A cool breeze fluttered through the crepuscule sky, the darkness bringing with it a touch more of the winter chill that had previously made Adam so nostalgic. He shuddered in his thin hoodie as he lamented the fact that he was now being deprived of the opportunity to spend the winter comfortably imprisoned. A new warmth spread through his chest, which had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with his newfound friend status.

Pretty soon, they approached a diner and sat down to eat. Adam questioned her choice of pancakes as he gnawed on his hamburger, but said nothing. The silence, however was more than he could stand. There had been little more than smalltalk on the way there, but now that they were eating, there was nothing at all. It was more than a little awkward, and Adam wracked his mind looking for something to talk about. There were scores of questions on his mind, but he was worried that some of them might be considered offensive. He decided to start simple.

"So, why are you always gone and stuff?" he muttered unintelligently between mouthfuls of ground beef. To his surprise, he got an actual answer in response.

"Travel mostly." Huh. Travel. He hadn't expected it to be that simple.

"Travel where?" he continued, following the flow of conversation.

"Here and there. Probably nowhere you've heard of." Not exactly the specifics he had hoped for, but it was something.

"Do you travel for fun, or what?"

"Sometimes for work. Mostly out of obligation." Such a complicated, yet vague answer. He wasn't sure what to make of it. It did, however, reveal that she had a job, and that was something he could follow.

"So, you work then?" he asked pleasantly.

"Mmmhmm," came the response. "It's a boring and tedious job. Nothing exciting, but the pay is decent." More vagueness. He decided to push a little further.

"What industry is it?" he asked, tentatively. Nora paused her chewing and stared at her plate for a moment before replying.

"I guess public works would be the best way to put it. I find people," she explained, her eyes never leaving the chipped, ceramic plate. At this point, Adam was more than a little confused.

"You find people? You mean like a private eye?" he asked, hoping for a bit of clarification on the matter.

"Different methods, but similar," she answered. Hardly the clarification Adam was hoping for. It annoyed him, and in his frustration, he began to press into areas he was better off avoiding.

"I have a hard time believing that your employer would be okay with the amount of school that you miss," he stated coolly. He was halfway hoping that she would lose her temper a bit as well and open up. Unfortunately, the issue of her truancy didn't seem to bother Nora at all.

"They understand," she replied calmly. "I'm guaranteed a position upon graduation. That's all that matters." Adam was stunned. This job didn't seem like your average fry cook position. He couldn't believe that her employer would be willing to take on somebody with such a pronounced history of delinquency.

"They've already offered you a position?" he gasped.

"Yep!" she announced proudly, noticing Adam's stunned expression. "It's cause I'm so good at it," she proclaimed with a confident grin, snatching a bite of pancakes off her fork. Seeing her vigor restored made Adam feel like teasing her a bit more.

"Then, what about your parents?" he asked pointedly. Adam was certain that this question would catch her off guard. He quickly realized, to his disappointment, that he was correct.

As soon as Nora heard the question, her proud smile fell and her whole face fell dead, her mouth straight, her eyes glazed over. It was different from her usual distant expression. There was no pretense of fitting in. There was no twisted smile there to mask her pain. There was just pure, raw, mind-numbing despair. This time it wasn't her expression that nauseated him, it was himself for putting it there. As he opened his mouth to begin the process of backtracking, he was interrupted.

"Some people are easier to find than others," she answered, eyes downcast with a smile steeped in sorrow. "Some people get lost. The lost ones leave trails. Others are taken. Those ones are harder. I haven't given up yet."

He was glad to see her regain some of her calm, but he didn't feel any better about what he had said. He had known that that was a land mine for her and he had stepped on it anyways in a pathetic attempt to get a rise out of her. He was ashamed, and had to stop himself from bolting out of the little diner. He couldn't leave her alone though. Not after doing that to her. So, he did what he had to do and continued the conversation.

"Is that what you meant by obligation?" he asked softly.

"Yeah, mostly," Nora confirmed, her expression brightening as she collected herself.

For once, Adam felt like he knew her. He felt like he understood her pain. He felt like she was just a little bit less of an enigma. He was wrong, of course. Whenever a man begins to think that he understands a woman, he commits himself to disappointment. In Adam's folly, he began to comfort her. Attempting to comfort a woman who doesn't need to be comforted is the second greatest mistake that a man can make, just behind attempting to calm a woman who doesn't need to be calmed.

"It's not your fault, you know? You couldn't have known that they were going to run off with..." Adam began, getting cut off before he could finish.

"They didn't run off," she stated firmly, her brows furrowing into a stern expression of unamusement.

