Title: Babel Fish
Author/Artist: Blue Stem Cell
Universe: Marvel (Alternate Universe)
Rating: 16 +
Genre: Drama/Action/Romance Sub Plot
Summary: "No more Mutants." Three little words and more than 90% of the mutant population lost their powers. Nearly a year later, a British schoolboy, suffering from constant migraine destroys a part of his school and the first new mutation is registered. But just what is his power?
Disclaimer: I own nothing by Marvel or Douglas Adam's.
Note: I'm dyslexic. Not an excuse but just a note in case you come across anything spelled wrong or grammatically incorrect. Point them out to me, I do try and catch the ones I see.

This is also NOT an X-men/Hitchhikers crossover…that would be silly. Or highly amusing.

Edited on 14/08/2011. Cleaned up a few spelling/grammar mistakes and did a general tidy up.

Chapter 1: The Tower of Babel

"The Babel Fish is small, yellow, leech-like, and simultaneously translates from one spoken language to another. When inserted into the ear, its nutrition processes convert sound waves into brain waves, neatly crossing the language divide between any species you should happen to meet whilst traveling in space. Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation." – The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. Douglas Adams.

It was the beginning of October and the bitterness of the month had started to set in early. Huge gray clouds hung in the dismal English sky, floating without care above a northern college building.

Tucked away inside of the building, hiding from the rain that threatened to pour from the sky, was a rather tall art student.

The boy straightened upwards and peered at the large canvas that stood in front of him. Frustrated, he wiped his arm across his brow and bowed his head ever so slightly. A dull ache had started to form behind his eyes and he knew too well from past experience that he was about to suffer from a migraine attack.

With a deep intake of breath he took a couple of steps backwards, trainer heels clicking loudly on the linoleum floor beneath him. He was completely alone in the art room, the other students had left early in the afternoon but he needed to stay and finish his latest creation.

Paint spattered, Leeland Williams ran his long fingers through his baby fine hair, watching a moment as it sucked in the light glaring at him from up above. Everything about him was pale; as if he had been grown in a cupboard. All accept for the army sprinkling of orange freckles that danced across his nose, cheeks and down the side of his neck. It made him feel like hot milk with a sprinkling of cinnamon. It sounded almost poetic and beautiful, but Leeland didn't like hot milk and or cinnamon.

He was tall, pale and stick thin. No one wanted to date someone who looked like the poster child for anorexia. Luckily for him his eyesight was near perfect, but the milky green colour would lead others to believe otherwise.

Shaking his head, he massaged the bridge of his nose, as if to smooth away the pain that was building inside of his head. He felt his pale hair sweep at his shoulders, pressed his lips together so the metal lip ring pushed painfully against his skin. It stretched until it almost split but he released his captive mouth just in time and sank down into a chair, head clutched in his hands.

"I 'ave got to get this finished." The seventeen year old was frustrated at himself for letting such a headache build up without doing a thing about it. It was because of the pain that he was failing his art class. Falling behind everyone else because he couldn't bare the sight of the light some days, or the urge to throw up what was no longer in his stomach. They were beginning to come at irregular intervals; sometimes lasting days and he could not do a thing about it, let alone paint like he so urgently wanted to.

However, the boy had a slight stubborn streak, just like everyone else, and was determined to finish his painting. After taking a sip of water from his bottle, he finally stood up to examine it.

The canvas was A1 sized and the image painted upon it had, strangely, come to him in a dream. Lots of people wrote about their dreams, tried to interpret them. Leeland did not see the point in that. Dreams are just the sub conscious mind unwinding, or so he thought. Sometimes when he looked at the canvas though, he saw something else. It made the skin on his arms pimple and the hair at the back of his neck would stand to sudden attention.

In the corner of blinding white room there was a child cowering, one arm protecting his face with the other is spread out to defend himself. What charged at him was a great mass of shadow like substance, seeping outward from the doorway. The shadows wanted to suffocate the child, press him down into the ground. But there was hope in the picture. At the far end of the room was a distant figure, rising taller than the child, but not in an intimidating way. The hue around the unknown was a vibrant green and he reached for the terrified boy, almost willing him away from the enveloping darkness.

When his teacher had questioned his inspiration for such apiece, Leeland could not give an answer. He had simply smiled in his own shy little way and muttered something about an over active imagination. The dream had awoken him screaming, his head pounding but the image never left. He had to will it into something else to make him feel as if it was no longer apart of him.

If there was truth behind the painting, or even an interpretation, then he was not sure he wanted to know the answer. He had a feeling that he would not like it.

After his little break of sitting and staring, the boy stood back up to carry on with his work. The pain in his head however made him wobble almost drunkenly and he collapsed breathlessly into a nearby chair. Putting his head back into his hands he groaned in annoyance and forced the tears back.

