a/n: ok hey my first xmen fic! i no theres this silly thing where we'll all get sued if we dont say we dont own the xmen (which i dont, the only one i own is Blanche). so ther now its dun! lol... anyway id like sum "constructive criticism" as my english teacher calls it, so i cn improve nxt time! oh is anyone else excited that accordin to sum random website, X3 - may 2006?? cnt wait =) anyway please read/review, either/or preferably both! lol! thanks!

instar

LONGING

I watched out the window from where I sat by the island in the kitchen. I could see Bobby and Rogue walking in the garden and I hated it, hated the way they still had each other, even though they couldn't touch or kiss each other. I took a bite from my apple, and Jean walked in, asking whether I was okay. I shrugged, muttering that I was tired.

"I know the feeling." She smiled, and I looked up at her, swallowing my mouthful of fruit. "No, really, what's up? You've been looking kind of down recently and we've all known you long enough to be able to notice this kind of thing." I had been at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters for nearly twelve years now, since I was four, nearly five, and this meant that I couldn't remember my real family, except for the things that Xavier and the others told me. My parents were important in the army, and as soon as Xavier had known that I was a mutant, he'd asked Jean and Storm to come and get me, knowing that my mother was good friends with a Colonel who was heavily against mutants.

So I'd been here ever since. I was barefoot and wearing jeans, with a vest top and my long blonde curls were in a bun, with curls falling out and giving it a slightly untidy look. I finished the apple and took my hand away, lingering it in the air until I could be bothered to concentrate on it moving into the trash can near the edge of the room.

"Blanche? Little mover?" I grinned, remembering their little nickname for me when I was little. I had extraordinary powers of telekinesis and I also had limited telepathy as well, with my telekinesis far exceeding (on a normal day at any rate) that of Jean.

"I dunno, I just wish I'd had some semblance of a normal life. That I had a real family." She nodded, following my gaze to Bobby and Rogue, where they were sat awkwardly on a bench. She muttered that it wouldn't last long. "You think?"

"Yeah, I can sometimes hear Rogue, and she's got too many thoughts and stuff, she's not got the temperament to stay. You don't use your telepathy much do you?" I shrugged, saying that sometimes I didn't like knowing what people thought. Plus, the people I bothered probing into could tell, like her and Xavier. "Yeah, we've noticed this!" She laughed and I got a hug as she said she was off to see Cyclops. I nodded, as John walked in, playing with his lighter. I said hi, and he asked whether I'd grab him an apple, sitting down on the worktop. I really wasn't in the mood for his jokes and sent the fruit basket into his stomach, winding him as I turned and walked out, not in the mood to be ordered about.

I walked out into the garden and sat by the pond, looking in the still clear water and seeing my reflection until I rippled the water with my thoughts, not really wanting to see myself at the moment. I heard the crunching of gravel behind me and I spun round to see the Professor there in his wheelchair. I asked him how he was as he stopped by me, saying hi gently, in his quiet polite way.

"I'm alright. We're leaving tonight for a day or so. I'm leaving Logan in charge, but d'you reckon you'll be able to help him keep the school safe?" I shrugged, saying that I was having an off couple of days at the moment, not really being able to do anything useful, just destructive things, with my power. "That's because you haven't got anything to do. Trust me Blanche, you're one of the most trusted students in this school. Some of them will turn to supporting Eric at some point. I don't believe you will."

"Maybe you're wrong," I spat, not really meaning it, but hating the fact that all I had was people seeing me as the girl who lived at the school. The professor asked whether I really thought that, shaking his head in the knowledge that I didn't. "I just... I've never known real life outside the school." He nodded, and saying that maybe one day, when I saw it, I would see why it was better for us hidden away in the school. "When I see it." I whispered, and turned back to the water, which was clearing once more. I hit it with my fingertips and stood up, walking onto the grass barefoot, and walking round the garden as the time passed and the night set in. I watched the jet take off, and sat outside the kitchen. Around eleven I walked inside, and went up to my room to get changed.

My room, I had my own room directly next to Jean and Cyclops, me having been here long before most of the students. I put my silk slip on, leaving my underwear on underneath as I put my silk dressing gown on over the top, it reaching down to my mid-thighs, as did the slip. I padded slowly downstairs, as my hair ragged itself up for the night, as I liked it out the way and it helped it turn into the pretty ringlets it stayed in so much. I could see one of the kids sat in the lounge, watching TV, and I could hear someone else walking around. Logan came down the stairs and asked whether I couldn't sleep either. I nodded, saying I wasn't the only one, gesturing to the light in the kitchen and the kid in front of the TV in the lounge. We started walking along the corridor to the kitchen together, and he asked what my power was, saying he hadn't met me properly before.

"You're a bit slow then, I've been here twelve years. I'm Blanche," he made a face, saying he knew my name but not my power. "My mind does loads of stuff." I replied, and he left it at that, maybe understanding, maybe he couldn't be bothered to ask what it meant. We walked into the kitchen and I saw Bobby there, eating ice cream. I just summoned an unbruised apple – the basket had fallen off the worktop when John had left it – and sat on the worktop in silence. "Bobby, shhh." I whispered, also applying the sentence to Logan.

He started asking what I was hushing them about, but I told him, inside his head, that it was vital we were quiet. I cast my mind back to the little kid, and he was unconscious, the last thing he remembered was soldiers. I screamed as some came into the kitchen, and I hid with Bobby behind the island as the shot the windows to bits in the kitchen, before Logan got his claws into the camouflaged officer. We all ran as fast as we could upstairs, to where the others were all running, panicked, after one of the other members of staff.

