January 9th

Angry shouts could be heard after Dahlia as she ran down the streets, the air frigid. Her shoes soaked through from the melting snow she ran through. Puffs of fog came out with every breath and eyes darted around for a way to escape. With her heart pounding, she skidded across the cement of the sidewalk and ducked into an alley for cover. Trapped.

The three men chasing her came to a stop outside her alley. The leader, tapping a baseball bat into the palm of his hand, smiled menacingly at her. Dahlia panted hard and stared at them with wide eyes. She shrunk back against the brick wall as they approached. No time to think.

She kicked her shoes off and started to scale the wall behind her, praying with everything she had that her constantly unstable mutation wouldn't fail her now and send her to her death. A man below her cursed something out and aimed a gun at her unsteadily. His friend cursed at his failure and took the gun from him and shot at Dahlia himself.

The bullet narrowly missed her ear, only grazing the tip before she managed to pulled herself over the edge and ran as fast as her feet could carry her. Her intention had been to jump to the building opposite her but she stopped herself. Tears welled in her eyes. They were climbing the fire escape now. Think. Think. Think.

If she went back down she risked one of them catching her. If she stayed up there she would be caught. She backed up and, taking a deep breath, she started running again till she flung herself across the gap. She caught the edge of the opposite building, her jump made weak from fear. Shaking, she pulled herself up and repeated the process till she was far from the anti-mutant extremist.

Dahlia perched on the cone like roof of a buildings tall electrical unit, one which you could open the door below and walk in. She stared out at the city below her, catching her breath slowly, a triumphed smile crawled onto her face. She had done it. Her mutation hadn't completely failed her as it so often did, though she knew from the professor's observations her mutation was…evolving, so to speak. It thrilled, frustrated and terrified her all at the same time.

She ran a hand through her hair and touched the sore tip of her ear. She'd been on her way back to the tunnels when a hard wind had blown her headband off. I supposed you could say it had been just her luck that the men she'd been passing were anti-mutant extremist. She swelled with a bit of pride and laughed, moving to stand out of her crouch. Nothing could stop her badass mutant butt now!

Toad squinted through his goggles, tightening the screws on his contraption before he jumped up onto the wall of the bank and made his way up. Below him, Jamie would be breaking in once Toad had a chance to do his part of the deal.

This whole bank heist had been just one of the things that Jamie originally talked to him about. Not, you know, the big stuff but enough to get him some cash. What Jamie really wanted was the jewels in the safety boxes inside to sell on the black market.

A smirk played across Toad's lips. It felt nice to get back in the game, to be useful with something to someone. It hadn't really taken him long at all to decide to call the man back and accept his deal. It wasn't like he had anything going for him; he was basically going in circles with his life. And he'd been as far unable to find Dahlia, he needed a distaction for when he wasn't put looking for her. Plus, he actually kind of hoped that Jamie might consider him a friend eventually.

Toad pulled the contraption from the pocket of his coat and rubbed a smug of dirt off it affectionately, his inventions were always like children to him. He went to pick the lock on the door when his head snapped up at a rustling sound and he listened carefully, walking around to the other side of the rooftop's electrical building, ready to attack whoever was there.

What he saw left him frozen. Dahlia hung off the edge of the electrical building's roof, her jacket caught on a stray bit of metal. Toad's stomach churned as he watched her expression light up at the sight of him…then drop, as if on second thought.

Okay, let's just take a moment to back track here. After Dahlia successfully evaded the bad men chasing her, she had been feeling pretty proud of herself and had decided to stand up on the cone roof of the electrical building heroically...It was true her mutation was developing farther yes, but not quite so much to the point that one might not fall off said cone roof and get stuck on a rogue metal strip.

"Help?" She squeaked and smiled a bit weakly, reaching out to him awkwardly with the way her jacket pulled her arms. Her tail twitched side to side slightly at the thought of someone saving her. To hell with why he was there to begin with, she just wanted to get out the cold. Her toes and fingers were stiff from it.

He turned to the side, then back to her. His heart throbbed uneasily in his chest with his throat getting tight. It felt like his heart was trying to crawl into his mouth. He was unprepared. He'd played this scene out in his mind a billion times but not once did it involve unintentionally running into her in the middle of a bank heist while she was stuck hanging by her jacket on top of a building in the freezing cold. He rubbed his goggles as if that might help him see that she weren't actually there and maybe that he was just insane.

