Hey ya'll! Thanks for the favs, follows and great comments! I've been dying to write this fic about TJ for a very long time! Keep reading and keep the comments coming. I want to know what you think about this story; I love feedback!

Thanks,

Maria

I'm stuck in the School Infirmary for a couple days. And, as Papa would say, Mein Gott, it sucks! I've never been really good at sitting in one spot for days at a time - it makes my feet feel itchy, in a super restless way, not an athlete's foot kinda way.

But I think the worst part of my mandatory bedrest is not Spring Fever, but being left alone with so much time to think...

And I'm doing a lot of thinking - mostly about the pink kid I met in the mall. And what happened after I confronted her. Or at least what I thought happened - about the zombie apocalypse-looking scenario complete with rotting corpses. Had it all been a hallucination brought on by the noise levels overstimulating my brain? I dunno. It certainly smelled real enough. So much so that I gag just remembering it.

I want to talk to Papa or Uncle Logan about it, but something holds me back. They understand me well enough in some ways, like when it comes to dealing with my super-senses and teleportation powers. But this is different, really different, and I'm afraid the only person who could help me with it - Aunt Jeanie - won't ever speak to me again.

Just thinking about Jeanie overwhelms me with guilt. But Papa tells me to try not to think about what could have been, but what was - and is. I guess he would know best - he is Kurt Wagner, the famous Nightcrawler of the X-Men. And the X-Men know how to play for keeps.

Papa comes to see me at least twice during the School day, despite his duties as Principal, and spends all evening with me when School is dismissed. He isn't my only visitor. Uncle Warren drops by, literally, through the skylight, with Vicky to say hi. Vicky brings me a dead mouse as a get-well-soon present. She's so proud of it, I can't refuse it. Little Hope makes me a really pretty card made out of macaroni. And her brother Andre shows me his new tooth.

Auntie Jubilee lets me look at her fashion magazines. Uncle Remy brings me a whole pecan pie, my favorite, and Uncle Logan comes around to watch Bad Boys 2 with me, my favorite movie.

Uncle Bobby shows up to make a huge ice sculpture of me right there in the Infirmary. Doc Moira, who fills in for Aunt Jeanie when she can't work, yells at him until he leaves.

Even Uncle Scott looks in on me. He just gives me a curt nod and then vanishes, but I guess it's better than nothing. Like all my uncles, I know he still cares about me.

Mama stays on an unprecedented three days at the School. I love her, but she makes me even more nervous than I am as she drifts in and out of my corner of the Infirmary. Like me, Mama is happiest doing instead of waiting.

On the third day of my incarceration, Mama sticks her bushy head past my curtain.

"Hey, hey, I have a surprise for yoooou!" she sings out. "Can you guess what it is?"

Unless the surprise is freedom, I'm in no mood for guessing games, but Mama, the more serious of my parents, is smiling, so it must be a big deal.

And turns out it is - Aunt Jeanie pushes past the curtain holding a jumbo bag of spicy pretzels!

I throw my arms around her, way more syked about her than the pretzels. (Which are my absolute favorite, though I haven't been allowed to eat them since the mall fiasco. Nothing but yucky tasteless watery soup.)

After all the hugging is over (and you can tell how happy I am to see Aunt Jeanie to be going on over someone this way. I am practically twelve, after all), Mama settles us down on my bed, but then she turns back to walk out of my corner.

"I'll just leave you two alone for a little girl talk," Mama says with a wink at Aunt Jeanie.

I huff a bit. Those two are pretty insufferable when they get together, but I'm also grateful to Mama for giving us some time together in private. There's a twinkle in her eye, however, and I wonder if she knows more about exactly what's eating away at me - what I want to talk to Aunt Jeanie about - than she's letting on.

Considering it's my Mama we're talking about, who seems to know everything about everybody, I wouldn't doubt it.

"So what's up?" Jeanie asks, digging into a pretzel right away. I gaze appreciatively at her - and her big swollen belly. Junior seems to be doing all right. His mama too considering how she's scarfing down those pretzels.

