Rain, Rain Go Away

Chapter one- New Beginnings

Disclaimer- I am but a poor rural girl…if I owned X-men I would be living in a big city and not in my shack…and I would not be writing fan fiction, instead I would be writing the real comic books making millions. Marlee however is mine. The point of this is simple. Don't sue me!

I never liked the rain.
The rain always came hand in hand with my sadness. Strange I know, but that's the way that it's always been, ever since the first time I fell off the swing in our front yard. But it was always bad when my parents fought. They always fought over everything.
When I was about nine, my mom left. I wasn't too shocked as she was never home to begin with. She was always on "business" trips with her "business" associates. My dad worked a lot and very hard to make sure we had enough to get by with. Sometimes he had weird hours but he was always there for me when I needed him and that was what mattered.

On my thirteenth birthday, dad dropped me off at Grandma Amelia's house just like he always did. It was kind of a tradition. Every birthday I would go see Gram and dad would pick me up that evening and we'd go do something, just the two of us. He dropped me off as usual, but he didn't come back this time.

That day was the last time I saw my father. So now I'm living with my Grandmother (my mother's, mother- lucky for me she doesn't have the same abandonment issues as the other two…) I miss my dad a lot, but I can't help but almost hate him for just leaving me. With mom, well, she's never been there for me anyway – so it doesn't sting as much. Going back to our little house and having to pack everything up hurt the most, that's what made everything seem so final, but what's done is done.

Three years later

"I'm leaving" I shouted to my grandmother as I quickly walked out of the house.
"Marlee Hyson! You wait just one minute"
I stopped and turned around to see what she wanted, unfortunately I had a pretty good idea of what she was yelling to me about. I looked up and there they were - the most hideous pink and purple winter boots that you could ever see.
"You forgot to wear your boots, honey" Gram said sweetly.
"Grams, there's no snow," I pointed out. She stared at me, failing to see me point. "It's the middle of October" I tried again, there was still no change.
"Better safe then sorry," she said then held the offensive things out to me and in a voice that said there was no changing her mind she said, "Now put them on."
Grumbling all the way up to her I took the boots and put them on under her scrutinizing watch of course. Once satisfied, she turned and went back into our house to watch her daily soap operas. That was when I grabbed my sneakers with a very sly grin and walked down the road.

Once out of the view of the house I took off my ugly boots chucked them in my book bag and put my sneakers back on, and continued, now extremely pleased with myself for my cleverness, on my ten-minute walk to Middleton High School.

As I entered the school yard I got the usual from the students here, glares and rude gestures, mostly because I give them their fair share of dirty looks at least twice a day. If they had already labelled me the heartless freak, why not act like it? But let's save that rant for later.

I met up with my usual, very small group of friends, Amy and Kristy. No, they weren't my only friends, in case you were worried about my psychiatric well-being. They were, however, the only ones I could hang out with all the time. The other ones annoyed the crap out of me if they were around for too long or too often.
"Hey Mar," Amy greeted me.

"What's up" Kristy asked, seeing my dark expression.
"My grandmother tried to make me wear the boots again" I explained to them.
And what did my 'loving' friends do? They burst out into gales of laughter! Honestly, I get no sympathy from them whatsoever. Maybe if I hadn't have laughed at them the time the two of them had creepy stalker guys…
"Aww, you guys are so nice," I shot back sarcastically, "thank you for that total lack of sympathy."
"You have to admit that it's funny."
"More like horrifying."
Before the mock argument could continue, the bell rang and off I went to first class.

The dreaded English class.

Don't get me wrong, I love the class, it's the annoying boorish ox-man that teaches it that I don't like.

'Aww crap, I'm gonna be late,' I think to myself, cursing under my breath. I quickly turned the combination on the lock that kept my locker so nicely shut and cursed it so bad. I never could get the hang of un-locking the blasted things - that's what Kristy was handy for. But good old Kristy didn't want to risk being late for Mr. Hunter's class (I can't blame her…) and left me to undo this thing all by myself. When the lock finally clicked open in defeat, I swung open the locker, opened my book bag and grabbed the boots to shove in there until the end of the day. This was when my bad day got even better, all of my books and binders were covered in mud, thanks to those hideous things my grandmother called footwear!

