Scott had to wonder when his thoughts for a certain red head began to fade. He catches sight of the brunette who had been haunting his thoughts for the past few weeks. "Scott, are you even listening to me?" Kurt asks, waving a hand in front of the older boy's face. "Hello, is anyone home in there?" He stares over in Scott's line of vision. "Hey isn't that the new girl?"

Scott didn't have a chance to reply before Kitty skips up to them, dragging the said new girl behind her. "Hey you two, Scott, Kurt meet Alexandria T.C. Quincy."

"Hey, nice to meet you, Alexandria," Kurt greets while Scott merely waves due to the fact that if he were to talk, he'd trip all over his words. "What does 'T.C.' stand for?" Kurt asks, the four of them walking towards their classrooms.

"Tristan Chastity," she replies, "And just call me Alex, everyone does." She glances down at the schedule the attendance lady had printed out for her in the morning. "I suppose this is my new class then?"

Kitty nods continuing to her own class. "You better take care of her, Scott. Alex, I'll pick up you after class, wait for me, ok?"

You're insecure
Don't know what for
You're turning heads when you walk through the door
Don't need make up
To cover up
Being the way that you are is enough

"You must be Alexandria Quincy, right?" the old teacher asks looking at his attendance sheet. "It's not very often students transfer into my class, usually they can't transfer out fast enough." The small joke receives quite a bit of laughter from the students. "Here, let me go get you a book and a desk. Please introduce yourself to your classmates."

The classroom had donated its extra desks and chairs to more popular and overcrowded classes like Creative Literature and Writing. "Um, hi, my name is Alexandria Tristan Chastity Quincy; you can just call me Alex."

For some reason, all of the smart jocks stopped whispering about sports long enough to catch her name. "Why did your parents name you Alexandria and why do you have two middle names?" one of them asks.

"My parents met while they were working at the Library of Alexandria, Tristan was the name of one of King Arthur's Knights of the Round Table, and Chastity was meant to represent my parent's ancestral past." Alex says as if she had repeated the same statement many times before.

Some of the girls in the front row usher her to come over to their desks. "Hey what kind of products do you use?"

"I don't use any." Alex replies squatting to be level with the height of the desk. "I'm on the swim team; it'll just wash off, so why bother right?"

Everyone else in the room can see it
Everyone else but you

"So, do you live with Kitty at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Children?" Alex asks watching the students walk through the halls during the passing period after class. Some of the other students had offered to take her to her next class, but luckily for Scott, she already had Kitty.

"Yeah," Scott replies hoping that his voice would sound normal and not that of a middle school boy talking to his crush. "Kurt lives there too, Jean, and some others you haven't met yet." Scott notices quite a few people turning their glances towards Alex when they walked past them.

Alex waves at Kitty, catching sight of the bubbly girl in the crowd of students. "Maybe I could come over and hang out then? As you probably already know, I don't have that many friends. I guess people just don't really like me."

"I highly doubt that." Scott says turning to face the slightly shorter girl for the first time. Up close he could tell that she had the athletic build of a swimmer but wasn't overly muscular like some swimmers. Her brown eyes actually seemed to have flecks of green and gold in them. "They just don't know you."

Alex smiles, a small pearly pink blush covering her tanned skin. "Thanks."

At that moment, Kitty runs up to them, one minute before the passing period ends. "Sorry, I got caught up with something." She grabs Alex's hand and they run off towards the other end of the school building.

Baby you light up my world like nobody else
The way that you flip your hair gets me overwhelmed
But when you smile at the ground it ain't hard to tell
You don't know
Oh Oh
You don't know you're beautiful

"Kitty!" Alex runs up to the group, a gym back slung over her shoulder and a custom swim team jacket on. "You made it!" She pulls Kitty into a hug.

"Well, Scott got lost driving here, almost ended up in the middle of a corn field." Kitty laughs, "I'll introduce you to everyone else. This is Ororo and Professor Xavier, our main guardians."

