What's the best way to deal with any bad news? Flat out denial, of course!

Mum practically ran into the house so I had to shout as I followed her into the living room.

"Mum, I'm not a mutant! I–"

I stopped suddenly seeing the people who she'd been talking about. I couldn't believe she was taking the word of a bald guy in a wheelchair, a redhead woman and a tall guy with sunglasses, over the word of her own daughter.

I fell into a stunned silence while the tall guy pulled out something like a Gameboy and pointed it at me. It made a high pitched beeping noise which made me cover my ears until the man finally shut the stupid thing off.

"It appears we were correct," the bald guy told my mother as though I wasn't even in the room.

Mum covered her mouth and sat down on the lounge. I could see her fighting back the tears.

"C-can you do anything to help her?"

The redheaded woman looked a bit irritated by this and shook her head.

"There's nothing wrong with her. She just has a mutation, that's all."

Baldy stepped in again. "We can, however, offer her a roof over her head and a chance to learn to control her abilities."

That's when my brain kicked back into gear.

"Whoa! Wait just a second, I am NOT a mutant," I stated strongly. I looked at my mother and waved a hand at the three strangers. "Look at them. Mutants have weird physical deformities." I lifted my arms up and presented myself. "Do I look deformed to you?"

She went pale.

"What's that?"

Oh, crap. I'd forgotten. I'd have to try and confuse her.

"What's what?" I dropped my arms back down to my sides and pulled my jumper sleeve down further over my wrist.

"There was something there, on your arm."

"No there wasn't," was all I got out before she grabbed my wrist and yanked me forward for a closer look.

She pushed my sleeve up my arm roughly, revealing the raw red mark down the edge of my forearm. In amongst all the red and pink skin that had been peeling away for the last month, you could see the bare white of the bone just peeking through. I'd tried to ignore it, but when your bones start growing up through your skin, it's a little harder to ignore than you might think.

Mum did all she could to hold back a scream as she let go of my arm. I quickly pulled my sleeve back down and kept my head directed firmly towards the floor.

"Evidence of how your mutation is manifesting itself," Baldy stated quietly as though he knew he should hold it back but just couldn't manage it.

Mum gathered her thoughts and put on a strong face. "Seven, I want you to go to your room and pack some clothes. You need to be back down here in two minutes to leave with Professor Xavier. Your dad will be home soon, so you have to be quick, understand?"

"What!? No way! Can't I just—"

"SEVEN!" There was more urgency in her voice this time. "You KNOW how your dad feels about mutants."

He was the one who chose my school.

She looked me in the eye for the first time since she'd picked me up. "Please."

My vision went blurry as I felt my eyes start to fill with tears. This time MY voice quit and so I just nodded and ran quietly up the stairs to my room.

I couldn't think. I didn't want to think. So I just focused on what I was doing. I grabbed anything I could. I stuffed anything into my school bag that would fit. Clothes, photos, my toy dog Atticus. I managed to finish in under a minute and a half. I wiped my runny nose on my sleeve and headed downstairs again.

But something was wrong. I mean, something apart from all the disastrous things that had already happened was wrong.

I could hear another voice coming from the living room. It was a male voice that I'd known my entire life. But that meant…

Dad was home.

I just stood there frozen on the stairs as I listened.

I could hear Dad shouting something, so I guessed someone had been stupid enough to tell him.

"Adam, please; just calm down." Mum was pleading with him, but he just ignored her and kept going.

It was when my lungs started hurting that I realised I'd been holding my breath. I jumped the rest of the stairs, my bag slapping against my back painfully as I landed. I got into the living room just in time to hear my father ordering the strangers to get out of the house.

"Dad, stop!" I realised too late that I shouldn't have drawn attention to myself.

Silence. There was a moment of tense, terrifying silence as my dad turned to face me, his once love filled eyes burning with new found hatred. I was too frightened to move. He grabbed me by the shoulders and slammed me against the wall. My head seared with pain as I felt it smack indelicately into the plaster.

"You." His face was about three inches from mine, but he still felt the need to bark at the top of his lungs.

This was the only time I can ever remember being scared of my father. Angry, frustrated, infuriated, sure. But I'd never once been scared of him. Until now.

"You've destroyed this family, you little bit-"

He stopped talking and just started fuming as a hand landed on his shoulder. It was Tall-guy.