Of course he was on strong medication for the migraines. He had various CAT scans and examinations to see if there was anything causing such pain. There were no abnormalities however, and he supposed it was just the way he was.

There was the soft sound of shoes somewhere in the distance and Leeland forced himself together, to lift his head and pretended that everything was ok. The person he saw made him smile, the pain subsiding for just a little while.

"Whoa, mate. Yah don't look so good?" The boy's hair laid in thick black dreadlocks that fell around his shoulders, donned in beads and various coloured threads worked into the mattered hair. His dark blue eye's where ever so slightly slanted, but that was about the only thing that showed that he was half Korean.

"Hey Brian, I'm fine. Just a migraine." Leeland smiled the best he could but did wince at the same time. This forced him to put his head back into his hands and fiddle with his eyebrow piercings'. The pieces of metal that inhabited his left eyebrow usually cooled his head. However, this time they were warm to the touch and he contemplated on taking them out.

Brian sighed and dropped his bag next to where Leeland was stationed and scratched at the dark stubble of his face. The two boys had been the best of friends for as long as they could remember, so of course he knew straight off hand that his friend was lying to him.

"Clearly yah not. Ah thought that doctor gave yah some stronger tablets?" He sounded ever so slightly irritated, but not directly at Leeland. Brian had always hated seeing his friend in pain, of that Leeland knew. At how these 'wondrous miracle tablets and potions weren't doing a blind bit of difference.'

Leeland just shook his head and looked up, but he regretted doing so as the harsh lights made him gulp and he held back the feeling of suddenly wanting to vomit.

"…'E did but they're just not working very well. Doctor said ah'll either grow out of them or ah won't." Though Leeland had prayed for the headaches to subside with age, but it seemed since the age of twelve that they were only getting worse. Besides, Leeland was very skeptical of the idea of a God to pray too. When he was ten he had prayed for his sick rat to get better, it died the following day. No, the boy did not trust God one little but.

"Well shit." Said Brain, dumping himself in the seat next to Leeland and it made the blonde grin, holding back laughter. That was just the way Brian was. He started to pull his friends notebook towards himself and a copy of Art History notes. He had missed lessons due to his migraines and had a lot of work to catch up with but not a whole lot of time to do it in.

"What are yah doing?" Leeland asked but Brian put up a hand and the blonde fell silent.

"Ah'll write up these notes for yah, an you can go an' get a cup of tea." He had started writing straight away, despite whether Leeland wanted him too or not. But this only made Leeland smile. He could have sat there and argued with Brian, told him that he didn't need someone else to do the work for him. The truth though was that he did need help, he was just too quiet to ask for it. Proud would not have been the right word.

"Sure thing, ah'll buy yah a Mars bar."

Brian took that as thanks and smirked down into the book, as he knew all too well that Leeland would not directly thank him. Being friends as long as they had been, they were in tune, almost, to each other's quirks and whims. Leeland had said thank you in the only way he knew he could with Brain; the promise of sweet chocolaty goodness. Something that Leeland could not indulge in.

He felt like a walking wreck. The migraines were one thing but he had been diagnosed with diabetes as a toddler. Illness made life hard, but complaining about it made it harder.

It was not that he was forbidden from chocolate, he just did not trust himself to only eat one little bar. He was the kind of boy that could devour a whole loaf of bread and jam in one sitting and then wonder why he felt so terrible after.

The Art department building was awfully quiet, unlike its atmosphere in the daytime. Filled with noisy art students, each wanting to leave their mark upon the world. Now though, it was silent and the old building had a dark eeriness about it. To keep himself company on the way to the vending machines, Leeland whistled, his eye's scanning quickly here and there at the dark shadows hiding in the corners. Of course he was not afraid of the dark, just what he could not see inside it. It made his fear seem a little more rational when sleeping with the lamp on. No seventeen year old should be sleeping with that light on, at least that was what Leeland thought.

The headache made him remember what he was doing when a sharp jolt across his eyes made him halt in his tracks. A low whistling pooled into his ears making him hiss ever so slightly, scrunching his eyes up tight. Sometime the migraines would be so bad that he would loose his hearing. At first it had panicked him, but now it was just part of the package.

Once back up in the safety of his classroom, he dangled the mars bar down in front of Brian, his friend taking it up with a nod of thanks as he wrote frantically. Peering over his notebook he smiled at Brian's such neat handwriting. His own was a piece of modern art in itself. His teachers would say otherwise and compare it to that of chicken scratch that had produced offspring with a child's doodle of mummy and daddy. No, Leeland liked the first description better.

"Thanks. Yah really learn about some fucked up shit. Who the hell concretes an 'ole house an' then calls it art? Or un makes a bed. Ah do that every morning; Ah'm not getting paid for that shit." Brian simply could not understand the modern art world. Then again he supposed he wouldn't have to understand if he himself was being paid that much for something he did every day.

