Wow!  An update! ;)  Are you impressed?  I know I am.  Sorry about the wait!  Enjoy!

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A few hours after classes were finished, Aimee Whittaker gave a brisk, cheery knock on the new girl's door to the drum beat of Smashmouth's "I'm a Believer" playing lightly in the hallway.  The walls were thin, and though she received no vocal confirmation, she could hear the distinct sound of someone stirring inside. 

She stood back, waiting for an answer.

Earlier that morning the professor had asked Aimee to stay after class, and he'd explained to her the girl's new life developments.  She had learned that 'new girl' was actually Miss Nora Blaize, one of the missing twins from the news broadcast, and that right now, with a bunch of mutant-haters out to get her and her twin brother MIA, it pretty much sucked to be her. 

"We showed her to her room this morning, and she has yet to venture out on her own," the professor had told her.  "If you could, keep an eye on her."

With all Professor Xavier had done for her over the years, Aimee had physically jumped at the opportunity to care for the newest student.  The X-Men had taken her in at the tender age of five, and she had lived at the mansion ever since.  The school was the only home Aimee could remember having, and the students and staff, her only family.  Heck, with all the years of meeting and befriending newcomers, she probably would have made sure to check on the situation even if the professor hadn't asked her to do it.

The heads-up on the sitch gave her first dibs on letting Nora know she couldn't possibly be welcomer at the school.  A grin snuck onto her lips.  And to her further delight, it also gave her full bragging rights of being the first to hear the story firsthand from the primary source of Ms. New Girl herself.

Ha, she thought, smiling smugly.  It would be the last time Bobby Drake would have the nerve to step on her turf.  Of that, she would make certain.

* * * * *

When Nora heard the knock on the door, she wearily lifted her head from the pillow.  She wasn't exactly sure how long she had been lying there, but it had been quite a few hours since she'd registered anything outside of her own thoughts.  Quickly rushing to her feet, she hurriedly brushed tears from her eyes and checked herself in the mirror by the sink.

Her face fell.  Her eyes were red from crying, and the creases in the pillowcase had left their tracks across her cheeks.  She splashed water in her face and quickly made her way to the door, hoping that her visitor hadn't abandoned her.

Nora had no reason to worry.  The moment she opened the door a young girl with blonde hair and sparkling brown eyes stood only inches from her face and grinned enthusiastically.  "Hi!" 

Nora jumped back.  "Um, hello," she greeted uncertainly.

"You're Nora, right?  Came in a couple days ago on the jet?" the blonde started out immediately.  "I wanted to stop by earlier, but I had class and then I had lunch and then I had class again and then I had practice and – well, you know how it is."  She briskly walked into the room past Nora.  "Have you had a chance to set up yet?  These rooms are so incredibly boring if you don't add some kind of Wal-Mart, K-Mart twenty-first century color to it.   I swear the drapes have been up since like the days of the cotton gin."  She gasped suddenly, causing Nora to jump.  "Oh my God, I've got this kickass poster of Joaquin Phoenix in my closet.  It'd look awesome in here!  Get a little mandatory testosterone up on the walls.  Is he your type?  Or are you more rustic cowboy?  Well, either way, you'd love this picture I've got.  No straight female or homosexual man could resist, and you know, if you're not into guys, there's a convenience store downtown, nice sexy picture of Natalie Portman, but man, Joaquin Phoenix…Talk about a fine piece of man-meat."

Nora merely looked on, too stunned by the girl's strange behavior to muster a reply.  She narrowed her eyes at the girl before letting out a short, incredulous laugh.  Was she serious…?

Before Nora could inquire as to who she was, Aimee stopped suddenly and turned around in a blur.  "Man…it's sorta lonely in here.  Anyone show you around the school yet?"

Nora opened her mouth, still in the midst of deciding how to react to her visitor.  "Um…no."  She surprised herself with how polite she sounded.  "Not yet anyway."

"Uh-oh," Aimee said, a wry grin spreading mischievously across her lips. 

