As promised, the next update! I'm going to be writing a little bit in the next few weeks, but not a lot since I REALLY DO need to study (midterms, groan).

Also, they do not lie when they say pre-med kicks ass. Yikes.

So... Anyway... This is when we start sort of seeing how Anya is not altogether mutant. And that her life is WAY more complicated than human/mutant/I-hate-my-dad. Wellll... Maybe. There were a few questions about puppy love and such, but honestly... Cute as that would be... And while I don't want to spoil anything... No.

Alright, so, with the fluffy-ness out of the way, back to heaping way too much on a kid! (I'm evil, I know it!)

Chapter Five: To Accept (December, 1965)

There's blood all over me. In my nose, my eyes, my hair and my clothes. It drips and slithers and creeps warmly down my back, sticky fingers dragging over my skin like a sugary kiss. The cold bites at the liquid and makes me shiver - or maybe it's Jesse, shaking with more than just the snow swirling around us and the thin t-shirts we're wearing. My eye has completely swollen shut so I can barely see and my nose is steadily dripping blood down my already drenched shirt.

The problem is most of the blood isn't mine.

"Oh… God… Anya…" Jesse is gasping and desperately clutching at his face beside me. Tears of scarlet are running down his cheeks, and his hands are weeping from the gashes across his palms. I grit my teeth at the pain, both physical and emotional, bite back the panic the sight of blood causes and hitch his arm higher around my scrawny shoulders.

"We're almost there!" I tell him, plead with him. "C'mon Jesse don't you fucking give up on me now!" I cringe as the word slips out.

My dad would be so pissed if he heard me talk like that.

Together we stumble through the woods, hiking as best we can in secret back to my home. We've had to bypass a lot of the roads and habitable areas in favor of shadows and hiding because if anyone saw us we'd be in real trouble. I sigh internally. I'm definitely going to have to switch schools now, after that fight. Kurt Grange is lucky if he doesn't scar from the way I clawed at his face… Guess biting my nails does have its benefits.

Actually, Kurt is lucky I didn't kill him.

What hurts worse than my pain, my trauma, and hell, even Jesse's pain are those damn words Kurt had the whole school screaming at us, even with a chunk of his cheek missing and his lip split from my punches.

Monster. Freak. Devil. Mutant. I scowl darkly as the words circle in my head.

I'm fourteen and have lived through some of the worst. Yet wonderful, amazing, selfless people… They cared. They didn't know me, didn't know anything except my biological father is a murderous maniac, yet they took me in anyway. Helped banish my nightmares. Gave me a home. Gave me a family. Yet Kurt and those assholes at school… If they knew about my family they would run them out of town. Call them freaks. Say they are monsters. Sean and Alex and Hank and Dad run through my head over and over, their faces and laughter and soothing words and concerned anger when I'm being stupid. Their acceptance.

How can they be monsters, just because they're different? So what? Okay, so Dad can read minds - but I think he's actually hurt fewer people than I have with my words and my fists, and he's a lot older than me. And yeah, Hank looks like a scary blue bear… But the guy's a freaking Teddy Bear! And Sean can blow my head up with a hiccup, but he's a goof and he still gets sick if you mention killing. And Alex… Alex is Alex. Fiery tempered and quick to become hostile but distraught if you mention him hurting anyone. It eats him up inside how he is unable to completely control his power.

It's not fair that because I don't have lasers or scales or fur or power of water or whatever that I am considered normal. Not a freak.

Jesse screams and collapses onto the ground, dragging me down with him as he goes. My head bounces off the icy ground hard and for a second I blink to make the spots in front of my eyes disappear. The pain hasn't caught up with me yet which I can't tell if that's a good thing or not. With a groan I sit up and curse the way the world sways. "C'mon!" I groan, trying to haul my best friend - who I suddenly very much hate for being close to five foot eight while I'm still at stupid five foot - off the ground and not trip over his long legs. Jesse cries out and pulls me back down so I sprawl over him. "Jess…" I prop myself up, ready to urge him to stand again, to get moving so my dad can help, but I freeze when I see his hand, palm up, on the ground.

