___

Making judgements just to satisfy
I got your different right here
You can see all the pain in my eyes
Overflowing with tears
___

Gwen touches her fingertips on her left hand to those on her right hand. Sparks shoot out - her own personal version of fireworks. Now if only she could figure out a way to change the color, then she'd be set.

Except for the fact that the novelty wore off a long time ago.

She knows there are two types of people in the world: those that think her abilities are 'cool' - these are the people that live in a comic book world, those without the mental capacity to understand exactly what her abilities mean for her; and those that consider her a freak - these are the people that use her for her abilities, those without the emotional capicity to care what her abilities mean for her.

She learned this early - the age of seven is far too young to learn such hard lessons by anyone's standards.

She killed Bobby Bryant that year, on the playground of that horrid place her parents left her (how Gwen had wanted to cry but she didn't and now Gwen supposes that even at seven she knew that crying showed weakness and that was never allowed.) She hadn't meant to kill him, of course, but that didn't matter to Miss Thorpe, or the other kids in the school.

Gwen only attended Miss Thorpe's Academy for a month after what Miss Thorpe liked to call The Incident. She was put into what was the school's version to solitary confinement - or the 'accomidations for Gwen's special needs' that her parent's generous gift to the school went towards.

She lived inside a locked room far away from the other kids. Inside the room, there was a bed, a desk for her schoolwork, a bookshelf with her text books and some children's books, and a dresser for all the layers of clothes she had to wear when her teacher came, or when one of the school employees brought her food. She had no contact with the outside world.

She would hear kids pass by her room, giggling and telling each other tales about the 'freak girl' that lived inside of it. It only took two days for the story to mutate completely. According to one little girl Gwen overheard, Gwen had chased the boy down, shooting volts of electricity down on the ground in front of him, before she finally caught up with him, and shocked him as his 'screams echoed into space.'

In the hours between visits from anyone (and the only people who did come would eye her cautiously, keeping a safe distance from her), Gwen began to live inside her own head. She would imagine she was Rapunzel, locked up in the tower. Except her hair wasn't that long, and her room had no windows, and even if the prince came to save her, she couldn't touch him. So then she began to imagine she was Cinderella, and that one day her Fairy Godmother would come and help her.

It took a month for Gwen to realize she could manipulate the particles in the door's lock. It was by accident that she figured this out, but once she did, she began to pack a small bag. A pair of jeans, a couple t-shirts, some socks and underwear, her longest gloves, and the book of fairy tales that lived on her bookself.

She was caught by Miss Thorpe and her parents were called to come pick her up immediately. She heard the whispers as her parents walked her out of the school, once again covered head-to-toe, red parka and mittens despite the unseasonal heat outside. She heard the whispers. She always hears the whispers.

A tutor began to come to her parent's house. She had to wear the red parka and the mittens - oh how she hated the red parka and mittens her parents thought would protect the world from her. In addition, her tutor was covered as well. She liked her tutor though - Miss Carter. When she would come, she talked to her like she was a normal girl. Taught her like she was any other student.

And Gwen loved to learn. Math, science, English, geography, history, she excelled in it all. By the time she was sixteen, she had completed her senior year in high school. That's when Miss Carter stopped coming, and Gwen took her learning into her own hands.

By that time her parents had bought her a computer, mostly to keep her occupied and out of their hair, but also because Miss Carter reccomended she get one. She had to wear gloves to keep from screwing with the circuits inside of it, but that was a small price to pay for a little bit of a connection to the outside world. She used the computer to further her studies, to learn everything she could about everything that interested her. At the age of eighteen, by accident she stumbled upon an underground message board for mutants, demon-human hybrids, and freaks - people like her. It was there she met Tom, a guy she began to talk to every night. He never did tell her what made him a freak, but now she supposes that maybe he hadn't been one at all. She suspects he had been crawling the board, on the look-out for people with certain abilities. Gwen qualified, apparently, because Tom put her in contact with David Moorer - he was the first person to hire her.

So Gwen left her parents' home and never looked back. Occasionally she wonders if they're doing okay, but she knows a call from her isn't welcome. It's okay though - they never really did much for her, even when they were in her life.

Gwen spent the next seven years learning her trade and becoming one of - if not the - best cat burglars in North America. She liked pretend she was proud of that, but she wasn't. There was no big remorse either, of course. But she sometimes wishes she could have been something else, done something else. The cat burglar lifestyle looks - and is - glamourous, but Gwen has a place deep inside of her that craves the normal. Probably because she never can be.

She got her hopes up once, though. With LISA, with Charles Gunn and the night they shared. But the device shorted out and Gunn's number has been disconnected. She could get in touch with him if she really wanted to, but she doesn't see the point. She doubted he'd want to see her anyway. She's concocted a story in her head to make her feel better. Gunn just wanted a piece of electrofreak pussy, he got it, and that was it. He never said he loved her. He never claimed she was any more than a one night stand, and the fact that she woke up to the smell of breakfast cooking meant nothing. It made it easier. Because at least then she could call him a dick and attempt to forget about him.

Gwen touches her fingertips together again, and sparks shoot out once again. It's kind of pretty, she must admit. Too bad the novelty wore off a long time ago.

The phone rings and she answers it, expecting it to be someone hiring her to steal some object or another. She's surprised to hear a bubbly female voice - a female voice attached to a girl with a painfully obvious low-IQ. "Gwen Raiden?"

"Yeah?"

"This is Harmony Kendall from over at Wolfram and Hart. Angel told me to call you and tell you to get your electro-cute ass down here. Not in those words exactly, but I know that's totally what he meant."

Gwen tilts her head. "Why? He need me to steal something?"

"No!" the girl giggles into the phone for what seems like hours. "Fred and the science nerds figured out some way to fix you. I don't know about the science-y parts of it, but there was something about a thingy they've been working on. It has a girl's name like Lucy or - or Lily or - "

Gwen's breath catches in her throat. "LISA?"

"Yeah! That's it! So come down! Get yourself fixed and maybe we can talk! I've heard all about you, and I think we could be best friends!"

Gwen hangs up. She doesn't move for a while. She just stares, her eyes fixed on the phone. Her heart is beating quickly, and her breath is coming in short, even measures. After what has to be a half hour, she turns around and makes her way out of the apartment and towards Wolfram and Hart.

End.