He swallows hard, processing, processing again, and then picking apart her words, all at rapid speed, fingers flexing as he tried to work out if she had some ulterior motive for offering to help him. Mutant to mutant. That has tears welling in his eyes that he quickly forces down, blinking away lest she see. “I’d like that. Could we, could we just talk, and maybe sometimes about, stuff but, having someone who just, just understands? Yeah, yeah I, yeah.”
It’s only been recently that he’s gotten back in touch with mutant support groups, with the people he saw as a lifeline before the incident with his school happened. “Can I ask you a question? No bullshit?” Tommy chews his bottom lip briefly, letting his thoughts roll about on his tongue before finally letting one free. “What did you see yourself doing at your age, when you were my age?”
It’s not really what he had in mind but he can’t find the words to ask anything else right now. He jumps from tangent to tangent, occasionally spiralling down one before abandoning ship once more. “What, what are your powers? What can you do?” There’s a hint of doubt in his tone, doubting her, himself, the question, something deeper, but it shows on face, in the way he shakes his foot, with his hands on her desk, clasped together as he strokes his own thumb in a subconscious attempt to comfort himself.
It happens all rather quickly. The internal processing of the words, the deliberation and the neurons firing off every which way. Always so rapid and hurried. Softly her head tilts, watching him until he speaks. With a soft nod she smiled, "Well then, I believe it's settled. We can talk, about whatever you wish once a week? Twice if you feel like you need it?" She's already reaching for her planner chock-full of post its and dates to remember as well as her phone. "Any day in particular?" She doesn't even hesitate to agree to help him, even when she knows it should have. She wasn't that woman any more or so she told herself, but one could change many things about themselves but she could never change this.
"By all means," she says to his question. She can't promise honesty, she can't promise the truth but she promises not to tiptoe around the answers. She's not one to bullshit someone to spare feelings. But she isn't sure she expected that from him. The answer lodges in her throat but she swallows it in a lump. "I...I didn't see myself doing much when I was your age. I was in-line for a fortune, expected to take over a fortune five hundred company without batting an eye...But I suppose teaching at a school. Gifted or not, teaching was where I wanted to be..." She had always had that dream, and Winston try as he might snuff it out form her. "But we so seldomly get exactly the futures and plans we want for ourselves. I had to learn to...adapt my ideal wants with...well the reality of my situation."
She can't help the soft laugh at his next question. Wasn't that the burning question on everyone's mind? Just what exactly was she capable of? She only smiles at him. 'Well you see, I'm a telepath...I'm sure you've encountered a few of us along the way' She speaks into his mind, briefly before closing off those rapid-fire thoughts. "I've never bee very shy about my telepathy, I'm sure you've heard." She relaxed into her chair slightly, "I can do a great many things, I've learned to do many more. Read minds, control them, severe neurological bridges, pull information from out of thin air, so to speak... I speak and understand any language I want. Repress memories, bring them forward, erase them altogether, walk along the astral plane. There's quite a bit that extends beyond that list but even then there's a great thing I can't do yet or maybe won't." Leveling her gaze on up she knows her face is soft. "But I'm far more than my powers...I am my circumstances, my trials, my experiences that have influenced what I do with these gifts...Does that assuage your doubt?”