Jean awoke from her slumber that night. Cyclops broke down and held her in his arms. All she could say was "Scott." She didn't remember anything past the water beginning to crash in on her. Thus, during the next few weeks, the Professor would be working with her, trying to help her unlock what happened. They would try a series of meditations and other exercises before the Professor would attempt reading her mind. Slowly, bits and pieces were revealed. And finally they knew- she was now the Phoenix, almost an entirely separate entity from Jean herself. This 'Phoenix' power seemed to have a mind of its own, though it would cooperate with Jean most of the time. It's a phenomenon much more complex and hard to explain or understand. However, Jean was still not her normal self yet. Using her powers now drained enormous amounts of energy from her and the coming and going of Phoenix made her noxious and dizzy. It would take several more weeks of vigorous training and meditation sessions with the Professor before Jean was nearly her old self again.

And over the course of these next several weeks, Ange's small crush slowly grew. One can become attracted to someone by looking at a picture for a mere few seconds. So with weeks, a small, healthy crush can form. He was strong, handsome, smart- though his anger often clouded his vision and he couldn't think clearly, but even then she found his temper attractive. She kept this crush in check, already and naturally fearing rejection. Though a few other factors helped to keep it in check as well, such as the fact that Wolverine still loved Jean, though he had given up hope- as all had; and the fact that he wasn't comfortable with her yet, didn't help either. His feelings had become quite neutral towards her in all ways, though there was still a tendency for distrust.

Ange's nickname began to change too. Wolverine continued to refer to her as Nanny, making more and more recent references to it, and starting to address her by it. Storm joked with him that he seemed to have become fond of the name, and he argued that it was a name that just fit. And the more frequent Wolverine used the name, the more and more the children became used it. Over time, they slowly called her Nanny as well. By the end of this two and half month time period, Ange was now completely Nanny, thought still formally called Angelina by the Professor.

Not all news was good however. Nightmare was becoming as unruly as ever. She refused to stop giving the other kids nightmares, and even gave Nanny a few when she continued to try to show her why you don't do those things.

"Nightmare, listen to me. You shouldn't use your powers like this. You should never use them to hurt others."

"Why not! They hurt me."

"Just because they disagree with you doesn't mean they're hurting you. You can't always get your way."

"You're just like all the rest! You're just a big meanie!"

"Nightmare you need to control your powers and stop using them like this!"

Nightmare went farther then to just give Nanny nightmares of her own, she "tattled" to Storm. Though the Professor and the X-Men understood what was going on, the Professor asked to speak to Nanny in his office.

"I understand Angelina that Nightmare has not been behaving, but in cases such as these, you need to let one of us handle it. You are right, but it doesn't have the same effect when you don't have powers of your own. The kids may start to think you're judging them, asking them to keep their powers locked up. That is taking your words out of context and exaggerating them, I know, but that is what children do."

Nanny left his office, angry, depressed, but understanding. She understood where the Professor was coming from, but she didn't agree with him. It really wasn't so much an issue of Nightmare's power. It would be the same thing if two non-mutant children were fighting and one hit the other because they didn't agree.

"But we're not talking about two non-mutant children," Storm argued. Just about all of the X-Men were in the kitchen at the moment. They had at first tried to cheer Nanny up, told her not to worry about it. But that was only an invitation for Nanny to let out how she felt about it all.

"But don't you see that it's a discipline problem, not really an issue over powers? Should I not be allowed to tell my students not use their powers in my classroom if they're using them to destroy the classroom, just because I don't have powers myself?" She spoke passionately and rapidly as she does when she gets angry and upset, defensive.

"But Nightmare isn't destroying a classroom. Where, as in that situation you just described, you, solely you, have to take care of the situation immediately. But with Nightmare, we're here to handle her."

"You're so hypocritical! You always bark about being discriminated by 'us,'" Nanny's tone grew. "But now we're the ones being discriminated by you!"

"Don't speak to us about discrimination! You can't even compare the two!" Wolverine shouted, slamming his fist on the table.

