidentally blow the place up, but she still felt horribly guilty about it.

Kai smiled a weary smile. "I don't sleep much any more. Nightmares. But other than that, I'm not thinking about anything in particular. You caught me in between thoughts... though that's been my state of mind for a while, so it probably wasn't hard to catch." He glanced down at the flier in his hand. Was he supposed to take it or should he pin it back on the board?

"I was thinking about going. I've never been to a dance before, so I'll most likely be worried about tripping and running over people the whole time, but it could be fun. How about you?" He asked casually, though he kind of hoped that she was going to be there. His mind flashed back to when he'd gone to the Sanctuary with her and Kaitlyn thought they were... but seriously, dating was silly, wasn't it? He blushed a little bit and tried to hide it behind a fake-yawn.

"D-do you want to go to the dance with me?" Amber gasped and reddened, the words coming out of her mouth before she even fully realized that she was thinking them. Oh, how could she be so stupid? How could she assume that he would ever want to go with her? She was certain he must have a dozen other girls all ready lined up and each and every one of them must be far better than her.

"I m-mean as f-friends of c-course. B-because it would be f-fun. To d-dance I mean. B-because everyone else w-will have a d-date. I mean n-not a d-date but a p-partner. F-friend. Er." With every word Amber's face got redder and redder and she looked towards the ground, sure that she must be the biggest idiot ever. If only she could just curl up in a corner and disappear. Maybe she could live the entire rest of her life as a dinosaur and a complete recluse from the rest of the world. Ya, that had to be better than her present humiliation.

His face felt like it could fry an egg and he knew that he was currently straight-out-of-the-box-red-crayon colored.

Just a few seconds before, Kai had been struggling to pay attention to Amber while fighting 100 pound eye lids. Then she mentioned the dance, and the eye lids seemed to get a little lighter, but hid head hung heavily on his neck. His mumbled reply apparently prompted her to... ask him to go to the aforementioned dance. Which he was totally cool with. Kind of. Except the last date that he'd been on had been a terrible and devastating disaster. Was he really ready to do it again?

Amber's stuttering got worse as she clarified that they would go as friends. Of course, Kai thought miserably. Who would want to go with me on a date? I'm not really... date material. Still, going as friends is better than going alone.

"Sure. I'd love to go with you. Did you want to just meet there?" He nodded, his face still flashing a sign to everyone in the world that he was embarrassed. Especially for jumping to the wrong conclusion about her question.

He said yes! In that moment all hint of embarrassment left Amber and all she could feel was an overwhelming impression of happiness. He said yes and even if it was only as friends that they were going, they were still going to the dance together. Most likely panic would erupt anew the moment she left Kai's presence, but for the moment she simply reveled in her feelings of joy.

"We c-could meet there," Amber suggested. "Or not. I mean it's up t-too you." Why did she always have to be so indecisive? And what would she wear to the dance? She didn't get to dress up much, didn't even own any actual dresses. It had to be something perfect though, something that would allow her to stand out just a little. She knew there would be many beautiful girls at the dance and although she didn't expect to outshine any of them, she at least didn't want to be made to feel like the ugly duckling.

Kai nodded. Or his head drooped, it was hard to tell the difference. But he was totally going for a nod. “Let's meet theeeere.” He tried to say as his head shaking messed up his vertigo and he was sliding, sliding sideways and away from the wall.

THUD!

And he was awake! Jump started out of his stupor thanks to his sudden acquaintance with the floor. “I'm okay!” He announced, climbing back up onto his feet. “Sorry,” he said to Amber. “Let's meet at the dance. It will be good and fun. And... I think I'm going to head up to take that nap, now. If you don't mind, of course.” His brain would process this all later, he promised himself. Hopefully he wouldn't revisit this episode and cringe too much at his gracelessness.

"At the d-dance," Amber agreed. She tried not to take it personally that Kai was literally falling asleep on his feet and succeeded, at least mostly. "You better get that nap," she smiled in good humour. Even if he was falling asleep in her presence he had just agreed to go to the dance with her. What could be better than that?

Waving good by, Amber decided that it was probably late enough to start heading back to Sanctuary. She would process everything later and probably be utterly terrified when she did. In the meantime, she would make her way home in a cloud of happiness.