"Dahlia? Bloody hell, I've been lookin' for y'everywhere."

Dahlia's face dropped. She wanted to say that he could have fooled her. She wanted to point out he could have just come back to the tunnels, she did still live there after all. Most of all she wanted to glare icy daggers into his soul for leaving but she couldn't bring herself to it. Her mind darted to all the possibilities of why he didn't come back and settled against her will with giving him the benefit of doubt.

"I got a job." She blurted suddenly, directing the attention somewhere else.

Toad's mind jumped to the job he was on now and felt his palms sweat in panic. If he started asking about her job there was the possibility later on down the road- if there was a later- that she would ask about his job, and that, he couldn't have.

"Brilliant," He said and his eyebrows rose a bit. "Good f'you." He really did mean it.

"Yeah…" Her voice trailed off into an awkward silence between the two. The wind howled quietly.

"How'd y'get up there?" He raised an eyebrow. She shook violently from the cold.

"If you get me down, I swear you can ask all the questions you want."

Toad flipped open a pocket knife and Dahlia's ears pricked in alarm but he only cut her free. Being she were only a couple feet from the ground you would have thought she would land easily on her feet, but instead her leg gave out under her with a sharp gasp of pain. He caught her by the arm before she could hit the ground.

"S'matter?" He asked in alarm.

"Aah.." She reached down to touch her ankle and he came to the conclusion on his own.

"Y'ankle is twisted,"

"How do you know?" She asked a bit challengingly and he glowered slightly.

"Can you walk?"

Her ears went back and she looked away. "No."

"Then y'twisted it."

"Well, what if it's broken and I need to go to the hospital?"

He snorted and eased her down to the ground before pulling his jacket off to give it to her.

"Oh a mutant with a sprained ankle, brilliant, they'll love it."

"Well," She fake-scoffed like she'd done so often with him in the tunnels. "It wouldn't be a sprained ankle; it would be a broken ankle."

"I'm sure, love." His lip pulled back in a bit of a smile for a moment and she found herself smiling back. Though just as suddenly as the moment came on she dropped her smile and he found himself averting his eyes.

"I need to fix something," He said and started walking back around to the door.

Dahlia's mouth fell open. "But it's cold," She protested and leaned over to try and see where he was going.

"I'll take y'back to m'flat in a bit," He called to her from where he picked the lock.

"What?" Her ears pricked. What the hell was a flat?

"Apartment," He called back. He hoped she would be okay with that but it wasn't like she had much say in the matter at the moment. He wasn't keen on going back to the tunnels where Betsy would most likely hate the very existence of his soul along with Jinx. For all he knew she had her little tunnel mates on the lookout for him.

Dahlia sat back and blinked. He'd gotten an apartment? Maybe that was his reason for not coming back, though it wasn't a very good reason at all, he could have at least told her something. She furrowed her eyebrows and glared at the ground. What was he doing up there anyway? Now that she was getting warmer in his jacket, it made her curious.

She cocked her head to the side and listened to the hum of the air conditioners die down suddenly with confusion. He came back around a few moments later and pulled her back up. "Get on my back," He told her.

Dahlia's tail fluffed out. She'd seen him jump down from heights before.

"Why?" Her voice rose a bit. She perched herself against the wall and watched him turn around to crouch down.

"How else you expect to get down from 'ere?"

"You're going to jump from here?" Her voice got higher.

"Are you cold or not?" He retorted.

Dahlia tried to curl her toes but they moved stiffly and her skin was an odd color. She took a deep breath and put her arms around his neck. He walked over to the edge where he jumped down, earning a shriek from Dahlia.

Dahlia rested her chin on his shoulder in silence as he carried her back to his place. She couldn't help wondering why he didn't just jump the roof tops to get there but thought that maybe it had to do with the fact that she would probably scream at every jump. Nobody wanted to hear that.

They got a few strange looks but for the most part people left them alone. It was harder to see Toad's mutation at night than in the day and she had the hood of his jacket pulled up to hide her ears. She could see the fog clouding around his breath when he breathed and could have sworn she felt a shiver pass through him. She frowned a bit, feeling bad for taking his jacket, though noted that his hands were awfully close to her backside.

