Lei walked through the gardens of the mansion and pulled the sweatshirt tighter around her body. Although Raven and Erik were the only ones that had left, somehow the mansion felt empty. Right now, she needed to talk to Charles about what to do now that they had defeated Shaw. Moira was still at the mansion, but soon she would have to go back to work at the CIA.

"So how many students do you think you'll have here, once you get the academy up and running?" She heard the brunette ask as Lei rounded the corner. She felt a pang of guilt at seeing Charles in the chair and stopped her walking.

"As many as I can manage," Charles responded. "Possibly more." Lei smiled. She was glad his work ethic hadn't gone with his ability to walk.

"You know, one day the government is gonna realize how lucky they were to have Professor X on their side," Moira informed him as she stopped pushing the chair and walked around to face him. Lei bit back a bitter smile. She remembered the day Raven had decided to think up secret spy names. God, how many of a lifetime that seemed now.

"Oh! Yes," the Englishmen mumbled, looking away from the woman next to him. "I suppose I am a real professor now, aren't I? Next thing you know I'll be going bald." Moira attempted a chuckle, but it died the moment it left her lips. "We're still on the government's side, Moira," he continued. "We're still G-men, just without the G."

"No," she said sternly, shaking her head. "You're your own team, now. It's better. You're… X-Men."

"Yes. I like the sound of that." Charles chuckled lightly and Lei smiled from her position at the corner of the house, but then Moira and Charles became serious and her smile fell. "Moira," he told her. "For us anonymity will be the first line of defense."

Moira squatted down to look at him. "I know. They can threaten me all they want, Charles." She told him boldly. "I'll never tell them where you are. Ever!" She insisted. Lei admired her tenacity, but knew it wouldn't stand with Charles. If there was one thing she knew about the man, it was that he was selfless and he would give up his biggest desires to keep someone safe.

"I know you won't. I know," he murmured, leaning in closer to kiss his companion.

Lei bowed her head and walked into the mansion, feeling bashful as seeing such an intimate scene between her two comrades. She would wait until Moira had left to talk to the professor, for she knew that kiss had been one of goodbye.

She sat in Charles' office now, waiting for him to return. As she did this, her mind drifted back to that day on the beach and more specifically, when she had last seen Erik.

The team, after some turbulence with the plane, had landed on the beach safely. A little rattled, but safe. Erik had gone into the submarine to retrieve Shaw, while the rest of us remained outside to fight Shaw's remaining team members. Lei had been slightly insulted when Charles told her to stay by the plane. It was a good thing he did though because the mutant known as Riptide was making his way towards them.

Lei brought out the water bearers Hank made for her and was about to attack when Riptide formed a small tornado in his hand and sent it towards the young woman. The gust of wind got bigger and bigger as it made its way towards her. The next thing she knew she was feet away from the plane with the wind knocked out of her and her back against the hot Cuban sand. Lei groaned and rolled to her side, trying to force herself to stand and stop Shaw's man from getting into the plane where Charles and Moira were.

Lei used the water from the salty sea around her and used it to create a large wave to knock down the dark haired man. Riptide turned to her and sent another gust of wind towards the waterbender, but she was able to tumble roll away from it, also resulting in affectively closing the gap between her and the plane. She used the water from the wave to hit the mutant again and again until he was pushed back against the plane.

Riptide's eyes went round as the young woman took a deep breath and exhaled the air as a blast of freezing mist towards the mutant. The salt water slowly froze, effectively trapping Riptide against the plane under a sheet of ice. The mutant man growled and pushed his palm upward to create another wave of wind. Seeing this, Lei brought a hand full of water to her palm and sent it to Riptide's hand, effectively freezing it to the plane as well.

Charles poked his head out of the plane, confusion ridden on his face before his eyes drifted to Riptide and realization set in. "Good job, Lei," he said, turning to the struggling mutant and back to the bender. Lei nodded back at him with a smile.

Everything after that went by in a blur. Shaw's dead body floating out of the sub and landing on the sand; surprise at realizing Erik had gone through with his plan to kill him. She knew now what Shaw had done to him, but seeing Shaw's dead body on the sand made it so much more real.

The missiles flying towards them: fear. The threat of the missiles flying back towards the ships: panic. Then Moira shot the bullets towards Erik, and there was fear again, only to quickly be replaced with pain. Charles had been shot in the back from one of the shots that Erik was deflecting, and he had tumbled to the ground.

