Aurion was thankful Kaitlyn shut the blinds. He could feel himself relax quite a bit from that simple action. He lifted his head and rested it in his clawed hands, his eyes watching her. His gaze might have looked flat or removed but concern and curiosity are two of the more difficult emotions for his face to show.

"Before here I was at my dad's apartment."

Kaitlyn's words sounded clipped to Aurion, like she didn't like thinking about it, didn't like the memories the thought dredged up. He wondered if she faced it or spoke about it if she would be able to get over it, at least for the night and sleep. The clock, he saw when he followed her gaze, said night was just about half over. He really hadn't gotten much sleep at all, but he was sure he would be up for the rest of the night and most of the day.

"Not good there?" He asked softly. "Want talk bout it? Off chest. Maybe you sleep." He gave her what he thought was a hopeful, friendly smile. Slipping his tail from beneath him, it swung towards her bed and lifted the end up gently so he could look under it. "Nothing there. You safe." He remembered when he was a kid, about Kaitlyn's age and younger, he had an irrational fear of monsters under the bed or in the closet. Those thoughts sometimes got to him and gave him nightmares.

No, it wasn't good there. She shook her head.

Kaitlyn's father once told Dr. Graham that she had fallen down a flight of stairs. That's why she was covered in cuts and bruises, and why her arm was broken, he said. Later on, the doctor made him leave the room. He had a worried look on his face as he asked Kaitlyn herself what happened. He asked her whether she felt safe at home. Whether her dad was telling the truth.

Her salvation was staring her in the eyes. It was floating right in front of her, just waiting for her to grab hold.

She told Dr. Graham the same lie her father did.

Kaitlyn was too afraid to say anything back then. He'd probably hear about it, then he'd be really mad at me, she would tell herself. She didn't think she would've survived long enough for the police to take him away.

Now, she was sitting in her room at the Sanctuary with Aurion. The last time she saw her father was over a year and a half ago. Since she was an active mutant now, her father would be afraid of her if they ever met again, not the other way around. But thinking about this kind of stuff was dangerous. She grabbed a binder from her desk and gripped it tightly. If she lost control of her power while holding on to it, the binder would get blown apart, but it wouldn't destroy her room, and she wouldn't hurt Aurion again.

Aurion, who was checking under her bed for monsters. Kaitlyn almost laughed, but the most she could muster was an extremely short-lived grin. She remembered checking under her bed for monsters when she was younger, hoping she could catch one and train it to scare her dad away.

There was a long pause before Kaitlyn spoke.

"...My dad is a bad man. And... he used to hurt me, before I got away."

Aurion watched Kaitlyn as he set the bed down softly. She had smiled a bit, but it hadn't lasted long and it didn't exactly look happy. It looked sad, wistful in a way. He didn't think a child's smile should look like that, it wasn't right. He was sure when other people thought about their childhood they had similar looks on their faces, but they were older, probably comparing their life as adults as their lives as children. A lost childhood friend who they drifted or moved away from, a pet dying, a stuffed animal or favorite blanket, tv shows and candies they never saw anymore.

He could understand that, hell, he had a thought like that every so often. That was okay though. He wasn't old, but he was older than Kaitlyn. Her smile was... She was too young to have a smile like that.

Aurion sat up resting one arm on a knee while the other was still planted on the floor, the tip of his tail twitched slightly. At some in the silence Aurion's eyes drifted to look at an unremarkable spot on the floor near Kaitlyn's chair.

The words Kaitlyn said next made Aurion snap his gaze back up to her eyes. His head had moved quickly enough when he looked up to make a very audible 'Crack'.

"he use to hurt me"

Plenty of kids got hurt when he was young, but he only knew a few that actually had been beaten or hurt by their parents. Even as a kid Aurion knew the difference between discipline and beating. One was necessary at times, the other never was. The ones he knew about acted like bullies, pushing others around and beating them. "They pick on others to make themselves feel better." His mother had told him. "It's how they prove to themselves they're not weak, afraid, or powerless." His father had added.

Kaitlyn didn't seem to be a bully. She was a hurt little girl. Aurion had no idea how the whole mutant thing really worked, why they all got their powers and whatnot. But he still wondered if it was because of what her dad did to her she had the power she did. He didn't know what it was, but it was not subtle or gentle, and it was strong, violent, destructive. Following that thought Aurion wondered what had happened to him, or what he had done to make him turn into the monster he had become. Or Lydia, what had happened to cause her to be able to change her skin the way she did.

Those thoughts rushed through his head in the span of a heartbeat or three. His tongue flickered out of his mouth rapidly. "He dead?" He asked, his speech a bit off due to his tongue's rapid movement. "That you get away?"