However, Leeland was away with the fairies, or so it seemed. He had stared off into the distance at his painting, musing on it for a while. The piece gave Brain the shudders and it was not often a piece of artwork made him want to physically turn it the other way.

"Ah will never understand the art world." He simply said and to some extent Leeland agreed with him.

"Oh ah meant to tell you. That tiny lass in mah English class, Stef, has the biggest crush on yah." Brian said it with a casual whim, as if it was as natural as the girl saying hi to him through his friend.

Leeland sucked up his tea the wrong way and began to cough, spluttering milky substance across the floor at the same time. He looked upwards quickly and gave Brain the dirtiest look he could muster, setting the plastic up down on the side.

"Don't joke about stuff like that. She's a nice girl." The blonde sounded muttered in irritation, but he smoothed the annoyance out his face with a little shake of his head.

"Ah'm not jokin'. She really does like yah, wants me to give 'er your number." Brian grinned but the smile slowly faded from his face and he arched a thick black eyebrow at the boy. Leeland had gone suddenly quiet, staring at his blue high-tops as if they where the answers to everything he needed in life. There was such concentration on his face that Brian turned himself to face his friend, setting the pen down on the paper.

"What's wrong now?" Brian held the whine out of his voice but it took some doing. He had been trying to find his best friend a girl for as long as girls had been interesting and not icky. Though where as Brian flourished like young boys did, Leeland held himself back and was very distant from the other sex. In Brian's terms, Leeland was hopeless.

"It…It's nothing. She really is nice." Stef Scurr was tiny, with a pretty crop of brown hair and large chocolate doe eye's. She almost looked like a little doll that one would sit up with their expensive china. To top it off, she was friendly and mature. A little too good to be true. It was hard to find a girl like that and Brian had half a mind to snatch her up for himself. But he wanted to give Leeland a chance and besides, he'd be a terrible best friend if he did that.

"But?" Brian urged, almost on the edge of his seat. A part of him could feel what was coming and the rest of him supposed he knew all along. However, he needed to hear it from Leeland's own mouth.

The blonde turned towards his friend, looking at him for what felt like the first time. He took in the features of his face and the so serious look of need that was spread out across his eyes. It made Leeland want to smile and lock away all of his secrets from his friend and never share them again. He turned back to look at his painting, tilting his head to the side too see if he could see that in a new light too.

"You're doing it again." Leeland could almost hear the frown in Brian's voice but he had honestly zoned out. There was a piece of the painting that he wanted to fix. The stroke was not right with the cowering figures hair. Leeland's father quite frequently compared his son's attention span to a small fly. Brian would disagree saying that a fly would stick around longer.

"Hmm." He peered up the clock on the wall and frowned. "Seven already? Shit, Ah'm done for the day." Leeland got to his feet and swung his jacket on, zipped it up before collecting his various bits and pieces. With his bag swung on his back and his paintbrushes wrapped in cling film he turned to Brian who was still staring at him. "What?" The six-footer asked, oblivious to what Brian was thinking.

"Nothing Leeland. Nothing at all." Brian shook his head and smiled despite himself. He looked down at the mars bar in his hands and raised it too his mouth, prepared to take a bite of it. The chance never came though as a pale hand shot out and grabbed up the chocolate bar and then preceded to run out of the room, giggling like a little boy. That in it's self was peculiar, as Mars Bars did not giggle.

"Leeland! Yah little shit!" Brian laughed and turned to head out of the room, braking into a run as he did so. He grabbed up his bag, swung it on his back before spotting his target mere meters away. "Oi! Give me back my mars bar yah sorry excuse for a barge poll!"

"A barge poll?" Leeland blinked, but was not prepared for Brian's sudden leap that caught him of guard. He swung from his neck like a small child before hoisting himself upward, clambering onto his back to retrieve his stolen food. However, Brian was on the rather short side and so all Leeland had to do was stoop and hold the chocolate out at arms length. That way, all his friend could do was try and scramble over him or choke him. Whichever one came first.

Brian loved to rough house and play fight; after all, he had three little brothers, all under the age of eight. In his haste to grab his chocolate bar, he grabbed Leeland's lengthened hair and pulled him down on top of him. The blonde was still laughing hard, tears clutching to his eyelashes before the laughter took on a different form. He bowed his head as it turned into hysterical silent giggle, the type that made you think you couldn't breathe and that you were going to die with giant grin on your face.

The smaller figure had rolled his eyes and pushed Leeland away so it did not appear he was straddling his hips. "Move off." He took his chocolate rather hastily when it slipped from Leeland's loose hand and he scrambled to his feet, holding his prize victoriously up above his head. With a finger, he pointed at Leeland mockingly.