"Nice to meet you two." Alex says reaching out to shake hands with the two adults. "I love your hair color, is it natural?" She points to Rogue's red hair, "I've always wanted that color hair."

"Alex, we have to go." One of the male managers of the swim team calls from the pool door. "Meet's going to start soon."

"I'll be right there." She gives Kitty one last squeeze before heading towards the girl's changing room. "Meet up later?"
Kitty nods, "Good luck."

But, as it turned out, luck was something Alex didn't need at all. Even the parents in the crowd who knew almost nothing about swimming could tell there was something different about the way she did the butterfly stroke. Everything about the way she performed this swimming style speaks of monstrosity. The way Alex erupts from the water, arms coming about like she's trying to envelope her prey, and then diving back into the water, disappearing from view only to come up seconds later.

Her teammates crowd around her lane, offering hands to pull her out. The swimmers go to their respected sides, all of them wrapped in dry towels. Alex glances over at the onlookers, waving when she catches sight of Kitty.

"Hey Kitty do you and your friends want to join us for an after meet party?" Alex asks pulling away from the rest of the swim team members. She brushes her wet hair over her shoulder, sending water droplets behind her. "It's at this guy Duncan's house, he's a football player and a friend of our manager, here's his address." She hands Kitty a scrap of paper torn out of a memo pad.

Kitty looks over at the rest of the group, they shrug and the professor nods. "Sure, that sounds like fun, do you need a ride? I'm sure we could fit one more person in Scott's car."

Alex looks back at the rest of the team, being on the varsity team meant that she'd be working with a lot of the older girls. "Its fine, some of the girls are carpooling together, I'll meet you there." She slowly wanders back to the rest of the swimmers, the older girls gushing and cooing over her smaller frame.

"She's almost like their pet." Rogue says scoffing at the swim team's attitude towards Alex. "So are we going to go or are we just going to stand here all day gawking at them." Luckily for them, Jean just so happened to be dating the party thrower, she was the only one who got in without a hassle.

"Whoa, who brought the outsiders here?" Duncan asks pretending to be a good host and greeting party-goers at his door. He forcibly pushes Scott off the steps to his house. "Last I recall this was a swim party?"

"And last I recall you were a football player." Scott shoots back, obviously not the right thing to say at the moment. Some of Duncan's football posse friends happened to hear the retort and their squared shoulders block the door. "Come on guys, maybe we can just talk things through?"

"Kitty!" Alex practically flings herself into the arms of her friend. "I'm so glad you made it." She takes in the scene, cocking her head to the side. "Is there something wrong?"

By then the other girls Alex had arrived with got to the door. "What's the hold up here?" One of the buffer swimmers ask, Scott could see the muscles in her shoulders pressing up against her varsity jacket. "Are you seriously going to let a little girl like Alex freeze out here? Where is your humanity, man?"

Duncan throws his arms up in frustration, stepping aside to let everyone in. "Drinks are in the cooler, pizza in the kitchen, and bathrooms are down the hall to the left and right up the stairs."

Alex stares at her feet, mumbling a small thanks to Duncan before stepping into his house. "You better dry your hair," one of the younger football players says reaching out to touch her hair. "You're hair is frozen." And sure enough a small bit of ice breaks from her hair upon his touch.

If only you saw what I can see
You'll understand why I want you so desperately
Right now I'm looking at you and I can't believe
You don't know
Oh oh
You don't know you're beautiful
Oh oh
That what makes you beautiful

Sometime around ten, someone put clubbing dance music on the stereo and put up different colored lights for a makeshift dance floor. "Come on, Alex, dance with me." Kitty says trying to drag the poor girl into the mosh pit of other dancers. "It's ok if you can't dance, I'll teach you."

Alex shakes her head. "You go ahead; I'll just hang out here." She sits back in her chair by the island table in the kitchen. She does a shooing motion at Kitty and Kurt as they head out to join in the dancing. "Why aren't you dancing, Rogue?"

"Don't feel like it," the antisocial girl replies taking another swig of her soda. "Besides, dancing is not my thing."

