Disclaimer: I don't own any of the Marvel characters or any of the X-men. The same can be said of the wonderful world of J.K. Rowling. I am not making any profit, but simply having fun. I did however create Emma Winter.
Memories and dreams are in italics.
Edited in March 2021 during lockdown.
Emma woke up with a startled gasp after one of her reoccurring nightmares. Her breathing was laboured as if she had been running in real and not only inside a nightmare. Her body and face were sprinkled with droplets of sweat that showed exactly how disturbing the last few hours had been for her. Emma turned and looked at her alarm clock, it was two a.m., and she knew there was little chance of her falling asleep again.
The nightmares had been coming infrequently in the last weeks but when they did they were always filled with struggle and confusion. It seemed the further Emma dug into her psyche to try to work on her past, the more violent the nightmares became. The witch knew she had to try to find some peace with her past so she could continue living without torment.
Emma stumbled out of bed and headed out of her room; she was headed towards the kitchen for a cold drink while she was clearing her mind. As Emma sat in the kitchen enjoying an ice cream, she could hear the TV playing loudly in the living room. It was not often on in the mansion as most of the inhabitants were too busy to sit down and kill time that way.
Most of the faculty had their own sets in their rooms so they rarely spent time in the living room with the students as it was considered unofficially their space. Curiously drove Emma forward to see who would be up at that hour of the night. On the way out of the kitchen, she grabbed a bag of chips before heading down the dark hallway to the living room.
As Emma entered the living room, she could see the dirty blonde coloured top of a young boys head as he sat and watched the large screen television that one of the parents had donated to the mansion a few months earlier. However saying that the young boy was watching was a bit of an overstatement as he skimmed through all of the TV channels, it seemed he was watching all and none at the same time.
"Can't sleep?" the clear voice of the young boy asked as he turned around to stare at her with curiosity. It was Jones, the resident technology protégé; the one who's mutation was connected to electricity.
"Bad dreams, what are you watching?" Emma said friendly as she scooted on the sofa next to Jones. He had never been in her classes as he was one of the few young kids at the mansion. Jones was one of the youngest residents of the house being only ten, the very few young children were mostly taught by the professor and Storm. Usually, the mutant gene didn't kick in until puberty, but it seemed the young mutant was odd even amongst the unusual crowd that resided at the mansion.
"Everything, I can't concentrate," the young boy admitted his large eye seemingly even larger because of the thick lenses of his glasses. Every time he blinked his eyes the channel would change making the images rush by.
Emma wasn't that used to television, so she focused on Jones instead of handing him the bag of chips. He greedily grabbed a handful before handing her the bag back.
"Can't sleep either Jones?"
"I never sleep," the boy answered with such an innocent tone to his voice that Emma smiled softly at him. Mutants were fascinating as their powers were so versatile. A part of her would love to not need to sleep, it would shelter her from the nightmares that haunted her.
"Isn't it bad for you to not sleep?" Emma asked munching on the chips and looking with interest at the TV. Jones had stopped the channel surfing at an animal TV station, and it was broadcasting a rather brutal show about sharks.
"It's part of my mutation, it's okay. Professor Xavier said I could watch TV when the others are gone to bed as long as I don't have the volume too loud," Jones said and reached for more chips while concentrating on the television.
A moment later the great white jumped out of the sea as it attempted to swallow a baby seal that got away. The anchor was excited as he spoke about the wonderful ability of the great white sharks that swam in the ocean by Cape Town in South Africa. Emma shuddered with disgust making Jones giggle with amusement.
"You scared of them?" the boy sniggered with humour that one of his teachers would be so gutless as to be afraid of something on TV.
"More than a little scared, they are one of the scariest looking creatures in the world. Just look at all those rows of teeth," Emma replied smiling at Jones.
"No they are cool, just see how it jumps," Jones said impressed at how the huge animal could jump out of the water to hunt. The viciousness made Emma wince even though she tried to hide it from Jones. It was nature and the natural circle of life but still, the cruelty of the show made her want to change the channel.
"What would you do if you were swimming and would see one in the water?" Jones asked her curiously as to know what on earth she would do and not thinking she could do much.
"I would never be that far off into the ocean that I would ever come face to face with one of these fellows," Emma said with assuredness. There was no way she would ever want to meet a great white shark and its teeth.
"Is it because you're normal? Because you don't have powers?"
Emma grabbed a handful of chips and stuffed them into her mouth to give herself a moment to think, she didn't like to lie to a child, but she had no choice.
"It could be, I never thought about it. You could probably zap it or mess with its brain somehow?"
"Yeah, I probably could but I wouldn't want to hurt it. They are beautiful".
"Can we watch something else? I think I will have nightmares after watching this show," Emma said smiling ruffling his hair affectionately.
"Sure," Jones agreed and started to zap the channels again.
"Do you mind if I sit here a while longer? I don't feel like walking back to my room just yet."
