Ten years past.
The fragile girl Josie had adopted, had grown into a young woman of tall stature and strong will. Cautious in nature, the younger Ailey rarely trailed too far from their secluded home. Most of the people she met were friendly, or at the very least tolerant, but the few that had been violent and hysterical had done a good job of making the Aileys a somewhat reclusive pair.
The elderly woman stepped out of the farm house. The morning light was bright, a sharp contrast to the fog over the lake where her daughter swam.
"Fern, sweetie!" Josie called as she waved to her, but went unnoticed. Under her breath, she muttered, "Shoot."
The elderly woman carefully made her way down the hillside toward the lake. The air was brisk and the wind forced her greying blonde curls to whip around her face. She brushed them from her cheeks with a huff before she pulled her knitted cardigan closer to her lanky frame. A large English Mastiff raced ahead of her, barking merrily. On sneakered feet, she followed the animal out to the dock.
"Fern!" She shouted, rocking onto her tiptoes in an attempt to see further out. Between the fog and dark water, Josie couldn't see much.
A head, barely visible, popped up a few yards away and looked her way as the dog began barking frantically.
"Ma?" Fern blinked, the membrane under her eyelids wiping lake water from them. She approached the dock quickly, her toned arms threading the water with ease. She squinted up at her mother as she brushed her bangs from her eyes. Her lean body rocked gently with the current, bobbing her up and down as she asked, "What's up?"
"You have a phone call." Josephine watched her daughter lift herself out of the deep, frigid lake.
Jet black hair was matted around her face, the color of the scaled skin under it shifting and changing intrinsically with the sudden change in temperature. The younger Ailey rung out the short dark strands and huffed as Bruno greeted her with a sniff at her belly.
Josephine handed the younger woman a towel. "They said it's to do with the government."
"What?" Fern dried her arms off with a crease in her brow.
The dog jumped on her shoulders. She was almost knocked off balance by his sheer size, but quickly shifted her center of gravity to accommodate the extra weight. Bruno didn't notice, too busy licking at her scaled cheeks and sniffing her affectionately to notice the way she angled her hips and arched her back to brace him. After a moment the Mastiff dropped down and turned to head back toward the house. The women did the same.
"What'd they want me for?"
Mrs. Ailey shrugged. She carefully pulled the towel tighter over Fern's shoulders. "I don't know. They said they knew Casten."
"Why doesn't it surprise me he broke patient confidentiality?" Fern asked with a hint of bitterness. While her like of the man had grown since she was a child, there was still a good amount of distrust the woman had for anyone deemed doctor. Anyone in a white coat and boasting of a doctorate was deemed suspicious in her eyes and were to be regarded the same way one would a strange animal- with cautious respect and plenty of distance.
The house on the top of the hill wasn't a large one, but plenty big enough for the two women and their freakishly large dog. With two stories and four bedrooms, Josie and her late husband had bought it in the mid-thirties hoping to fill it with children, but sadly never got the chance. Josie didn't mind though; between Fern and the Mastiff, it was filled with all the raucous the elderly lady could handle. They slipped inside and the young woman made a beeline for the kitchen.
Fern picked up the phone where it lay on the kitchen counter. With a hint of suspicion in her voice, she answered with a curt, "Hello?"
"Hello," A composed voice greeted her warmly. "Is this Miss Fern Ailey?"
"Speaking," She confirmed to the masculine English accent on the other end of the line. An amused smile twitched at her lips. She had never heard an accent that wasn't southern before. At least, not in person, if over the phone could be counted as such. Jumping up on the counter with ease, she listened as she rocked on her toes; her abrasive skin giving her enough traction to keep her in place on just about any surface, including their marble counter tops.
Much to her mother's displeasure.
"Hello. My name is Charles Xavier, I'm running a program for the, uh, gifted, shall we say, in Virginia and I was wondering if you would be interested in attending?"
She tucked the phone between her ear and shoulder with a hum. The young woman toweled off her dark grey skin. It continued to swirl under the kitchen's bright lights. The Mastiff, Bruno, jumped up on her shoulders again, but she simply grunted and adjusted her center of gravity with a well-practiced ease. "Gifted?"
"That's right." The cool voice replied with a hint of pride.
"You realize I was home schooled and my records aren't on file." She frowned and looked dubiously at her mother. She dropped the towel in her lap as her dog eyed the phone with interest. Bruno sniffed at the receiver, but didn't make a sound. Fern cocked a near invisible brow at Josephine and continued to speak into the receiver with a sneer tugging at her lips, "I thought you were a friend of Dr. Casten's."
