Author's Note: Aah! Thank you so much to the guest who reviewed my story. It's such an encouragement! :) I'll definitely keep writing now.

Also, as a side note, sorry if the Morlocks are coming off as horribly wrong, I don't have a whole lot to run with right now. Also, sorry if anyone seems out of character, feel free to tell me if they are and what you think might help put them more in character.

Toad should be back in a chapter or two, depending. :) Enjoy! ^_^ P.S. If you read chapter 5 a while back, I combined chp. 6 to that chapter so you may want to go back and read what I added. Sorry for the inconvenience!

Dahlia's leg shook nervously as she sat in the big office at the Xavier Institute. She was waiting for the professor; he was supposed to be talking to her about the institute today. Scott and Jean had left her there to attend to something in the hall, maybe a mutant something. There had been a crash and what sounded like someone yelling but she tried to ignore it.

Her eyes scanned the room around her for anything to take her mind off things. The walls were decorated with various pictures, a vase or two on a table here or there, a potted plant off in the corner that looked particularly well taken care of. Her eyes fell a picture on the man's desk: A man in a wheel chair surrounded by kids. She recognized Scott and Jean beside him.

Must be the professor… Dahlia thought jumping at the sound of a man's voice.

"You're quite correct," Professor wheeled up to her and shook the hand Dahlia immediately put out. "There's no need to be nervous, we're all friends here."

Dahlia's eyes darted to Jean and Scott then to the Professor. How did he…? Aaaah, mutant.

Dahlia tensed up, her mind immediately running to all the things she didn't want him to know. The Morlocks, Toad, her parents, and the dirty things she thought of at night. Her face flushed red and…for a split second, his smile left his face and he almost appeared…disturbed. Well, of course, that only made Dahlia blush farther and he recovered immediately.

"It's okay, Ms. Fox, I promise not to snoop around your thoughts," He smiled, seeming somewhat humored by the expression of dread she wore and gestured to the chair, "Please, have a seat."

Dahlia sat hesitantly, looking back to Jean and Scott a moment who nodded their head encouragingly before turning her attention to the professor. She resisted the urge to reach up and feel her burning cheeks.

"From what I've been told, Dahlia, if I may call you that?"

Dahlia nodded enthusiastically with pressed lips.

"You're homeless due to your mutation, am I correct?"

Dahlia parted her lips to speak; her pupils narrowed the slightest amount before returning to human.

"Well, no, not exactly." She looked down, as if thinking of what to say. How did she have his word he wasn't snooping around in her thoughts? She couldn't tell him about where she lived, Callisto would be furious, who knows what she would do to her. She didn't know who these people were aside from that they had been incredibly kind to her.

She took in the professor's kind expression and found herself returning a warm smile. Surely this was a good man? He'd even offered to help her, but still, best to follow Callisto.

"I'm living with some other…mutants. I can't tell you where though…or who."

"Is that so?" Professor asked and she wondered if he already had the answer.

Scott stepped in for Dahlia.

"The conditions are poor though, professor. There's hardly enough food and it's freezing out there."

"Well, Dahlia, Scott and Jean seem very set on helping you. I just wanted to speak with you today to meet you. You're already more than welcome to stay at the school and help out, if you'd like?" Professor raised an eyebrow. "Scott tells me you're very skilled in Physics?"

Dahlia's ears perked up from under her headband. Jean had told Dahlia she didn't have to worry about hiding here and could take it off, but she'd decided she felt more comfortable keeping it on.

"I am! Chemistry too, I took all the AP classes for them and did tutoring on the side." Dahlia's ears fell back. "Don't ask me about English though," She smiled sheepishly.

"Well then!" Professor looked to Scott and Jean, this had obviously been something they'd planned a head of time. "How would you like a job assisting me with the Physics class? There are always more than a few students who need extra help, and I do think it would be nice to take off some days."

Dahlia's eyes lit up and she turned in her chair to look at Scott and Jean before snapping back to the professor.

"Yes! Oh my god! That would be great!" Her chest swelled with excitement, all the things she could use the money for to help her group. Her expression dropped though. "Will I have to leave…my group?"

The professor paused with his kind smile and seemed to look at her very closely for a second.

"No, of course not," He finally said and Dahlia's face lit up again. She jumped out of her seat and threw her arms around the man.

"Oh, thank you! Thank you! Thank you!" She jumped up before attacking Jean and Scott with hugs too. "I never thought I'd be able to get a job!"

"Well, you have one now." Professor chuckled lightly and she whipped around the face him.

