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This was much more like the date was supposed to be. They were quiet for a few moments, but it was a very comfortable silence, and Kealey reveled in it for a while. The cake really was quite good, and Kealey had absolutely no trouble finishing her piece. ”Anytime.” she said when Shin thanked her for the complement, ”You know I’m just telling the truth.”

Then. It was show time.

Kealey grinned, and laughed, and even applauded a little as Shin finished off the rest of the sushi. It really was quite impressive, even if Kealey was pretty sure where she’d come from someone would have said something about playing with food.

Then, they were finished and it was time to clean things up. They put up the few dishes, they folded the blanket, and turned to make their way out of the maze. Kealey sighed a little, leaving the maze meant going back to the mansion and all the emotions. This had been a nice break, though…

Shin stared at the walls, and Kealey could feel his concentration as he tried to remember the way they’d come in. He vocalized it and she chuckled.

”Oh no…we could be stuck in these tangled and twisted corridors for hours. Whatever are we going to do?”

Shin let the topic go, and Kealey dropped her eyes, once again studying the blanket they were sitting on. He was still curious, and there was obviously more he wanted to know. She didn’t like feeling as though she was holding back information. Not at all. It was important information, she supposed, and Kealey had reconciled all her feelings on the subject some time ago. It was still hard to talk about though, hard to drag all those things to the surface again.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Shin spoke. He said it was okay…Kealey knew it was slightly otherwise, but she nodded her head when he asked if she wanted to eat the cake.

The cake really did look good, and when Shin said he hadn’t meant for the conversation to get so heavy, Kealey shook her head, ”Oh no, that wasn’t on you. Sometimes my mouth runs away with me. We could always go back to talking about tattoos.” Deflection by humor had a tendency to be a safe bet, and Kealey put her money on it and grinned a winning grin.

Cake, though. If he was going to stomp down his curiosity so they could enjoy their dessert, Kealey was going to participate whole heartedly.

”This really does look good.” she said earnestly, echoing her thoughts from earlier as she reached for the tin and started to work at removing the lid. The smell of chocolate immediately filled the air, and Kealey mmm’d appreciatively. ”I think if it tastes half as good as it smells, Shin, you’re going to give Aurum a run for his money.”

The police were there…the police were finally there. Sure Shin had his badge, but all that had seem to do was paint a giant bullseye in the middle of his forehead. He was pleased though, and Kealey grinned. She’d done a good job…just a while longer now.

When the beat cops arrived, and the shield around Kealey vanished, she picked up the emotions of the guys Shin had boxed in. They were feeling pretty defeated, but there was no harm in making sure. The police seemed a little surprised by the latent state of the others, and Kealey smiled a slight smile to herself despite the headache that was starting to lodge itself in the back of her head. This many people was a lot of work.

Once the cuffs were on, Kealey breathed a sigh of relief and let go of her hold on the emotions. As soon as the commotion was over, Kealey made her way over to Shin, stopping a few feet away.

”Are you okay?” she said, half reaching out toward them, ”They actually shot at you. I couldn’t believe it…and then there were so many of them…and they had guns…and people were scared and running…I did what I could to stop the bad guys…but they were so intense, and man I‘m tired…” she had to stop there to take a breath, then she blushed. She was rambling.

”Also…thanks…for the kiss. I was stuck…you shook me out of it.”

People were calming down now, making their way back into the clearing to pick up the things they’d left in the audience. Kealey looked around and was pleased. ”They’re happy…glad we were here.” she said. Kealey didn’t know a ton about human/mutant relations…but she knew things had been stressed in the past.

”How could they not be impressed though. That box you made was awesome.” Kealey said with a girl, then her eyebrows drew slightly together as she turned back towards the stage…”Someone is still scared though…and upset….and angry….” she said softly, ”Think we need to check it out?”

