Hmmm, this story is getting longer. First it was only going to be 19 chapters now it has grown into 23... lol. Oh well, hope long isn't a problem!
Thanks for the reviews as always. You guys make my day :)
Jack walked with Hank through the corridors of the building. It was a chaotic bustle of activity and there seemed to be an endless stream of people running around.
"You'd think they'd be better organised," Hank said with a low chuckle as someone bumped past him.
Jack merely took all the chaos in her stride and followed him until they came to a door.
"Ah yes, here we are, office 42b," Hank said, "Now, you just slide that card you were given earlier through this device and it should grant you access."
Jack took out a keycard she had been given when they arrived and slid it through. The red light on the device turned green and the door clicked open.
"I'll leave you to get settled then," Hank said, holding the door open for her, "I'll come and pick you up later and walk back to the mansion with you."
"Sure," Jack said, stepping backwards through the door.
Hank smiled at her briefly as the door shut. Jack waited until it had shut completely before she turned round. Sat before her in the office were three people, two women one man, with identical intrigued expressions on their faces.
"Hi," Jack said.
"You must be Jack. I thought you were going to be a guy…" the man said.
"Don't look so disappointed," one of the women said with a smirk, "Nice to meet you Jack, I'm Catherine Clarkson, but call me Cathy."
She shook Jack's hand in a brisk, business-like manner.
"I'm Laure Roffey," the other woman said with a thick French accent, "Welcome to office 42b!"
"We cleared away Sally's stuff for you, so you can take over her booth on the end there," Cathy said, pointing behind her.
"Is that the girl who was in the car crash?" Jack asked, "Is she going to be ok?"
"Yeah, should be out of hospital in a few weeks," Cathy said.
"Unfortunately," the man muttered.
"Oh shut up David," Laure said, "That's horrible."
"Yeah, just coz she turned down your advances," Cathy said with that same, slightly malicious smirk.
"You know she's not my type, in more ways than one!" David retorted. He was very camp.
"Ok, yeah, so she was a queen bitch, but that's no reason to wish her harm," Laure said.
Cathy and David both snorted with contempt.
"What was up with her?" Jack asked.
"Well, she wouldn't have been seen talking to you, darling, that's for sure," David said, "Very judgemental and particular about her company."
"What's wrong with me?" Jack asked, looking down at herself, "Ok I know my hair's a mess but I did make the effort with the clothes today!" she added with a grin.
She had borrowed a suit from Jean Grey's wardrobe. It was a bit big, and she felt bad wearing the clothes of a dead woman, but as Storm had pointed out, Jean had no use for them where she was.
"That suit looks like it's a size too big for you," David commented.
"Oh, trust you to notice that, Mr. Fashion," Cathy said, rolling her eyes.
"It is," Jack said with a shrug, "It's not mine."
"Well, nice clothes or no, she still wouldn't have been seen talking to you," David said, "Mutant? Nope, not talking to you – I might catch something!"
Jack raised an eyebrow.
"How did you know I was a Mutant?"
"You walked here with Doctor McCoy, he said he'd walk you home," David said with a shrug.
"S'pose that's a bit of a giveaway," Jack said with a grin.
Cathy, Laure and David turned out to be three of the nicest people Jack had met outside of the mansion. They bickered a lot, but it was all good humoured, and though they poked fun at each other (particularly at David) no offence was meant by it. They were also incredibly accepting, and had no problem with mutants. Cathy said they never had, no matter what the political climate had been in the past.
Cathy was loud, outspoken and had a devilish side to her that you could tell was about to make an appearance when she smirked, but she had a heart of gold and clearly loved her friends and co-workers to bits.
David was flamboyant, over the top and extremely fashion critical, but he was also extremely sweet and considerate, and always called Jack either 'darling' or 'chicken', which she found oddly endearing.
Laure seemed to be the voice of reason in the group, and often spoke with slight weary exasperation in her tone, but when she got talking about something she felt strongly about there was a fire in her eyes that was quite scary.
After a few hours in their company, Jack felt almost more comfortable with them than she did with Rogue and Kitty back at the mansion.
