Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men, but I own an X-Men t-shirt...

Jean's face paled, and she could feel herself holding her breath. This wasn't how she wanted to start her medical career, with her difference already out in the open.

"Scared you didn't I?" Janie asked with a laugh. Her brown eyes sparkled for some reason. "Dr. Grey, hmm, didn't think any of Xavier's little wierdos would make it far in the world, guess I was wrong, and don't worry, I'm not going to tell anyone, it's good to see that our kind is making a name for itself that doesn't involved destroying the world." Jean blinked in disbelief. Wait, what's going on, she's not the enemy? Jean thought confused.

"Nope, not the enemy Dr. Grey. Just a woman like yourself who wanted to change things around the world. Guess you realized the world's too big to save, and settled for something smaller?" Janie asked. Jean nodded numbly causing Janie to smile.

"Great, you'll fit in great here," Janie stated leading Jean down a hall. "These are the offices here, but you won't be spending much time in them I bet. I have a feeling you'll be spending more time in the kids' rooms."

"That was the plan. I love kids, love helping them more though." Jean didn't express her other goal of this job. She'd seen too many young and older teens die or end up in bad situations because of their powers. She was really here because of them, she really wanted to help them. Maybe I should've become a psychiatrist instead she thought smiling at the thought of an office with a plush sofa on it like in the movies. Janie decided that Jean's first task should be to get used to the children themselves, especially the ones that were in here more often than at home. It broke Jean's heart to see the kids so broken looking, pale and hopeless, but one girl seemed to almost depress Jean more than the others.

"Hi, you must be the new doctor lady," the kid said when Jean walked into the room.

"You could say that, I'm Doctor Grey, and you are?"

"Why don't you just read the chart like the rest of them? Once you read it you won't be so interested in me, no one really is, they're actually counting down the days until I'm eighteen and somebody else's problem," the girl said not even looking up at Jean.

"Hmm, and why is that?" Jean asked taken back slightly by this girl's attitude.

"You're stupid aren't you?" the girl asked sitting up in her small hospital bed. Jean watched her. She couldn't see a thing wrong with this girl. There were no marks of any kind, no burns, no nothing. If Jean had seen this pre-teen looking girl anywhere else, she would never have guessed she belonged in a hospital with the terminal patients.

"No, I'm not stupid," Jean said picking up the chart if just to see what the girl's name was. Instead what she saw shocked her worse than seeing the girl for herself.

"See, now you know why they run screaming from the room," Kelsy said with a smirk as she waited for Jean to do the same. Instead Jean looked into Kelsy's eyes.

"And I should run from you because you had a small accident and burned down your house?" Jean asked starting to understand the child. She wasn't sick, wasn't hurt, she was only being kept here until they could find an excuse to lock her away in some mental hospital, until they could get rid of her permidenly. Kelsy's eyes widened. This was the first time someone had talked to her as a human, a person, and not some kind of freak.

"I've got to go see the other kids, but I'll come back to see you at the end of my shift," Jean promised Kelsy. Kelsy watched Jean leave and knew she was telling the truth and that she would be back later.