Her head was still throbbing, but Kealey hadn’t wanted to take the time to get it checked out at the scene of the hostage situation. Too much had happened, and there were way too many people in worse shape than she was. It was a simple bump to the back of the head and a resultant headache. It wasn’t like she’d dangled, or fallen from, a second story window.

Andrew was going to be bruised from head to toe after all of that, not to mention the emotional strain he was probably going through. Sure he’d held himself together well…but she could feel it underneath everything else. It was the same emotions that were struggling to gain headway inside of her. They were scary. Really scary because they were strong. As she made her way to Shin’s room to knock on his door, her belly rolled a little and she took a deep breath. There weren’t any ficus trees around to save her…so she simply settled for calming herself down.

She made it to his door and knocked. No answer. She knocked again. Still no answer.

New emotion. Frustration. Where was he? Kealey started searching all the most likely places. She needed to talk to him, somehow she thought he’d understand what she was going through…whatever that was.

Living Room? No. Kitchen? No. Library? No. Her room? No. It was starting to defy logic that Kealey couldn’t find Shin, when suddenly she remembered.

They’d spoken about him giving up the Mansion Greeter job, but Shin was still working at trying to find a replacement for himself. Kealey made her way towards his office. She could feel emotions inside as she approached, and knocked at the same time she opened the door, hoping Shin wasn’t working with a student.

”I threw up on a Ficus” she burst out, then clasped hands over her mouth.

Well. That was one way to start a conversation.

There was silence in the office for a few seconds. The student in the comfortable chair sat comfortably, with his jaw (also comfortably) resting in his lap. Shin's pen clattered against the desk. Kealey's entrance had been most unexpected. She'd thrown up on a--

It was the new student who broke the silence. "I feel sorry for the ficus."

Shin twitched. He turned and grabbed a room key from his drawer, then held it out pointedly for the student. "Your room," He said as nicely as he could manage. He didn't quite like people talking to his girlfriend that way. It sounded like whatever she'd gone through was serious. She wasn't that crass.

The student took the hint. He slipped past Kealey, into the hallway, and vanished through the ceiling with a hop. A hallway light flickered on, then off.

Shin looked at Kealey worriedly, rising from his desk to hug her. "Are you alright?" He asked. "Have a seat."

Oh man. There’d been a student there. A student who was getting a room. He was shocked. Kealey flushed…but really couldn’t muster the energy to feel too bad about the situation.

Then the student was leaving, after Shin had none-to-gently given him a key and a room number. Kealey was too relieved to be polite. She didn’t even watch his dramatic exit from the hallway.

She could tell that Shin was worried, and somehow that made things just a little bit better. He hugged her, and she hugged him back, then he told her to take a seat.

She did. In the same comfortable chair the student had vacated only moments before.

Was she okay? She started to shake her head, then shrugged her shoulders, ”I think so…I hit my head, but it was just a little…”

That was out of order…this needed to make sense.

”We had a call this morning….” she said, tapping the X-com still attached to her belt loop.

”It was my first real one…it was just me and Ghost. Well, Andrew ended up there too…but it was on accident…”

Kealey took a deep breath and stared at a stack of papers on the edge of Shin’s desk.

”It was a hostage situation. You might have seen it on the news.”

Shin made his way back to his side of the desk, and sat down to listen to her. What she told him added worries to worries. Kealey had hurt her head. It was a little... she started over.

Was she that disoriented? She must've been getting her thoughts in order. Shin bit his lower lip. His eyes fell to the X-communicator. Realization dawned.

Oh. Had he gotten one of those, too? Where was his... Shin's mind flashed to his room, to where the communicator was still sitting, in a coat pocket, on his bed. He'd forgotten it. He'd missed the call. Kealey had needed him, and he hadn't been there. Something about that bothered him slightly, but he didn't let it bother him long. He was here for her now.

The mission... had been a hostage situation. He hadn't heard about it on the news. He rarely watched that stuff. For a moment, Shin didn't know what to say.

The moment continued just a bit too long.

Shin was getting awful worried, and Kealey was too tired to work that hard at making sure she wasn’t worried too. She wrung her hands slightly in her lap and continued to look at the stack of papers she’d selected for her staring needs.

”Or….not.” she said when the silence stretched a little bit too long.

Story time.

”There was a hostage situation. This mutant with these huge hands.” the emphasis she put on ’huge’ made it obvious just how big they were talking.

”He had lackies, they had guns…the whole nine yards. Ghost made us invisible and we got in there with no problem. Blended in with the hostages perfectly.”

She stopped for a few moments to let those details sink in.

”Somehow Andrew had ended up there…Ghosty and I decided on a plan and put it into action. I used confusion on all the lackies and Ghost started taking all the oxygen out of the top half of the room. Except everything didn’t go perfectly.”

Suddenly, Kealey felt a little silly. Had she really expected everything to go perfectly? It didn’t matter, the story had already started.

”The leader, Mittens, did this clapping thing…and the guy he’d sent to put a gun on me fell over, I hit my head on the wall…and I lost my hold on the emotions.”

That was probably the worst part. The whole thing could have gone so much more smoothly, worked out so much better if she’d just done her job.

