Disclaimer: Don't own the professor, Logan, Storm, Beast, or any other people other than Ali, got it?
Logan Sessions turned out to be much harder than Ali had thought. Though she had been warned time after time that they would nearly kill someone, she had thought that she would easily be able to handle it.
Boy, was she wrong.
Her back, legs, neck, and arms ached more than they had in her entire life. But that was nothing compared to Kitty and Kurt. Neither of them was used to such strenuous workouts, and was in more pain than she.
Kitty slumped in a chair in the cafeteria one day during lunch. "Oh man, these Logan Sessions are like, totally killing me," she complained.
Jean shrugged, telling Kitty that she would get through it fine.
"My tail's actually causing me greater pain than anything else!" Kurt whined. "It's the body part I use the most, too!"
Ali just looked down at her lunch guiltily. It was her fault that they were suffering with Logan. It should have only been her.
Rogue seemed to sense Ali's guilt, because she quickly set a gloved hand on her shoulder. "It's not yer fault, Al. I chose to threaten him, then things got out of hand from there. It's actually mah fault, if ya think about it," she comforted.
Ali shook her head. "No, it was Pietro's," she replied.
Rogue smiled. "Yeah, that's right," she said.
**
The Logan Sessions continued for the rest of the week, leaving the four teens exhausted and pleading for a pain-free day.
Ali sat on the branch of a tree that Saturday, leaning her head against the trunk of the tree with her eyes closed. This was the first time she had finally found a free moment for herself. It was usually always "Ali, get your butt in gear and hurry up" (supplied by Logan on training sessions), "Hey, Ali, you gotta come check out the photo in this magazine!" (Kitty) or "Ali, I need your help on this" (one of the younger students, usually Jaime). She was happy to for once get away from the hectic-ness of the institute. She sighed with content. Nothing could spoil this moment.
Except one thing: energy surge.
Electricity suddenly surged through her body, causing her neck to jerk backwards and her body to curl up. Her whole body jerked for a moment before the electricity surge faded away, leaving her body relaxed. She groaned. She didn't know why, but every once in a while (that being ever so often over the course of a long time) the electricity surge would go through her body, causing nothing to happen. Maybe you should ask Beast to check it out, nagged a little voice in the back of her head. She simply ignored it and closed her eyes to try to get some rest.
Suddenly, Kurt appeared on the branch with a small "bamf".
Ali gave a small cry of surprise and nearly fell off the branch, quickly being caught by Kurt.
"Sorry," he apologized.
Ali nodded. "It's ok," she replied.
"Vhat are you doing up here?" he asked curiously.
Ali shrugged. "Just doing stuff," she replied.
Kurt nodded. "Sounds like fun," he commented dryly.
"Oh yeah," Ali said sarcastically.
They lapsed into silence for a moment, neither looking at each other nor speaking.
Ali sighed. "Did you come up here for any reason specifically?" she asked curiously.
"Vell, everyone was wondering vhere you were, so I decided to come find you," he replied.
Ali nodded. Suddenly, it hit her: Why was everyone wondering where she was? They were usually too busy with their own lives to notice. Something was going on here.
"Hey, Spark!" yelled a gruff voice.
Ali sighed. "I'm up here, Logan!" she called back.
"Vell, I'll leave you to deal vith him yourself," said Kurt quickly, suddenly porting away.
"Spark, get down here, now!" Logan yelled.
Ali jumped down from the tree, feeling a familiar tingling feeling go through her legs. "What is it, Logan?" she asked. I don't think I've done anything wrong, so I'm probably not in trouble, she thought quickly, erasing any possible lies to get out of any punishments.
Logan looked at the teen the mentally groaned. The kid didn't need to know. Not now, anyway. Why should she? She didn't need any stress at all right now. Her life was going good. Why did he have to be the one to break the news?
"Hey, Logan?" asked Ali quietly. "Everything ok?"
Logan jerked back to reality. "What? Oh, yeah. Everything's fine, kid," he replied, rubbing the back of his head. "Listen, uh, I've got something to tell ya."
"Ok. What is it?" Ali asked innocently. All of her attention was focused on him, making Logan feel even guiltier about having to tell her the news. She was so innocent. She had never done anything wrong to anyone. She didn't deserve this.
"Well, I've got two things to tell ya," he started slowly. "The first is that Jean's convinced a bunch of girls to get you on the basketball, cross country, and track team."
Ali nodded. "Sounds good. Now what's the bad news?" she asked.
Shoot, thought Logan. It had been too easy. Give the good news first, then the bad. The kid was too smart for her own damn good.
"Well, the professor wants to know whether or not you know what happened to your parents," he supplied.
Ali nodded. "I was told that they died in a fire," she replied immediately.
Logan nodded. "Well, you're mother died in a fire," he explained. "She was burned to death."
Ali's eyes widened. "Why? What happened, Logan?" she asked, her curiosity mixed with rage.
Logan swallowed. "She was burned to death because she was a mutant."
