Clean-Up

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"Which is good. I love that about you. You wear your emotions on your robes sleeve," Katharina said gesturing towards it. "Now if only I could figure out everything that you are thinking in that mind of yours. I can't help but to feel there's something in there that I keep overlooking entirely." She wasn't joking about that either. She really would love the power to read other people's minds regardless of if they thought she was a total nutter.

Katharina's face suddenly stiffened when he mentioned it. She didn't realize that much had leaked out. "Yea, well. It isn't the first time down there for something like that to happen," she said shivering a little. "Between you and me. Be happy you work up here because it's a heck of a lot safer than some of those rooms down there. And that part of the clean up, will not be hard at all," she remarked to him about the death. She left it vague as to the veil and the death chamber, he really didn't need to know that stuff.

"Well, maybe you'll find out in due time if I am hiding anything in this head of mine. Though it's kind of ridiculous that you haven't figured it out already." Toren nudged her slightly, hinting at it as a joke, though he knew in his heart, he was just being ridiculous. He rolled his head to pop the bones in his neck and as he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck.

"I think if I knew, I wouldn't be too surprised honestly." Toren shrugged, nothing ever surprised him anymore, he was a wizard for one, and worked in the Ministry of Magic, and that was just for the other. There were plenty more reasons as to why nothing came as a surprise anymore.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"It can't be that ridiculous, Toren. I've overlooked tons of things in my life and been called out on it. You have to admit my social cues are a bit lacking," Katharina admitted to him. She wasn't about to candy coat anything at this point and admitting that she had something off about herself did not come as a surprise to people as she really did know she sucked when it came to the whole social structure of things. "I'm still shocked your around. A lot of people just get tired of me," she said with a shrug of her shoulders as if to say their loss.

"Oh, trust me. There's stuff that kids shouldn't have been around down there. I'm shocked they even got in there. You'd think there would be better security or something."

"No, it is quite ridiculous.." Toren laughed, "I mean, think about it.." He swallowed down everything that could possibly make him embarrassed and began to speak from his heart, this was quite a difficult thing for him, especially to Katharina. "I blush every time you do anything physical with me, even if it's just lean on me... I'm still around, even though most people aren't, or get tired of you... I would think you'd be able to connect the dots by now..." He hinted, or tried.

"Well maybe you should talk to the Minister, he is bound to up the security measures, or maybe you could talk to your head of department?" Toren suggested.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina stared at him rather blankly with those blue eyes of hers. It was as though she was trying to figure out what he was getting at but failing miserably. "No, I'm coming up with not very much. You might have to spell it out a little better," she said to him a bit confused. She really wasn't sure what to make of what he had said, but it did cause the skin on the back of her neck to tingle a little in anticipation for what may happen next.

Katharina snorted when he mentioned those two. "Speaking to Aric would be a waste of time. He's too pompous to get anything across to. You'd probably have to make him think he came up with the idea first," she said showing that she really was not too fond of the man. She probably pegged him completely wrong, but the few times she met him left a rather poor taste in her mouth. "And Fudge has other things to worry about than that."

"Wow... You know, sometimes I wonder how in the world you ever passed any NEWTS in Hogwarts to get the position you're in now.." Toren chuckled, he had made a few quite excellent grades on his NEWTS and a few others were a bit of the lesser sort, though he was hoping he could get ahead in this cruel world, in one way or another. After all he wasn't going to be completely broke like his family was for the rest of his life, that wasn't the plan anyway. He also wasn't so sure he wanted almost ten or so children, that did sound ridiculous, as much as he loved his siblings.

"Aric..? You talk like I have ever spoken to the man, but I suppose if you say he's pompous then, I can take your word for it.." He shrugged.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"Well, it's because I have an eidetic memory. Especially, when it comes to things that I read," Katharina replied to him overlooking the joke again. She shrugged her shoulders as if it wasn't really much of a big deal. Sure, there were things out there that went past her but she really didn't get bothered by that too much.