The man cleared his throat. Clearly he hadn't expected such hostility. "I am."
"And he's who told you about me? About what exactly qualifies me as gifted?"
Josephine rolled her eyes at her daughter's accusing tone. Honestly. The girl wore distrust like a second skin. "Fern. Play nice." Her strong fingers wrapped around the dog's collar and pulled his massive form from her daughter's lithe one. "Those limeys are judgmental fucks."
"We are not," Xavier assured her, a hint of amused indignity in his voice. The young woman appreciated that. Brushing off the Southerner's casual racism, he carried on, "Perhaps it's best we have this conversation in person. To ease any… concerns, your mother has."
"In person?" Fern echoed. With a smirk, she answered, "Sure. Bring a camera."
The mutant dropped the phone back on the receiver and looked up to find her mother glaring at her. With an overly innocent bat of her eyes, she asked, "What?"
"That was rude."
The young woman scoffed and began to bounce anxiously in place on the balls of her feet. Her hands crossed over her chest to hold her shoulders as she shrugged. "So? You do the same thing whenever the paperboy calls."
"Yeah but the paperboy isn't offering me a job," Josie countered. "Now, dry off, you're soaking my counter."
"No need. I'm heading back out." With a smile that flashed her sharp canines and bicuspids, she hopped down and made her way to the back door, "If he calls back, tell him I'm off committing a Pagan sacrifice or giving fellatio to the homeless. You know…" She kicked the door open behind her and the dog rushed out of it. She motioned with her hands, a crooked grin flashing her sharp canines and bicuspids as the young woman teased, "Talk me up a bit."
"F-" Josephine sighed and rolled her neck as the girl disappeared from the doorway. The phone rang and she muttered, "Fantastic," before answering it.
"Hello?"
"Hello, Mrs. Ailey? It's Joey-"
The woman slammed the phone down on the receiver. She didn't have time for this shit.
In Virginia, Charles blinked. The phone still tight to his ear, he frowned as the dial tone greeted him.
"What?" His friend, Erik Lensherr, asked curiously from the window a few feet away. He had been peering on to the grounds for most of Charles' conversation, but now the shorter man had his complete attention. "Did she reject us?"
"I… don't know."
The German man smirked. Amusement lining his roguish features, he asked, "What do you mean you don't know?"
"Well…" Charles leaned back in his office chair. The receiver didn't leave his hand as he shook his head, clearly confused and perhaps a bit frazzled. "I offered her a place at the CIA, and she seemed curious, so I asked if she'd like to arrange a meeting in person. Then she laughed at me and hung up."
"She hung up on you?" Erik chuckled. He crossed his arms and leaned against the windowsill. "She's a teenager, what did you expect?"
The man continued to gape at the phone in shock. "I don't know; some casual respect?"
A knock on the door halted their conversation.
"How did it go?" Raven asked curiously as she poked her head inside the office.
"Not well, I'm afraid." Erik grinned, flashing every one of the teeth. "It seems Charles doesn't quite know how to handle today's youth."
"She just said to bring a camera and hung up on me." Xavier repeated with astonishment.
The woman chuckled. A hand rose to cover her smile, as she told him sympathetically, "Oh, Charles, I'm sorry."
He shook his head. "I don't understand it. Surely she realized we would have to meet in person?"
Erik shrugged. "Maybe she thinks we'll change our minds once we see her."
"But we already know of her physical mutation!"
"Did you mention that?" Raven asked, sliding on to one of the plush couches.
"Well, no," Xavier admitted. "Not in so many words. I couldn't exactly tell her I'd touched her mind with Cerebro, now could I?"
The other man squinted at him in suspicion. "And you didn't mention what being gifted exactly entails, did you?"
Charles' shoulders slumped with defeat. "No. I didn't."
"Then perhaps it is best we leave now. Catch her off guard and show that we don't mean any harm." Erik offered. His lean form moved quickly across the office to a coat rack. He took both Charles' jacket and his own from it. Tossing it to the man, he smirked. "Come on." His eyes slid over to the blonde. "Raven, are you coming?"
"Really?" She asked him with an excited smile.
The blond man nodded. "Of course. Show her that's she's not the only one with a physical mutation."
Shrugging his jacket on, Xavier agreed, "Capital idea."
The young woman beamed at him and ushered the men out the door.