I can't help but stare at the bright blue eye blinking blearily from the lines of his hand, peering out through the bloody ruin of his appendage.

I swallow hard to hide my nausea and stagger to my feet. I almost lose it though when Jesse turns his face to me and I see why he's been crying blood. His eyes are useless, dead white like a corpse's, and slowly leaking the rest of what made them work out onto his cheeks. "What's... Anya what… make it…" He's been babbling for an hour now as we struggled to get back, every since chemistry when he suddenly dropped to the floor screaming. Earlier he had felt sick, and before that… I want to laugh now that I know but I don't quite know why. Maybe I'm hysterical.

It's nothing, my hands just itch.

Two cuts, one on each of his hands, that itched.

And now a blue eye on one hand.

I wonder if I'll find its twin on his other hand.

Deciding to not deal with that until I have to, I determinedly push the thought away and focus on getting Jesse back to my house. The trees are beginning to clear. Thank God Sean used to play hide and seek with me when I was younger; I know these woods, even dark and snowy, like the back of my hand.

We're going to make it.

Jesse groans, pushing at me like he wants me to leave him alone, but I cling to his arm firmly. "Almost there," I say through numb lips. He continues to push and I whack his offending hands out of the way. But that lets him slip through my other hand, spinning around to face me. Jesse starts to pull away and I desperately hang on. "No Jess -!"

And suddenly his other bloody palm is in my face. And there's another eye, but it's brown, a rich dark brown, like melted chocolate. I freeze even though I'm not conscious that I do, and I feel him glide through my shaking fingers. I stare at the eye, feel myself falling… falling…

"Papa!"

"No Anya it's dangerous - "

"I'll tell you later leibling -"

A woman with my hair -

A man with my eyes -

Smoke in my lungs -

"PAPA!"

"NO!"

"YOU BASTARD!"

"Magda please -"

Dirt in my nose and my mouth and -

"She's alive?!"

"- only one -"

Mutti and Vatti and blood -

Bad men with black eyes -

"I was shot -"

A beach -

"You'll pay for this -"

"No Erik -"

Sean killing a man with a scream -

Moira -

Charles hugging me after a nightmare -

Then everything stops. Rewinds. And I'm standing in a little hotel room, beating on a window and screaming as flames roar behind me and smoke fills my lungs and I can't breathe and oh God why do I hurt please make it stop oh God oh God oh God I feel sleepy no no no no I can't sleep there's a fire and I'll die if I do Papa where's my papa he's yelling there's so much yelling is he trying to save me can he there's so much fire oh God I'm going to die why is everything turning blllaaaaaccccckkkkkk…?

XXX-XXX

When I come to the first thing I'm aware of is being too hot. Way too hot. I kick out and lash with my hands until the extra heat falls away and I am left gasping in big breaths of cool air. That's better. My skin is all sweaty and I feel like I was just choked.

A cold hand lands on my brow and I flinch at the change in temperature. "Darling, darling calm." I feel that familiar pressure on my brain and sigh in contentment, rolling my head to look at my dad.

"Dad?" I croak out. Charles blinks at the moniker but I'm too groggy to know why. "Wha' happened?"

Charles grimaces and runs his fingers through my tangled curls. He comes to one that is very obviously burned to a crisp at the end and sighs with regret. I really should hack them off... Before I lose my head... Charles smiles a little at the thought but there are traces of tears in his azure eyes. I wince when I see them.

Those usually only appear when Erik/Magneto/The-Giant-Wanker-Who-Broke-My-Dad's-Heart-Then-Shot-JFK is ever brought up. I must have been pretty damn close.

