Disclaimer: If you don't know by now, I don't own any of the rights to Marvel or their characters. However, I do own a nifty little 'X3: The Last Stand' pin with Wolverine on it. So thanks to the nice little X-Menfan-girl who worked at the movie theater and gave it to me!

Dedications: I have never dedicated any of my stories to anyone before, but I thought it fitting to do so with this one. My cousin Bobby 'Uncle Bob' Rutherford died just a day after I started writing this story. He had been sick and I guess that I had him on my mind while I was creating the character of 'Bobby Johnson', as he's quite a bit like him. He was a great guy, a friend to everyone and always helped out anyone he could. So to Bobby, I dedicate this story to you.We love you, we miss you, thank you.

Family Portrait

Hell found me.

No matter how far I went or how fast I ran, it always found me. It never lacked ways; it only took time. I had been running for a long time and finally, at five o'clock on a Thursday morning, it found me once again. It always took different forms. That morning, it was a knock on the door.

I pulled myself up from where I had barely been sleeping on the couch of my apartment and walked to me front door. Upon opening it, there was a mix of shock and expectedness that was all too familiar to me.

"Sorry to wake you up, Delia," Officer Johnson apologized with a small frown, "but we found Katie and I thought you might want to know we have her down at the station. She's safe."

I let out a relieved sigh and ran my hand back through my sleep-tangled hair. I felt the cold winter weather that came with the end of December, blow its way through my front door and send a chill down my body. I shuddered. I didn't know if it was because of the breeze that had weaved its way into my home or from the news that I had just received.

"How is she? Is she okay?" I asked, wrapping my arms around myself, trying to fight off the chill bumps that were rising on my skin.

Noticing that I was cold, Officer Johnson stepped inside and quickly closed the door behind him. "She's okay," he said slowly, taking off his hat and holding it in both his hands. He kept his eyes trained on the floor. "She was asleep when I left to come here. She'll probably have a pretty bad hangover when she wakes up, but other than that, I think she's going to be okay."

I let out another sigh. "All right, thank you." I tried to force out a polite smile, but I was afraid that it came out more as a grimace instead.

"We have to keep her there. She caused a big scene at Merv's tonight. She needs a lot of help."

"Merv's?" I asked and he finally looked up and met my eyes.

"I'm sorry Delia, I'm afraid so. Merv sent you your weeks pay and his apologies, but your mother did a lot of damage to the diner and he had to let you go."

For an officer he had never been great at breaking news to my family. He and his partner had been the first officers to arrive when my father had been hurt, and eventually died, while working. He had been a nervous wreck when he told us about it, stuttering and sweating. When he was through, I wasn't sure who looked worse; him or my mother. He had always had a small crush on her and ever since my fathers passing, he had done his best to take care of us. Every time mother got in trouble, he was the first there. Every time she would go off for days, some times even weeks, he let me stay with him in his house.

When I officially became an adult, I took a job at Merv's diner. He would over look my tardiness and gave me extra 'sick days' when I was had to take care of my mother. Partly because he knew my family, but more than that, he had grown up with my grandfather and had promised to take care of us if he were to pass away. Which he did.

I had moved more times than I cared to count, but between the ages of twenty-two and twenty-five, we had moved thirteen different times. We had lived at our current apartment for nearly ten months, and rather than feeling grateful for it, it made me anxious, knowing that it would be over soon enough.

"How bad is she?" I finally brought myself to ask.

"She was pretty out of it, but she was only drunk. We did find three ounces of coke on her, though." His voice seemed to shrink as the news got worse.

"She was doing so well. Where in the world did she get enough money for three ounces of coke, not to mention getting trashed?" I asked. However, I answered my own question the moment I asked it. She had been doing well. So well in fact that I had agreed to let her be in charge of our bills and had given her the money for the water, electricity and phone. And the rent. She had spent our rent money on drugs and beer. Super-freakin'-fantastic.

"She needs help," he said, a near whisper.

"Bob," I said, "I don't know what to do. She's in jail, I've lost my job and suddenly she's decided to get picky and spend all of our bill money on coke instead of crack. At least that stuff was cheaper."

I was furious but I couldn't tell if it was at her or me. Sure, she had been the one to blow the money, but I had been gullible enough to actually give it to her. Perhaps it was a mix of both. I wasn't sure and I didn't have enough time to stop and try to figure it out. December was almost up, with no rent money or job; I was homeless.

"Let me help," he said. It almost came out as a plea, but I didn't care, I was just glad that he had found his voice again.

"How?" I asked.

"I'll pay for Katie to go through rehab."

"Again? I can't pay you back this time Bobby; I don't have the money. I owe everything that Merv gave you and without a job, I don't, I can't…I don't even know. I just don't know what to do."

"I'm going to take care of her, don't worry about anything. Do you need to stay with me or do you have somewhere you want to go?"

