The woman sniffled away to herself in her husband's arms, occasionally letting a sob escape. Repulsive. Her own daughter, repulsive. How could it be that her carefully constructed world, her perfect family, had within it something as horrific as... as that.

The 'that' was of course, mutation. A word she seldom used, and often made a conscious effort to refrain from even thinking about. For years, she had strived to build around her that perfect family. Her two daughters and one son all went to the best school they could afford, were taught manners and respect from an early age. High hopes were bestowed on all of them and, until very recently, things had been going to plan. She had more or less managed to oversee that those close to her grew into what she believed was best for them, from her children's steady grades to her husband's business suit, tailor made, and spotless, she had been happy.

In that one day of her daughter revealing the mutant she had always been, that had all come crashing down.

She didn't want to believe it, she really didn't, but she couldn't turn a blind eye to this. All the work her husband did, protesting in government about the dangers of those freaks. 'What about his job?' She felt herself thinking. 'How can we keep this a secret? How can we stop anyone from ever finding out?' She thought of perhaps just locking her somewhere so no one would ever see her, pretending she was ill or...something, anything. But she knew she could hardly stand another minute, yet alone years, of having 'it' (for 'it' was now not in any way part of the family, and she would try her hardest to keep it that way) in her house. Too many questions would be asked. Sending her even to boarding school far away wouldn't hide what she was. Thoughts of arranging a little 'accident' for her daughter flew through her mind so fast she couldn't stop them. Daughter. For it was indeed her daughter who she was thinking about disposing of. This was all beyond her. Finally, even mildly rational thoughts failed her, and she settled for sobbing even louder into her husband's shoulder.

Her husband, all the while keeping his stern, business-like composure that he used for almost every situation, was more together than his wife. He had argued long and hard in the house's of Parliament against letting mutants live among the 'normal' people. His ideas for mutant registration and suchlike were ones of no tolerance.

He now encountered a slight problem.

Somehow, if he played his cards right, he was sure he might just be able to turn this to his advantage. Yes, it was his own child, but he had never really cared much for children, and only his wife's nagging had persuaded him. As for that 'paternal bond' he often heard about, he was away a lot of the time, enough of the time to be little more than someone who happened to live in the children's house and was called father to his three offspring. He wasn't a very paternal person anyway.

If he declared publicly that his daughter had unfortunately become a mutant, but also publicly register her, it might set an example. No tolerance. He had, admittedly, got on with her reasonably well, and he did feel a slight pang of guilt at being this hard on her, she was only 14. There was, however in his mind, a big difference between a 14 year old girl, his daughter, and a 14 year old mutation. He wasn't going to forget that for a second. So why was he still in doubt? Why did he still think of the mutant as his daughter? Because she was.

No. He told himself firmly. No tolerance.

It was how it had to be.

"A what!?"

"A mutant"

Kate's brother sat perched on the edge of his sister's bed, eyes wide with fear, curiosity, excitement, he didn't know. He stared persistently at his big sister, waiting for her to elaborate on this. When she didn't, he leant forward a touch more and asked. "And?"

"And what?" Cried his sister, already tired of this conversation. She was also pretty annoyed that he seemed almost...almost fascinated by the subject. "She's a mutant! What more is there to say? A disgusting freak of nature." Still not getting any of the reactions she wanted from the 12 year old, she added. "With claws for Christ sake."

He sat back, nose scrunched slightly, unfocused eyes directed at the floor. Just thinking. Though he would never admit it, mutants did scare him, a lot. But he felt suddenly sorry for them, people all over the world hated them for something that they didn't want themselves. If they weren't in control of what they were how would that make them bad people? They were often referred to as monsters and he almost laughed at Kate being called one. Kate, his mild-mannered-slighty-cheeky big sister. But this wasn't funny, this was real. He sighed slightly, with all the work and protesting his father did, he knew that the rest of his family were very unlikely to see it this way. Especially the way his sister was acting now. He thought about talking to her, to see if she might realise there was a good chance it wasn't due to Kate. But decided against it, what was the point?

Finally he was shooed out of her room and wandered pensively back to his own. He stopped for a minute outside Kate's door. Hand automatically reaching to the handle, then pausing. He had made his mind up, he was sure it wasn't Kate's fault, but it would take him a while to get comfortable with the fact that she did indeed have claws. His hand dropped to his side and ever so softly he went down the rest of the corridor to his room.

Back in her own room, Shannon shut her door firmly, and started to undress.

She put on her pyjama top and then crept as quietly as she could to the door. Peeking out, she checked that Kate's door was shut, and listened. Relived that there was no sign that she was even awake, she closed her door again and put the rest of her pj's on. Settling down as well as she could in her bed, she felt the strains of the day making her eyelids heavy and her tense muscles limp. She was nearly asleep when a slight noise from the landing made her nearly jump out of her skin. A moment after, there was the sounds of her parent's voices disappearing down the corridor to their room. She lay back again, suddenly wishing she had a lock on her door. Another quarter of an hour, and all the occupants of the house were last in some state of sleep. But none of them slept well.