"I don't know my social security or anything." Her eyebrows knit together in a concerned look.

"Not a problem…I'm sure we can work something out," He smiled a bit mischievously and Dahlia gave a small squeal of excitement. Professor's eyes dropped down to her tattered clothing. "Jean, why don't you and Kitty take Dahlia out for some new clothes? My treat."

"That sounds great, I'll get Kitty." Jean looked like she was trying hard to keep back a grin from Dahlia's excitement. This girl was so…full of energy…and talkative.

Dahlia hurried after Jean after one last quick hug to the professor. Scott stayed behind, watching them leave the room. He looked at Xavier with his hands behind his back, waiting expectantly for what was on his mind.

"I'm concerned for her," He said simply, eyes lingering on the closed doors. He turned his gaze up to Scott. "Please, try to make her feel as at home as possible here, I'd like to see her to get off the streets as soon as possible."

"That's the plan," Scott said with a nod. He wondered what exactly the professor was worried about. Sure, the streets were a dangerous place but the way Dahlia had previously made it sound it seemed like her group looked after her very well. He hoped the job would be enough to get her back on her feet and able to help her friends if that's what she wanted.

Upon coming back from their shopping trip Dahlia sat in the passenger seat going through the clothes they'd gotten her. The essentials, some underwear and bras, T-shirts, shorts, two pairs of jeans, and a long skirt she could use for when she wanted to go out as well as a black fabric head band she could use to hide her ears. Kitty had said black would go with anything so it was definitely the obvious choice when they were picking between the other colors.

The whole trip had turned out to be around a hundred dollars and Dahlia couldn't help feeling guilty about that. She'd tried to keep the price down, it wasn't like her to be a mooch but it had been so long since she'd had normal clothing to wear. The things she had originally left home with had long since become worn and torn and well, the things she found after that weren't much better.

"I like that shirt," Kitty pointed at the one Dahlia held up. It was simple but one of the nicer shirts she'd picked up. It was sea foam green with a mild v-neck. Sexy, but still modest. Dahlia had thought.

"Thank you! Me too," Dahlia smiled at Kitty before smoothing her skirt down nervously. It had been a while since she had met any new friends. Kitty looked normal over all; she wondered what her mutation was.

Jean pulled up to the mansion garage and stepped out. A gruff looking man was leaned under the hood of one of the cars. He looked up at Jean as she stepped out the car and winked at her. Jean bit back the smile that grew on her face.

"Dahlia, this is Logan."

Dahlia looked at the man and he looked back, taking in her ratty, odd choice of clothing and dirty appearance. Jean had said she could use the bathroom at the school to clean up, they'd even stopped and gotten her a couple of toiletries such as a toothbrush, a disposable razor, and thank the universe, some deodorant.

Logan cocked an eyebrow, cigar in his mouth.

"Where'd Chuck get this one?"

Dahlia felt her eyes attempt to narrow into slits at the man; they always ached slightly when they did that, as if she'd been in the dark for too long and someone suddenly turned a bright light on. Jean cast Logan a menacing look and took Dahlia by the shoulders to lead her away.

"What?" Logan took the cigar out of his mouth and held his arms out. "I didn't mean anything by it."

"Ignore him, that's Logan, he's—"

"An interesting guy." Kitty finished with a distasteful snort, rolling her eyes at the man.

Dahlia looked between the two and decided she'd better not pry into anything more about him…It would just be best to keep her distance she supposed.

Dahlia was lead up the stairs and past various students who despite having been mutants for the obvious reason of being enrolled in a mutant school, all appeared to be very normal. Well, if you didn't mention the silver man who walked past, appearing to be made of some sort of metal, showing off to some girls or the boy who leaned against the wall coolly manipulating fire in his hand.

All the new sights and faces excited her to say the least, her own high school experience having been cut short by her mutation. She was hopeful that maybe she wouldn't have to live life as she had been, but she still felt tethered to the Morlocks. They had been her family for almost two years now.

Kitty flicked on the light to what Dahlia assumed was her room, judging from the picture of her and her parents on the nightstand.

"You can like, leave your bags here if you want. I'll show you to the bathroom in a second." The girl leaned over her laptop and quickly typed in her password before checking her email.

Dahlia looked around the large room. Kitty's bed was the closest to the door, there was another bed down from hers but it appeared empty.

"Who's the other bed for?" Dahlia asked, tilting her head at the obviously occupied bed across the room. Kitty glanced up.

