"How is she, Ororo?" Professor Xavier asked, wheeling his chair around.

She shook her head, her long white hair spilling over her shoulders. "I don't know. She's just been sitting there the past few days, staring out the window. She won't answer me when I ask her questions."

"Did you at least get a name out of her?"

She shook her head again, and the professor looked thoughtful. "Perhaps I should take a look at her."

Ororo merely nodded and folded her arms, then followed him down to the room where the girl was staying. He reached for the handle and found that it was locked, and Ororo heaved a sigh. "Not again," she moaned.

She tapped on the door. "Honey, you need to open the door," she said, throwing on her best sweet voice. It didn't disguise much of her irritation; she was usually very good with teenagers, but this one was on her last nerve. When she received no answer on the other side of the door, she let a whine escape her throat and sunk down onto her haunches, burying her face in her hands.

The Professor looked down at her awkwardly, and she looked back up at him through her fingers with irritation. She stood up quickly and brought her fist back behind her head, ready to start pounding on the door, but someone grasped onto it from behind. She turned around and saw Logan standing behind her.

"No need to intimidate her, Storm," he said, calling her by her X Men name. She heaved another sigh and he let go of her wrist, and then turned around. "Elf!" he called, seemingly shaking the whole house. Within seconds, a blue puff of smoke appeared before them.

"Logan, I swear it wasn't my fault! See, Evan thought it would be funny to see if you really could hit two birds with one stone-"

Xavier cut him off. "I would be silent and listen if I were you, before you land yourself into some more trouble."

Kurt stopped, a look of confusion crossing his face as he turned back to Logan. The professor sighed. "Remember the girl we found?"

He slowly nodded.

"Well, she's in here, she hasn't been speaking for days, and now she won't unlock the door. Can you teleport in there, unlock it, and come back out?" he asked, pointing to the door.

The boy with the bluish hair blinked his eyes. "Are you sure it's.safe?" he asked, lowering his voice so she couldn't hear him from through the door.

Logan looked thoughtful. "Honestly, I have no idea."

Right after he spoke, they heard crashing noises, like things being thrown to the ground and the sound of sheets and blankets ripping followed closely behind. Kurt gulped and looked towards the door. "Alright," he said finally, as his fears subsided. Within seconds he was gone in a puff of smoke.

"Why didn't you just get Kitty to phase through the wall?" Ororo asked Logan. He shook his head. "Because I think she and Kurt have similar mutations, so he might not frighten her as much as another person would. Besides, Kitty's terrified of her. Ever since she saw what she did to that body she has it stuck in her head that she's some vicious killer."

Xavier spoke up. "Well, isn't she?"

They were all silent as they exchanged glances.

Kurt had stopped and stared as soon as he got inside. The room was an absolute mess; the bed sheets were ripped to shreds and the pictures that were once on the wall were smashed on the ground. What disturbed him the most were the blood spots on the wall near the bed. He looked around and saw that she wasn't even there. He felt a breeze, and his eyes traveled to the window, and saw that it was thrown open.

He quickly unlocked the door and then tapped on it, telling them to come in, and then ran to the window. The door opened from behind him and Logan and Ororo came in, and the woman gasped at what this girl had done to her room. No sooner than Kurt had reached the window, did the alarms from outside go off. He jumped out onto the roof and saw that she was trying to get out by climbing over the huge iron fence.

"No, don't!" he cried; she wasn't aware of all the weapons that went off as soon as someone tried to break in through the gate. The alarm system didn't know the difference of breaking in or trying to leave, and it would fire no matter what.

Logan reached the window first. "Kurt, go!" he shouted, trying to catch her before anything hit her. The red laser beams were already going off, and one hit the gate, right by her shoulder.

Within seconds, Kurt was hanging on the fence next to the girl. He grabbed onto her lower arm and she turned to him with an angry fire in her eyes. And in a puff of blue smoke, he was back in her room in the institute. She hadn't been expecting to teleport, and toppled over onto the floor at the sudden change in scenery.

Kurt was staring at his hand in shock. "Professors. . ." he said softly, and showed them his palm. It was covered in blood. They turned to the girl lying on the floor, breathing as if she was on life support. They looked at her left arm and saw that it had several cuts running diagonally up and down the inner side.

"Ororo, get her to the infirmary," Xavier said.

She looked at him like he was crazy, but then slowly put her hand out to help her. The girl narrowed her eyes into slits and scratched at her hand, cutting four small gashes into the back of it. Ororo gasped and drew her hand back, and the girl suddenly stopped looking so crazed. She sat up, looked at her surroundings, at her, her arm, everyone surrounding her, and a look of sudden realization and horror crossed over her face.

"Oh God," they heard her whisper; the first time she had spoken since they found her. She looked up at them and then buried her face in her hands. They exchanged glances slowly, and Logan looked at Kurt, and nodded at the door.

