Sorry about the wait. I moved to Tokyo with my family, and getting used to the schools here was really hard. I read all of your reviews and decided to re work the whole thing so if you have read it already please do so again.

Hopefully this will read better than it did the first go round 

Disclaimer: I don't own the X-men but I just might own Rose ya never know

Chapter one

I had learned long ago that life isn't perfect. As a mutant I've had to live all of my life in seclusion, not letting any one see what I am behind closed doors. This however was my chance to wipe the slate clean and start all over again. It was a perfect spring day and I was standing out side of a large stately mansion in upstate New York. The mansion was used as a school for people like me where we could live in peace without having to worry about the outside world. What I saw through the large Iron Gate seemed to contradict everything I had heard about the institute. Glass was strung all over the front walkway and there were groups of people repairing broken windows and walls covered in what looked like bullet holes. I was starting to turn around and leave when a short athletic man with weird hair called out to me

"Hey bub, you must be the new recruit Xavier was waiting for."

"Ye-yeah I was supposed to meet with him today" I said almost half-heartedly

"Well come on in he's waiting for you inside" the man had a distinctive Canadian accent with just enough brass to make you think twice before disobeying him.

The doors to the gate opened and the man put one of his large powerful hands on my shoulder and lead me into the mansion.

When we stepped inside I was overtaken by how grandiose the interior was. The man that I had been following led me a short ways along a wooden paneled hallway into a large roomy office occupied by an older balding man in a wheelchair.

As I came in he turned to greet me. "I hope your trip here was pleasant."

I answered him with a half thought "yeah", while examining all of the books and fixtures in his office.

"This office is amazing," I said while still consumed by my new environment

"Welcome to my home I must apologize for the mess out side"

"It looks like a war zone out there" referring to the debris I had passed earlier

"Everything should be in order by morning" he said while pulling out some sort of map of the school. " This should help you to get around."

"What exactly did you want me for"?

"I read your transcript file from Manchester university." pointing to a folder on his desk. "We have been in need of a good ancient history teacher for some time, all of your professors seemed to think very highly of you"

"Yeah well I always thought the best way for people to keep from finding out about my mutation was to bury myself in a book."

"Considering that you graduated from prep school and went to university at the age of 14 I would say that your approach was a successful one yet I would venture to guess that you have been quite lonely."

"As open as England seems to be to all walks of life no one is perfect" I tried to hide the tears as I recalled the first time I had shown signs of being a mutant.

Xavier leaned over and patted me on the back. "Its alright I'm not asking you to tell me your whole life's story," he continued to console me as he led me out of his office and back into the main entrance. "I have decided to room you with one of our recent graduates her name is rogue, the two of you are close to the same age. She will be able to help you get acquainted with the mansion."

I headed up to where Xavier had said that my room was located. When I got there I stood outside the door adjusting my hair and tried to erase any sign of tears from my face before opening the door to face my new roommate.

As I walked in to the room I came face to face to my new roommate she was about my same height and build with a wicked white streak in her hair. She looked like she had been waiting for me for a long time because once she saw me she released all of that pent up energy at me at once. Taking my bags and asking me everything from my name to my favorite ice cream all in one breathe. Once she had finished she seemed exhausted from the effort and crashed on a bed that was made in the corner. Seeing a bed opposite of hers I sat my stuff down and began to unpack.

"How would ya like a first class tour of the mansion once ya get unpacked." my roommate had seemed to regain her energy.

"That would be great" I was practically inside my bag trying to make sure I got all of the nick-knacks out before unpacking the cloths.

After I had unpacked all of my cloths I looked at them unsatisfied with what I had brought with me. "I don't think these are going to cut It." rogue had now joined me as I was examining what I had brought. "I was on a dig in north Africa when Xavier contacted me." I indicated the miss mash of olive and tan colored shirts and shorts spread out on the bed.

"I guess we will just have to go shopping' then huh shuga" she started to gleam at the possibility of hitting the mall I had to admit that the idea of going shopping helped lighten up my mood.

"I haven't been shopping sense I left England, it should be fun"

The revelation seemed to turn rogues joy of shopping into sheer anticipation.

"Well go first thing in the morning, we don't teach classes on Saturday so we should have the whole day to ourselves." rogue seemed to calm down a bit, however the anticipation was still very evident.

"How about that tour now" rogue walked to the door and ushered me out. As we walked she explained that we were located in the adult wing just off of the girl's dorms. There was a lounge located in between the two adult wings that helped to separate the girls and guys dorms while allowing the adults to remain connected to each other. We walked out of the dormitory and passed the front entrance. A small group lead by the man that had shown me in was putting the finishing touches on the windows. Rouge lead me into the cafeteria were a small group of students seemed to be trying to study while eating dinner. From there we cut through the student lounge headed to the classrooms. When rouge showed me the room where I was going to teach I was taken back by how much the room looked like the various college classes I had taken. There was an assortment of maps and artifacts cluttered around the room.

