Morgan & Adrienne | Tuesday Night

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Morgan says her first goodbye in light of her decision to go back to Mág Ealga.

Morgan was already halfway through her second pint by time Adrienne slipped into the booth across from her. Without any preamble whatsoever Morgan stated plainly, "I'm going home." It seemed an odd statement for the metamorph who didn't actually have a home, not really by anyone's standards. She stayed in a place until the job was done and that was it, they moved onto somewhere else. Xavier's had become home-like, she'd settled and nearly put the tips of roots into the ground, but it only got that distinction because she hadn't been there for a job. Funny how she ended up shooting people even though it was a necessary break from working so she could manage to not be a hazard to her guys while in the field.

"What the hell?" Adrienne exclaimed, confused and rising from the booth. "I just got here! How can you be ready to go already?"

"Aye, not yet, cupcake," the white-haired woman replied as her red eyes rolled up to meet Adrienne's. "Sit down. Aye, and not that home either. I'm leaving. As in no longer located in town, or even in the country, kind of leaving."

"Oh! " She sat back down. It wasn't a surprise to hear, really. Adrienne was a businesswoman. She knew how the world worked. You stayed in a place for a time, took what you needed from it- and from the people there- and then when something more appealing came along, you pursued it. She'd been living that way long enough to recognize when others were doing it, and Morgan was one of the people most likely to subscribe to that way of living.

So it wasn't a surprise. But her face fell anyway. "Got a better job, or something?" she asked casually.

A shrug was as eloquent as Morgan was getting right now. It wasn't that she had no emotions, but actually expressing most of them wasn't her strong point. It made her uncomfortable to do when she was being herself and not someone else. It felt wrong. Like playing pretend. Funny that. "Not exactly a factor. I just want to go home. You creep through a city, shoot a bunch of psychos and generally try to take down the bad guy but in the end why do you do it? I have no investment in these people or in that city. It's not mine, but I went along for the ride." Morgan took a long drink. "Miss working, I think. So I want to go home. I can't stand still any more, cupcake. Starting to twitch too much."

Adrienne listened to the excuses and nodded. "Makes sense. Hell, if I didn't have to work on my powers some more I'd be back in London in a second. And if anywhere can break the time records for making a person twitchy, it's the mansion. When are you leaving?"

"Dunno." Without looking a hand went up to signal for another round. She figured blue was enough to grab someone's attention long enough for it to be useful. If not, well, she could flag someone properly if need be. "Soon, though. I need to figure out exactly where the boys are moving to and when before I pick up and go."

"Is this a recent decision or have you been thinking of doing this for a while now?" Adrienne asked, sipping at the wine Brier had brought her. It wasn't as if she cared either way- she didn't care if it had been an extensively thought out, difficult decision to leave or if the blue woman had just up and decided to drop everything and everyone she'd become familiar with and just take off; she was only asking to make conversation.

"It was always going to happen." That was the simple truth of it and while she'd been missing the guys for a while now she hadn't previously thought about when she'd return to them in depth at all. It was always this vague thought of when she was better, when she had a confident grasp on her powers, when it was time she would know it and then she'd go. As it was she was better with her powers but not as good as she'd have liked to be before going back, but it was time. Morgan knew it was time.

With a small forced smile, Adrienne nodded. "It was just a matter of time, right?"

"Pretty much." Morgan went rifling in her back pocket and pulled out a small business card. It was blank except for a hand scrawled international phone number on it, the country code of which indicated the mobile's plan was in Austria. She slid it across the table to Adrienne but took a swig from her new pint before explaining what it was. On the back of the card was written a single word, Ness.

"What's this?" the brunette asked with a raised eyebrow. "Number of your messaging service?" She'd had one herself when she'd been traveling so much as a model in her late teens- before the age of cell phones. "Is this in case I need you or something?" she added, with a slight scoff in her tone.

"Aye, if it's something important," Morgan replied seriously. "I don't just abandon people and if you need help in my part of the world you should be able to find me. That's the only number that will and that's only to be used for something serious." She nodded toward the card in Adrienne's hand. "It's not a message service, it's a cell phone."

Adrienne narrowed her eyes. "You're giving me your Batsignal?" She was touched, really, that Morgan considered her to be someone she didn't want to abandon. And yet the stipulations that went with the card seemed almost to discount the gesture. She put the card back on the table. "Do you really think I'm the sort of person who calls to chat, Morgan? Tell you about my day, about something funny one of the students said or call to whine if I missed out on a deal I wanted? I manipulate people. I take what I need from them, when I need it. You already know that. So did you really think I needed the lecture about calling when something's serious?"

Morgan didn't seem to look fazed by Adrienne's words. In fact, it almost seemed as if she hadn't been listening at all. She stared at the older woman, blinked a few times, and took another drink the way chain smokers sometimes took a drag, languidly and savoring every moment of it. "Do I think you need it? No. But if I give it anyway there's no question. You know what it is, what it's for and you can never pretend you didn't know. Sometimes it's not about either of the people involved but having the without a doubt security of being on the same page." Maybe it didn't make sense to Adrienne but it did to Morgan. Even common sense fled sometimes and if you stated the obvious you eliminated the possibility of ever having an excuse that sounds an awful lot like but I didn't know.