"Not a word to anyone," he whispered, and Kurt nodded and teleported out.

+ + +

Ororo had taken her to the infirmary after she had calmed down. She was silently bandaging up her arm, and they hadn't spoken since they got in there. She pressed a cotton ball up to her wounds, and she flinched.

"Sorry," Ororo said quietly, "It's going to sting a little bit."

The girl didn't nod or anything, in fact, she didn't even know if she had heard her or not. She seemed to be in deep thought. The white haired woman flicked her eyes at her, and took in another breath. "So, do you have a name?"

"Maeve."

Ororo nodded and smiled. "That's a nice name, it sounds Irish. Is it?" Maeve merely nodded her head, and Ororo kept talking. "My name is Ororo, but you can call me Storm too. Here, I'll show you."

She went to the window and put hands up, and in seconds there were dark clouds covering the once completely blue sky. A flash of lightning shot down and she smiled contently to herself, and let her hands drop. The storm disappeared and the sky was blue once again.

Ororo turned back to Maeve and smiled at her. "See? We're all like this here at Xavier. You have nothing to worry about any more. This place is completely secret. The government and anyone else who might try to get rid of the mutants knows it just a school for the gifted."

Maeve didn't even say anything, and the weather witch began to grow impatient with her habit of not wanting to pay attention. There were another few minutes of uncomfortable silence, and Ororo decided to get her talking again.

"Can I ask why you did this?" she asked, as she bandaged up her arm.

She looked up at her, but didn't answer. Ororo kept talking. "You should feel secure now that you're at the Xavier institute. You can tell me."

Her honey-brown eyes searched her face for a moment more, and then she looked down at the ground. "I was thirsty."

Ororo nearly choked. "Thirsty?" she exclaimed. She looked down at her cuts. "You mean you were going to. . . you were going to drink. . ."

"It's something I've been doing for a few years," Maeve said, lifting up her shirt. There were cuts all over her stomach, similar to the ones on her arms. "It came when I first got my. . . mutations."

She looked at her in disbelief. "That's not healthy, especially cutting on your arms and wrists. Even though you wouldn't be thirsty any more, you could kill yourself like that."

"I know."

She stared again, and Maeve kept her gaze on the ground. "I was hoping for a win-win situation."

+ + +

Ororo, Logan and Xavier were standing in the hallway outside the infirmary. She was sent back to her room to get some rest; she had suffered a lot of blood loss.

"I think if she's going to stay here, she's going to need some psychiatric help." Ororo had told them of what she experienced while putting on her bandages. "Before she can even join the X Men she needs to be able to control her habits."

Logan folded his arms. "We don't offer any of that stuff here. We'd have to send her to a professional. And her little demon appearance ain't gonna make that easy."

"I can just take a look into her mind and her past. I should be able to figure out what's wrong with her from there," Xavier said. "Ororo is right. She needs to be able to get professional help before she interacts with the students in battle. After I look into her she should be able to head back to school."

"Should we at least introduce her to the other students?" Logan inquired, "It's not like they don't know she's here or anything. And we can't keep her locked up forever."

Xavier nodded. "At dinner."

+ + +

It all came too fast before Ororo knocked on Maeve's door. No body answered, and after a few tries, he let himself in. She was sitting on her bed cross-legged just staring at the wall. Her fingers were gently tapping on the bandage that was on her left arm, and she had a blank look on her face.

"Maeve, are you hungry?" she asked gently. "It's dinner time, and you haven't eaten anything for a few days now." She looked over at her, and after a few wordless moments, slowly stood up and followed her downstairs.

The others were already at the dining room table, and Logan was quickly explaining what had happened to Maeve and how they were supposed to just treat her normally. Ororo entered the room with her close behind, and the other students immediately shut up. She was the only one there still in her mutant form, and they all noticed the bandage she had around her wrists.

Kurt silently looked down at his palm where her blood had used to be. He clenched his fist and then looked back up as Ororo was introducing her.

"Everyone, this is Maeve. Most of you are familiar with her, and she will be joining our institute. It'll be a while before she gets into school, and we need to get her a watch before she can be seen in public. But she's agreed to come down and eat with us for tonight, so be at your best to make her feel at home."

She pulled out a chair for her to sit in, and Maeve sat down quietly. She didn't appear to be shy, just. . . well. . . she was acting like Rogue normally did. The dinner remained silent for a while, until they all just broke off into pairs of two or more and started talking. Maeve looked around the room. Kurt had made Kitty laugh while she was cutting her food, and the knife slipped in her hand. It cut a thin line along her index finger, and she let out a yelp.

"Oh my God! I'm bleeding!" she exclaimed. Rogue mumbled something about it being a scratch, but kept her head down.

