Tommy, Lorna- Lunch Time

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Tommy goes to find food and finds Lorna doing the same thing. They talk as Lorna prepares him something to eat before the conversation turns uncomfortable. At this rate, Tommy's going to never go in the kitchen again.


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It was an odd habit Tommy kept reminding himself to break but he still couldn't help sticking his head in and looking both ways before entering a room. The cautiousness was a weakness he couldn't afford to have, as it would just make him a target, but he still just couldn't help himself.

Tommy was hungry.

The current doorway he was peeking around was the entrance to the kitchen, a room he had avoided like the plague for a week.

When she'd gone wandering with the vague idea of a snack and maybe a trip to meet the new kid, Lorna hadn't expect to encounter him clinging to the doorframe of the kitchen, peering into the empty room like a particularly inept spy. Carefully, because he was bound to be jumpy, she cleared her throat and tapped him on the shoulder. "Is it safe or did Forge try to cook something again?"

Tommy tired very hard not to jump, he really did. Taking a deep breath, he steeled himself before turning around to face a beautiful woman...with green hair. Now he really couldn't help a raised eyebrow. "It is. I just didn't want to intrude on anyone. I am perfectly aware that not everyone welcomes my presence."

"Good point. I'm surprised you care." She smiled to take the sting out of it and held out her hand. "So you're Tommy. I'm Lorna. Are you going in there or just going to hang out here? Because I want yogurt and so you're either going to have to step aside or go in." Her voice was perfectly neutral, not really friendly but obviously not holding anything against him. He was a student, so he got the same chance to prove himself that all other new students did as far as she was concerned.

Tommy shook it casually. It was nice there were a few civilized fre...people here. "I'm going in. Can't live off what's in the suite fridge forever, especially with a roommate now." He did step aside to let her enter first.

"Welcome to the madhouse, by the way. The inmates run the place." She smiled again and slipped past him, heading for the fridge. "If I know the kitchen czars, and I do because I trained em, there should be a ton of stuff you can heat up." She grabbed a yogurt and peeled the top off, licking the foil clean out of habit. "Or, if you're not super hungry and can wait ten minutes, I can make you something. Since you're new and all."

His first reaction had been to go for the peanut butter in the cabinet, but Tommy quickly decided against it. Instead he opened the fridge to see what was among the things to heat up. "I can heat something up, I wouldn't want to inconvenience you." He pointedly ignored the comment about the inmates. He knew he wouldn't be able to pull punches if he commented on it.

Lorna shrugged, leaning against the counter next to the spoon drawer. "No inconvenience, I wouldn't have offered if it was. I don't teach anymore so it's not like I have anywhere to go." None of those other extracurricular activities either that used to eat up so much of her time. "I promise not to poison you."

Tommy pulled his head out of the fridge to look her over. Besides the green hair..."I highly doubt you have no where else to go..." He muttered before closing the door. "If you wouldn't mind. Nothing in there looks worth the effort." Tommy hadn't had a good cooked meal in ages, when not laying in a hospital bed anyway. He had grabbed a soda and moved over to the table.

"I really don't. The boyfriend was kidnapped by a rampaging set of littles and tossed into a snowbank, my best friend is probably listening to someone murder some kind of classical music and pretty much there's not anyone who really needs me around right now. Are you allergic to anything?" As soon as he'd agreed, she'd started moving, grabbing things seemingly at random while she talked. Anyone who knew her would have realized exactly how much she was playing around, just a little bit, making it seem like she wasn't entirely certain of what she was going to make.

Tommy just sat and listened to her ramble on, sipping his soda. While he didn't know her, she was way too at ease in this kitchen, grabbing - Show quoted text - ingredients and utensils with too much ease to be as clueless as she was trying to make him think. Tommy just rolled his eyes and kept sipping. "Nope, not that I know of. Of course, I didn't know I was mutant and look how that ended up..." He couldn't help the sarcastic quip, he really couldn't, so he figured he better start a conversation. It was better then sitting in silence. "So what did you teach around here?"