I'm not surprised at her question either. Aunt Jeanie knows what everyone is feeling all the time - like literally. I feel a twinge of sympathy, no empathy, for her. I don't have to imagine what she goes through day to day with her telepathic powers, everyone's thoughts and emotions crowding into her brain. It's the same thing I go through every day, but with sound instead of thoughts and emotions.

I sigh, but I decide to dive right in. There's just no fooling Aunt Jeanie. It's all but impossible to lie to her.

"I'm sorry ... about your mochi baby," I say in a tiny voice.

Jeanie, half-way through her third pretzel, gazes at me. Her green eyes usually sparkle, but now they're solemn. Uncle Scott is the serious one, which is one reason he and Jeanie compliment each other so well.

I wince as I force myself to meet her gaze. To my overwhelming relief, I don't see anything resembling a grudge in her expression.

"TJ, it isn't your fault-" she says.

"Yes, it is!" I almost shout.

"Hush!" Doc Moira snaps from behind the curtain. She's a good deal more strict than Aunt Jeanie. She hardly allows talking when she's in charge of the Infirmary.

"TJ, all of that was beyond your control," Jeanie states.

"No, it wasn't!" I insist in a lower volume this time. "If I had left the mall before it got so loud ..."

"If you hadn't confronted that little pink girl?"

My mouth drops open, but I should have known. I haven't even told Papa about the pink kid; with all that's happened I haven't much thought about her exactly. And the reason is ... because I think she might not be real.

"You don't think she was all part of a hallucination?" I ask when I recover my voice.

Jeanie looks at my half-nibbled pretzel. I hand it over to her. Geez, with the way she's eating, her kid is going to be spicy and sweet.

"I went inside your mind to bring you back," she explains. "If that kid wasn't real, I wouldn't have detected her consciousness."

"B-But what about ... the rest?" I say squeamishly. "All the, ick?" I can's even say it, the things I saw when I met the pink girl. The way my reality seemed to melt away and reveal another, much more horrible, one. It's too disturbing and gross. I see it whenever I close my eyes. Doc Moira comes to my bed, frowning, when I wake up from these nightmares and gives me a sedative to help me rest.

"Well, what do you think?" Jeanie asks me. "I know you have a theory."

Again, I'm taken by surprise. And again I'm reminded that, growing up in the absence of any kids my own age, I've come to rely on the adults for all the answers. I should trust in my instincts sometimes, the way Logan is always telling me to.

"Hmm," I hum, trying to buy a few seconds. I know Aunt Jeanie could just read my mind, but I know she won't. That's a big no-no for telepaths like her. She'd never dive into someone's thoughts without their permission or unless it is a dire emergency, like my little incident at the mall.

In fact, Jeanie is always putting up barriers in her own mind to keep out the thoughts of others. I sure wish I could do that with sound!

I take a deep breath. "Papa says when we teleport we don't just go from Point A to Point B. We go to … another world in between. Sort of a layover zone? For just a few seconds."

Jeanie nods and grins. "I know. Did Kurt ever tell you about the time he got stuck in that limbo?"

I smile in return. "Yep. He said it's a bit – weird, intimidating. I think I might have gone to a place like that. Another … dimension? When I met that pink girl. I saw … some … stuff." I shudder.

Jeanie nods, gazing at me intently. Sometimes if a person's emotions or thoughts are really powerful, she'll detect them whether she wants to or not. Right now, I know she's seeing what I saw when I met the pink kid. Or what I thought I saw.

"It was …" I grimace again. "So bad. Like the worst nightmare, but with smells."

I don't realize I'm shaking until Jeanie takes me in her arms. "Oh, TJ …" she murmurs. "I can help you," she whispers into my hair. "Forget it. Or not recall it so vividly."

Jeanie does that sometimes when people's memories are just too painful, too traumatizing. Or she'll persuade someone's mind to squirrel those memories away until they're strong enough to process them.

But I find myself, to my surprise, shaking my head. "I … don't really want to. Because, well, what if I can help her?"

Aunt Jeanie pulls away from our hug and smiles at me. "Just like your Dad. You just can't turn away from people who need help."

I smile, surprised by the compliment – and pleased. Papa's generous, to a fault sometimes. It's something I've always admired about him. And something I've always wanted to emulate. ("Emulate" – now there's a big word.)

"So … you don't think I'm crazy?" I ask.