"Oh, that's Rogue's bed," She said a bit absent-mindedly. "She's cool; you'll probably get to meet her soon."

Dahlia set her bags on the floor and shifted uneasily on her feet. What if her friends didn't like that she was receiving help from other people? She furrowed her eyebrows. She decided she would leave her new clothes here if Kitty would let, she could always just change once she got there. She picked up her toiletries.

"Is it alright if I leave my things here when I leave tonight?" Dahlia asked, pulling her headband off.

Kitty's eyes went to her ears this having been the first time Dahlia actually revealed them.

"Uh-yeah, totally." Kitty smiled, she had no problem with physical mutations. Dahlia's were pretty cool, but it still always came as a shock to her. She wondered how many people like that there were out there that had just gotten so good at hiding it nobody ever noticed. "Okay! This way." Kitty hurried out the door and Dahlia trailed after her.

The same flame boy was still hanging out in the halls, only now he had company. His friend whispered something to him as she passed and he laughed, eyes following her. Dahlia's hands went up to her dirty face, then her ears self-consciously.

It wasn't as if her ears were obsessively large and obnoxious or in an odd place. They were actually about the same size as her normal ears had been, maybe a tiny bit larger and in the same place. They were easy to hide, she found herself thinking more than once if you subtracted the fur—which even that was short and soft, nowhere near the wild furry ears you would see on some long-haired cats—that she might even have been able to pull off an elvish look.

She ducked into the safety of the bathroom and shut the door quickly, leaving Kitty to blink dumbfounded for a couple seconds before walking back to her own room to think what a weird person Dahlia was already starting to be.

Dahlia opened the bathroom closest to make sure there were towels before she stripped off her dirty clothing. She had brought a pair of her new clothes into the bathroom, she figured she could at least wash her ratty clothes even if she had to go home in it.

The hot water felt good, it wasn't like the water in the homeless shelter which had only been a lukewarm trickle half the time. She soaped herself up and started to shave, beyond thankful for the new razor. She had one back in the tunnels that she took to the homeless shelter with her but it was old and left a razor burn on her legs that would last for days sometimes. She squeezed the shampoo into her hand eagerly and smoothed it over her hair. She breathed in the clean scent, delighted; Cotton Fields it was entitled.

She scrubbed every dirty feeling from her body, every sad and stressful thought. Mortimer passed through her mind and lingered. She found herself worrying about him, was he alright? What if something had happened to him and that's why he didn't come back? She let the water rinse the shampoo and dirt from her hair and lathered herself up with soap a second time.

This is wonderful, She thought, letting the water run over her face. You never really know how much a simple hot shower means till you can't get it anymore.

She turned the water off and stepped out onto the plush white rug. She wondered how they managed to keep them so clean with students in and out of the bathrooms every day. She pulled a towel from the bathroom closet and rubbed at her skin till she felt it was dry and now even cleaner. She took a deep breath, her muscles relaxed.

She shifted through the closet contents. Some students had left their things in there. Tampons and pads were pushed way to the back. Some half-used bottles of toothpaste laid around lazily beside a bottle of deep blue nail polish.

She pulled the toothpaste out and started to brush her teeth. She was thankful it was so easy to brush her teeth here at the sink, with running water. They mainly had running water in the tunnels, but it was a chore to get, you had to get the faucet open with a wrench. Mostly she would just fill a buck up and bring it near her room for whoever needed it.

She grinned at the mirror, pleasantly surprised to realize the toothpaste had a whitening agent in it. It wasn't a huge difference, but it was a big enough difference to make Dahlia thrilled. She put the unknown student's toothpaste away and shifted through the other contents. She hesitated at the blue nail polish. Should she? She should. What could it hurt? She painted her nails the deep blue color feeling quite satisfied with herself.

After she dried her hair and gotten dressed she had Kitty show her to the laundry room and how to work the washer and dryer. She'd get home fairly late that night and would have to lie to Betsy about where she'd been but it was worth it.

Dahlia laid sprawled out on the living room sofa tossing popcorn back into her mouth. She'd just finished a physics session with the flame boy, who she now knew was John. He still made her as uncomfortable as ever with his bad boy exterior, only now it came with mean jokes and backhanded remarks.

Bobby and Rogue sat on the floor in front of her playing video games while Kitty sat on the floor with her back against the sofa. She reached up into the bowl on Dahlia's stomach and took a hand full.

"You can't do that!" Bobby objected at Rogue's move in the video game with a laugh. "That's totally cheating!"

