AN: Welcome back my friends! Sorry, I was in song mode for a moment. Anywho, sorry for the lateness of this update but I've got a genetics test on the horizon and I've been getting ready to study for it. Thankfully, that's the only test I have coming up so it's only a momentary delay. Not like it's midterms or anything yet (those I'm particularly nervous about but that's just me!). Anyway, here's the latest in my little adventure, fresh from the guts of my computer. Please, keep sending those reviews along! I greatly appreciate each and every one of them!

LJP: I still hate getting tricked into things and I'm 22 years old. Hope's parents are just trying to make things simple for her, no matter how smart she is. She's still just two years old so she can still see things through the frame of mind of a two year old when she chooses. Plus, their concerned about how she's going to deal with the idea of going to a "normal" school, even for the day since she's going to sill live with her parents. Anywho, Hope's reaction coming up soon!

My PenName is . . .: I'm glad you liked the chapter and I'm updating right now!

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.

Hope gave a sniffle and rubbed at her nose. She knew she was supposed to be using a tissue but she didn't have one with her at the moment and her daddy was holding her. She wasn't going to wander off and go get a tissue because she was with both her parents.

It didn't happen all that often that she got to be with both of them. Sometimes her mommy was at work with the big kids and sometimes her daddy was at work doing…whatever he did. Even with her vast intelligence, Hope wasn't really sure. She knew he worked someplace that made food and that he, sometimes, came home smelling like yummy things. Of course, sometime he brought yummy things home from work with him. Things like cookies and, of course, Italian pastries.

"Tomorrow," Matt began, deciding to break the news himself since he was holding his daughter at the moment, "bella, you get to start nursery school."

"Nursery school? Hope asked, turning the phrase over in her mind a few times.

She knew what school was since she lived in a school but Hope had never heard of a nursery school before. She knew that a nursery was where someone put a baby but she wasn't really a baby anymore.

True, she was on the short side but she could walk and talk and do lots of other things a baby couldn't do. Hope didn't see the need to go to a school that was named after a place where babies were kept because of that fact.

"Normal nursery school," Angie added in an uncomfortable.

"Normal?" Hope asked, in the same tone.

Angie knew her daughter equated normal with anyone who had mutant powers. She lived in a school that was chock full of students with powers so Hope had formed her definition around that. The little girl was only vaguely aware of the world outside the school because both Matt and Angie kept Hope away from the news and from anything other that the funny pages and sports pages in newspapers. She knew of the world outside the school from the students within the walls of the Xavier institute. The world where she would be considered different and bad.

It was only a vague awareness though, nothing to extreme or dangerous. This vaguer awareness led to a very vague understanding of the outside world. She knew it was there- That a world existed outside the walls of the school- but she only had a limited knowledge of just how horrible people could be to mutants because she had been protected from that knowledge.

Hope's short life had been centered around the fact it was okay to be a mutant. That there was nothing wrong with being able to hear other people's thoughts and be able to project thoughts. There was no evil behind being blue or having bat wings or being able to control the weather. That and a million other different things because Hope figured everyone had different powers.

Now, Angie felt badly about throwing her daughter into a world where she wasn't exactly going to be welcome. Of course, no one was going to know that Hope was a mutant and, unless the little girl's very limited control slipped, no one was going to ever know.

"Wild type in the outside?" Hope asked, seeing as how her question hadn't been answered before, "Like with no powers?"

"Wild type" was a phrase she had seen on one of her mother's science tests. She had asked her mother what it meant, since it was something she didn't know and she was, as most young children were, very, very curious about things. The phrase meant something like the opposite of a mutant genotype or allele. It was the "normal" one that was common in the wider population.

From how Angelina explained it, inside the school, the mutant gene was the "wild type" because everyone was a mutant and had an expressed "X-gene." Outside the school the "wild type" was the "normal" genotype. That was, people without an expressed "X-gene."

Though Matt was no scientist- He was a chef and a baker after all. He knew, what people called, kitchen chemistry and his understanding of biology was, jokingly, limited to yeast. - he nodded and answered, "You can't use these powers while your there, bella. It might scare the other kids and the teacher just a little."

Matt tapped the side of his head, an indication he was talking about Hope's psychic powers. While not as strong as the abilities others possessed, Hope's instinctual psychic abilities had strengthened somewhat. She cold broadcast and receive images as well as sense other mutants within a limited rage. It was almost like she was a minor, walking version of Charles' Cerebro unit….just not as powerful nor as sensitive.

The only problem was, like anything based on instinct, Hope was, sometimes, only vaguely aware she was using her abilities. Her control, when it existed, was just as instinctual. It was there but it was more autonomic than anything else. It was totally and utterly involuntary most of the time.

With some training, it could become more voluntary but no one was quite sure about that fact. The brain trust that surrounded Hope when she was examined once every few months- like a pediatrician's check-up but a bit more involved- figured how voluntary it would become would be discerned when Hope was older. At least, they hoped it did.

"Why? I'm not scary," Hope stated, as if it was the most obvious thing in the universe.

"Because, Hope," Angelina told her daughter with a small frown, "they don't understand that being a mutant isn't always a bad thing. Can you pretend you're not a mutant and not tell anyone you live in a school for mutants? It can be a secret just between everyone here."

"But you said secrets were bad," Hope pointed out with a frown.

Angie sighed, knowing the bind she and Matt were in. True, she had told Hope that secrets were very bad and that everyone should be truthful to each other. This time, though, telling the truth would do more harm then good but how to explain that fact to a little girl they didn't want to turn into a compulsive liar was beyond them.

"They are bad, bella. How about this? We make it into a game. You like to play pretend so let's make this into a big pretend game. Can you pretend that you don't have powers and be like the other kids and that mommy and I are just normal people? I'm just a cook and mommy's just a teacher," Matt suggested, giving his wife a wink.

Hope did like to play pretend games, often playing house or school or, not surprisingly, doctor. Sometimes she pretended to be a super hero but those games made her mommy very upset so she didn't play them all that often.

Hope knew she could do that. Playing pretend wasn't keeping a secret, after all. It was just a game. She didn't understand, in her two year old mind, that she was still keeping a secret from everyone. It was just done in a different way.

"That's my girl," Matt laughed, handing Hope over to her mother for a hug.

They all seemed to need some comfort at the moment, after all the changes that were taking place in their lives.