Disclaimer: I own nothing but Willow, Jackie, and the four little girls at the end.

Author's Note: Alright, before you guys read this, I'd like to take the time to say that I have never read the comic books. It's also been quite a while since I've seen the show, but I really wanted to stick Gambit and Beast in here because it's just not X-men without them. I tried my best to do my homework and write them in character, but I may have made mistakes. If anyone has corrections on any of it or on Kurt's German, please tell me so I can fix it. Also, italics mean thought or memory. Thank you! - Carrie

*-*-* Weeping Willow *-*-*

*-* Chapter One *-*

"If you judge people, you have no time to love them."

~ Mother Theresa

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The Swedish Hospital in Seattle had seen many burn victims, but none quite like the one that came in Thursday afternoon on November fourteenth. The girl that lay motionless in the uncomfortable hospital bed was like any normal girl; average height, average build, a pretty face, and pale skin. But she was also very different in many, many ways.

Willowtree Stevens' eyes fluttered open. A bright light blinded her and she wondered for a second if she was dead. She could not move no matter how hard she tried. A few minutes passed slowly, and the feeling began to return to her body. She flexed the fingers of her right hand, but could not make a tight fist. She could feel the burn now. It felt like it engulfed the entire right side of her body. She found her voice and groaned in pain. She squinted her eyes and found that the blinding light from before was only sunlight from the window at her right. She could feel now how dry her mouth was. She must have been lying there with her mouth gaping for a while. Everything in the room was white and sterile looking. It wasn't very homey at all. She turned her head to the left and saw a large black woman in a baggy shirt and a pair of flowered pants. She was slumped in a chair, her hand pressing a thick romance novel to one of her large thighs in her sleep. Willow noticed a nametag that was clipped to her collar. She squinted and read off the name 'Yolanda' in her head.

Willow noticed now how odd the room smelt. It smelled like disinfectant and maybe a hint of urine. A foreign place with foreign smells. Nothing was familiar. Nothing. Willow was now wide-awake and quite aware of just how bad her burns hurt. She could barely move without them burning unbearably. Involuntary tears slid down her cheek, and she gritted her teeth.

Yolanda woke up from her light sleep and was surprised to see her young patient awake.

"Oh!" she cried, getting to her feet, sending her book sprawling across the floor. "Honey, you're awake!"

"Where is this?" groaned Willow.

"This is the Seattle Swedish Hospital," said Yolanda. The memory of what had happened began to flood her mind all over again. Her mother; dead. Her house; burned. Her flowers; gone. Flowers...what about flowers? Of course. Now she remembered. She was a mutant. She grew plants, all sorts of plants, wherever she wanted. Well, not exactly wherever. At least wherever normal people were not. Normal people were cruel to her when they knew what she could do. Always cruel. Like her fifth grade teacher was cruel to her. Willow's mind was branded forever with the memory of Ms. Malloy. No matter how hard she had tried in the past, she could not forget.

Willow had been growing flowers from a book out in the corner of the field. She wasn't bothering anybody. Except one. Her racist fifth grade teacher, who stomped out onto the field in rage towards the small mutant child. She grabbed Willow's arm and screamed at her for growing flowers. They were only flowers, but Ms. Malloy told her it was wrong and evil. Willow didn't understand how that was bad. There were kids around, and they were laughing. Ms. Malloy stomped one of her flowers flat into the dust. Pain shot through Willow's body. But Ms. Malloy didn't stop. Flower after flower, killed by her cruel black pumps while she whispered threatening things in Willow's ear even when Willow writhed on the ground in pain. The kids still laughed. They always laughed. Always....

Her mother had gone in and retrieved Willow's school things before taking her home, away from school, where she was safe. Willow remembered how her mother had explained to her that because Willow had put so much energy into growing the flowers that when they were killed, a part of her died. Willow did not trust many people after that. Only her mother. Her mother was good to her. Her mother never laughed. She was always there to protect Willow from all things evil in the world. Like Ms. Malloy. But now she was gone. Willow felt very alone. And in this white, sanitary, uncomfortable hospital bed, Willow felt vulnerable and scared. Was Yolanda cruel? Were the doctors? Willow started to panic. A fresh wave of tears slid down her cheeks and she made sputtering noises.

"Oh, baby, don't cry!" cried Yolanda coming to the bedside and kneeling down. She held Willows hand and patted it. "You'll be alright!"

"I want to die," Willow muttered through her sobs.

"Don't say things like that," said Yolanda. "Everything's gonna be okay."

"No it won't! She was the only one left! Now she's gone, and... and..," Willow sobbed uncontrollably.

