I ring the doorbell of the fourth floor flat and put on my 'little girl lost' face, full of hope and expectation. When the door opens I smile my best 'favourite grandchild' smile. "Oh Amanda, it's lovely to see you," Mrs Jhaveri says smiling back at me. "Do come in for a cup of tea, it's been a long time you know."

"I know, Mrs Jhaveri, I'm sorry. I should have let you know," I reply, saccharine sweet. "I've been working in the States for a little while but I thought I'd pop up and visit you now I'm back." We both know this is a lie, but we also both know it's true. Truth is a complicated thing.

"That's very good of you," she tells me. "You are a good girl, come in, come in." I follow her into the tiny hallway. Her flat is laid out exactly like mine, except hers is full of flowery sofas and lace curtains and little tables.

"Now I couldn't help but notice that there has been a man in your flat," she tells me, almost on a whisper as we go into her sitting room. "Is he one of your brothers? He doesn't look like the nice young man you brought to visit me that time. He looks a little bit wild." Ollie stayed with her once. Don't ask.

"Oh yes," I tell her, smiling. "That's George, I used to work for him, I was his PA. He's an old friend."

I see her eyebrows raised. Mrs Jhaveri would dearly love to see me married off and used to be forever suggesting ways I could accomplish this. Some people might have found this irritating. I liked it. I never had any grandparents. "And he's staying in your house dear?" she asks. "Is that wise?"

I laughed. "Almost certainly not," I say and wink. She giggles. We drink tea and eat biscuits and do the things we always do together and then she offers me the thing I was really waiting for.

"Did you want to use the phone, dear?" she asks. I wrinkle my nose apologetically. I really don't just use Mrs Jhaveri for her phone, but, well, that is the reason I'm here. She is one of several kind, older people I have cultivated for this purpose. Maybe it makes me a bad person. I can't tell any more.

oooOoOoOoOOOoOoOoOooo

"Jean?" I ask.

"Amanda," she replies warmly, "where are you calling from? I don't recognise the number."

"Ideally you shouldn't be able to see the number, either. This is meant to be a secure line," I remark dryly. She laughs.

"Technology moves forward, and right out in front of it is our very own Scott Summers."

I laugh, too. "Look, I wanted to ask you about my mutation. I need you to tell me everything you can about it: How it works; what it does; how I can control it; that sort of stuff." There is silence from the other end of the phone.

It carries on for a long moment.

"Jean?" I ask. The silence continues for three more beats. It kind of reminds me of when I talk to Danny sometimes. How do people manage to be silently disapproving on the phone? You would think you would need to be able to see a person for them to register this level of disapproval. "Hello. Jean. You still there?" I ask wondering what it is I've done.

"I'm still here," she says. All the warmth has magically disappeared from her voice. "I'm just surprised by your reason for calling. I mean, we told you everything we knew about your mutation before you left. Several times in fact. And by several times, what I mean is, several people spent a long time telling you...

"several times…

"each…

"everything we knew about your mutation.

"So I suppose I'm slightly surprised to hear that you don't know anything about it." I suppose I can see where she's coming from on that one.

"But I wasn't listening," I tell her with a simulated air of confusion, as if I can't understand where she's coming from at all and she's being totally irrational. Sometimes if you act like people's irritation is totally irrational they think it is too. It works. Sometimes. Honest.

"I mean I made it very clear I wasn't listening. I never looked at you. I never responded. I wasn't listening." There is the silence again. Of course, it doesn't always work. Sometimes, it has even been known to make things worse. Oops.

"Jean?" I ask, nervously. I really hope I haven't terminally pissed her off.

"I told you, Scott told you, Hank told you, Alex told you, Kurt and Logan told you, Remy told you. Even the Professor told you. Are you really telling me that you weren't listening?" Oh crap. If you could hear her tone of voice you would swear too.

"Um, I don't know what to tell you?" I say and I let my nerves through into my voice. Maybe if I go for slightly scared she'll take pity on me. It could work, right? "I really wasn't listening. I think I was in denial."

"We thought you couldn't help but be listening," she said, now she sounds more disapointed than angry. "There was no other sound in the room, for heaven's sake? How on earth did you manage not to be listening?"

"I'm not a really great auditory learner," I tell her, defensively. "And I was in denial and things, you know, but… Hey, the good news is I'm at acceptance now, which means I'm all ready eager and able to learn. Right. That's a good thing, right?" If she was Logan, she would have growled at me. Instead there is a long suffering sigh.

"Do you have a pen and paper to hand?" she asks me, coldly.

"Um, yes," I reply. The truth is no, but I'm all ready to listen this time, so it's all cool.

"Amanda, please. Do not tell me lies and think I can't tell," Jean says, she sounds like Munroe. "You don't know how your mutation works yet, obviously, so you are going to have a great deal of trouble controlling it. You have just told me you are not a good auditory learner. Listening to me is not good enough. Go and get a piece of paper and a pen and then come back to the phone."

"Jeez, Jean, you don't have to go into teacher mode," I say, but quietly and after I have put the phone down. I find a pen and some paper in Mrs Jhaveri living room. She is watching television and knitting something. I smile at her and she smiles back.

"Is everything alright, Amanda," she asks me. I smile and nod. I mean what else can I tell her?

"Your title is: My mutation and how to control it, by Amanda Jacobson," Jean says. "Write it down and read it back to me." I guess she heard the comment about teacher mode. I tell myself to suck it up and deal with it, that it'll be worth it in the long run. But I really hate following instructions from teachers. Especially when they are clearly pissed off with me… just because I wasn't listening I mean, seriously …

…maybe I should stop being such a pain in the arse.

Nah. That would be no fun at all.