So thirsty, Maeve thought, and fixed her eyes on Kitty. She felt Ororo and Logan's intense look on her as she continued to stare, but she didn't pay any mind. Kitty noticed her staring and was becoming a little self- conscious.

"Maeve," Ororo said silently, and she snapped back into reality. She looked down at her plate that was completely empty. "You're going to have to change your eating and drinking habits, now that you're here."

"What?" she said, looking absolutely traumatized.

Kurt, who was seated next to her, shoved a cheeseburger in her face. "Here! Try one of these!"

She rolled her eyes. "I have had one of these before, you know."

He shrugged and took a big bite out of the burger, happily chewing away. At least she was speaking in complete sentences now, the majority of the other students decided. Maeve looked at him, down to her empty plate, and back at Kitty's little bit of blood on her finger. Kitty nervously put a strand of hair behind her ear, wondering why she was staring at her cut so intently.

Finally, she stood up. "I'm going to go get this, like, bandaged up." And with that, she walked right through the wall behind her.

The bloodthirsty one sighed and rested her chin on her fist. There goes my drink.

"So, Maeve, what kind of powers do you have?" Scott asked, trying to strike up a conversation amongst the awkwardly silent dinner table. She looked around the room thoughtfully, and finally turned back to him.

"It's not dark enough in here for me to show you what I can do."

Evan nearly choked on his food. "Sweet!" he exclaimed in a high-pitched voice, his mind already in the gutter. Kurt burst out laughing, catching on to his sick joke, but Maeve only shook her head and rolled her eyes. "Dude, cut the lights!" Evan was rushing, eager to see just what she could do, although his idea was most likely very far from her actual abilities. Ororo walked to the switch and dimmed the lights a little, casting her nephew Evan a warning look for his perversion.

Maeve looked around the room for a particularly dark corner. She sided with the one closest to Logan, it being the darkest, and turned to it. She raised her hand, palm facing towards the ceiling, and focused on the shadow. It slowly rose with her hand, and she pulled it back closer to her face. It followed her willingly, creeping along the wall and finally detaching itself. She moved her arm around in a circle, pointing to each of the others at the table. The shadow swept around them, circling them one at a time, brushing past their hair and around their shoulders and then leaving for the next. Some of them looked terrified. Logan looked unenthused. Rogue looked orgasmic at the darkness.

Finally, she dropped her hand to her side and took her focus off the shadow. It flew back to its place on the corner and resumed as it was before she even touched it, just looking like a part of the room. They were silent for a while, until Evan breathed.

"Nice."

Maeve didn't say anything, but he kept talking. "Not what I was expecting, but nice."

Ororo clenched onto her fork angrily. "Evan. . ."

+ + +

The next morning was a day for school, much to the students' dismay. They awoke early, and stumbled blindly into the kitchen in their search for food. Scott lurched into the room and sat down tiredly on the stool for the small bar-like table in the center of the room.

"Whass fo breffask?" he slurred. Immediately after he finished his sentence, he did a face plant onto the hardwood counter and fell fast asleep.

Jean pranced down the stairs, wide-awake and ready to take on the day as Miss America. She took a seat next to Scott and smiled to herself as he snored softly. She ruffled his hair.

"Wake up, sweetie."

He shot up, almost knocking her off her stool. "Eh? Eh?" He looked over and saw that it was she and relaxed. "Eh," he sighed. She giggled and gave him a kiss on the cheek. Rogue rolled her eyes and decided that today would be the day to skip breakfast, and headed out the door. Kitty phased through a wall shortly after, trying to fix her ponytail.

*BAMF!* "I'm so starved! It's already been three hours since I last ate!"

The others silently wondered how he could stay up so late, and then wake up more energized than all of them put together. Kitty stood waiting by the door, until she heard a horn honk and smiled to herself. Kurt turned to her.

"You are not riding with us today?" he asked, tilting his head to the side.

"I'm getting a ride with Brad," she called over her shoulder.

Kurt looked even more confused and a little jealous. "Brad? Who is Brad?" But Kitty was already out the door. He quietly walked to the window and drew back the curtain to see her bounding into some hotrod car. A guy with spiked-to-perfection blonde hair, an Abercrombie smile and a school jacket was at the driver's seat. She hopped in and he slung his arm around her and sped off. Kurt snorted to himself and turned around.

The others were watching him with smiles on their faces. "What?" he exclaimed defensively, but they only shook their heads and kept eating.

Soft feet padding on the floor sounded, and Maeve stepped into the room. She looked like she had been up all night. They grew silent as she stood before them for a moment, and then went to sit on the corner of the counter.

"Uh, hey!" Scott and Evan finally said.

She merely nodded at them as she folded her arms and brought her knees up. They looked at each other and then back to her.

"Why are you up so early? You don't have to go to school."