"Shh...," Yolanda, stroking Willow's hair in a motherly way. "God knows I love everybody, no matter if they gay, straight, mutant or not. You don't gotta be sad. I'm here for you," Yolanda said gently. Willow stopped inhaling painfully, but the tears still streamed down her face, soaking her white hospital pillow. She didn't want all this to be happening. She didn't want it to be true. Yolanda sat with her for a few more minutes patting her hand and whispering comforting words to her until she was in a sort of sleepy daze. Her face was glistening with tears, and she couldn't catch her breath very well. A few doctors came in and applied some medicated cream to her side and leg.

"Are you awake?" asked one of the doctors. The words echoed in Willow's ears.

"Uhn...," Willow grunted through her silent sobs.

"Can you tell me you name?" he asked.

"Er...Willow Stuh-stevens," she said. Her sight was getting lazy and blurry. Hearing her name made fresh tears stream from her eyes. She missed her mother so much that it made her heart ache in her chest. She wanted her to come in and tell her it was okay, and that everything could be normal again. But Judith Stevens would never be there to comfort her daughter again.

"How old are you?" asked the doctor.

"Eighteen, I think," she muttered. Her head hurt, and her burns hurt worse. She felt as if she was on the verge of fainting.

"Do you have any family that we should contact?" he asked. Her head lolled lazily. Her vision gave out and she saw no more.

Willow woke up. She must have fallen completely asleep. No one was in her room this time. It was dark, probably the middle of the night. She felt alone. It was cold, even with blankets over her. She shut her eyes tight and tried to go back to sleep, but when she did, the haunting image of her mother's burning body floated into her mind, sending her into fits of terrible screams. The hospital disappeared, and in its place was the memory of the day before.

"Die, mutants!" laughed a horribly demonic voice from the street in front of the Stevens home. Willow's head snapped up, a knot forming in her stomach. The lilac bush in front of her had stopped growing abruptly. She heard the tires squeal against the asphalt right before an explosion rocked the earth and blasted the air with heat. Willow was thrown to the ground, hard. She slowly picked herself up. To her horror, her house, her only sanctuary from the world and all the people that lived there, was in flames.

"Mom!" she screamed. She ran towards the burning house and flung open the sliding glass door. She covered her eyes with her arm, shielding them from the inferno. "Mama?" she called again. The only response was the roaring of the flames. Willow looked around frantically. She saw a gaping hole in the front wall where the door and entryway used to be. The explosion had torn apart the small flight of stairs down to it and the hallway. Willow looked in the kitchen, but her mother wasn't there. Her heart pounded in her chest until it hurt. She knew she had to find her mother and get out before the flames devoured the entire house. She poked her head out of the kitchen and into the burning hallway. Lying motionless among the remains was her mother. Despite the flames lapping at the walls, Willow rushed to her mother's aid. "Mama, mama, wake up...," she said, rolling Judith's lifeless body over. Willow recoiled. The skin on her mother's face was scorched and blistered. She could smell Judith's burnt hair and skin.

"No," she whispered, hot tears streaming down her face as she backed away. Rage boiled inside her. "No!" she screamed, her voice getting lost in the crackling of the fire around her. Her eyes glowed green, and outside the ground exploded with thick brambles and black berry bushes. They surrounded the house and grew furiously over the deck and burst through the windows, leaving shattered glass on the melting carpet. Willow stood up, livid and miserable at the same time.

Outside, the brambles caught fire and began burning Willow from the inside out. Willow dropped to her knees in pain, her pupils disappearing into the neon glow. She recovered, gritting her teeth and got up to try and get out. She looked back where Judith lay dead and watched flames lick the ceiling and engulf her mother's body. The house was falling apart. Willow could hear pieces of it giving way and creaking. She stole one last glance into the hell that was once her home and then ran out the back door.

The deck was in flames from the brambles. Most of them were dead, and the pain inside her was down to a bearable ache. She jumped over a line of fire in front of her, and when she landed, one of her feet punched through the hot, burning wood, scorching some of the skin on her left leg. She screamed in pain as the burn began to blister. She wrenched her leg up from the wood, carving bloody scratches into her calf. The flames had nearly engulfed the deck. She did the only thing she could think of and hurled herself through the wall of fire in front of her. She felt her eyebrows burn off and she could smell the ends of her long, green hair being singed. Her coat sleeve caught on fire also. She fell onto some burning grass and rolled head over heels into an untouched part of the backyard. She picked herself up off the ground and whipped the burning coat off of her. She checked her clothes for any other part that might be burning. The fire was creeping across the moist grass, so she mustered up the remainder of her strength and heaved herself over the back fence and into someone's yard. There she collapsed and fell unconscious. The glow died in her half shut eyes. Spreading out from her naturally green fingernails, mixed hues of green spread over her hands and up her arms, stopping just before her elbows and fading into her regular pale skin. As she lay there, the image of her mother's ruined face running over and over in her mind.

