Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
The building with the library in it was rather quiet while classes were in session. Christy grabbed another mutant related book and headed to the back of the rather large library for such a small school. The collection of couches and chairs actually had an occupant. Christy glanced at the dark haired woman, her eyes trailing over the woman, but she couldn't figure out who she was. She just moved to the chair she normally used quietly not wanting to disturb the stranger who looked interested in whatever she was reading.
"There have been cases of other people coming here from alternate dimensions." The woman said suddenly and it sounded like they'd been having a conversation that Christy hadn't known about. "but I've yet to see evidence of the type of crossover of information that you experienced with the stories you heard about us." The woman flipped her book closed and showed Christy the front. It was on different realities. "Oh, I'm Sage by the way."
Sage, Christy never heard of her. "I'm Christy." She gave the woman a small smile, a bit self conscious about the fact that Sage already knew things that Christy didn't advertise. She'd told one team of Xmen, she should have realized the whole group of them would know before she got here. It felt different having a woman she didn't know anything about in on this secret. She didn't have these reservations about Storm or Rogue.
"I know." Sage smiled at her. "I also heard you were giving demonstrations of that shield of yours to the kids. Can I see it?"
"You're a telepath?"
"You never heard of me have you?" Sage seemed to study her. "Well, I haven't been around the mansion much. I was spying on the Hellfire club for the Professor."
"I've heard of that club. Emma used be there." Christy looked at Sage again, trying to place her, but it just wasn't coming to her. She hadn't really paid attention to the people from that place when she'd been reading the comics.
"Tessa?" Sage asked quietly. "Have you heard of Tessa?"
Christy had to think for a moment before the image of a woman with black hair in black… "You're Tessa?" She started to grin just a little at having finally placed the woman. She had the impression that Sage was just a little hurt about the fact that Christy didn't know of her, so she thought quickly of a way to avoid telling the woman that she really didn't know much about her at all. Sage was dressed in normal clothes, jeans and a button up shirt. "You're much prettier than I thought you'd be. The artists didn't do you justice."
"Thank you." Sage gave her a smile. "So can I see your shield?"
"Um, sure, but don't push too hard." Christy didn't see the harm in it. No one would be able to get in without her permission. "It does hurt me."
Sage got up and moved to the chair beside Christy and rested a hand on her arm while concentrating. Christy could feel a push, but it wasn't hard. "That is a fortress you built there." Sage spoke a little distractedly while continuing her probe. "But you can let Emma in?" Christy tensed up a bit at that innocent question.
"Only Emma." Her voice was a little tight as she worried that Sage would push to get in. "I don't want anyone else in."
********
The Professor watched Sage testing Christy's shields from the entrance to the library unseen. He'd wanted to see if Sage could sense Christy's powers and the physical contact Sage had established under the guise of just looking at the shield gave the woman the contact she'd need to do that.
~It's no use Professor. I can't sense her in any way. Her shield isn't blocking my power to sense a mutant's power, its something else. Its almost like she isn't even here.~
~Very well Tessa. Thank you for trying.~ He quietly backed out of the library rather than interrupt. Christy seemed to like Sage and it wouldn't hurt for the woman to make friends here. If he had his way Christy may end up coming to train with them in the future. A shape shifter would be very useful to have, and Christy may be easier to control than Mystique was. If he didn't have that device to keep the government from finding Mystique the woman wouldn't be helping him on those less than savory missions where he couldn't afford to ruin the X-men's reputation with. He didn't like having to rely on Mystique as much as he did for covert operations. He didn't really like having anything to do with that woman.
Once he got to his office he made the phone call he'd been planning to make since he'd talked with Emma, not that the blonde telepath would have approved of his way of making sure Christy wasn't alone too much. He'd just told Emma he had a way to help Christy take care of the F.O.H. and keep her from being alone in the house for the next month or so. "Hello, Shortpack… I have a new mission for you and your operative. You need to be in Washington state a week from now. I'll get you airline tickets and details, but you will be working with someone new to covert work. I want you two to bring her up to speed as much as you are able to." He'd have to stress how important it was for Christy to not share her secret with these two.
********
"Why Emma?" Sage sat back and seemed to be studying Christy's expression. Christy didn't know what to say to that question. "Do you think the rest of us are pure as driven snow and don't know about doing necessary things to survive?" Christy's eyes widened and she stared with a bit of horror at the woman in front of her. "No, Emma hasn't told anyone anything. I can just see it in your eyes. You have nightmares about the things you've done to survive don't you?"
