This was...cozy. Making breakfast for two hungry stomachs while the sun's rays fought to brighten the horizon. It went without saying that this form of normal was vastly different from what she had known for most of her life, but Laura took in in stride, determined to make this the new normal she would live by.

"Perhaps that is so, but I have not had much experience with it outside of myself." Which was perfectly true, since she was the one most often staying up through the night in months gone by while worrying over Logan, but she hadn't been exposed to many other people in the same position.

Leaving the pancake batter to sit for a moment, Laura moved to the small refrigerator crammed into a corner and pulled out both a bottle of mixed fruit juice and water, slipped two tall glasses from a cupboard and filled them both before setting the two options in front of the winged mutant. "You are not allergic to anything, are you?"

Laura ignored his offer of assistance with only the faintest tinge of annoyance It was not as if Jay thought she was incompetent, as was the reflex thought process towards any offer of 'help', but rather his male's insistence on being unfailingly polite, even in the most awkward of situations. So she let the moment pass, choosing instead to fill plates, since the first batches of bacon and pancakes were done.

"I am out of eggs. I apologize if you would have liked some." She tried to insist Penance sit at the table during those first weeks together, because having the girl eat on the floor smacked of her treatment at the hands of her Weapon X handlers when Kimura had been absent, and perhaps it would work, one day. Penance insisted on grabbing bits of food and scurrying away with it, however, and Laura despaired of finding a stash of rotting food bits and rodents in the house some time in the future. Still, the girl ate at least some of it, so Laura figured that was enough for her to be thankful for.

"She is a student here after a fashion." Loathe as she was to list another's faults to a seemingly unknown, Laura was suddenly crushed with the need to unburden herself, even if it was on this awkward mutant child. "She does not speak, or seem to understand it, or that her skin is dangerous or that she should not head butt me to get my attention. As far as I can tell she has no real concept of understanding most things, though she responds well enough to my voice, if not what I ask of her." Laura sighed, absently poking at a bit of bacon, wondering where the subject of her miniature rant had gotten to. "She is a baby. An innocent baby that needs to be taught, and as long as I remind myself of that, I know we can manage together."

That...that made him a little bit sad, actually. Not for himself, but for her. Maybe he wasn't the most sociable of people anymore, not since Julia, but Jay had grown up in an extremely large family. He'd never really known what it was like to be alone, not when there was always one of the younger kids to be seen to, or Paige butting into his business, or Sam looking in the background in his perfect little way. And then there was the concentrated hurricane that was Lucinda Guthrie...

No, Jay may not have always appreciated the company of his family, but loneliness? True solitude? That he was not familiar with. But, apparently, Laura was.

And, again, that was sad.

His response wasn't to say anything, mostly because Jay was only eloquent when it came to writing down song lyrics and expressing himself that way. In plain talk, he never knew what to say to make things better. That was Sam's avenue of things, or even Paige's in her rather blunt way.

So, unsure of himself and of what Laura expected him to say, Jay settled for not saying anything in response to that rather...sad comment. Instead... "Healin' factor," he said simply, letting one wing arch briefly behind him. "I used to get awful hayfever, but nothin' since I manifested."

For lack of anything else to do, he leant against the wall - carefully, and at an angle, since this was another of those things that having a wingspan twice as tall as he was made more than a little tricky. It meant the meat of his shoulder was resting against the solid surface rather than the flatter portion on his back but, well, being a mutant sometimes meant doing things in an odd way.

"I ain't all that fussy about eatin'." He attempted a smile. "My ma raised me not to be a picky eater. She'd just be grateful that you're feedin' me at all." Anyone who did so that she didn't have to...

This 'Penance' was an anomaly though and Jay frowned, a little thoughtful and definitely more than a little bemused at her explanation. "And...you're the one lookin' after her?" he asked, tentatively. "Not any of the teachers?" Because that would have been the more normal way of doing things.

Of course, having a teacher look after a student would have been the regular, normal way for the situation to play out, but Laura nor Penance were what would call normal, even by mutant standards. "She chose me. She bonded with Logan some time ago and adopted us, I think, or we adopted her. Either way, she chooses to spend time with us rather than any of the other teachers, despite their efforts. It was just deemed easier for us to take care of her, more or less. And then when we left, she came looking for us. I found her in New York City a few months ago, and we've been inseparable ever since."

