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[halo]

It was Saturday, it had been an awfully long time since he had taken any time for himself. So why was a guy willingly going shopping, well if you saw the state of his closet you would understand. Three suits that he could mix and match made sure he was taken care of for his class, but he was lacking in much of anything else, besides for his favorite jeans and his workout clothes there wasn't much else left. So here he was walking from shop to shop looking at different articles of clothing wishing that he didn't have to try and do this. Pushing the hair out of his face he held it back with his hand for a bit and stared at the price tags and whistled. Damn, he was going to have to save for a year to buy some of this stuff.

"Why didn't I just stay in the military? I got all the clothes I needed and for free." Shaking his head he left that store, and seeing the sign for another men's clothing shop he headed down the street to the corner. Pressing the button and waiting for the light to change to walk he looked up at the sky, and chuckled a bit trying to figure out what he was doing here. The staff he had met was a bit different. Amber, seemed like a nice enough girl, but not only too young for him she seemed to really have a thing for Sam. Now there was another teacher he had finally gotten to meet for a bit, one who seemed to be confident in himself in every aspect, but when it came to women. Women, it always comes back to them sooner or later for a man's mind.

Realizing that he had already missed his chance to cross he hit the button again, and waited for what seemed like forever before the light came back to him again. Watching for cars he made his way across the street and went back to his rambling thoughts. Women, more like a single woman, Betsy "Psylocke" Braddock. That teacher caught his eye and not because the fact that she obviously dripped money, but the fact that she oozed an old world sex appeal, while being completely modern. Kinda hard to put the word old world to someone who had to have died her hair violet, but wow what a body. Shaking his head he looked at the sign again and sighed a bit as he walked into the store. So far all he had managed to buy himself was a new pack of socks from the local Wal-Mart, and he had a funny feeling he was going to have to actually open his wallet a bit to get some new clothes. Finding a t-shirt that had the slogan on the front reading 'No! I will not fix your F@cking computer!" smiling to himself he grabbed it without looking at the price sticker, it would be the one thing he purchased without thinking about. He went to the dress clothes and started to shop, often sticking to the sale racks and very seldom moving to the normal racks. He picked up a new brown leather Bomber jacket cause it was actually lined with wool, something he would be grateful for when the full force of winter hit. Looking up he shook his head a bit and walked to the cashier. After settling his bill he made his way out of the store and looked around, he was getting a bit hungry and a bite would do him well for the rest of his day.

Walking up to a small hole in the wall Italian restaurant he pulled open the door and stepped into the dimly lite dining room. A smoky look was given to the place since they seemed to light the place using only candles, there was a violinist playing in the corner next to a small statue of a Gondolier of Venice. He loved the place already, following the young hostess who had a lovely sway to her hips he smiled as he took his seat. He highly doubted running into anyone he knew, but if he did then he would welcome them happily. At least if they were on good terms.

[kara]

Kara had almost no real bad habits. There was of course her longing to touch people again, but seeing as she didn't want to hurt anyone, that seemed like it wasn't about to become a habit. From her mother's point of view, her disliking of shopping was a bad habit, but her mother was welcome to keep her opinion to herself. So really her only bad habit was one she'd developed recently. She liked following people she knew. Not that she knew Mr. Morgana that well, but he'd been the one she'd seen after leaving the institute so she'd followed him. And man, teachers were boring.

Kara ran her hand through her hair watching her teacher miss his turn to cross the streat. Her red t-shirt, jean cutoffs and black trench-coat were from a thrift store, another thing her mother hated. Or would hate if she was here. Kara didn't bother entering the store after Alexander, instead looking in the windows and waiting for him to come out. She was fairly confident that he wouldn't recognize her, she'd never actually been to one of his classes and teachers tend not to pay attention to students anyways. Mr. Morgana took forever in the freaking store, and Kara started to wonder if he'd found a back door or something, which would entirely ruin her plans for today. Not to mention it would mean that she was lost. Massachusetts wasn't her town. Wrong cost in her opinion.

Finally he came out again, and Kara fell into step just far enough behind that he wouldn't notice her. Stupid teacher had been in the stupid store for enough time for anyone else to build an entire wordrobe. He had a t-shirt and a bomber jacket. Kara wasn't impressed.

She almost missed him turning into little italian place, and had to come to an abrupt stop or she would've walked past it. Kara peered into the little room and decided to go on, why not? She nodded to the waitress who'd showed her teacher to his table and pointed at him. The woman nodded and smiled, probobly assuming that he was her father.

