Digging Up

Sighing, Snap looked around. Despite her best efforts, the mutants in Xavier's School For Gifted Children were determined to be friendly. She twirled the staff in her hands and snarled at her reflection in the mirror. Her wild hair was just below chin length, but danced all around her head as if it were alive. She had never been able to subdue it, even when she wanted to.

More than her straying locks of hair, her eyes gave the mutant a wild look. Swirls of purple danced in her yellow-rimmed, sea green orbs. And her particular habit of cocking her head and staring at people without blinking gave even more to her creepy aura.

"What do you want?" she asked softly, seeming to direct the question at her reflection.

"Huh?"

Snap turned. "What do you want, Scott?"

Her quiet voice seemed to ask him more than just the obvious question. It begged him to search his heart...Scott shook off the idea. "The professor wants you to have dinner with us."

"Not hungry."

Scott raised an eyebrow over his glasses. "You have to eat."

"Not necessarily."

The other mutant was frustrated. "Snap! Stop being so hardheaded and let us help you."

"What if I don't want to be helped?"

Her last question was spoken with undertones of heartbreak. They were so soft he almost missed them. "Dinner's at eight." Somehow, he knew she'd be there.

~*~*~*~*~

"Use your best table manners," Kitty suggested to Snap.

"I don't have any table manners," Snap grumbled.

Kitty shook her head, sending her brown curls flying around her face. "Sure you do," she offered. "Just be polite."

One of the other mutants—who had heard about Snap—laughed. "Then we're all sunk."

Snap bared her sharp teeth at the winged man.

"I'm Warren," he introduced himself. "Otherwise known as Archangel." He spread his beautiful white wings.

"Snap," she said.

The winged man looked like he was waiting for something. Wolverine walked up to him and put a hand on his shoulder. "Don't waste yer time," the Canadian mutant suggested. "She's not that friendly."

"Oh, friendly like you?"

For one of the first times since her arrival, Snap cracked a smile. Jubilee saw her and brightened. The twenty-two year old woman took the mutant's hand. "Here, sit by me."

Snap rolled her eyes, but allowed herself to be taken to the seat. It wasn't long into the meal before Beast made a comment about Snap having impeccable manners. It was true. More than almost any other mutant there, Snap handled herself perfectly with the utensils and things. The mutant girl shrugged and offered no explanation.

"How'd you end up here?" Jubilee asked around a mouthful of ice cream.

"Normal stuff," Snap informed her, shrugging. "Run out of town...captured by humans—" she spat the word "—then freed by mutants...then captured by the X-Men." Another of her sarcastic smiles filled her face. "Trouble follows me."

As if the words were some kind of magic charm, an alarm went off. Snap glared at it. "I'm trying to eat," she muttered as the rest of the mutants leapt out of their chairs. The tri-color eyed woman followed them, figuring she owed them at least a little something in return for the meal.

~*~*~*~*~

The intruders were dressed in military fatigues and heavily armed. They were also all human. Snap greeted them with a low growl.

"Friends of yours?" Archangel inquired, standing behind her.

Snap spat out a curse. "Only the kind that stab you in the back." She saw the professor waving at her and moved over toward him. Her every motion was like a cat's—seeped in careless grace and power.

"They say they're here to bring you back," the Professor explained. He used his mental powers to stop her from snapping her fingers together. "No powers. They are here to negotiate."

Snap did not look impressed. "What could they possibly want to negotiate for?"

"Evidently," the bald leader of the X-Men frowned, "they would like to negotiate your safe return."

The girl shook her head, sending bi-colored locks of hair flying around her face. That was the only response she gave. "The only returning I'll do," she informed them, her voice soft but intense, "is in a body bag." The mutant barred her slightly pointed teeth at the paramilitary men.

"Now Snap," the professor started.

She shook her head, scattering wild strands of hair around her face. "No. I am not negotiating because I am not returning." The tri-color-eyed mutant looked very determined on that point. In her hands, the staff weaved in the air slightly as if it were seeking an excuse to lash out.

"Snap," the wheelchair bound man said, his voice strong enough to capture and hold her attention. "I would like to hear what they have to say."

Snap trembled slightly with contained emotion. Then she straightened, her eyes back to their normal almost-lazy, cynical amusement. "Then do it without me present." She walked out, leaving the rest of the mutants to talk with the humans.

~*~*~*~*~

Snap perched on the arm of a chair, holding a roll from the dinner table. She was very deliberately using her canine teeth to bite into the bread and ignore the other in the room.

"Not very talkative, are you?"

The mutant looked up through her blonde and brunette hair at the other woman. Kitty, if she remembered correctly. Which she did. "No."

"Not very friendly either," Kitty commented again, a slight smile on her lips.

Snap raised a single eyebrow, giving her cynical expression a slightly amused edge. "I take great pains not to be."

"Why?"

The mutant rolled her eyes. "You are the most prying group of people I have ever met." She let her mouth twitch upwards. "Your professor is talking to most of the reason."

