Okay, so I know what I said in my other story about 'last one'...

But...

Yeah, okay, so I had a conversation with my mom about the latest x-men movie, and I asked her, "What would happen if Erik's daughter had not only lived but was human?" and she got this weird look on her face before she said, "I have no idea."

So of course I got to look into that!

You're support would be greatly appreciated.

Prologue: Finding Me

Breathe breathe breathe. It hurts and I have to remind myself, over and over, to do it. There's blood, so much blood. I can feel the sobs in my throat and the terror in my chest. Their laughter rings in my head along with the screams of my parents. I keep running and running and running. What else can I do? I don't know if they saw me - don't know if they saw the window break or heard the crash as I tumbled to the ground. Don't know if they're tracking the blood leaking steadily from my side like the dogs I've seen policemen with. I don't know anything other than my parents were murdered by circus freaks.

I fall and slam painfully onto my side before scrambling back up. Everything hurts so much. My shoulder, my ribs, my lungs, my heart. I need to stop I need to... I need to…

There's blood in my eyes, hot and wet, and I let it blind me. I already am lost - being blind and stumbling around in the dark are the same thing, and I don't know where I am anyway. And I'm too scared. The air is closing in on me, damp and boiling even in October. I can't breathe and oh gosh I just want my mom. But Mutti is dead and so is Vati they were ripped apart in front of me by those freaks!

Light. I see light in the dark. I stumble-sprint towards the blurry light, falling every few steps. By the time I get there my hands and knees sting and are dripping blood onto the ground. I can't see through the film of tears in my eyes and the matted hair in my face. I keep running until I run into something, slamming bodily into it before falling onto my butt. A voice says "Whoa!" and hands grab under my arms to lift me up. The pain of my parents death is still too fresh, and I scream, kicking frantically and biting at the hands holding me. Shouting, in my ears and too close, numbers that don't make sense and voices that cry out in shock. The hands tuck me too close to a chest and pin my legs and arms, keeping me still. I struggle anyway, screaming and crying into the solid wall of a person in front of me.

Shushing. Someone is shushing me. A hand in my bloody hair, murmurs of "It's okay, sweetie, it's okay." But no, it's not okay! Why is she saying that? It's not right! My parents are dead that is not okay! I hear more shouting over that one, and several gasps, and more hands are pinning me and petting me. One finds the shard of glass in my side.

The shouting become screams. Hands pass me and I struggle again only to be restrained once more. "NO! LET ME GO!" I yell. Only they don't listen.

"She's in shock!"

"How badly is she bleeding?"

"Did she say her parents were murdered?!"

"Someone call the police!"

"Oh my God!"

My head hurts and I can't breathe and why is the sky spinning and there's these black spots stretching across the sky someone should notice that and stop it why is no one looking at the too-dark sky…

And everything fades away.

XXX-XXX

When I wake up, I recognize the walls as the stereotypical hospital ones, and it's still dark outside. Either that means not much time has passed at all or I've been asleep for a really long time.

There's no confusion when I wake, no sense that things are alright with my life, like I've read in books; I wake up and I remember before my eyelids even flicker open. Tears build almost immediately but they mostly remain in my eyes, a sheen I can't properly see through. The pain in my side and my lungs isn't nearly as sharp, nearly as painful as it used to be. My head throbs every once in a while but other than that the physical damage doesn't seem to be all that important anymore. Gingerly I touch my head and then touch my side. My skull is still intact which is saying something considering how far I fell from the window, but there's thick ridges along my ribs. Stitches I guess. I've never had stitches before - they feel weird, sort of thicker than I'd thought they'd be, and they pull against the rest of my skin. I wasn't expecting that.

I wasn't expecting to be an orphan for the second time in my life either.

I curl up as tightly as the stitches will allow me to and press a pillow to my face in case I make any noise. And then I cry. I cry for my parents, brutally murdered and left to die. I cry for the sense of fear still lingering in my veins. I cry because I don't know what's going to happen to me now.

And I cry because I am so angry I'm practically ready to scream with it.

"Are you alright?" a voice asks kindly from across the room. I stay still and become even quieter, hoping they go away. "Hey, darling, what's wrong?"

What's not wrong? I think. There's a low chuckle from behind me, and I think for a wild second that maybe the voice is ready to cry too. But I'm too old to believe in voices that care anymore. So I curl tighter into my pillow and don't answer. I don't want to talk to anyone and I don't want to be here. I want the last day to have never happened.

"Don't we all?" he murmurs. I glance up in surprise - how did he that's what I was thinking? - and am met by a pair of cerulean blue orbs shining from the bed opposite mine. The eyes rest below a mat of dark curls and are set in a pale, slightly pretty face. A charming smile graces the man's thin lips and he waves his fingers at me in a wave. I try to sit up and pain lances through my side. With a gasp I curl back up and press my face back into the pillow to muffle a moan of pain. "What happened to you?" he asks in concern. I wave a hand and sit up more carefully this time, cautious of the pulling in my side. When I'm upright I pull my pillow into my lap and fiddle with the corner, worrying it until it's squished and dented into a long snake. And I watch him, this strange man. He's propped up on his elbows, staring at me with that mixture of confusion and worry my Vati always got on his face when I came back from school or playing with my friends and was limping or holding a limb tightly.