”I really messed up. Andrew almost got thrown out the window, Ghosty got sucked up, the water cop showed up, then I tackled Mittens and he fell…then I threw up on the ficus.”

Kealey sighed. That was a lot. And the end probably hadn’t made any sense at all.

Kealey finished talking, and Shin found words.

"Everyone was okay, though? Right? Nobody got killed? If all that happened was you losing control for a moment, that isn't the worst thing. Right? It could be worse. It could have been way worse." He was reasoning, both with her, and himself. "This sort of thing, you can train to avoid. It isn't like you rushed into battle without a plan. It isn't like you got stabbed in the back in your very first fight." Shin stopped.

Like Kasumi.

Kealey was much better than Kasumi. If she were worried she'd messed up during her first mission... if she'd been put in danger... that must have been what had made him real worried... had taken away his words.

"Kasumi always ran into battles without a plan," Shin confessed tersely. "But you and Ghost had a plan. Even if things got messed up... they worked out in the end. Figure out why they went sour, and train to avoid letting that happen again. Right?"

Right? Or was he missing some bigger picture here?

Kealey could tell that Shin was working through something, and she just let him talk. She didn’t know how to react either. They were stuck in a nearly infinite loop of not knowing how to react to her first foray into what it was really like to be an X-Man.

His pause…wasn’t really a pause. He was logic’ing something out. Strangely…it helped. The logic helped a lot.

Until Shin had done all that talking, Kealey hadn’t been able to figure out what was bothering her so much about the whole situation. It had been her perceived ineptitude.

Shin kept talking, and Kealey started nodding her head. Her eyes widened slightly, and the smallest, faintest hint of a smile started to tug at the corners of her mouth.

He pointed out that Kasumi had always ran into things without a plan. He also pointed out how good it was that she had gone into this situation with a plan.

”No. Nobody got hurt badly enough to even need the hospital…except for Mittens…and he’ll probably be in jail by the end of the day.” she said as the vice started to loosen the hold it’d had in her chest since she’d left the crime scene. She took a deep breath and let it out, then started talking.

”And yeah…I think there are definitely some things we can improve. The idea was really good, we just hadn’t planned for the fact that in situations like that there’s always a certain element of chaos. We weren’t ready for it. Is that something we can work on in the Danger Room?”

Kealey pulled her eyes from the stack of papers and looked Shin in the eyes for the first time.

”You’d have been proud. I had the whole room full of bad guys wandering around like a porygon without a trainer.”

Kealey had nodded as he'd pieced together his thoughts. They seemed to help her gather her own, and understand why she'd reacted the way she had. The faintest of smiles was his reward.

Any apprehension or uncertainty he'd had about his own words quickly vanished. He was glad he could help her. He was glad she'd had a plan. It wasn't as scary for him as it had been with Kasumi. She'd ran into danger and gotten hurt, nearly died, and made him worry more than he could handle. Kealey didn't do any of that. She was strong enough to plan ahead, and make sure it didn't happen again.

That feeling turned to certainty. If she needed help, he would help her. He could help her. She could help herself. "Yes," Shin replied. That was something they could work on.

She looked him in the eyes, and he smiled. She was cracking jokes. She'd be okay. "I knew you were strong... but Porygons without trainers? That's great. Good job, Kealey." He brought up his thumb to give her an over-the-top 'thumbs up'. "Next time, it'll be a slam dunk."

Shin’s emotions seemed to move with hers. As Kealey came to terms with what had just happened, what had gone wrong, and what she could do to fix the problem for next time, her boyfriend seemed to relax too. Kealey took a deep breath and let it out slowly, a lot of the tension leaving her with the breath.

Shin said they could work on the things she’d said and she leaned back in her chair, ”Good. There’s no reason for distractions like that to cause a problem. I should have been more ready…” she trailed off, mumbling a little bit to herself. Her head still hurt and she raised a gentle hand to tentatively touch the back of her head. It stung, but not too bad.

Shin seemed impressed with the description she used to describe the effectiveness of her confusion attack on the thugs in the hostage situation. His exaggerated movements even made her laugh a little bit.

”A slam dunk?” she said, then smiled across the desk.

”Thank you…I really needed to talk. I’m sorry I worried you…or if I messed up what you were doing with that student…my brains are still a little scrambled.”

Kealey sat for a few more moments, then laughed.

”It really was great though. Knowing I actually made a difference today. I never thought I’d do anything like that. Is it always that good?”

Shin nodded. "It's good. Knowing you've made a difference or saved someone. It's definitely good." He remembered how he'd felt after saving her. Actually, it was a bit more emotional than just a 'good'. She'd been pretty messed up then, too. It all hadn't been her fault, though. Shin didn't focus on the memory long. The second rescue was much more impressive... and it had led to so many good things.

"So, about that training..." Shin changed the subject. He glanced to the clock. "I could probably end my shift at any time and help you work on some things. I can leave the security guy to fill in on gate duty. Think the influx of students who need greeting is pretty much done for the day, too..." Or maybe not. If Kealey wanted to train, though, he'd gladly skip out.

