Disclaimer: I don't own any of the X-Men characters, and sorry if I screw up the biology bit every now and then, I'm home-schooled. lol I hope ya'll enjoy it!

Logan and I spent the next two and a half hours shooting pool. I had never played before so he had to teach me. I didn't win any of the games, but it was fun learning how to play. It was around eight o'clock that night before we got back to the school.

"You're in trouble," Bobby said as we walked through the door.

"Why?" I asked.

"I don't know. The Professor and Dr. Grey are looking for the both of you; I think they're in his office."

I looked at Logan and he raised his eyebrows at me.

I hated living with telepaths.

I took a deep breath and we both walked to the Professor's office. Again, before either of us could knock he called for us to come in.

"Good evening Miss. Brice, Logan," Professor said as we walked into his office.

"Good evening Professor, Dr. Grey," I replied, sitting in the same chair as I had that morning. Logan stood behind me.

Dr. Grey was half way sitting on a desk that was holding a computer.

"Where did you go today?" Professor Xavier asked, looking from me to Logan.

"We went to my doctors' appointment," I said.

"Is that all, just there and back?"

"No," Logan cut in, "I showed her how to shoot pool afterwards,"

"Whose idea was that?" asked the Professor.

"Mine," Logan admitted.

"Is this true Miss. Brice; was it all Logan's idea?"

What did he want me to say, yes, no? I was confused.

"I wanted to do something to take my mind off of everything and he suggested pool. I had never played before and though it would do me some good to be focusing on something else. I didn't know we weren't allowed to." I said, "I mean, you've told Dr. Grey and Storm to let me go to bookstores and stuff afterwards, I just didn't we weren't supposed to."

The Professor looked at us hard; I knew he was trying to read our minds.

"Don't worry, it won't happen again," Logan said, storming out of the room.

"Logan!" The Professor called out as the door slammed shut.

"I'm sorry; I didn't know it was a problem,"

"It's not," Professor Xavier began, "it's just that we weren't sure of where you were. It's not always safe outside of the school."

"That and with your condition, being out so late, when it gets even colder, isn't good for you." Dr. Grey added.

"I know but I'm not going to be here for very long. I have to be outside of here at some point."

"I understand," he said.

After a moment of silence, I finally broke into tears. "Professor, I don't have much longer to live, my body is completely shutting down on me and I just want to live as much as I can. He understands that and he understands me. I feel so different when he's around, I don't feel like I even have to worry about anything. I don't have time to think about worries and problems, so I'm sorry if we worried you but it's not something that we did on purpose."

"I know," he said, letting out a sigh. "You may go now."

I got up and walked out of his office and went straight up to my room. I put on my pajamas and crawled into bed. I was hoping to fall asleep right away but I was too restless to sleep. I laid there thinking; about my family, the school, Christmas, mostly I was trying not to think about Logan. It wasn't working.

I suppose I fell asleep, because the next time I looked at my clock it was one in the morning. My stomach was growling so I decided to go find something in the kitchen that would take my mind off of the ever plaguing thought of Logan.

I took the elevator down and walked straight into the kitchen.

"Can't sleep either, kid?"

There he was.

"No, I woke up starving." I don't know why I sounded so rude, but for some reason I couldn't help it. Maybe is I was rude to him he would leave me alone and I could get him off of my mind…but did I really want him out of my head?

"Look," he started, "I'm sorry I ran out on you like that in the Professor's office. I was afraid I would say something to get you into more trouble. I talked to him again, though; he said it wasn't going to be a problem."

"I know," I said, digging through a pantry, "we've already talked about it."

"I guess that means no more playing hooky with me. I'm a bad influence on you, kid."

I smiled. How could I have wanted to be mad at him?

"And what makes you think you've had any type of influence over me?"

He smiled back at me, taking a sip of his Dr. Pepper.

After finding some leftover Chinese food in the refrigerator, I sat down across from him. He was wearing blue jeans and a gray wife-beater.

"Do you remember if you have a family, or anything?" I asked between bites.

He took another sip of his Dr. Pepper. "Like a wife?" he asked.

"Yeah,"

"No, I don't remember if I did or not. I don't know if I have any kind of family. I've not had one since then, either."

"You don't remember anything at all? Nothing?"

He looked at me hard, staring right into my eyes. "Listen kid, I remember a few things but they're not what I need."

"What do you need?"

"I need answers. The more I remember the more questions that I have,"

I sighed. I wanted to help him, but what could I do?

"Do you know how old you are?"