"I'm so sorry!" Erik exclaimed, falling to the ground next to his telepathic friend. The other mutants and Lei walked forward to help, but Erik shouted at them to stop, throwing a hand out and knocking Sean, Alex, and Hank (better known as Beast now) into the air. "You! You did this!" He shouted, standing up and using his powers to strangle Moira with the chain of her dog tag.

Lei used this opportunity to run towards Charles and cradle him like Erik just had. "Erik, stop!" She shouted, remembering the pain she had experienced when he had done that to her many moons ago. But Erik didn't stop, instead he pulled the necklace tighter around the brunette's neck.

"Please!" Charles begged. "Moira, didn't do this, Erik. You did." After a long pause, Erik's hand reluctantly dropped and Moira fell to the ground, clutching her throat and struggling to breathe again.

"Us turning on each other," Erik proclaimed, pointing to the ships and subs in the sea around them. "It's what they want. I tried to warn you, Charles." He said, turning to where the Englishmen and Lei were lying on the ground beside him. His grey eyes connected with Lei before he turned to Charles. "I want you by my side. We're brothers, you and I. All of us, together." He said, looking around. "Protecting each other. We want the same thing."

"My friend, I'm sorry. But we do not," Charles said, attempting to prop himself up on his elbows as Lei tried frantically to assess his wounds. Something was wrong. Why wasn't he bleeding? He'd just been shot.

Erik turned to the other mutants and motioned to Moira that it was okay to approach Charles now. Moira didn't hesitate to rush towards Lei and Charles. She fell to her knees and clutched Charles' hand. Then, Moira began whispering assurances to him as Lei frantically attempted to heal him with her waterbending.

"The society won't accept us," Erik proclaimed, looking around the beach. "We form our own. The humans have played their hand. Now we get ready to play ours. Who's with me?" He held his hand out towards Raven, who was now in her natural blue form. "No more hiding," he mumbled. Raven slowly began walking towards Erik, but suddenly turned to where Charles was lying.

"You… you should go with him. It's what you want." Charles said.

"You promised me you would never read my mind."

"I know," he said sadly. "I promised you a great many things, I'm afraid. I'm sorry." Charles kissed her hand and, in turn, Raven kissed his forehead.

Then to Moira and Lei, "Take care of him." The two nodded and turned back to Charles. Lei's eyes drifted up to watch as Raven walked back to Erik and clutched his hand. The clear water Lei was using emitted a bright glow as she pressed it against Charles' back.

"And Beast?" Raven said. Hank looked up at her, his blue eyes now a bright yellow with his newly enhanced form. "Never forget, mutant and proud!" She exclaimed and Erik's new team is about to leave, when he stops and turns to Lei.

Her holds out his hand, but she just stares at him, the glow of the healing water casting a shadow across her tanned face. "Aren't you coming?" He asked.

Lei's heart broke when she saw the desperation in Erik's stormy eyes. "If you come with me, you'll never have to hide again." He tried. "You'll be free, to train, to live, to be who you want to be."

She wanted so much to go with him, to not have to hide or be afraid of who she really was. Lei had been hurt by humans even before she found out that she was a mutant. They had taken her mother away from her before she could even ride a bike and her father away before she had graduated high school. Her parents would never see her get her diploma or get married. They would never be able to meet their first grandchild. They would never be able to do these things because they were dead, killed by humans simply for being mutants.

But attacking everyone who defies you simply because they're human was not the answer. They fight. Kill. Betray. But, at the heart, men were still good. No matter how hard it got sometimes, Lei still believed that. She had to.

"I'm sorry, Erik." She finally said, shaking her head. "But if I went with you, I'd never be free." The words might not have been true, but she knew they were the only ones that could guarantee he leave without her. It was what he wanted, and just like Charles wasn't going to hold Raven back, Lei wasn't going to hold Erik back from what he wanted either.

"Those monsters, they killed your parents!" He shouted to cover up the sting he felt from her harsh words. "The took everything you ever cared about away from you and you are protecting them!"

"You assume that all humans are like Shaw. But you're wrong Erik. My aunt was human after all, and she took me in with open arms, when I had no one else."