"Well, not about this," Jeanie teases, tweaking my nose.

I wave her hand away, rolling my eyes. "Jeeeean …" I whine.

"That kid was real. Otherwise, I wouldn't have psychically detected her."

"But that … place I saw when I met her? Was that just a hallucination? Something I saw because I was tripping out?" Suddenly a new thought slams into me. "Or could she have made me see it? Like as part of her powers?"

"No. No. Yes and no," Jeanie replies. Flushing, I duck my head. Getting ahead of myself again. "I think she did make you see it," she continues. "But not as part of her powers, technically."

Jeanie chews on her fourth pretzel for a loooong moment. I hear some students scuffling inside the Infirmary. One of them is whining about a minor mishap. Sounds like Tony Daniels. Stuck to a wall with goo. Ol' Doc Moira had to go out to pry him off like a squished fly. I hear her now chiding him in her no-nonsense way. Like I said, in a School full of super-powered kids, stuff is going to happen.

"I think that kid was part of a dimension you got a peek into," Jeanie finally says after a long swallow chased by some tea. De-caffeinated, of course.

"The one Papa and I go to when we teleport?" I ask. Yep, he's told me how weird that place is, full of weird colors and sounds, but it ain't what I saw – not by a long shot.

Jeanie shakes her head. "I don't think so. But I lost complete contact with the girl when I pulled you back … here. To this reality. If she was anywhere in our world, our reality, I could at least get a trace on her. Believe me, I've tried with Cerebro."

Cerebro is a bucket Aunt Jeanie, or any well-trained telepath for that matter, puts on her head to amplify her psychic powers and seek out other mutants. OK, it's a bit more technical than that, but that's essentially what it is.

"I have a theory, TJ, that she was reaching out to you. Maybe subconsciously." Huh, no kidding. She almost blasted me into tomorrow! "And I believe she might try to do it again."

I straighten up. If I can help this kid, I will. "She certainly looked unhappy." To put it lightly. "I want to help," I add sincerely.

"Yes," says Jeanie, kissing my cheek. For once, I don't scrub it off with the back of my hand. "I know. But I'm not exactly an expert in inter-dimensional travel. I need some help too, from someone who is. If this kid is trying to reach out to you, TJ, we need to proceed carefully. She's very powerful and potentially dangerous."

Tell me about it.

"I don't want you getting hurt. None of us do," Jeanie says tenderly.

I pluck shyly at my bedcovers. "I-I don't want you to get hurt either. Or …" I gesture towards her huge belly. "Junior there."

Aunt Jeanie laughs and pinches my cheek, something I hate, but I'm so over the moon that she and her baby are OK that I barely notice. "You mean Nate?" she says.

"Nate?" I reply.

"Yeah, Nathan Christopher," Jeanie says with a gentle smile, rubbing her tummy affectionately. "Nate for short. Scott and I both really like the name. What do you think?"

Hmmm. Nathan. Nate. It's short and friendly, like Aunt Jeanie, but also a tad mysterious, like Uncle Scott. "I like it," I answer honestly, giving her tummy an affectionate pat of my own. Much to my joy and relief, little Nate Summers gives a powerful kick back. Jeanie and I both giggle.

Scared, dangerous mutant kids. Terrifying alternate dimensions. It's comforting to know that some things never change. Like the birds and the bees. And the X-Men, of course.

###

Doc Moira comes by to discharge me from the Infirmary that afternoon. She's a no-nonsense Scotswoman with her thick chestnut hair shot through with grey and her sleeves always rolled up for work. She's a human, but she's known the X-Men for a very long time, long before I was born. Long before even Rachel, Jeanie and Scott's first kid, was born. Back when most of the X-Men, even Aunt Jeanie and Papa, were just kids.

"I personally would'na discharge you for another night," Doc Moira says in her thick accent. "But I'm na ruling the roost from this afternoon forward." Which means Aunt Jeanie is officially back on her feet again. "Until Young Summers arrives a' any rate," Doc Moira adds, stabbing her pen towards Jeanie's belly. And that won't be long from the look of things. Three weeks at the most, but Jeanie is determined to work right up to her due date.