Kara slid into the seat across from Mr. Morgana. "Hi, sir." She said, smiling at him.

[halo]

"Hello dear, what would you like? I'm thinking of just a simple spaghetti, but feel free and order what what you want." He looked across the table at the girl sitting across from him. In his head he stared going over the things he knew about her. Kara Knight, mutant ability unknown, but has something to do with touch, codename Flat-line. He smiled across the table to his guest and thought about it, reaching into the bag he looked her over carefully and pulled out a long sleeve black satin shirt with a small amount of black lace around the cuffs. "Hope this is to your style, but I didn't feel like having you follow me all day shopping and get nothing out of it." He handed her the small bag that was hidden within the bag with his new jacket in it. He chuckled for a bit as he looked back at her.

He waited until the waitress was gone before looking across the table at his guest, and the smile died on his lips. Eyes becoming cold and hard he stared right at young Ms Knight. "So Ms. Knight care to explain why you have been following me around since I left the Academy?" He had noticed the girl but hadn't paid her any mind since she was a student and it she could just be going into Boston for the day to relax from school. He had spent some time looking at the files for every student at the academy to make sure he could at least put their names to their faces. Something he did to make sure he knew who was a threat and who wasn't. For some reason he hadn't trained himself to check for their gifts yet, something that might get him into a bit of trouble if he was to run into one wishing to do him harm.

[kara]

Kara smiled, she was surprised that he'd recognized her, but not alarmed. She'd probably would've liked to pretend that she could have been sneakier, but had to admit that in a town where she didn't know her way around, that it would've been hard. She took the shirt from him, nodding her thanks and waiting until the waitress had left.

Then she leaned away from him, not nervous, but she knew from practice that giving angry adults space was a good idea. She ran her hand through her hair again and smiled apologetically at him. "I like following people around." It was true, and truth generally helped. "People like us should stick together." It was the cheesiest line in her opinion, but other people seemed to like it.

[halo]

He put the gun back into his ankle holster that he wore when he didn't want to draw too much attention to it. He shook his head slowly as he looked over at the girl. "People like us? Dear, I swear I have not one littlest idea what you mean. We are both just normal people, one who just might have a bit of a stalker fetish, but normal people none the less." He smiled as he just watched her carefully, he wasn't sure why he felt the need to protect himself today, but then realizing that he was followed all the way here was pretty much a reason why. Running his fingers through his hair he shook his head slowly once everything settled into a rather boring order in his mind. "You must be really bored to follow me, trust me my dear I'm not all that interesting on my off time." He chuckled a bit as he looked back for the waitress wondering what was taking her so long with the damn drinks.

"Well, now that you have explained why a bit, which I admit I almost wish I didn't ask you to tell me. So lets just get through this lunch, and then see where this day will take us shall we?" He chuckled a bit as he looked at her and shook his head slowly and truly was lost on why she picked him of all people to follow, but then again crazier things have happened.

[kara]

"We're not normal." Kara dropped her tone to a rather conspiritoial stage whisper and looked at Mr. Morgana like she couldn't belive he hadn't caught on. "We're special. We're..." She held her breath for a moment, glancing at the waitress who was still close enough to hear what they were saying. "We're superheroes. You're Superman, I'm Power Girl, and mom's Wonder Woman." She added a whinny 'well obviously' tone to her voice and was rewarded by the waitress walking away with her shoulders shaking- obviously laughing.

Kara's expression changed into more of a half-smirk as she leaned away from him again. "Yes, I am bored. I thought teachers were supposed to do stupid, wild, cool things on their off time. Like have affairs or hang out in night clubs. Not take forever shopping."

She glanced around, checking out their surroundings for the first time since she'd sat down. Pretty tipical place, but it smelled good and she was hungery, so whatever. "You really don't want to hang out with me that much?" She asked, reading his chuckle wrong.

[halo]

He so wanted to bang his head when she started talking about superheroes. “You know in days long past little girls wouldn’t follow strange men that they don’t know so well.” He shook his head and looked over at her and started to laugh a bit. He couldn’t stop himself or really even tried. “I hope you like spaghetti cause I ordered a dish for myself and you.”

He sat there smiling as he heard her whining about his weekend habits, and was fighting back another laugh. “My dear not all of us are as wild, and crazy as all that. Plus you must remember I have only just arrived here not too long ago, and I have yet to truly meet members of staff around my age that I would be willing to do wild and crazy things with.” He chuckled softly and thought about it more for a second. “Also I have a habit of looking for the best deal so I take my time shopping for new clothes. I apologize for that, but you are more than welcome to join me inside a store and help me shop. Yet, I will hold the right to say yes or no to anything picked.”