Laura wasn't sure how she could feel about this entire conversation. ON one hand it had felt good, still did, to speak to someone, anyone, about Penance' situation, un-improving as it seemed to be. On the other hand it felt like a betrayal, complaining about an ally to one's enemy. Except Laura had to remember, sometimes, that there weren't allies and enemies here, just family and potential friends. And friends helped each other, even if it was just by listening.

"I don't think I've ever been sick, or allergic to anything. And as far as i can tell, neither Is Penance." Of course, Laura had been grievously injured in former days, but as those were more wounds inflicted than illnesses contracted she didn't mention those. "A healing factor is terribly handy, when you think about it." Or hell, depending.

Suddenly introspective, Laura forced herself to eat, wishing there was something else they could talk about. The psuedo-uncomfortable topic could become awkward very soon, if it wasn't already.

And Jay had thought his own story odd.

...well, actually, as to why he was here at the Institute? That was pretty standard. He was here because he was a mutant. He was here because he'd been recruited. He was here because the two elder Guthries had been here before him in their turn and, really, where else was he going to go?

It was only Julia that made things different, that made him sad and withdrawn, and he didn't like to think too much about that. Not when he was trying - honestly, seriously, trying - to fit in more and make more of an effort with the other residents of the Institute.

...he'd just never expected it to be with Laura.

The floppy-haired young man with the restless wings had been looking at her a tad oddly, almost bemusedly, and that was probably rude. But, in truth, he was kind of fascinated and definitely surprised. He'd always kept his distance from Laura before, as much as he'd done with everyone else at the Institute, but maybe that had been a mistake. She was surprising, and so was the story of the red-skinned mutant girl that had so surprised Jay earlier.

He shifted a little catching himself in a lull in conversation in which a polite person would have been replying, and shoved his hands in his pockets in an awkward little gesture. "It's, uh, nice that you're giving back." He shrugged, a little embarrassed. "I mean, it's good, you know? That you've got a chance to look after someone the way you are with her." Further awkwardness flickered across his face. "Everyone deserves someone like that."

...so, that was a compliment. Not that Jay was good at giving them, but hey.

His lips traced a wry, almost bitter smile in the middle of his features though, at her later words. "Oh, I remember bein' ill and all that," Jay drawled. "I don't miss it, not exactly. But..." His voice drifted off now, unable to quite put into words how healing every every wound, every injury wasn't always the amazing thing that everyone seemed to think it was. "...we're meant to learn from bein' hurt, aren't We? But if we heal away every teensy bit of damage, it's like the mistake ever happened." Maybe it was because he was tired. Maybe it was because his brain was in an odd place. Maybe it was just because he thought that, perhaps, Laura would be someone who would understand. "Sometimes, I think it'd be better if the hurt stuck around for just a little while longer."

This was certainly different than what she had envisioned.

Laura had imagined herself whipping up a quick breakfast and watching the boy scarf it all down and then fly off to the school where he would spend the rest of the day in bed, recovering from his long night. She would be left with a bemused Penance and dirty dishes but would feel much better about the debt she owed the boy and the prospect of someday speaking to him again.

Instead, she was carrying out an actual, honest-to-goodness conversation with said boy, or young man, and wasn't trying to remain emotionally detached from it at all.

In fact, she welcomed the sort of churning wave of emotion his words caused in her, the jarring memory-feeling of pain and bloodshed shadow-walking across her skin, the cloying metal-taste of fear and anger crawling up the back of her throat, the tugging sort of sweep the memories of pain and tears and confusion caused in her stomach. That was then though, and this was now, and she'd learned that her emotions, her pain and anger and sadness and fear, made her all the more stronger, not weaker. But it had come at a price. She had to have known where she had come from, where she had been and everything she had been through, but Laura also had to learn that those things did not define her, that she was more than the sum total of her instructions and that she had to let it go, or the pain would surely have killed her.

She felt the single tear gather and slid down her cheek, and something ached within her like a satisfying stretch after a long sleep. "And if the pain stays, how will we learn to move on, to fight and strive and live? How will we know what and who we can be if we never begin the process to heal? Just as forgetting the pain leads to foolish risk and a twisted mind, so too can our pain kill us, don't you think?" She poked at her eggs for a moment. "No, pain should stay as long as we need it, then leave."