"You my good friend are an epic failure." He grinned down at the giggling mass that was now clutching at his aching sides. With a roll of his eye's, Brian spread out his fingers and held his hand out for his closest friend. However, Leeland sat up breathlessly with his pale hair falling in front of his equally pale eyes. With only his smile showing and his army of freckles, it made Brian stare for a moment.

Sometimes when he looked at his quiet tall friend,when he did not think he was looking, he would scare Brian. It was not fear that would make him turn away, only the knowing. The blonde would sit for hours staring off at walls or clocks, his mind racing underneath his pale flesh. Brian had wondered why nothing had ever fallen out; there was certainly not enough room for any more thinking. That was what his friend was like, though; a child who would become sad and disinterested if the topic of subject was boring or a little too much. He supposed that was what happened in the classroom…he supposed.

That smile turned wide, brace straightened teeth shone in the bright light of the hallway. Brian gulped but before he could retrieve his hand, Leeland had grabbed it and locked onto his wrist, pulling him back down to the floor. The chocolate bar had flung up out of Brian's opposite hand and skidded helplessly down the corridor and landed with a soft thud.

"Not cool, mate." Brian muttered with his face in the floor; but Leeland just giggled again with his back pushed up against the wall. He let out a long breath and blew upwards, forcing his hair to stand to attention. Pushing it back from his eyes and over his head he turned towards Brian, letting his arms rest across his knees.

"Ah believe that means you fail." Said the boy in a corrective manner and put his hands behind his head. The migraine slowly crept forward again, the rough housing had distracted it for all of five minutes but now it demanded attention again and even harder. Leeland thought that if it had a persona, it would a three year old having a tantrum in his mind, banging its little fist and head on the floor until it was bloody.

Brian propped himself up on his elbows and smirked. "Fair enough, just give me the dam Mars." He grinned with a shake of his head, watching as Leeland got to his feet and walked down the hallway, scooping up the chocolate. Taking one last look at Brian he flung it as hard as he could and gave a satisfied smile as it hit its target firmly in the face.

"Ow!" Brian complained from the far end of the hallway but Leeland had become distracted again. The sound of heels clicked on the linoleum floor and a tiny girl walked around the corner. She was not really a girl, more of a woman but her size fooled people into believing that she could not care for herself. Leeland knew she could but watched for a moment as she struggled with a pile of folders and textbooks.

With a shake of his head he walked up to her and took away some of that weight, smiling sheepishly down at her. It took her a moment to realise that someone had taken some of her things but she smiled brightly up at Leeland, her little button nose scrunching up as she did so.

"Hi Leeland!" She sounded excited, happy and calm all at the same time. It was a skill, or so Leeland thought.

"Hey Stef. What are yah doing round 'ere." The girl was taking a multitude of A-levels which meant she was in a completely opposite building at the front of the campus. She had no real reason to come all the way to the art building that was situated at the back of the college. Leeland believed it was so the strange art students could not infect the academic ones. Brian simply told him it was paranoia.

"Oh, Brian said you where on your own up here. I just got finished with history and thought I'd keep you company."

Leeland turned back to Brian and rolled his eyes at him. The black haired youth only grinned and came up level with Stef, turning to her with a secret smile. "Evening Stefanie." There was a subtle hint of flirtation in his voice and it made the girl scowl but she turned to him. "Go away Sier." She said, her tone cool as she looked back at Leeland.

Brian blinked for almost a second but let it go, the smile still on his face. "Ah'll see you outside." He grinned at Leeland but the blonde could not quite find the words to make his friend stay. He did not want to seem rude but at the same time he wanted Brian with him to fix what he had done. That bastard knew, he had to know Leeland's little secret and it only made him feel sick that he would do something like this. Once he got outside, he would be having words.

"I'm not interrupting anything am I?" She tucked a stray strand of dark hair behind her ears and peered up at Leeland, staring up into his milky looking eyes. Her friends had warned her away from the six footer, he was strange, too quiet and his eye's…they would simply suck you in and never let you go. However, the girl was stubborn and what she could not have, she wanted.

They began to walk down the hallway after Brian-whose short legs had carried him a great distance away. Leeland mused that he must have run. "No. Ah was jus' finishing for t'day. I'm sort of a little behind." He admitted and the girl nodded her head. "Brian had said you weren't very well, that's what you've stopped coming to Con Fab."

Truth be told, Leeland hated Con Fab. There were always too many people in the club and he hated the way the gang of students would segregate themselves. It was not that he thought himself above the club, far the opposite. He loved being around happy people, it made him feel the same but it was hard to be happy when ones brain wanted to seep out of his ears.