"No," he said pausing, "how old are you?"

"Sorry, I don't remember either," I said with a laugh.

"You're going down, Ice-Man!" I said. It was a week later and I was playing air hockey with Bobby in the game room. Rouge was watching and waiting for her turn to play.

"Oh, who just scored?" He asked with a smirk.

"Lucky shot! You're gonna' lose, you know?"

"We'll see," he said, scoring another point.

"It's all dramatics, I'm going to come back and win." I was good at talking myself up, but I was never any good at backing it up with actions. I, of course, lost at two to seven.

"Lee," Storm called from the doorway.

"Yeah?"

"Someone's here to see you,"

"I'll be back guys," I said, following Storm into the main entry way. My mom and step-dad were both standing there. I ran and hugged them both.

"I missed you guys so much!" I said smiling at them,

"I know, we missed you too," my mom said.

"The house is completely empty and quiet, it's a little creepy." Steve, my step-dad, said.

"Well, I'm having a wonderful time here. It's so nice with the weather like it is, it's so beautiful."

"Hello, you must be Miss. Brice's parents," said Professor Xavier. He was the only person there that called me Miss. Brice. Scott and Dr. Grey were behind him.

"Yes, I'm Nina and this is my husband Steve." My mom said as they both shook the Professor's hand.

"I'm Charles Xavier; this is Dr. Grey and her husband Scott."

"Hi, it's nice to meet you," Dr. Grey said.

They all shook hands and said hello.

"And I'm sure that you've already met Ororo," the Professor said, motioning to Storm.

"Yes, she showed us in," my mother said with a smile.

"Has anyone seen Logan today?" I asked.

"No, why?" Storm said.

"I wanted to introduce him to my parents,"

"Well, if I see him I'll tell him you're looking for him." Storm told me.

"All right, thanks."

"I'm sorry, but there's nothing new to tell you." Dr. Smith told my parents. We had gone to the doctor all together to get the test results from the visit the week before, with Logan.

"How can there be nothing new?" My mom asked. "What were the tests for, then?"

"Her blood count is down, that's what the tests were for. We needed to know if she needs new blood."

"Does she?" Steve asked.

"I don't think it would do any good. If there's foreign blood in her body it may go into over drive and start freezing at twice the rate it is now. It's something to think about, but it would be risky."

"I don't want to do it," I said.

"But it could help you," my mom told me.

"Or it could kill my quicker, pick your poison. I'm dying…whether I get new blood or not, I can't do anything about it, no one can." I said bluntly.

"It's not necessarily true that this will be fatal," my doctor said.

"My body's freezing; my cells are turning to ice. My lungs will eventually crystallize and my brain won't work without oxygen. That sounds pretty fatal to me."

My mom began crying.

"We're going everything we can but because no one's ever heard of this happening before there's no much to do. I am truly sorry," Dr. Smith told me and my parents. "We just have to wait and hope that something useful will come along."

"I thought that went pretty well, how about you?" I asked. We were talking outside of my doctors' office building.

"I don't know why you insist on joking about this?" My mother asked.

"It's either that or cry," I told her.

I looked across the street and saw a familiar someone walking down the sidewalk opposite of us, smoking a cigar. I watched as he crossed the street. I didn't say anything but that was my sanity right there, however crazy it sounded.

"Hey kid," he said, walking up to us.

"What do you want?" Steven demanded.

"No, it's all right; this is Logan, the one I was telling you about." I said.

"Didn't mean to scare you," Logan said.

"It's all right, these are my parents."

"It's nice to meet you," my mother said, reaching out to shake his hand.

"You too," he said. "So uh…what'd the doc say?"

"Nothing new,"

"Sorry,"

"Don't worry about it." I told him. "Where have you been all day? I've been looking for you,"

"I went and shot some pool,"

"By yourself?" I asked.

He gave me a small smile. "I played with a few guys that were there." He said, taking his cigar out of his mouth. "Are you going back to the school?"

"Yeah, are you?" I asked.

"I guess so, I'll walk with you."

We walked towards the subway, but there was a car wreck and we couldn't get through even on the sidewalks.

"We can take that ally and get to the subway." Logan said, pointing to the ally across the street from us.

We all followed Logan down the ally-way. I didn't like it, it was dark, dirty and it smelled. I was getting nervous and fidgeting with my hands. One of them bumped into Logan's and he grabbed it and held onto it. I felt safe with him there, holding my hand.