"Yes you were," he says, in this much smaller voice that makes me reach out for him. He doesn't hesitate to pull me bodily off of my bed and partway onto his lap. My head throbs so I put it on his shoulder, throwing my legs over the side of his wheelchair. I put my arms around his neck and just sort of hold them there, loosely wrapped like a scarf of flesh (ew) around his neck. Charles however clutches me to him so hard my ribs creak a little bit. It doesn't really hurt so I don't tell him to stop. "Next time, call?" His voice is muffled but clear enough I understand what he's saying at least. "I don't care where you are, get to a safe place and stay there until we can get you!" I chuckle a little and squeeze him back, burying my face into his neck and shoulder. It reminds me of when I was little, and I was scared after a nightmare, and I would cling so tightly to him or Alex or both that their faces would turn red from lack of oxygen. But they never stopped me, just held on too, like I was worth it. Like I deserved to have them there.

"I'm grounded aren't I?"

"Until you leave this house for college you are young lady." I smirk a little and shift until I'm comfortable. That means I'm going to be banned from the lab for two days and then my brothers will sneak me in.

I'm spoiled and I know it.

Charles drops one arm from around my back to the wheel of his chair and tugs, spinning us around. I cling to his neck even though he has to let me go to move us out the door. With my legs over the arm and his hands manipulating the chair, we slowly wheel out of the room and down the hall. I chance a glance at his face and wince when I see the frustration he's actually pretty good at hiding. I know he wants to hug me right now; I know he's worried about me and his lack of mobility is making a bad situation worse. I know he thinks I think he's weak because of this.

But how can I tell him that he's one of the strongest people I know? That I don't care? I think it so loud and hard sometimes I give myself a headache… but he still doesn't accept it as true.

Why?

My musings are broken by the sound of three sets of feet. My brothers all comically fall into the hallway in a pile of limbs and fur and shrieks of outrage. I giggle a little and they all snap their heads up simultaneously. My dad hides a smile at their antics and I giggle some more. Then, as one, they scream, "ANYA!" Suddenly I'm engulfed, everyone trying to hug me all at once. Arms pull me off of Charles lap and I dangle in the air as furry and muscular and thin arms all take turns embracing me so hard I can't breathe, lifting me straight off of my feet in their exuberance. I squeal and kick as hard as I can, partly as an act and partly because holy crap this is way too hot right now! Charles must say something because the brother holding me - Sean - puts me down with a sheepish smile.

"Jesus, Kid, don't scare us like that!" he tells me, ruffling my curls so they spill into my face.

"Sweetie that was too big of a risk," Hank cautions, anxiously running his claws through the blue fur sticking up wildly off of his head.

"Squirt, you ever do that again, and you will be beyond dead, do you understand me?" Alex says in a low voice, angry with the profound relief that he isn't doing such a good job of hiding.

I hide my grin. My brothers - a study of contrasts. I meet my dad's eye and he winks. I giggle a little and nod to hopefully appease them just a little. They engulf me again in a group hug and I squirm around until I can reach Charles too, having him take my hand in his firm yet soft grip, before relaxing. How did I end up in this family where no one fits their physical appearance and no one is even remotely the same as the next? How did I end up being raised by people who were so loving and caring and accepting?

What did I do to deserve these people?

"Jesse would like to see you, Darling," Charles tells me softly. He squeezes my hand and my mind promptly flashes back to the best friend who couldn't even tell that I was helping him in the woods. All three of my brothers stiffen into marble statues around me. I ignore them, elbowing out of the arms that try to restrain me and kneeling in front of my dad.

"Is he okay? What's his power? Is he really blind? Is he aware now? How's his head -"

"Like hell you're going by that asshole -"

"How about you ask him?" Charles says kindly, shooting a glare over my shoulder at the brothers who are clamoring over me and getting ready to tear a chunk out of the boy who accidentally hurt me (and probably me for even thinking about getting near him). "He's awake and would like to talk to you." I know how hard that must be for my dad - my brothers got their protective streak from somewhere after all. Even if we're not related by blood, we all are becoming more and more like the father-figure bringing us up. Hell, we're even starting to look like him, adopting our expressions to match his without conscious thought, so even people who don't know us immediately mistake us for being blood related. But he's letting me go anyway. Probably because he understands how dangerous a newly recognized mutation is.