"Hmm. Migraines are getting bad again. They said if ah get my course work in by next Friday then ah can stay on the course but…I kind of feel like ah'm cheating a little, yah know?" He smiled to himself but Stef shook her head with a frown. "You're not cheating hun. If you were skipping class for the hell of it, then you would be cheating, but you're not." Leeland's cheeks had pinked slightly when she called him 'hun'. She would say it too everyone but when she said it too Leeland, he could hear her say it a different way. Like the word was just for him and made only by her. It felt wrong.

"Leeland…" She stopped and took a hold of his arm gently between her fingers, almost caressing the jacket as if she wished it were his skin. The boy stopped and looked down at the tiny girl, pressing his pierced lips together. "You know that I like you, don't you." She was so bold when she said it Leeland blinked at her a few times before the notion had even begun to set in.

"Oh." He finally found his voice but found it hard to look at her.

"And, I've been wondering what you would say if I asked you out…" She let her words trail away with her and Leeland found some form of courage to look at her. She did not shy away, only peered up at him with those wide chocolate eyes, strands of her cropped hair coming away from her ears in small wisps.

"Stef..." He sighed and closed his eyes for a moment and he felt her hand upon him tighten ever so slightly before he looked down at her. "Brian should 'ave told you, ah know 'e knows." He almost frowned but kept a soft apologetic smile upon his face. She waited for him to speak, until he could find the right words. However, she looked so eager, her eye's so full of life that it almost hurt too say and shouldn't have.

"Stef I'm just not…I guess. I'm just not into gir-Oww." He stopped, pain suddenly shooting into head and he swayed on the spot. A sudden feeling of cold ran from the top of his head, right down to the soles of his feat. It forced him to reach out with his free hand to balance on the girls shoulder.

"Leeland? Lee are you ok?" Concern fed her voice but the pain inside the boy's head was too much. Too much to even give a response to girl who only wanted to hear yes.

Blue, red and green sparkles fluttered in front of his eyes and he stared at the opposite wall of white. The sudden contrast was too much for his poor head though and he let the piles of books slip from his arms as he collapsed down onto the floor below. Stomach convulsing, he fell onto all fours, almost dragging the girl with him before he heaved. A rush of hot sour vomit cradled his mouth and his spat it out onto the floor.

"Brian! BRIAN!" With strands of sweet saliva hanging from his mouth, Leeland could hear the girl shouting for his friend, screaming his name as the concern soon turned into fear. Her voice faded in and out though, a high pitched whistling scream occupied his ears and caused him to shout out in pain. "Stop it…Stop it!" Tears that had clung to his eyes before streaked his face as he pulled his head into his hands, pressing the palms of his hands across his ears.

The girl screamed somewhere in the distance, but that only caused a sharp pain to race across the front of his eye's, almost attacking his poor ear drums which felt as if they would burst at any given second.

"Please…" He begged, his voice seemed distant though, as if he were at the opposite end of the room, away from his body that he could not quite reach. "Stop it…Just stop it. Shut up! SHUT UP!" He screamed for that voice to be quiet but it only became louder and the pain was suddenly sharp, as if his head would cave in. He pulled his hands from his ears and blinked the tears back at the sight of blood that had pooled across his palms and fingers. It trickled down his elbow, straining his jacket and Stef's books in front of him.

The sight of blood made him sway for a moment before he sat bolt upright, smacking his already pain filled head hard against the wall. A crack exploded from behind him and it suddenly felt as if his brain would slide out of the back of him.

"Not now. Oh God Leeland not now!" He knew that voice, Brian's voice. But he could no longer move his body, he sat stiff against the wall as blood seeped from either side of him. The cold sweep of his body had taken an unexpected turn, his stomach spread out with heat that ran up his body. He could feel it collide into his brain with a force that caused him to scream once again. He felt arms suddenly on him, someone was pulling him into their lap, pushing his blood stained hair back from his head.

All at once the pain subsided and he lay motionless in Brian's arms as the boy screamed at the girl to get help. Brian was terrified, fear was lodged so far inside of him that Leeland thought he would choke on it. That in its self made him roll his pale eye's up towards Brian's, peering at him silently as words caught in his throat. Brian was talking to him, tears staining his cheeks and they made him look like a boy of twelve. He was apologising to him but Leeland could not understand why, neither could he understand Brian's overwhelming look of guilt.

Leeland wanted to reach out and touch his friend, to tell him that everything would be fine but he wanted to sleep. Oh how he wanted to sleep.

xxx

It was dark, his breathing steady. The boy, who was not a fan of the dark to begin with, felt his hear thud harder and harder against his chest. The headache was a memory, a soft nostalgic feeling of being refreshed set into him. He frowned though, his right wrist suddenly laced with pain and he opened his eyes.

The light was soft, dull almost and he felt his hair being pushed from his eyes by hands he did not recognise. A soft murmur came to his ears but the blonde frowned. It was a voice, which he was sure of but it beeped inside his head, a string of words formed to make a noise like an ever-running answering machine. Where had the words gone?