Erik looked at her for a long time as his new teammates linked hands with him. Lei couldn't bear to watch Erik go, so she turned her head to focus on healing Charles. She used all the power she had not to lift her head, because if she did, she didn't know what would stop her from joining the metal bender.

She heard the familiar pop of Azazel vanishing, and knew that they were gone. A single tear slid down her heated face.

"Charles, don't move. Okay?" Hank asked, finally reaching the hurt telepath. Panic set into Lei's nerves as she finally realized why the wound wasn't bleeding. She didn't need to be a telepath to know what Charles was going to say.

"I won't. Actually, I can… I- I can't feel my legs!" He shouted, tears beginning to shine in his eyes.

"What?" Moira asked. The water Lei was using falls to the sand of the beach.

"I can't feel my legs!" He shouted frantically. "I can't feel my legs!"

She felt a light touch on her shoulder and jerked with a startled gasp to see Charles sitting next to her chair, his eyebrows knitted together in concern.

"It's just me," the professor said, holding his hands up. "I was talking to you for a minute and you weren't responding."

"Yeah, I…" Lei shakily ran a hand through her hair, pushing the thoughts of that day out of her mind. "I didn't hear you come in."

Suddenly tears began to well in her eyes. "Charles, I- I couldn't heal you. I'm so sorry. I tried so hard and I couldn't. I just couldn't…" Sensing that the young woman was about to cry, Charles pulled her into his arms.

Her tears began to drench his button down, but he ignored it and instead focusing on calming the young woman. "It's okay, my dear," he murmured into her hair. "Some things… you just can't heal." He smiles, despite the tears in his eyes and the pain in his heart.

Lei nodded before slowly pulling out of his arms and whipped the tears from her eyes.

"That's better," he said, smiling and smoothing the back of her hair. "You're wearing your hair down," he observed with a smile.

"Oh, yeah." She mumbled, nervously tugging at the ends of her hair. "I thought it was time for a change."

"It's nice," he said, smiling and smoothing down the back of her hair.

'Erik liked my hair down,' she thought. Charles frowned when he heard that thought. He felt anger for the older man when he saw the pain so prominent in Lei's brown eyes. Before Lei could notice, Charles covered the frown with a forced smile.

"You know, if we're going to open a school, we're going to need some teachers," he said, changing the subject.

"I would be honored Charles," she answered, not missing a beat.

He smiled. "You know, we never thought of a code name for you."

That's right. Charles had interrupted their fun that day before they had ever thought of one for her.

"I was thinking…" Lei paused, pressing a fingertip to her mouth in thought. "Flux."

Charles smiled. "Flux it is."

Two years later, Lei was wheeling the professor down the hallway of the X mansion. It was the first day of school and to say they were excited would be an understatement. The school was finally up and running and each one of them had a teaching position.

Hank taught science and mathematics, as well as helping Charles think up new ideas for the curriculum. Sean taught business and consumer law classes, as well as a flying class for those with flight powers since he had experience in that field. And Alex was able to teach history, somehow proving to have a knack for it. Although Charles was the headmaster of the school and was busy using Cerebro to find more mutants, he had insisted on taking on classes of his own. He had decided on English, as well as deciding to provide a gift appreciation and control class for those who needed it. And since Hank had been able to teach the mathematics class, Lei was happy to choose any class that she wanted to. And she had decided to form a cooking class as well as become the school's nurse, though she hoped that occupation wouldn't be much needed.

Although they only had a handful of students at the moment, Lei was optimistic that that number would grow soon.

"We have our work cut out for us, don't we Professor?"

"Yes," he admitted with a chuckle. "Yes, we do Miss Watson."

"Go ahead and tell me

That you know all I can be

You've studied every droplet

Of my ever-changing sea.

But weren't you ever taught

That seas are only where it ends?

The things that tell the story

Are the river's twists and bends.

The ocean isn't everything,

It's part of it of course,

But you cannot judge its currents

If you do not know their source."

~e.h

A/N: Thank you to everyone who had an idea on the X-men name for Lei! Especially to HisLordFluffiness for the constant reviews. I decided to take your idea on the codename Flux! Thank you for your insight! Only two chapter's left. Also, I hope that I assigned the jobs okay. I looked up X-men teacher facts and tried to decide on which one would be best. Thanks for reading!