A/N: Hello everyone! It's been a really long time since I updated this story and that's because Life threw some curveballs at me. The fact is I am back for now and I hope you all are still interested in this story. Thanks to the reviewers of before!

OOOOOOOOO

"And this is the hall where the girls of the school sleep," Addison said, pointing at the mentioned hall. "The hall across from here, marks the hall for the boys. As far as Scott knows, no one mixes in the rooms for any reason other than help with homework." The blonde threw her hair over her shoulder. "The rooms closer to the middle are the ones that the adults sleep in. Scott and Jean live in the women's hall with Storm as a neighbor. Logan, the redneck ninja, lives closer to the male hall."

"Where do you live?" Scarlet asked, hugging her arms tightly across her chest.

"Aw! You want your big sis to be close to you, don't you?" Addison reached for the new resident, but Scarlet dodged her arms. "Don't you worry, Maria! Big Sis will always be close by to help make you feel comfortable here!"

"Actually, I was just asking because I want to be roomed as far away from you as possible," Scarlet told her, heading farther down the hall. "So I don't have to force a relationship with you after all these years without one."

Scarlet could feel the happiness drain from her sister as the blonde followed her. "Maria, that's not fair," Addison said, falling into step with the girl. "I had to leave. I thought that Dad would have eased up on you if I was gone. It's not like I didn't try to reach out to you over these past few years. You -"

"I left home because of the abuse," Scarlet said bitterly. "You left years before then and promised to call me once you found a place that would be safe for both of us. Do you realize how long I waited by the phone, hoping that you'd call me? I left and you made no effort to try to find out where I went, even though you now had help."

"Maria, no one knew where you went. How could I contact you if I didn't know where you went?"

"Lame excuse, Sis. Did you think I had forgotten that Chuck has that wonderful machine that can find anyone when a telepath is in the driver's seat?" Scarlet glared at her sister. "You could have used that if you had really wanted to bring me to somewhere safe, but you didn't. And do you know why? Because you didn't want to have your uncontrollable little sister come here and ruin the perfect little life that you had laid out for yourself with your new friends and bird-brained lover."

"Maria! That's not true!"

The lights flickered overhead and some odd pieces of furniture trembled. Scarlet closed her eyes with a grimace and tried to rein in the powers she had very little control over. There were so many new powers in the rooms around her, so many that her body was absorbing and trying to sort into logical places. Everything in her was screaming at her to run and keep running until the mansion and all of the mutants in the world were far behind her.

I made a promise to Chuck, Scarlet reminded herself, opening her eyes. And I can't break that promise to him…not after what he's done.

"Maria," Addison said, reaching out to place a hand on her little sister's arm. "The past is in the past. All that matters now is that you're here and that you're going to get the help you need. We can be a family again. Just me and you. I swear I won't leave you again."

Scarlet rolled her eyes and jerked her arm away from Addison. "Don't make promises that you can't keep, Aqua. That's how trust is ruined and wars started." She turned and started down the hall where the female population was apparently living in. "Is it possible for me to get a single room? I'm not the socializing type."

"That's obvious," Addison muttered under her breath before reaching out and grabbing a woman with mocha colored skin by the arm. "Storm, is there a single room open for my sister? She…doesn't work well with others."

The woman with white hair turned and looked at the pair of sisters. "I don't think there are any single rooms left…There's an opening in Kitty, Rogue, and Jubilee's room though. Will that work for now?" She looked almost apologetic. "A couple of the girls are graduating soon, so you'll have an empty room in a few months."

Scarlet rolled her eyes. "Like that's really soon," she muttered under her breath.

A group of children ran past, laughing and using their powers in a playful manner. Scarlet pressed herself back against the wall, her face screwed up in pain as new powers brushed against her body and sank in like they had fangs. The lights flickered overhead again and her breath caught in her chest as she tried to fight the powers back. Her body trembled and her teeth dug into her bottom lip to the point that she tasted blood.

Freedom…freedom…

No! Scarlet twisted away from her sister's hand when Addison reached out to her.

"Maria, are you okay?" Addison asked.

"I'm fine!" Scarlet ground out between her teeth, licking the blood from her lip. "Can we just get to the room? I need to…Just take me there, okay?"

Addison glanced at Storm, not looking like she believed a word that Scarlet had said. The older woman shrugged her shoulders and started back off to do whatever she had been planning on doing. Addison turned to her sister and gestured for her to follow her down the hall. Pushing herself away from the wall, Scarlet followed after her and gave herself a mental warning to stop digging her fingernails into the palms of her hands.

More powers reached out to her as she walked down the hall behind her sister and sank into her body as she moved. She was relieved that some were easily absorbed and relocated into parts of her that already had the power or something similar. That took away from some of the pain that always came from being exposed to new powers. It wasn't much, but it was enough to keep her from having a complete meltdown.

