disclaimer: If someone out there doesn't know who owns the X-men, then yes I own them, pay me! Otherwise its pretty obvious which ones I do own. Though with approval I might be willing to share.


Human in a Mutant World
by Dizi


Chapter 2

Jenny immediately saw Charlie huddling in the doorway when the cab pulled up in front of her building. She quickly took her upstairs to her apartment on the fourth floor. She'd been trying to get to come in for a long time, but she'd always refused. This time Jenny didn't give her a choice. Something was obviously wrong for Charlie to have come this far. She wasn't going to let her back out now.

"Sh-shouldn't h-have come h-here." Charlie protested, her teeth chattering.

"No, you should have come sooner. I have a good job, I could take care of you." Jenny was shaking herself, the apartment was cold because she hadn't left the heater on. She usually took a hot shower and went straight to bed so never bothered with it. She quickly adjusted the thermostat.

"Y-you're a g-good g-girl. You d-don't n-need an old w-woman like m-me cluttering up y-your p-place." Charlie was old, or at least looked it. She was a bag-lady. She was also a mutant. She never told Jenny what she could do but whatever it was had caused her husband to kick her out of their home after ten years of marriage. That was all she'd tell Jenny about her past, and that was just the one time when she'd gotten drunk on her anniversary.

"Be quiet. I should get you to a hospital, you're sick, aren't you?" Jenny laid her on the couch. Charlie wasn't just cold, she was having problems breathing. Something was very wrong.

"I-I'm not g-gonna m-make it. I-I'm s-selfish, wanted to s-see y-you b-before I g-go. W-wanted y-you to s-see the real m-me." Her breathing was getting worse and Jenny was starting to panic. Charlie's skin was starting to look mottled and that couldn't be good. What could she do? No hospital would take her because she was a mutant and Charlie would make sure they knew. After her husband, she didn't hide it from anyone.

Then, Jenny remembered the guy from the bar with Logan and Remy. McCoy. That was his name. Jubilee had said he was a doctor. If she offered him the book, maybe he would help Charlie? "You never know, my dear young woman, you never know."

"Hold on, dear, I have to call someone." She ran to the phone while digging into her pocket for the paper he'd given her, then waited impatiently for him to answer.

"Hello?" his voice was uncertain.

"McCoy? Dr. McCoy?"

"Yes, who-"

"It's Jenny. From the bar. Listen, I got a friend who's real sick, if you help her you can have my book." She was desperate and it showed in her voice.

"My dear, if your friend is sick, she should go to the hospital. I-"

"She's a mutant. They won't help her. I don't think I can get her downstairs. She's having problems breathing. I don't know how to help her. Save her or not, if you help her I'll give you the book, I swear. Just please, please, help Charlie. Please!" She was sobbing now, barely able to get the words out, watching Charlie struggle to breath.

"Give me the address to your current location and we'll be there as quickly as we possibly can." His tone that of any doctor in a crisis.

She rattled it off adding, "Fourth floor, second door on the left. The door's unlocked." Quickly hanging-up, she rushed back to Charlie's side.

"Oh, God, Charlie, look at you! What can I do? Your skin..." There had to be something! She couldn't just give-up. She would have died if not for this woman. She couldn't just let her die. But she just didn't know what to do!

"N-nothing w-wrong. Th-that w-what I look l-like. Th-the r-real m-me." Her eye's were now taking on a yellowish tinge as they changed too. "K-kinda look l-like a l-lizard. C-can usually c-control it. C-can bl-blend in l-like a c-chameleon. S-some med-icine in-interferes. H-how hus-band f-found out."

"Ssshhh! You're beautiful. You just concentrate on breathing. I have someone coming to help you. He'll make you better, you'll see." Jenny held her hand, tears running down her face. Had Charlie thought she'd turn her away? "Just relax and concentrate on breathing."

Twenty minutes passed with Jenny whispering to her and holding her hand, before the door opened and Remy, Logan, and Hank came running in. Hank was carrying a bag of medical equipment he kept in his car.

Pulling out a stethoscope, Hank asked, "What happened to cause her breathing problems?"

"I don't know. She was like this when I came home." She said, backing away to allow him to get to Charlie.

"Don' worry, chere, Hank help your frien'." Remy put his arms around her, comforting her as best he could. No matter what he'd said, the woman didn't look good. He knew she must be important to Jenny for her to have offered the book to Hank, after listening to their conversation. She obviously had been crying for some time and seemed to be in shock as she was shivering, in spite of the room being warm.

