Laura's eyes were locked on Jean. Logan had shared a story about Jean with her. She had been much younger then, but even now, she was beautiful. Laura's eyes slowly went to Hope, who looked just like her mother.
"You knew Logan..." She said, speaking for the first time. All eyes fell on her.
"Yes. I know Lo-" Jean stopped. "Knew?" There was a long pause. "Oh no…"
Jean leaned and gripped the stairwell banister. Remy and Hope immediately helped balance her.
"Remy, take her upstairs. I'll take care of the kids." Hope said, and Remy nodded, carefully leading Jean upstairs. The older woman's eyes were welling up with tears. Laura looked at Hope as soon as they were gone.
"I'm sorry…" she whispered. The last thing she wanted was to make more people sad like her. Hope shook her head.
"It's… it's alright. We would have found out sooner or later."
One of the doors opened and a silver haired man suddenly appeared next to Hope.
The man looked the kids over. "They'll do." He said, and Hope forced a smile, hitting his chest lightly.
"Shut up. Kids, this is Peter. Now, I'll show you to your rooms."
The man smirked. "Bet I can get there sooner!" He said, before racing upstairs at super speed. Hope sighed, walking with the kids up, at a regular speed.
"And that's why you don't do drugs." She said, making some of the kids laugh.
"Miss?" One of them asked. "How many of the Xmen are here? That had to be Quicksilver, and the other man was Gambit, but how many are here?"
Hope opened the door to a room. "Not many. Most of them were killed a while back. Nightcrawler comes around every once in awhile. Wolverine…. never came, but I saw him occasionally." She sighed, and changed the topic. "Now, all the rooms look similar to this one, but this is yours." She nodded to one of the girls. "There's bathrooms in each room, and a walk in closet."
Hope took the other kids around, showing them to their rooms. Laura was the last to get her room. It was the second to last at the end of the hall, close to the huge window. Laura instinctively walked to the window and tapped on it, seeing how strong it was. It was bulletproof.
"This is yours." Hope said, opening the door to the room. Laura walked in, looking around. All of the rooms were large, with king sized beds.
Laura turned and looked at Hope. "Where's your room?" She asked curiously. Hope nodded towards the room next door, the last one in the hall.
"Right next door. All of the adults here have one's on the end of the hall, in case anything ever happens. We can take care of things that way." She answered, opening the curtains to let some sunlight in. "There's security systems rigged everywhere, so no one can get within a 10 mile radius of this place without us knowing. Plus there's a bomb shelter in the basement, just in case." She paused. "But we haven't had any incidents yet, and I doubt we will. This place is safe. I want you to know that. No one will get you. No one will hurt you ever again."
Laura looked at her. There was something about this woman. She practically radiated with kindness, but she also looked like she could kill if the occasion arose. She simply nodded, not in the mood to carry on a conversation. Logan was still at the forefront of her mind. Hope seemed to understand this, and after quietly saying something about leaving her to get settled, smiled slightly as she headed out, shutting the door behind her. Hope headed to her room, locking the door before walking to the bathroom and looking in the mirror. She sighed heavily, leaning on the sink.
Logan was dead. Her uncle, her friend, her confidante. Her best friend.
She looked at her hands and slowly extended the bone claws that resembled Logan's before he had gotten the adamantium ones. Blood dropped from them. The pain still was there when she used them, which was rare, but it wasn't as bad as the first few times. She would never forget the look on her father's face when she had pulled them out accidentally while arguing with her sister. The pain had made her black out, and she had awoken to see Logan and her father yelling at eachother, and her sister hiding from her. It took a month after that for her sister to talk to her.
Now, she retracted them and allowed the tears to fall. She would have to talk to the young girl who had told them about Logan's death. She hadn't even thought to get the kids names. She'd have to do that tomorrow. But for now, Hope went to her bed and laid down, falling asleep as she cried.