Willow continued screaming, seeing her mother's body eaten and destroyed by flames again and again. All the potted plants in the hospital were suddenly overtaken by nettles, thick, thorny creepers, and ivy that climbed up the walls. Several patients woke up and yelled in fright. Doctors rushed into Willow's room to calm her down, but were slightly frightened when they saw her eyes glowing in the shadows of the dark room. They got her to stop screaming, but her whole body shook and tears soaked her cheeks. She could not get back to sleep. The door was left open, letting a sliver of white-ish yellow light stream through. Later that night, Willow could hear two male voices coming through the open door.

"And you're sure she's a mutant?" asked one of them as they got closer. They stopped and Willow could hear the rustling of papers.

"Positive," said the other. "Don't tell me you didn't see her skin, or hear about the plants. Whenever she gets upset her eyes start glowing. If that isn't a dead giveaway, I don't know what is."

"What are we going to do about that?" asked the first. Willow's blood ran cold. They were going to hurt her. That's what normal people always did whenever they knew. That's what happened at school. The kids in middle school hurt her almost every day. Now the doctors were at it, and her mother could not save her.

"What we do with all of our other patients. Help her the best we can and let her go."

"Go? Where? Her house was bombed for Christ's sake!"

"Keep it down, people are trying to sleep," said the other sharply. The two men walked away, their footsteps and voices echoing off the white halls. Willow was shaking again. Maybe they weren't going to hurt her. She would just have to wait and see.

In the morning her burns felt a little better, but not by much. They tried to feed her around noon, but she wouldn't eat. Willow was miserable and couldn't even swallow any water.

"Do you wanna watch some tv?" asked Yolanda, the nurse from before.

"No," said Willow flatly.

"You know, honey, I was thinkin' to myself last night...see I heard of this place in New York where they take in special people like yourself. It's like a school. Maybe when you're all healed up you'd wanna take a look?" she said optimistically.

"I have no money to get to New York," sighed Willow. "I don't know how to get there either."

"Hmmm," mumbled Yolanda, a thoughtful sound made through the nose. "Well if you want to watch some TV, here's the remote. You gotta push the buttons real hard for it to flip the channels." She gave the remote to Willow, who took it gently. Yolanda left quietly and Willow was left to her own devices. She peered down at the fat plastic thing in her hand. She lifted her arm and pointed the remote towards the wall mounted TV set. She pressed the button with the on/off symbol on it. The TV was on channel five news.

"Earlier this week, the residents of a Seattle neighborhood were shaken by an explosion when an anti-mutant terrorist group attacked one of the families living there. Thirty-eight year old Judith Stevens was killed in the fire that engulfed the house. Her daughter miraculously escaped, however, and is now being treated for first-degree burns. She is expected to recover rapidly, but will remain in the hospital for up to a week. The terrorists have yet to be caught or turned in, but most of Seattle will be keeping their eyes open," said the reporter from a helicopter as it circled around the charred remains of her house.

Willow turned off the TV with a shaking hand and turned over, rubbing her burned leg painfully on the sheets. She winced and relaxed. She had no idea that the news was all over her story, that everyone knew before she was even sure of what happened herself. Now millions knew about her. Another week in the hospital. Then what? Where would she go? Her mother was dead. Her grandparents were dead. Her father was alive, but had removed himself from her life, taking her grandparents on his side with him. Her mother and father were both only children. No aunts, no uncles. No where to go.

As the week slowly sauntered by, Willow's burns began to heal faster. They didn't hurt as much as they had before, and mostly all that was left of them were shiny pink scars. The biggest one was on her calf, which was a thick, patchy scar that was probably six inches in diameter. The deep scrapes where the broken deck had raked her skin were beginning to form scars. Long, thick ones. The burn on her side wasn't nearly as large as the one on her leg, but it was still red and swollen. Sometimes it bled. She was getting better sleep, though the image of her mother's burning body was still the main topic of her nightmares. She was able to suppress her screams most of the time, but when she couldn't, there were people to help her. She got up more often on her own for things like trips to the bathroom and after a while, taking walks around the hospital. When she took walks, the other patients watcher her. Some with fear, and some with hatred. One afternoon, she got a total of three glares. When she got back, she decided to investigate. She walked into the bathroom that was in her room. She looked in the mirror to find out what they were afraid of. She was shocked to see several physical changes to her appearance. Her eyes had turned grass green with spiky yellowish highlights towards the centers. They used to be brown. The black lashes were almost twice as long as they used to be. It looked very strange. Her hair was still forest green, but seemed a little more like foliage than it did human hair. Every time she moved, she saw new green highlights and darker green shadows. It had also grown a couple more inches. Her nails were still the same color as her hair, but now she noticed the skin on her forearms, and wondered why she never noticed it before. Her lips had also turned the color of healthy grass.

"No wonder they're scared of me," muttered Willow sadly. She hated what she saw in the mirror.

