Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men.

6

The next morning, Kurt was summoned to the professor's study.

"Good morning, Professor," Kurt greeted him. "You wanted to see me?"

"Yes," Professor Xavier said, gesturing to one of the chairs in front of his desk. "I wanted to speak to you about your friend Kiara."

"Oh," Kurt said, sitting down. "Kiara…"

His encounter with her was still fresh in his mind like a bad dream. The sound of her voice, the look on her face when he had entered the room accompanied by Beast, and her flat-out refusal to wear the image inducer.

Because of her father.

Kiara was worse than Kurt had expected her to be. He had been able to piece her together as soon as he'd laid eyes on her. She was afraid and untrusting of almost everyone she met, and there was nothing they could do to change that.

Kiara's father had destroyed her.

"Kurt," Professor Xavier said. "I want you to understand that I want Kiara to stay here, but you know that she can't if she refuses to comply with the rules."

"This is about the image inducer, isn't it?" Kurt guessed.

"I can't have her endangering the privacy of the other students," Professor Xavier said. "And by their privacy, I mean their lives. Things are hard enough for them as it is and you know as well as I do what will happen if the public finds out that they're mutants."

Kurt opened his mouth to protest, but thought better of it, and nodded instead. The professor was right, he did know what would happen and they couldn't let one person's fear risk everyone's safety. That would be it wrong.

"That is why I need your help," Professor Xavier said, smiling.

"You're kidding, right?" Kurt said, shocked. "What can I do?"

"Kiara trusts you, Kurt," Professor Xavier told him, "and she is beyond consoling. If I send her away from here, people will take advantage of her fear and teach her to use her powers for wrong and she will do it."

"Nein," Kurt said, shaking his head because he could already guess what the professor was thinking. "She would fight back."

"Kiara knows her limits, Kurt," Professor Xavier said gravely. "She knows she can be overpowered and Magneto and Mystique are more than capable of doing so. That is why we are left with only one option."

"Which is?" Kurt asked.

"Memory suppression," Professor Xavier said. "It is the best thing for her at this point, but Kiara is going to need a little convincing."

Kiara lay in her bed in the infirmary. From where she was, she could see Beast still trying to make sense of the X-rays they had taken last night. She had lost interest in them hours ago because to her bones were bones, and she really couldn't make sense of the pictures anyway.

Neither of them could.

Kiara sat up when she heard the door open. She had been expecting a visit from the professor after their talk last night, but she was surprised to see Kurt with him. She could tell that Kurt was surprised by her appearance, too.

By now, the scales covered all of Kiara's neck, back, and whatever parts of her face that weren't red, and the growth -- as Beast called it -- on her back had nearly doubled in size.

Kiara felt a very strong urge to hide under her covers as they approached her.

"Uh, Kiara," Kurt said, "we've come to talk to you about last night." He returned to the chair he had been sitting in earlier.

Kiara nodded silently.

Kurt looked at Professor Xavier, who nodded at him and gestured for him to continue.

"Kiara," Kurt said, looking back at her. "We know why you're afraid to wear the image inducer. We know why you don't trust people. We know what your father did to you."

Kiara looked away from him as the thought of her father made the fire flare up inside her. "How?"

"It's not your fault, Kiara," Kurt said, "and nothing like that would ever --"

"How do you know?!" Kiara demanded and he cringed at her tone.

Beast was immediately at her side with a sedative, but Professor Xavier shook his head and he retreated.

"There was a news report," Kurt said, "and they mentioned your father…" His voice trailed off.

Kiara nodded. She could piece the rest together. "Who else knows?" she asked, even though she already knew the answer.

"Everyone," Kurt said simply.

"Everyone," Kiara repeated. "All those strangers…"

"Nothing like that would ever happen to you here, though," Kurt said, finishing his previous thought.

"You can't prove that," Kiara said, shaking her head.

"I wouldn't let something like that happen to you again," Kurt promised her. "Neither would the others."

"You can't prove that, either," Kiara told him.

Kurt looked away from her and sighed.

The professor was right. It was their only option.

"If you don't wear the image inducer," Kurt said, "then you can't stay."

"Why not?!" Kiara demanded, scowling at the professor.

"This is school for mutants, Kiara," Kurt said. "No one on the outside knows that. If you went out without the image inducer, people would figure it out. You would ruin everything."

"So what am I supposed to do?!" Kiara shot at him and she could feel the flames tearing at her throat. "Just get over it?!"

"What if the professor took away all of the bad memories you have about your father?" Kurt asked her.

Kiara stared at him for a moment, confused. "What the hell are you talking about?" she asked him.

"Professor Xavier is a telepath," Kurt told her. "He can take away all of the bad memories you have about your father. With memory suppression."

The professor's voice sounded in her mind:

'It's true, Kiara. I can do it.'

Kiara looked from the professor to Kurt and back again. "If he took away all of the bad memories I have about my father," she said, her gaze finally settling on Kurt, "then I wouldn't remember my dad at all."

"And that would be a bad thing?" Kurt said, smiling weakly. "Think about it, Kiara -- you could trust people again. You could be happy, and you could be you. The real one. You wouldn't have to be afraid all the time and you could stay here. With me."

Kiara looked up at him and met his gaze. Then, despite everything -- Beast and the professor, the horrible black scales that were taking over her body, the fact that she very well might have a basketball-sized cancerous tumor growing on her back -- she was smiling. And laughing. Then Kurt was, too, because he knew what she was going to say.

"Do it," Kiara mouthed.

"What?" Kurt asked her.

"Do it, I said," Kiara said, and she had to clear her throat because she was laughing so hard. "Do it."

"Okay," Kurt said. "But what about after?"

"After?" Kiara said, starting to feel confused. "What do I need to know about after?"

"Well," Kurt said, "if he does it and you refuse to wear the image inducer, you still can't stay."

"Oh, alright," Kiara sighed. "I promise to wear the stupid thing." She offered her pinky to Kurt and burst out laughing when she realized that he only had three fingers.

"What?" Kurt asked, looking at her like she was crazy.

"I just now noticed that you only have three fingers," Kiara said, gesturing to their intertwined fingers.

"You seriously just now noticed that?" Kurt said, laughing.

"Yes," Kiara said, "but we can talk some more about how slow I am when this is all finished."

She cleared her throat and turned to the professor. "Professor Xavier," she said, "do it. Suppress my memories. Take away all of the bad memories I have about my father and when you're done, I promise --" she smiled at Kurt " -- that I'll wear the image inducer thing no matter what. So can I stay here. Please?"

"Of course, Kiara," Professor Xavier said, smiling. He leaned forward and pressed his fingers to her temples. "Now, then, close your eyes."

Kiara did as she was told and for what felt like a very long time, she felt nothing. Then suddenly, she felt as though her skull had been cracked open and she fell forward, unconscious.

"Will she be alright?" Kurt said after a moment of silence.

"She'll be just fine," Professor Xavier assured him. "Thank you, Kurt."

"I wonder what she's going to be like when she wakes up," Kurt said.

"Better, I hope," Professor Xavier said simply.