"And you lot get paid for sitting round here all day?" Jack asked as they drank coffee and ate lunch.
"Well, normally we are only in if we are needed," Cathy said, "But with this lot so bloody unorganised they might need us any second, so we have to be here all the time."
"It's free money really," Laure said.
"What I'm looking forwards to most is that opening welcome party thing," David said.
"We have to go to that in case our clients want to have a conversation over their champagne, but they're basically paying us to go to a party," Laure explained at Jack's blank expression.
"All the free champagne and nibbles you can lay your hands on!" David said.
"And plenty of waiters for you to eye up," Cathy said, shoving David teasingly.
During the course of the day they talked about everything, from the best film in the cinema at the moment to what it was like to be an X-man. Cathy wasn't one to drop subtle hints when she thought she knew something, she just asked outright if Jack was Starbright and Jack, not one to talk about personal details, told her to stop her asking about her family and where she grew up.
Jack was mildly surprised that they weren't really too curious as to who the person behind the X-man was. Except for David, who made some throwaway comment about her getting Iceman's phone number for him, none of them even mentioned their true identities, satisfied it seemed to have just the one.
"It's more fun if they stay secret," Cathy said with a shrug, "I mean, 'Iceman' – it's much more exciting than Tom, Dick or Harry."
"Or Robert," Jack said with a smile.
"Robert," David said, "I like that name."
"He's got a girlfriend," Jack told him.
"Dammit," David said, faking intense disappointment.
When Hank came to walk Jack home he wasn't surprised to find her chatting away, completely comfortable in her new surrounding. It was the paradox of Jack Starbright – totally confident, chatty and friendly, and yet she wouldn't tell them her real name or where she came from.
"I take it you had a good day?" he asked as they walked together back to the Mansion, making the most of the summer sun.
"Well, I didn't do much work, but the people are nice," Jack said. She looked up at the jungle of skyscrapers all around her, "Thanks for walking me back, by the way Professor, I'd have probably got lost if I went by myself."
"Oh, come now, Jack, there's no need to call me Professor," Hank said.
"But you are my Professor," Jack said.
"So is Warren," Hank said with one of his twinkling smiles. He was teasing her but she seemed not to notice.
"Yeah well, you're a lot older than him," she said, then paused, "Sorry, that was rude, wasn't it?"
"Au contraire, my dear," Hank said with a grin, "I actually find it one of the most refreshing things about you, that you are not afraid to say exactly what you think."
"And now you are going to casually comment that it seems strange that I'm not afraid to say what I think, and yet I'm afraid to talk about my family," Jack said.
Hank turned to her in surprise. He had indeed been intending to say that.
"Your pulse picked up," Jack said with a shrug, "It always does when you're about to broach a delicate subject."
"You sound like Logan," Hank said with an amused smile, "It seems you are far to clever for me then, Miss Starbright. I shall have to rely on another to extract the information from you over time. I must admit, I am infinitely curious as to what exactly you are hiding from us. Perhaps you might open up to Rogue after a while, as you two seem to have a lot in common, or maybe someone else…"
He finished airily, teasing her again. She glanced sideways at him. For all her astute perceptiveness, she didn't seem to be able to fathom what he was implying with his teasing comments.
Warren came back to the mansion late Sunday evening. His weekend spent with his Father had done much to repair their shaky relationship, and things were in motion to help Jack. If there was anything out there, his Father had promised he would find it.
Three days later, Warren got a package in the post. Inside was what looked like an Ipod, accompanied by a letter from his Father. Warren found a quiet spot and sat down to read it.
Dear Warren,
I was fortunate enough to stumble across a research and development facility in the south that manufactures products aimed to help the blind. They had all the software and the ideas, but lacked the funds to put their products into production.
I gave them some grant money and they were able to produce this. It is only a prototype, and not without flaws, but as soon as they have the design perfected they are going to send an upgrade on to me.
It translates written word into a series of beeps, a different tone for every letter. The staff at the facility are working on making it actually speak, but it is proving to be infinitely more complicated, so I said we were happy to settle for a short term fix.