It's a good thing for me. One more night in the Infirmary and I would have been climbing the walls – literally. I scamper out of the School Infirmary to show what good spirits I'm in, gleefully sucking a raspberry lolly. (That Aunt Jeanie gave me. Doc Moira rolls her eyes at such nonsense.) I 'port up to my room, with Jeanie's nodded permission, and practically hug my bed.

"Ah mussed u soooo muth," I say into my comforter. Like seriously, hospital beds suck.

Then I raise my head, glance around (and listen around) to make sure no one is coming. When I'm in the clear, I 'port into my closet, hook my knees over my clothing rack and swing upside down. Aaaaahhh… now this is living.

When I was tiny, like younger than Andre, this was the only way I would sleep. Like I would 'port out of my bassinet to hang from my closet's hanger rack. The first time Mama came into my nursery, found the crib empty and then her little blue elf swinging by her toes in the closet, she almost had a heart attack – or so Papa tells me. That was during the super brief period they lived together.

I was barely two years old when they separated – Papa returning to the School to live with the X-Men and Mama back to Genosha to take the throne there as Queen. And then there was me, their little elf, constantly shuttling from one home to the other. I never thought it was strange or sad; it was all I ever knew. And I would bristle at any "pity" strangers would show me for being the child of divorcees. But there are times when I look at kids like Hope and Andre or my half-brothers, Billy and Tommy, and wonder what it would be like to have both parents living in the same house. Weird to me, I guess. Or as weird to me as my life seems to them.

That's when I see it: a tiny little grey bat hanging in the far corner of my closet. I hadn't detected her. Of course I hadn't. Bats are one of the few things my ears can't easily detect. They shoot out invisible webs of sound that cancel out my super-hearing.

I LOVE bats. They are without a doubt my favorite animal. Uncle Logan says it's because I'm so much like them, ears and all. I love to go out with Logan on summer evenings and watch the grey bats swoop and dive after their prey of pesky insects. Bats are cute and helpful, but that's only one reason I like them so much. Bats have super-ears, like me. They can hear a moth beat its wings half a mile away. I love to sing to them sometimes. Another thing I've been doing since I was a toddler. I'll shoot out sound so high-pitched not even Logan's ears can hear it, but the bats can. They'll flock over to me and sing back in their song only I can hear. It's like a secret language we share.

I look at this little girl peeping at me from sleepy little beady eyes. She's a "grey" bat, but her soft, soft fur is mostly black tipped in silver. She looks groggy from staying up last night catching bugs. The School Mansion is old and sometimes bats will move in, especially in spring when they're on their migration South. This girl must have laid over in my room for a quick nap when she noticed it wasn't occupied. I don't mind, especially when my new roommate's so cute.

I shoot out a high-pitched greeting her way. Instead of responding the way bats usually do, she flutters past me on silent wings and out my open window. As she sails by, I notice her eyes glint amber. That's really weird. Bats, especially insectivores like the ones around here, have black eyes, not amber. Maybe a trick of the light?

As I'm thinking it over, Papa pops into my closet, hanging upside down right beside me. I jump. He can sneak up on me if he's quick. And Papa's the quickest I know.

"How's my kleines hemd settling back in?" he asks, ruffling my hair.

I make a face at the nickname, but then grin back at him, forgetting the bat for the moment. "Great! That Infirmary bed felt like sleeping on rocks."

Papa chuckles. "I suppose it is uncomfortable, though I've roughed it harder than that."

"Hmmm ... yes, I suppose," I reply. Papa's biological mom, Granny Raven, ditched him when he was a baby. He was adopted by a kind human family, Gramma Margali and her children, but Papa never forgave Raven for what she did.

Papa tells me lots of stories about growing up in Gramma Margali's Romani camp. He always speaks wistfully about the bonfires and sleeping under the stars, but it all sounds a bit tedious to me. I like soft beds and electricity. And when I whine and Papa reminds me of all this, it makes me feel terribly spoiled.

We hang there is companionable silence for a bit. It's nice, just Papa and me. We've always been partners, just the two of us. Of course, he has the X-Men, his extended family. But unlike Mama who has Billy and Tommy and my stepdad, Vision, I'm Papa's only immediate family. And, as I've said before, that's the way I like it.