Vati. My Vati. I feel the tears fall all over again and I burry my face in the pillow in my lap. "Oh darling," the man says, and this time I know I'm not imagining the tears in his voice. There's a grunting noise and then a clatter. I look up, startled by the noise, to see him half out of the bed, falling onto his shoulder on the ground. He struggles to get back into the bed but for some reason he won't move his legs to help himself up. His face is all twisty with pain too. And not just physical either.

Oh…

I don't rush out of bed because my side won't let me rush, but I hurry as quick as I can and push at his shoulders until he falls rather ungracefully back into it. After some twisting he manages to get himself back the right way around. "Thank you dear." I hesitate before pointing at his legs, looking at his face in question. I don't know how to ask if he can use them, but he seems to understand, because some of the smile leaves his face, and he looks angry for a moment. And hurt. "Yes, I can't use them. Bullet to the back, as it were." He's English! Huh. Never met anyone else from Europe whose family hadn't been here for like, ever. And none from Germany. I hesitate before raising the edge of my hospital pajama shirt and showing him the long line of black stitches. He sucks in a breath and I quickly put my shirt down. I don't want to make him upset more than he already is.

"Glass," I say simply. "Fell." I tilt my head and imagine I can see the bullet wound beneath the sheets even though I can't. "Why'd someone shoot you? You seem nice." The man chuckles but it sounds sad. Really really sad. Heartbroken? Yes, that's the word.

"It was an accident, actually. Got in the way of a friend of mine." Angry. Hurt. Bitter. I sit on the floor and lean my back against the bed, wrapping my arms around my knees.

"Why?" I ask. There's a rustle of fabric behind me and then I'm suddenly draped in a thin hospital blanket.

"Ah well. It's complicated."

"That's just a stupid adult thing that means you don't wanna talk," I mutter. The man laughs and tousles my hair just like my vati used to when he was proud of me. I feel tears well up in my eyes again and I try to hide them. But the man behind me sees somehow.

"Darling, what's wrong? Why are you crying?" he whispers. The fingers stop ruffling and card through my hair instead, just like my mutti used to. And then I'm talking even though I didn't want to, even though I desperately don't want to say because I know, I know, that what I saw couldn't have been real. And when people see things that aren't there, or hear things, or talk in tongues like that woman at my church, or love the wrong person, they go to the loony bin. I don't want to go to the loony bin.

But I can't seem to stop the words.

"They're dead," I sob out. "M-my parents. Those freaks," I spit the word out with all the hate I can muster, which is kind of scary actually, "killed them! They thought it was funny. They laughed at us! And… And…"

The color of my mother's blood on the wall - black as cherry juice but thick like saltwater.

A pair of spikes ripping through my father's back and stopping a centimeter from my face.

Screaming. All of us.

"Sh, darling, sh." Hands tilt my head back and a gentle kiss is placed on my forehead. "Calm." A rush of calm starts at my head, flowing down like a gushing river to pool in my heart and mind. I exhale slowly, feeling my tears start to end, while the man's gentle fingers run through my thick curls. "Freaks is a strong word."

"They were," I whisper, too calm and exhausted to really be stubborn. I'm just stating a fact. "They weren't human. One looked like he had these long nails and sharp teeth and the other had these… these… spikes coming out of his arms. Black things." I shiver as I remember those claws stopping right at eye level, about to gouge my eyes out. "Black eyes." They both had had black eyes, nearly engulfing the white. "Freaks," I mutter. The man's hands squeeze my shoulders gently. I look up and see him half leaning over me, tears in those pure blue eyes. He cups my chin and then continues to brush his fingers through my hair.

"They aren't freaks, darling," he murmurs. "Oh, they are monsters, to be sure. But what makes them different isn't what makes them that way." He hugs me and I welcome it, clinging to the arm wrapped around my shoulders like its a lifeline. I'm not crying anymore, but I'm still sad.

I want my Mutti. I want my Vatti.

"I know darling, I know." The man presses kisses to my hair and rocks me as best as he can when he can't join me on the floor. Did I say that out loud? I must have if he heard me. I press my face into the crook of his elbow and close my eyes.

