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Matt and Shelia caught a late showing of the movie.  It was an escape for a couple of hours, and as they leave the theatre to walk home Shelia wraps her arms around on of Matt's as they go.

"I really appreciate the company.  Mom and Dad are having a hard time over Rory's death.  They keep arguing about what they did wrong, even though it's not their fault.  I think what' worse is that they had to do an autopsy, and so we can't bury him until that's done.  Mom is really having a hard time with that.  No closure I guess."

Matt stiffens slightly when Sheila touches him - not because he minds, in fact he's decided that he definetly do not mind, just because he's still a mite uncomfortable - but her subsequent explanation puts him more than at ease. Was that dissapointment? Naah. Mixed relief surely, he's got no reason to be dissapointed, after all he predicted this anyway. Yep, that's it. "Yea, he--" he's about to make a remark on how Rory did say they worried too much, but then thinks better of it, as a mind set at ease is a mind working just slightly better than it used to. "No problem Sheila," he say instead, trying to make his tone seem as warm as he can. "I-- I miss him too, and well, my home situation's been odd for a long time, so I think I can probably use the company of a friend as well." He smiles a genuine smile as he realize he's not telling a plactating lie after all.

After a moment however he catches on to what she said. "Wait-- autopsy? Wouldn't just a good old R-factor check be enough? I mean nothing but a r-factor could have caused something like that after all, unless he's gone near any nuclear tests or the like recently and forgot to mention it. That, or someone else, another r-factor positive - powered - person nearby transformed him against his will, but that'd be... naah, it had to have been Rory himself?"

[OOC: Just general check-up to see if Matt's all up on his metastuff nowadays; general Knowledge (Paranormal Physiology) check (1d20+10=28) (http://invisiblecastle.com/find.py?id=623730). Note that I'll probably not be able to check back in until tomorrow.]

"They said he wasn't positive."  Shelia begins, "They thought it might have been drugs, since the other kid had something in his sytem.  That came back negative too.  They said they were gonna have to have someone else look at him, some college in Massachucettes, Misty-something"

((OOC: Miskatonic, it's the premiere university for the study of magic in the US.  With NO R-Factor gene there is no way the transformation wasn't caused by some outside influence.  There have been a few accounts of people having powers that made other people transform, but there is usually some kind of contagion like a virus or something.))

"He hadn't mentioned anything, except he was waking up tired a lot lately.  Like he wasn't slepping too well."

"Huh... not sure what to make of that, I haven't been sleeping all to well lately, and it's not like I've been turning into-- changing, that is." He just barely catches himself. She seems a lot more stable than he'd have been in her situation, still saying that her brother turned into a monster, well, there are limits for everyone.

"Miskantonic U? Huh, so they think it's magic-related... maybe we could talk to Sarah, she seem pretty into the magic bit. Personally I just view magic as a-- okay sorry, not the time for geek stuff. But yea, we should ask Sarah. Huh... okay, let's go with the tired bit, had he been complaining about that for a long time, like months or just days? If it's months then it'd just be plain old normal stuff, but days before would seem odd. Anything else change with him that you remember, anything that seemed just the least bit odd? I'm sorry if this is hard, I'm just... well he was the only friend I've had in a *long* time, and just the thought that something or someone did this to him..."

"I understand.  You were the only friend Rory had for so long, I understand.  Uh, he'd only been complaining about not leeping well  since just after school started.  I thought it was just stress though.  He'd been pretty worried about starting school."  Shelia thinks over the last couple of weeks, trying to find anything in her memory that might help.  "Ugh, nothing.  The only thing is the fact that you and he started hanging out, everything else just seems routine."

"Huh, I--" for a moment Matt thinks that maybe he caused Rory to change somehow, projecting all his anger into him... but that's ridiculous, Matt's not even a super! "Well, then I don't know what it could be. We could try asking Sarah monday, maybe she got some insight into the magic angle of it that I'm missing."

He stays quiet mostly for the rest of the way home - unless Sheila got more to add - apart from offering to walk her home.

When they get to Shelia's house she pauses at the front porch.  "Thanks for keeping me company."  She says as she gets her keys out of her pocket.  "I really appreciate it."  She hugs Matt, then heads inside, "Goodnight."  she says, as she waves from inside the house and closes the door."

Matt waves back at her, then starts heading home. He briefly thinks of heading over to the big party, but as soon as the thought appears he comes to the conclusion that he would stick out like a sore thumb... that was stuck up a horse's ass, making same horse kick the thumb's owners in the nuts. Yep, that'd be about it.

Briefly he starts thinking up a fantasy - as he often does in these times - of him being able to turn into a dashing supercharming guy that'd be the focus of the party. Yea, that'd be sweet. Actually being just anything but himself would be sweet, even turning into a big hulking monster as long as he'd avoid the heart attack after like Rory did.

Man, Rory, what the heck happened there? So he was not a super, they couldnt figure out what happened to him, and now they were going to have some so-called wizard come in and look at him, to dissect his corpse like if he was a toad on an operating table? Hadn't poor Sheila and her family gone through enough already?!? It all made Matt just so furious.

When he comes home he stays up most of the night researching transformation powers on the net.

[OOC: should I roll anything or would it just be a part of my Knowledge skill? Also, unless something big happens on the way you can probably archive this.]