"Is it not! How is it cheating if the game lets me do it?" She gave him a light shove with her gloved hands.

It had been a few weeks now since Dahlia first met Xavier. Everything was going smoothly as far as she could tell. A few people in the tunnels had noticed her frequent absences and new-found cleanliness but nobody brought it up. She always found it easy to breeze under the radar these days.

So far Kitty's words had proven true, Rogue was cool. Bobby was cool, literally. Logan, she decided, wasn't as bad as he seemed. She liked to believe that he meant well, even if he came off as an ass sometimes.

Storm, she was nice. She had her own greenhouse up on the top floor and had even taken Dahlia in to see it. John, of course, stuck to being an ass. She thought though, that maybe sometimes he could actually be kind of nice though, in a weird way. Rogue and Kitty disagreed though.

"Alright," Bobby clapped his hands together and stood up. "I gotta go pack, night guys!" He smiled at Rogue and went to brush a strand of hair from her face but she flinched back and he looked at her sadly for a moment before leaving.

The tip of Dahlia's tail twitched from side to side in thought as she pushed another handful of popcorn into her mouth. Rogue's powers sucked the life out of people, for a lack of better words. Kitty could phase through walls. John could manipulate fire, but couldn't create it like Bobby could ice. Logan was a speed healer with metal attached to all his bones, giving him claws. The professor was telepathic. Storm controlled the weather. Jean was also telepathic as well as telekinesis and Dahlia finally knew the reason Scott never took off his sunglasses was because he packed a bazooka behind each eye.

She'd yet to really meet anyone that looked very different though, aside from Beast whom she had only met briefly, but she still found herself feeling at home. She got paid at the end of every two weeks, it wasn't a lot of money, but it was money none the less.

Jean walked into the room with Storm and Dahlia sat up to give them room to sit. Rogue paused the game and looked back at the crew.

"Any of y'all wanna play?" She asked holding up the controller.

The others looked around at each other and she shrugged, turning back to the game.

"Hey," Kitty turned her head to look at Jean and Storm sitting on the sofa, "I was thinking, why don't we like, have a girl's night out or like in one day, yanno?" She took another handful of popcorn.

One of Dahlia's ears tilted back listening to some kids running down the hall, the other listening to their conversation. Storm got up to look.

"Hey! No running!" She called out just in time to see a student trip and duplicate multiple copies of himself. She sighed heavily, at least nobody was hurt.

"That sounds like a good idea," Jean looked to Storm, "What do you think, Storm? How does a girls night sound?" Storm smiled, taking a seat beside Dahlia.

"That'd be nice, we could do a girl's movie night one day over the break," She suggested and Kitty nodded along eating her popcorn.

"Can we do cool movies though? No Christmas movies; if I have to watch 'A Christmas Carol' one more time I swear I'll die." Rogue shuddered; with Christmas coming up that's all she'd been watching.

"I haven't seen any of the new movies from the last couple of years," Dahlia said, "It'd be nice, what's that one that came out recently? The Mailman? I'd like to see that."

"As long as the younger students can watch the movies I don't see why not,"

"I think it was rated PG," Dahlia mused, "I'm not sure."

"Why not spend the night, Dahlia?" Kitty asked, "The bed in our room is still free."

Dahlia hesitated, her mind trailing to Betsy. She would wonder where she was. She would have to come up with something.

"I guess it couldn't hurt," She said with a smile.

The night before Christmas Eve the girls who had stayed at the mansion for the holidays huddled together in front of the TV watching The Mailman. It was a movie about a mailman who'd inherited a haunted castle in Ireland and fell in love with one of the ghosts all the while trying to break a witches curse. Cheesy, but good.

A ghost jumped out in the movie causing a younger mutant named Siryn to give a short scream. She slapped her hands over immediately, the others covering their ears in pain at her sonic scream. She got more than a few angry looks.

"Sorry…" She said sheepishly.

"Hey, who ate all the popcorn?" Rogue asked, looking into the bowl.

"I'll get some more," Dahlia pushed herself off the floor. The clock on the wall read midnight, two hours later than the normal bedtime for the students; professor decided to make an acceptation for the holiday.

Dahlia made her way to the kitchen in the dark, her eyes able to see dimly. She pulled the pantry open and put a bag of popcorn into the microwave before bumping its contents into the bowl. Turning around to face the stove Dahlia tossed her popcorn into the air with a scream. A blue demon with very sharp teeth holding a sandwich hung upside down from the cabinets over the stove.

