[AN: I'm glad that people are reading this story! lol anyway, here you go! Oh yeah, there's math in here, but don't feel like you have to do it, lol Kerri has the right answers, don't worry. I hope you enjoy it!]


'Fear for safety, several warnings given.' That's what the paper in professor Xavier's hands said.

He nodded and put the paper onto his desk.

"And you're sure this test is conclusive?"

Logan nodded.


Kerri was a cat in the ally she lived in, there was a noise and she turned to investigate.

She saw Kurt, and she was suddenly herself, crouched down.

"Vhat are you doing here?" He asked.

Worry struck Kerri as she thought that Kurt might find out about her problem. She tried to not feel anything, but instantly felt something, just like when you can't scratch one spot, it's the only spot that itches. She felt her tail start growing and her ears were so big that they flopped in front of her eyes.

Kurt looked at her in horror.

"No! NOO!" She cried out in agony.

There was a noise behind her and she turned to see a mannequin coming towards them.

Kerri was struck with terror and tried to tell Kurt to run but he wouldn't listen, he just kept yelling that she looked freaky. The mannequin kept coming for them. It was getting closer, closer.

Kerri started screaming and sat up in her bed. She realized where she was and was glad that no one was there, as she was in terror defense mode, and probably would have grown into a strange, terrifying creature.

She wrapped her arms around her knees and cried.

She was used to self soothing since she'd pretty much been on her own since she was nine. "It's ok," she told herself, "your dreams can only hurt you if someone else is around. So, don't be around anyone."


Kerri walked down the hallway to lunch after class ended. She paused at the door and looked in.

Where was he? She needed to stay away from him. If anything her dream had done, it had reminded her of that. She jumped as someone grabbed her arm and pulled her into the line as they started talking to her.

Kitty walked towards the lunchroom and saw Kerri standing by the door, peaking in around the door like a nervous child trying to see if she was home alone.

'Poor Kerri. She needs a hand getting to the table. I'd better help her to make sure she gets there ok.' She grabbed Kerri's arm and pulled her into the line, "Hi Kerri! How are you doing today?"

Kerri looked at her still startled. "Um... Ok I guess."

"Good! How was class?" Kitty continued talking as she dragged Kerri through the line.

"It was ok. Um, listen, I-" Kerri tried to get away, but Kitty pulled her over to the table, where Piotr had already settled and Kurt was standing, putting his tray on the table.

"Look who I found!" She said and sat down.

Kerri stood there awkwardly, not sure what to do, and torn between wanting to sit there, and her dream in the back of her mind, telling her to get away from him.

Kurt felt a push in his back and turned to look down at Kitty. She was giving him an urgent look at Kerri, meaning he had to act fast or she might run.

Kerri was trying to think of something to say, but before she could, Kurt turned to her and motioned for her to sit down in an old fashioned gentleman's gesture. Kerri paused while Kurt continued to gesture, but then sat down in the empty spot across from Kurt, next to Piotr, and Kurt sat as well.

Kerri was trying to figure out a way to get out of there when she felt something touch her leg under the table. Confused she looked down and under the table to see what it was, but saw nothing. She tried to put it out of her mind.

'Kitty can carry on some pretty good conversation by herself,' Kerri thought as Kitty asked her a continuous stream of questions, which she answered in monosyllabic answers, while trying to think of a way to leave politely.

"So, you know how we went to mini golf for my birthday last year?" She asked Piotr and Kurt, who agreed, "and we went to that restaurant for Kurt's, and for Piotr's we went to the movies?" They agreed again, "I think this year I want to go to the zoo."

"Kitty, your birthday isn't for a month." Kurt told her, trying not to be obvious that he was looking at Kerri. He blushed as he felt his tail touch something and yanked it back to him as he saw Kerri look under the table. His tail seemed to have a mind of it's own some days.

"I know, I'm just saying! What about you Kerri? When is your birthday?"

"The summer." Kerri replied, turning back to her food after looking under the table.

"What did you do for your last birthday? Was it fun?" Kitty tried to continue the trail of questions while ignoring the incomplete ones.

Kitty and Kurt looked to her and Piotr ate, listening.

The truth came out without Kerri's real permission, "It was the first time I ate cat food." She looked up, horrified, but then she quickly reorganized her face to be neutral. "And no, it wasn't fun."

Kitty and Kurt looked shocked and even Piotr paused on the bite he was taking.

"Uhh..."

"Zhat's..."

Kitty and Kurt stuttered trying to think of something to say.