"Why don't you take me back to the tunnels?" She asked quietly as the scenery around them started to become more and more run down. Sketchy figures leaned back in the shadows, watching them pass.

"Too far," He said simply and she felt her ears go back. She didn't like the way he said that, it sounded different from how he normally spoke and left her wondering just how far they really were from the tunnels. She was certain even if they climbed into the tunnels from one of the manholes here she could totally find her way back, though that was likely far from true. She decided not to push her luck and get stranded.

She stared up at what she could only presume to be an apartment building. The bricks were dirty and aged with cracks running through the walls. Laundry was hung to dry off some of the balconies while it looked as if other windows had once had balconies but had lost them a long time ago. Dahlia's shivers died down farther as the heat in the building hit her.

A bit of a smirk crawled onto Toad's face for a moment when he felt her clutch onto him tighter. He would have thought with her being homeless for so long she would have been used to places like this by now but he supposed that Betsy tried to keep her close to home.

His smirk faded as he made his way up the stairs and remembered all the trash lying around his apartment, namely the various stolen wallets, cash, and IDs. He set her down in the hall while he unlocked his door.

"Wait 'ere."

"Why?" Dahlia looked down the empty hall nervously.

"Need t'clean up a bit," He shook the door knob and threw his weight against the door before he could open it.

"I don't mi-" She started to say but he closed the door behind him. She pouted. "Rude."

Toad looked around his messy apartment and took a deep breath. Empty beer bottles everywhere, an over-flowing trashcan, the IDs, wallets and crash on the coffee table, sheets tossed on the floor from his sofa, empty chip bags, a half-eaten bag of Oreos on top the fridge.

He moved quickly, first picking up the stolen goods and shoving them into a drawer in the kitchen. He attempted to discard the beer bottles in the trashcan but ended up pushing them under the kitchen sink. Throwing the sheets back over the sofa he went back to open the door quickly.

Dahlia's head snapped up and they stared at each other for a moment.

"Alright," He said.

"Okay?" She blinked.

"Come on,"

"…" She blinked again and pushed herself up, hopping on one foot towards him. He put her arm around his shoulder and helped her to the sofa.

Dahlia plopped down and looked around while he went into the kitchen.

"Clickers on the coffee table," He said, peering into his nearly empty cabinets. He grimaced; he really should have done more shopping but it wasn't like anyone ever stopped in for a chat.

Dahlia looked down quizzically, finding the remote where he said it would be. She flicked on the TV and curled up in the corner of the sofa.

"So, how 'bout it?" He asked, pulling a couple beers from the fridge; two beers, that was her limit. He didn't want her doing anything she regretted later and he didn't trust himself to stop her.

"How about what?" She turned in her seat to look at him.

He set the beers on the counter and turned to pull the bag of Oreos off the fridge. Glancing to his right his heart jumped at the dirty magazine he'd left sitting by the toaster. He took it quickly and stuffed it in the utensil drawer.

"The roof. Gettin' stuck."

"Oh," Turning to look back at the TV she saw some Disney movie was playing, it looked like Snow White. She wasn't too thrilled about telling him she'd gotten chased and ended up running barefooted on roofs. She frowned a bit.

He waited for her reply, watching her from the counter with a cocked eyebrow. Eventually he took the drinks and cookies to the coffee table in front of her and looked at her quizzically.

"Some peopllleee may have chased meee…" She said timidly, studying her toes and moving them now that the feeling was coming back.

"And?" He was starting to give her a rather nasty look and it made her squirm. He had always told her to be more careful, then again, everyone did.

"Yeeaahhh…" She curled her fingers over her toes. Toad took a drink from his beer, knee shaking nervously. He decided to drop the subject before he drove her off; he wasn't exactly in the position to be nitpicky with her.

Dahlia took a cookie from the package and twisted the two halves part before licking the inside. The TV was on mute but neither of them moved to turn the volume back on. Toad listened to her take a shallow, tense breath but kept his eyes fixed on the TV.

He looked back to his room, the one without a bed. He would have to get it later, things were too tense now. He rubbed the back of his neck and thought of the lack of soap in his bathroom.

"Shouldn't I ice it?" Dahlia asked, breaking the long silence.

