Disclaimer: Those of you whot hink I own X-Men, raise your hands. **pause** Okay, men, take 'em away!
A/N: Um, sorry for the delay in updating. Understandably enough (considering where I left you) this was a bit of a difficult chapter to write. So please, bear with me, and if I do something wrong, do tell me.
A/NII: Okay, it now gets to the point in things where I know I don't have much time left in the story. I just can't hold this for more than one more chapter! So, PLEASE, I need more suggestions for a sequel!
Dedication: To Descendent, for their absolutely adorable, sweet, cute mushy fic "Surrenduring our manhood" Brotherhood and X-Men guys tick off their various girlfriends and do the sweetest thing to apologize! I love this fic!
Chapter IXX
The first words out of Stefan's mouth were, predictably, "You have got to be kidding me."
Amanda glared at her older brother. "Kurt, meet my annoying older brother Stefan, Mom, Dad, and Cassie," she pointed out each in turn. "And Mom? If your mouth drops any lower you're liable to catch a fly in it."
Her mouth shut with a snap.
"Guten tag, Frau Sefton," by some feat of contortionist flexibility Kurt bowed to Mrs. Sefton while remaining in his seat next to Amanda. "I'm delighted to meet you." Amanda, of course, heard what he didn't say: "I'm delighted that you're not still screaming."
"Amanda, what is he?!" Stefan demanded, and Amanda shot her brother a look that could kill.
However, before Amanda could smack Stefan over the head with a piece of her mind, Kurt jumped to his own defense. "I am a mutant. I have a severely whacked-out gene that causes me to look like this. My appearance, I fear, is at the mercy of my genetics."
Stefan's expression didn't darken per se, but it was quite apparent to Amanda, Kurt, and any telepath on Institute grounds that he was unhappy to find out the reason his sister had avoided physically describing Kurt in her phone calls. Her parents were, if not taking things in stride, at least coping. Cassie was the best case of all: her initial reaction was superseded only by Amanda's.
She looked speculatively at him for a moment before saying "I can't imagine the gene caused this much physical change in one generation, given that all the evidence I know of points to most mutations being nonphysical or minimally physical. So how did you end up with full demonic paraphernalia?"
Kurt looked about ready to have the same reaction as Amanda's parents before pulling himself together. "Ah - I'm a second-generation. My mother is blue-skinned, yellow-eyed, and can shape-shift."
Cassie nodded. "That makes more sense."
Amanda's father chose that moment for his first comment. "You know about these things? Enough to predict their mutations?" he demanded.
"We're studying them in advanced bio as theory, but if Kurt is any proof there will probably be a class in the advancement of human evolution and mutation as a basic requirement before long," Cassie retorted.
Amanda's father shook his head. "I am not at all sure about this."
Her mother elbowed him in the ribs. "Dan! Give the boy the benefit of the doubt, we don't even know him." Her husband glared at her but subsided. "Now," and all of a sudden a Mothers Righteous Wrath was focused solely and completely on Amanda. "Where were you last night and all of today? Obviously you got yourself into trouble or you wouldn't be in the hospital wing! We deserve an explanation of why you father, Stefan and I drove the six hours to get up here only to find that you're quite alright! Well?"
Amanda was silent, wishing she could get a telepathic cue from Xavier as to what she could tell her parents that wouldn't put the X-Men at risk. Thankfully, Kurt did this for her the instant he saw what her mother was about.
"Mrs. Sefton, I am afraid that the reasons for all of the above are entirely my fault," Xavier said as he rolled into the medilab. "I assure you that while your daughter walked into the situation in control, what occurred last night was out of her control, due mostly to a lack of foresight on my part. In order for you to understand what happened I will have to tell you a great deal, beginning with the fact that everyone who lives at the Institute is a mutant, including myself, the staff - and the house physician."
