Disclaimer: Marvel owns them, but Kurt sleeps under my bed. Ana's mine, don't steal her :) Jean Gray is evil and should be shot several times. Kitty is an annoying valley girl, but a useful plot device. Scott is a dork, but I heart him anyway. Pietro doesn't really want to be evil, but it's the family business, and who would really disappoint Daddy when he's a super-powerful mutant? That's what I thought.

Short Author Note: Eh, I don't know if I like this one...It's kind of jerky, but I guess that's how it wanted to be written. Took me about fifteen minutes initially, and then about an hour of re-editing. *sigh* I just can't get some bits right...More at the bottom, please read on :)


First Sunrise (Beauty)
The first sunrise is beautiful, full of golden clouds and light so bright it blinds those lucky enough to witness it. Even after it's long over, bright spots hover in the vision, showing that while beauty may fade, the impression it leaves says with us much longer than we think.

Silver and Gold
Precious metals both…

He could have breezed through the halls faster than anyone, so fast that they wouldn't even see him, only feel the slight breeze as he passed them by. But today, he had a reason for aimlessly meandering through the halls of the school. 13 lockers down from him, on the left side: Ana.

Maybe it was the way she swung her blonde hair, long and wavy. It was like liquid gold. He would often say that to himself, but not when the others were around. It was inviting unending embarrassment to admit that he thought a woman's hair looked like liquid gold. Women, he was taught, were only good for two things: cooking and sex. And maybe cleaning. But that was all.

Ana was absently twirling her hair in her left pointer finger as she looked in her locker. She was rifling through papers, examining one or two closely before replacing them. He could watch her outright - he was too quick for her to catch him if she noticed. He almost wanted her to notice, just this once. But no one else could. If one of the others (he couldn't call them friends) noticed that, he would never live it down. The embarrassment would kill him.

She had blue eyes, too. He liked blue eyes. These were very light blue, and they offered up so much emotion…not hard to do, because she was an empath. Every time she passed by him, he could feel her. There was a whirlwind of emotions surrounding her - it followed her everywhere. Sure, she could suppress it, but when she walked by laughing with those friends of hers, he could feel it leaking through her shield. Happiness, trust, love…All those things that he felt so rarely, those wonderful emotions…She was saturated in them. That was the first thing that drew him to her.

That freshman freak, Kitty, had come up to her then, chattering on about some inane thing that freshmen worried about. "Does my hair look alright?" "Do you think he'll like it?" "I'm so nervous, Ana…" Ana calmed her with one touch to her arm, smiling. She was so gentle, so caring…so unlike anyone he'd ever met before.

"He'll like it just fine."

His head perked up. There was sadness in that voice, and sure enough he could feel it as Kitty turned away, distracted by one of her other freshman friends. Blue eyes, sad, hurting… He concentrated for a moment. Yes, sadness. Hurt, rejection, even a hint of jealousy. Someone hurt her? Who was it? Some mindless jock that had blown her off because she lived with the X-Freaks? Not that any jock would know that she was one of the X-Freaks, but the Institute kids had a reputation. Jocks and the other popular kids didn't like hanging out with them very much. The only exception was the Gray chick. But then again, she had been popular before she had gone to the Institute.

No, it wasn't a jock. A drama kid? No, she wasn't into that stuff. Geek? She could do so much better than that. It had to be another X-Freak. Good. He didn't mind killing one of them. He would, too, if they were hurting her. Not that he'd stick around long enough for the fool to figure out who did it. Zip, crack, zip. Easy enough.

Fuzz-boy was coming down the hall now. He almost stuck out his foot to trip the goofball, just for the laugh, but for some reason he didn't this morning. Not that he didn't have a good reason to trip him. Fuzz-boy was always so…chipper. Freak.

Kitty-cat had started giggling, huddled close to Ana's locker. Ana glanced up once, offering a small smile to Fuzz-boy as he opened his locker, three down from hers. Her emotions were pulled in now, closely guarded. That was a strange thing, because she lived with the blue freak. Why would she suddenly conceal her emotions when he was around? It wasn't like he didn't know. Kitty was still giggling her inane freshman giggle.

"Hi, Kurt," she said, leaning against the lockers. There was definite flirting in that annoying voice. Fuzz-boy smiled charmingly.

"Katzchen, meine Liebe," he said, bowing. What a dork. And, surprise surprise, little Kitty-cat giggled. Freaks, both of them. His glance turned to Ana. She was staring at Fuzz-boy and Kitty-cat with something between a smile and a sob. No emotions from her now. In fact, the air around her looked weird, like the air above hot pavement in the summer. She was outwardly calm, but he could tell from her eyes that she was on the verge of cracking.