Nora looked to the side, feeling afraid and not knowing why.  "What?"

Draping an arm around her shoulder, Aimee led her out of the room and kicked the door shut behind them with a flair.  "First rule.  No being shy in front of me, girl."  She looked this way and that, comically suspicious.  "I have a reputation to keep here.  You gotta be smooth, cool, open.  Can you dig it?"

Nora laughed cautiously as they started down the stairs, only growing more and more bewildered as the conversation continued and the girl took her down the hallway.  "A reputation?"

"Yeah, a reputation!"  Aimee looked at Nora like she had just popped out of the loony bin and declared herself queen of the grilled cheese sandwiches.  "Didn't anyone tell you?"

Nora's blank stare begged her to embellish.

"Oh my God, I can't believe no one told you.  I am so somebody you'd want to keep in your rolodex.  If you ever need to know anything about anybody in this entire school, I'm your man."  She presented herself proudly.  "Well, girl, I mean," she quickly corrected.  She laughed at her own joke.  "So if you ever need to know which teachers to avoid, which student's going out with who, who just dumped who, who's a depressed homicidal maniac with an Oedipus complex-"

"You're the person to see," she finished for her, smirking as she began to understand.  Ah-ha, she realized.  So the girl was the local gossip, who had come to meet and greet.

Pinning the girl in such a manner immediately began to calm Nora.  She had found familiar ground.  Perky, good-humored airheads she could handle.  They were easy to please, and this particular one didn't seem out to cause harm to the general public.

Unaware that she was being tagged and released back into the wild, Aimee gave an ample, exaggerated nod.  "Yes.  Oh my God, I'm so glad to see that we're both on the same wavelength."  She leaned in closely, her voice becoming serious for the slightest moment.  "But, you know…if you ever want to talk about something off the record, and believe me, I'm talking totally completely off the record, it'd be cool.  These lips are King Tut's tomb pre-excavation – air-tight, sealed from the public.  No lie.  Barbara Walters' ethics pale in comparison…"

Amused, Nora nodded pleasantly, but chose to say no more.  She recognized the offer in disguise, and quietly filed the information away in her mind.  It was sweet in its own way…but it was nothing that made her suddenly desire to divulge all the details of her life story.

They had made their way into what appeared to be a student recreation room when the girl gave another patented sudden gasp, spinning around to face Nora.  "Oh my God!  I totally forgot to introduce myself!  Geez, where are my manners?  I'm Aimee.  Or Galetea, whatever you like.  Some people are all about the mutant name, you know what I mean?  You'd think it was their first-born child or something."

Smiling slightly, Nora took a hold of her out-reached hand and gave it a strong shake.  "Mine's Artemis," she said.  She leaned in and lowered her voice.  "But it's more like a second-cousin twice-removed.  Call me Nora."

Aimee let out an appreciative laugh as she traipsed into the rec-room, followed by her curious companion.  She laughed because the comment had genuinely amused her, but also because she could already tell that 'new girl' was coming around.  Like many, she would just need some time.

* * * * *

On the other side of the rec-room, Trevor Avish had easily become lost in his craft.  Earlier that afternoon, he had brought up a wedge of clay from the art room to instill a pleasant change of atmosphere in both lighting…and company.  He glanced around at the other students, playing ping-pong and lounging in front of the tube.  What could he say?  Sometimes he liked being a part of that after-class bustle moving about him.

He had subconsciously started to shape the block into what was beginning to look like a watering well, when he heard the familiar clamoring voice of Aimee Whittaker laugh out loud behind him.

As he glanced up from his unfinished sculpture, he grinned to Aimee, and then naturally looked to the girl beside her.

In that instant, Trevor froze, feeling his heart pause for a moment inside his chest.

His eyes locked onto the figure walking past him in slow motion. 

"Whoa," he breathed as she entered into the room.  A soft smile appeared on his face as he studied the defined arch of her back, the symmetry of her smooth legs, accompanied by a body with deft curves a poet could not describe. 

Trevor let his mouth hang open uselessly.  She was beautiful.