I opened my mouth then closed it before opening it again. "You know, I think I'm going to go stay with my uncle in New York, if that's okay?"

He smiled at me kindly, seeming to lighten up despite himself and the still heavy conversation. "I think that's a good idea. Does he still live at that school?" I nodded my head. "Why don't you stay until the summer comes and then you can come back and we can decide what to do about Katie then, okay?"

"It sounds like a plan to me."

I almost felt bad about being relieved to have a chance to get away. I was escaping her abused world for one of people who were more likely to suit me. Had I only known what lay ahead for me, I would have been torn between feeling even guiltier to have left and yet terrified of my so-called escape. As I said earlier, Hell found me. It never lacked ways; only time.

I looked at my reflection in the cab window and tried to calm my nerves. Let it be an adventure, I told myself. But the thought of suddenly living with people I didn't know, and the ones that I did, it had been so long since I had seen them, was a bit scary. I was a grown woman of twenty-five and I was scared of strangers. I shook my head at the silliness of it and saw that the bow that I had tied out of purple ribbon was coming lose of my left pigtail. I quickly retied it as we pulled to a stop light and came to a sudden halt. The cab driver yelled something in a language I didn't understand and made a rude hand gesture to a man walking across the street in front of us. The man smacked the hood of the cab and kept walking.

My reflection stared back at me with sad eyes. They were green, bight green, but they were sad. When I was young, my mother would tell me that when I was born, fairies came to bless me. When they asked my parents what they wanted for me, my father said for me to never be harmed.

My mother said for me to never lose my sense of imagination.

And when they said they could have one more blessing, my father and my mother both asked for me to have eyes that were bright with curiosity and wonder and to always have them wide open. Though I have long since quit believing in fairies, I believe that I was blessed with my parent's wishes in some ways.

My father didn't want me to be hurt. He was in a business where he was hurt daily and didn't want me to feel the same pain as he. When I was twelve, my mother had gone off again and I had been staying with Officer Johnson. He had to go to work and left me with his sister at her house. I was in the backyard with her two daughters, jumping on their trampoline when I fell and landed on my arm. With any normal person, it should have broken. Mine didn't. There were only bruises. I soon learned that my bones were somewhat rubber like. They wouldn't, couldn't, break. I wasn't like a contortionist or anything, my body knew its limits, but the bones had taken their fair share of beatings and not one had ever broken.

My mother asked for me to never lose my childish imagination. She had grown up in a white collared family where you did everything by the book. She hated it. She needed space and new people. She couldn't live by strict rules inside a stuffy house and when she was only seventeen, she moved out. She couldn't stay in Connecticut, so she moved to California with a busload of strangers and then drove back across the country, stopping in New York. Right after she turned nineteen, she met my father and after dating for two moths, they got married. Ten months later, there I was and we all moved back to Connecticut. She still hated it there and wanted to get out as much as possible. Her imagination never faltered and as I grew, she would tell me of the places she had been and where she wanted to go. Some times, I wondered if they were real places or if perhaps she was only making them up. Once my father died, she disappeared into her own little land and refused to take me with her. While she was gone, I was left to my own devices and had to find ways to amuse myself. I was my own best friend, I had to be, and so my imagination was always working on ways to keep myself entertained, but to also try to find ways to keep my mother at home.

As far being curious, it had been both a blessing and a curse as my constant questioning of things some times got me into trouble. Or I would find out things that should have remained hidden. I wanted to know how things worked and why. I needed to understand and have answers because I needed to figure life out for myself and for my mother. If I could ask enough questions, perhaps I could eventually get enough answers and then I might be able to make her happy again. I had spent nearly all of my life trying to make her happy, but it seemed that maybe, I was the reason why she was sad.

The cab slowed down as we approached the large wrought iron gates of Professor Charles Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters. You really give your age away when you still use the word 'youngsters,' I thought.

"Are they expecting you here or do you have to buzz something to be let in?" the cab driver asked.

"Oh, uh, they're expecting me, but I don't need you to drive me up, I can walk."

"You sure?"

"Yeah, thanks."

I paid the cab fare before gathering my things from the back seat and the trunk and then watched as he drove away. As soon as he was out of view, I heard a loud click and then the gates swung open. I picked up all of my bags and struggled slowly to the front door of the school. I juggled around some of the bags in my arms in an attempt to open the door, but before I could figure out how to do it, the door opened and I saw my uncle standing there smiling at me.

"Hey Uncle Scott. Thanks for opening the door for me."

"You're welcome. Let me help you with some of your bags." I handed him three of my bags and felt the relief in my arms. "How was your flight?" he asked, leading me into the house.

"It was good, I can't complain."

"You could," he teased.

