Author's Note: Disclaimers... disclaimers... and did I tell you guys I cracked my head to write this? Now my brains all over the floor...





"How long will your father serve the sentence?"

She shook her head. "He pleaded temporary insanity on the grounds that he was drunk at that time."

"Your mom?"

"She's in coma." She turned her glance outside. It had stopped raining. "Doctors didn't know whether she'd recover. Pop's broken bottle almost cut through her heart."

"Won't your foster family search for you when they knew you've ran away?"

She shook her head. "It's already three days. I don't see my face on any milk carton." She leant back, wiping traces of tears on her face. "I'm sorry for my outburst."

"Happens all the time," Warren replied. "Though women don't normally cry in my arms out of sadness."

She smiled. "I think I know why," she said, giving him an enigmatic smile. "You're too beautiful to make anyone cry."

Warren felt his cheeks blush. "Where do you plan to go now?" he asked, quickly changing the subject.

"Told you, New Jersey." She nodded to herself. "I have a family there. Sort of."

"What do you mean, sort of?" They were back on the road again. "Don't tell me some other abusive foster parents."

"No," she said, almost defiantly. "She's my grandmother's cousin. I call her grandma, anyway, since I was a lot closer to her than my mother's mom. And she hates my parents."

Warren shook his head. "They're still your parents. It's wrong to hate your parents so much."

"Easy for you to say," she said. "You probably had a happy childhood, didn't you?"

Warren slammed at the brakes suddenly in the middle of the road. She lurched forward; a shocked scream escaped her lips as the seatbelt pulled her harshly back onto her seat. Two cars honked loudly as they passed them by.

"What's that for?" she asked, looking at Warren. By now Warren was looking straight, his eyes unblinking, scowling. "Mister? You all right?"

Warren then smiled bitterly as he turned to her. "Happy childhood?" he asked her in a voice even he could not remember as his own. "Yeah, I had that. Until it was all seized from me." With that he touched his belt and turning to her, Warren could feel the image transducer lost its effect.

He could see the effect his real self had on her. She immediately shrank away, her eyes widened and her palms went up cover her lips.

When her disbelief looks didn't go away for probably half a minute, he sat back on his seat and turned so that she could see him clearer. "Yeah," he said. "I had a happy childhood. Until I found that I was a mutant." He tapped at the wheel thoughtfully before he went on. "When my parents found out about this, all hell broke loose. Back then, I didn't have this blue skin; this came afterwards, but I won't want to share that with you."

He let the first few rows of buttons of his shirt came off and to add more to her surprise his wings unfolded and came into view. Warren's Honda was spacious, so there was more than enough room to let his wings out. "This happened to me. This stole away what could have been the best years of my life. And my parents damned close to disowning me for it. I never had good relationships with my parents, especially my father. He saw me as a mutant, not his son."

She was still in disbelief when he folded his wings and put his shirt back on. Staring at the road again, he flicked a button and all the locks to the car doors were open. "Now you know I'm a mutant, you might want to reassess your views on me." He glanced at her. "You can go."

When the transducer was back on she looked as if she had seen a real alien but didn't want to believe it. Slowly though, she spoke. "Thank you."

Warren frowned. Did he hear it right? "Thank *you*?"

"Yeah," she said, staring at the road before them. "Thank you. For not pretending. For being who you really are." She smiled to herself before turning to him. She reached to his belt and sought to where he had pushed the transducer and his real self emerged again. "I've met so many people who are trying to be someone else. Someone they cannot be. I watched this over and over again and I feel sad, I sympathise them, but lately I felt betrayed."

"Because of what happened to your parents?" he asked. He didn't bother to turn it back on, although he felt rather naked like this.

She nodded. "They had seemed so perfect together, and then in one night I found that nothing had been what it had seemed. My father whom I thought noble and loving was an alcoholic and abusive. My mother was... a woman." She closed her eyes briefly. "She had no backbone. She could never stand up to herself. Never." Her voice was bitter when she said those.

"The foster parents were worse. Everyone was so sweet I felt I'd get diabetics just by listening to them talking. But whenever they thought I wasn't listening they'd begin to whisper about me and how I was a failure, in life and in school, in everything, and how they wished I'd get out of their home." She ran a hand up in his short hair. "I think I did them a favour by running away. Now I met you and I'm going to my grandma's home. That's better than staying with a bunch of people who lives under masks."

He stopped her hand. "Then we'd better hurry," he said.


"Next train to New Jersey is in fifteen minutes," said the man behind the counter. "How many, sir?"

"One, please." Then: "Do you have first class?"

The man smiled. "Travelling in style, are we, sir?"

"No," Warren replied. "I wanted my friend there to have a comfortable journey home. She's been through so much."

"No, sir, we have no first class carriage."

Warren shrugged. "The normal seat, then."

Later he was drinking with her in the station café. It was night, and the rain had started again. "I wanted first class but they didn't have any," he complained to her. "What sort of trains do they run nowadays?"

She laughed. "New Jersey isn't that far. Maybe I'll be in New Jersey in two hours or so in this weather."

"But you'll be uncomfortable! All that jittery and people bustling about that narrow aisle while you try to sleep!"

"I'll be fine," she assured him. "I've been worse."

That effectively cut off his comments. "Well," he said after a while passed in silence. "Guess we should go to your train." He glanced at his Rolex. "Five minutes."

She gazed at him as they both stood and walked toward the platform where her train was ready. He noticed her gaze and she quickly turned away. "What's the matter?"

She smiled, an uncertain, shy smile. "You've been a perfect gentleman." She turned on her heels and looked up to him, her brown eyes wide and shining with happiness. "You proved to be everything I never thought of... and more."

Warren waved a hand at her remarks. "You needed help," he said sheepishly.

"No," she quickly pulled at his arm. "You are. You are a perfect gentleman. If circumstances were more pleasant I would have..." She trailed off and released his arm.

Warren was curious. "What?" he asked in a low voice.

"Nothing!" She blushed and smiled. A shrill whistle was blown and she quickly turned. "Goodbye, mister..."

"Warren." He nodded at her. "Name's Warren."

She nodded as she stepped into the carriage. "Goodbye, Warren."

He saw her disappear into the carriage and waited as the train began its slow motion, gaining momentum. Suddenly the carriage door where she had entered just now burst open. She came out running.

"What are you doing?" he shouted. "You'll miss the train!"

She ran towards him and when she was close enough she hugged him tight that Warren could feel his wings beneath his shirt pressing onto his skin. "Thank you, thank you," she uttered breathlessly.

And she dropped a chaste kiss on his lips that caught him unguarded.

With that she let him go, waved at him, and entered the train.


How well Dickens had put it all in writing.

They had been ships in passing, sending signals to each other, only to go on sailing into the dark of the night. Or something like that. Warren read his Dickens, but never paid much attention to literature.

He was alone right now, in his lakeside house at the edge of Westchester's border. It was a modest home but designed to fulfil his passion for style. Now the lights were turned down low and Warren liked the ambience. Like a pleasant prelude to a wonderful dream, the smoke from the scented candles around him floated about, rinsing away the musty smell, replacing it with a subtle lemon scent.

Warren fell asleep to the image of the girl-woman and her smiling brown eyes and the feel of her lips upon his.

Briefly. *Too* briefly.


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Thanks, guys! I love you all! Now, the next chapter will be *very* short, but with good reasons... I think. Enjoy!