AN: Hiya all! Well, my little vacation's over and I'm back in school again. Actually, it feels like I never left school so I'm not sure if that's a good or a bad thing, really. Probably a normal thing since I'm nearly always in school or doing something school related….or dance related….or Girl Scouts related. Anywho, I'm actually updating on time for once! I'm really going to try to make that a habit unless things get wicked crazy for me again (like with my Molecular Biology exam at the end of the month). Anyway, thanks for the reviews! I greatly appreciate them and I appreciate your honesty. Please, let me know if there's anything I can to do change this story and make it better. I like to hear what people are thinking and I'm always willing to do something to improve the way I write.

LJP: Actually, I like to throw in a point of view part in the story every so often instead of writing in the third person. I figure it's just a way to change things up and give a different view of the story. Eventually, most of the point of views will be done as if Hope was writing them. She's just got to get a bit older first.

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.

Her hand in her mother's, Hope walked into the brightly colored nursery school. Kids, slightly bigger in height and weight, played in groups of twos and threes in the classrooms that dotted along the hallway. The height and weight difference was only there because of the fact Hope was a Williams child. She was just always going to be smaller and thinner than others her own age.

It was enough that she was going to be allowed to join children her own age in the classroom setting. Williams Syndrome usually involved some type of learning problems, including attention and hyperactivity issues. Hope had none of those, actually, but a whole other set of problems due to her mutant genes. Thankfully, the school didn't know about those otherwise who knew what sort of problems that would open them up to.

"What do you think, Hope? It looks nice here, don't you thin," Angelina asked the tiny mutant walking next to her.

Hope- clad in jeans with metallic stars on the pockets and a t-shirt with a glittery star design on it- was taking in everything with her lacy patterned eyes. Those eyes that they couldn't hide unless they introduced contacts or something to her and that was something Angie and Matt weren't keen on doing. They were banking on her eyes not being noticed. No one could really notice the starburst, lacy pattern unless they really knew to look for it.

The walls of the hallway were painted in bright colors and decorated with apples, leaves, and school buses with smiling kids. All the hallmarks of the "Back to School" period of time. There was an alphabet running along one side of the hall and a number line running along the other side, acting in the place of border. From what could be seen in each classroom, there were simple toys spread out along the floor for the kids to play with.

"I'm not sure," Hope answered with a small shrug.

She really didn't know what to think of this strange and different place. It really wasn't anything like the school she had known before. The Xavier School- the only school she knew because she'd grown up behind the school's large walls- was nothing like this place with its bright colors and marble floors. Hope was more use to the fancy décor and designs of her mother's school.

As for the number lines and alphabets on the walls, that too made Hope uneasy. Not as uneasy as her mother, of course, who saw what she thought were glaring differences between what Hope was use to and what she was seeing now.

Her own room at home still bore the fantasy land mural on its walls since the little girl was particularly fond of fairy tales and stories about fantastic worlds. Actually, Hope loved to have such books read to her even though Angelina had a sneaking suspicious that Hope could read them herself. Either way, she and Matt were willing to oblige their daughter and read to her.

As for the toys, Hope had graduated from the simple toys the children were playing with earlier during the summer. She liked her dolls and doll houses and things of that sort just as much as the next little girl but there were still toys that got thrown in that didn't seem to fit the fact a two-year-old was playing with them. Like the microscope Hank had bought her.

"It'll be fun, you'll see," Angie told her daughter, though she knew the reassurance was more for herself than for the little girl holding her hand.

Hope gave her mother one of those long suffering looks little kids seemed to be capable of when they realized they were being talked down to, and commented in a tone that sounded suspiciously like Matt's, "Whatever you say, mommy."

Standing in the doorway of the classroom Hope had been assigned was an older looking woman. She was dressed in a long floral shirt and had a dress shirt on to match. A crocheted vest of maroon was over the shirt and nurse's shoes were on her feet. The woman's hair was a frizzy red halo around her head but her eyes were a kindly green color. She looked a bit harried as if she was tired of working. This was despite the fact the day had only just begun.

It was in front of this woman that Hope and her mother stopped and waited to be noticed. She seemed to checking children in according to a list she was holding in her creased and wrinkled hands. Obviously, Hope had wound up in the classroom lead by one of the more senior teachers, a fact that made Angie very comfortable. She figured, from what she knew about teaching, that the more senior teachers knew how to control a classroom and keep the kids in line.

"The day care's across the street, miss," she said, taking notice of the two figures standing before her.

Angelina tried to swallow whatever anger she was feeling in relation to the woman's snap judgment and corrected, "Thank you but I do believe this is where my daughter and I are supposed to be. My name is Mrs. Angelina D'Amichi and this is my daughter Hope D'Amichi."

She stressed the "Mrs." part of her name just to let the older woman know that she was married and that she was no foolish young woman with a child. Sure she was most likely one of the younger mothers with a child in the room but she had done things all well and proper according to how she'd been raised. She was married now and her daughter had her father's last name. The new baby, too, would have the last name of his or her father and sister.

The red-headed teacher ran a finger down the list and commented, "I'm so sorry, miss, her name is on the list."

"Thank you," Angie almost snapped as she and Hope were ushered into the loud classroom.

Upon entering the classroom, the pair received a bevy of dirty looks from the mother's watching the children in the classroom. They waves of hostility- along with the noise from all the children in the room that bothered Hope's sensitive hearing- threatened to overwhelm Hope's sensitive psychic sensors.

Words and images, most of them snap judgments made about her and her mother, flashed across Hope's mind and, along with the overly noisy classroom, made the little girl pull back. She closed her eyes and her mind as the combination of noises started to hurt her head.

"What's wrong, munchkin?" Angie asked the frightened child and cringing as she used the nickname she really didn't like using for her small daughter.

Sensing the most familiar of minds in the universe, Hope allowed her mother to see and hear what she had gotten from the other people in the room. The thoughts that were hurting her head because they were so loud. The minds of the students in the Xavier school were loud- and they were loud in tone too- but she was use to it. This was something else entirely and she was not use to this in the least.

"It's alright, bella," Angie assured Hope, switching over to Matt's more appropriate nickname for their little girl, "They don't understand, that's all. It's only words and images. You're okay."

"They hurt me," Hope, pitifully, told her mother with a frown.

"I know they do but they're only words. You remember what Professor Xavier says…that words can't hurt you unless you let them. Close up your mind and they won't hurt you anymore," Angie told her daughter, blinking back the tears Hope didn't seem to want to shed.

Even with the small amount of mental powers Angelina had, she could feel Hope withdraw into herself. She was locking her own mind away and allowing the background voices to fade into something like a dull, annoying hum.

"You think you can handle this, Hope?" Angie asked when her daughter's eyes feel on her once again looking a little less scared.

Giving her mother what she thought was a brave smile and allowing the overly friendly part of her personality- another little side effect of her Williams Syndrome- to come to the fore, Hope nodded her head.

She could do this….hands down.