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Sammy took John flying again.  Getting him used to doing some of the more elaborate maneuvers she's gotten used to.  His fears seem to be retreating some, but his attempts to fly are still less than flight and more like delayed falling.  When he lands from sixty feet up he makes a dent in the ground, Sammy can imagine the effect that might have if it were concrete and he did it in front of a bad guy.

"Maybe I don't actually fly?"

"The other you did.  You can too.  I still say its guilt."  She gives him a knowing glance.  "And now you feel guilty around me too, so its worse than before.  What is it with you and pieces of metal in your chest?"

"It was my back...chest.  And it's not guilt.  I got Jakob to take it out as soon as there was time."  He makes another leap upwards, and hovers there for a second and another and then plummets to the ground.  "It's not like the paramedics could have done anything, and I'd have had to try and explain it to them."

A martial light is lit in Sammy's eyes.  "Bull!  YOU hustled ME off into an ambulance, and YOU were hurt worse than me.  I was just stunned a little bit, and I've been burned worse from the kitchen stove.  All I needed was somebody to force me to sit down.  But you -- I'm paranormal too, you still thought it was worth the risk of me going -- we could have called Jack.  I bet he knows somebody.  Or Colin's mom's cop boyfriend -- I bet he knows people too, real doctors or nurses or medics who wouldn't ask too many questions.  What if"  strain creeps into her voice "What if it had been worse than you thought it was, and when Jakob pulled the metal out, you bled to death before your body could heal itself?  Its okay for you to take chances, but dammit!  How could you risk doing that to him?  Or me?  I would move the earth to help you, to help any of you, you know that.  I would have found somebody."

She abruptly spins, turning her back to him and hovering above his head, just out of reach.

OOC: You go, girl! Alicia is there in spirit, cheering you on! ;D

"I still would have needed someone strong, and Jakob was the only person I could think of.  I wasn't taking as big a risk as you think, I'm way more careful than that.  I'm sorry, I didn't want to upset you, and it wasn't me being Macho.  It was."  He pauses.  John takes a slow breath.  "I don't get to feel that very often, pain.  It's still, it's like when you get a cut and you keep touching it.  It hurts, you know it's going to, but you touch it anyway.  It's a strange sensation for me.  I'm sorry."

Sammy's skeptical voice drifts down from her elevated position.  "You wanted to hurt?"  She lets out a groan of frustration and mutters "I will never understand--"

She spins again, this time ending upside down and eye to eye with him, so that her hair hangs like jungle vines from the tree canopy down toward the ground.  "OK.  But unless I'm unconscious, tell me next time so I don't have to freak out when I get another phone call from Alicia telling me about el punto de acero grande Jeh-kob pulled out of your chest.  She tells very colorful stories.  Lots of details."

Still upside down, she begins rotating clockwise around him.  "If its just about feeling human, feeling ordinary, feeling pain, we'll figure out another way.  There are plenty of ways to hurt out there, it shouldn't take too long.  There are plenty of ways to feel normal too; why the hell do you think I threw snowballs at you last week?  I could dish it out anyway I wanted, you could fight back however you wanted, and neither one of us was overly worried about it.  That's normal.  At least it made me feel normal."

"She does have a colorful way with words."  John comments.  Watching Sammy orbit him upside down.  "I'll make sure to tell you if something like that happens again.  I don't want you to worry that I don't feel human, or normal.  I came to the realization a long time ago that normal is a state of mind.  I'm perfectly normal, for me.  As for human, it's just little things that creep up on me sometimes.  I was afraid to kiss a girl for a long time.  Then one day a girl kissed me.  Eventually I got the courage and confidence to kiss a girl on my own.  Just some things are harder now, adolescence and all.  Things are complicated, and even more so with the thought that my powers might change too.  I made sure to turn over a new leaf when we came here though.  No more loner John.  So you don't have to worry about me, really."

"Uh-huh" Sammy replies.  Her still dangling hair is toyed with by a playful breeze, causing it to do some odd little snake dance.

She suppresses a nearly overwhelming urge to make him jump up and down like a completely (instead of the routine "just moderately") deranged Jack Russell terrier if he wants to maintain eye contact with her.

"OK.  I won't worry.  At least not so loudly.  But if you freak me out again, I am so telling your mom on you."

"The last thing she needs is to worry.  So I'll make sure to keep you in the loop if I get injured."  He reaches out to brush her hair as she makes an orbit.  "This brings up something though.  What propelled it and hard enough to do the damage it did.  I don't want anyone else getting clobbered by one of those things.  And if it's someone we're going to come into conflict with, then it's a possibility."

"I could set up an air wall around us, but I don't know how big of one I can make.  And people have to be able to move."  Her hair, seemingly having a mind of its own, dances away from his hand as she continues her upside down journey, perfectly content to remain inverted.  "Maybe we should find what propelled it, before it finds us again.  I don't remember -- was it aimed at you?  I was kind of busy counting stars and wondering how much the pavement was going to hurt when I splatted."

John shakes his head.  "I spotted the glint, thought it was shrapnel from the bus.  It was headed at Gena Ballestra.  She might have been the target, or maybe just a convenient target?  I get the feeling we'll end up talking to her."  John stops batting at her hair.  He looks down, and notices almost a foot between his shoes and the ground.  It's short lived, the reality set in he falls back to the earth.  He sits down and laughs.  "Ok, I almost flew.  Floating counts, right?"

Sammy whoops with joy, and does a sort of flip down to the ground, catching his arms with her hands, pulling him up and spinning him around.  "FLOATING COUNTS!"  she crows triumphantly.  "FLOATING DEFINITELY COUNTS!"

John laughs, "I think the thing I like most about hanging out with you is that you make being happy seem so easy." 

This momentarily confuses Sammy because even from her own perspective, she leans kind of heavy on the angst.  But that is displaced by the sheer joy of the moment.  Another flyer!

She laughs back at him.  "Fibber.  You've seen me mopey and miserable plenty of times.  You're just drunk on flight juice and maybe a little bit of ozone.  I get giddy off of flight and speed and not being cold, so of course we're both happy.  Plus I'm so proud of you and happy for you right now I could explode!"

John shakes his head and smiles.  "Infectious.  Mom always says happiness is infectious.  I'm happy that you're happy."

OOC: Unless there are pressing things you wish to say IC, this might be a good place to end.

OOC:  nothing pressing.