"Mr. Taylor, you need to step away from your daughter, right now." There was a kind of warning in his voice I'd never heard before.

"Get the hell off me!" Dad snarled, ripping away from the man's grip. "And get the hell out of my house." He turned to give one last disgusted look at me. "All of you."

I could barely move and didn't really want to, so the redheaded woman had to take my arm and drag me in order to get me out. As soon as we were out the door, it was slammed behind us.

I was on the verge of crying again, biting my tongue to stop myself. I clenched my jaw as I felt fury welling up inside me. Without really thinking, I made my bag more comfortable on my shoulder and began walking away from the three whose fault it was.

"Seven? Aren't you coming with us?" The woman sounded concerned but I didn't care.

"Nope."

"Then where will you go?" Xavier's distinctive voice.

"Somewhere else."

They could offer whatever the hell they wanted, but NOTHING could make me go with them. Money, shelter, food warmth; I didn't care. I didn't want any of that from them.

~Then what about a place where you'll fit in.

I stopped mid step as his voice echoed inside my head.

~A place you might find a home, or even a family.

It took a while to process what had just happened. He read my thoughts and spoke inside my head. That was weird. But it meant they were mutants. I couldn't necessarily trust them as people, but if they were mutants, then it severely reduced my chances of dying in a 'terrible accident'.

I took another huge sniff and turned my head to look at them. I knew that with them I stood a far better chance than if I was on my own.

"Fine," I said after a long pause. "I'll go with you." I thought again, then added, "For now, at least."

Xavier smiled.

"I'm glad to hear it."

As it turned out, they were parked just around the corner on the public sports field.

Now, I thought briefly that this was an odd place to park their car. That is, until I lifted my head long enough to notice the FREAKING HUGE JET they'd landed in the middle of the grass field.

"Seven," Tall-guy said, smiling for the first time since I'd seen him. "This is the Blackbird."

I don't actually remember any walking between being outside and standing inside the jet, but then I was a little distracted by the FREAKING HUGE JET.

Tall-guy sat down in the pilot seat and started flipping some switches. When a red light started flashing and making 'barp barp' noises, I began wondering if he was actually capable of getting this thing off the ground.

"Scott?" I swear, one word from Xavier and every person around him snapped to attention.

"Something hit the windshield, Professor. Whatever it was didn't do any damage, but maybe we should check it out anyway."

Curiosity got the better of me and I wandered over to the window to see what was happening. It was Dad and his idiot friends throwing rocks. He must have called them right after we'd left.

I felt a deep sinking feeling in my stomach as I remembered the afternoon's events. I guess I'd gotten distracted by all the shiny lights and gadgets and forgotten what was really happening. If seeing Dad again hadn't jolted me back to the real situation, then a rock smashing apart on the windshield right in front of my face certainly did the job.

"Jean."

"I'm already putting it in the computer as a hostile area, professor." They spoke quietly, as if that would make a difference to whether I heard them or not.

"You might want to strap in for take off." Tall-guy stated to everyone, making a good excuse for me to slip away.

I took a seat further back in the jet, away from the others. I didn't really feel comfortable with them knowing what was going on between me and my family. As supportive and understanding as they tried to seem, I just couldn't push past the fact that they were complete strangers to me.

The jet steadied off and I released my seat belt. It wasn't long after that I heard the electronic buzz of a way overpriced wheelchair as it rolled towards me.

"Try and get some sleep, Seven." The Professor said quietly. "It's been a long day, and it'll be an even longer week."

I nodded mutely and promptly lay down. Don't get me wrong, I would've liked nothing more than to stubbornly refuse and do the opposite of what he said, but the truth was, the day had completely wiped me out. So, even if I had refused, I would've fallen asleep anyway.

I stayed in the same curled up position for at least an hour. I wasn't asleep, just distracting myself with any scrap of thought that crossed my mind. After about forty minutes of silence, someone finally spoke.

"Why are you looking so worried, Jean?" Tall-guy.

Then, after a pause, "I'm just not sure how she's going to cope, that's all."

"She'll be fine." His voice was warm and reassuring. "She seems like a tough kid and the rest of us all came out okay, didn't we?"

"Yeah. You're probably right."

Then there was a really long pause.

"And, Scott—"

"No, Jean; you don't look hideously deformed."