Mental note to find somewhere to curl up in a ball and let the process go through with itself, she thought, watching her sister knock on a door. And tell no one where I'm going or there will be an unwanted audience…

Not waiting for someone to answer, Addison opened the door and stepped inside. Three teenage girls were sitting on a bed, watching something on a computer when the sisters stepped into the room. Scarlet's eyes roamed over them and then turned towards her sister as the blonde cleared her throat.

"Rogue, Kitty, Jubilee," she said to the girls. "This is my little sister, Maria –"

"Scarlet," Scarlet corrected through her teeth.

Addison ignored her and gestured at the three girls. "Maria, these beautiful people are Rogue, Kitty, and Jubilee. They're going to be your roommates until another room opens up."

Scarlet glanced over the three girls and nodded. Her eyes strayed on Rogue a bit longer, her brow furrowing as she felt the girl's power. "You're a copy mutant," she commented, shifting her bag.

Rogue looked startled. "I am…How did you know?" her southern accent coming through her words and it was almost refreshing after the northern accents that Scarlet had been exposed to.

"Severe copy mutant right here," Scarlet said, pointing at herself. "I'm not safe around any power – they all come flooding in and they stay forever…" Her eyes turned away from the girls and found the bed that was vacant next to the window. "Some people aren't as lucky as you, Rogue…"

"Well, I -" Rogue began, but Addison cut across her.

"Maria," she said, watching Scarlet. "Do you need to go anywhere? Shopping for supplies and necessities? Or how about a tour and meet-n-greet? I'm sure that -"

"No," Scarlet said, dropping her bag on the bed. "I don't need to go shopping and I don't do meet-n-greet sessions. Just forget it, Aqua, and let me be. Overcompensating for years missed in my life won't help you get anywhere with me. So stop trying and get back to your life. I can handle mine."

Addison made a small sound of impatience. "Maria –"

"Go away, Aqua. I'm sure you'll find out when I need something." Scarlet turned her head slightly to look at her sister. "Go hang out with your birdbrained hubby and make babies. Leave me alone. I don't need you. Okay?"

The three other girls in the room glanced between the sisters in silence. Addison made another noise, flipped her platinum blonde hair over her shoulder, and walked away. No one except for Scarlet moved until the door was closed behind her. She pulled out an impossible number of clothes from her small backpack and set them on her bed. Jubilee let out a small, low whistle, filling the silence for a moment.

"That's new," she commented, sitting back down on her bed. "No one ever snaps at Miss Bubbly. She's too nice…"

"Sisters can find faults in anything," Scarlet muttered with a frown, not turning to acknowledge them as her eyes pulsed with a dark light that she had to quickly combat. "And people like her are too happy to exist in the world – it's so wrong." She pulled a laptop from the bag and set it aside. "Besides, I have a lot of pent up anger built up around her, so she's going to have to deal with hate."

"But shouldn't you be happy to see your sister after such a long time?" Kitty asked, watching her.

Scarlet blew her breath out in a scoffing sigh, pulling a large book from the bag and reaching further into the bag. "No. She abandoned me when she got the chance. Why should I miss her or want to see her again?" She glanced at the three teens in the room. "Can you blame me for wanting to hate her after all that she's done or didn't do?"

The three teens shook their heads and watched her pull more stuff from the bag. After a few seconds, Jubilee raised her hand.

"Okay, I'll be the brave one," she said with a small, uncertain smile. "How the hell are you fitting all of that in your bag?"

"All of what?" Scarlet glanced at the pile of things on her new bed.

"Seriously? That must be a Mary-Poppins type bag or something," Kitty said, moving closer. "May I?"

Scarlet handed the bag over to Kitty and sat on the bed, watching her with a look of amusement. "It's not a Mary-Poppins bag," she told them.

Kitty opened the bag and stuck her arm down in it. It didn't go down further than her elbow and the people in the room could see the impression of her fingers at the bottom of the bag. She pulled her arm out and then thrust it back in again. A confused look spread across her fair features and Scarlet laughed.

"What kind of sorcery are you pulling?" Jubilee asked, staring wide-eyed at the bag. "There ain't no way that all that stuff fit in there. Spill your secret."

"The bag isn't magical," Scarlet began. "It definitely isn't Mary-Poppins' bag because I hate that movie….Everything in it was shrunk to fit in there. When I pulled them out, they returned to their normal size." She looked away from the girls and scratched at her arm. "It makes it a lot easier to take all my stuff whenever I have to split."

"You split a lot?" Rogue asked as Kitty tossed the bag onto Scarlet's bed.

