>>Well we'll see then I guess. Like I said, my classical music experience is pretty much nothing. Kevin and Lillian tended to listen to old rock and country.

Kate was slightly confused by his familiar tone as if he should know why those people are, "Kevin and Lillian?" Kate picked up another muffin and picked off the paper as she waited for a response of some kind.

Oh, that's right. He hadn't told Kate about his parents. No wonder she asked about them like that.

"Kevin and Lillian Leroy, my parents. We aren't that close anymore."

Seeking to protect himself from others that might use him had seen to that. Andrew had withdrawn from others and slowly withdrew from his parents when it became amply clear that they either didn't care or didn't notice what he was dealing with.

"Kevin likes country. Lillian likes old rock. I never got much chance to listen to anything else."

Free tickets to the symphony were a good chance to remedy that too.

"My first expose to modern popular music was when I was 8. My piano instructor brought his daughter to Kirby Hall and she brought CDs. I listened to them and I fell in love. So many different types of music, it was amazing. Then when I was 14 they gave me an Ipod with all my favorites on it and the promise to update it with anything new I might like. She was the source of my musical education until my mother found out and she wasn't aloud to teach me anymore." Kate thought about home. She missed it so. She missed all the people who watched her live and grow, and taught her how to be.

Kate stared off into space for only a moment, a sad expression creeping across her face, before she caught herself and looked back at Andrew with 'a smile.'

"I feel so odd. Do you mind sitting up here with me? I promise you they are very sturdy. I once had a sword fight on the one back home."

He listened to Kate's story. It must have been strange growing up like that. Up until his mutation had hit he'd had a normal childhood. Maybe he was a bit more academically inclined than some of his peers but that wasn't really strange. Being locked away in a house, no matter how opulent, was no way to raise a child in Andrew's mind. Kate had managed to turn out alright despite it.

"Do you miss them?"

It wouldn't surprise him if she did. For the most part people tended to miss their childhood acquaintances once they were gone. Andrew missed the lifestyle, if not the people, of his childhood. Kate asked him to sit on the counter with her. He obliged, not needed to hop all that much to get the required height. Sitting on the counter in the kitchen in the middle of the night with a girl who was fire. Once again Andrew was reminded of just how odd things got when other mutants got involved.

>>Do you miss them?

"Terribly. They were all I knew for so long that it is odd to not have them there," Kate's mind began to wonder as she talked, "You get so used to people being there, that when they're gone it's like somethings missing. Like you're forgetting something and can never figure out what it is."

Kate looked at Andrew and a thought dawned on her, "Do you miss your family? I mean you indicated that you weren't really close with them, but just because someone wasn't close to someone doesn't mean that they don't miss parts of them."

Thinking about how she grew up Andrew could understand why she would miss them badly. That place and those people had been her entire world for so long after all. He could sympathize in a way. It had been like that when his mutation manifested. He'd had to tear himself away from everyone and even though they were right there...he couldn't reach out for fear of what they'd do if they found out. Kate asked if he missed his family. Andrew thought about it for a moment before responding.

"Yes and no. I miss how we used to be back when I still called them mother and father. Up until my mutation came about we were a fairly close family and I had decent number of friends. Pretty much just an average American teenager."

Andrew looked away for a moment.

"After the mutation I pushed everyone away to keep myself safe. By the time I left for college we weren't so much a family anymore but people living together."

He didn't delve into the details. Kate didn't need to know everything. The bare bones would suffice.

>>After the mutation I pushed everyone away to keep myself safe. By the time I left for college we weren't so much a family anymore but people living together.

"That's terrible. I couldn't imagine feeling that way. Would they really have taken advantage of you like that? Your own family?" The idea had been something that Kate's mum had put in front of her a long time ago about the humans taking advantage of and being afraid of mutants, but she had never really believed her about how bad it was. How could people use their own children like that? People taking advantage of people was part of human nature and something that would go on forever, but parents was a different matter.

Would they have taken advantage of him? Andrew didn't know for certain. There was nothing about life that was certain. No matter how well you thought you knew a person they could surprise you one day. Plenty of people did horrible things to their family members daily. Andrew hadn't wanted to find out if his parents were that sort.

"I don't know if they would or not. Better to be on the safe side. The only person you can ever really know is yourself and even that's a struggle sometimes. Better cautious than dead or badly hurt from a broken promise."

Andrew wasn't sure he entirely believed that anymore but it explained why he'd done what he'd done. He wasn't expecting Kate to understand it.

"When a human decides to do something like that to another person having a blood relation with them doesn't amount to much. All it does is make it more emotional for the person manipulated and easier for the manipulator."