So his next words take me by surprise. "Your Mama is leaving for Genosha tomorrow. You'll be going with her, ja?"

"Well, yeah," I say, blinking. "No need for her to go there and turn around one week later just to get me."

I suddenly realize that might have sounded a bit harsh. After all, I'm all Papa has. Is it fair that Mama gets me one extra week?

"Uhhh, unless you want me to stay," I add.

Papa laughs. "There's no need. I'm sure I'll find something to do while you're away." There's a certain twinkle in his amber eyes that makes me feel a bit ... odd. Like he's hiding something from me. Not like a birthday surprise, but something else. I'm not sure I like it. We're supposed to be partners.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" I ask him.

"Is there something you want to tell me?" he replies, his ivory fangs glinting in the dim light of my closet.

Guilt prickles me as I remember the secrets I'm keeping from him. "Errrm ..."

"Perhaps something you have told Jean?" he says, his smile widening.

"Got me," I say, smiling in return. There's just no fooling an X-Man.

"Well, far be it from me to encroach on any private feminine conversation."

"You're not mad?"

"Nein," he says. "You'll tell me if you think I should know. I trust you, partner," he adds with a wink.

Did I ever say he's the best dad? Because he's the best dad! I know many other fathers who would nag at their offspring, but not my Papa.

"Now, get into bed, mein liebling. You know sleeping this way could give you nosebleed."

I feel a bit jealous of Papa. He never gets nosebleeds or head-rushes from hanging upside down. He says I get them from Mama's side of the family.

I let Papa tuck me in (although I am almost twelve). It feels so drowsily comfortable to be in my own bed. I stretch my toes luxuriously, feeling the sweet cool sheets around my shins.

"Gute Nacht, mein beats," Papa murmurs as he walks out of my room. There's no need for him to switch on a nightlight; my eyes, like Papa's, see as well in the dark as in the day.

I gaze up sleepily at the glow-in-the-dark stars I stuck on my ceiling when I was six and the model of the spaceship I made when I was eight. Back when I was going through my space exploration phase. I smile at Papa's German term of endearment for tonight. Then suddenly I remember the little bat that was in my closet. But too late, because sleep in closing in on my brain.

###

I'm having the loveliest dream about biting into a life-preserver-sized donut with raspberry jam filling. Then it starts ...

My eyes snap open. I'm chewing on my pillow, the way I do sometimes when I'm having a donut dream. I spit out lint as I hear the voices again. They're coming from Auntie Marie and Uncle Remy's suite which is two rooms down from the one I share with Papa, but I hear them clear as a bell.

"Good evenin', Mista LeBeau," Marie purrs. I hear her - oh dear Lord - nibbling on his ear!

"Bonne soir, mon amour," Remy replies in husky tones.

Oh God, French?! I get it; it's Remy's native tongue, but, jeez, does it ever sound sappy. Nothing like good ol' fashioned German which is straightforward, but also charming.

But Remy's French makes the ladies utterly melt. I can tell by the way the girls in his French classes watch him, like he's a sexy Cajun beignet they can't wait to devour. But they're barking up the wrong tree. Other women might as well be invisible. Remy only has eyes for Auntie Marie. He's a complete and utter mushball when it comes to her.

Then the lovey-dovey talk stops and the smooching starts. Lots of smacking and grunts and sighs. I want to puke. The only thing worse than watching teenagers kiss is listening to your aunties and uncles do it.

I try stuffing my pillows around my ears, but experience has taught me that that is useless.

Knowing I'm getting zero Z's in my own room, I grab my favorite pillow, which is shaped like a giant candy corn, and 'port out to the School grounds. I know I'm not supposed to, but who the hell is watching me? Certainly not my aunties and uncles. They're too preoccupied.

I'm sleepy and grumpy, but I can't help but breath in the snappy night air with relish. Damn, I've missed it being cooped up. The aroma of freshly mowed grass, with a hint of daffodils, tickles my nose. Well, if I got one good thing out of being stove up in the Infirmary it was missing out on Aunt Kitty's landscaping detentions. (Though, knowing her, she'll find some way to reschedule them.)