He smiled softly as he winked at her. “My dear I have no want or not to spend time with you. I would actually be happy to spend the afternoon with you, if for nothing else to just keep us both from killing ourselves one from boredom, and I for spending money.” He chuckled a bit as he looked over at her. “Please, do not call me Mr. Morgana right now, just call me Alexander or Alex.”

[kara]

"Yeah, well these sure aren't days past." She said, eyes flickering from herself and back to him. "You won't touch me." She spoke confidently, but she made no effort to hide her bitterness at her words. She wasn't sure what his powers were, but unless he was the undead, and he wasn't, she could hear it, he would either know not to touch her or get the message pretty fast. It was amazing how her curse could double as a gift. "Oh, and spaghetti is amazing, thanks."

He was amused now, that was a good thing. Not that Kara was trying to suck up to him or anything, just made the conversation plesenter. "Wild and crazy is fun though." She said, resting a hand on her palm. "Becides, you shouldn't do anything wild and crazy with any of the other teachers, that makes everything awkward." She'd never been to private school, but public school sure wasn't any different in that way. "You've got to find someone else. Becides, the female teachers... I can't see you with any of them really." It was amazing that teachers always thought they were hiding things from the students. "Alright, I'll help you shop."

She was charmed by him, not in a teenage girl with a huge crush on the older guy way, but because he wasn't treating her like she was two. Kara hated being treated like a little kid, and any adult who was willing to spend any amout of time with her was absolutely awsome. "Alright, cool." She said, smiling, not a fake smile or a smirk, just a smile.

[halo]

He smiled and tipped his head behind her letting her know to be careful what she mentioned cause the waitress was making her way back with the salads and drinks that he ordered with the meal. Looking over at the girl he kinda had to feel a bit bad for her. New and all very few people would probably open up to her easily. Lets not forget that every other adult in the known world seemed to believe until you hit your thirties you didn't know what the hell you were talking about. He figured one thing, she was old enough to know how to get into trouble which meant she was old enough to be treated like an adult. "So Kira, think you will join my computer course? You missed the first lesson, but I'll be more than happy to add you to the roster for the second class." He looked over at her and was interested cause this would be a good way to get to know a potential student.

He let the conversation die down to a companionable silence when the salads were put down, mostly cause he was starved. Starting in on the salad he would allow her to keep the conversation going if she wanted to or let it go like this until after the meal. He had to admit he was a bit worried about what he might come out with if he let the younger woman do all the shopping for him, but he didn't think it would be too overly bad. He would draw the line at anything that hung down past his butt if he had to. Yet, it was still to be seen, and it would be better not to go into this afternoon with any reservations other than the ones he had this morning about spending gobs of money.

[kara]

She took his hint and fell silent, waiting as the waitress brought their food over. Kara saw that Alexander was looking at her, but she was sitting across from him and didn't really care. Besides, he was a teacher. And he sure didn't seem the student-screwing type. "Sure." She said. "I like computers." She was even reasonably skilled with them. She'd missed almost all the classes at the academy since arriving, she just hadn't bothered to go yet. Kara suspected that he was feeling sorry for her, but he was also treating her like an adult who could hold an intelligent conversation, so she didn't mind.

She let the conversation die down, attacking her food happily. She was skinny, but that wasn't because she dieted. And she hadn't even realised that she was hungery. Kara wasn't sure why she'd agreed to help him shop, she wasn't a big shopper. But she'd never really shopped for a guy, so maybe it would be fun. Kara was unsure if he had stopped talking because he wanted her to shut-up, or because he was letting her talk. But she didn't really care. "Where'd you live before coming here? I lived in Seattle and Anchorage, so this whole east cost thing is weird."

[halo]

Smiling as he ate he was waiting for her to say something, and was so glad when she finally asked her questions. "I'm from the south, Lexington Kentucky actually. Yet, my most recent addresses besides for Boston has been DC and a few foreign countries." Smiling he shrugged a bit as he took a sip of his drink. "The Anatomy Instructor and I are old friends from the cloak and dagger days working for the government." He chuckled a bit as he took another fork full.