"I won't."
He smiled at me and I smiled back. I had gotten his dimples and seeing them mirrored back at me on his face, made me feel connected to him. As bizarre as it may sound, it made me feel as though if ever my mother were to be gone completely, there was a least one other person in the world that I had left. It was a happy and sad feeling all at once.

"This will be your room. If you have any problems, Jean and I are just four doors down on the left. Do you need me to help you unpack or anything?" he asked, stopping outside a door upstairs.

"No, I think I've got it. I'm probably not going to unpack everything right now. I just got around to packing it all last night."

"Procrastinator." He smiled.

I shook my head and laughed. "I missed you."

He shook his head along with mine. "Yeah, I missed you, too."

"How's Jean?" I asked as we entered my new room and placed my bags in the floor and on my bed.

"She's doing well. We're both just trying to take it easy until school starts back from winter break."

"When's that?"

"A week from tomorrow." It was Sunday. "Did you get everything settled at home?"

I let out a sigh. "More or less, yeah."

There was a pause and I wondered if he was looking at me. I hated those stupid glasses. "How's Kate?"

"She's…okay. I saw her yesterday. She was a little upset at me. I didn't get to see her long; she wanted me to leave and I had to finish packing, so I left."

"Does she know that you're staying here?" he asked quietly.

"No." I shook my head. "I thought it best not to tell her."

"You still haven't told her about you?"

I did my best to look him in the eye. "I can't. If I tell her that I'm a mutant, she'll hate me for it. And she can't hate for that, I still have to take care of her."

"She won't hate you-"

"Yes she will, you know she will-"

"And why doesn't she get professional help?"

"She is getting professional help, it doesn't work. This is going to be her third stint in rehab. I'm not even paying for it. I don't have the money."

"Who's paying for it?"

"Bobby Johnson."

"Officer Bobby Johnson?"

"Yeah, he's the one who's taking care of her while I'm up here."

"Why?"

"Because, crazy as it sounds, he's in love with her. He always has been as far as I can remember."

"Are you going to be okay up here?"

"I think so. If I've learned nothing else out of my life so far, I've learned to stand on my own two feet when in trouble."

"You raised yourself pretty well, Delia," he said, sticking his hands into his pockets.

"You didn't do too bad yourself, Scotty."

"Well, I had my parents a little bit longer than you. Until they found out that I was a mutant, at least."

"As terribly as it was, and still is, at least you can relate better to the kids here. Perhaps you were just always meant to help other people?"

He thought for a moment before I could see a small smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. "You are the most optimistic pessimist I've ever met."

I smiled back at him because it was true.

My name is Delia Walker. I'm twenty-five years old. I have straight black hair that's to my shoulders and long, side swept bangs. I'm around five foot nine and look like a cross between my father and Uncle Scott. People say that they see me mother in my, but I'll need help the day I see it myself.

My father died when I was seven years old. People told me that it would take time for me to get over it. But I don't think you do get over it. I've lived with it, accepted it, but with every year that's gone by, I've seen things that I'm missing out on. No father-daughter dances. No one to teach me how to play sports. No one to talk to my first date. With each new year, I saw more things that we were both missing. Things that most girls my age take for granite and I miss him. I do still, even now.

I know he's gone, but I can't help but still feel an old, familiar pain as I wake from my sleep to a sound that had always belonged to him in my mind. I had been there for over two weeks already and it was the first time I had heard it since arriving there. At nearly two in the morning, I hear the sound of a Harley Davidson talking down below my window, saying 'potato, potato, potato' as only they do. And for a moment, I'm seven years old and waiting for my father to come home from work. But he never did. He never would.

I woke at six o'clock. I was up before the sun. The sound of the motorcycle had died almost as soon as it had awakened me, but it had stayed with me. I wasn't at home, I could feel it, and missing my father was something that I didn't want to show to anyone just yet. So I bundled up, grabbing a blanket and snuck from the mansion as quietly as I could.

The ground was frozen, snow was falling and it felt twenty degrees out, at best. But I didn't care. I needed to be alone. To think. To clear my head. And above all, get my emotions in check. Then I could go back to the school and be fine. Right then, I had my mind set on going to the woods, sitting by the lake and doing my best at an attempt to meditate.

I trudged down there silently, save the light sound of snow crunching under my rain boots. Everything seemed so still and peaceful that when I finally made it to the lake and found a log to sit on, I wondered if perhaps I could have gone back. But I didn't. I just sat down quietly onto the dead tree and wrapped myself with the gray flannel blanket I had taken from my closet.

I closed my eyes and relaxed, just trying to breathe. It took my some time to realize that I could. Breathing is a funny thing, isn't it? It's something so natural that we hardly notice it while we're doing it, and yet it's so vital to our bodies. We can't live without breathing. I supposed it's like most important things in our life; we don't pay much attention to it until it's gone.