The cool, wet grass feels slick and lovely between my toes. And the sounds! That's what I missed most. Crickets I can hear so keenly that I can detect the weeny rustle their legs make as they rub them together. The sound of caterpillar bellies dragging along the ground and, far, far away, a bobcat's paws padding through the woods.

I head towards the edge of campus, towards the forest, giving Aunt Jeanie and Uncle Scott's boathouse a healthy berth. With little Nate to arrive any week now, they'll be getting in as much lovey time as they can as well before Junior sees the light of day.

Seriously, ew.

I see Uncle Logan's cabin squatting at the edge of the stately spruces and pines. I see the gentle glow of his cigar as I approach.

"Hey, punkin," he murmurs. "Let me guess - things a bit noisy up at the Mansion?"

I make a face and he rumbles a chuckle before patting the porch swing he's sitting on. I thump down next to him, hugging my candy corn pillow. I'm pleased with the way my toes can now touch the rough boards of his porch as I push the swing gently back and forth. Just last year my toes dangled.

"It's SO gross!" I complain. "The kissing, the hugging, the making goo-goo eyes and mushy, sissy talk."

"Hmph," Logan says, taking a long puff on his cigar. "It's too bad they're so happy."

I pause, realizing how mean I sound. I glance up at Uncle Logan. He's looking down at me with his bushy eyebrows furrowed.

I sigh. "I'm sorry. I want them to be happy. But do they have to be so demonstrative about it?" Like gee-whiz, no wonder I get a new little cousin every other year.

Logan shrugs. "That's nature, kiddo. Nothing dirty or unnatural about that." He grins at me. "Still don't think it's gonna happen to you?"

I can't help but smile. "I just can't see myself making such a danged fool of myself."

Logan's cigar glows red again as he inhales. Most of my aunties hate the things, but I like their spicy, smoky scent. Secretly, I want to try one when I'm old enough. But I don't dare mention that to Mama or Papa. They'd have seven flavors of duck.

"Weeell, people change," Logan says. "Stands to reason you're going to be a lot different ten years, even five years down the road."

I gaze at him, feeling, as I often do around Logan, very small and young. He's old. Older than Mama or Papa or any of my aunties or uncles. Even ol' Doc Moira. Sometimes I wonder what he thinks of me and my problems. I must seem like a silly, prattling child to him.

Also, the thought of growing up! Of course, it's there, the inevitability, like the sky and the moon. But just to think of being sixteen or twenty-one or older! It's terrifying! But what about Logan? He's so old. Would he even bat an eye at ten or twenty years? Something that's such a big deal to me?

He knocks the ash from his cigar-tip off the side of the porch in a graceful, practiced move. "But then, some folks never fall in love or marry and that's fine too," he explains. "I've known many who haven't and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Less of a hassle if yah ask me."

I nod, completely in agreement, when a new thought makes me jerk the swing to a stop. It's so surprising, but so obvious. Why had I never thought it before?

"Wait, did you ever, well, love someone?" I blurt out.

It seems impossible. Uncle Logan has always been - here. Wise, dependable, unmovable, like a mountain. I couldn't imagine him ever being young or precocious in any way. But, as he would say, it stands to reason that he might have once. After all, Mama and Papa had me.

He smiles a bit. A far-off, wistful smile. Kinda sad too. "Yeah, once. Well, still do. She's the one who loved me once." He shakes his head and it's hard to read his expression. Remorseful? Reminiscent? It's hard to tell with Uncle Logan.

"Oooooh," I say. "Was she ... pretty?"

"Is," he replies. "Yup. Very."

Dang. I mean, dang. His lady love's still out there. And, I feel a hot flash of anger, she rejected him! Yes, Uncle Logan's rough-around-the-edges and not one for much conversation, but he's still quite a catch and handsome in his way. What kind of floozy spurned him?!

"Well, what -?"

"Time for bed, little elf," he says, standing and stretching and looking at me with a no-more-questions expression. It's just as well. It is late and if Uncle Logan doesn't want to tell me something I might as well be talking to a tree. "You take my bed. I'll bunk it out here."

I smile gratefully at him. It's not the first time I've "bunked it" at Uncle Logan's cabin. He knows how it is when things get too loud. One reason he prefers to live out here by himself instead of up at the Mansion.