"Seattle is a beautiful area, I spent some time at the Navy Base there and had to admit it was a nice place to stay. Loved the weather there reminded me of Germany and I have to admit the emerald look was breath taking." He thought about it and chuckled. "Anchorage is the one place I haven't been yet and I praise the lord that I wasn't stationed there. A bit too cold for my taste. I'm used to 80 degree Christmas mornings, not 80 feet of snow." He sipped his drink and looked at her. "So what did you do besides school in your former life?"

[kara]

She leaned forwards, curious. "What foreign counties?" But her question was forgotten pretty quickly. "You were cloak and dagger?" She wasn't sure what he did, and she wasn't that supprised. But man that was cool. She wanted to do that, although not because she was a mutant. Because who didn't want to be bad ass?

She nodded, smiling. "Yeah, Seattle is amazing. Some people think the rain is depressing, but I love it." She smiled, thinking about her city. Well, what she considered her city. "Wait, for Germany you're going to want Leavenworth." She laughed slightly, and nodded again. "Yeah, that much snow is like stupid and amazing. But it gets old by the second day." She sighed. "I used to do some martial arts, nothing offical, but there was a guy that knew about everything there was to know, and he taught me some stuff. Um... dancing. Flurting. Hanging out with friends.

[halo]

He chuckled a bit at when she got so excited over his former profession. Shaking his head he looked at her and smiled. "Yes, I was in military Intelligence for the United States Armed Forces. Trust me though if your skin isn't thick enough it's not all it's cracked up to be." He smiled as he listed to her talk about her former home and then things she liked to do.

"Ah, now you see I took Boxing back in High School and continued it into my career in the military. Although I have to admit I haven't been keeping up with it as much as I should have, but Professor Braddock has agreed to help me get back into fighting form." He chuckled as he thought about things going on right now. "Well, you see there is something that doesn't change with age. Hanging out with friends and flirting is what I pretty much enjoy doing normally. As long as the target of the flirting is of the proper age."

Thinking about things he looked around and was happy with the fact that people weren't really paying them much mind. Most of the other customers were spending their time talking with friends and family or business partners. The nice thing was due to the coloring of them both some might mistake them for family catching up after a long time apart. So he spent the time eating and sipping his drink just figuring that times like this weren't going to be around for ever. "Enjoy your youth my dear, it's the greatest time of your life. The rest of it just gets complicated." He was happy with just one friendly old man lecture.

[kara]

"Yeah, boxing is fun. But I don't like wearing gloves, so I'm kinda... stuck. 'cause I don't, er, can't, well yeah... I hurt this guy back at home when I first did what I do. He almost died when I touched him, I mean it was only for a couple minutes that I was touching him..." She blushed and realised how that sound. "It was a impromtu wrestling match, well, a hall fight." Kara tugged at the sleeves of her coat and smiled slightly at Alexander. "Sorry. I'm not complaining. Actually I am complaining. But still..." She thought for a moment, then laughed. "Yeah, it seems to be popular among everyone.

She sighed. "I wish people wouldn't say that. It's not like kids lives are perfect. Somethings are easier, but not lots of things. Adults tend to think that if they don't tell us anything about what happens in real life we'll stay innocent, but really we just get to deal with stuff without knowing anything."

[halo]

“The gloves, most people I know seem to have a problem with them, but the sweet science is still the best sport as long as you don’t watch the pros. Watch those kids in the small gym and you’ll find the toughest bunch of SOBs that walk the planet.” He thought about what she said and had to smile at her. “Well well well, seems you had done a fair bit of touching. Although it is interesting that you understand that complaining is only talk. Trust me we can complain to the end of the day, but it doesn’t fix anything.” He shook his head and felt bad that he was giving a lecture today. He began to realize that one couldn’t stop being a teacher once you became one, yah great.

Listening to her he thought about it for a bit and chuckled. “Yeah we don’t tell you guys a lot do we?” He shook his head cause it was the same thing he had gotten into a fight with his Mama when he was he age. “I’ll tell you this, and I’ll tell you honestly. Once this time is done and you are an adult. The thing you will find yourself doing the most is wishing you had a chance to do it all over again.” He looked at her and smiled. “I’ll even explain that a bit, if you don’t mind. Once you start having those experiences that change your viewpoint to the world, you’ll start looking back to all those people you hurt. Some of them you’ll just smile and say yeah I was right. Other’s you’ll realize those words that you said that felt so right back when you said them. Were nothing but a knife you felt the need to stick into the person.” He shook his head and sipped his water after pushing his empty plate away. “Desert?”