Suddenly he sat bolt up right, the sound of soft beeps were crisp and clear and he threw his hands up, clutching at his head. A scream tried to erupt from his throat but his mouth felt as dry as parchment, his tongue as shriveled as a mummy's. So instead he coughed, coughed so hard he felt the phlegm race up his gullet and seeped out of his mouth in a hard rush of vomit bile.

The doctor in the room was startled terribly when the teenager he was treating suddenly awoke and shot up. He had to quickly drop his notes, hold onto the boys arm and call over his shoulder to the open door for a nurse. However, Leeland struggled in the man's grasp, screaming at him for no real reason than that he could. Throat too dry, arms and legs aching and his head, oh how his head ached now that remembered what he had done to it.

"Leeland, Leeland you have to calm down! You're safe now, you're ok." The doctor gritted his teeth and grabbed both of the boy's skinny wrists holding them away from his body so he would not suddenly jerk them and hurt himself. An entourage of nurses and orderlies came bustling into the room, each one of them trying to grab a hold of the boy, to silence his screams with soft hushing.

Still beside himself, Leeland did not quite feel the sudden sharp pain at the top of his shoulder. Only when the soft tranquilizers hit him did he understand what had just happened and he raised hurt eyes to each and every one of them. Then suddenly he was tired, so very tired and he let them push him back down onto the bed, to smooth his long pale hair from his eyes.

When he awoke, he was woozy and light headed but the pain behind his eyes had subdued some hours before and he was able to sit up without emptying his already starving insides. Now in the soft darkness of the room, he realised that the pain in his wrist had been due to a drip feed. He looked up and around the small hospital room, and pulled the thin blankets up towards his chin. He was not scared of the dark, or of the shadows that crept from the corners of the room. No he was not.

Pressing his lips together he was more than relieved to feel the presence of luke warm metal that was still firmly attached to his flesh. It was a comfort and the dark demon inside of his head shouted at him for his fear: You are almost eighteen years old. Such a child! No wonder that girl screamed in terror at you. Freak!

With a scowl he threw the bed sheets back and peered down at his legs. They were laid straight out, something he rarely did. It ached if he tried to stretch so far, used to curling up in the foetal position. When he attempted to move his legs though, pins and needles shot from the tip of his toes right up to his thighs. He sucked on his piercing and thought of the bride, sat in the back of the pussy wagon attempting to wiggle her big toe.

Though his recovery was not so time consuming, it did take him a couple of minutes to assure his legs that they really were attached to his body. Once on the floor he wobbled, the tube in his arm snagged at his wrist and he pulled at it ever so slightly. It did not budge straight away, having to negotiate it out of his arm. Hissing, he threw the dammed thing on the bed and rubbed at his now bruised limb before trying to walk to the door.

Someone had dressed him in white boxers and black top that came to his thighs. He felt exposed, his cheeks burning slightly as he clutched at the loose material, subconsciously pulling it down ever so slightly. It made him look nervous, twitchy. He padded bare footed over to the door and rested his hand on the handle. It did not budge. Arching his eyebrow, the boy tried again but still it did not budge. He was trapped inside the dark room, unaware of what was going on outside, or of what was going to happen to him.

"Hello?" He called through the door. "HELLO!" He called a little louder when nothing was heard apart from a patter of footsteps. A whimper escaped his dry throat, and he found himself clutching the door handle, pulling at it as strands of pale hair clouded his vision.

When he had almost given up hope he heard the sound of raised voices from behind the door. At least he presumed they had been voices. A sensation had run through him, the beeps fluttered in and out of his mind and formed words inside of his mind. He read those words in his mind, his hands shaking more so as he did.

"I'm sorry but the hospital is not at liberty to discuss the patient. We are under strict orders from his father-"

"I don't mean to sound rude nor presumptuous but I'll cut straight to the point. That patient, a child I may remind you, is the first recoded mutant in a year and you have him locked away like a criminal." He listened to those words, the sharp cool voice of the woman and he wondered what she looked like. Then it had struck him what she had said. First recorded mutant. But he was not a mutant. There were more endangered tigers than there were mutants now and he scowled down at the floor, at his toes.

"Hey!" He called. "Can anyone 'ear me? HEY!" He tried the door again, rattled it and then pressed his ear back against it.

"Oh for heavens sakes." The woman sighed, her voice like ice against his mind and it made him frown, stumble away from the door. He misjudged his steps and stumbled, landing painfully on his behind. His hair fluttered down into his eyes as he rubbed at his poor hip, watching as the door handle rattled.

"Open the door." The woman said to someone who must have looked like a deer in the throw of oncoming headlights. Her voice held sharpness but underneath was a tone of boredom, as if she could have opened the door herself. Leeland did not doubt that she could, she sounded terrifying and he resisted the silly urge to place his hands over his ears.