I Noticed that Rogue and John weren't with them and told Bobby, both of us running off in search of them until we found them and ended up trapped in a corridor with Logan, and a load of officers, until Bobby put up a wall of ice, and we managed to escape through one of the tunnels to the garage, where we climbed into a car, and Logan drove off, with Rogue sat in the front and me squeezed between Bobby and John in the rear seat. I closed my eyes and sighed, hating the fact my home had been attacked. Bobby asked where we were going. "Boston, Jean and Storm were headed there," Logan replied, and Bobby turned quiet, before saying that his parents lived there. "Great. Directions please Bobby?"

....................

We arrived at Bobby's house when his parents were out, and he took Rogue to get some clothes, knowing it was vital that she covered up, and he stayed in his room as she used to bathroom. I sat on his bed, asking whether he had any other spare girls' clothes.

"Sorry," he apologised and I shrugged, saying that it didn't matter, I wasn't a danger uncovered as I was. John had to stay in his pyjamas anyway. Bobby sat next to me and asked whether it bothered me that I didn't have a home outside the school.

"They don't either," I replied, gesturing to where John and Rogue were, downstairs. He shrugged, saying I'd never had a home. "I can't remember different. It's weird, watching some of them go home, but I cope. I can't really say it hurts." He asked how my parents reacted about mutants. "Xavier's told me that they help Stryker, and he's organising this mess we're in at the moment. Maybe I'll see them." I said blankly, showing no emotion in my voice as I looked at the wall. "We'd better go downstairs," he muttered, and we got down just as his parents were looking worriedly at the other three stood in the kitchen.

"Mom, dad, I've got something to tell you." They seemed shocked enough to see him not at school, let alone with two people in night clothes, one in his mother's clothes and one adult. This would be hard to explain out of. I stood by John, and when he started playing with his lighter, I willed it into my hands, and looked over at him, 'telling' him to stop being such an idiot in front of Bobby's parents.

"Why?" He hissed, and I turned towards him, muttering that Bobby's parents didn't know and it would be best to encourage friendly feelings towards us. "They don't like us Blanche, they wont just like us because we're nice guys. The fact is, we're better than them," I cut him off here, saying we weren't, we were just different. "You're wrong."

"If I'm wrong, why are we the ones on the run?" I replied, walking out the room, after asking Bobby's mother whether I could have a drink. She nodded, telling me to help myself and I thanked her politely before I left the room, leaving Bobby and the others to explain. I started drinking out of the glass of water, and heard Bobby's brother coming through. He turned slowly to me as he headed towards the stairs, and asked what my name was. "I'm Blanche, you're Ronnie, right?" He nodded, asking how I knew. "Bobby speaks very highly of you," I replied, and he looked levelly at me and asked what my parents had said.

I looked at the ground and put my glass down on the worktop, looking him in the eye as I said that they didn't know. I'd seen Storm and Jean in my garden, and they'd told me what I was. They'd told me what my parents did, what they'd do if they knew, and I'd just left with them. I hadn't seen my parents since I was four years old.

"What do you do?" He asked cautiously, and I looked at my glass of water, concentrating my gaze, and I lifted it up, keeping it so steady not even a ripple showed in the water, and made it float back into my hands. I looked up at him, and he looked from the glass to my face again, asking whether I wanted to hurt him.

"No," Ronnie seemed confused, asking whether I hated normal people like him. "I'm afraid of you." I answered quietly, and he looked taken aback as I gazed into his eyes – the ones that were so much like Bobby's it was almost like looking into his eyes and telling him these things. "I'm scared of what my parents would do, I'm scared of what the soldiers have done with my friends, I'm scared what they'd do to me... I don't want to die because I've got a power that I was born with." He suddenly backed away, saying he didn't understand, and he ran up the stairs, as I turned, and could hear Bobby's mother asking him whether he could not be a mutant, and how it was a bad thing.

I looked sadly over towards the wall where there were pictures of him and his family, and gently made one fly off the wall, into my hands. It was relatively recent and it showed him, his mother and father, and his brother. I heard Logan come back inside, saying we had to leave, now, and John ran past me, slipping his hand inside my pocket, and taking his lighter.

"Give it back, don't you hurt them," I called as I ran with them and followed them out. There were police everywhere, and they were telling Logan to put knives down, the ones that were embedded in his arms. I looked round, and they called out more and more, until one of them shot Logan in the forehead. Rogue screamed, and we all dropped to the floor except for John, who flicked his lighter, and took a ball of fire in his hand. I called out to Rogue, who struggled with her gloves but couldn't get them off in time.

As the fireball roared in the direction of the police officers, I used my powers to push as many of them out of the way of the fire as possible, until Rogue managed to calm the fire and Logan stood up. The cars were decimated, and some people had been hurt, but I knew that I'd been right in pushing some of them to safety.

The jet arrived and I picked up the photo from the floor without Bobby having seen it. We all rushed onto the jet, and Rogue sat near the front with Logan, and some guy I'd never met before, and Bobby and I sat near the back. I pulled out the photo, and leant over towards him, asking him whether he was okay.

"What do you think? My family did this..." He replied, and I looked down at the picture, handing it to him, saying I was sorry it was cracked, but I'd had to lie on it when the police had told us to get to the floor. I summoned John's lighter to my side, and told him that he'd done enough damage to last a lifetime. "Blanche... You didn't need to do this."

"At least you remember them."

a/n please review! i no tis not very good but id like sum feedback to know how to improve next time. thanx!

instar