Laughing a bit Sam shook his head in disagreement, ”Not exactly, more of a troubled orphan I got sent from place to place.” Sam said with a smile, sure it was sad but it was a much lie than he was put through no kid should have to live through some of the things he had been through. ”That was a long time ago, another life.” Sam said as he took a sip from the bottle finishing it contents already reaching for the last orange soda and opening it with a fizz.

Sam smirked slightly when she tried to argue with him about her ability it was sad she had seemed to have given up all hope, the way she was treating her ability, it was coming off more as a curse than anything else. She was right however about music it was an expression and if her mutation enhanced expressions and feelings then she would just have to learn how to either accept that she can never play again or try to take control and put her mutation to use. Every one had a niche in life and he felt if someone felt so strongly about something then that was their niche. She had music and he had… well whatever he was currently doing, teaching, or leading?

Before he could respond to her next thoughts Sam blinked and then his jaw opened slightly. Had he been in love? He smirked and remembered all the heartache, ”More than I care to admit…” Sam said counting two of the girls that first came to mind both relationships ending with a heart break.

He wasn’t ready for her rant, he long and no doubt self-realization filled rant. He ran his fingers through his hair placing some grease in them making it stick up more than it usually did. ”Well…” he said his open jaw turning into a serious look, as he set his drink down walking over to Elise he bent down till he was eye level with her his good eye fixing on hers for a moment. He lifted his blackened grease finger and lifted it and pressed it on Elise’s forehead in the middle then closed his good eye for a second then smiled.

His eye opened, ”It seems that you haven’t given up, you know what you need to do, you want to sing then sing you want to dance then dance. Even if your ability affects the emotions around you, everyone is different we all feel you can just show us a different spectrum of emotions we don’t visit often.” he backed up and looked down at her and continued smiling, ”Right?” he asked as he took a few steps back and picked up the container where he left the drinks. ”How about I show you to the kitchen? I could go for a bite to eat myself.” he said as he let out a whistle and waved Bruno to the mansion entrance, ”Let’s get some food.” he said to the large dog who rolled up barked once then ran for the door.

Looking back to Elise he continued smiling, ”Your not in trouble, but I have to ask, would you be up for meeting a friend of mine?” he asked already dialing Kealey’s number in his head.

“Oh,” was all Elise managed to say at Sam’s passed. After a long pause, that felt incredibly awkward for the teenage girl, Elise added a simple, “I’m sorry.” What was one supposed to say at that sort of thing? Elise didn’t know but sorry tended to be an acceptable fall-back in such circumstances, but it still didn’t stop her from feeling wretched. Here she was complaining about her powers, again, when everyone else had it worse. God, how self-conceited was she?

A guilty, embarrassed little blush rose up on her cheeks. She broke eye-contact with the older mutant, and looked down at the concrete floor. “Sorry, I didn’t mean,” Elise mumbled at her shoes, “I didn’t mean to… talk.” She could just hear and see what her mother would have said at such a spectacle. Elise winced inwardly. Okay maybe the corner of her eye twitched as well. Talk about awkward moments, and she didn’t have the first clue on how to answer Sam’s assertion on making people feel things they had never experienced before. Elise wanted to argue, but at the same time she didn’t know what to say and she didn’t want to make even more of a fool of herself than she already had. She settled for silence.

Food?! Elise could almost feel her ears perk forward at the mention of that delectable substance, but just as quickly as the elation rose, horror, embarrassment, worry settled in the pit of her stomach. The man wanted to get away and he couldn’t just say he was leaving. That would have been rude, and Sam didn’t seem like the kind of guy to be rude. Elise desperately searched for a nice way to let the guy go like he wanted without having to drag a teenage girl around.

“Um, it’s OK. I’m not really…” and Elise’s stomach growled. Now she couldn’t say what she was hoping to say without looking like a total liar. What was a mildly acceptable excuse? Elise desperately thought back to all her friends and what might be something they would say. “I’m not really supposed to… eat a lot?” she said, not realizing she had said it in an almost questioning manner. “Um, you know, with dance. Um, I need to stay thin,” she said trying to explain. Although not true, the excuse should at least let the guy go eat peacefully and happily. Plus, it was truthful enough for enough girls that it wasn’t exactly far from the imagination. The only side-effect is the guy would probably think she was anorexic now. Lovely.

“Call someone?” Elise asked surprised. Another mild panic attack hit her. Well here came special sessions for the challenged. She bit her lip, but who was to say she wasn’t one of the challenged? Elise cursed strongly in her head. This was the very reason why her brother had wanted her to go here, to get some help. “Sure,” she finally said, clearly resigned to the idea, not happy, but willing to work with it.