"How?" Christy was always so careful to look normal around other people. To not show how much that time aged her soul.
"When I was a child I lived in a place where if you didn't fight, you died." Sage spoke softly. "There was a lot of blood on my hands before I became an adult. I know about doing what is necessary." Sage seemed to be staring so hard at Christy, "As for how, the panic in your eyes when I hinted at reading you says it all."
Christy looked down at the book in her hand, unsure of how to respond. Telling Sage she was sorry the woman had pain like that was a joke. Christy knew she wouldn't feel any better if someone said that. Better to just accept the information without dwelling on it. "It was a different world." She fell on what was starting to feel like a boxed answer for whenever this topic came up.
"Yes it was, but even in this world we see things we wished we hadn't. You aren't alone in that pain."
"Thank you." Christy spoke quietly, while wondering if Sage knew how alone Christy usually felt. "So, do you teach here?" Her voice a little more conversational, Christy tried to move away from the sensitive topic.
"No. We aren't here often enough. My team and I came back to the mansion for a break." Sage sat further back in her chair. "It also didn't hurt that we'd heard a visitor from another reality was going to be here."
********
Xorn's math class only lasted an hour, but that man's mutation must be to make time stand still. Jessi glanced at her watch as subtly as she could and then back at the impatient back of her friend. Annie had told them about Ms. Frost's making her leave Christy's room. While Annie made up all sorts of imaginary scenarios that involved Ms. Frost hurting Christy, Jessi could only think of one. Christy was having sex with their English teacher. It only made sense. Christy wasn't a nun or anything, she had needs and Ms. Frost had obviously been in Christy's bedroom. Jessi looked at Annie's tense back while they waited for lunch and knew that the girl wouldn't take that well. Already she'd been rude to Ms. Frost in class, which wasn't like Annie at all.
Finally, finally class was over. Jessi packed up her books quickly. "I'll check her room." She offered. They all planned to spread out and find Christy today so that they could have lunch and if Christy was looking a bit too satisfied from sleeping with Ms. Frost all night it was best Annie didn't find her that way. She was out the door before Annie could protest. Erik passed her and waved before moving to get his assigned area to look for the woman from Annie.
********
Rogue was on her way to lunch when she found a student walking the halls. They weren't allowed in this part of the compound. "Excuse me sugah, are you lost?" The look on the tall boy's face gave her the impression he was nervous being in this part of the building. He should be, if Scott or Emma caught him here he'd get detention.
"I'm looking for Christy." He seemed to sigh with relief at finding her, rather than getting tense about getting caught. Christy. Must be one of the new kids, which would explain him not knowing he was in an off limits area. "I thought she might be in the teacher's lounge but I can't find it."
"I believe Jon is on a mission." Emma's voice came from the hallway in front of them. "Isn't that right Jon? Christy isn't in the teacher's lounge."
"Oh, um… Thank you Ms. Frost." The boy had a helpless look on his face as he turned to leave.
"I know Annie told you not to take anyone's word for it, but this is a restricted part of campus. You are lucky you aren't getting detention and missing lunch completely." Emma called after the boy. Rogue actually was surprised Jon didn't get that detention.
"They're worried about Christy. They haven't seen her in a while and Annie thinks I might have something to do with it." Emma gave Rogue a small smirk and headed back to the teacher's lounge.
********
Erik knew this was a long shot, but he swung by every T.V. room the school had on his way to the cafeteria. He was also supposed to secure a table and wait for the others. Annie was acting like this was a real mission so he did what he was told. He really didn't think they had to worry like Annie was, but he knew the girl's crush made it hard for Annie to be objective when it came to Christy. Annie figured that Christy would never stand them up, so something had to have happened.
********
Annie stepped into the library and headed right for Christy's regular seat. She was pretty sure she'd be the one to find her and when she heard Christy's voice she started to relax. Or she did until she came into view and saw her talking with a beautiful woman and smiling.
"Sure, I can go out later tonight, after dinner." Christy responded to some question Annie had missed, but it looked like she was setting up a date.
"Well, good." The dark haired woman smiled and Annie just stared at the scene from her spot halfway hidden by the shelves. "It seemed like Scott's team was monopolizing you and I wasn't sure we'd be able to get you away." She couldn't help it, she knew Christy wasn't interested in a relationship with her, but seeing Christy flirting with someone else hurt.