"Sure, it's nice to get company," Jones said changing the channel one more time.
"Do you get lonely sitting here alone in the night?" Emma asked curiously knowing it couldn't be easy for him to be so young and so out of place.
"It's not that bad. Someone often wakes up and checks on me as you did now. Sometimes I see the X-men fly the Eagle back home and that's so cool."
"The Eagle? Who are the X-men?" Emma asked curiously. She felt a little bad for asking a young child for information, but Jones had mentioned something that she had never heard about before.
"The X-men, you know the teachers use their powers to help other mutants in trouble. The professor is a very nice man, and he made the X-men help the good guys."
"So who are the X-men? The teachers?" Emma asked curiously having a problem believing that the staff had another job like that. It felt strange that they too had another life that they were hiding from the rest of the world just like she had been hiding her life from them."
"You don't know anything about them?" Jones asked inquisitively sounding quite surprised as if everyone should know who the X-men were. Emma made a mental note of searching for information about them on the internet the next day.
"No nothing, they probably didn't tell me because I'm not a mutant," Emma admitted sourly even though she had no idea why it had bothered her. After all, she had been hiding her past from everyone there but Xavier and Logan. Maybe that was the thing, since Logan was her friend, she was surprised that he didn't tell her, after all he knew of her secret.
"The X-men are the professor, Storm, Cyclops, the Beast, and The Wolverine. Sometimes other mutants come to help them, but they don't live here at the mansion. Miss Grey was also a part of the group once, also Nightcrawler but he was just visiting"
"So they try to do good deeds? Help others like you in trouble? Like mutant police so to speak? The X-men against the bad guys?"
"Yeah, but different. The professor is psychic right? And he knows when mutants are in trouble and then he sends the X-men to help. He felt when I was in trouble from my neighbours and brought me here."
"Your neighbours?" Emma asked stunned at how far fear could push people to think a small child was a potential danger.
"Yeah, they called the police and reported me after they realized that I was a mutant. The X-men came right in time to save me before the police came to arrest me and my family," Jones said as if he was describing the weather and not a traumatic event in his life.
"Were you all right? You weren't hurt?" Emma asked concerned. She had heard about the mutant reports from Storm. Normal everyday folk were getting more afraid of mutants and authorities wanted to register every single mutant in the states. Therefore if anyone would notice a mutant, they should call the police to report them.
"No I was okay; I was only six at the time so I have been here a long time."
"What about your family? Were they all right as well?"
"Sure, the professor helped them to move away from our old place. They live now in Montana and I visit them every chance I get".
"That's fortunate Jones, not everyone here has such supportive parents," Emma said seriously. There had been so many of the mutant children who had had problems after their mutant gene had been discovered. Their parents were often terrified of them, especially after the nasty propaganda that had been on the media. Ororo was a loud advocate of protecting young mutants and Emma had learned over the months why the African woman was so passionate about that subject.
"Yeah, I know" he answered matter of factly.
"You must have been the youngest mutant to come to this school, the others I have heard of were teenagers by the time they found out that they were mutants."
"Yeah, I was the youngest and Miss Grey was nice to me," Jones said with affection for the late doctor and Scott's fiancée.
"Everyone seemed to have loved her," Emma said thinking of Scott, Xavier, Storm and Logan who had all been heartbroken after the loss of the woman.
"Yeah, she was great," Jones agreed setting the TV on an old cartoon that both watched for a while in silence.
"What is that Eagle you mentioned?" Emma asked suddenly out of nowhere remembering that Jones had mentioned it before.
"That's the airplane that the X-men have."
"Airplane? Where do they keep an airplane here at the mansion?"
"Under the basketball field of course," Jones said rolling his eyes and thinking that the new teacher was not at her brightest in the middle of the night.
"So when I have been keeping an eye on you lot with the professor, the teachers are out on the airplane being these X-men?" Emma said puzzling together why the faculty sometimes disappeared for meetings and other vague obligations away from the mansion.
"Yeah, I guess," Jones said less interested than a moment ago.
"I wonder why they didn't mention anything to me, not even Storm or Logan," Emma mumbled to herself.
"They probably were afraid that you were a spy or something. The professor doesn't like us to talk about The X-men to normal people. Someone might get hurt."
Emma cleared her throat deep in thought, "won't you get into trouble for telling me?"
"Nah, I don't think you're a spy," Jones said with the strong confidence of youth.
"Why not?" Emma said curiously and smiling at the self-assurance of the young boy.
"Because you don't look like a spy," Jones replied with a child's reason before immersing himself into the cartoon again.
"Right, of course," Emma said laughing and thinking to Severus Snape who had indeed looked like a spy even though he had been a very talented one. She pulled out the blanket that hung at the back of the sofa and pulled it over herself for extra warmth. Emma had gotten much information from Jones. Most had startled her, and she wondered if any of the staff would ever mention the X-men to her.