Important Notice: I am currently re-writing all of the chapters in this story, because, looking back, I have a lot of plot holes and my writing is pretty weak at some parts. Please bear with me I would still appreciate feedback on if you like the new version of the chapters and if it makes more sense. It would suck to rewrite everything and then have it be worse than before. Thanks! You guys are awesome 

I also want to apologize for the lack of updates. I have no excuse. I'm just an awful person  I hope I haven't lost too many of you. For those of you still reading, you are the BEST and I love you to pieces!

A/U: Lance Alvers was orphaned when he was 7 and sent to an orphanage. There he met Katherine Pryde, a fellow orphan at only 5 years old. Ten years later, they meet again, but this time on opposing teams.

Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, and I am not making any money off of this.

The Simple Truth

Lance was silent, his eyes red and puffy as the nurse led him to the lobby, where yet another smiling blode woman was waiting for him. When the blonde saw the nurse with Lance, she walked up to them and introduced herself.

"You must be Lance," she said gently. "My name is Sally, and I'm gong to be taking you to the place where you'll be living for a while."

Lance just stood next to the nurse, looking at his hands, trying not to cry. He hadn't heard anything the woman had just said. Only the words for a while.

"I'll leave him with you now, okay? Thank you for doing this, Sally," the nurse said, smiling at the blonde. She patted Lance on the back. "It'll be okay," she whispered in his ear. Then she turned and left.

Lance suddenly felt angry for the first time since all of this had happened. He wanted to kick that stupid nurse. Why was everyone lying to him, telling him that it was going to be all right, when it wasn't? He was sick of those three little words: It'll be okay. No it wouldn't! He would probably never get to see his mom again, and people like the nurse kept saying that everything was going to be okay again! Nothing would ever be okay again. Never. Nothing would ever be remotely normal to him again.

"Lance?" Sally asked. Poor thing, he must have seen some awful things.

He saw the same look in her eyes. Pity… Pity!

He quickly looked away.

Sally remembered from the file she had been given when assigned Lance's case (she was a social worker) that his father physically abused him mother, and a few nights ago she had shot him in self defense. From what Sally understood, Lance had probably seen the whole thing. This had to be one of the most traumatic cases she had received in the past couple months.

"Lance?" she repeated.

"I…I miss my mom," he said, choking on the words, tears brimming and threatening to spill again.

"I know you do, Lance," she said and bent down to pat his back. "C'mon, let's take you to your new home/ for a while, anyway." She whispered the last part under her breath.

With that, she took Lance's hand and they walked out of the hospital, away from Lance's mother, and into the parking lot, towards his new life.

Meanwhile, all Lance could think was No, you don't know. You have no idea.

Throughout the whole ride to St. Charles' Orphanage in downtown Chicago Lance did not speak once. Every now and then Sally heard him sniffling or wiping his eyes, but she was never able to start a conversation with him.

She had figured that he wasn't going to want to talk to anyone, considering he had just basically lost him mother, but she still felt bad. She knew sooner or later he would have to talk to someone about it or else all the pain and distress he was experiencing would eat at him forever. She just hoped he talked sooner.

Sally finally pulled up to a pleasant looking building, parked the car, and got out with Lance. He hesitated before he stepped inside, but Sally finally coaxed him in.

Lance felt scared and vulnerable as he walked in, surrounded by toys and games: things that he had never had before. He latched onto Sally's arm tightly, as if afraid he might get lost in this strange and foreign world of playthings. Sally smiled at his antics, and with her free hand, ruffled his hair.

She walked up to the chck-in desk. "Hello, I'm here to drop-off Lance," she said.

Drop off. Realization of what was happening dawned on him. Sally was going to leave him here with these nameless people and their toys and he would be alone again. He had been alone all too often lately. He held her arm tighter when he heard that, but still said nothing.

The man behind the desk typed something onto the computer.

"Do you have his file with you?" he asked politely.

"Yes, one second, let me get it." Sally looked down, "Hey, Lance, I need my arm really quick, okay?"

"Okay…" he whispered, and reluctantly loosened his hold on her arm. He clasped his hands behind his back and watched Sally.

Sally took her brief case off of her other shoulder and opened the front compartment. She searched through a bunch of other folders before exclaiming triumphantly. "Ah! Here it is!" She gave it to the man behind the counter.

"Thank you Miss. Just let me get his general information typed in and I'll take him to the back for a tour, so that he can meet the other kids here." He then turned to his computer and began typing.

Lance, who was getting over the initial shyness he had first experienced when he entered the lobby, was now beginning to pick up some of the Lego's and dinosaur toys that littered the floor and was playing with them. Sally smiled, glad that he was starting to relax and open up.