Penance chose that moment to crawl into Laura's lap, pressing her strangely-haired head on the older girl's collar bone. It was a recent development, one Laura wasn't sure she knew the origin of, but sometime during their stay in New York Penance had somehow unleashed her affectionate side, pressing herself to Laura's side at random moments and head-butting her when she sank into despair over Logan in the later days.

Laura smiled, wrapping her arms around the girl's leather-clad middle. Penance shifted her head,sighing, and a trickle of blood ran down Laura's chest, coating one of the red girl's tendril-like hairs with it's crimson stain. Sometimes, sometimes the pain was worth it.

Oh, God, no, he couldn't handle it if she cried. Mostly because this was Laura, and he hadn't even realised that she had emotions like this, but also because, hello, young man.

Him and crying girls didn't get along as a practically biological imperative.

Jay's shoulders tensed, the spread of his wings only emphasising that particular action of his muscles. The look of obvious panic on his face would have been comical if this hadn't been a serious moment, where someone else was upset and he had absolutely no idea of how to deal with this. The two of his sisters closest to him in age weren't exactly criers (hell, both Paige and Mel were undoubtedly emotionally tougher than three of him were) and it wasn't as if he'd ever been faced with Sam or his mother when they were crying.

So what the hell was he meant to do?

At least it wasn't a flood of tears. But one was enough to provoke him though and he could feel an instinctive sort of panic sprouting somewhere in the vicinity of his gut. Suddenly, he wasn't hungry anymore and, if he was honest, he just wanted to get out of there.

...he didn't go, though. Because he was better than that, kinder than that, braver than that even when he was so desperately uncomfortable. Even when the last girl who had cried in front of him had been Julia, he...no, he wasn't going anywhere. Not a chance. He had to help. Somehow. As best his pathetic self could, but...okay, he had to at least try.

(No guarantees that he'd be useful though.)

"...most things, they get better. In the right amount of time." Wow, inspirational there, Jay. Really, really heartening. "I mean, most pain, it goes away...eventually." Minorly less lame. "Look, Laura..."

Jay paused, trying to work out what he was going to say to a healing chick who was now hugging a sharp, red mutant and bleeding because of it. To try and convince a girl he'd once thought was a robot that, very occasionally, even the worst things in the world got better.

"My girlfriend died." ...way to just blurt that out there, Guthrie. He kind of wanted to flee there and then, but he'd committed now, hadn't he? So he winced and then pretty much had to carry on. "She died and, for a while, I wished I could join her." Worse and worse and worse. Now he was just flailing, throwing words this way and that as if that would fix things somehow. "And it took a long time - a really, really long time. But, slowly...eventually..."

Jay shrugged, a little bit helpless, a little bit hopeless because, really, he wasn't good at this at all. "...things get better. Over time. In their own time. And there's a reason for that."

' In their own time.'

That was true. She could not deny it, not when she knew as much, needed as much. Even if she did sometimes wish it moved faster.

"I am sorry for your loss." She looked at him then, took in the wide, awkward flare of his wings as they seemed to fill in the entire spcae on his side of the island countertop, the tenseion in his shoulders and the mild shake of his hands, noted the shift in the air around him, and smiled. " You are stronger than you think, Jay Guthrie. I know how it feels to want to die, to feel like you have no purpose, that sort of slow drowning feel that plagues your every waking minute. I know what it takes to push oneself forward, past it, to look that emptiness in the face and move on. It took long, perhaps, but you are stronger because of it."

Perhaps if she had known how uncomfortable her actions had made him Laura would have pulled herself together and retreated into the persona she had been parading under for her entire life, ignoring the fact that she was trying to turn over a new leaf, clear up the breakfast dishes and politely escort her guest to the door. Or not so politely. But she didn't know, Laura could not read minds and though she could smell his discomfort, she underestimated its depth just then and kept speaking.

She didn't know quite how to deal with his loss. She knew it was socially acceptable to apologize to one who had lost someone, a practice that made absolutely no sense to her, since more often than not the person apologizing had nothing to do with the actual death, but seeing as she was, had been, an agent of death, one assigned to kill without thoughts of her target's life of aspirations, the thought of death was a twisted and familiar sort of cousin. She knew death. Had seen it on the faces of many, many people. Had wished for it, tried for it, before reality had stepped in and she'd been reminded of her place, a weapon to be used, one without feelings.

Had been. But not any longer.

So she was sorry for his loss and glad he had rediscovered his will to live, but that didn't mean she wanted to talk about it.

But where did one go from here?