"Those humans?" Kitty asked. Once a nod from Snap confirmed it, she continued, "What did they do to you?"

For a minute, Snap considered not answering the other woman's questions. That would be what the other female was expecting. Because it was in her nature to confuse people, Snap spoke. "What didn't they?" She clicked her fingers together, emphasizing the click they made. "Metallic implants under the skin of my fingers for some reason." She tapped the side of her head. "Mostly-botched cybernetic implant. I can remember anything that's said to me or that I learn or that I infer...at the cost of whatever past I had." Snap grinned slightly. No, Jean hadn't expected her to say anything. Finally, the mutant female pointed to her ears. "And enhanced hearing. Lots of fun things." The mutant went back to eating her roll.

"What did they do that for?" Kitty pressed. She leaned forward slightly, then tucked her curly brown hair behind her ear to keep it out of her hazel eyes.

"Probably because mutants are lower than humans, deserve to be killed in inhuman ways that even animals are protected from, and a general sense of sadism."

Something about the way Snap phrased her comment and the amused eyebrow she raised made Kitty laugh. "Oh, come on. Life's looking up for you." The pretty mutant stood up and stretched, still grinning at Snap.

Snap herself shook her head as Kitty phased through a wall. "Up." She repeated the word in a half-amused scoff. "That's just relative to where you're standing."

"Oh?"

The single syllable caught on Snap's ears and hung there for a minute. She tried to shake it out of her mind with a physical motion, and ended up turning around and glaring at Professor Xavier. "Yes. Relative," she informed him, her voice close to an annoyed growl.

He raised an eyebrow at her. For a moment, the leader of the X-Men considered chastising the mutant for her attitude, but restrained himself. "Relative to what?" he queried.

"One's own position has a lot to do with it," Snap responded. Picking an arbitrary point between herself and the man, she indicated it with an outstretched finger. From his position in the wheelchair, Xavier was forced to look up. "Up to you. Down to me."

"Fascinating."

Somehow, he was able to inject a world of meaning into the four syllables. He made it sound like Snap's commentary on life had opened her entire soul to him. She was not impressed.

Instead of responding to what she felt was a statement inviting her to open up to the man, Snap let the silence drag on. She'd lived most of her life in a deep, forbidding silence anyway.

"Then, in relation to us..."

She turned her eyes on him, and stared with all the intensity she could muster into the purple flecked, yellow rimmed, green orbs.

"...where are you? Up? Or down?"

Snap laughed softly. Peeling her lips back form the vampire-like teeth she was endowed with, she approximated a smile. "Six feet under."

~*~*~*~*~

It was almost impossible to tame her hair except with a miracle, but Snap still gathered her unruly locks into her hands and twisted a hair tie around them. Most of her hair stayed in the tie with a few bi-colored locks clinging to her face.

With her hair mostly out of her way, Snap glanced around her room. There was nothing unusual about it—just a simple twin bed with a white comforter, and a gray chair slid into the corner nearest the window. Her knapsack was hanging from the doorknob of the closet. A desk with a shelf above it held nothing save for a mug with two pencils and two pens set on top of a notebook. At least, that was all that was supposed to be sitting on the desk.

Snap frowned, wrinkling her brow. Just that slight motion worked more of her hair loose. She tucked the errant strands behind her ear. And reached for the crisp white envelope that was propped on the white mug. Her name was written on the front in the flowing handwriting of a woman. Taking that as permission to open the envelope, Snap slid her nail under the flap of the envelope and popped the seal. Unfolding the letter inside, her eyes narrowed even farther.

"Congratulations, Snap," she read.

You have been accepted to the prestigious school of 'Professor Xavier's School For Higher Learning.' You are of a select few accepted into the school. The first date of classes you are expected to attend is August 30. You will not need to bring anything but your clothing; anything else is discouraged but not prohibited. The school will provide necessities. As a student of the school, you are expected to maintain high grades, and to follow teachers' instructions, your teacher advisor will be Logan, and you will be on Gold Block. Chores are also mandatory.

It was signed "sincerely" by the Professor, Jean Grey, and Logan. Snap wondered if it was a form letter that they sent to everyone the X-Men rescued, or if "with amusement, since if you refuse we'll kick you out on your butt" had been edited.

Snap glanced at the window and wondered if anyone would notice if she jumped out it and ran off. Speculating, she walked over and glanced down.

'When one is as far down as one can go, there is no direction left but up.'

Snap closed her eyes in annoyance. Xavier was in her head. There was no telling what he'd do. That thought was more or less directed at the Professor. She could feel his amusement.

With the sense of amusement came an impression of the room the Professor was in and the people around him. Snap clicked her fingers together and the glass that Jean Grey had been holding broke.

'That was inappropriate,' she received from both of the telepaths at the same time. She was tempted to reply, but assumed that her reply would be even more "inappropriate".

After all her years of being buried, it was time to start digging up.

~*~*~*~*~