"Oh no you don't," A British girl with purple hair and piercing comes out of nowhere, linking arms with Rogue. "Come on, let's party!" And off Rogue goes, purple hair dragging her off into the crowd.

Alex swivels around in her chair to the only other person sitting near her. "So, Scott, any reason why you don't dance?"

Scott shrug, leaning against the table. "I'm not much a dancer in the first place." He yells over the music, out of the corner of his eye he caught sight of Jean and Duncan doing some interesting moves at the edge of the dance floor.

"Is it because Jean's out there grinding Duncan instead of you?" Alex asks, her voice easily carrying over the music. Scott just glances at her; it was too dark to actually make out any facial clues as to what she was really thinking. "Am I wrong?"

Scott chuckles, "We're just really good friends."

Alex nods letting what he had just said run through her head. "Why don't you ever take off your sunglasses? Even when you sleep in math you never take your glasses off."

"I, ah, have this eye condition." Scott says, the look on Alex's face says that she clearly doesn't believe him. "And you're not buying it, are you?"

Alex shakes her head. "I know when people are lying to me. If you don't want to tell me its fine, I'll just keep pestering me until you do."

"You really want to know?"

Alex shrugs, "I didn't have many friends at my old school because everyone said I was too nosy."

"You shouldn't always listen to what other people say about you." Scott says watching the different colored lights flash around the room. "If it means anything, I don't think you're nosy, just curious."

It could've been the right lights and the flashing disco ball, but he could have sworn that he saw a bright red blush streak across Alex's face at the moment.

So c-come on
You got it wrong
To prove I'm right I put it in a song
I don't know why
You're being shy
And turn away when I look into your eyes

"Here, I want to show you something." Scott says finally gathering up his courage to do something. He offers a hand, "don't worry, I won't do anything to you."

Alex hesitantly takes his hand and hops off her chair. "Where are we going?" He leads her towards the back door. "Should we tell someone?"

"Don't about anything." Scott reassures her leading her outside. It was a slightly chilly night. "I just want to show you something." Duncan's house was located on the top of a small hill, the backyard led to a small forest. "You wanted to know about why I keep my sunglasses on all the time."

"And why do we have to come to a forest?" Alex asks shivering, all traces of worry lost. Scott had forgotten that they had left their jackets back at the house. "It's freezing out here." She rubs her arms to ease the goose bumps that were appearing on her uncovered arms.

Scott checks the distances from their current position and Duncan's house. "Just promise me that you won't scream and run away." Alex nods slowly, confusion written all over her face. Scott takes a deep breath, mentally squaring his shoulders. He slowly takes his sunglasses off, letting the red laser shoot towards the sky above them.

Alex gasps, "It's so pretty," she quickly covers her mouth with her hands. Scott puts on his glasses again. They stare at each other in an awkward silence. "So you can shoot lasers out of your eyes?"

"Yeah, pretty much." Scott says, his words creating white puffs of air. "Maybe we should head back, you're looking a bit blue and purple." He holds her frozen hand as they hike back up the hill into the warm sanctuary of the house. "So, should I be worried about you telling anyone about my secret?" He picks up two sodas from the cooler which was flooding with melted ice water.

Alex shakes her head. "I highly doubt anyone would believe in the first place." She accepted the soda from Scott. "You think I could see it again, sometime?"

Scott raises an eyebrow. "Why?"

"I think it's beautiful." Alex says avoiding eye contact with the sunglass wearing man next to her. Suddenly finding a great deal of interest in her soda can. "Can I see them again?"

"Sure, why not?" Scott says he could easily see the rest of his friends still dancing around the room. Apparently, no one noticed their disappearance. "But I'm sure you're more beautiful than my eyes."

Scott makes sure his face stays straight ahead, but glances at her out of the corner of his eye, which wasn't the easiest thing in the world. Her usually tanned cheeks were a perfect rosy hue. Her eyes still glued to her soda can. "Thanks."