"I believe we have company." The dark haired woman glanced at her and Christy turned in her seat. "I'll contact you later about tonight." That sounded so much like a date Annie barely kept from cringing. And to think she'd been worried about Emma. She'd never even thought about all the other women around here, that all looked like models.
"Hey Annie." Christy gave her the normal smile she always got, but it didn't cheer her up like it usually did.
"I came to get you for lunch." Annie took a step out of her hiding place and noticed the dark haired woman glancing at her a bit too intensely before leaving.
"It's that late?" Christy glanced at her watch. "I didn't realize."
Annie gave her a weak smile. "I figured if we didn't remind you…" She sighed. "You missed dinner." It sounded accusing to her own ears, but she'd been worrying for a while.
Christy set her book down and came up to her so that she could talk more quietly. "I was pulled onto a mission with Scott's team and didn't have time to tell you. I got home so late I figured you all would be asleep."
They started to walk. "What kind of mission?" It was hard to imagine Christy working with the X-men. She was just Christy, not some superhero.
"I don't know if it's classified." Christy gave her an apologetic look, but Annie still felt hurt. Christy never left her out of things before, but now that Christy was a mutant she was spending all sorts of time with the older people here and not with them. Christy would be leaving soon and Annie just wanted… dammit, she didn't like having to share what little time they had left. She knew that was selfish, but she couldn't help but feel that way.
"It's okay." She lied so that Christy wouldn't feel bad about it. "Going to school here is going to be strange." She decided to just talk about what they all had planned to talk about last night.
********
"And the Professor told us that he was impressed that we knew any mutant history, since most new students don't." Erik sounded a bit proud of that. Christy was surprised at the turn around the boy appeared to have gone through. She remembered that he hadn't been that interested in school, his grades reflected that, but now he appeared to be getting ready to put forth some real effort.
"Well, that's good." Christy smiled at him. "Looks like helping me with research was useful."
"Yeah, and I'm going to be Mr. Summers T.A. for the woodshop units." Jon bragged. Christy glanced at her students and they all were beaming a little about this new school. She'd made the right decision. Thank god, because if they hated it here it would have been so hard to leave them.
"Whoa, speaking of History, class starts in five minutes." Jessi glanced at her watch. "I don't want to be late to a telepath's class, it's just asking for trouble."
"I doubt the Professor would be as harsh at Emma." Christy couldn't help but smirk at the kids' dilemma. They all had Emma. "But you're right, you better get going."
"Will you have dinner with us?" Annie asked.
"I'll try to make it, but I'm working with Emma on something and it's hard to gauge how long that takes."
"What are you working with her on?" Erik asked, sounding very curious.
"In case you haven't heard, I'm a mutant too." Christy gave them a half smirk and left it at that. She preferred not quite lying to full out lies. "She's helping me out with some of my powers." She could consider that shield a power, since everyone thought it was so strange.
********
Emma knocked on Christy's door yet again. The only way it would take this long to answer is if she were in the shower or something. She didn't care for the fact that she couldn't feel if Christy was even in the room. She may end up having to resort to searching the grounds for the woman like Annie had.
"Try knocking again. Maybe she didn't hear you." A teasing voice said from behind her and Emma was a little startled. She turned to see Christy smirking at her.
"So I can assume from your late arrival that your children found you?"
"Yep." Christy moved to open the door. "I think they might like it here, in spite of the fact that a certain telepath seems to abuse her powers in her classroom." Emma noticed a friendly smile so didn't rise to the bait. Unlike most of the people around here, Christy felt she could tease Emma about things like that. "Do you realize how much daydreaming I did in my classes? I'm lucky I didn't have telepathic teachers that could monitor that."
Emma stepped into the room after Christy. "And what did you daydream about?" She asked with a smirk, which grew when Christy blushed and looked away. "Some pretty girl in the first row? The teacher?"
"There weren't a lot of real people I was attracted to." Christy closed the door. "They couldn't compete with the T.V. characters and… other… characters that held my interests." It was almost cute to see Christy so embarrassed by that admission.
"Oh, I want to hear about this." Emma smiled and sat down in the chair. They could start the session soon enough, she had important questions. "So were you fantasizing about anyone in this mansion? Should I be trying to set you up with someone?"
Christy was a nice bright red. "Emma! I don't really want to talk about that."
"Oh come now. You trust me with all your dark secrets, why not this?" Christy seemed to be debating about it.
