AN: Hi all! Summer's rapidly winding down and fall looms ahead. Of course, falls means school for most of us, myself included. I'm headed off to Graduate's School in the fall. Don't worry, though! I'm taking later classes and I have Fridays off! I'm hoping that'll mean more on-time updates and things like that. Actually, I don't mind fall so much since it also means my dance classes start and I get to go back to play Girl Scout Leader (or Zoo Keeper, as I sometimes call myself since I have little kiddies). Anywho, please continue to read and review my most excellent readers. I really appreciate any comments you have on this story whether they are good, bad, or indifferent.

Disclaimer: I own nothing except a handful or two of made up characters. All of this wonderful stuff belongs to the geniuses at Marvel Comics. I'm just playing in their world. I'm broke and in graduate's school. All I own are my Pointe shoes.

"I know I'm not all scientifically knowledgeable but I think something's going on with the baby," commented Matt as he sat on the floor with his daughter.

He was covered in a fine layer of powdered sugar and smelled vaguely like a horrible combination of garlic and vanilla. It was from his work, of course, since he spent his days surrounded by and working on Italian food. Matthew, despite his powers have nothing to do with his career of choice, was an up and coming chef with a specialization in all things Italian.

Truth be told, he was madly in love with making pastries but man cannot live on pastries alone. At least, that was what his father use to tell him in his heavily accented English. He was the cook of the family as far as Matthew remembered. Though, back in his homeland- code for Italy since both his parents were immigrants into the counter- it was the woman's place to cook, his father had picked up skills. After all, according to said father, a man had to eat when his mother wasn't around to cook for him.

Tradition, though important, wasn't something his father was big on. As a matter of reference, it was his father's dream he was trying to live out despite the fact he was a mutant with wings that burst from his back under stress. His father had always wanted to open his own Italian restaurant but never quite got around to doing it. The dream sort of got squashed under a mountain of other things, including paying for his son's schooling since Catholic school was the only place for his son.

Now, as a first generation American, Matt was trying to open his own place. Of course, he had to learn the ropes first. His father's recipes only went so far since they were only half given. He had left out a few "secret" things that made the meals perfect. Without them, the food was sort of flat and bland. Rather ordinary, actually and that was not what Matt wanted. He wanted his cooking to stick out so he worked in kitchens in order to learn how to do just that.

His hours were strange and his time home with his wife and daughter was sometimes sadly limited by his career choice. When home, though, he made sure to take time to be with his family as his father had done before him.

Make his "babbo" proud even if being mutant was not a source of pride for him.

At the moment, he was sitting on the floor with Hope, playing with a mess of toys on the floor. It was still very strange to him that Hope could communicate ideas to him through her own bidding psyching powers but there was an undercurrent of pride under that strangeness. A father, he figured, had to be proud of that no matter how strange it sounded on paper.

"What's going on with her, Matt?" Angelina quipped, looking up from her pile of test papers she had been trying to mark, "you two were fine last I checked. Having a good game of peek-a-boo with her toys."

Angie tried to smile at Matt to show him that she didn't mean to be so harsh. It wasn't that she was angry with him. More like, she was just annoyed in general by what she was doing. It was a test she had given a few days prior to a general biology class on a topic they had assured her they had a strong handle on. Of course, the test results didn't show that- despite the fact her tests weren't as notoriously tricky as those given by Dr. McCoy. - and she believed she had caught at least one set of cheaters. Dumb luck didn't extend to getting the exact same questions wrong and writing the same exact short answer essays.

She wasn't going to curve the test as she did the one for her general chemistry class but she couldn't let the grades stand as they were either. There were several averages that would suffer because of that and she didn't want to be responsible for pulling kid's grades down. Leave that to the other teachers.

Angie just wasn't fond of being stuck between the preverbal rock and the hard place when it came to grades. Maybe that was why most students wanted into her class. Her reputation as a "softy" preceded her by about ten miles.

"I know Hank and Jean and Charles said she was supposed to be like behind because she came early but I don't think she is, Angie," Matt explained, scooping Hope up and sitting her in his lap, "She's like ahead of that schedule thing you smart people set up."

Shaking his head and tickling Hope's stomach, he added, "I don't know…I could just be like imagining things. You guys are the brains here. I'm just Hope's daddy who wants everything to be alright."

Angie sighed again, setting aside her purple pen- She was one of those teachers who never marked in red pen. Something about the color upset her, probably from her own school days. - and rubbing the sides of her head with her fingers. She felt a headache coming on, related to her papers and not to her husband or daughter. They were a pleasant distraction from her students.

"We all want everything to be alright, Matt. I know she's supposed to have delays but we don't know anymore. It could be related to her psychic powers. It could be related to some new twist in her DNA, pardon the pun. We're just not sure anymore," Angie answered with another sigh.

It was expected that, as with most premature infants, Hope would develop slower than others her age. Thrown in the Williams Syndrome and the delays would, seemingly, grow. She'd be even further behind children in her age bracket. Maybe she'd catch up and maybe she wouldn't. There was no way to tell now.

Of course, that was what was supposed to happen. That was the atypical case that any parent was told to follow.

What was happening was a whole other story entirely.

With her psychic powers as active as ever, Hope had picked up on speech. Not that babbling baby talk sort of things kids her age were supposed to be doing but normal, adult speech. It was a skill rarely used since she seemed to prefer her psychic "voice" rather than her physical one.

She also seemed to be experimenting with the idea of walking. That was strange in and of itself because babies with her…condition….were supposed to suffer from joint problems. Hope wasn't showing any of those problems either. Nor was she showing any of the marked cardiac or renal problems.

Sensitivity to sound was definitely a problem and one that was going to have to be solved in a unique fashion because of their surroundings. Kids were noisy and could be loud. Hope was going to have to learn to adapt to that or they were going to have to learn how to adapt to Hope. There was no in between here.

"So, you're just going to sit back and see what happens?" Matt asked, curiously as he put Hope down and watched as she tried to get to her mother on the couch.

Angie scooped the baby up- earning herself a giggle and a blink of her daughter's strange looking eyes. - and answered, "We're venturing into the unknown here, Matt. We have no choice but to sit back and watch. Besides, if it helps Hope take one more giant step towards whatever will be normal for her, I'm all for it."

"No worries then?" her husband questioned.

"No worries….well, yes worries but not about Hope showing signs of catching up or getting ahead of her age group. Count that as a good thing. In the same line, count her not acting like an atypical Williams's baby a good thing too," Angie said, her own voice sounding as confused as she felt.

She gave a shrug and added, "I figure it's enough she's here and she's reasonably healthy. Whatever else happens, happens and we'll meet it head on when it does."