"This is amazing, I think I'm going to love being here" behind me rogue began to giggle

"Dork much, shuga"

It took me a minute to register what she was saying. When it hit I slapped her playfully on the shoulder and tried to do my worst 'shuga'.

After reliving childhood for a second we both headed back towards the main hall were all of the teachers were supposed to meet with Xavier so he could formally introduce me.

I found my self-standing in Xavier's office about ten minutes later. I had been standing speechless for a few minuets now and I could tell that Xavier was starting to wonder if I was going to be all right.

"Um well hi I guess, I've never been big on the whole large group thing so I may sound like a wreak. Well my name is Rose, Rose-Marie Darkholme.

Chapter two

"My name is rose" I tried to swallow the knot in my stomach. "Rose-Marie Darkholme." At that I began getting odd looks from every one in the room.

Trying not to lose my momentum I kept going. "I 'm not sure exactly were I was born but I have spent the last 10 years living with foster parents in England. My mum says that I had some sort of traumatic experience when is was little, that's why I cant remember anything"

The looks on their faces turned sad and a general feeling of sorrow and pity filled the room.

"I graduated from prep school when I was fourteen then went on to got my first Baccalaureate degree at sixteen majoring in world history with a concentration in ancient lore and a minor in anthropology. After graduation I began doing masters work in crusade mythology receiving my first doctorial and PhD. I had been on a dig of a roman knights tomb in north Africa when I was contacted by Professor Xavier."

Every one in the room seemed dumb funded. Xavier spoke up " how about you share your mutation with every one" waiting for me to respond.

"Ok, well, I'm a polymorph." Every one looked confused until a young girl with brown hair in the back spoke up and asked me if I was anything like the polymorphs in dungeons and dragons. Not sure about what she was talking about I tried to explain "a polymorph is similar to a shape shifter but instead for just moving around their mass to look like something else, a polymorph changes the make up of their cells to actually become that person down to the last micron."

"Can you obtain another mutants powers too?" Rogue had chimed in.

" Yes I can, in order to properly polymorph some one or thing I have to make physical contact. Other wise I just have to guess. Guessing however can be quite ugly."

"How long can you keep it up"? Again this one came from rogue.

"Indefinitely I think, after making contact I should be able to call back that form whenever I want." I looked around the room trying to think of a way to demonstrate when I noticed a tall brooding fellow with weird glasses over his eyes. " What is your mutation" looking his direction.

"Optic blasts" he looked like he was trying to figure out were I was going with this

'Are they like lasers or-"

"Concussive"

"Ok let me have your hand" I walked over and he looked at the professor questioningly.

"Its alright Scott let her do it" Scott turned to me and lifted his hand.

Taking his hand I tried to concentrate on it feeling up the synapses in the nerves and traveling up to his cerebral cortex in order to map out his body structure and physique. Letting go of his hand I concentrated on moving my nervous system to match his and let instinct take care of the rest. As my body began to alter my legs grew longer and thicker my chest began to flatten out and I began to grow large muscles on my stomach and abs. My arms grew a few inches and sprouted huge biceps. Lastly my head shifted to allow for a longer face as my hair shrank and emulated his own. As I opened my eyes I found that everything seemed to have a reddish glow to it.

"Are you immune to these optic blasts of yours" Scott nodded and I let out a long stream of energy right at his chest. Letting up on the blast I quickly changed back and sat down. "Now that I have imprinted him I should be able to change into his form when ever I want. I've also been toying around with the idea of picking out certain traits. Which would allow me to use his optic blasts with out having to change completely"

With that Xavier explained my schedule for summer classes and adjourned the meeting. As everyone left they came up and introduced themselves, first there was Scott who I had just imprinted. The man whom I had met earlier that day was named Logan, after that I met Ororo, Kurt, Piotr and Kitty. I turned to follow Rogue back to the room but she had already left.

Waking up the next morning I literally jumped out of bed. I had never been to the states before much less one the malls and was absolutely giddy over the idea. Rogue wasn't in the room so I ran down stairs to find her.

When I got down stairs I found a large hairy catlike man with blue fur standing behind the stove with glasses on and a white apron that said "Smile I'm Your Doctor."

Without missing a beat he turned and gave me a huge smile "hello you must be the new history professor"

Not sure how to respond, "my name is Rose" offering him my hand

Taking off an oven mitt he grabbed my hand and shook it "my name is Henry"

He had the most adorable face accented by his wire rim glasses

"I don't remember seeing you at the faculty meeting last night" I was pretty sure I would have noticed him

"I was out last night on call" he returned to his eggs and started to flip them

"Your a doctor"? I had turned my attention to an open box of applejacks on the counter and fixed my self a bowl.