'GAH!' I cry out in dismay, 'this is just not my day.' I slammed my head against the now closed locker door forcing it to bang rather loudly and echo in the empty hallway.
"Mith Hython, what are you doing in the hall after the bell winged" It was my Vice Principal, Mr. Peters. The poor guy was cursed with a very bad lisp as a child. The rumour is that his brain just got too fried to function properly but meh, what can you do?
"Getting my books Mr. Peters, I'm just leaving now."
"Awwight, keep up that 'A pluth' attitude" he said cheerfully, giving me an over-enthusiastic thumbs-up before he went strutting off down the hall trying to find another poor soul to pester. I glared at the back of his head.
'Annoying man…'
I knock quietly on Mr. Hunter's door.
"Aahh, Marlee, I was wondering where you were. Why, may I ask, are you late"
"Locker trouble" I replied simply.
"That, Marlee is not my problem, you being late however is, and I will not stand for it. Now go take your seat and see me at the beginning of lunch hour to hear what you missed."

I scoffed to myself. I was only ten minutes late, and by the looks of things he hadn't even started the day's lesson yet. I could have been another ten minutes late and still not have missed anything, except maybe hearing a story about his son or his wife.

Sure, you might think it's endearing now, but after you hear them day after day…
I walked over to my seat and sat down beside Pearl, the neediest and one of the most annoying people that I have ever had the fortune of meeting. And so it began… again…
"Hi, Marlee, where were you? You were gone for ten whole minutes and I was wondering where you were, I was such a loner with out you, you're my best friend you know, we still have four more classes and lunch hour together, today's going to be so much fun I can feel it. Does what I'm wearing make me look fat? ………………"
And she went on. And on. And on and then, for good measure, on some more. At this point I had to try really hard to keep myself from banging my head off the desk repeatedly, if only to drown out her whiny voice… 'Only five more hours.' I repeated to myself as she started talking about her 'adorable' boyfriend, again.

Today was not my day.

I could feel the grey clouds form. School was finally over, turns out Mr. Hunter had only talked about his high school days in the ten minutes I was gone. I didn't want to know that this brute of a middle-aged man went streaking back in the day, but I was forced to listen to it and then he lectured me about my muddy assignment! Computer, Science and Math classes went the same as always, slow and boring and incredibly annoying due to the fact I had to sit with Pearl.

Lunch was, as always, my favourite part of the day. I got to see the guys that I can only see at lunch hour mostly because we share the same musical interests. (And I got to ditch Pearl! You have to be really quick, she's got some tracking signal she uses to home in on me if I'm too close…) They were metal heads, so you got to love them, and they always had my kinda music on them.

Therefore, they were my lunchtime buddies. Their 'leader' was very cute, if I must say so, and that gave me even more of a reason to go see them.

I was just walking into my driveway when I noticed something that shouldn't be there.

Gram's house is a typical, elderly woman's house. Small, cozy, slightly falling apart… Everything there gave off the 'olden days' vibe. Sure she owned a car, but even that was a complete clunker she had to get fixed every other week. Gram's house has it's own distinct look; it was easy to see there was something wrong.

A sleek black car was resting in our driveway. Everything about the thing screamed – "I don't belong!"

'What the hell?' I wondered. I tore my gaze from the awesome car and looked to the house. There were four strange adults knocking on my front door, two guys and two girls. One woman had bright red hair while the other's was stark white, one of the guys was wearing sunglasses... the sun wasn't even out so it was weird, the last guy was tall, blonde and, as far as I could tell, was the most normal looking out of the group.

They turned to look at me at the same time, like their heads were all on the same string or something. I was beginning to get a little creeped out.
"Hello, Marlee. We would like to talk to you and your grandmother" the red head stated.
"H...how do you know my name"
The four just smiled at me.

Scratch the 'little' creeped out, I was now full-blown weirded out by the whole situation. I wasn't too worried though. Grandma has a shotgun and a baseball bat hidden in the umbrella stand, if worse come to worse, I could always send them packing.
"Sure, I guess" I opened the front door slowly"Come on in."

A/N- Hiya! This is my second story, the first one was posted but was a complete flop. I owe many thanks to my Beta reader, and neighbour of thirteen years, Satori Blackthorn. I hope you like the first chapter we worked long and hard on it.