Ali's mind seemed to freeze. Time slowed down. Her mother had been a mutant? Well, that explained the genetics, but what about her being burned? It must have been for the same reason they wanted to kill me, she thought miserably. It's because I'm different, and they were scared of that.
"What happened to my father?" she asked.
Logan swallowed. "No one really knows," he replied. "He was supposed to be murdered the same day as your mother, but he had different powers: he was a hydrokinetic. He controlled water, so burning wouldn't work. From the people that the professor talked to, and the information we gathered from them, he was poisoned."
Ali's eyes widened. Her throat became choked with tears. Tears of anger, sadness, hate. Why did the world have to be so prejudiced? Why did humans have to be so stupid, always killing what they feared just because they didn't understand it? Why did any of this have to happen?
She whirled around on her heel and ran from the institute. She couldn't take it any longer. She felt as if she were suffocating, being there any longer. She ran as hard and as fast as she could, trying to get away from both the institute and her thoughts. But no matter how far she ran or how fast she sprinted, her thoughts were faster and traveled farther, haunting her. They chased her around corners, through alleyways, and across streets, screaming that the same could happen to her, just because she was different. They screamed for her death, screamed for her parent's death, screamed for her to stop running to that they could torture her even more.
She finally slowed her pace and stop beside a brick building, leaning her head against the wall and sobbing uncontrollably. It was so unfair. Why did she have to lose her parents so barbarically? Why did any of this have to happen?
Her thoughts were interrupted by what sounded like an English-accented voice, although for her being British, she knew that it wasn't English; it was Aussie.
"Hey, sheila. What's wrong?" asked the voice. She turned around to see a bright, red-headed boy standing behind her, holding a Mountain Dew pop bottle in one hand, with the other in the pocket of his gray hooded-sweatshirt.
"Nothing that you would care about," she replied bitterly, tears continuing to stream down her face.
"Now, you wouldn't know that, sheila," he replied. "Now tell me, what's wrong?" he asked.
Ali was, for a moment, tempted to tell the boy everything. She needed to get it off her chest. But she couldn't, because he probably wasn't a mutant, and things would get ugly. She would be exposing the entire mutant race, and she couldn't let that happen just because of one little problem that she had.
"Forget it, I've gotta go," she muttered, turning to leave.
"Hey, wait," replied the boy. "What's you're name, sheila?"
Ali frowned. "Well, it's not 'sheila'," she replied, annoyed. She just wanted to leave and let herself become swallowed by her thoughts.
The boy frowned. "No, no, you've got it all wrong," he replied. "'Sheila' is Aussie for 'girl'," he explained.
Ali nodded. "Well, the name's Allison," she replied. "You can call me Ali."
The boy nodded and grinned. "Ok, sheila," he said. "The name's John. St. John Alderdyce."
"Saint?" Ali asked skeptically.
John shrugged. "It's naturally part of my name?" he suggested.
Ali shrugged her shoulder. "What ever," she replied.
"Okay, then. I'll see ya around, Ali," he called as she left.
As charming as the guy had been, Ali's spirits weren't lifted. She went back to the institute, where she skipped dinner and opted to go to bed instead.
That was where Rogue found her.
Rogue walked into the room after dinner, not knowing what to do. She knew about Ali's parents, of course. It was all over the institute. But how do you comfort someone who's just found out the truth about their parent's death?
She walked hesitantly over to the edge of Ali's bed, where the other girl was lying face down.
"Hey, Al?" whispered Rogue. "You ok?"
"Oh, of course," came the slightly muffled reply. Ali lifted up her head and looked at Rogue, just to reveal bloodshot eyes and tearstained cheeks. "I just found out the truth about my parents death. I couldn't be better!"
Rogue sat down beside Ali and looked at her. "I'm sorry about you're parents, Al," she said softly. "There was no reason for them to die."
"Of course there wasn't! At least, not to us!" Ali yelled. "But to the rest of humanity, there's plenty, just because mutants are different, and people are afraid of anyone being different!"
"We kill what we fear," Rogue stated. "But we are what they fear, and it's hard for us to get on. Al, you're parents were strong. They didn't flee, they didn't attack; they didn't give them any other reason for people to fear them. They did it in hopes that things would be better for you."
"How the hell do you know?" Ali screamed angrily. "You don't know what it's like, it hasn't happened to you! How can you understand?"
Rogue stood up. "All I know is that it's what I would do for my child. I would try to do all I could before I died to try and make things better, and that wouldn't be giving people another reason to fear us. I would accept my fate, as hard as it would be, but I would accept it. If not for me, but for my child," she replied. She then walked over to her own bed and lay down.
Ali's eyes softened, but she didn't say anything. She just turned back to her bed and fell onto it, falling asleep instantly.
**
man. serious chapter, eh? short, yes, but I couldn't think of anything else. this chapter was pretty hard to right. I don't know if you guys felt this way when you read it, but this was kinda heart wrenching for me. it's hard to right such sadness without feeling it yourself.
Please, R&R.
~Jojo~