I took the liberty of suggesting the MP3 player styled design to them. I thought perhaps your friend might prefer it if the design was discreet, and it would save her the embarrassment of having to explain what it was every single time she used it.
Hope you are keeping well,
Dad
Warren was amazed. Not only had his Father worked extremely quickly, but he had dedicated a lot of time, thought and money to this project. Warren had been anticipating getting a name and having to chase it up himself from then on in. His Father couldn't buy his way into Warren's favour, but this gesture certainly helped to further smooth over the cracks. He was showing a real turnaround.
Warren briefly scan read the instructions to the device and went to find Jack. She normally had Computing right now, which meant she was probably in the study area, pretending to learn some language she had already mastered days ago. She and Hank had come to some sort of agreement over it, an exchange of favours.
She was exactly where Warren had anticipated and he went and sat opposite her, waving a hand in front of her eyes to attract her attention. Jack looked up at him, removing the headphones from her ears and stopping the CD she had been listening to.
Warren opened the portable CD player and looked inside it. It was an audio CD of Harry Potter.
"Jimmy lent it to me," she said.
"You're not going to even bother pretending your skipping Computers for a reason other than you don't like it?" Warren asked with an amused smile.
"What's the point in pretending when everyone knows you are?"
"I suppose," Warren said.
"And I suppose you came to bother me for a reason?"
"Yes, actually," Warren said, "My Father has been doing some research for you and found this."
He handed her the scanning device.
"What is it?" Jack asked.
Warren took a book from a nearby shelf and opened it on a random page.
"Push the button in the middle, and it scans the text, before translating the letters into a series of sounds," Warren explained.
Jack put the earpiece in her ear and pushed the button. A melody of bleeps broken up by brief silences played down her ear.
"Each sound represents a letter, so it's not quite speaking a language, but spelling out the words to you, but I'm sure with your capacity to learn languages you could understand it fairly quickly."
As he helped her learn, reading out the text it was translating, Logan and Mystique watched from the doorway.
"Bird boy ought to watch himself," Logan said, "He's coming close to crossing the line with her."
"What's it to you if he does?" Mystique asked, "touch a spot that's a bit too close for comfort?" she added as she morphed into Rogue.
Logan snarled and grabbed her by her throat, pinning her against a wall. Mystique merely smirked and switched back to her human self.
"I'm not scared of you Logan," she said, before pulling off a delicate fighting move, which resulted in Logan being across the corridor from her.
She smiled at him suggestively and winked, before walking off.
"Oh and Logan," she said, turning round, "I wouldn't worry about 'bird boy', he won't do anything…."
Logan waited until she was completely out of sight before putting his hand to his chest where she had kicked him, grimacing slightly. He snarled in Mystique's direction one last time, then stalked off in the opposite direction.
"I don't know how I'm ever going to thank your Dad enough for this," Jack said as she walked with Warren towards his English class.
"Well, he's coming over to New York for the opening party for the Summit," Warren said, "I'll tell him then."
"Are you going to that then?" Jack asked.
"Yes," Warren replied, not looking or sounding too pleased about it, "Only really to keep my Father company. I'm a plus one, not an official invite."
"Don't sound so miserable about it – it's all the free champagne and nibbles you can eat!" Jack said, echoing David with a grin.
"Well, free champagne or not, it's still going to be pretty dull, particularly given that the only people going that I would actually choose to talk to other than my Father, I'm not allowed to talk to."
"Why's that?"
"Can't have people putting two and two together," Warren said, "Let's face it – how am I going to know an interpreter who lives in New York when I'm supposed to live in San Fransisco?"
Warren realised as soon as the words came out of his mouth that he had just admitted that he would want to talk to her in a situation entirely outside of school life. He had become far too involved in her business for their relationship to be considered a strictly student-teacher one. Despite how little he actually knew about Jack Starbright, she was his friend.
"I suppose," Jack said, "You'll have to make do making polite conversation with the Representatives then."
"If I can understand any of them," Warren said, holding the door to his classroom open for her.
"That's what interpreters are for," Jack said with a grin and sat down in her seat.
Please review:)