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Cally slumps down at a open table with a tray almost overflowing with salad and onion rings. She still has band-aids all over her hands, but she's smiling as she eats.

She wonders if anyone will join her.

Anders shows up with a mountain of onion rings piled onto the steak on his plate, and four glasses of milk balanced precariously on the edges of his tray.

"Food is good," he declares before sitting down. "Hi."

After seeing Victor storm off (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/750245.html?thread=35803813#t35803813), Cally finishes her salad quickly and grabs a handful of onion rings and hurries off after him, concernedly.

Anders blinks. "O . . . kay," he says, and goes back to his lunch, maybe looking slightly disappointed. But still very, very hungry.

Nadia grabbed a little bit of everything and grabbed a seat over by the windows, where she immediately pulled out her Chemistry textbook and notes.

She had an exam tomorrow, after all.

Her food went largely ignored, but at least it kept her from headdesking too often. There was still a fair amount of facepalming, though.

Victor approached with his tray and stopped a few feet from Nadia. "Are you ready to talk or are you going to run away from me again?"

Nadia had been mid-facepalm when Victor approached, so she hadn't seen him coming. When she heard him speak, she slowly slid her hand down her face and peered at him over her fingers.

She remembered what Pip had said, about not being able to avoid the issue forever.

If nothing else, it would take her too long to pack up her books to make running away worth it.

"Yeah, okay, let's talk."

Victor sighed and sat down across from Nadia. "Good. Look, I'm sorry if I freaked you out the other day, but I can't help being a mutant. I know my claws are scary. Fuck, I was terrified when I found out I had them. But they're a part of me, okay? I've been working on controlling them, and I'm doing a really great job, so you don't have to worry about them anymore, okay? The're my problem, not yours."

Nadia blinked and frowned. That . . . wasn't really what she thought this conversation would be about. "I don't care that you're a mutant, Victor. And I'm not afraid of your claws." She shut her textbook with an audible *thump*. "Well, not afraid for me, anyway."

Victor raised an eyebrow. "What do you mean?"

A pit grew in his gut as he suspected what she was about to say.

Nadia closed her eyes briefly and sighed. She really, really didn't want to be having this conversation, because she really, really was going to end up looking like the crazy woman from the movie she watched last night: jealous and, well, crazy. But this wasn't about jealousy.

Okay, it wasn't entirely about jealousy.

"You hurt Walter, Victor." She held up a hand to keep him from interrupting her. If she didn't say this now, she was never going to and that would drive her nuts. "I know it was an accident, Walter, Pippi, Pip, they all told me that. But accident or not, you physically caused him damage. And I've seen more than enough people get hurt by their boyfriends to know, even when it's an accident, it's not good. Walter cares about you; that's pretty obvious. And that might make him miss the signs if he's in any danger." As she spoke, Nadia stacked up her notes and her textbook. Because once she was done, Victor was probably never going to want to see or speak to her again, and she didn't really have an apetite any more.

"I can't tell you not to be together." She laughed slightly, a little bitterly. "As much as I may want to. Neither of you would listen to me, anyway. Just know this: if you hurt Walter again, accidentally or on purpose? I will hurt you back."

[ooc: the views presented in this comment are those of the character being played, and do not represent the opinions or views of the mun playing the character. A vague disclaimer is nobody's friend.]

Victor stumbled for words as he was overwhelmed by all the guilt that he'd been trying to get rid of. The claws in his left foot stuck out, and he began to shift a little into the color of the table.

Finally, when he could speak, it was with a wavery voice. "Look...you don't know how sorry I am that I hurt him. I wanted to kill myself that day when I realized what I did. Sometimes, when I see his scars, I almost wish I had."

He shook his head and wiped his eyes. "I thought we were done with this. I thought that when you said you weren't going to go after Walter anymore, you were telling the truth. But I guess I was wrong. but n-no matter how much you try to hurt me or hurt him or hurt us, you're not going to get what you want. Excuse me."

He got up and dumped his food, then exited the cafeteria in tears. He really didn't feel like eating anymore.

[ooc: But the mun still *heart*s you!]

Pip happened to be walking into the lunch room at just that moment as Victor rushed by him, crying. He looked back down the hall, then towards Nadia. He walked over, sat down without getting any food, and lit a cigarette.

"So. What happened?"

Nadia had been about to try and run after Victor when Pip came over and sat down.

Maybe it was best to leave him alone, instead. She'd probably just end up digging herself deeper.

She pushed her food and books aside and put her head in her hands. "It didn't go well."

