**Apologies for only part of a chapter before.I am trying to at least have something new each day.hopefully this plot twist will make up for it. It's been awhile since I read X-men, so forgive me if I fudge continuity a bit. :P **

"So you said you had seen my face before in the church at night?" Kurt asks Romana as he straightens the altar so recently rummaged by her pursuers. "I would think if I had seen such a woman as you, I would surely remember her," he finishes with a smile.

"Well," Romana says with a slight blush as she runs her fingers through her hair and fluffs it out to dry, "I usually don't want anybody to know I am here. I like to come here at night whenever I am feeling scared or lonely."

"And when you got in trouble with those men, you decided to run here?" Romana nods and Kurt continues, "I overheard them talking, and one of them said that there was a man who couldn't come into the church, so he sent them to come after you. What does that all mean, Romana?" Kurt asks as he sits in the front pew with his hands clasped in front of him. Romana bites the side of her lip as she looks at Kurt, the battle to tell her secret warring across her face. "If I was fully ordained we could do this in the confessional, but I though you might appreciate a friendly talk, instead." He says with a laughing grin.

"I guess that's the other reason I ran here.I've been wanting to tell someone for so long." Romana says as she turns her back to Kurt and stares up at the cross above the altar. "They say confession is good for the soul, right?"

"One of the men after you said that you couldn't be hurt. Are you a mutant, Romana? Are they hunting you down because of that?" Kurt asks, a glint of anger shines in his eyes as he finishes the sentence, the thought of the mobs that used to chase him in his youth running through his mind.

"You could say that," Romana says with a sigh as she sits beside Kurt on the pew and clasps her hands between her knees. "They've got it in their mind that I have to belong to their elitist group because of the way I was born. They've been hunting me down for years, and I am getting tired. The constant moving and hiding, never making any friends, " she says sadly. -Never falling in love, either-

"Why do they think you belong to their group? Who are they, Romana? I would like to help you, but I need to know more." Kurt presses.

"They say I have to join them, because," she turns her head away from Kurt as she mutters, "because I can't die. They call themselves the Externals, and say I have to join their little club because I am like them, at that it's my destiny to rule the world with them. I am NOTHING like them! They do their best to destroy everyone and everything till people have nowhere to go but to them. All I want to do is live in peace." Romana turns back with an embarrassed chuckle. "You probably think you need to call the mental ward now, right?"

"Gideon!" the single word falls from Kurt's lips as he stares at Romana like he's seen a ghost.

Romana's eyes grow wide as she looks at Kurt. "You know them." Her body language changes visibly as she places her hands on either side of her on the pew, ready to push off and run if she has to.

"I have run into them before, Romana, but you have nothing to fear from me," Kurt says gently. "I guess this a night for confessions, is it not?" He says with a lopsided smile as he looks up at the cross. With a sigh he turns back to Romana and leans back in the pew and asks, "Have you ever heard of Xavier's School for the Gifted?"

"Xavier? Didn't he just announce his big plan for the future of mutants on the news?" Kurt nods and Romana continues, "I thought about trying to go his school once. I thought maybe I could find some sort of shelter there, but I haven't been school-age in a looong time."

"You don't have to be a child to go to the school, Romana. Xavier's accepts all kinds, which was fortunate for me," Kurt says with a chuckle. "Not too long ago, I was still a student and boarder there." -Until things started to change, and you felt useless- "Anyway," Kurt continues with a slight growl, "years ago some of the more powerful students had an encounter with Gideon and the Externals. They claimed to be immortal mutants and one of them could see the future, and he believed that one of the students was to be their next 'High Lord.' It's just that." -This psychic vampire went insane and killed them all? The Legacy Virus ran rampant and withered them away, one by one? You might be insane and making this all up?-"They were wiped out, Romana. Whoever is hunting you, it can't be them. Maybe I could take you somewhere where you can get some help?" Romana mutters something under her breath as she quickly looks away.

"I hoped that coming here to you would have helped me, Kurt. I thought of all people, a mutant who had such faith in a higher power could have believed me." Romana bites back a sob as she pushes herself off the pew. "I guess now I will just have to show you." Romana quickly runs down the isle and slams through the church doors into the still pouring rain, the winds blowing the doors back closed behind her.

"Romana! Wait!" Kurt yells as he teleports to the doors and runs out into the rain. -Good going, Kurt. She runs to you and the church for help, and you do nothing but alienate her. Some help you are- Kurt hears her running around the back of the church and he quickly follows her, his fears about what she might do to prove her story punching him in the gut as he sees her standing in the rain, a gun pointed to her head. "Mein Gott, Romana! What do you think you are doing?" -Sheiste! I forgot to dispose of the gun when I took care of those men!-

"Merely making a point, Kurt." Romana says with a sad grin as her hand clenches on the trigger.

"Nein!" Kurt yells as he teleports himself to Romana's side and attempts to grab the gun. Unbelievable to Kurt, Romana ducks underneath his grab before he reaches her and pulls the trigger, the force of the bullet at her temple whipping her head back and knocking her into a puddle on the ground.

"ROMANA!" Kurt screams as he crouches over her and examines her prone body in panic. -Dear God, let her have been telling the truth!-In Kurt's panicked state and the pouring rain he fails to notice two figures stepping out of a limousine parked in the back alley.

"My, how melodramatic, dear! Please do Shakespeare next, he always wrote such good death scenes!"

Kurt cradles Romana's still form in his arms and looks up to see a woman clad in vinyl high heeled boots, short skirt, bustier and raincoat. A gaunt looking man with a vacant look in his eyes stands behind her holding an umbrella over her head. Kurt looks into her face, and feels his soul shrink away from the look of complete evil in her eyes.

"Selene!"