"That I am, I have a few patients in the area that I see every few months"

"That's nice, one of the things I was worried about when I came here was medical care."

"Really, why is that" he turned from his eggs to see me stuffing a large spoonful of applejacks into my mouth.

"In England we have free health care for all students and families."

"Well we take care of our own here, unfortunately I can't say the same for the rest of the country." He returned to his eggs and flipped them onto a plate.

"So were is every one this morning?"

"I think there was bomb scare in the city and they all went to take care of it" he walked over and sat down next to me

"So why didn't you go with them?"

"Someone had to be here for the students" between egg bites

"So Xavier went with them"

"That he did" he got up and went over to the refrigerator "do you want anything?"

"Orange juice would be nice" he came back with a glass of orange juice and a glass of milk and sat them down on the table.

"I was going to work on my lesson plans today but I couldn't find a list of New York's academic requirements"

"The professor should be able to give you that once he returns" he had finished his eggs and was rinsing off his plate. " Do you do any fencing?" he turned to see me get up and walk over and put my bowl and spoon in the sink.

"I love fencing" with that he smiled

"Would you like to join me in the exercise room."

"That would be great" we left the room and Henry showed me the way to the adults exercise room.

The room looked like a small gym with bar bells on one wall and training mats all over the floor with different kinds of markings for different types of sparing.

"This is amazing" I was in shock "I was a champion back at college"

Henry walked over to a rack with foils on it, selecting two he walked over to a matt and handed one to me.

"I hope you don't mind if we go without pads, I can get a little hot in them"

"No problem, while were at it how about we go without tips" he nodded and we both took off the round tips covering the point of the swords.

"On Guard!" Henry shouted as he lunged towards me.

"Nice try!" I blocked his thrust and jumped away.

Slashing up he parried and forced away my sword slicing my left thigh.

"Not bad" I said while lunging forward stopping just short of his parry and side stepping him to slice at his arm.

"Not going to work," he said while twirling around and blocking my foil.

He lunged forward again but this time he tumbled around me and sliced my back

"Ah! Bloody hell!" I regained my composure and spun around to face him.

In a rage I lunged and made a swath across his chest

Flying backwards in a blur of bloodstained fur. He grabbed his chest and charged at me.

Evading his charge I kicked the back of his leg forcing him to the ground.

Pointing my foil at his throat "give up?"

"I give" leaning down I grabbed his hand and helped him up kissing him on the cheek.

"Now what was that for?" raising a blue eyebrow

"What can I say? You're a cutie, fuzz ball." Grinning I lead him over to a bench to put a towel over his chest until we could get to the infirmary.

Once in the infirmary we put gauze on his wound and he began looking at my cuts.

"Those are nothing really" I said. he looked up at me with a dissatisfied look

"I think not" he cleaned my wounds and put some gauze over them

"Ah, that stings" I wrenched in pain as he tightened the gauze

"Don't be such a baby" he said

"O really" I grabbed his arm and forced him against the wall and drove my mouth into his

Pushing me away he exclaimed, "what are you doing"?

"Just shut up, and kiss me"

Chapter Three

"That smells delicious, what do you call that" Henry and I had returned to the kitchen were he was preparing some sort of family recipe.

"Bratwurst and sweet sauerkraut" he smiled and returned to his sauce pan

"um, I love German food, my mum used to say that I could eat nothing but German food and be perfectly happy" I got up from the table and wrapped my arm around Henry's waist letting the sauerkraut overwhelm my senses.

"Your not just saying that to make me feel good are you?" he looked up from the pot and his big catlike eyes looked right into mine.

"Never, and don't look at me like that or we wont get anything done." I leaned into his neck and let my self get lost in the warm comfort of his soft blue fur.

I hadn't heard a peep out of the students all day. Before coming to the kitchen Henry and I did a patrol of the campus running a head count of all the students. To my surprise they were all counted for and under perfect behavior, well as perfect as teenagers go, seeing no harm in leaving them be we had gone to the kitchen for lunch.

"Do you make this often?" the smell was intoxicating

"Unfortunately not, Logan and Kurt seem to like it but they haven't been here for long so until their arrival I couldn't really indulge myself." he kept stirring the kraut apparently waiting for it to do something. "Ah, perfect, just the right odder" he turned and smiled heading to the bread cabinet pulling out a couple for hard rolls and returning to his concoction. He took a ladle and dumped the kraut onto the rolls. "I have to let the kraut ferment for three months to get it to the right acidity."

"That's a long time to wait to eat something" my mouth was watering as he brought the rolls over to the table.

"Well I had started to ferment these for the fourth of July in a couple of weeks. And today seemed like a good day to see if it was ready to put in jars" he sat down and started eat his roll when Logan walked into the room.