"Well, a long time ago…" Christy looked up into Emma's eyes and Emma could almost imagine she heard the woman pleading for her to not tease too badly. "Before Remy came around… I kinda liked Rogue."
"Rogue?" Emma chuckled. She really couldn't see that pairing. "You do realize what her power is right?"
A small smile came to Christy's lips. "I fantasized about showing her ways around that." The tension about revealing that secret was fading. "That girl really needs to focus on what she can do."
"Well, since you've put so much thought into it." Emma's eyes twinkled with mischief, "Maybe you should tell her your ideas so that she can use them."
"I don't think so, and if you tell anyone I'll claim your lying." Christy spoke quickly with a laugh. "Besides, I was a teenager. My imagination wasn't quite what it is today. I don't have lots of ideas."
"Rogue was with the Brotherhood when she was a teenager. Are you saying you liked her as a bad girl?"
"Time wasn't exactly the same from here to there. I was a teenager when Rogue joined the X-men." A slightly mischievous smirk came to Christy's lips, "But I do tend to like the bad girls a bit more." Emma pretended not to notice the brief glance Christy thought she hadn't noticed. Well, that wasn't quite a surprise.
"Any other bad girls you thought about?" Emma smirked at the strange conversation and teasingly said bad girls.
"Well…" Christy scooted a little closer to the edge of the bed she was sitting on. "Mystique was interesting."
"Mystique?!" Emma's voice rose before she could stop it.
"And then Malice had definite potential, especially when she was in Polaris. Her grin was completely wicked." Christy was pretending Emma hadn't objected to one of the names already and just gave Emma her own wicked smile. "And Maddie was seriously hot once she became powerful."
"And insane." Emma spoke up quickly and noticed the twinkle in Christy's eyes as she was ignored once again.
"But I would have to say the one hottest woman here is… Wonder Woman."
"Wonder Woman's a comic book character." Christy's grin grew at her comment. "And she doesn't live in this world." She was forced to add.
"Are you sure?" Christy gave her a mock shocked look. "Dammit, I was going to marry that princess and become royalty." Emma started laughing with Christy at that. "An island full of women, and they never mentioned that they'd have to be lesbians or celibate. Now you can't tell me someone with enforced celibacy wouldn't try to get off the island. They were lesbians. Everyone knows the amazons are supposed to be lesbians. The writers were cowards ignoring something like that."
"You do know that this world does have lesbians right?" Emma smirked at Christy once they stopped laughing.
"Yeah, they did mention that." Christy sighed. "But the only ones I know of are Mystique and Destiny, and even then they tip toed around it and backed off from what they wanted."
"What do you mean?"
Christy seemed to mellow at that as she studied Emma. "Mystique is Kurt's mother? Right?"
"Yes, that is what I heard."
Christy's voice dropped. "She was supposed to be his father. He was going to be her and Destiny's child, but the writers didn't write it that way. That was probably an alternate universe to this one… and they chose to leave that out and make it some other man and Mystique."
Emma's eyes widened a little at that revelation. Christy really did know some personal things about them. "So Mystique is capable of fathering a child?"
"At least in one reality she is." Christy sat back and from the look on her face Emma got the feeling Christy felt like she'd betrayed someone.
"You really do worry about hurting anyone with what you say, don't you?" Christy didn't have to answer that, because it was obvious. "Don't worry, that isn't groundbreaking news, and it can't be used against her, because it wasn't this Mystique."
"Okay." Christy glanced out the window and Emma followed her eyes to see one of the students flying to her next class, obviously late. "Can't say I've seen that before."
"Angel has a tendency to be late, just to test the teachers." Emma looked back at Christy and the woman was still watching Angel fly. "She is used to people mistreating her. She comes from an abusive home and she keeps trying to find our limits."
"People should have to apply for permission to have kids, and pass a psych eval before they can conceive. I'm so tired of hearing about the hell these kids live with." Christy sighed. "Your family should be there to support you, not to make it harder."
Emma couldn't help but think of her own family at that moment. They definitely were in the making it harder category. Christy turned to look at her, "I'm sorry." Emma could almost imagine Christy was a telepath with the timing of that comment.
"Nevermind." Emma didn't doubt Christy knew something about her family at that point. "We should get to work on your memories if we don't want to miss dinner." If Christy missed another meal with her kids, Annie's rude thoughts in class might become worse. It was clear the girl didn't like Emma spending time with Christy and equally clear why once Emma investigated. Christy had turned Annie down a little too gently and the girl still held out some hope.