"Did you have any specific type of training in mind?"

Kealey smiled and nodded when Shin confirmed her thoughts about saving people. No wonder people did this for years. It was really satisfying. Satisfying enough that was almost easy to forget all the danger and drama that had accompanied the success. Almost.

Most of the feelings were gone, and Kealey’s stomach had settled well enough that she didn’t think any ficus had anything to fear. There was still a little anxiety though, a bit of nervous energy that was stuck under her skin.

Shin offered her an out.

Training.

Kealey’s head still hurt a bit, and she had a tender goose egg on the back that was probably going to stick around for a while. Over all though, she felt pretty good. Good enough to train and pull Shin away from his greeting duties?

Definitely. She nodded her head, ”That might be a really good thing. I’ve still got a some nerves I wouldn’t mind working out.”

”I was thinking work with distractions. I do pretty well when there’s noise and things like that, but the second that thug ran into me it snapped my train of thought.”

She paused for a second and shrugged, ”I could definitely do without anymore bumps on the head though.”

"Hmmm... training with distractions. Do you mean with distracting emotions, or do you mean working on keeping up your power control while fighting? I'd imagine both would be useful." Shin stated. He held his chin thoughtfully. She had said she'd lost her control when the thug bumped into her. She probably meant the latter. Still, one couldn't be too careful. If she was going to train for one, she could train for two.

"And did you want me to show you some jujitsu moves?" He asked.

”Working with external distractions. I’m doing pretty well with a lot of emotions. I just completely lost it when that guy bumped into me.” Kealey frowned slightly, the same had happened in the little run-in they’d had at the docks. Where Sam had gotten himself shot.

Kealey nodded.

”Yeah, external distractions. Loud, sudden noises, maybe even some physical ones. I don’t imagine we’ll be able to replicate the shot to the head…but getting bumped around a little would probably do.”

Yes. That would do nicely. Next time she wouldn’t be so easily distracted. Next time she’d be ready for loud noises, and she’d see the whole picture instead of getting lost in the emotions.

Jujitsu?

”Absolutely” she said with feeling and a grin.

"Alright then," Shin said, standing up. He walked around his desk, out the door. Shin stopped in the hallway and swung his head back around to look at her. "Are you coming?" He waited a second, serious-face on, then broke into a smirk. "I've got lots of ideas on how we can train to help you deal with distractions."

A million and one ideas, to be precise. They'd start small and bring her up until she could handle the tough stuff. As for jujitsu... he'd have to set her up with weekly lessons now, wouldn't he? Maybe they could alternate between that and boxing?

Once Kealey was up and ready, Shin turned and looked down the hall.

"We'll stop on the way so you can wash out your mouth in the bathroom," He commented.

One stop later, they were in the Danger Room. Shin looked down to her from the glassed-off area overlooking the room. His voice was broadcast over the speakers. "Alright. I'm sending the first your way."

He hit a few keys. The danger room lights dimmed momentarily, then got brighter. Something bulged and ballooned in the center of the room in front of her. Brown fur puffed out. Tufted ears sprang to attention. Glassy eyes opened wide. An inflatable hamster with emotions popped up to guffaw at her. It was mirthful. It was having a wonderful time.

"Work with that. I'm setting the lights to disco strobe. Let me know when you want more distractions." Shin said, and he did. Disco lights strobed primary colors around the hamster and Kealey Quinn. Disco music began to play.

Basically, Shin wass training Kealey to deal with external distractions. Loud noises, strobing disco lights, guffawing inflatable hamsters full of mirth.

Yeah. Even he couldn't figure out where the heck these ideas came from. They were just inspiration. He left it at that.

They had a general idea what was going to happen in the training room, but Kealey was a little surprised when Shin hopped up and made his way out the door. Her head still hurt a little bit, but it was something that would dissipate with time. He asked if she was coming, and Kealey grinned, ”Definitely.”

Up Kealey got, making her way out the door and into the hallway behind Shin. They stopped so she could wash her mouth out real quick, and she felt a million times better for it. Then it was to the danger room, a place Kealey was really starting to love. Shin made his way up into the control room and Kealey stood in the middle of the floor, rubbing her arms to get ready.

Shin announced that he was sending the first set of distractions. Kealey widened her stance slightly…she was ready for whatever Shin had to throw at her.

It was a giant hamster.

For a few moments, all Kealey could do was stand and stare at the travesty of a thing, then she burst into laughter. She couldn’t help it, the thing was so…darn…jovial. Then she realized what was going on. Shin spoke, and she grinned. Figured it out before you said anything..

Then the disco lights came on, and the music. There was a lot going on, a whole lot. Kealey’s head renewed the throbbing she’d hoped would go away. This was good though, it was something she could use to practice.

Kealey hoped that Shin had away to monitor her effect on the hamster, because otherwise he wouldn’t really have a chance to see how well she was going to do. She found the hamster’s emotions…it wasn’t that hard considering they were a giant beacon of happy in the midst of a discotheque.

Down they went, along with the hamster’s ears. They drooped now. Kealey held it, resisting the urge to tap her foot to the beat of the music.

”Next!” she called.