Sam shook his head a smile still plastered on his grease-marked face, ”No worries, it made me who I am today so I can’t really complain.” Sam said as he looked to the door and then looked back to Elise not believing what she said for a second, he knew a stomach growl when he heard one. He closed his good eye again and tilted his head slightly, ”I’m sorry you took that as a request, it was more of a order form a teacher.” Sam said as he headed to the exit of the garage making sure Elise was close by.

If she could get to the garage his pathway would make it so she could now get to the kitchen. He turned down the hallway and picked up his phone and dialed Kealey’s number he only recently remembered due to him calling her for X-suits. ”Kealey?” he asked turning down another hallway and entering the kitchen, ”It’s Sam, hey are you busy right now I need a favor?” he waited a moment then nodded his head, ”Alright, we will be in the kitchen…”

He hung up his phone and pointed to a row of bar stools at the counter opposite the fridge, ”Sit,” he said and Bruno poked his head out from around the corner of the counter and then came full into view and sat down and let out a small bark. Sam smirked and opened up the fridge to see what was in there to be consumed, ”Kealey’s a little bit like you, I’ll let her introduce herself but…” he trailed off as his head was in the fridge, ”What would you like to eat?” he asked.

F***. Well, there went going away clean, and apparently the guy actually wanted to eat with her. Way to misinterpret. Plus, now she would actually have to act like an anorexic in front of Sam, if she didn’t want to look like a complete liar. There went the ice cream sundae that had popped into her head at the first mention of food. She would have to ask for something lean and as calorie less as humanly possible. That meant celery.

Elise hated celery, well, plain celery. Celery filled with peanut butter was okay, but if left up to her own devices, the celery wouldn’t be eaten at all. Instead, Elise would just lick the peanut butter out and leave the celery to rot. Maybe that was being thoughtless to the poor starving children in Africa her mother always lectured about. With a sigh, Elise followed Sam out of the garage and into the hallway. The possibility of running a way and never going to the kitchen with the teacher never entered her mind.

She paid close attention to Sam’s phone call. Elise decided it was alright to eavesdrop if her future was related. She was pretty certain her future was related to that conversation. Sadly, she gleaned absolutely nothing but the fact that she was going to meet this other person in the kitchen. Well, that was sooner than she had expected. She would have to mentally prepare herself for great levels of embarrassment within a few minutes. Darn it. They could have at least left her a bit more time, like maybe a few minutes, hours, days, or even better, years.

So as it was, Elise entered the kitchen in a surly mood. What had started as a pleasant introduction to a teacher was turning out majorly wrong. She perched on the stool that Sam directed her towards in a dejected manner, propping her chin in her hand. Her elbow rested with nonchalance on the counter. She listened to Sam speak, her eyes wide, perhaps a hint of panic echoed on her face, but the rest of her body remained in a state of utter ease. Her foot wasn’t even twitching. Elise was very proud of that. She felt like bolting out the door.

So this Kealey was like her. What? A self-pitying, self-conceited, helpless little girl? Okay, probably not. Elise decided Sam probably meant mutation wise, not character wise. With a little wrinkle of her nose, and her stomach growled as she saw the stacks of food in the fridge. Sometimes, Elise hated her life. “Do you have celery?” she asked trying her best to sound excited at the prospect. At best she was able to produce a mild interest. Her stomach growled again, and Elise mentally cursed once more. Brilliant, absolutely brilliant.

Kealey had been working in the library when she got the phone call. Sam didn’t call her often, so the blond had dropped everything she was doing and answered. Her head had bobbed as she listened to his request, ”Sure Sam. I’ll be right there as soon as I can make the library self-sufficient.” He said they were in the kitchen, and disconnected the call.

The cell phone slipped back into Kealey’s pocket and she finished pushing the cart of returned books into the small circulation room. It had taken her way too long to get the catalogue in order to risk someone coming in and simply taking books. Next, the “closed” sign was set on the desk, along with the manual sign-out sheet Kealey had designed. All students had to do was write their name, the book name, and the call number. It had helped monumentally.

Everything taken care of, Kealey made her way out of the library and down the familiar halls. One thing became obvious as she neared the kitchen. There was someone very sad in there….sad and depressed…and lots of things Kealey didn’t like. Warning bells went off.

Sometimes people assumed that because Kealey could feel emotions, she automatically knew what to do when people were upset. That wasn’t the case at all. When people were upset…Kealey had a tendency to get upset. She could hear voices as she approached the door, one was distinctly Sam. The other…was female.