Looking at the woman lying on the couch, Logan was surprised to realize he recognized her. He'd seen her outside Harry's. She'd always just looked inside and smiled. He supposed now, she must have been looking in on Jenny and wondered why she'd never gone in. He watched Hank open her shirt and drew in a quick breath. The reason she was having trouble breathing was that she'd been beaten. She probably had broken ribs at the very least judging by the bruises.

"Logan call the mansion. Ask Jean to prepare the med-lab. We'll have to transport her to the mansion if there's any possibility of saving her. She has a punctured lung and most likely internal damage." Hank looked over at Jenny. "You're welcome to come along and be with her." Just in case was unspoken, but she understood and nodded as he picked Charlie up carefully and carried her out of the apartment.


Thirty minutes later Jenny sat outside the med-lab, Remy holding her hand, waiting to find out if her friend would live or die. Bishop was at the end of the hall as if standing guard. He might have been. Jean was in the med-lab assisting Hank and he wasn't sure who else knew Jenny was there or how they would react to her presence.

"Chere, be dere someone to call for 'er?" Remy asked, trying to think of something to help.

"No." she answered quietly, her voice somewhat hoarse from crying. "She was homeless. Her husband kicked her out when he found out she was a mutant. I guess, I'm all she has." She'd just stopped crying but the tears started rolling down her face again. "She wouldn't let me help her, Remy. She said I'd gotten out and didn't need her bringing me down."

Remy hoped she wouldn't regret her words later. Jenny was a very private person and they had almost learned more about her past in the last hour than they had in the eighteen months they had known her. Jenny buried her face against his shoulder, weeping in earnest again from the anguish of her friend not accepting her help. "She saved me, I was all alone, and she saved me. But she wouldn't let me help her. If she'd let me take care of her, she wouldn't have been where they could hurt her. Just like the others."

Logan came in from parking Hank's car. He stopped next to Bishop. "Thought she'd stopped."

"She started again." was the quiet answer before Bishop walked over and kneltin front of Jenny. "Who did this, Jenny, and what others?"

"The Friends of Humanity." she answered, once she calmed down enough to talk again. "The homeless are easy prey for them. Many homeless mutants can't hide what they are. They stay together in groups, at least at night, and the FOH will just follow one to a group and kill them all. It got bad that most groups wouldn't let me stay with them because I'm not a mutant. Charlie and some others said I had to get a job, so I could get off the streets, and she sent me to apply at Harry's. They were afraid I'd get killed just like everyone else."

"They loved you and wished you to be safe. Do not blame them for that." Ororo said from the doorway. She sat down on Jenny's other side taking her friend's hand in hers.

"I don't. I blame them for not letting me help them like they helped me." She wiped her eyes with the back of her hands.

"Perhaps they were afraid of leading them to you." Logan said.

"But the only one you could tell was a mutant by looking was Marty and that was only if he took off his glasses. He was like you, Remy, just his eyes - and they were so pretty. They had already killed Ben. They beat him too. He couldn't hide it and they wouldn't admit him at the hospital, so he died. I don't understand that. How could they just let him die?" she wailed.

"It's what we fight against. It's what we live with every day." Scott said, coming into the hall.

"Do you think it's any easier for people like me? Just because I'm 'normal'?" she shot back angrily.

"I didn't mean it like that." he said gently. He'd come to check on Jean and heard the girl he barely knew talking about all the things they were fighting against. He'd just wanted her to know she wasn't alone in these thoughts and feelings.

Before he could say anything else, Hank opened the door, Jean behind him. She could see it in his eyes before he said the words, "I'm sorry, Jenny, we were too late and there was too much damage."

Jean added gently, "Jenny, you don't know me. My name is Jean and I'm a telepath. I want you to know Charlie's last thoughts were that she loved you and she wanted you to be happy. You reminded her of her daughter." She'd seen the picture of Charlie's daughter in her thoughts and it had been hard to get a clear image because in the woman's mind she'd superimposed Jenny's image over that of her own child, indicating how much she'd loved her. "You're welcome to stay the night, or what's left of it."

"Yes, you may stay with me if you like." Ororo's heart had broken, listening to her young friend cry out about the fate of her homeless friends, and she wanted to comfort her.

"They're all gone now, all my friends." Forcing herself not to lose control again, Jenny picked up the bag at her feet. She opened it, took out a large book, and handed it to Hank. "Thank you for trying." Clearing her throat, she said. "If someone would take me home, I'd appreciate it. I have to work tomorrow."

"If that's what ya want, darlin', I'll take ya." Logan said into the silence of the room. "If you're sure. Maybe you shouldn't be alone."

"I would really prefer to go home." She slung her bag over her shoulder. Just before she left the hall, she turned back to look at Hank. "What do you do?"