"Ms Frost, hospital policy states that in the case of a minor-"

"A minor?" Ms Frost cut in through the door. "A minor who is the first recorded mutant since M-day. A minor who has unstable ability's-

"Miss, Please-

"-And a minor who put a hole through the roof of his school nearly injuring two other children."

Leeland stopped breathing. It must have been mere seconds but it felt as if hours had dragged by. What had he done and whom had he hurt while he himself laid there in best friends lap, pooling blood out onto the floor and over the girls now tarnished schoolbooks. He felt his lips quiver, his eye's scrunched up tight and he forced his hands back over his head, blocking out the noise. He did not want to hear anymore.

"It's lucky for your hospital that the explosion was covered up so quickly by our people. Do you know how many other organizations want their hands on this child? Dead or alive? Locking him in a psychiatric ward is not going solve any of his father's problems. Now I will ask you one more time to open this door."

Leeland had, of course, been listening and what terrified him most was not that people wanted him dead or alive but that his father had put him somewhere, locked him away. As far as he knew he had done nothing wrong and all talks about being a mutant had him left breathless for words.

He held his breath, still sat on the floor with his hands over his ears. For a moment there was silence and he pictured the orderly trying to stare down the persistent woman. But after what felt like hours creep by there was finally a clatter of keys against the door and the handle turned.

It was pushed open; light flooded the dark little room and engulfed the boy on the floor. He looked upwards and met cold blue eyes. Her pale blonde hair fell around her face, framing it. It was brushed back from her forehead, her skin as almost as white as his own. Though unlike Leeland, she had bone structure. High cheek

bones with a pointed face made him think of aristocrats or those who always had money running through their veins. She wore a white blouse and jacket, her trousers where cream, which white high-heeled boots. Either she looked ready for the catwalk or was masquerading as a vanilla ice cream.

"Leeland?" She asked and the boy nodded, suddenly remembering that he was rather unceremoniously dumped on the floor. He got to his feet and was at least several inches taller than her, but he had the characteristic stoop of taller people. As if apologising for his height.

"Leeland…" The woman began, staring at him a moment whilst an unrecognisable emotion shone in her eyes. "My name is Emma Frost." She began, finally finding her voice. "-A mutant from the X-"

"Ah know who you are." Leeland said, urging the smirk out of his smile. "An' ah know what a mutant is an' who the X-men are." Did she think he didn't watch the news, read the paper. Heck, he went to high school with a handful of mutants before they lost their powers.

"What ah don't know is where the 'ell I am or where my Dad is?" He seemed to have gained a sudden amount of courage as he looked down at this smaller woman in front of him who peered up with her model esque face and arched a very slim blonde eyebrow at him.

What Emma Frost had noticed about the boy first was just that. He was a boy, a child with a baby featured face that was not quite ready to grow up into the man that he would soon have to become. She herself had students younger than him who could be served in bars without any question of ID, but not Leeland.

"Well I'm glad we have the introduction part over." She sniffed. "Your father placed in you in this fine establishment after discovering your mutation and that it was you who made it so over hundred students now cannot use their art building. Not a great loss." It seemed she would yawn at any minute, but somehow she was able to keep it back and kept her gaze with the boy.

"My…Dad wouldn't do that. He-he wouldn't." It didn't seem plausible, something his father would have strongly objected to. Jonathon Williams was an overprotective parent, a man who always needed Leeland to phone to tell him where he was. A man who would have rather had his child sit inside on a computer than play outside like other children in the sun. It was very unlike Jonathon Williams.

"Leeland you have a choice. You either stay here or wait for others to approach you, others who will not have you best interests at heart. Or you come with us." It was at this point that Leeland noticed the sandy haired man stood behind Emma a little. He wore a dark suit, it slimmed down his obvious muscular build but he would know those ruby quartz glasses anywhere.

"Come with the X-men or face what?" He asked, licking out over his lip, just to make sure his piercing was still there, a part of him he'd come to know for years. Emma looked at him with those sky blue eyes, her sculptured face and something sad passed across those model features.

"Not everybody will be this kind Leeland. Not everyone will give you a choice." Something almost mother like rose up inside of her and she wanted to brush the boy's hair from his eyes, tuck it behind his ears so he could see clearly. Then she remembered that, according to her teammates, she had the motherly instinct of a tea pot.

"My girls can only hold them off for so long and so far, other people are unaware of your mutation. It's lucky that no one can get into that head of yours Lee…" She reached up with a slender hand and poked him gently on his forehead, smirking at him ever so slightly.

"Ok." The boy nodded, gently brushing fingers over the spot she had touched, frowning ever so slightly.

