Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com

"Wolfsbane has been in the house for a few days."  Scott started to brief them while they all sat around his and Jean's hotel room.  Emma was sitting on the chair by the drapes looking completely bored in the discussion.  It irritated him a bit, but he knew that she was paying attention, which was more than Logan did sometimes.  Logan was leaning against the wall near the bathroom fidgeting a little.  He needed a smoking break, Scott could tell, but he wasn't going to cater to Logan's bad habits.  "Christy Taylor has four young mutants living with her."  Emma sat up just a hint straighter at that.  Scott moved to sit in the vacant chair so that he could see his entire team.  Hank and Jean were seated on the bed paying close attention.  "The Empath she called about is Erik Rodriguez.  His parents agreed to let Christy take him when a neighbor in their apartment was killed and the boy felt it.  Unlike with the other house we saw, Christy has had Erik's parents visit.  Those are the only parents that Wolfsbane has seen around."  Scott gave Jean a glance as he noticed her fist clench.  She'd been young when she'd felt her friend die and it had nearly destroyed her.  This case was close to home.  "Erik is working several hours a day when the others are in classes trying to turn the book Emma sent them into a class so that they can all learn about mental shields.  He's almost seventeen.  Wolfsbane is limited in her ability to look around since there is almost always someone home, but with Erik staying at the house with her we have him under surveillance."

"Jessica Stanley is the daughter of a local F.O.H. leader."  Scott watched Logan fidget some more before continuing.  "Christy took her in before her father ever found out she was a mutant.  That girl has some sort of forcefield power that Wolfsbane has seen her practice using defensively and offensively.  Jessica takes classes in the morning and works in the afternoon at a local video store." 

"Jessica is also apparently dating Jon Redding, another boy that lives there.  Jon has enhanced strength and agility and is the son of a well off contractor in the area.  He works part time for his fathers business while going to school.  He still has contact with his family."  The other house had runaways with no other family connections, and it made them cling to the created family of the house all the more.  It was disgusting that someone was doing that to kids, but that way of going about it made sense.  Christy either wasn't very good at what she was doing or wasn't the enemy.

"Annie Thompson is the first one to move in.  Wolfsbane thinks that aside from the girls green skin no one knows what she's capable of.  Annie is extremely loyal to Christy to the point that Wolfsbane is concerned about it.  I don't have any details about that though, but if this gets messy we should be aware of that."

"What do we know about this Christy Taylor?"  Emma spoke with more than just a hint of irritation.  Scott glanced over at the blonde woman and could see Emma was still angry about being tricked.

"She's human, but Wolfsbane's overheard Erik saying that her mental shields were impenetrable.  He called them Fort Knox."  Both telepaths were leaning towards Scott at that and giving him their full attention.

"She called me for help and she has shields like that?"  Emma sounded even more irritated.  Scott didn't have an answer for that so he didn't answer.

"Any idea how she knew about the school or me?"  Jean barely waited until Emma was done before asking that one.

"Her background check came up with nothing out of the ordinary."  Scott glanced over at his wife.  "The Professor searched pretty deeply and it came up clean.  I don't know where she's getting her information, but he also checked and she hasn't had any contact with us in the past."

"Yet she knew enough about the school and Jean to get what she wanted out of us."  Emma moved her glare off the redhead at that.

"She's just a teacher.  She's been teaching at that school for a few years."  Scott knew the background they'd found just didn't seem to fit.  "But we should remain cautious until we know what's going on."

They talked for another half hour and then the rest of the team left for their own rooms, or in Logan's case out to smoke.  While he was getting ready for bed Jean leaned against the bathroom doorway.  "Humans don't have Fort Knox shields.  I've seen some natural shields before, but they weren't anything I'd call Fort Knox.  If Erik is right about that something is definitely going on."

********

Scott parked the car and the others got out.  They all had their jobs.  He watched the group split up to be less conspicuous and just shook his head at Emma's outfit.  Sure it wasn't the normal, very revealing one, but it was still all white.  She'd never blend in on the campus.  They'd agreed that neither Jean nor Emma were going to check out Ms. Taylor right away.  They didn't want to tip their hand too early.  Emma was going to break that order before they were done here, and Scott knew it.  He sighed as she slipped around a corner out of sight.  That woman didn't like the idea of someone that she couldn't read, and was bound to check out the shields they'd heard about.

Scott walked through the parking lot while quickly looking for the Honda Civic.  He slowly glanced around and was relieved when no one seemed to notice him.  The car was parked next to a large bush and he double checked the license plate to make sure it matched the information he'd been given.  One more glance around showed that the parking lot had emptied out of students, leaving no witnesses.

The black Civic was covered in a thin layer of pollen and he noticed a bumper sticker taped to the inside of the rear window.  It read, "Cover me, I'm changing lanes."  The driver must not have wanted to have it permanently a part of her car.

Scott moved to the side of the car and made sure he couldn't see any evidence of an alarm before sliding the metal down into the door and jiggling it until the door unlocked.  He then quickly got into the car as if it were his own and started to look around.  There was a pile of coats in the backseat, obviously not all hers.  They had to belong to the others in the house.  In the pocket behind the passenger seat there were two large flashlights, and behind the drivers seat was a small first aid kit.