"Cooking," She flashed a smile at him as worked. "and Philosophy. I wasn't all that good at it. Never did manage to get Forge in my class." She paused and tilted her head to the side, apparently thinking then spun and vanished into the walk-in pantry. She re-emerged with an unlabeled jar of red sauce. "Thought I'd left this there. Anyway, these days, I'm just a student again."

And that just confirmed Tommy's thought, both the teaching cooking and the unlabeled jar. Did everybody here really take him for an idiot? "You seem a little old to be a student here, especially if you were a teacher. And Forge struck me as someone who would be rather good at philosophy so I assume it's the cooking class that gives you regret."

"I'm twenty-two, I'm not that old. I'm a junior at U of H." Her smile vanished and she looked briefly troubled, considering that wasn't precisely true. She'd never had the chance to start school. She shook her head to clear the thought. "And, no, it was the Phil that I couldn't drag him to. He's definitely good at Phil, just wrong. We disagreed rather strongly about a certain manifesto."

"I meant you were older then the student population here. And aren't most colleges in finals now? Shouldn't you still be in Hawaii then, since I'm assuming that's the U of H you were speaking of?" Then Tommy couldn't help but smile slightly, remembering his conversation with Forge. "I'd talk to him now. He feels rather differently. Personally, I thought it was rather dull and worth a laugh."

"I know he feels differently. He proved that the hard way," she said flatly, without looking at Tommy. This had been a very bad subject to get on but it wasn't as though the whole incident was a secret. "I'm not in Hawaii because I spent Fall semester learning first hand just how much Magneto is deadly serious in that book of his." She glanced at Tommy, "It's much less funny than you'd think."

Tommy frowned slightly as he thought through what she had just revealed, then shrugged slightly. "I can't be a judge on this, being FOH an all."

"Do you really still consider yourself one of those?" She grated parmesan cheese over the plate she'd prepped and took it over to the table setting it in front of him then sitting down in another chair and propping her chin on her hand. "Weird. Besides, I'd think you'd be in a really good position to judge how dangerous radical doctrines can be even without weird tricks of your genes to help out."

He picked at the chicken and pasta combination for a minute. "I don't know what else to consider myself, not yet anyway. Not quite FOH, not quite a mutant, mentally. Not to mention, the FOH doctrine isn't that radical, not nearly as bad as Lensherr's. It's just more to hold mutants responsible for the destruction they cause and to prevent anymore." Then Tommy shrugged and took a bite.

Lorna gave him an incredulous look. "Obviously we have different definitions of radicals. Anytime someone is murdered because of a doctrine, you're getting pretty radical in my book. How's the pasta?"

"They never murdered anyone." Tommy said softly. "I was different." He took another bite of the dish but he didn't really taste it. "It's good. Thank you."

"I wasn't talking about you and yes, they do. If you didn't know that, learn it now." Her voice was grim. She'd read the mission files, knew all the reports and even if she wasn't on the team anymore, she still remembered. "The company you kept has blood on its hands whether you liked it or not." Her tone was matter of fact, not accusatory, taking him at his word.

Tommy wanted to deny it, to prove her ignorance. But Duncan's words came back to him...but that was only because he was a traitor to their cause. He had never heard of an FOH killing a mutant, on purpose anyway. Sure, sometimes force was necessary, but not murder. Instead, he pushed back his plate, half eaten and stood. "I would like to thank you for the meal, it was very good. I guess I wasn't as hungry as I thought."

"Take it up with you. If you put it in something, it'll keep." She suspected that Tommy had more food for thought than he had food on his plate and didn't mind that at all.


He shook his head. "No, it's alright. I have to be getting to physio anyway. Thank you again." Picking up the plate, he picked it up and placed it next to the sink, not sure what the proper protocol was.

"You're welcome. I'll see you around, Tommy." She watched him go then finished her yogurt in silence, pondering the meeting and what the young man had said.