"You could say that," Scarlet answered vaguely. She leaned back on the bed and looked at her new roommates. "So, who's off limits when it comes to flirting? I wouldn't want to flirt with someone's man…"

The other three girls smiled at each other and dove into an animated conversation. Scarlet feigned interest with skill, glad that the conversation was off of her past for now.

OOOOOOOOO

"That kid over there, what does he do?" Kitty asked as the girls wandered around the mansion's big lawn, pointing at some random kid.

Scarlet glanced over at the boy and her brow furrowed for a moment. "Blinks his eyes and something electronic turns on or changes channels on the television." She allowed the hint of a smile to touch her lips. "Great power for him too, considering the nerd factor he's glowing with."

Jubilee frowned and put her hands on her hips. "You gotta problem with nerds, Scarlet?"

"No, I'm a nerd at heart. There hasn't been a Doctor Who episode that I haven't watched religiously seven times…As long as people don't annoy me; I don't hate their cliques too much."

"Heads up!" someone called out.

The three girls turned with small cries of alarm as something came flying through the air towards them. Scarlet lifted her hand and caught the object a mere inch away from her face. She frowned as the ball collapsed into her hand with a small sound of air whooshing towards freedom.

"There goes another one," someone complained, skidding to a halt next to the girls. He turned his gaze towards a giant man. "That makes ten this year, right Pete?"

The tall giant shrugged his shoulders, remaining silent. A boy with flame-dyed hair came over too and smirked at the four girls. In his hand was a zippo that he continued to fiddle with.

"Sorry about your ball," Scarlet said, turning the deflated piece of leather over in her hands. "Might have caught it too hard…"

"It's not a problem, girl," the flame-haired boy said with an upraised eyebrow. "We've got more of those where that one came from."

"Uh-huh." Scarlet's eyes turned towards the other three girls. "Want me to play the guessing game again?"

"You might as well," Rogue answered, tugging at her gloves.

Scarlet straightened her spine and looked at the three teenage boys in front of her. "Bobby," she said, pointing at the first guy. "Ice powers…Piotr, super strong metal guy. And this guy is John, pyromaniac and ultimate dweeb material."

Bobby laughed and snaked an arm around Rogue's waist while Kitty jumped onto Pete's back. Scarlet deliberately kept her gaze averted from the pairing couples. Her heart ached, but she didn't want them to know that.

"She's got you pegged down, John," Bobby said with a broad grin. "And she doesn't even know you."

John's smirk slipped a little. "Shut it." He turned his eyes onto Scarlet once more. "I'll forgive your misplaced comment if you tell me who you are."

"I don't need your forgiveness and it wasn't misplaced. You are a dweeb among other things, but I'm going to be polite considering the present company." Scarlet poked the football again, trying to rein in her body's reaction to the powers around her. "My name is Scarlet and that's as intimate as you're ever going to get with me."

Her body was trying to shake a little, but she knew she couldn't let them see the weakness. Not when she knew that there were people among them that she could never trust.

"Forever is a long time," John commented, coming closer.

"Back off!" Scarlet ordered, holding her hand up and a strong wind blew him back several feet. "Touch me and you'll lose your favorite hand, Sparky." She threw the ball up into the air and it instantly mended, filling up to the proper inflation level. The ball landed in her hand and she thrust it into the hands of the giant. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm going to go off and explore this place on my own. I'll catch you girls later, okay?"

The girls nodded, looking startled. John glowered after her.

"You don't want to make an enemy out of me, Scarlet!" he called after her retreating back.

No Sparky, it's me you don't want to make an enemy out of…

Scarlet bit her lip and hurried away from the main body of the school, feeling eyes on her at every angle. God help me keep this under control. Please, please, please!

Finding herself a semi-private spot next to an old fountain full of green algae, Scarlet sat down on the lip of the fountain and buried her face in her hands. She bit harder on her lip to keep herself from screaming as the newest bunch of powers flooded her system, looking for nooks to burrow into. Her body shook and she could hear the water behind her ripple with the power that she couldn't completely control.

Damn!

Scarlet took several deep breaths and chanted "calm down" over and over in her mind until the worst of the episode had subsided.

I can do this. I can do this.

Her cellphone vibrated against her hip, returning her to the present. Slowly, she reached into her pocket and pulled the device out. A reminder scrolled across the screen with large letters. Counting on her fingers, she made sure that the reminder wasn't wrong. It never was wrong.

Pressing a button to tell the reminder to go away, Scarlet stood up with a small noise of pain. "I guess it's time to find the local flower shop…"

OOOOOOOOO

A/N: Ooh! Mysterious cliff-hanger. I admit that the last scene of this update was a bit off, but it had to go here. I cannot and won't guarantee that there will another update for a while. All I can say is that I will try to work on this story. Please read and review responsibly and let me know what you think! -Scarlet