At that cue, Beast knuckled in and introduced himself. "Dr. Hank McCoy, at your service. Or rather, perhaps more accurately, at your daughter's service. I believe the next item on my agenda is doing a last checkup to be certain that Amanda is healthy enough to leave her bed. In order to forestall any anxious questions, the only thing confining her is extreme exhaustion. No true injuries whatsoever."
"That, I believe, is my cue to offer to escort you to my office. An explanation of events will take quite some time," Xavier moved his wheelchair slightly, in a posture much like someone holding a door open and expecting others to walk through. Cassie walked through without a second thought, Mrs. Sefton next with her husband only a step or two behind. Stefan, however, glanced back and forth between his sister, Kurt, and Beast several times before following the rest of his family out the door. It shut behind him.
Amanda fell back onto the bed without hesitation, careful to catch Kurt's tail in the small of her back so she wouldn't hurt him. "God," she muttered, her arm slung across her eyes. She seemed to be attempting to resign herself. "I'm sorry about Stefan, Kurt."
Kurt smiled. "Sorry for what, liebling? None of your family ran screaming for pitchforks and torches, Cassie even had the nerve to ask me about my mutation, and your mother asked I be given the benefit of the doubt. I would say that went better than I could ever have expected!"
She shook her head. "I'm a perfectionist when it comes to this, Kurt. I refuse to be satisfied until Cassie's reaction is a norm."
"That may never happen in our lifetime," Kurt pointed out realistically.
"Then we might as well set about building a foundation," she declared firmly.
*
Discovering their daughter was dating a mutant who looked like a demon had been a shock to the Seftons. Discovering why she'd gone missing, and why the police hadn't been informed even after the twenty-four hours 'missing persons' requirement was even worse.
Stefan sat stoically through it all. Although his expression gave nothing away, his thoughts were in a decidedly dark turmoil. The instant Xavier admitted he could hear thoughts Stefan lased out with a particularly strong thought of his own: Stay away from my sister!
However, where Stefan looked to be a lost cause the adult Seftons were not, and Cassie was more than accepting, she was actively pro-mutant the instant she learned about them. She also had several scientific questions she wanted answered, and Xavier directed her to Hank. He could have answered them, but he wanted Beast to meet Cassie on the off chance that she could bring him out of the shell against the world outside the Institute he'd created for himself.
"Professor Xavier, this is - a bit much to throw on our plate all at once," Mrs. Sefton told him slowly once he was finished. "Mutants, to us, were nothing more than rumors of comic books come to life until we found our daughter wrapped up in one. Then we find out that mutants have been around long enough to have a hate-group, and our daughter was not only merely the victim of prejudice, but of kidnapping! All of this being worsened by the fact that we can't go to the police because the only police likely to believe it are probably members of said hate group. Give us a moment to adjust our worldview."
Xavier nodded. "I assume that you would like some time to talk to Amanda in private?"
She nodded in return. "Would you stay here, then? I'll send Amanda up," he left, telepathically asking Beast to do just that.
A minute later the Seftons heard Kurt wish Amanda luck just outside the door. Then she opened the door only enough to admit her and closed it behind her. The very first thing she said as she crossed her arms in a defensive posture was "I'm going to keep seeing Kurt, whether or not you approve of my dating a mutant."
"Oh, that opened discussions real well," Stefan muttered in the classical style of annoyed big brothers everywhere.
Her mother glared at him. "You two. Girl talk. Out," she ordered.
Surprise was written in six different languages all over Mr. Sefton and Stefan's faces, but they got up and shut the door behind them. Amanda perched on the edge of Xavier's desk, and Cassie decided that unless something drastic happened, she should stay shut up as well. This seemed like a mother-daughter matter.
"Did you know Kurt was a mutant when you asked him out?"
"Yes. I caught him 'porting in school about a month before I worked up the nerve to ask him to the dance."
Cassie just had to ask. "'Porting?"