Living with my mother, I waited on baited breath, wondering if she was going to wind up dead somewhere. There was a constant feeling of being suffocated with her. She stole my life, my voice, my very breath with her selfish actions. And I felt guilty for feeling alive.

"Where in the world have you been?" Scott asked me as I entered the kitchen. "You missed breakfast."

"I went down to the lake to think for a little bit."

"It's thirty degrees outside.

"It was twenty before the sun came up."

"Couldn't you think somewhere warmer?" he asked, pouring himself a cup of coffee. "Or not even so early in the morning?"

"I guess, but I didn't want to," I said, taking a cup from one of the cabinets above the sink. "Pour me some."

He gave me a sideways glace. "When did you start drinking coffee?"

"When I started sitting outside for two hours in the middle of winter," I said and gave him a small wink.

He filled my cup half way before I moved over to the island in the middle of the kitchen and pulled myself up, sitting on it.

"Are you feeling okay today?"

"Yeah, why?"

He smiled at me. "No ribbons in your hair."

I smiled back at him. "I didn't think the woodland creatures would pay much attention to my hair or clothes."

"You used to. I remember when you were five and you asked me if dogs had favorite colors."

I gave a small laugh. "I remember. I was absolutely crushed when you told me they were colorblind."

The small fell from his face. "You know, I really liked your dad. He always let me talk to you when I called. I'm sorry I didn't get to know him better."

Scott was ten years older than I and when I was three and he was thirteen, he moved to Westchester county to live with the Professor. Her studied with Jean and Storm and I barely spoke to him, let alone saw him. My father must have realized that Scott was the only uncle I had and he did all that he could to make sure that I kept in touch with him. If it hadn't been for him, I would never have been there at the school.

"Scoot, good news and bad news," Rogue said, coming into the kitchen. "Which do you want first?"

"The good news."

"The good news it, I'm still cute." We both laughed. "The bad news; your motorcycle's back."

"Great," he said dryly, showing that he all but actually meant it.

"I heard it pull up this morning. Why is it a bad thing for it to be back?" I asked.

"It's not a bad thing for it to be back, it just means that Logan's back, too," Scott answered.

"Who's Logan?"

Rogue laughed as she pulled a Coke from the refrigerator. "You've not told her about Logan yet?"

"No. All she needs to know is to stay away from him."

"Why? What's wrong with him?"

"He's sarcastic, crude and doesn't know any self control when it comes to flirting with women."

"He's not that bad…" Rogue said. "Well, yeah…he sort of is. But he's hot as Hell, so it's all right." She laughed.

"No it's not," Scott protested.

"Well why does the Professor let him stay here?"

"Because he's part of the team."

"Well why did he let him join the team?"

"Because he saved my life," Rogue said, walking to the doorway of the kitchen. "Twice."

"He can't be that bad then, can he?"

"He's an arrogant and pompous jerk with a bad temper."

"We all have our faults though, don't we?"

Rogue laughed as she left. "You're really in for a treat when you meet him."

"I don't understand why he's here, though. If he's so rude and you don't like him, why does the Professor let him stay here? Was he an old student or something?"

"No. A few years ago we rescued him and Rogue up in Canada. Magneto kidnapped her and Logan came with us when we went to Liberty Island to rescue her again. Since then he's alternated between living here and going to Canada for months at a time. He's been gone since September."

"If he lives here, then why does he go to Canada? What's up there?"

"He has amnesia. He remembers the past nineteen years but he's working to remember the rest of it. He was part of a mutant experimentation program. That's what made him lose his memory."

I suddenly felt bad for the man that I had never met. Scott said that he was sarcastic and crude and had a bad temper, but if I had been experimented on to the point of losing my memory, then I would probably be the same way, too.

"What did they do to him?" I asked.

"I'm not completely sure. He never talks about it. I could ask Jean, but she doesn't like talking about patients. All I know is that a man named Stryker who was a colonel in the U.S. Army had enlisted some of the military to help him with his experiments. He had managed to manipulate adamantium, which is a metal that's supposed to be indestructible. They cut him open and surgically grafted the metal to all of his bones."

"Oh my word," I gasped. "But how is that possible? How could someone live through that?"

"Logan's mutation allows him to heal at an amazing rate. That's why he's so important to the team. He can do his job and come out unhurt."

"How does he fight, though? If his mutation is just healing, that doesn't seem like it would really do much up against powers like yours or Jeans, or Storm's even."

"He has claws-"

"Claws?"

"Yes, claws. They're twelve inches long and they come out of his hands."

"Well that on the other hand can be very helpful."

"They intended to use him as a human weapon, but he escaped some how. I guess their loss is our gain in some way." He let out a sight and shook his head. "Just stay away from him, okay?"

Thought I didn't completely understand why he didn't like him, I nodded my head anyway. "Okay."