In about five minutes, the man from the check-in was done and came out from behind the desk. He saw Lance on the floor with the toys, and walked over to where he was and offered him a hand to help him get up. Lance took it, and then the man said, "Hi, Lance."

"Hi."

"I'm Greg, and I'm gonna be taking care of you for a while, along with a bunch of other people who work here."

For a while. He nodded, all of his former shyness returning.

"Lance," Sally said, bending down to face him, "I've got to go right now, but I'll be back either tomorrow or the next day, to visit you, okay?"

"Okay," he said softly. "Bye, Sally." He tried to smile but his eyes, which were red from crying in the car, made him look very odd and confused. She's leaving…

She hugged him. "Bye, Lance." To her surprise he hugged her back. "Have fun." And with that, she stood and walked out of the building, turned to wave at Lance, and then walked to her car.

Lance turned to Greg, waiting for him to say something.

"Why don't we go back there, and I'll show you around, and you can meet everyone?"

"All right."

Greg smiled and gestured to the door behind the reception desk.

"C'mon," he said.

Lance walked through the door behind Greg.

"Wow…" Lance said in awe, before he could help it. The room was filled with toys and stuffed animals. There was a huge, over stuffed couch in front of it. Movies like "The Lion King" and "The Sword in the Stone" that his mom had never been able to take him to. He felt a tear slide down his cheek as he thought of his mother. There were pillows and blankets littered about the couch and on the floor and over all it looked very cozy.

"This is the common room, where most of the kids hang out in the afternoon. Right now everyone's at lunch, which brings us here," he said as he led Lance out of the room and into a hall. At the end of the hall they turned right and there was a huge room, about as big as the common room.

"This is the kitchen," he said pointing to the left side of the room, which had an oven, a stove, and many other cooking appliances.

"You'll eat over here," Greg gestured to the right half of the room which had about ten different tables, all filled with children who were eating hungrily.

"Do you want to eat now?" Greg asked him.

Lance shook his head. "I'm not hungry," he said.

This worried Greg. "Are you sure? Sally told me that you haven't eaten since this morning… It's about 4:30 now. Are you positive you don't want something?"

"Yeah."

Lance hadn't felt the urge to eat anything since that night… Anything he did try to eat almost always ended up coming right back out as he vomited. And afterwards he would dry-heave for at least five minutes. He wasn't eager to repeat the cycle.

"Okay then… well, when you're hungry, tell me and I'll get something for you, 'kay?"

" 'kay."

"Well, since you're not gonna be eating, I might as well show you the rest of the place."

Greg turned around and walked down the hall with Lance in tow.

"All right then," he said when he was back at the hallway leading to the common room. Instead of turning to go to the common room, though, he kept going straight. They came to yet another gigantic room filled with beds.

"This is the dormitory, where all the kids sleep, and those two doors over there lead to the bathrooms. How 'bout we get you a bed?" he smiled.

Lance's eyes lit up, and he looked a little excited. After all, he had never had a real bed. Just a thin mattress with rag-like sheets and a flat, lumpy pillow, but he didn't want to think about that. It hurt too much. It made him think of his mother.

Here, each bed had a colorful comforter, and there was a small dresser to the left of each bed to put any clothes or belongings into.

"This one looks nice," Greg said as he sat down on a bed with a deep blue comforter. "What d'ya think?" He patted the mattress beneath him.

Lance sat down on it, pleased when it bounced a little. "I like it," he said, a genuine smile creeping onto his face for the first time since that awful night.

"Great!" Greg said, happy that Lance was smiling. "I'll just go get you a pillow and you'll be all set for tonight. Then we can go and I'll introduce you to all the other kids." Greg walked out of the room quickly, headed to the common room to grab Lance a pillow.

Lance just lay on his bed staring up at the ceiling. His bed. He liked the sound of that. It was comforting. It gave him a sense of security. He slowly dozed off, getting some much-needed sleep. He hadn't slept well since his first day at the hospital, and he was beat.

Greg came back in. "Hey, Lance, I got you your pillow…" he said, but then he noticed Lance's silent form, sprawled out on the mattress. "Well at least he's sleeping… Poor kid, looked like he'd been up all night." He turned the lights off and silently closed the door. Then he went to help out Sara, who also worked at the orphanage. Coaxing stubborn three-year-olds into taking a shower wasn't the easiest task to do, especially when alone.

Two days later, a Saturday, Sally came by to visit Lance, but with a little girl to drop off at the orphanage as well.

The little girl had cried herself to sleep on the way to the orphanage and Sally had to carry her in and lay her on the couch in the common room so she could get her checked in.

"I've got her file here: Katherine Hail."