Logan, who had been on his way to the kitchen, came running. Dahlia gapped at the blue thing with wide eyes, her head snapping to Logan who had his claws out.

"I told you to knock that off," He growled with he saw him and sheathed his claws. The blue man disappeared in a poof of smoke and reappeared on the counter island behind him. Dahlia whipped around to face him.

"Dahlia, Kurt. Kurt, Dahlia." Logan said over his shoulder after grabbing a soda out the fridge as he walked out. "Knock your socks off."

Dahlia blinked at Kurt, clawed hands grasping the stove behind her. Kurt lifted a hand and gave her a sheepish wave and smile.

"K-Kurt?" Dahlia asked, her claws slowly sliding back into her hand.

"Ah yes, but in the Munich Circus, I was known as the incredibly Nightcrawler," He smiled at her, quite pleased she didn't cut him off like so many did.

"C-circus?" Dahlia asked, still stunned.

Kurt hesitated seeing she still looked scared. "I am sorry about your popcorn," He slid off the counter top and started helping her pick it up. "I didn't mean to scare you."

Dahlia took a moment before she slid down beside him and started helping him pick it up.

"It's okay! You caught me off guard is all," She gave a reassuring smile,

"I suspect it is true one does not normally run into blue men hanging from a cabinet at night, ja?" Kurt said, smiling back.

"No, not often anyway." Dahlia deposited a handful of popcorn into the trash. "You were in the circus?"

"Ah, yes. The Munich Circus; I vas their star acrobat."

"That's really cool! I always wanted to take gymnastics."

"Vell, maybe one day I can show you tricks. I've not seen you before, are you a new student?"

"No, I tutor for physics." She bobbed her head. "I'm normally here in the afternoon."

"I see, I am the German teacher. I teach most often in the mornings."

"That must be why I haven't seen you yet. Why were you in here so late?"

"I vas feeling up for a midnight snack," He dumped the rest of the popcorn into the trash and took another bag of popcorn out to pop. He punched in the numbers into the microwave.

"Thank you for helping me pick it up," She smiled and pulled herself up onto the counter.

"It's the least I could do," He looked back to her, "After all it vas my fault you tossed the bowl into the air."

Dahlia laughed lightly. "What was the circus like?"

"Oh it vas very fun, I lived there with my adoptive mother and two siblings: a sister and a brother." He hesitated, "Unfortunate circumstances brought me to America, however."

Dahlia nodded her head in understanding. "Unfortunate circumstances seem to bring us a lot of places."

"Ja, but thankfully not all bad."

They listened to the hum of the microwave and his eyes trailing over her ears and to the tail that curled leisurely around her leg. A smile crawled onto his lips and he waved his own tail. She grinned seeing his tail for the first time and uncurled her tail from her leg to wave it back. She almost felt bad she'd had such a terrible reaction to him at first, he seemed incredibly nice.

"Vhat are your powers, if I may ask?"

"Uhm..Well, aside from the ears and tail I'm not totally sure. My hearing and sight is pretty good, sometimes anyway. I fell from four stories once and didn't die or anything. I can kind of see in the dark." She took her fingers and pulled her cheeks back to show her top set of teeth.

"My teeth are sharper than I remember from when I first left home." Her voice was funny from holding her cheeks back. "Sometimes I have some really great reflexes too, I don't even have to think about it, but that's really rare it happens." She paused for a moment, looking to the floor in thought. "My pupils slit sometimes, like a cat's I've been told." She shrugged, "I've never seen it though. I can't really do much of anything, evolution's failure I guess." She smiled weakly.

"Ah but you mustn't say that, Liebchen. I believe there is a purpose for everyone; perhaps you've not yet discovered your full purpose? Vhen you do, I'm sure you'll be able to do much more than you believe." He said reassuringly.

She watched him with a smile for a moment, the microwave beeping from behind him. "Thank you, I think you might be right." She poured her popcorn in the bowl and hesitated in the door way. "Will you be here for the Christmas party tomorrow night?"

"Ja, I vill be. Vill you?"

She shifted from foot to foot uncertainly. "Maybe! I better take them their popcorn before they decided to eat me."

"Oh yes," He grinned. "Children vill do that if left unfed for too long a time."

"Savages! All of them!" She laughed, "Goodnight, Mr. Nightcrawler!" She called over her shoulder.

"Same to you, Ms. Dahlia. I pray that you vill survive the night." He said with a humorous gleam in his eye, giving a small wave before teleporting to his room.