He turned off the image-inducer, showing himself as he truly was. She didn't even blink at him before saying, "That's why Jubilee calls you Blue. I wish Ben had had one of those."

She followed Logan out of the house, and cried all the way to her apartment for all her lost friends.


The next night at Harry's, Jenny got out a small table and large pickle jar with a slit in the lid. The jar was brightly decorated and she thought it looked festive, but knew most customers wouldn't like the sight of it. It was the Donation Night collection jar.

Donation Night was a failed project of her's which had seemed like a good idea at the time. Put out a jar and a flyer about what you were collecting for, make a speech, and wait for the money. Unfortunately, that sort of thing didn't really go over well at Harry's Bar. But this wasn't going to be an ordinary Donation Night, tonight it was personal.

She'd lied the night before, she wasn't working. How many of the mansion's residents had known she'd lied, she didn't know and didn't care. She'd just wanted to go home. She'd wanted to be surrounded by her things. She'd wanted to think about how to accomplish the one last thing she needed to do for Charlie. She also wanted to include Harry's in her plans because she knew she would never have gone there if not for Charlie. So, after much thought, she'd decided she would resurrect Donation Night.

She then did something she hadn't done since she'd started at Harry's. She bought a pack of cigarrettes, sat in her preferred corner table, and proceeded to smoke the whole pack while waiting for the right moment to make her Donation Night speech.

That was how Remy and Ororo found her.

Logan and Remy were familiar with her schedule. When they told everyone she didn't normally work tonight, Ororo had been concerned enough to talk Remy into taking her to Jenny's apartment. Of course, they didn't find her there. Remy suggested she may be filling in for the waitress that had quit the day before and they headed over to Harry's. Orroro would have felt better if Jenny had given herself time to grieve before going to work, no matter the circumstances.

She held her hand out to Jenny. " Are you all right?"

Jenny smiled stiffly, taking the proffered hand. "I'm as good as I can be under the circumstances."

"Chere, when you start smoking?" Remy gestured to the full ashtray.

"Actually, I quit just before I started working here. Food was more important at the time." She squeezed Ororo's hand before letting go. "Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. In fact, I'm about to be much better."

She finished the last drag on the last cigarrette, went over to the bar and climbed on top before gesturing to Harry to get everyone's attention.

"ALRIGHT, EVERYBODY, LISTEN UP! Jenny's got an announcement!" He shouted, his voice booming throughout the room. Immediately, the room became silent and all attention was focused on Jenny.

"Thanks, everybody! First, I want to say I'm sorry. I'm reinstated Donation Night, temporarily." Groans filled the room.

"Hey, now, I said temporarily. This isn't some community project and I'm not asking everybody to become do-gooders." Laughter. "This is personal." again silence.

"A very good friend of mine was beaten last night and died from the injuries. She had no one but me." Whispers filled the room. "I can't pay for her funeral. I don't want to do anything fancy but I don't want her going to some public unmarked grave. I want my friend to have a decent burial."

Taking a deep breath, she continued. "No one is going to give you something for donating alot. No one will be acknowledged.Nothing will happen but that a stranger will be given a decent final resting place.All anyone will know is whether I was able to lay her to rest. I'll post on the wall what was able to be done. That's all I have to say. Thank you for your time." And with that, she hopped down, grabbed her bag, and left while the room started to buzz.

"It's cold out tonight, maybe Remy and I can give you a ride home, Jenny?" She heard Ororo's voice from behind her, and turning around and she saw them, their eyes filled with sympathy.

It wasn't really all that cold, but... "Well, maybe this one time." She allowed herself to be led to the car.

The next day when she came in the jar contained more than enough for Charlie's funeral.

to be continued.


note:

Okay, too many reviews to individualize the answers, (Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you!) but I feel the need to explain that Hank and Jenny are going to have a relationship but it will NOT be a romantic one. I think they both need a friend. Her posessivenes of the book, interest in genetics, and easy understanding of Hank will be explained. I swear. But it may be a few chapters as its all part of her big secret. Betcha can't guess!

Also, I gotta tell ya that I was NOT depressed when I wrote this. (In pain? Yes. Depressed? No.) Charlie suffered a fateful accident of a plot device designed to have Jenny open up more to the X-men about her past, let them know her feelings about the treatment of mutants, and let them see how comfortable she is with mutants in general. Though we knew that from previous stories they didn't. More about that will also come later in the story.

Lastly, let me say how grateful I was for all the kind e-mails I recieved when I got sick. Kidneystones suck, but I've got the hang of the pain meds and all's much better in my world.

Thanks for reading and the support,
Dizi