"I suppose I've shocked you, maintaining an entire conversation like this."

She was more eloquent than him and that...that was a little humiliating actually, given their respective reputations. He was meant to be the painfully sensitive one, the sad little Guthrie, the one who wrote songs and moped around and was a walking cliche in oh so very many ways. Words were supposed to be all he had left to him. And she was the wild girl, a relative of Wolverine, and therefore wasn't she meant to just grunt at things? Or possibly stab them.

And yet here she was. Schooling him in a way. Having an honest to god conversation about feelings, dark ones, the ones you weren't ever meant to admit to having to a normal person with her....he wouldn't have expected this.

Huh.

He looked her in the eye because it felt like the polite thing to do. You know, if you were two young people admitting to once having wanted to die and being betrayed by the automatic healing power programmed inherently into their blood and bones and body. Or maybe there wasn't a standard of politeness here since how often did this situation turn up?

Jay looked her in the eye, but it was...difficult. No one really made eye contact these days, not when it was easier to look at your phone or at their mouth or whatever else was interesting and [i[safe[/i] in the vicinity. But looking her in the eye didn't mean that he knew how the hell to respond to her.

He barely knew how to respond to himself.

So it was with some relief that Laura herself took some control over the situation, steering the conversation away from the hard stuff, that stuff that made Jay's heart ache under his breastbone and the only scar he had on his body. The look of naked gratitude filtered briefly across his open features before he remembered to look abashed and he scratched at the short hairs at the nape of his neck (though they were getting too long to be called short anymore, wow, he really needed a haircut.)

"Hey, uh, nothin' wrong with not bein' known for talkin' all that much." He grinned, a little wryly. "I'm not exactly known for bein' a good guy to have a conversation with. But, uh...new leaves, huh? Turnin' them over and all that." He shook himself a little, wings fanning out half-heartedly and then shrinking back in again, but he had made an effort to put a more business-like expression on his face. "So, is there anythin' I can do to help with breakfast? Really. My momma raised me to help if I can."

Penance slipped out of her lap and made her way up the stairs to do heaven knows what. Laura watched her go quietly, a slight smile on her face.

"New leaves." she absently muttered. She supposed they were turning them over, whether they had wanted to or not.

Curious how she had found a kindred spirit, was that wheat they were called, in the awkward boy that took up more than his fair share of space. Or perhaps not a kindred spirit, but they had a few things in common, and that was refreshing, if a tad uncomfortable, foreign. It was more than she could say for the majority of the others students at the school.

Or maybe not. She hadn't made many inroads in speaking to the others, so she would not know.

Still, Jay was amusing, in a way Laura knew he did not try to be, could not help. To a child who had had grace beat into every inch of her little frame, Jay's brand of body shuffling provided a small scale one-man play that entertained her more than it should. It wasn't malicious entertainment either. Laura knew he could not help it. Teenage boys were generally wrong-footed in body, thought and deed. His wings did not help.

"Breakfast is done, unless you are still hungry. Otherwise it is just cleaning that requires doing."

Apparently, he'd missed his chance to be a polite guest.

Jay made an awkward face when Laura announced that breakfast was done, mostly because it left him feeling rather useless. That being said... "Yeah, I'm a better dish-washer than I am a cook, I'll admit," he said, scruffing a hand through his hair which, really, was getting so long. He was starting to look like a shaggy dog. Or a hobo. A hobo with red angel wings.

It smelled good though and his belly announced its presence with a growl. A loud one. That made him make another face, this one slightly more abashed, and he briefly pressed his palm over his navel, fingers splayed and spread. His power, his healing factor, it meant that his appetite was a tremendously rapacious one. Jay was hungry, nearly all of the time, even more so than a young man his age usually was. Half the time, he had to wake up in the night to eat an energy bar (or six) in the night just so he didn't wake up in a particularly pathetic state of hunger.

So, understandably, after a night spent awake and snackless...

No wonder his stomach was loud and he felt it actively cramp, like a wound in how much it ached. There were interesting things going on with his salivary glands as well and Jay was vaguely concerned he was actively going to drool everywhere if he didn't have something to eat soon. "I...thank you for this. For the cookin', I mean." Another distracted ruffle of his hair with a spare hand. "You didn't have to."

And feeding a guy with Jay's appetite could be expensive a lot of the time.

She gazed at him a moment, bemsued. He was terribly awkward, more so than she had given him credit for at the beginning of their conversation. Adventure. Whatever.

