The car was a literally a piece of crap, but he was in heaven.

It was a 1976 442 that was rusted over, had no working lights, and had a questionable odour, but the engine ran well, so who was he to complain?  It would make a good summer project for himself, and anyone else, if they so chose.  That being said, he was almost guaranteed to just work on it himself, but he'd promised Ada he'd try to find himself a hobby, something to occupy his time.

This would work.

He had just finished looking the car over, detailing in his head all the things he needed to do, when something caught his eye.  A woman, he'd never seen before, opening the door to what he believed to be Matty's car.

"Hey!," he called out, heading towards the car. "What are you doing? That's not your car."

Gaia had gotten back to the school somewhere in the realm of four, but hadn't gone inside yet. It was starting to get dark, but she couldn't bring herself to care too much about the passage of time.

She wandered, getting angrier and angrier as she thought about what she'd gone home to and the torn pictures. Those animals! She wanted to throw things to hit people and get pissed out of her fucking skull.

Now who to go with her? Because that sort of evening demanded an accomplice.

About then she heard the strum of a banjo. Not Gaia's favorite instrument, but whoever was playing it was pretty damn good. She followed the music and it took her to a wide and tall tree. She looked up and smiled. Well, it was one way to meet Logan's girl.

"Hey, Matty! Wanna get pissed?"

Gaia'd gotten off easy. She knew that without having to see the full infirmary downstairs. If her body had been abused beyond being pumped full of drugs, she either didn't notice or was choosing not to acknowledge it.

She had her telepathy shields up as tight as she could. The emotions were riding strong around here right now. Relief, nightmares, a thousand different fears from different people about and from what had happened. Yeah. She'd gotten off easy.

If she were smart, she'd go home and ride it out alone. But home had it's own set of issues right now, too.

Gaia wasn't used to not feeling safe. Wherever she went, whatever she did, she was in control and she was secure. More than anything, by breaking into her home, those thugs had stolen that sense of security from her. She was sort of reeling from it, and wasn't ready to face up to having to clean up and reclaim her space just yet. She would. Just not now.

It was nice having Wolvie nearby again. Whenever she got itchy and left, she always forgot how much she loved, and in some ways needed, to have him around. For a moody bastard, he had a way of balancing her that she could never quite figure out. It wasn't like a soulmate or whatever drivel people read about in books. It was just comfort, security, companionship, family.

He was worried for Matty, and so was she. Matty, from all the Gaia had heard about her from Logan was good for him and the two of them needed each other. She hoped that the woman would be alright, but hadn't yet braved the infirmary to see for herself. She hated places like that. She'd spent too much of her life alone and waiting for the end of various worlds to want to spend it in a place that could be equal parts salvation and graveyard.

Goddamn, she was maudlin today. Gaia supposed that was just to be expected after everything, but she hated these moods. They just sucked.

She wandered out to the balcony and sat on the stone railing, dangling one leg over the edge as she lit a cigarette.

Gaia didn't know what had hit her. She'd just sent off her email to Logan and was going to pack a bag to grab after work so she could head over to the mansion when she heard the first on behind her.

She'd turned just in time to see one climbing through her fire escape and another one's fist heading in her direction. She managed to duck by the simple expedient of diving out of the way towards her couch. Then she felt the pinch of a pin or a dart in her leg and another, and before she could even react the world was swimming out of focus.

The last thing she remembered was a man clad in black sitting at her computer.

Gaia had thought long and hard about whether or not she should take her day off and swing up to the Institute. And by long and hard, she meant that she'd mulled it over while sitting out on the fire escape and smoking while drinking her third cup of coffee and listening to Mr. Kahn bitch at his son about his American girlfriend. Yay, drama.

That had made up her mind and she'd gone inside to pull on some clothes and get gone.

She reached the gates of the compound and stared at them for a second. Totally not going to stop her. It was a matter of a small shift in the fabric of reality to open the gates enough to let her in and close them again without setting off any alarms. And getting into the building at this time of day was a no brainer. It was a school the doors would be open.

Gaia allowed herself the liberty of snooping around a little bit. She peeked in on a math class being taught by a dark haired man to a classroom of predominently bored teenagers and another history class being taught by a woman with white hair and dark skin. Now that was just sexy as hell.

The office she was looking for was actually at the end of the hall and empty. Heehee. Oh, Wolvie. It was easy to tell it was his. The scent of those cigars he loved so well lingered in the air. She laid a hand on the doorknob, mentally clicking the tumblers open. She walked in and re-locked the door behind her. "Damn, Wolvie. Getting a little posh." She murmured as she looked around the room. She debated taking a few moments to snoop, but then decided it didn't interest her.

Instead, she sat in the big, swivveling chair and turned it to look out the window while she waited.