Greg took the file and typed in her info. "So," he said, trying to make conversation, "How did Katherine come to be here?" He had just started typing in her file; he didn't know yet.

Sally sighed. "Her mom brought her to the park and told her to wait there for her; that she was going to come back. She told her 'Don't move.' Well, she never came back and when a concerned woman asked Katherine what she was doing there so late, and she replied 'Waiting for mom.' The woman called social services, and I went to pick her up. She slept at my house since she had no idea where her mother was, and she was fine, actually. Turns out she was used to her mother being gone for long periods of time. This morning, around 8, I got a call from the police. They found Katherine's mom, Karen Hail in a back alley, dead. She had been shot."

She took a deep breath, her heart heavy.

"Any idea why?"

"None at all," she sighed. "It's just so awful, the things that happen in this city! And then I had to tell Katherine that her mom was dead, and she would come here, and she just broke down crying. Cried herself to sleep on the way here."

"It's really not fair to them; they're so young and most of them have seen the worst of life already," he said, shaking his head remorsefully.

"Yeah—" Sally was cut off by a panicked squeal coming from the common room.

"Sally?" Katherine sounded like she was on the verge of tears.

"Calm down, Katherine, I'm here," she said running into the common room. She sat down on the couch. "I'm right here," she said, stroking the girl's long, brown hair soothingly.

Greg joined her in the common. "Do you want me to go get Lance? He'll be really happy you came… He's been really quiet since he got here—doesn't talk to any of the kids or anything. Maybe he can show Katherine around."

"That would be great!"

"I'll go get him." And with that, Greg rushed off to get Lance.

He found him in the dormitory on his bed, looking up at the ceiling, ignoring the other kids in the room who were laughing and playing.

"Lance?" Greg asked.

He looked up. "Yes?"

"Sally's here to see you. She brought someone with her, too." Greg smiled as Lance's eyes lit up.

"Really?"

"Yeah. She's in the common room."

Lance bolted out of the dormitory, down the hall, and into the common room. Greg just stayed in the dormitory to supervise the other kids.

He figured Lance would be happy that Sally came to visit. He had probably felt so abandoned by the world when he had been dropped off just two days ago. It was only natural to assume that he would be overjoyed that Sally had come back to see him. I hope he gets along with Katherine. He could really use a good friend.

"Sally!" Lance cried out, ecstatic. He ran up to her and hugged her. Sally smiled and squeezed him affectionately, glad to see a change in his attitude towards her.

"Lance, this is Katherine," she said, getting up to drag Katherine over to meet Lance. Katherine rubbed her puffy eyes.

Lance gaped at her, as if enthralled by her. The two children merely stare at each other for a while, with Sally watching them both, slightly confused, looking from one to the other.

Finally, Lance said something. "Hi, my name's Lance," he said, holding out a hand shyly.

Katherine's cheeks got rosy, and she giggled, tears forgotten. "I'm Katherine." She took his hand and shook it. Then they went to the couch and began talking as if they had known each other their whole lives.

Sally stood in the center of the room, smiling warmly at them. "Katherine? Lance? I've got to go, but why don't you show her around, Lance?"

Their faces brightened. "Okay!" Lance said, truly happy for the first time in a while. "Bye, Sally!" he went up to her and hugged her. And then grabbed Katherine's hand and began showing her around.

Sally grinned, and turned to leave. Though her job was pretty depressing at times, things like this made it all seem worth while. Like she was making a difference. She smiled to herself and walked out to the parking lot, ready to go home after another long day.

By the time Lance had finished showing Katherine around and helping get all of her stuff ready (her bed was right next to his), it was about 7:30. While all the other kids were in the common room watching a movie, Lance and Katherine sat on his bed, talking

"Hey, Katherine?" Lance asked.

The five year old looked at him from across the bed. "Yeah?"

"Can I call you Katie?"

Her innocent smile all but vanished from her face, and her eyes began to well up. "My… my mother used to c-call me Katie…" she choked out between sobs.

Understanding what she was going through, he reached forward and pulled her into his arms, and held her there, trying to quiet her crying.

He'd only known her for a couple of hours, but she was already like a little sister to him, and he was protective of her, wrapping his arms around her, determined to ease her spirits. It was amazing how much older he seemed then.

"How 'bout I call you Kitty then?" he said softly into her hair.

She looked up at him and smiled through her tears. "I like it." She laid her head back down on Lance's chest contentedly. "I'm really glad I met you, Lance," she said, hugging him.

"I'm really glad I met you, too, Kitty."

She giggled at her new nick-name. Content, she fell asleep in his arms.

The seven year old looked at her lovingly. "I'll always be there to take care of you." And with that, he fell asleep too.

A/N: Review!