"Hey bub, ya save me any?" Logan had already walked over to the pot before Henry could answer. "Nope oh well I guess I'll have to wait a few weeks"

"Is the rest of the team back yet?" Henry's attention began to shift "is anyone hurt?"

"No bub, nothing major it was mostly red tape" Logan left the kitchen headed towards his room.

"What a strange man" I said while taking a bite from the roll. "This is delicious" I smiled at Henry and kissed him on the cheek.

"Henry have you gone and made more of your damn sau'krout again it was bad enough knowing that you were going to make it for the forth but now you make us suffer three weeks early too." Rogue walked into the kitchen and grabbed a bottle of water. "Oh, hi Rose didn't know you were in here, you like that god awful stuff?"

"Not really" I joked and looked at Henry with a mischievous grin and burst out into laughter at look on Henry's face. "I'm kidding Henry I love it" I leaned over and purred into his ear and kissed his cheek.

"Wow are you guys like dating or what cause you kind of just met right" I nodded and smiled.

"Yeah it was love at first blood" Rogue stopped dead in her tracks and looked right at me like she hadn't heard something right "I'll tell you the whole story at the mall over a latte." I kissed Henry on the cheek and thanked him for the sauerkraut.

Rogue and I hadn't even gotten off campus before she started egging me for details.

"So how did you and Hank happen?"

"Hank?"

"That's what we all call him"

"Strange, anyway I couldn't find you this morning so I figured I would work on my lesson plans over breakfast, so anyway I ran into Henry making eggs, and I'm like oh my god he is gorgeous, I try not to let on while somehow getting myself into a fencing match with him, without pads or plugs on the foils no less, so one thing leads to another and were both sliced up all over the place" using my cuts and scrapes as examples. "I totally kicked his butt, and when I bent over to help him up I kissed him on his cheek"

"Hold on a minute you just kissed him out of the blue"

"Yeah I don't know were it came from, well I do but at the time I wasn't even thinking. Then we went to the infirmary to clean our cuts I just totally lost it and started to make out with him."

"That so does not sound like our Hank." she looked over at me giggling. "So what did you have to do to get Hank to go along with It."?

"Oh it wasn't easy, but it didn't take long for him to melt." I couldn't help but giggle at the image of Henry trying to stop me.

We both laughed all the way to the mall.

By the time we had made it to the mall we had finally got our selves under control.

"You know what's really strange about the whole thing is I have never been that forward before." we had gotten out of Rogues SRT and had started to walk into the mall

"Sounds like Hank was just what you needed."

"You think so."

"Absolutely."

The mall was like a smorgasbord. I had never seen so many cloths in one place before.

"This is amazing"

"This is nothin' shuga. Lets go"

We made our way to the food court where we bought lattes and scones. After an hour of wondering around the mall Rouge had finally found the store she wanted. The store looked like a mirror of Rouges closet. After picking up some jeans and peasant tops. We headed to get some sandals and some leather slip-ons. On our way to a swim suit shop the ground began to rumble and the people around us began running and screaming rouge and I turned around to see a tall brown haired boy wearing a flannel t-shirt and torn jeans followed by a short wiry haired boy flicking a lighter.

"John what are you doing here." Rogue insisted.

"Do you know these people Rogue" rogue seemed to be starring down the boy with the lighter.

"Yeah, john used to go to Xavier's before joining the brotherhood, as for his dumb looking friend I have no idea."

"You'll have to fill me in on the brotherhood later, as for the tall dumb looking guy some one needs to tell him that grunge is out." rouge laughed at that but the tall kid just seamed to get annoyed

"I can hear you ya know."

"I know you can hear me Einstein." he started to get really mad and the ground began to shake again. "Alright I vote we leave, the last thing the school needs is its teachers showing up on the front page of the New York Times."

"I agree, but john wont leave without a fight, some sort of macho thing"

"Then we better work quick and put them down fast."

"Agreed, so what's the plan." she looked over at me waiting for me to answer.

"I'm not sure, what are your powers?"

"Similar to yours just no shape-shifting, and I cant really control it."

"Oh all right, well lets see." before I could think john had to get his two bits in.

"She is useless isn't she." that just made both of use mad

Without waiting for a plan to form. I began to shift into Scott's body. It only took a second for me to change. John and his buddy seemed to get scared and back up. Until the idiot in flannel decided I was just some illusion and charged at me. I let a wave of concussive force engulf him. Knocking him back 15 feet. And slammed him down hard on the floor.

"That's enough!" a loud clear feminine voice came from behind the boys where a tall blue skinned woman was standing taking in the ordeal. "Lets go and let these lady's go about their day" the tall boy stood up and limp over to her while John slowly turned and ran after them.

Turning to Rouge "what on earth was that all about, and who was she."

"They were a bunch of idiots that don't know when there out classed, she on the other hand is Raven Darkholme."