Into the room Kealey went, and found herself face to face with another blond. The girl was the one who was depressed. Sam was…Sam.

”You rang?” she said with a smile in his direction, then nodded to the girl.

”Hi there. I’m Kealey.” she said, bright smile in place despite the slightly dark mood of the room.

It seemed that the mood changed slightly when he told Elise that Kealey would indeed be coming to the kitchen to have a talk with the young woman. That or she really didn’t want to eat; even though it was clear as day it was her stomach growling for food. No need to starve yourself if there is a fully stocked fridge with food in it. Pulling out the celery and placing it on the counter Sam rummaged through the pantry and removed some peanut butter. IF Elise wanted some she was more than happy to have some he got it for him, seeing as Elise didn’t make the request for it.

Removing a plate from the cupboard and removing a few stalks of green from the back Sam began preparing the celery. That was when Kealey entered. Turning to greet the blonde empathy Sam smiled and raised a stalk of celery into the air. ”You hungry? We are going green on snacks today!” turning to Elise he smiled, ”Elise here is new to the school and when she told me of what she could do I instantly thought of you and your abilities, granted they aren’t the same but you know I figured you’d be better than anyone else when it came to a mutation like this…”

Turning back to the celery Sam added, ”Elise, you care to tell Kealey about your mutation for me? You’d explain it better than I ever could.” and by explain it he meant with emotions Sam wouldn’t feel, when explaining her powers. Elise would feel how she felt and Kealey would have a better understanding than Sam could.

Elise was mildly disappointed by the fact the school actually stocked celery in its refrigerator. If they hadn’t she could have asked for something else, like carrots. Elise loved carrots. At the thought of those delectable, orange roots, her mouth filled with a rush of saliva. Goodness, she would have loved to have a couple right now, but instead she had celery. Her eyes landed on the green stalks with almost loathing. She reached over and picked one up, taking a large bite out of one. Celery’s watery flavour filled her mouth. How disappointing. The entire time her eyes stayed glued to the peanut butter. It looked even better than carrots sounded. She took another bite of celery.

With a mind preoccupied by such thoughts of food, Elise almost didn’t notice the woman’s entrance. Her voice, however, shocked Elise out of her wishful reverie and shot her right back to the present. Elise jerked in her seat and sent the blonde woman a wide-eyed look of something approaching terror. A brief thought of bolting out a nearby door or window ran through Elise’s mind before she shot it down. Now was not the time for hysterics. Now was the time to be open to new ideas, to learn, Elise thought to herself in something very similar to her brother’s voice. He would have told her to sit down and deal with it. Talk about an intervention.

With a mental shake she smiled back at the other woman. She even lifted her hand in a light wave before realizing she was holding the stick of celery. Blushing, she dropped her hand and tried to look anywhere but the woman. Her eyes landed on the oven, her own reflection staring right back at her with big eyes. What Elise noticed was a small black dot on her forehead. She had completely forgotten about Sam’s poke to her forehead. Turning an even darker shade of crimson, Elise reached up and tried to smear the oil off her face. She was only partially successful, and more than half of it remained, smeared in a long streak across her forehead. She felt like sinking into the ground and dying of embarrassment as she had a mental freak-out about the fact that there was oil on her face.

So it was with a slack face and panicky eyes that Elise finally turned away from her own reflection and looked back at Sam, his request bouncing around in her mind. “My mutation? Tell her?” Elise asked her mind trying to return to the situation at hand. Her face lost all colour as her eyes landed on Kealey. So the time had come to be completely humiliated. Mentally Elise shied away from the thought of talking once more about her mutation. It sounded like a bad idea to her. Really what could this woman do? Make her normal? Elise shied away from that possibility too. Who knew what her musical ability would be without her mutation? She could be completely musically challenged. The thought frightened her more than her own mutation, which was saying something.

Glancing between the two adults, Elise’s eyes finally settled on the woman. Well, might as well just get it out there, she thought to herself, rising to an even better posture than before. “Um, when I play music, I amplify and can sometimes affect people’s emotions,” she said clearly, dropping her eyes to the floor and wringing her hands in her lap. Elise really hated where this conversation seemed to be heading. Actually, she hated this entire day. She should have just gone and filled her water-bottle at the water fountain. Sugared drinks were overrated any way. They made you fat. Plus, if they also contained caffeine, they would also dehydrate you too, completely ruining their purpose. What were those companies thinking? What had Elise been thinking going in search of the kitchen that morning?

[OOC: Kealey, if you need more info on her emotions, just send me a PM, and I'll edit the post.]