The car was actually not cluttered at all.  Scott opened the glove box and started to quickly go through the papers there, while pushing the sunglasses out of the way.  He noticed a small screwdriver set in the compartment, but there wasn't anything in there of any real interest.  He put the papers back and rearranged things to look like they had when he'd opened it.

In the car door he found the receipt being used as a gum wrapper.  He pulled it carefully apart and glanced at the amount of ammunition she'd bought.  It wasn't really a lot, but still the idea that she had a gun and apparently used it made him uneasy.  Other than this small piece of information the car held little to tell him what she was up to.  He stared at the address on the receipt and committed it to memory.  He would have to check out the place and see if he could find out how often she went there, and if she'd bought anything else that they should know about.

He stared at the college tassel on her rearview window.  It was four years old.  Not really useful information.  The background check had told them that much about her. 

On paper this woman looked like a model citizen with no record.  He glanced at the receipt one more time before putting it back where it had been stashed in the garbage.  But there were some things that weren't adding up.  He was beginning to wonder how much she'd just been able to hide.

********

Christy was filling up her glass with water in the break room when she heard the man asking specific questions about the program that were confusing the new office assistant.  When she came out she glanced at the rugged looking man.  He wasn't tall, but he was definitely compensating for that with muscle.

"Hi, can I help you?"  Christy smiled and noticed Debra sigh a little in relief.  She was too flustered with not knowing the answers to questions.

His voice was a bit gravelly.  "I have a boy I was thinking of enrolling here, but I have some questions."  He smiled at her. 

"Well, come on back to my office."  Christy started to walk him there.  Really if the boy wanted to go to school here he should be involved in this.  Christy didn't like parents making all the decisions about school like this.  If this guys kid didn't care enough to come find out himself he'd probably be dropping out in just a couple weeks anyhow.

They talked about the basics for a while.  Christy talked about the classes and the school and he occasionally asked a question.  Suddenly his eyes seemed to stare right into Christy's soul and his voice was very serious.  "He's a mutant.  Is that gonna be a problem?"  It almost sounded like a threat and Christy sat back in her chair shocked.  No one just admitted something like that to a stranger.  It was too dangerous.

"Just one minute."  Christy spoke a little quietly and moved to close her office door.  She'd never talked about mutants at the office and while she liked all her co-workers, she had no idea if they were trustworthy in this.  When she sat back down her normal friendly smile was gone and she was all seriousness.  He was just watching her and waiting for an answer.  "You obviously care about him, so I'm gonna tell you something important.  You don't know me, and you shouldn't out your son to anyone you don't know.  This world is too dangerous."  She gritted her teeth and couldn't get the image of her kids and what could happen to them if someone had done this to them.  When he still just watched her, like he was studying her, she continued.  "There is no problem with having mutants in our program.  We should probably make me his advisor, because I don't know how the others feel about it, but if he's interested he's welcome."  She started to think about the boy in question not being there.  "Is he an obvious mutant?"  That would explain his not coming here himself.  "Because there are devices that help to disguise that."

"Do you have other mutants in this program?"  He asked and Christy felt her heart beat a little faster.  Was this a trick?

"Probably, but not that I know of."  Christy tried to seem unconcerned.  "You can't always tell."

"Yeah."  He agreed after a moment.  It didn't take long after that to get him out of the office, and Christy shut the door behind him and just sat at her desk quietly. 

"Please God don't let this be a trick." she prayed quietly.  She rarely ever called out for help, only when she was truly helpless.  She was suddenly very scared that the F.O.H. had decided to hunt at the school, and if they had she'd just admitted to having mutant sympathies.  She rubbed her temple at the headache starting to form and took a sip of the water she'd gone out of her safe little office to get.

********

Logan left the office and started to smoke as soon as he was far enough away from the building.  Christy was tense, but then the conversation would be a tense one for anyone.  He reached up to his communicator.  "One Eye, I planted the bug.  It working?"

"Yeah, works fine."  Cyclops answered.  "We've got all the students covered, but since she'll recognize you now you should switch with Beast."

"Got it."  Logan started towards where Cyclops said Beast was.  He couldn't get over the fact that there was just something off about Christy's scent.  It just wasn't strong enough, and seemed to fade out when she got nervous.  He'd never run into something like that.  Normally his attempt to rattle someone would increase their scent.

********

The weather wasn't nice enough to sit outside, so Annie was studying in the library.  She still had an hour before Jessi was out of class and could take her home.  That was another good thing about having the others in the house.  Annie didn't have to stay all day on Mondays anymore.

When she felt like someone was staring at her Annie turned around and glanced at the other people.  A pretty woman with long red hair caught her eye for a moment, but the woman was busy looking at her PDA.  Annie started to wonder if Christy would like one of those palm computers.  The teenagers eyes casually look at the red head again.  She was really pretty.  After tearing her eyes away from the woman Annie felt a little like she'd betrayed Christy for even looking at another woman, even though the woman didn't even seem to notice her like that.  Annie sighed and pulled out her paper so she could work on her homework.