"That's life." Kerri finished matter of factly, looking back to her almost empty tray and feeling awkward.

Thankfully the bell rang for class and she got up saying, "See ya." And almost ran for the door.

Kitty looked at Kurt, "Wow..."

Kurt got a strange feeling in his chest, it tightened like his heart was getting squeezed.

Piotr watched Kerri run away. "If you love her, you can't let her go, no matter how hard she fights."

Kurt turned back to him and the wisdom he couldn't quite understand. 'Vas?'


Kerri sat in math and read the book she had checked out this morning.

"Ah-HM." Came the now known throat clearing of professor Summers.

Kerri looked up to him but didn't say anything, just staring at him.

"Miss Smith," Across her face came the grin, "why aren't you doing your homework today?"

"I'm trying to finish this book by bed time." Kerri answered antagonizingly.

"You need to do your homework, or you won't be able to pass your test." He told her.

"I feel fairly confident that I'll pass the test." Kerri told him.

"If you won't do the homework on your page, why don't you try to do it on the board, in front of the class?" Scott demanded.

"Ok." Kerri said and closed her book.

She followed him to the front of the class while the rest of the kids followed her path with their eyes.

He wrote the problem: X = 15+2(5x3)

Kerri took the pen and looked at the problem. She wrote 15 above the parentheses, 30 below them and then X = 45. She solved it before Scott could even turn back around.

"What are those numbers?" He asked.

"My work showing how I solved the problem." She answered.

"Then how about this one." He put another problem on the board: 2x +10 = -4x -2.

Kerri looked at it and worked the problem, ending with a few nonsensical numbers around and then X = -2.

Scott looked at what she had written, he could tell where most of the numbers went, and she had the right answer. So he wrote a harder one.

3x +7-6 x -2. Kerri looked at it for a second then wrote her work and the answer; X -1

Scott looked at the problem, saw she had the right answer, and wrote a geometry problem.

Kerri worked it and wrote the answer.

Kerri finished writing the answer and looked at the problem. It was right, she was certain, but she started checking her answer when professor Summers turned to her, "Go to the Professor's office."

Kerri's eyebrows merged as she became agitated, but she took a breath and pushed the emotions aside, trying not to grow a tail to lash angrily at him. She got her class stuff and book and walked out of the class room.

She walked down to the office, trying not to be angry. 'Stupid.' She thought, 'this is stupid, being sent to the principal's office for knowing how to do math.'

As Kerri walked up to the door of Professor Xavier's office the door opened and he called her in.

Kerri felt a little nervous, but when she looked into his face to gage the situation, he looked pleased. In a prestigious, smart, bald old man sort of way that only he could pull off.

"So, that's why you don't want to do your math?" He started in the middle of the conversation.

Kerri raised her eyebrow. "Huh?"

"You don't want to do your math homework because it's boring, because you already know how to do it and it's easy." Charles stated.

Kerri's face went back to normal, "Yes."

"Why didn't you tell me before?" He asked.

Kerri got half way through a shrug, but stopped and answered, "It didn't seem important, as long as I passed the tests."

"You didn't want to be challenged?" He asked.

She just mumbled in reply, "My last school didn't have anything higher than geometry."

"We're lucky to have professor Summers, he's very good at advanced math." Charles commented, "Would you like to learn?"

She looked up at him and studied his face.

Knowledge had always come easy to her, but where she was from, it wasn't just handed over, you had to fight for it, no one would give it to you without something in return. Even the teachers she had, they'd had the information, but you had to sift through all the other crap they were trying to teach to find something new, and they only wanted you to learn what they were teaching; if you were smart, they wanted you to sit down and not cause problems by asking questions the rest of the class wasn't ready for.

"Yes." She finally answered.


Kerri got halfway to the library before she remembered that she was trying to stay away from Kurt.

Were end of terms over? Would he be there? She really wanted to be somewhere other than her bedroom, and the gym was closed. But as it turned out when she got there the library was closed too.

She walked to the common areas and found students all over, sitting on the couches talking, watching TV, playing games. It looked fun, but she would feel awkward breaking into the groups that had already formed.

She noticed that while there were a lot of students in the classes, there weren't that many here. She knew that some of them had gone out to do things, it being Friday and all, and she thought that she remembered that some of the students came here even though they lived at home, and that maybe some of them weren't mutants, but kids of some parents who wanted to teach their kids that mutants weren't evil.

She wondered if that were true, and if she had scarred any of them for life the other day. She felt another pang of self hatred and turned to go back to the dorms. As she turned she bumped into a solid body.