"Well, you can eat. The food is not going to bite you, or teleport itself into your stomach."

Perhaps she was making him uncomfortable? She hadn't yet met a teenage boy who didn't dig into any sort of food placed in front of them, let alone one who had actually endured having said food cooked in front of them and hadn't begged for or pilfered a snack to tide them over lest they perish.

Laura slid out of her chair and made towards the sink, picking up the heavy, still-warm frying pan from the stovetop as she went. "While I don't doubt your impressive skills, I am a what others call obsessive about cleaning dishes, and prefer to do them myself." She peered at him over her shoulder, hands idly turning on the faucet and putting the stopper into place. "Besides, you've done more than enough by staying up all night. I really do appreciate it."

Well, she didn't need to tell him twice. Good manners - even ones taught by Lucinda Guthrie - could only last so long in the face of an enhanced mutant metabolism. And breakfast.

Food teleporting would be neat, though, and would probably save on dentist bills as well...

Jay was much better at eating than he was at maintaining conversation, particularly with someone who baffled him as much as Laura was. Sure, he didn't understand why she was putting food in front of him. Or the one caring for a sharp-edged mutant. Or why she couldn't sleep without someone keeping watch. But Laura...she wasn't as bad as he'd once thought.

That gave him something to think about as he chewed, dark bangs falling into his face as he bent over the plate. The only time his efficient consumption was interrupted was when an unbidden, irrepressible yawn broke through even his hunger.

"...I suppose tryin' to claim that stayin' up all night is easy for me ain't gonna fly, is it?" he said when he could talk again, his jaw creaking a little from how wide it had stretched. Jay looked abashed and then peered down at his plate, aware of quite how fast he'd demolished that food. "Thanks for that, though. It tasted great."

He paused, slightly awkwardly, though not with any real malice, and when he spoke again it was carefully, yes, but with an edge of friendliness as well. "I should probably go and crash," he admitted, "or at least try and get some sleep before class." Worst came to worst, he'd try and get Sam to cover for him. Or just get Mel to lie for him.

What else was family for?

If she could beam, Laura would have just then. Jay was nice, she felt, awkward, but nice. "I won't tell anyone if you skip today," she said giving him a small smile. "It is the least I can do, considering."

It was still fairly early, enough so that only the very earliest of risers, both student and teacher alike would be awake, let alone prowling the school's corridors. Laura was sure he could make it back undetected.

She made quick work of the dishes, even as one stubborn grease spot tried her patience, and soon turned her full attention to the winged mutant. Having company was still new to her, considering she'd never been one for visits and small talk, but this one, despite the circumstances, had been good. She smiled a true, honest smile, and held out her hand for him to shake.

"Thank you, Jay Guthrie. It was nice meeting, and feeding, you." Things were strange, the world defying conventions left and right, but it was nice to know that some change was good. That there were people she could call on in the middle of a bind, and that they'd help her.

Good hearts, she mused.

Did that make them friends? She hoped so. It would be nice to have one, even if it was just one. "I'll see you around, right?"

Maybe it was because he was tired enough to lose some of his usual stiff awkwardness, but Jay snorted softly in response to her words and rolled his eyes just a little. "Thanks, but someone would find out probably." He looked more than a little resigned. "You've met my older sister, Paige, right? I swear, she's actually a telepath or somethin'. She always knows when you've been up to no good."

Sad, but true. She definitely got that from their mother.

Jay stifled another yawn, covering his mouth with his hand, and stood up to put his plate in the sink - he could at least do that. He even managed to keep his wings furled so that he didn't knock anything over or hit her with a feathered appendage. "You must know what that's like, huh? Since your dad's a teacher and all."

Was 'dad' even the right word? Crap. Jay nearly made a face at his own verbal clumsiness and moved swiftly on, nodding at her words and looking bashful in a way that was pretty damn common for him. "Yeah, same here." He shrugged, wings rising and falling behind him like crimson banners. "I know we've seen each other before, around, but...yeah, it was nice."

He nodded again and, tentatively, tried a smile. There was some hesitancy there, sure, but it was friendly enough at the same time. "Thanks for breakfast, Laura and..." He paused, but forged onwards nonetheless. "...I hope you sleep better soon." That was altogether too awkward for him and, taking the coward's way out, he fled.

Now to actually see if he could get some sleep.