His attention was suddenly drawn back to Fuzz-boy when he let out a victorious cry and swept Kitty-cat up into his arms. He swung her around, and then dipped her down and kissed her, right in the middle of the hall. Cat-calls and shouts of "Get a room!" echoed across the linoleum. And Ana looked like an abandoned kitten in the rain.

"Walk you to homeroom, Leibe?" Fuzz-boy held out his arm to Kitty-cat, who took it with yet another giggle. As she passed Ana, she grinned and reached out to squeeze her arm.

"Thanks, Ana."

Ana nodded, smiling with everything but her eyes. They followed Fuzz-boy and Kitty-cat as they walked arm-in-arm down the hallway, both grinning the most stupid looking grins. He groaned in disgust, looking back to Ana. She had turned back to her locker, her hands clenched in fists at her sides. The shimmering air around her suddenly disappeared, and a barrage of emotions assaulted his mind. A hint of happiness for her friends, a touch of pride for setting it up…But behind those shallow shields lay overwhelming sadness, deep hurt, and painful jealousy. Rejection. Even from down the hall he could see a tear slide down her cheek. And then, it came to him in a flash.

So. She liked Fuzz-boy.

Stupid, stupid girl. She could have easily sabotaged the situation. Tell Fuzz-boy and Kitty-cat some convenient lies, and they'd end up hating each other. Then, she'd be free to waltz in and take the furry freak for herself. But, she was an X-Freak. And a genuinely nice person. She wouldn't do something that heartless to her friends. She actually had a conscience. He was glad he had suppressed that bit of his personality a long time ago.

Her locker slammed shut. The halls were clearing out - it was almost time for homeroom. Not that he really cared. He could get there in less than a second and no one would even notice. He looked up at her again; she was wiping the tears out of her eyes, those beautiful blue eyes…She shouldn't cry for Fuzz-boy. The guy was an idiot anyway, giving up that bundle of happiness and blonde hair for that flat-chested, anorexic freshman. Having Lancey-poo mooning over her was bad enough. Anyway, Kitty-cat would tire of the blue freakazoid in less than a week, and then Ana'd get him on the rebound.

No, no, that wasn't it. Her emotions were telling him that something deeper was going on. She really really liked the stupid fuzzball. She hated herself for wanting him to be unhappy, because she knew he was happy with Kitty-cat. The stupid girl actually thought she was wrong in wishing unhappiness on her friends. She needed to learn. Friends were only there to be used for one's own benefit.

"What are you looking at?" Uh oh. He had stared for too long, and now those diamond eyes were focused on his. His mind went blank, and his mouth, working without his hyper-speed thinking, said the first thing that came firing from his brain.

"Nothing, Pandora." He lifted his eyes to hers, reading the hurt in them. "You got a problem with that, X-Freak?" He cursed himself silently for causing her more pain and closed his locker, spinning the dial so fast it looked like it was going to lurch off the metal. His mind raced, trying to come up with some other thing to say. I'm sorry. Forgive me. Forget about Fuzz-boy, you're too good for him. Come with me. Ana lowered her head and turned away.

"No," she said softly. "No problem. See you in English, Pietro." Against her back, her hair shone all the brighter as she walked down the hall, head bowed. He stared as she disappeared around a corner and was gone, leaving a faint trail of emotion behind her.

Pietro sighed and leaned against his locker. Stupid girl. Stupid for liking Fuzz-boy. Stupid for being an empath. Stupid for being so painfully beautiful he couldn't look at her without feeling his stomach drop out. Stupid for making him want to be good. Traces of her sadness caressed his cheeks, drawing a tear from one of his eyes. He wiped it away with a quick movement and turned on his heel, heading for homeroom. He couldn't have gotten there in half a second, but today, he just walked.

Yeah, it sucks.

German to English:
Katzchen: literally "Kitten" Kurt's nickname for Kitty. (as if you didn't know that)
meine Liebe: my love

Ana, as I said, belongs to me. Yes, I know there are several empaths in X-Men verse, but I promise you that I didn't even look at them when I developed her. As far as I knew, there weren't any other ones. My bad if there are. I've got more stories with Ana in them, but so far they're all unfinished or untyped. She's a fun character. I enjoy her. I always toyed with the idea of giving her to Pietro, but she insists that I give her to the fuzzy elf. So, I got back at her by writing this. Kitty/Kurt is my least favorite ship (aside from Jean/Scott and Kitty/Lance and possibly Amanda/Kurt), so this was a tiny bit painful for me. Maybe I just dislike anyone other than me getting my fuzzy. I don't know. So, maybe Ana will get her wish and end up with Kurt. I don't know yet. I think I have to mull that over.

She's itching for a backstory, now. Damn her.