"Oh, you can't miss him. He's one of those bland, stoic looking pure bloods with a chip on his shoulder," she said to him. "You know the type. Got their position through knowing people and all that, but I think he's a work a holic so for him he might have actually earned it. He just lacks leadership skills when it comes to communicating with others, which usually means they're an ineffective leader." The fact that Katharina had just listed qualities of a good leader, was something that was sure to stump people since the girl lacked quite a bit of a social cues. Yet, she knew she would never do well in a leadership position due to her personality, so she really wouldn't seek one out.

Toren sighed, he felt like an idiot because none of his jokes got across to her, and he really didn't know if he was the idiot or if she was the idiot, and it made him feel terrible about it. He wanted to cry about it a little, though not seriously of course, that would be quite ridiculous in most cases. He cleared his throat and moved on with the next topic.

"Stoic, pure-blood huh? Sounds like my kind of guy!" Toren laughed, once more, trying to make a joke, feeling that he would fail at getting it across properly, so he just joked for himself. "And I'm sure he isn't that bad..?" Toren tried to look for the positive in all of the Ministry workers, and just anyone period. He thought that everyone had a little bit of good in them, no matter what, and so he tried not to judge too harshly. Especially when it came to the stoic pure-blood type. They always seemed bad, but at the core weren't too terrible.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

It was more like Katharina was the idiot at this point. She usually got lost on certain types of humor. It was just a large part of her personality and on top of that she had a weird abnormal sense of humor.

"Oh yes, the perfect kind," she chimed in finally getting that he was being sarcastic about the whole stoic pure blood thing. She giggled a little at the whole thing. It had to be some stereotype that the pure bloods love living up to since so many of them walked around like that.

"Oh, he can be," she said.

Toren laughed, "Well at you least you got my joke that time!" He exclaimed, they seemed to have been doing much better, though it was obvious that people were getting a little annoyed with them with just sitting around and not actually doing any cleaning. He was barely paying attention though.

"I'm sure, but he isn't all bad.. ALL the time.."

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina just looked at him blankly when he announced that she got his joke that time. "You were joking earlier?" she asked him a bit confused and perplexed. Maybe there should be classes out there on how to carry out normal social skills. The first class should be about joking.

"Oh, you don't know him very well." she remarked. "I think if he came in on a good mood and was normal, Merlin would come back from the dead."

Well, here we go again. Toren sighed and shook his head, "Yes.. Yes I was.." He looked down, a bit embarrassed that his joke wasn't in fact getting across well enough, it made him rather embarrassed with himself. Regardless, he brushed it off quickly and moved on.

"Merlin himself, eh..?" He chuckled.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"Ohhhh, that makes sense," Katharina responded to him as that little light bulb popped right on in her head. Usually, it took a little longer for the light bulb to work or she did/said something really embarrassing. It was probably a good thing the girl wasn't embarrassed easily at all.

"Yes, Merlin himself. Would probably come back and hug me or something," she said winking at him.

"I highly doubt he'd give ya a hug Kath," Toren chuckled, he highly doubted that she wanted him to give her a hug, after all he had been dead for many hundreds of years, certainly that very idea was preposterous, after all he didn't really want a dead skeleton of Merlin hugging him or her or anything like that.

Washing the stench off would be awful, "I don't think you WANT him to hug you." Toren smiled.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"Oh, if he wouldn't. I would then," Katharina responded to him jokingly. "I'm sure the whole smell thing would be off of him by now. He might even be mummified and they don't smell as they keep them in those muggle museums and all." That sort of logic probably made no sense at all but it did to her.

She stuck her tongue out at Toren. "How would you know. Well, if he won't hug me. I'd hug you then. I like hugging you. It's like hugging a giant teddy bear that you don't want to let go of just hang on to forever," she admitted to him.

"I don't think they have in a muggle museum, I'm pretty sure muggles think of Merlin as a myth and not a real person, if they knew he was real, then they would certainly come up with some little explanation for why he is not at all magical." Toren smiled, thinking that this sounded quite right, muggles did think of Merlin as a myth, unfortunately for them.

