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Tabitha bopped her head along to the loud music coming from her headphones as she walked down the hall to the TV room. After a long day of doing...well, nothing, she was in the mood for some lounging around and watching TV. As everyone else seemed to be in their rooms, she was excited at the possibility of having the couch all to herself.

As she entered the room, however, she noticed the couch was already occupied. Alex sat in the middle of the couch with his head leaning back on the cushion, apparently concentrating very hard on his movie.

Tabitha turned off her CD player, plopped down on a nearby chair, and propped her feet up in the table in front of her. She looked at the TV and then, wrinkling her nose, turned back to Alex. "Lord of the Rings again? I mean, it's a good movie but there's only so much Legolas a girl can take, you know." She winked at him to show she was kidding.

Once he figured out what was going on around him, Alex settled back in the couch and gave Tabitha the smallest of smiles. "I know this movie by heart, wasn't even watching it to tell ya the truth. I guess I zoned out a bit..." He sighed and shook his head. "Just got a lot on my mind really..."

Tabitha cocked her head to the side. "Anything I can help with? I mean, I may not be the world's leading expert on, say, cheeses of the world, but I like to think I'm good at giving advice."

"Cheeses of the World would be Lorna's specialty..." He laughed softly then sighed. "This whole thing with Jono's just got me a little shook up is all..." He leaned back farther in the couch, his eyes looking at the ceiling. This had him more then shook up, it had him terrified...

"Ahh," Tabitha nodded. "I can understand that. When I was younger..." she trailed off, not really wanting to go into that. "When I first discovered my powers, I nearly, well, all right, I did, I singed my eyebrows off!" She laughed. "It took me some time to control all my energy--that's all you really need is some practice. See, I can conjure up these little energy balls--I won't do it now because there's nowhere to get rid of them--and my timing is still a little off, but hey." She shrugged. "At least I know I can control when I create my energy."

Alex snorted when she commented about controlling her energy, taking it as sarcastic and he got slightly offended, though it didn't quite occur to him that Tabitha didn't know about his own powers, only commenting about Jono's. "Singed off eyebrows? I blew up a beach and the people on it..." His voice had an undertone of anger, but he kept his eyes on the ceiling. "I wish I could practice control and creation...But no, I'm like Jono in that way...I can't control it, not until it suddenly decides blows up everything in sight." He couldn't help it, he started rambling. Everyone had gotten so much on Jono's case about having no control, but they had no idea how helpless having no control felt.

"Blew up a beach?" Tabitha asked, sitting up. "What kind of powers do you have? I mean, you don't have the whole glowy thing that Jono does..." She trailed off, waiting for Alex to answer.

Alex picked his head up and looked at her, really for the first time since she came in the room. "You know Scott's power right? Picture them without the visor and coming out of my hands and you got my powers in a nut shell..." He grinned sadly. "I have no control over them, they just decide to blow up randomly."

"So you do the energy out of the hands thing too, eh?" She nodded absently, looking down at her own hands. "That's cool...but they just go off randomly? You can't feel it coming or stop it or...they just go off?

Alex thought about these for a moment, his gaze flitting from her hands to his own resting in his lap. "I can feel the energy always inside me. When they are about to blow, my hands burn, like they're on fire and then the flood gates drop and the energy just comes pouring out. It would be like trying to stop a broken dam..." But Alex was intrigued now that Tabitha had made the connection in their powers. "What does it feel like for you?" He sat forward a bit, very curious.

"What does it feel like?" She sat back in her chair again, relaxed. "Well, when I'm not creating my little energy balls, it's just--It's like I know that I can do something, that there's something there I can make, but that's only like if I really think about it. When I'm just out doing my thing, that's it. I just feel normal like I always did before. When I'm creating the energy, though, well, obviously that's different." She laughed. "I guess I've never really thought about it before. But when I'm concentrating, I have to focus on...on that knowing, the knowing that I've got something there. I just pull it out from wherever it hides and bring it forth into my hands. I've never been able to create it anywhere else, like how Scott can do it with his eyes. It's just always my hands." She looked back down at her hands again. "But it never felt like fire to me, not really. More like just a really warm feeling."

Alex listened intently to everything she said, hoping beyond hope something in her words would help him. "Knowing..." Alex said softly more to himself. "I never really thought about it that way before. For me, I've always known it was there, but, like, it was behind a wall I couldn't breach. Once I can breach that wall on command, I know I'll be able to learn to control it...maybe if I know I can breach it..." Alex shook his head and smiled at Tabitha, really truly smiled. "Thank you."

Tabitha grinned back. "No problem. And hey, if you ever want help, maybe like practicing your powers or whatever, since ours are similar, just ask. It would be kind of fun to start using my powers again...in a non-Let's have fun and blow up that watermelon kind of way." She giggled.

Alex laughed at the thought. "When I get control, you'll be the first I turn to for help. Private Lessons would certainly be amusing." He grabbed the remote and turned off the TV. It was the part in Lorien anyway and that was just boring. Then an idea sparked in his head. "Hey Tabitha, you skate at all?"