I kiss his cheek as I sprint past him down to the infirmary. Already raised voices call out behind me, telling me to stop though Charles determinedly tells them to stop. I ignore all of them.

Jesse is sitting up in bed when I get to the lab/infirmary, gloomily staring down at his open hands. I knock on the door and his head jerks up, eyes that were once alive and dark brown now milky white and dead. I swallow thickly and will the tears that try to fall back. "Hey dude, how you feeling?" I ask lamely, walking into the room slowly. I'm not well; that sprint took what little energy I had, and the result is I'm walking slower now, and banging into everything in sight. Something in Jesse's face tightens when he hears the noise.

"Like I just tried to kill my best friend," he deadpans. I wince and gingerly sit on the edge of the bed. He curls his fingers to hide the eyes, but I still see them blinking lazily at me. One blue and one brown. One for the past, and (I'd put money on it) one for the future.

They're strangely beautiful, if a little scary.

"It was an accident," I say gently, reaching out to take his hand. He rears back as if I struck him.

"An accident? Ahn, I trapped you in a piece of your past! I almost killed you - your heart stopped and everything!" There are tears in his dead eyes. "We don't know how you survived. You shouldn't have. The Professor says much longer…"

"But you stopped, yeah?" I interrupt the self-loathing with what I hope is a soothing tone. "You realized what you were doing and let me go. I don't even remember what you showed me to be honest." I pretend I don't see him trying to hide his hands and snag one, uncurling his fingers to inspect the eye. It's the brown one, the one that ripped through my mind and showed me a memory that I don't remember once again. It blinks at me and widens from the palm of his hand, raking over my features. I smile and listen as Jesse sucks in a harsh breath. "This is actually kind of cool. Look at how the white blends seamlessly into your palm… If I poked it would it hurt?"

Hey, I'm a scientist, give me a break.

Jesse shrugs mutely. I can feel sightless eyes unnervingly finding my face and I blush a deep scarlet. Even blind he sees me. It's both creepy and comforting. I drop his hand and grasp his other one. This time he doesn't fight me, laying his fingers out so I can look at the other eye. Fascinated, I watch how this one seems more aware than the other, promptly fixing on my face and not blinking. I smile at it too and wave a little, feeling a little sardonic to be honest.

"You know I can see you, right?" Jesse says abruptly. My smile freezes and my eyes widen as I look at his face. Glassy white orbs look at me but don't see. A little smile tugs at his full mouth and he curls his fingers a little. "Not here, Ahn. Down there." I look back down at his hand in shock. The blue eye winks - or is it blinks? - at me.

"Uh….

"You're beautiful." There's something awed about his voice, like he sees something through that eye he has never seen before. It's scary to be honest.

I promptly turn bright red and stutter. He smiles again, a touch melancholy.

"I mean it Ahn. Maybe not right this second, but soon… You're going to be walking down the staircase in the foyer in… a dress of pale blue silk and sheer lace… with your shining red hair pinned up… And a smile…" He blinks both sets of eyes and grins sheepishly. "Sorry. But you do. Or will. I think it's in a few years to be honest - you don't look that much older."

Guess I know which eye that one is.

I feel my grin spread over my cheeks. "That… is so… cool! Okay, maybe not accurate because me in a dress, nuh-uh… But still… You can sorta see the future!" As soon as the words are out of my mouth I regret them, watching as Jesse's smile becomes a scowl and he curls his fingers into fists.

"It's wrong is what it is," he says harshly. I scowl right back at him.

"Oh don't give me that bullshit!" I snap. His expression darkens.

"I could have killed you."

"I'm fine."

"How can you accept a monster? A mutant?" he spits out. My temper snaps and I shove him hard, his head falling back into the pillows. My mouth runs ahead of my brain and I'm aware I'm going to regret saying what I am only just now choosing to accept about myself, but am in no way ready to advertise to anyone else.

"How can you accept a human?" I demand with all the anger and frustration this divide has caused between our races.

I like how she's like this perfect mix of Charles and Erik. Not what I originally intended but I will take it!

Like? Don't like? Let me know! And I will write to you guys later!