"..." He raised an eyebrow when she said that he would hug him, and then compared him to a teddy bear. "Ah... Well that's nice to know.. I'd hug you back...?" Was this the eternal friend-zone that his young brother Abel had been talking about? He certainly didn't want to go there.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

"Well, I wasn't saying he is in a muggle museum. I'm just saying that there are mummies in there and maybe he would be all mummified or something from being dead so long!" Katharina always managed to make people lose her train of thought whenever she entered to this kind of zone so it was completely understandable that she was misunderstood. "Yea, they think he's a myth but some historians think he's some real person tied to Arthur that was changed into a myth," she said off handedly.

"Oh would you?!" she asked him her blue eyes all filled with hope and some other unknown emotion. "You never hug me. I always feel like the initiator," she replied to him.

Toren was very confused with this conversation about Merlin, it made absolutely no sense to him, but he decided to once more as always wave the girls quirkiness off, she was always this way and he knew he was never going to understand her one hundred percent with her train of thought. So he didn't reply, he just nodded, and smiled.

When she looked rather happy about the hugging, he coughed and nodded. "Yes well.. I don't want to seem like I'm, trying... to harass you or anything like that, it's just.. I.. I don't know..." He sighed, looked down and proceeded to look very awkward.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina looked at him quite perplexed. What was with this whole harassment thing? It wasn't like he was some complete pervert or something. "What?" she asked him confused. "Harass? Me? I would find that hard to believe, Toren," she remarked to him in a matter of fact tone.

Her blue eyes studied him for a few more moments before she let out a sigh. It was more out of frustration at this point as he was doing that awkward thing around her again and this time she wasn't even trying to get him embarrassed. "Toren, I would've thought you would have been used to being around me by now," she remarked without even thinking.

Toren looked up to the girl and then down to his feet, he closed his eyes and then looked back up in confusion at the girl. His eyes were full of that confusion, he just didn't know what to do with himself. His hands balled into fists as he sat there. Both hands on his knees.

"I'm sorry..." He mumbled looking as if he was pouting. "I am.. I just...." This seemed to be really difficult for her to admit.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina was completely perplexed now by his whole mood shift. "Well, I didn't mean to upset you, Toren." Her voice sounded genuine when she said it. She really didn't mean to upset him at all. She actually didn't like seeing friends upset around her or being the whole cause of it.

"I'm not upset. You're fine. I'm fine... It's just... I'm sorry," He spoke in broken sentences, not particularly sure how to get his point across to her, though he figured it would just be best to drop the subject completely.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina might have had the social cues of a handicapped child, but even she could tell something was just upsetting Toren at this point. The way he was speaking in broken sentences and even his demeanor seemed off. Usually, she overlooked them, but when they were standing out to the point where they were slapping her in the face, she couldn't overlook them.

"Are you sure? You seem upset," she said again to him still on the subject of him being upset and not so easy dissuaded.

Toren tried to avoid any kind of eye contact with her as he began to say these words, he was embarrassed, and he didn't want to say them. He didn't want to make her uncomfortable, but he knew for a fact that he had no choice if he wanted to continue a normal conversation with her for any time ever. He just needed to at least get this off his chest.

"I-I.. I like you.. And not the normal friendship like either.." He mumbled the last part, being barely audible, but just audible enough for her to hear what he was trying to say.

[Katharina Kirkpatrick]

Katharina stood there looking quite a bit dumbfounded by the whole thing. She blinked her blue eyes and continued to stare at him confused by the whole statement. It was not something she was expecting to come out of him. For once, she really didn't know what to say in response. Usually, she was a person that would prattle on about anything that popped in her head, but at this very moment nothing was really there. Her mind was just static.

She opened her mouth to say something but then closed it still confused as to what to say to Toren. She wasn't the relationship type of person and quite stuck in her ways. Katharina didn't want to disappoint him or lose a friend, so she really didn't know how to solve this problem at all.