We turned a corner and before we knew what was going on, a man jumped out and me against him, sticking a knife against my throat. "Give me everything you've got or she's dead."

"You picked the wrong people to mess with, bub," Logan said as his claws shot from his hands.

The mugger must have been surprised because he dropped his knife. Once he did I ran away from him and watched as Logan sank his claws into his arms, slinging him up against the wall. He let out a roar then pulled his claws out and caught his breath, as the mugger slide down the wall unconscious.

I was still scared and breathing heavy and on the brink of crying. I didn't know what had just happened.

Logan's claws slowly slid back into his hands. I had heard him talk about what he could do and that metal was running through all of his body, but I had never seen him do it. I was mesmerized and shocked at the same time.

"Let's get out of here," he said, grabbing my hand and leading me through the ally with my parents close behind us. I could only imagine what was going through their minds right then. All within a minute my life was threatened and Logan had attacked and knocked out the person who had threatened it.

After that we got through okay. We were all still pretty shook up by the time we reached the subway and started heading home. Everyone buy Logan.

"How do they come out?" I asked, staring at his hands.

He looked at them and thought for a minute. "I don't know, they just do,"

We didn't talk much on the way home but before we stopped I broke the silence; "Thank you," I said.

He looked me in the eyes. "Don't worry about it, kid,"

"I know, but I really mean it."

"I know you do,"

He always had this cocky attitude that just oozed confidence, but instead of hating him for it, that's one of the things that I loved most about him. If anyone else had been like that I would have hated them, but he had a certain charm to it. And that's what had happened; he had charmed me. I had no say over whether or not I liked him, I had to, and there was nothing I could do about it.

"Well, there's no doubt that the school's worth the money we're paying for it," my mom said. We were standing just outside of the school gates.

"I really like it here," I said.

We stood in silence for a moment before Logan decided to go ahead inside. Once he left I knew it would start.

"Honey, please come back home, I don't like you all the way up here, I don't think it's safe."

"Mom, I don't want to go home. What don't you think is safe," I asked, "the school or the city? I'm fine, Logan took care of me, and nothing is going to happen."

"I don't like him"

"If you're going to talk about him could you at least wait until he gets inside?" I asked in a hushed voice.

"He's all the way up there, why does it matter if he's inside?"

"Because he can still hear you,"

She watched him until he walked all the way up the drive and stepped inside the mansion, closing the door behind him.

"I don't like him," she said again.

"Why not?"

"He is way too old for you, I think he's dangerous."

"That is so stupid!" I said. "You can't tell me who's too old for me, I'm an adult now. You let my sister go out with someone who was forty-three before she was old enough to make her own decisions."

"But he didn't have knives shooting out of his hands, did he? He also didn't attack anyone."

"That we know of! And besides that is completely ridiculous, he saved my life and now he's some maniac?" I said. We stood quietly for a while before I corrected her, "And they're not knives, its adamantium, it runs through his whole body."

"That's what I don't like about this school; how did metal get through all of his body and him still be alive? What can all of these people really do? I'm afraid that someone is going to happen to you while you here with these…people."

"That's enough!" I yelled. "Those people that you're talking about don't treat me differently. I'm not some sort of weird freak that has to hide who I am, I'm not scared here mom. I was scared at my other schools; I know what kids can do to you where you're different than they are. So don't talk to me about being unsafe here, because I have never felt safe at home, at school, with my family or with anyone!" I'm happy here, not at home, why can't you see that?"

"How can you say that you didn't feel safe at home? We went out of our way to make sure that no one knew about your problem,"

"Oh my word," I said unbelievingly, "I don't have a problem! It's called telekinesis, and it's a gift. Maybe I didn't feel unsafe at home all the time, but I definitely felt uncomfortable. You treat me like this person who doesn't really live, I'm just a problem for you. You've never understood me since I told you what I could do. I could never do anything to make up for my faults. I couldn't measure up to Chloe and Luke, they did everything right."

"You know that's no true, we have always loved you, you know that."

"No, you've treated me like a freak, walking on egg shells not to upset me because you think I'm going to freak out and do something, you don't understand anything about me."

"We're just trying to protect you,"

"Protect me or you? You don't want people to think anything bad about you."

"We love you," she said with tears in her eyes.

"I don't doubt that, but I've got to stay here. I'm safe and comfortable and I never have to worry about being scared or worried that people will treat me differently, so please…if you do truly care about me and have my best interest in mind, then you will not ask me to go home."

"Okay…you're right. If that's what you want to do and if you feel so strongly about it then…okay."