Maybe it will all go away. I'll wake up and it will be my birthday in three days. This will just have been a very real-looking nightmare. Mutti will be demanding that Vatti help her with the dishes while he throws suds at me and I'll be hiding under the counter and teasing him. Mutti will give up and fling water at the both of us, completely forgetting that she's wearing her Sunday best. And then I will go play in the barn and then go see Joshua down at the end of the street, one mile away exactly - I checked. And he'll let me use his pool one last day before his dad closes it for winter. And then Mutti will come find me and tell me we are going to be late for church - which we always are, because my parents like to walk anyway, and who needs a too hot church with Latin words that make no sense and a hateful God who hates everyone? But afterwards because it was so hot Vatti will let me climb onto his back even though I'm too old for it and we'll go to the corner diner to get ice cream sundaes. Chocolate for me, plain ice cream for Mutti, and Vatti will make some awful creation that looks like it will eat him back. Vatti will ask about my nightmare - because somehow he always knows when I'm having one - and I'll tell him and they'll both hug me and tell me that it wasn't real because it wasn't.

I open my eyes. The hospital is still there.

"Am I dreaming?" I finally ask, because I need to know. I need to know it wasn't real. But the stranger's arm tightens and he sighs very quietly.

"Get some sleep darling. Yeah? Or are you not tired?" he asks me instead of answering. It's as bad as if he just said no. I curl up tighter and cling so tightly to his arm it must hurt. But he doesn't let go.

"What's going to happen to me?" I finally whisper in the dark. "What happens to girls who don't have any families?"

There's nothing the strange man can say.

XXX-XXX

The man's name is Charles Xavier. I learn that when a pair of nurses come in with big smiles and even bigger eyes the next day. They don't notice me at first, but that's okay. I don't want them too. I hide under the comforter and watch as the nurses say things to Mr. Xavier in a strange tone, batting their eyelashes at him and putting their hands on their backs to stretch. I don't get why until they start puckering their lips.

Ew. They want him to kiss them, probably. That's just gross. Go away.

Mr. Xavier glances at me and laughs. That's when the nurses notice me. They immediately straighten their backs and put on the sort of smiles that remind me of when the teenage boys at my school would come out of the locker room smelling like skunk and trailing white clouds of smoke behind them. Mr. Xavier laughs again as if he heard what I was thinking.

"Oh you poor dear, you poor, poor thing!" one with a bosom as big as my grandmother's when she was alive says in a too high and too sweet voice. There are crocodile tears in her eyes and in the skinny one's too.

I hide under the covers and don't come out until they shut up. I don't want to talk to them. When I finally peek out they're gone and there are two boys in their place. Older boys. One is blonde and muscular and the other is red-headed and skinny. They're talking to Mr. Xavier and they only notice me when Mr. Xavier smiles and says, "Hello darling."

"Who're you?" I demand, glaring at the boys. Since when are visitors allowed in here? Mr. Xavier laughs at the look on their faces and turns to me with a smile.

"These are my students. This is Alex Summers, and this is Sean Cassidy." They wave at me and I wave a little back. "Sean, Alex, this is Anya." I feel my mouth drop open in shock.

I know I didn't tell him my name.

Mr. Xavier goes very, very, still and then cuts a glance at me with a raised eyebrow.

Oh my God… is he…?

"Hey kid," the blonde one grins a little at me. He gestures to Mr. Xavier who is still watching me with slightly creepy blue eyes and then looks back at me. "You taking good care of our professor here?" The redhead smothers a laugh. I glare at both of them.

"I am not a kid! I'm eleven!" I inform the blonde one - Alex - angrily. "And how did you do that?" I round on Mr. Xavier hotly. He raises a dark eyebrow and looks at me with that infuriatingly knowing look adults wear around younger kids. I scowl hard.

"Do what?" he asks as innocently as Joshua right before he puts a bug down my shirt. I feel my scowl deepen.

"The-the name thing! I never said my name! How did you do that?!" I demand. Mr. Xavier simply smiles and taps the side of his nose, like it's some big joke. The boys are laughing quietly and I cross my arms with a huff. I hate not knowing; the only thing I hate worse is being laughed at. I stare at them with 'the look' and watch the red-head boy gulp.

"Dude, where'd she learn to do that?" I hear him whisper to the blonde. I can't stop the smile from curling at the edges of my lips, and Mr. Xavier sees it. He smiles wide at me and I feel the corners of my mouth turn up even more.

They pull down the second a cop comes into the room.

He barely spares a glance for the other people before looking down his big crooked nose at me, heavy black brows over cold grey eyes watching me. I shrink into as tight of a ball as I can and pray he goes away. But the Hateful God doesn't listen to me as he comes near me and pulls out a little black book. I don't want to do this. I don't want to talk about that night. I told Mr. Xavier, no one else needs to know, please go away -

"Anya Lehnsherr, yes?" he asks with a heavy accent. Southern, I think. Florida accents are different from the normal southern ones, but sometimes they blend. It should be comforting.

The guy makes me want to run.

"Y-yes," I answer. I look towards Mr. Xavier as if to ask for help, but he's staring at me with wide eyes like he just saw me for the first time. The boys are staring at me too, with a mixture of fear and… anger? Why?

"I need to ask you a few questions about your father."