It was so hard to live in that house so close to Christy and not do or say something really stupid.  Annie didn't want to risk anything, she needed to be there and needed to be near Christy, but she wanted so much more.  She wanted Christy to teach her about making love.  She wanted to kiss her.  God, she wouldn't mind just being able to cuddle up with her and watch T.V. just the two of them.

Annie wasn't making a lot of progress with her homework.

********

Jean just managed to not blush at the teenager's mental fantasies.  So that's what Christy Taylor looked like.  It didn't look like Annie had ever really been with the woman, her mind skittered away from anything specific so much that she'd probably never seen the woman nude, and she'd certainly never made love to her.

This level of devotion was a little alarming though.  Jean had a few students that had crushes on her, but nothing this intense.  Jean pushed a little further into Annie's mind just to verify that Christy hadn't been leading this girl on.  If she had Jean would definitely have more than words for the woman.

Annie held many fond memories, but nothing that Jean could definitely say was Christy stepping over the line.  Annie's dedication and devotion reminded Jean of Scott, and stemmed from the same place Scott's did.  Christy had taken Annie in when the girl had no where to go, and in doing that had become Annie's world.

~ Emma, how are you doing?~ Jean called out mentally to the blonde keeping an eye on the other girl.

~Other than the chill in the air, I'm fine.~  Emma's mental voice was a bit irritated.  Jean knew the woman hated that she'd been duped, and if Christy was truly an innocent in this she felt bad for her.  Emma wasn't going to be pleasant when they finally confronted the woman.  ~Did you find anything interesting?~

~Just a huge case of hero worship mixed in with a large helping of lust.~  Jean answered while pretending to flip through a magazine.  She didn't need the portable mutant locator anymore since she'd identified the girl. 

~Well, things get more and more interesting at that house all the time don't they?~ Emma's sarcasm traveled easily, and Jean had to agree.

********

Once the conversation with Jean was over Emma focused her attention on the girl she was trailing.  Jessi was sitting in her U.S. History class, but her mind wasn't on the lecture of the Civil War.  Jessi was thinking about her boyfriend.  Emma didn't care for listening in on the adolescent crushes and childish dreams of the future, so she gave the girl a push to think about things that Emma was more interested in.  Namely Christy Taylor.

Jessica's feelings for Christy seemed to be complex, but nothing like the romantic or lustfilled thoughts Jean had mentioned the other girl had.  Jessica looked at Christy like a mother and an older sister, as well as a friend.  Jessica's family life had been a mess and she'd easily and eagerly accepted her place in a more nurturing family that they'd created together.  This was much like the kids that Emma and the others had rescued in Florida last week.

The girl that was currently not hearing a word of the lecture looked up to Christy and did her best to not be a disappointment.  Jessica felt bad that she couldn't contribute more to the household, and wished she could find a job that paid enough that she could actually pay her share of the rent.  Her guilt over that made her more than eager to do more than her share of chores around the house, and she played taxi for the others as much as she could so that Christy wouldn't have to.

One interesting fact was that Jessica felt a little uncomfortable with Christy's sexual orientation, but forced herself to ignore it or joke about it.  The girl seemed more concerned that Christy would find a lover and abandon them than anything else.  Jessica's mother had left her family to be with a man she'd worked with, and left the girl to be raised by her father.  Emma was starting to think she could spend a lot of time in this girls mind and still find interesting little facts.

The big fact was that Jessica would obviously leap into danger to protect Christy and the others.  Christy inspired some real loyalty in the girls of her house.  Emma wanted to check out the boys and see if the same held for them.

********

Christy forced herself to calm down and opened her office door again with a sense of resignation.  There was a chance that it wasn't a trap, and if that were true she did the right thing.  If it were a trap she would just need to warn the others so that they could keep an eye out around the house.

Her class started soon so she started across the campus with her notes.  Jon, Annie and Jessi were talking in the middle of the path and waved to her as she went past.  As she did that she noticed the woman in all white watching them from near the Library doors.  Her hair was so blonde it was almost white as well. 

"Ms. Taylor?"  One of her students started to walk along side her tearing Christy's eyes away from the blonde.  There was just something about that woman that grabbed Christy's attention, something she wasn't able to pin down.  "I didn't have time to type my homework.  Should I turn it in anyhow?"

Christy didn't notice the large man walk past her as she took a breath to keep from snapping at the boy that always sought for extensions on anything she asked him to do for class.  Her head hurt and she just wasn't in her most diplomatic mood, so she held her tongue as best she could.

********

~I'm staying I want to see more of this woman~ Emma sent to Scott as she started to follow.

~Are you able to read her?~  He asked and Emma's eyes just narrowed.  She wasn't able to yet, but she'd break those shields.

~She's unreadable~ Jean's telepathic voice cut in.  ~I'm going with Emma to check her out.  You guys can go have lunch.~

Emma just sighed.  Jean wouldn't approve of the plan to just slam into that woman's shields until they collapsed under the strain.  Still, having another telepath around might make it possible to get in and see what those shields were hiding.  Jean moved a little more quickly to fall into step beside Emma as they followed Christy Taylor to her classroom.