"Hi guys!" said Pippi with oblivious cheerfulness. "What didn't go well?"

Pip looked at Nadia. It was her place to decide if she wanted Pippi to know about this or not.

Oh, this just kept getting better. Nadia let her head drop down to the table. "I'm pretty sure Victor hates me."

Pippi seems surprised by this. She looks at Nadia, then at Pip, then back aain, and then says, "Do you want to talk about it? Or should I leave?"

Pip looked at Nadia again. "Your call," he said.

"I'll leave." Nadia picked up her books and her lunch tray. "I'm not really hungry any more, anyway."

Yes, totally confused.

"But..."

Nadia dumped out her food and clutched her books to her chest as she headed for the door.

Pippi is torn between going after her friend and complying with her obvious wishes to be away from her.

She looked at Pip.

"I'm sorry." she said sitting very still, waiting to see if he would leave too.

"Let her go," Pip said. "She wants to be alone right now, most likely. Though dropping by to find her and/or Victor later would probably be a good idea." He took a drag on his cigarette. "Both of them probably need to know that they we still like them."

Walter walked in, having missed the entire encounter, and loaded up his tray before joining his friends.

"What's going on?" he asked, looking at Pippi's face.

"Life," Pip said. "Billions of people walking through the world and interacting each other while, at the same time, having no idea what we're doing only the slightest understanding of what we're all trying to say. You know, the usual."

Pippi plays with the edge of her tray absently trying to figure out what just happened.

"That's the sort of answer that answers not a thing and makes a person want to ask more questions. What's going on?"

Pip sighed and massaged his temples. "Honestly? I'm not entirely sure myself. But..." he looked up at Walter seriously. "You might want to talk to Nadia. And Victor. Both of them. Together."

Pippi is slightly encouraged that maybe nobody is upset with her. Her hands are resting on the table, she doesn't move them but gently bumps shoulders with Pip.

"Not such a great week huh?" she says wish a small smile.

"I thought the day had started well. Something happened with Nadia and Victor?"

He grimaced and lit a cigarette. "Tell me that these things can be worked out."

"God I hope so, because everyone being emo is driving me nuts," Pip said. He took a drag and exhaled a puff of smoke. "Weeeell... either they'll tell you eventually or they won't, and if they don't they should, so I suppose there's no harm in me telling you."

He tapped out the ashes of his cigarette into a ~~handwaved~~ ashtray before continuing. "Nadia and Victor are... somewhat at odds right now. I'm not exactly sure what happened ten minutes ago, but it ended with Victor leaving in tears followed by Cally and Nadia convinced that Victor hates her and wanting to be left alone." Another drag. "Whatever happened at this lunch table, I know exactly what it was about," he said.

He pointed at Walter with his cigarette.

Bugger.

"That..." sucks. "What am I supposed to do about this?"

Pip smiled mirthlessly. "I really wish I had an answer to that. But I honeslty don't know what just happened between Vic and Nadia, so there's no really good answer I can give. What I can tell you is, for the love of all things holy, do not take sides. You've got to remain neutral in this or things are just going to get way, way worse."

He took a drag on his cigarette. "Actually, you know what you can do about this? Call Alfred. He's supposed to be your mentor, isn't he? Seems like this is the type of thing you'd ask a mentor for advice about."

Normally this is where Pippi would say something innocent, sage, and helpfull.

Right now, she's got nothin.

"That sounds like a good idea."

"Don't take sides? Easy for you to say." Walter took another drag off his cigarette and looked at his lunch. "Maybe I'll go one better and go have lunch at the restaurant. Better food and I can talk to Alfred then."

"Yeah, I know," Pip said. "But it doesn't matter as much if I take sides as it would if you did. Right thing to do's the hard thing to do and all that." He made a waving motion with his hand. "Go, get out of here. Stuff here makes you break out in show tunes or something."

With a nod and wave for Pip and Pippi, Walter got up and dumped his food. "I'll see you both later."

Pippi waved back. "See ya." She said as she watched him go then looked at Pip.

"We're okay... right?"

"'Course," Pip said, smiling a little. "You and I are just fine."

That makes Pippi happy.

Pippi nodded and looked down at her tray, after a moment she pushed it away.

"So..." She considered the list of questions about what just happened she'd like to ask.

"... How's your day going?"

"So far? This is par for the course," Pip answered. He looked up to see Walter approach (http://community.livejournal.com/fandomhigh/750245.html?thread=35827365#t35827365) the table.

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