Kurt went to go sit down with them, a fairly large bowl of cereal in hand, and she looked at him. "His room is right next to mine and all his teleporting around woke me up."

He paused for a moment, an open mouth and spoon inches before it, and quickly said 'sorry' before shoving the cereal in and chewing. Scott laughed to himself, and Jean stood up and went to put her bowl in the sink. Maeve was surprised to see how normal these people acted, even though they were in an institute for. . .mutants. She still wasn't comfortable with knowing she was one of them, partially because of what it had cost Riley. She wondered how her parents were dealing with that, and how her own were handling her disappearance.

"Are you hungry? There's tons of food, assuming Kurt didn't get to all of it," Jean said, flicking her eyes at the blue-haired boy.

Maeve looked at the floor. "I don't get hungry very much."

Yeah, when you're not drinking blood, Jean thought, but kept her comments to herself. She only smiled and nodded at her. "Alright, well, help yourself whenever you decide you want to eat."

They all went upstairs, except for Kurt, who was hurriedly shoveling cereal into his mouth. When he finished, he teleported to the sink-which was, mind you, only a few yards away from him to begin with-and put his bowl away. Then he teleported away, and she was left alone she was about to stand up, when he suddenly reappeared.

"Smile!" he exclaimed, putting his index fingers on the corners of her mouth and stretching them. She narrowed her eyes and swatted at his hands.

"Get your hands off of me!" she exclaimed, glaring at him.

He looked hurt momentarily, but it quickly faded away. "Whoa, sorry, I was just trying to brighten your mood." He raised his hands in defense, but she just kept glaring at him.

"See you after school!" he said, smiling from ear to ear. *BAMF!*

He *wants* me to drill a hole through his head, she decided in thought. She angrily wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, as if he had somehow infected her. Mumbling to herself about overly optimistic mutants, she jumped down from off the counter and went to the fridge. Before she opened it, she paused and looked at the pictures that were held to the door by magnets. There were a few group shots, one of Jean and Scott, one of Logan, and one of Nightcrawler hanging from a tree branch by his tail.

"He's quite a character, isn't he?"

Maeve jumped at the sound of Professor Xavier's voice. For a brief moment she wondered how he had known what she was looking at, but then remembered that he could read her mind. That definately made things more uncomfortable. He came next to her, looking at the picture of Kurt and smiling. "He always feels like he needs to keep our spirits up."

She didn't say anything, and after a brief moment, he turned to her. "Maeve, I'd like to look into your mind, if that's alright with you."

The question seemed so sudden that she didn't really know what he meant. Judging the look on her face, he elaborated. "I need to know more about you, more about your past, and you don't seem to be very much of a talker. I think that it's the best way to learn about you, is that alright?"

She nodded slightly, and he smiled. Of course, the real reason that he was looking into her mind was to see what was wrong with her and why she was so suicidal. But he didn't have the heart to tell her that. Not yet any way. He led her into the den and they sat down on a couch.

"Now I just need you to relax and try to open up your mind. Don't think about anything."

Maeve silently thought that those ideas were absurd; by trying to not think of anything, she would obviously have to be thinking. "Just close your eyes."

She looked at him for a moment, and then did as he told her to. She felt his fingertips on her shoulder, giving her warning that he was going to touch her, and then he grasped her firmly. There was silence for a long, long time. She felt like something was running around in her mind, searching the deepest corners of her thoughts, and suddenly felt lightheaded.

He let go of her arm and her eyes shot open. The room spun for a minute, but she eventually became un-dizzy. The professor smiled at her warmly and nodded.

"Thank you for your cooperation, Maeve. You may go now. But I want you to know that eventually, I'll have to speak to you about this. I don't know how long it will be, but I'll be sure to get to you as soon as I speak with Logan and Ororo."

Maeve nodded, and wondered why he needed to speak to the other professors about whatever he had just uncovered in her mind. Her thoughts were left unanswered as he continued. "Will it be alright with you if you start going to school in the next few days? It's required."

She nodded again. "What about my parents?" she finally spoke.

He smiled comfortingly. "The professors and I will take care of that. We'll let you talk to them as soon as possible. Now go on, we're going to need to start doing some warm-ups so you can keep your powers under control."

Maeve looked at him in disbelief. Exercises this early in the morning? He read her thoughts again.

"Yes, it is early, but it's the best time to start," he said. She felt a small blush rising up on her cheeks, and hoped that he wouldn't be doing that too often. "Now go on and get ready for the day. You should find your suit hanging in your closet, if Ororo put it there correctly."

She stood up and went back to her room to go shower and look for her suit, although she had no idea what he was talking about. Why was she going to need a suit? Either way, a near boiling-hot shower sounded nice, she decided as she walked up the stairs.

Xavier watched her leave and then turned around and massaged his temple. It's even worse than I thought.