Kerri looked up from the ground and her eyes met Kurt's hologram's. "Oh," she said in surprise.

What Kurt was going to say left his mind as Kerri crashed into him. She was close, really close, as in they were still touching. His heart sped up and his tail started twitching to get away from his waist.

Kerri realized that she was still touching him and stepped back. "Hi." She said unsure.

"Hi." Kurt repeated, and tried to think of something clever to say.

Kerri's dream returned to her and she stepped back another step, remembering that she was trying to stay away from him. "Um, I-"

Kurt's hand shot out and grabbed her before she could escape. "Do you vant to go for a valk outside?"

Kerri was stunned. Uh, yeah she wanted to go for a walk with him, um, no she couldn't be by him... "O-o-ok." She stuttered as her words betrayed her. "Wait, it's December, it's freezing out there."

"Zhat's ok, here," Kurt said as he grabbed a blanket off of the back of an empty chair and handed it to her.

Kerri wrapped the blanket around her as they walked outside, and was glad that she'd worn her shoes to go to the library.

As they walked along the wall Kerri couldn't keep the slight look of distaste off of her face when she looked at him.

"So... you can see zhe stars pretty good over here..." Kurt suggested the first thing he could think of.

"Ok." Kerri said and they wandered over to the side of the building and sat down, looking at the sky. She looked at him out of the corner of her eye and her face turned sour again.

Kurt looked over at Kerri, her face looked upset, he wondered if it was because he was with her. Her face cleared as she looked at the stars, with the moon shining onto her skin. He was struck by the way she looked, beautiful...

Kerri jumped as something touched her leg, and her face shot to where she was being touched, but she didn't see anything.

Kurt looked down too and saw her staring confusedly at where his tail was touching her. "Uh... Sorry.." He mumbled.

Kerri looked up at him. "Is, is that your tail?" She asked.

"Yeah, it... has a mind of it's own sometimes..." He told her, embarrassed.

She felt a small smile on her lips and quickly turned away.

'Oh, no,' Kurt thought, 'she doesn't like it...' He pulled his tail away.

"It's kinda strange to not see what is touching you." She said in the silence.

She didn't sound disgusted. Kurt's heart skipped a beat and everything she'd said before came rushing back to his mind. "I can take it off if you vant." He told her confidently, watching to see how she'd react.

Kerri blushed and looked at her other shoulder to hide her face and shuffled around the blanket to give her something to do and hide her shrug.

Kurt felt empowered and decided to go for it. He pushed the button to turn off the inducer and held his breath.

Kerri saw a bit of a flash from the corner of her eye as the inducer was turned off and turned to look sheepishly. Her face heated and she pulled the blanket up to hide her cheeks. It was a good thing that the moon was bright tonight, or Kurt might've disappeared in the shadows altogether. Kerri managed to keep a neutral face, but it wasn't long before it was too cold to stay outside.

Later as Kurt went about getting ready for bed, he turned to the mirror in the bathroom and turned off his inducer. He saw his blue, furry self, yellow eyes, tail...

Kerri hadn't run away or anything. She'd just gone back to looking at the sky with the blanket pulled over her.

As he got into the bed he thought over the day.

First Kerri didn't seem to want to be by him, or them maybe, then she tried to leave when she bumped into him in the common room, but after he'd gotten her outside, she had sat there, making no complaint until she was too cold to stay out there and he'd been numb for a while, but had wanted to stay with her.

Kerri pulled the blankets of her bed up around her and wondered about her dream. Maybe it was just that, a dream. Maybe it would be ok to be around Kurt. She closed her eyes as she giggled internally and kicked her feet a couple times, he was so cute!

The next day Kerri ate lunch by herself and actually felt kind of lonely. It seemed that Kitty, Piotr, and Kurt had gone out to the mall or something, Kerri couldn't remember exactly what she'd heard them decide on.

She wandered around mostly, working out in the gym, looking at books in the library. It was kind of an empty school kind of day, with most of the kids gone. Kerri went to bed that night and tried to tell herself that she wasn't disappointed that she hadn't seen Kurt today.

Kurt sat in the food court at the mall with Piotr and Kitty, lost in thought.

"I'm sorry Kerri didn't want to come to the mall today, Kurt." Kitty told him out of nowhere.

Kurt looked up, shaking off his thoughts. "Vhat?"

"I said, I'm sorry Kerri didn't want to come to the mall today, Kurt." She repeated.

Kurt blushed and started denying.

"Uh-huh!" Kitty teased him, laughing.