That on the other hand Andrew considered fact and it was the entire reason he'd avoided any real connections to anyone for so long.

>>I don't know if they would or not. Better to be on the safe side. The only person you can ever really know is yourself and even that's a struggle sometimes. Better cautious than dead or badly hurt from a broken promise. When a human decides to do something like that to another person having a blood relation with them doesn't amount to much. All it does is make it more emotional for the person manipulated and easier for the manipulator.

"I get that in a way. I live my entire life being safe instead of sorry. It really can be easier to do the safe thing instead. And as for family, I get that too. i have been horrible to my mum at times. We take advantage of family because we know they'll forgive us. Friends come and go, but family is forever." Kate was struck with guilt over the conversation she had had with her mother days earlier. She hadn't heard from her since, even after getting a new phone.

Kate's mother had taken to calling her at least every other day if not every day. Kate was worried she had really taken the things her daughter had said to heart and was no longer going to call her.

Andrew nodded. Kate seemed to understand somewhat what he meant.

"That's what I've spent the last four years doing. The safe thing rather than the necessarily right thing or what I wanted. "

He chuckled a little.

"Though that has changed recently. When the bad and the odd keeps happening despite precautions...well you just get tired of being cautious. I wouldn't be here if I were still trying to keep people away."

There wasn't a mutant that he'd met that seemed particularly eager to take advantage of his mutation. Therefore he was inclined to give mutants a bit more credit than he did regular humans.

>>Though that has changed recently. When the bad and the odd keeps happening despite precautions...well you just get tired of being cautious. I wouldn't be here if I were still trying to keep people away.

"Well, at least you are getting to live your life the way you want to finally. I wish i could do that. Not have to stop and think about if it was going to kill or seriously hurt me to do something. Just run outside in the middle of a rainstorm or..." Kate thought and a smile crept across her face, "eat ice cream. I have always wondered what that tasted like."

Kate laughed at her own predicament. it was all she could do sometimes not to cry, she missed out on so much growing up with her temperature issues.

She had been born with a rather high temperature and it has slowly risen as she had gotten older. Settling out at 93 degrees Celsius, just below the boiling point.

"Yeah."

He could understand her predicament in a way. Though his problems weren't of the don't do this or you'll die sort he could still relate. They'd both had to keep away from things that they'd wanted to do simply because of a trick of DNA. It wasn't fair but Andrew had lived the past four years knowing that life wasn't fair. You either accepted that or you went mad. He didn't intend to go mad.

"Maybe someday you'll get to do those things. This is where a lot of mutants come to figure out their powers after all."

Andrew wasn't working on his. There wasn't much to be done with it. Nearly all the testing he'd needed to do had been done already. The rest of it wasn't all that important. Just little details that he could easily find out on his own. Maybe they'd figure out a way to let Kate experience those things without getting her hurt.

>>Maybe someday you'll get to do those things. This is where a lot of mutants come to figure out their powers after all.

"I hope so." Kate liked the idea of getting to do things she couldn't, but knew that is was very unlikely. She couldn't change her body temperature completely. Could she?

"So you are in college?" Kate had thought she heard him mention something about it earlier, "I thought I heard you say something about that being why you were in the city."

He nodded.

"Yup, NYU on scholarships. Once high school was over I wanted to get away from home. New York seemed like the perfect place to get lost in. My grades were good enough to basically get me in for free."

Andrew paused in his explanation. It wasn't that he was that smart. Just that he learned things easily and worked hard. At a beep from the oven Andrew hopped off of the counter and pulled the second coffee cake from the oven. That would do it for the baking that night. Once it was on the counter with the first one Andrew started on the washing up.

"It keeps me pretty busy but it's something to do."

The future wasn't something he thought about a lot. The present was generally needed more attention than he could spare.

>>Yup, NYU on scholarships. Once high school was over I wanted to get away from home. New York seemed like the perfect place to get lost in. My grades were good enough to basically get me in for free. It keeps me pretty busy but it's something to do.

"That must be nice. Being mentally challenged and getting to go out and do things. I have been nothing but board in these classes that Mr. Johnson put me in and up until yesterday I hadn't even left the mansion." Kate actaully wondered if that was her problem. Back in England she had something to do or someone to talk to all day. Granted there was a library full of books that she hadn't read and a great piano, well there would be one soon enough, but there was only so much reading one could do before the exploded. Getting to talk to someone like this was nice. She couldn't' expect Maya/Gawain to entertain her all the time just because s/he was the only person she knew. She needed to start going out into the city and meeting the people she lived with or she was going to go mad. That was why going out with Andrew was going to be good, even if it wasn't a date. She could get out of this place and have some fun.

"So when is the show and would you like to make an evening of it?"