"Good. You might want to change first." She said turning to leave the room and he felt sudden heat upon his cheeks. After all, he was only stood in boxers and a t-shirt he couldn't hold down very far. The man with the ruby glasses smiled at him and held out a small back pack that he had not noticed before, and Leeland breathed a sigh of relief. At least he would not be leaving in only his underwear.

"Thanks… Mr. Summers." He said quietly as he started to unzip the bag, pulling out a black t-shirt, jacket, jeans and a pair of white high top trainers. Of course he knew who Cyclops was, the co leader of the X-men, the one who always gave the interviews. Ever since Xavier vanished at any rate.

"Call me Scott." Said the man but Leeland shook his head as he started to pull on the clothes. "Dad says it's rude to call adults by their first name." Just because his father had, supposedly, placed him a locked room after discovering what he was, did not mean he was going to abandon everything the man had taught him.

Scott watched the boy for a few moments after this and a smile past his lips as he nodded.

"Ms Frost. We can't let either you or your colleague take the boy from the premises." Emma Frost was now stood in front of a short man with a lot of graying hair. He wore a full-length lab coat and Leeland realised it was the man who had pinned him to the bed, calling for people to sedate him.

"Doctor Mark is it? As his father is currently missing and Leeland is not yet eighteen, it means his care falls into the hands of the Xavier institute." She never raised her tone, it still radiated boredom or perhaps it was just the way her soft sharp voice flowed.

"Is that true?" Leeland asked Scott who nodded; watching as the boy zipped the bag back up, placing it around his now jacketed shoulders. Maybe he just needed something to hold onto, running his fingers up and down the fabric of the grey straps.

"There was very little set up for mutant children who were either abandoned or abused. We set up a program for mutant children at the school meaning by law your father can't keep you here." It also meant his father had relinquished all parental rights over Leeland, but Scott did not think the boy was quite ready to hear that.

"There is also no real reason for a perfectly healthy boy to be locked away like some drooling imbecile. Unless you want him to put a hole where your new wing is supposed to be, I suggest you call off your guard dogs and let us leave." Two orderlies the size of pro armature wrestlers were stood in front of the ward doors, and Leeland wondered whether they would simply pick Ms. Frost up and carry her away.

"I didn't really put a hole in the roof, did I?" Leeland asked Scott quietly but all the X-man could do was smile at him. That was the only answer Leeland needed and he bowed his head slightly.

"Now either have them move, or will I have to persuade them?" And Leeland watched as the men kept their ground, hands clenched in front of their stomachs as they stared down at the much smaller woman. However, Leeland did not think for one moment that Emma Frost would be the kind of woman to stand down, or not get her own way. He pictured her as a three year old holding her breath until her parents gave in.

"Emma." He heard Mr. Summers sigh and he wondered how they had planned to take him away from the hospital. Surely they would not have to fight their way out because if that were the case, he'd be staying. Leeland was not much of a fighter, he knew from past experience he would be down on the floor in zero seconds flat, holding a nosebleed. Perhaps if they knew that he was a terrible fighter, then they would not take him with them. After all, isn't that what the x-men did?

"Scott darling, your kind persuasive methods haven't worked. Watch and learn child." She looked over her shoulder to Leeland, a smile creeping into the corners of her mouth. He was getting rather tired of being called a child or "the boy."

But he watched like she had asked, and could not help but stare with wide eyes as Emma's skin and hair suddenly took on a rather different appearance. She was diamond coated, as if she had been sculpted from expensive rock and taught to breathe. It was a strange illusion, if that was what it was. If it was not, then it simply made his head hurt and he wished to step forward, brush his fingers over her skin to see what it would feel like.

The White Queen turned her attention to the doctor, various nurses and orderlies and smiled at them. "Step back please." She said to them and they did as she asked, stepping back so both Leeland and Scott would have room to move down the small corridor without being held back. Then she let her gaze fall upon the two door guards and without a word they stepped forward, even opening the doors for Emma.

"Emma we agreed we wouldn't do it like this." Scott neither sounded amused nor impressed, just plain irritated. However, Leeland had to agree with Emma. If this was the only way of getting them out of the building, then what harm could it do?

"Oh Darling please." Emma waved her hand, dismissing anything Scott would have liked to have said or shouted at her. They both walked on after Emma, but Leeland found himself stopping in front of one of the overlays and waving in front of his eyes.

"Leeland." Emma called and the boy tore his eyes away from the almost frozen people. "Are they gonna to be all right?" He asked once he had caught up with Ms. Frost and Mr. Summers, his northern accent sounding think against their American voices. "They'll be fine once we leave this charming little place and then we can get down to the real business."

"Real Business?" Leeland asked as he watched Emma, urging his poor aching legs to move just that little bit more through the hospital. It seemed that no one noticed they were there. As if they could just see them from the corner of their eye's but did not truly want to believe their presence.

"Yes." Said Emma. "We haven't a clue what your mutation is."

TBC ~