Had it been any other woman facing a man who was pretending to know about her life, she may have stormed out of the diner then and there, perhaps causing a scene before doing so. Having already experienced Adam's social ineptitude once that evening, Nora was a little bit more prepared. Not to mention that this was hardly the first time that she had heard those lines. Just about every adult she had ever met had fed them to her. It still pissed her off to hear them coming from the mouth of a classmate, but it wasn't completely unexpected. It was, however, noted.

Adam himself was dumbfounded.

"Then where did they go?" he asked dumbly.

"It doesn't matter," Nora sighed with a mocking smile. "They could have been abducted by aliens for all that it matters. The only thing I know is that they aren't coming back unless I bring them back." It was a fair point. Regardless of whether it was the rumors or her who had the story right, there was no way that they would return of their own accord. Somebody would have to bring them back.

"That's a lot of weight to take on," he muttered, half to himself.

"Maybe so," she agreed. "But it's mine all the same."

She didn't deserve to live with that kind of burden, he thought to himself. No child did. She should be enjoying her youth. Attending school. Making friends. He inwardly cursed her parents for robbing her of that. Ultimately, he made one of his wiser decisions of the evening and kept those thoughts to himself.

After another few minutes of small talk, they bid each other adieu and departed the diner. Their first dinner had been a disaster, but he couldn't help but to feel a little bit glad about it. He had probably learned more about his classmate in one evening than others had in their entire lives. He felt, just a little bit, that the distance between them had narrowed. He was wrong, of course, but at the very least, he slept soundly that night.

Unfortunately for Adam, the next day proved to be even more disastrous than the last. He arrived at school like any other day. He visited his locker like any other day. He headed to homeroom like any other day. But unlike any other day, when he arrived at the classroom, Nora was there sitting at her desk, a pile of completed homework in front of her, and a ring of girls surrounding her desk. He entered the room at the perfect moment to see one of the girls, a blonde, popular one, grab the stack of assignments and tear it into pieces. Throughout the ordeal, Nora's face maintained the same placid expression that she always wore in uncomfortable situations like this.

Adam stepped forward to intervene, but was stopped by a hand on his shoulder. One of the boys who had been watching was holding him back. Ryan was his name. Ryan was one of the musclehead assholes that Adam had once looked up to, but now avoided.

"The girls are just having some fun!" Ryan insisted with a smirk. "They don't need a man sticking his nose in their business. Just let them play!" Ryan smiled serenely. Adam wanted to hit him right there.

"That looks like fun to you?" he demanded. "That's harassment, and they just destroyed all of Nora's hard work!" he exclaimed. At that point, the ringleader of the girls decided to speak up.

"The little bitch thinks it's fine if she doesn't show up to class as long as she does the work. You think that's fair?" the blonde girl, Kristine, snarled.

"No. I don't think it's fair," Adam stated, a scowl on his face. "I think it's none of our business." The pretty girl giggled in response.

"Don't act like you need to defend her just because you want to fuck her!" Kristine taunted. Adam had never wanted to hit a girl so badly in his life. Fortunately, he didn't have to. "This is your type?" she cackled mockingly as she grabbed Nora's face and twisted it forcibly in his direction.

The second she touched it, Nora smiled victoriously as she sent a beautiful uppercut sailing into Kristine's jaw, dropping her with one shot. Seeing their leader fall, the other girls began shrieking. Some fled to the edges of the classroom, or even out the door to fetch help, while others clawed at Nora, grabbing at whatever hair or skin they could get their fingers on. Nora responded in kind, grabbing hair and clothes, each time following up with a solid blow, a wicked grimace on her face.

As the girls began falling one by one, they guys started getting involved. Adam had been watching, mesmerized, as the fight unfolded, always ready to step in, but never seeing the need to. When he saw Ryan move to enter the fray though, he saw his chance. Grabbing Ryan by the shoulder, he fed his line back to him.

"Let the girls have their fun," Adam smirked.

"Lay off!" Ryan shouted as he tried to brush Adam off.

Adam wouldn't be budged though, and as brushing turned to shoving, the male side of the classroom became embroiled in the conflict. Adam was even surprised to see one or two of the other guys joining his side in defending Nora. Eventually, the girls who had fled returned with the homeroom teacher, Ms. Harmon, as well as a school security guard. Just as the two began trying to break up the fight, everything changed.

Like most spatial distortions, it happened without warning. There was no mysterious vortex. No flash of light, no clap of thunder. One second, Ms. Harmon's classroom was in the middle of a full-blown brawl. The next second, they were gone.