"Willow?" called a voice from the door. "You in here, honey?"

"In the bathroom," she said quietly. She was beginning to trust Yolanda. She had never once been mean to Willow. She only told her nice things about how things were going to get better.

"What's the matter?" asked Yolanda, her happy, round face poking into the bathroom.

"I don't want to be here anymore. I frighten people," said Willow miserably.

"Don't worry. You just got a few more days, and then you'll be free. Come on over here, I have something to show you," she said. Willow followed her into the main part of the room. Willow sat down on the bed and Yolanda pushed the chair in the corner to the bed. She sat down and extracted a wad of money from her breast pocket. "Here," she said. "I had a talk with my husband last night, and I told him about you. How you have no where to go. So we decided that we could spare a few hundred dollars." Willow shook her head and opened her mouth to object, but Yolanda cut her off. "Now don't you complain. We're doin' something for you that probably no one else these days will. Take it," she said, "and hide it. I could get fired for this." Willow reluctantly took the bills. Yolanda smiled warmly. "I see great things in your future, and I don't want anyone to keep you from that. You hear me? Don't ever let no body tell you that you can't. I got faith in you, child," she said as she brought Willow in for a tight embrace. Willow returned the hug by patting her only friend on the back and smiling. "I got faith in you. Listen, I got more to tell you before-" Just then a doctor came in. Willow's stomach did a flip. She slipped the money in her underwear against the outside of her leg. Hopefully no one would find it there.

"Mrs. Washington, will you please excuse us?" said the doctor.

"Of course," said Yolanda. She pushed the chair back into the corner and flashed a quick smile before she left the room.

"Now," said the doctor as he slipped on a pair of reading glasses and shuffled through as stack of paper that was pinned to a clipboard. "You have shown some tremendous improvement, Miss Stevens. I'm prepared to let you leave as soon as tomorrow, or Friday. Does that sound alright?"

"I suppose so," said Willow.

"Mrs. Washington tells me you have distant relatives over in...," he said, trailing off a bit as he flipped through the paper on the clipboard. "Westchester New York?" he asked as he looked at her above his spectacles. It took a moment before Willow's brain processed what was happening.

"Er...yes, that's right," said Willow a bit too quickly. Yolanda hadn't been able to tell her about this part, but Willow thought that maybe if she listened to more of the story, she would learn enough to guide her.

"And you'll be taking a bus, won't you?" asked the doctor.

"That was the plan," said Willow slowly. Even though her tone sounded less than convincing, the doctor excepted this with a nod.

"Alright. I wouldn't want to send you out into the world with no where to go," he said with a slightly fake chuckle. "Well, I'll come back in later with the last of your burn treatment." He nodded to her once before he left. Westchester New York, Willow thought. I guess the first thing to do with this money is buy a map. And a bus ticket. Maybe finding this school isn't such a bad idea.

Willow got the last of her treatment, and she was allowed to leave Thursday evening. Yolanda had been nice enough to buy Willow some clothes the day before, as well as a few other helpful items like a flashlight, wallet, water bottle, a few sandwiches that were wrapped in foil, and a can of heavy-duty pepper spray. On Thursday just before Willow left, Yolanda gave her these things in a large cloth bag that had a long strap.

"The pepper spray is in case any one bothers you," said Yolanda. "I put my address in the wallet so that you can write me letters once you get settled, and I expect you to. Here. Why don't you put some of these clothes on." Willow picked up the pile of clothes and headed into the bathroom. She took off her hospital gown for the last time and put on the clothes. A pair of jeans, a black turtleneck shirt that clung to her torso almost uncomfortably, and a thin, dark gray jacket with light gray pinstripes.

"I had to shop at the second hand store for this. I got money from the hospital, but it wasn't much. I washed the clothes, though. I hope they'll be alright," said Yolanda through the bathroom door.

"They're fine. I like pinstripes," said Willow. She straightened the coat and put the bag over her head and hung it on one shoulder so that it rested on the opposite hip. She came out of the bathroom and gave Yolanda a shaky smile. Yolanda smiled with tears in her eyes.

"I'm gonna miss you, you know," she said, trapping Willow in a tight embrace. "You're an angel trapped in a girl's body, you know." Willow sighed and gave Yolanda one last smile.

"Thank you," said Willow.

"Don't you dare forget to write," said Yolanda sternly.

"I won't," said Willow. She sighed again. "See you later, I guess."

"Bye, honey," said Yolanda. Willow walked through the halls of the Hospital no longer one of its patients, but a free person on a mission: to get to New York.

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Hey, guys. I hope you didn't think that first chapter was too slow. I was sorta worried about that after I wrote it. I'm sorry about the messed up indenting, my computer won't let me change it. I hope you like it so far. For all the Gambit fans, he's in the next chapter. I hope you like it!