Amanda didn't even blink. "Teleporting. Kurt's 'power' mutation is teleportation. Which would be the only way to catch him in school because he has a watch which projects a hologram around him. I'm the first person to realize he isn't exactly normal."
"You asked him out, correct? No one pressured you into dating him?"
"Mom! Even if they had, Kurt wouldn't have let that happen."
"And what do you mean by that?"
"Kurt is an honest, decent, honorable person, and would be mad as hell if he found out that someone was forcing anyone to do anything."
"So why did you go along with Xavier's half-baked spy scheme?"
"Because I would like to thing I have some sense of right and wrong, as well as my responsibility to keep others safe. I was the only one who could do it, so I did."
Mrs. Sefton grinned. "You always were an idealist, daughter 'o mine!"
Cassie stared at the woman in astonishment for a moment but Amanda, who was used to her mother's goal-mindful capricious nature, leaped up and hugged her. "Does this mean I can keep dating Kurt?"
Mrs. Sefton nodded, and Amanda hugged her again. "Now, what do you see in that boy besides an opportunity to fight the injustices of the world?"
"Mom!" she protested. "That is so not the reason I asked Kurt out!"
"Uh-huh. So. Why did you ask him out?" her mother questioned.
Amanda shook her head. "I'm not going to be able to get out of this, am I?"
"Nope."
"Alright. He's funny, honest, honorable, smart, sweet, chivalrous, and, to tell the truth, the cutest guy I've ever met," she grinned impishly at her mother.
"Cute?" her mother inquired speculatively. "Hmm. The fur?"
"Most definitely."
"He probably looks like a wet cat when he's in water," Cassie commented. "The ears, too. You know, it only just occurred to me, but Spock's mother's name was Amanda."
Amanda blushed. "So maybe people with my name are naturally attracted to guys with pointy ears!"
"I'll drag the guys back in," Cassie offered. "After all, now that those who are really in charge have decided things, all we have to do is make the males understand!"
*
It turned out not to be an 'all', and Amanda came within a hairs breadth of never being allowed near Kurt again simply because that was what her brother wanted and what her father was leaning towards. She never fell past that hair, though, because she, her mother and Cassie argued and reasoned them down. Although Cassie never stated it, Amanda knew that if she continued living with her cousin she'd continue seeing Kurt. Whatever her parents decided.
By the time her family left Amanda didn't want to do anything but find the bed the Professor had offered and fall asleep. Beast took one look at her after her confrontation with her family and said he didn't particularly want her to go anywhere if it could possibly be helped. He also said that the whole Sefton family would be well advised to sleep off the last day at Cassie's apartment before making the six hour drive back to their home in a suburb of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. Cassie would be back to pick her up at around nine the next morning, several hours before her first Tuesday class.
"Hey, Amanda," came a soft southern drawl from behind her. "The last time Ah found yah staring out the window like this was when the Professor tried to sort through your memories of a Friends of Humanity meeting."
"My brother's being an idiot. He can't see that Kurt's a person, dammit, he thinks that just because he doesn't look like his idea of normal that he isn't worth the time of day!" Amanda cried. Wonderful timing my breakdown has! she thought a little hysterically. I did not want to do this in front of anyone! "I just spent the night in a prison designed by people like that, held by people like that, and the idea of one in the family is frankly scary! Shit," she muttered as she realized she hadn't meant to say half of that. Her control was slipping with exponential speed, and Rogue didn't even seem to be noticing! "Rogue, I just - just need a little time by myself, okay?"
The southern mutant studied Amanda, "Alright. Just - don't do nothing dumb."
She nodded, and when Rogue meandered into the kitchen Amanda flew up the stairs to the room Xavier had pointed out to her when they escorted her family to the door. Locking the door behind her, Amanda found she didn't have the strength the get to the bed and didn't bother, instead leaning against the door and sliding down it. "Shit," she muttered again as tears ran like rain down her cheeks and she curled up on herself, the result of stress and tension and fear and denial built up over the last two days and finally released.