Well weren’t they just at happy, smiley group. Kealey grinned, Micah grinned, Raven…deadpanned? The woman was friendly enough, and her emotions were fairly neutral, but there was something strange there. Kealey shrugged it off, each person was different, mutants doubly so sometimes. She nodded when Raven said that she’d only been at the mansion a few days, ”Ah, that makes sense. I’ve had a rather busy week.” And wasn’t that the truth…X-Men try-outs took a lot out of a person.

Micah pointed out that he was new to his mutation and the blond nodded her head, sympathy evident in her facial features. ”Oh you poor thing. I remember how hard it was for me when it happened. Don’t worry though, if you’re struggling, you’ll get a handle on things soon enough. That’s what we’re here for!”

The enrollment question turned out to be a moot point when Micah pointed out that he was twenty. ”Oh my, I completely misjudged you. I thought you’d be a student…” she said apologetically. I’ll bet Shin doesn’t make these kinds of mistakes… she scolded herself.

”If you’ve already graduated from high school…there’s not much we can enroll you in here. The Mansion has some great liaisons with local colleges and such though. Once you’re settled there’s loads of people who can help you out. If you want to follow me…” she said and turned, making her way back towards Shin’s office, ”We can get you set up with a room, and then I’ll give you a tour. Trust me. You’ll want to know where the kitchens are.”

Details. He wanted details. Kealey winced slightly and ran her hand through her hair before looking at him a little helplessly. Shin was getting the wrong impression. ”No no…it wasn’t like that…I mean…I was just scared when I woke up and there was this huge…red…guy just there. And Venus is very intense…and it had been a really long, bad day…so I freaked out. The second he realized we weren’t on the same page he backed off for the most part.”

Kealey shook her head, ”I tried to leave…but he wouldn’t hear of it after he heard what happened. The brothers…they’ve each got a dominating personality trait…Venus’ is that he’s…naughty.” This conversation was getting weirder by the moment.

”I didn’t have anywhere else to go, and I was so scared. So I stayed…we’re still friends, but I haven’t seen him in quite some time.”

Lori. What about Lori? Kealey sighed.

”Lori…was the first female friend I made in the city…she was buying clothes and the shop ladies were ripping her off for commission. I helped her out…she taught me how to drink chocotinis.”

Kealey smiled at the memory and shook her head. ”We were polar opposites…except that it’s such a small world…it turned out we had one, big thing in common. Namely Jacen.”

Kealey shrugged her shoulders, ”We didn’t find that out until much later, though, for whatever reason Lori had given me a fake name…she‘s how I met Mars. Somehow Lori ended up in trouble in Florida, and Jacen went after her while I was staying with him…

That might have been too much. Much too much. Kealey pulled her eyes from the blanket and looked back at Shin, "I told you it wasn't pretty..."

Oh yes…the cake. Definitely something they needed to do, Kealey reached for the pie tin, then Shin spoke again.

Kealey had done a pretty good job keeping up so far, until this point she would have said that she held her own in the verbal sparring match going on between herself and Shin. Until this point. Shin’s comment made Kealey’s head snap up, and even though she could tell he was at least partially joking, her cheeks began burning with what felt like the force of a billion suns.

What did one say to that? A few thing came to mind, but Kealey couldn’t actually get any of them to come from her lips. Instead she just laughed and shook her head, shooting a grin in Shin’s direction that hopefully let him know that she wasn’t mad, just at a loss for what to say.

It would take a lot more…Kealey pushed the thought aside as Shin changed the subject and busied herself with the cake tin while she organized the rest of her somewhat scattered brain. If only the blushing would abate…

”You remember that day when we met in the Full Circle?” she started with the nodded her head when Shin said he did.

”That night, someone named Garrett found me in the subway after Roland had hit me…he took me to the Sanctuary to fix me up. I was dazed and disoriented…but it just so happened that another friend of mine was there too. Lori said I could stay in her room, so after I was stitched up we went there. Only…it wasn’t her room, and Lori had much different ideas about how to deal with trauma than I do.”