"Oh." She hadn't been expecting that answer. "Alright then." She drank some of her wine and contemplated Morgan's leaving for several moments, letting it sink in fully. "Well, not that I really liked you that much or anything, but I'm feeling a little put out over having no one to play the Wii with anymore," she frowned. "Garrison and Amanda both suck."

Morgan snorted and her face twisted unpleasantly as beer went up her nose instead of down her throat. After clearing her throat she tried again to take a sip but the burning feeling was still there in her nostrils and kept her face twisted up unhappily. "Maybe you can train Garrison. He's a guy, they train well don't they? Give him treats when he does stuff right and smack his nose when he shits in your shoes or summat."

"I don't like training pets," Adrienne responded, smiling delightedly at the fact she'd managed to make Morgan snort beer. "And I don't think cops train well to be anything except cops," she mused, fiddling absentmindedly with the saints medal around her neck. "I feel a little odd for not having a Batsignal to give you," she admitted after some thought. "Not that you'd be needing my help anyway. I don't know how much longer I'll be at the school, but you can always leave a message for me at my Boston office if you need to."

"And here I was hoping there was a Cupcake Signal somewhere. Giant cupcake in the sky and you'd miraculously materialize out of thin air." Morgan's voice had taken on its usual playful teasing now that work and duty, as she saw it, was taken care of. "Just back to life as usual once you're out of here? When are you out of here? Once you're done being fixed and tuned up?" The blue woman wiggled her fingers at Adrienne to indicate it was the psychometrist's powers to which she referenced.

The psychometrist laughed amiably. "Well, if you put those pictures with me in the dog collar and stilettos and cupcake anywhere I can see, I'll miraculously materialize out of thin air pretty damn fast," she joked. As to Morgan's questions, she could only shrug. "Dunno when I'll leave." The truth was that there was no particular reason for her to stay. She hadn't had a power overload since the Professor had put the circuit breaker in her head, and Adrienne knew she could help the FBI and study mental shielding and meditation with Nathan and Emma from anywhere in New York, or Boston. She could be a teacher anywhere in the world. So she couldn't articulate exactly what was keeping her at the school. "You're making it sound like a prison," she pointed out with a smirk.

"Maybe it is." Morgan smiled a bit though, not really meaning it. "It's sort of a bit more like a vacation resort, you know? You take some time out of your actual life and do this thing which is oddly more relaxing and oddly more demanding than real life is. Eventually you pack your bags, get on the plane and it's back to full-time reality. That's just how it goes." Morgan made a bit of a face as if it didn't really make sense and then took a swig of beer. "Maybe that's just the Morgan version."

"No, I think that's mainly what it is," Adrienne chuckled. "Although in your line of work I think your reality is closer to the madness that is the mansion than you realize." She was beginning to feel antsy, like the longer they sat in the booth the longer she would be forced to think about Morgan leaving. And she didn't want to think about it. "I want to go," she announced. "Do you want to go play Wii or something?"

"War is not crazy people taking over New York City randomly, and it's a hell of a lot less weird than most of what goes on around that place." She nodded in the general direction of the mansion. War, Morgan thought, was more logical. Sure, it didn't always make sense, but you always knew that war was the cause of one person wanting something and someone else not wanting to give them it. Or maybe it was them both wanting the same thing and fighting over it. In simplistic terms, that's what it always was.

After emptying her glass completely Morgan nodded to Adrienne. "Yeah, let's go 'or something' with ourselves."

"Let's go." The brunette stood and grinned at her companion. "I'm not saying goodbye to you, you know," she informed the white-haired woman. Goodbye implied that they wouldn't see each other again, and Adrienne didn't accept that. "I know you're going to end up throwing yourself at me at some point in the future and we'll see each other again. So... don't get yourself killed, okay? It'll probably make me cranky."

"It'll be so much harder for me to seduce you if you're cranky." She intentionally paused before adding, "And dead. I don't fancy you're much of a necrophiliac, are you?" Her eyebrows waggled as a smirk appeared on her face to accompany the movement. Morgan fell in step with Adrienne and headed toward the door. "I don't like 'good-bye' anyway so I'm not too torn up about it. We should cause some trouble before I go, though." A devilish grin spread across her face as Morgan held the door open for the older woman. "How do you feel about potentially getting arrested? A misdemeanor only, I swear."

Adrienne laughed at the suggestion, shaking her head emphatically. "I can't get arrested for anything, remember? I have to keep my nose clean these days. But you go right ahead," she offered, grinning. "I'll be more than willing to let you take all the credit."

Morgan gave her the most sickeningly sweet and innocent look she could manage. "Only if you promise to bail me out."

"Always," Adrienne said with a nod and a tiny smile, "Ness." She teased out the last syllable, knowing it probably wasn't Morgan's real name but it didn't really matter.