*grumbles slightly* If you guys are going to take the weekends off from reading, I'm going to start taking them off, too.

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After one very full minute, Effie took her hand back, shaking so badly she knocked the salt over. Collecting the spilled grains, she tossed then over her shoulder and then swept the last few crystals from her fingers. Her eyes were looking beyond the bistro, beyond the walls, shadows, lights, and diners that were in her field of view.

"That, that wasn't what I was expecting," she commented softly, her eyes still not quite focusing on the real world.

"That's the way I teach," Anne said simply, wishing that she could have made the first lesson easier, but knowing that if she had given her friend any time to worry over the lesson that it just would have been harder for both of them. "It will get easier, when you get more used to it."

"It wasn't bad," she said vaguely. "It was just… not what I was expecting." Effie was still trying to order the new memories, to make some sort of sense of what she had been given. Her eyes finally focused on Anne. "Was that the way you learned?"

Anne shook her head. "That's the easy way. At least for the basics, I think it's best to learn as fast as we can." Left unsaid was all that the need for speed implied. Both knew that what they were doing now might get them killed. Effie knew it best, which was probably why she had steered them to a restaurant not in the shadow of the plant.

Effie nodded shallowly, acknowledging the danger. "Yes. That's probably best."

"But anyway, that's the way you keep other people's thoughts out of your head."

"Yes… I see. It's not what I expected it would be like."

"You thought it would be nice and quiet, right? Not lonely."

"No." She shook her head. "It's nice. But it's a bit like suddenly going deaf. It's going to take some getting used to."

"Why?"

"What? Why what?"

"Why get used to it?"

"It's wrong to eavesdrop on other people's thoughts!"

"Why?"

"Because they are private."

Anne rolled her eyes a little, grinning. "And you've not been listening to them for years? Really, is there anything that surprises you about people and their thoughts anymore?"

"Not really. But isn't it wrong to take the privacy of their own mind from them?"

Anne leaned in a bit. "You are an amazing coordinator, precisely because you know exactly what people want from you and from each other. You already don't go tearing through people's minds looking for their deepest, darkest secrets, right? Learning to shield them out is meant to help you, not them.

"Let's face it; most people just aren't interesting enough for you to bother looking at their thoughts, so they're safe. But don't deny yourself the use of an extra sense, just because you're worried about hurting a few feelings."

Effie opened her mouth to respond but was interrupted by the arrival of the meal. Time was taken with the mundane details of lunch, minutes before they could return to their conversation. Anne was much more eager to eat than Effie, digging in with abandon, cutting through the layers of lasagna with an unfeigned hunger. As Anne lifted her first forkful to her mouth, Effie asked, "Do you listen to the thoughts of others?"

"Me?" she said with her mouth full, then swallowed and said, "No way."

"What?" she asked, surprised.

"I'm an empath. It's much harder for me to fully shut people out than it is for you. Honestly," she added after a second thought, "I stay out of their thoughts for my own sanity. You need to keep a personal distance form others, which you can obviously do, or you would likely not still be living right now. I get very close to the people around me when I try to listen to what goes on in their heads. Sometimes it's almost too close, so I keep my mind shut as often as possible."

Effie took her first small bite of her meal and chewed slowly while thinking things over. "What's it like for you, being an empath?"

Anne shrugged and swallowed. "I like people, for the most part. I understand them, can figure out what motivates them, why they act the way they do. It's very hard for me to hate someone when I understand them the way that I do." She tapped her fork lightly on the edge of the plate as she thought. "I do get very close to people, especially people I get in very close contact with, like you and Mark, Knives and Ace, and even just coworker sorts of people. Anyone I see often. I don't think you guys realize how much I like you, like all of you. I know I don't show it much, and that's a personal failing. I'm not very good at getting close to people, but I do like you, even though I may sometimes seem rather distant."

Effie sat back and pushed around the food on her plate. "And you just live like this, knowing all that you do, and knowing that you're different. Knowing that all the people you like will hate you as soon as they know what you are."

Anne shrugged. "I can't change them. Not by dancing my hands about and waving my magic wand. But you hated me, when you learned. And Mark hated me, and now look at you guys."

"But that's different. We already knew about plants, were more prepared."

"So? You weren't prepared for me, but you got over it."

"You nearly died," Effie said very softly.

"But I didn't. And I won't. I'll just keep being my own charming self and hope for the best."

That last bit elicited a chuckle. "You? Charming?" she asked as she settled forward to eat.

"Entirely," replied Anne through a mouthful of food.