An hour later Sam and Kira were still sifting through the sizable folder of paperwork given to them by John Martins, filling out forms where necessary. The pile of information and forms looked completely overwhelming when Sam first laid it out on the table in front of Kira, but thanks to his experience at work Sam organized it into several sections, divided by topic and importance to ease the process. Despite that it was still a lot for Kira to take in, especially in her condition, but Sam’s patient explanations helped a lot.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“And these are school grades required to take part in the program,”</span>Sam said and handed her a sheet from where he sat next to her, an amused smile played over his face. Kira’s eyes widened as she took in the sheet, absently muttering<span style="color: #00BF00">“Holy sh*t,”</span>as she kept reading.<br/><span style="color: #00BF00">“Is this even possible for me at this point?”</span>She asked, a troubled look on her face.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“Totally, Mr. Martin’s got hold of your results, somehow, and included a progress chart that shows the broad strokes of where you need to be.” </span>Sam replied calmly,<span style="color: #0080FF">“And anyway, I can help teach you, and I’m not sure if you remember but I did pretty well in school!” </span>He smiled with that, putting on a cocky voice and puffing out his chest.<br/><span style="color: #00BF00">“Don’t remind me,” </span>Kira responded jovially,<span style="color: #00BF00">“ I used to get weekly talks from Mom and Dad about how much I had to live up to, well, before they…” </span>She choked off, still not really able to talk about all that. Sam just wrapped an arm around her and gave her a warm squeeze.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“Come, on, let’s get back to this.” </span>He said, Kira just nodded and rubbed away the tears that had started pooling in her tired eyes.<br/>Some time passed and they came to the physical requirements section. Once again this is where Sam had the highest doubts in regards to Kira being accepted. He was well aware of her disdain for P.E class. The lengths she sometimes went to in order to avoid school on those days were very humorous at times.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“Well, what have we got again. Looks like pushups, situps, pullups, deadlifts, medicine ball throws, shuttle running, sled pulls, pushes, shoulder presses, benching, squats, more running. Sounds fun right?” </span>He said, looking up at Kira who just closed her eyes and muttered something under her breath which got Sam chuckling.<br/><span style="color: #00BF00">“Isn’t it a bit extreme sounding? Isn’t the whole point that I have powers? Why do I need to be able to do a million push-ups or whatever?”</span>She said, with a grown.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“Granted these are really tough requirements, especially for a girl your age, but you know why they’re necessary - don’t play dumb with me,” </span>Sam said kindly. Kira was clearly already dreading the physical aspect of the program, but she kept her mouth shut.<br/><span style="color: #008FFF">“But you know”</span>, Sam said, more sincerely,<span style="color: #0080FF">“If you think it will be too much,” </span><br/><span style="color: #00BF00">“No, It won’t be.” </span>Kira butted in, her resolve hardening slightly more regardless of the undoubtedly difficult challenge looming ahead.<br/><span style="color: #0080FF">“Alright then, let's get back to filling out the rest of the forms,”</span>Sam said, resigning to let her find out the hard way that a life of lazing around and avoiding exercise wouldn’t translate well into meeting fitness requirements that were greater than those required by the army.<br/>Filling out the remaining forms took a little over thirty minutes, by which time Kira was once again visibly exhausted. Sam carried her over to the couch and set her down, draping a fluffy blanket from her room over her and turning on the television. He turned on a sci-fi show she was binging before the pandemonium of the last few days and gave her the remote before walking back into the kitchen. She had almost dozed off despite a thrilling opening scene of the episode when Sam returned with two cups of hot chocolate. This put a smile on Kira’s face and before long they were watching the show together, commenting on each new development of the plot and speculating in between each episode which automatically rolled into the next. Kira gradually grew more tired as the episodes went by, until she eventually fell asleep, her head leaning against Sam’s shoulder.<br/>He carefully extracted himself, resting her head on some cushions, and quietly walked to the kitchen. He made himself a cup of coffee, sat down, and took a sip of the steaming hot brew as he opened his laptop and dug into the boatload of work he had to catch up on for his day job. Before doing that he wrote a brief email to John Martins, using an email address he left with the papers. Sam thought it a prudent idea to reach out and create some kind of direct contact with the man if Kira was going to training in his organization. After finishing the polite email and including a few brief questions to get a better idea of the program, Sam sent it, immediately facing into a mountain of work which he already had to catch up on due to the situation with Kira. He knuckled down and soon enough he had polished off his second, third, fourth and fifth cups of coffee.