"Good morning, Indi!" said a boy's voice. "How are you feeling?"
Indi opened her eyes to see Chris standing over her bed with a backpack full of something. "I hurt," she said. "Where's Nightcrawler?"
"Oh, he's talking to the Professor. He'll be back soon."
"The Professor?"
"Yeah, he's the one who found you, when you were praying the other night," said Chris. "Then the X-men—those are the adults. They wouldn't let me come—they went and saved you. Nightcrawler was with them, and Wolverine, and Jean, and Cyclops, and…"
"You mean, someone really did hear me praying?" said Indi, with wide blue eyes.
Chris nodded. "Guess that orphanage did us some good after all, making us pray all the time. But you were so little. How did you remember that?"
Indi shrugged. "It made me feel better, so I remembered it. He kept me in a cage a lot, and there was nobody else there, and the ladies at the orphanage said that someone good would hear me if I prayed." She didn't need to explain who he was: her owner.
"And the Professor's the best of them all. He takes in mutant kids, like us, and gives us a home. After I got separated from you, I needed to hide somewhere, so I came here."
Indi closed her eyes, remembering the events of three years ago. "He took us out of the orphanage…and you tried to hold onto me, but the guards were so much bigger than you…then he put me into a cage and told me you were dead…but you weren't?"
"No. They put me into a little room, saying they'd be back to kill me, but I used my power and made the door get so old that it fell apart, and I escaped," said Chris. "I couldn't find you, though. I'm…I'm sorry, Indi."
"Don't be sorry. I'm okay now."
Chris looked at her black eye, broken arm, and numerous other injuries. "You're not okay," he said.
"I guess not, but I'm better!" said Indi, smiling brightly, then wincing as the motion hurt her eye.
Chris smiled and handed her the backpack. "Here," he said. "Remember when I used to fix toys for you? I'm better at it now. I found out that my power is to change the age of something. I can make any inanimate object age forwards until it deteriorates, or backwards until it's as good as new."
"Inamin…animan…inimate?"
"Inanimate. It means not living. I haven't figured out if I can use my power on living things yet…I'm not sure I want to know…" He frowned, then shook his head. "Anyway, I brought you some toys to play with while you're getting better."
Indi eagerly opened the backpack and pulled out the newly-fixed dolls, books, stuffed animals, and other things she hadn't seen since she was three. She looked back up at Chris. "Will you play with me?" she asked hopefully.
"Well, all right. Just don't tell anyone that I played with dolls. Deal?"
Indi nodded solemnly and handed him one of her toys.
When Nightcrawler came into the room a few minutes later, he found the teenage boy enthusiastically acting out a fairy tale, a doll in each hand. Indi was watching eagerly, giggling whenever Chris used a falsetto voice to say the heroine's lines. Nightcrawler waited until the story was finished to clear his throat and announce his presence.
"Good morning!" said Indi brightly.
Chris jumped and spun around. "Oh, um…" He glanced at the dolls in his hands and dropped them quickly. His ears were beet red. "I'll just be going now…"
"You'll come back?" asked Indi, staring at him with her wide blue eyes.
"Of course I will. I came back this morning, didn't I?"
"Promise?"
Her gaze was so intent and hopeful that Chris felt a fresh surge of anger towards her captors. How many promises had been made and broken by them? "Cross my heart," he said.
Once Chris had gone, Indi looked back at Nightcrawler, and smiled. "I'm feeling better today," she said proudly.
"That is good to hear," he said. He looked at the toys scattered across her bed. "Did Chris bring you all of these?"
Indi nodded. "He said he went around the school and asked people for old toys they didn't need anymore. What's a school?"
"It's a place where children go to learn new things."
"Will I learn new things?"
"Yes," said Nightcrawler. He picked her up out of bed gently, being careful not to hurt her ribs. "There's someone who would like to meet you now, Indi, alright?"
"Okay!" she said, happy to be with him again.
But when Nightcrawler took her out of the room, and into the long hallway, she started panicking. "No!" she sobbed, tightening her hold on his neck. "I want to stay here with you! I don't want to go back to my cage!"
Quickly he retreated back into the room and held her tightly. "It's alright, Indi. You're never going into a cage again. You're safe with me. Shh. It's alright."
Gradually she stopped crying, but still refused to loosen her grip on him. It was obvious that the hallways in the lower parts of the mansion were too much like those of the facility where she had been kept. There were probably many other things she would be afraid of as well, simply because they reminded her of that horrible place.
Reluctant to bring her out into the hall again, Nightcrawler asked her to trust him and to hold on very tightly. "I won't let anything happen to you," he said.
She sniffed and nodded. The next instant it was suddenly very hot, very dark and smelled like more sulfur than ever. And then it was over. Indi blinked. She was in another room entirely. There were many bookshelves lining the walls and a pretty rug covered the floor.
Then a man with a very kind voice spoke and she glanced around to see a man with no hair sitting behind a desk. "Hello, Indi."