She was bored. She had read two of Toad's books, but her eyes hurt now and she was having a hard time understanding most of them. She'd just had a nap and didn't want another.
She scratched Lockheed's head. The dragon moved his head so she could scratch his itchy spots. He pulled his head back and yawned, his tongue stretched out.
"What do you think I should do, Lockheed?" She sighed. "I'm so bored. I'm tired. I can't sleep any more. I ache."
She wasn't really expecting him to answer, so when he did, she was surprised. "Call him."
"Call who?"
Lockheed blinked. "Call him. He has ideas."
Toad? Oh. Toad certainly did have ideas.
She paused. She didn't want to bother him. He'd been very available to her over the past few days, of course. He had sung her to sleep, gotten her medication, told her a few stories, and had revealed a very wry and sarcastic sense of humor that she rather liked.
He had also been standoffish, sensitive, stubborn, and angry to varying degrees. He was rude when she mentioned wanting her mother, indifferent when she talked about God, and left her alone for hours after she noticed him using his tongue to steady himself as he jumped down the hallway.
"What kind of a mood do you think he's in?" She waited. Lockheed yawned.
"Well?" she asked impatiently.
Lockheed ducked his head under a wing. "Always better with Kitty."
She didn't have the energy to swing a fist at him in play. "You think that about everyone." She sighed and thought for a moment, then spoke toward the oak panel that hid the intercom speaker. "Andy?"
His voice responded. "Who's Andy?"
"You are. Remember?" She waited, thinking of his graceful sway at the door as he announced that he was Andrew Lloyd Webber the day she woke up here.
He paused. "I prefer Drew."
She laughed. "Drew. Can you come here? I'm kinda bored, and if you're not doing anything …"
Toad didn't respond for a full minute. "What do you want?"
"I don't know. Read me a story. Get a VCR in here. Heck, give me a laptop to play with."
"Hm. Five minutes." The intercom clicked off.
Lockheed contentedly curled up under her left arm. "Gleep." He sounded smug.
She patted him. "Did not."
It took him ten, but Toad joined her, walking slowly into the room, carrying a laptop computer. He put it on her tray and turned it toward her.
"Trackball or mouse?" she asked as she tried to open it.
"Neither." He waited.
She finally found the catch and released it. The screen was lighting up with an odd logo, a green frog. The frog's tongue licked out and the words "A ToadCo Product" glowed white against the black background. She reached out to touch it, amazed.
"Best not do that." He watched as she put her hand down on the tray.
"You made this?" She turned it over, looking for a logo.
"Built it from the ground up. Just like this place. Well, the electronics, anyhow." He pulled the rocking chair up and sat in it, legs curled onto the seat, green socked feet peeking out from under his brown knees. "There's more."
The desktop lit up. He had a picture of a toad on it, of course. There were small icons on it, all shaped like bugs. They were labeled "Typing," "Time Wasters," "Tools," "Trash," and "Terminix." She looked for the track ball before she remembered. She frowned at the laptop. It had the standard gray keys, but there was nothing to show how to do what she wanted. "Do I have to use shortcut keys?"
He leaned in toward her, his dark eyes alight with humor. "Try touching it now."
She touched "Time Wasters." The toad's tongue licked out and "ate" the cockroach icon, and a list of games popped up on the screen instead. She giggled. "That's cute."
He took her hand when she would have touched something else. "A warning." His skin was smooth and warm on the back, rough and warm in his palm. "Don't touch Terminix unless you want the comp shut down."
She left her hand in his for the moment and brought up Minesweeper after the toad licked it. "How good are you at this?"
"Building computers?"
"I can tell you're good at that." She playfully swiped at him with her free hand. He didn't try to dodge. She missed by a mile.
"I don't play much." He let go of her right hand and withdrew from her, leaning back in the chair. His thumb had been gently kneading her sore muscles. She wouldn't have minded him keeping it.
She closed out of the game. "'Typing' is some form of word processing program, right?"
He bent over to her again. "My own."
"You made one?" She touched it. The toad ate the ant hungrily and belched out a white screen called "Document."
"Not like it's hard, though your Microsoft likes to pretend it is." He scooted the rocking chair as close as he could, then turned the screen toward himself and tapped the keys rapidly.
They spent several hours together. Kitty was more and more fascinated. Toad was an inventor, an architect, and while his expertise tended more toward how computers were made rather than how to use them, he was no slouch in that area, either. He was fascinating, on the whole. He moved with style and vigor.
She wondered if he would ever consider joining the X-men.