Toad shook his head, "Hinders the healin'."

"I was always told to do that for swelling though,"

"The swellin's good, helps it heal."

"How?" She tilted her head to the side and turned her body to face him, resting her knees against the back of the sofa. He studied her for a moment before he replied.

"Swollen cells... they produce a hormone that helps with muscle regeneration." He nodded at her ankle. "If y'want it to heal faster, leave it. Swellin'll go down on its own."

"How did you find that out?" She asked, pulling his jacket off and putting it over the back of the sofa. It always surprised her when he knew something she didn't because his lack of formal education. Really, it seemed like he knew more than she did most the time. The thought irked her a bit; she'd always prided herself in her studies.

Toad shrugged and pushed the remainder of the Oreos closer to her. Dahlia took the cookies from the coffee table and placed them in her lap and pulled another one apart. They sat in silence again. Snow White had finished and a rerun of Everybody Loves Raymond was coming on.

"I love this show," Dahlia said absent-mindedly.

"It's good," He replied, nodding his head. He glanced at the beer on the table that was untouched and felt a sinking feeling in his stomach that she was reluctant to have any alcohol at all. He figured she didn't trust him either, he looked down at his fingers on the arm rest sadly, she had every right not to.

"Am I going to sleep here?"

"Y'could sleep outside," He forced a smile. "Freeze your arse off."

"I had enough ass freezing today," A shiver ran through her at the memory and she found herself telling him about the anti-mutant men despite her previous intentions.

Toad sucked on his teeth, trying to keep his anger down. He wanted to go out there and find them himself but downed the rest of his beer instead.

"My mutation though," She continued when he didn't only shook his head angrily. "It's been changing."

This caused him to look at her curiously.

"Changin'?"

"Yes, like," She wanted so badly to curl her tail over her feet but the cargo pants she wore prevented it; her tail stuffed into one of the pants legs. "A few months ago, sometimes my claws wouldn't always come out, remember? At least, not on every finger. Then, I couldn't always see really well in the dark, but now I see perfectly." She took another Oreo and twisted it apart to lick the inside. "I really don't like it though, it makes it difficult to sleep. Or maybe it's less that and more…something else."

He watched her pupils narrow into slits with thought for a moment before she looked up to him. "I don't know what though." Her ear twitched back and she sniffed. "What's that?"

"What's what? Don't have your ears, love."

"Not my ears..." Dahlia paused and continued to listen. His cat jumped up on the back of the sofa and she jumped back with a tiny shriek. Pulling herself onto the arm of the sofa she pointed at the cat.

"I'm allergic!"

He stared at her stupidly, then looked to his cat.

"What you mean?" He felt a bit defensive of his pet; he'd really taken a liking to Mittens. "You've got ears and a bloody tail."

"So?! I'm not a cat!" She protested, "Are you a Toad?"

He paused and seemed to think about this for a moment with a tilt of his head.

"Alright, good point." He scooped up Mittens and brought her to his bed room where he disappeared for a moment.

Dahlia pressed her lips together. She rubbed her furry ears then sniffed her hand to see if maybe she was allergic to herself. When she didn't have a reaction she shrugged. Turning her attention back to the TV she was just starting to wonder why he was gone for so long when he came back, something in his hand.

"I uh…I missed y'birthday." Toad said looking at her, leaned forward with elbows on his knees. "Felt bad 'bout it…Thought I'd make it up to you." He looked down and swallowed then held out a necklace to her. "Get y'something..."

Dahlia tilted her head and stared for a moment, then reached out with some hesitation. A small smile crawled up onto her lips and she looked at it sweetly. From a delicate golden chain, a tiny cat figure curled around a small pink pearl, holding it in place with a content smile and closed eyes as if it were sleeping.

She looked up at him slowly. "It has a pearl…" She said softly with her smile growing slightly.

"Yea, I remembered y'sayin' somethin' about pearls…" He bobbed his head a bit to the right when he spoke, wringing his hands together.

He looked at her hesitantly, fearing she didn't like it. He couldn't help the small smile that tugged at his lips at the look she gave him though. It made him think that maybe he'd done the right thing after all…even if he had stolen it.

If you read this far, please review. ^_^ I'd like to know what you guys think~ Thank you!