Nanny clenched her jaw shut, trying to hold back the tears. Everyone was quiet and they all looked at their shoes or stared into their plates. Wolverine huffed quietly. Nanny left before a river of tears flooded her face. She wanted to go outside and sit on the back porch- be alone in the nice outdoors on a nice clear night, but that left too much room for someone to come outside and "try to calm her down." She didn't want their sympathy or their anger. She was already mad herself enough. She went to her room as calmly as she could, trying not to let her lips quiver. She lay on her bed, and the tears slowly rolled down her cheeks and nose, one by one. She wanted to ball her eyes out, but someone would hear. Perhaps she had over reacted, but she did sincerely feel discriminated against. Maybe not to the degree that they had been, but it was the same still.

She hadn't gotten a lot of sleep lately, thanks to Nightmare, which only added to her irritability and depression- her readiness to cry. The kids in her class had started to get out of control again and the boys in her fourth hour class continued to talk back. She took it personally. Something simply personal, that had always been there, now added to all of her stress and depression as well: some mornings she woke up to face herself in the mirror, and all that stared back at her was an ugly face.

She tried to let go of the issue so that at least she could get some sleep, but her mind raced from one depressing issue to the next, and then started all over again. Her teary eyes finally fell asleep late in the night.

….

"I'm going to start taking points off if you don't clean up your messes. You might call me Nanny, but I'm not your mother and I won't clean up after you. And if you guys continue to leave my class a mess, we'll have to stop doing projects like coil pots and throwing pots on the wheel."

"Geez, what put her in such a bad mood?" Precise whispered.

"I guess the Professor and the others are mad at her. She was caught scolding Nightmare for using her powers. Wolverine yelled at her last night."

"I can't believe they're not firing her! I mean, this school is meant to be a place to get away from people like her!"

"The Professor believes in second chances and trying to learn to get along."

"Well, if we can't make them fire her, maybe we could make her leave."

"I dunno ..." Colossus was hesitant about this one. Pranks were one thing. What would they do when art was gone? This was the only class he had an A in, no matter how much he talked backed. She respected him as an artist, but he didn't care.

"Ah, come on. Just a few pranks, like we planned in the beginning. They won't be expecting it now, since she's been here for a while. Hahaha, she won't see it coming either."

The bell rang and the class raced to put away their stuff and grab their bags.

"We'll talk more at lunch."

"I dunno ..."

They hadn't cleaned their tools, or put them away, or cleaned off their tables when they left the room. Nanny hung her head and took down names of those who hadn't cleaned up. Quietly and slowly, a few tears escaping, she cleaned up after everyone. She sat down at her desk and laid her head down on her arms.

"I hated school then. What was I thinking? It's not like I get away from homework as a teacher. Though, I don't have to worry about grades... my own that is. God I'm so tired of grading projects that no one even does right any more! They never listen to the instructions; they do their projects totally wrong and then wonder why they didn't turn out right! And is it so much to ask for them clean up?" She let out a few soft sobs. "It is so much to ask for them to be nice to me?" When she had calmed down, she decided to nip the clean up problem in the butt. It was taking her long enough to move the projects around so that each class had enough space to put them, and then grading sketchbooks and finished projects. She called all of those who hadn't cleaned up into her room during lunch.

"You all have detention tomorrow morning at 6 until school starts. And unless you want another detention, I suggest you clean up after yourselves before you leave my class. You don't leave Storm's classroom a wreck, and you will no longer leave mine like one."

They left her class grumbling and whispering. Nanny sighed; she knew that the issue wasn't going to end here.

"That's it! I don't care if you join in or not Colossus, I'm getting her back for this! I'll make her leave the school. So, are you gonna help me or what?"

"Ya. Who does she think she is, giving me a detention like that?"

"So, what should we do?"

"It has to have a personal touch to it. I mean, it can't just affect her school work."

"Her sketchbook?"

"That's what I was thinking. Water ruins sketchbooks right?"

"Yep, sure will. What if we stacked some books really high, and then put her sketchbook on top. And on top of all of that, we put a bucket of water. She won't be able to get her sketchbook down without getting wet or ruining her sketchbook and the other books! Hahaha, then she'll have to clean it up herself."

They smiled and gave each other high fives.

"Now we need someone who can fly..." They shifted their eyes over to a table of younger boys and grinned mischievously.

Precise had often been seen as Pyro's twin, though not in looks. They had similar attitudes and anger issues. Both had hard home lives growing up and Precise had been beat up on his whole life. Now, with the further development of his powers, he found that he could also alter people's minds to change what they remembered. This came in handy in the way that if someone didn't like him, he could make them forget why. But it took time and lots of concentration, so not particularly handy in the combat. He often over reacted and influenced Colossus to so too.

…..

It was after school the next day when the boys decided to pull their prank. Nanny went to the store for some Tylenol and other medicines. They were running out and Jean's headaches continued. The Professor recognized this as a great opportunity for Nanny to get out, get some fresh air, be alone, and get her mind off of everything. She also grabbed some ice cream and chocolate that she would stash in her bathtub until it was all eaten up.

The bell had just rung when she was putting away the medicines. She headed for her classroom. Before Nanny had a lot of time to realize what that was stacked up on the table, stacked so high it nearly reached the ceiling, Lizie dashed out of the Library, late for the Professor's Physics class. She just barely nicked the table as she rushed by. The books wobbled a bit, and seemed to settle, but seconds later came crashing down. Water spilled all over the carpet, all over the books- which the boys had "borrowed" from the library-, and ruined her sketchbook. She didn't move from mere shock.

When most of the cleaning was done, she sat down at her desk at starred at the books drying under an open window. She had no more tears left to cry, or she would have soaked her sketchbook all over again.

She went to bed early, taking her dinner plate up to her room, her warped sketchbook under her arm. She sat in her bathtub and ate her dinner in her PJ shorts and a Scotland tank top. Again, there were no more tears to be had. She flipped through her sketchbook as she slowly ate. Sketches done in ink were smeared and the image was lost. All of her pencil drawings were now so light you could barely see what was there. And all of the empty pages were wrinkled and discolored. She sighed deeply when as she scanned past some of her favorite, most precious sketches and drawings. She put the sketchbook away and opened up her half melted ice cream.

….

She starred at herself in the mirror the next morning, trying to put her make up on as she whispered to herself. She whispered about how feeling so down over such petty small things was useless and, duh, petty. On the other hand, there wasn't much she could do about how she felt, no matter how petty; feelings are feelings. These two arguments began to eat away at her insides as she tried to paint over her sorrow with mascara, cover up, blush, eye shadow, and eye liner.

"Mmmm, what's for breakfast?"

"Oh hun I'm sorry! You slept in too late; it's all gone."

"Ah." 'What a beautiful addition to my already crappy morning.'

….

The fifth hour bell rang and Storm was busy collecting papers from the kids before they headed out for recess.

"Oh, don't forget to bring the recess equipment back in!"

"Are you going to play with us Wolverine? We're gonna play dodge ball."

"No, not this time. How bout later on kid?" He ruffled the boys hair and the boy ran off to catch up with his friends. Storm and Wolverine remained silent until all of the children were outside.

"How are you doing Wolverine?"

"Ugh, I'm, I'm doing ok. The whole Jean thing ... I still don't know how I feel about it all."

"It shocked us all, but it's good to know you're doing better."

"Mmmm." He paused and glanced out the window at the children playing dodge ball- it did look like a lot of fun. "How is she doing?" He nodded his head in the direction of the art room.

"She won't come out. I've peeked my head in a few times; she either stares out the window, or has her nose shoved in a book." Storm raised her eyebrows and continued. "I heard some of the kids talking about an accident with some water that ruined her sketchbook and a few of the library books."

"I heard about that too, but the version I heard was slightly different." Wolverine walked out of Storm's classroom, headed for the art room. He stood in the door way and scanned over the room. Nanny was sitting in her chair in the same way she curls up on the couch. She had a book in her hand, but she was starring out the window, completely distracted by her own thoughts. He noticed the books sitting under the window to dry- the covers warped and curled and the pages wavy and some smeared. Then he noticed her sketchbook in the trash can by her desk. He wandered over and picked it up, rummaging through the damaged pages. Nanny didn't notice Wolverine's presence, so he quietly replaced the sketchbook back in the trash can and left, shutting the door behind him. She heard the door shut and snapped out of her daze. She turned around carefully and saw no one.