A/N: Yeah, this chapter might be a little bit slow, but I feel like the information was necessary. Also, if people could take the time and give me some tips on how to improve, that would be fantastic.

You know that really weird feeling you get from falling asleep in one place and waking up in another?

I'd experienced it before, but I never thought it could hurt.

I sat up on the – whatever the hell it was I'd been sleeping on – and tried to get my bearings.

This was difficult at first, considering that the room was too dark for me to actually see in, and also taking into account my blinding headache. I guess my head was probably just hurting from where my fath- well, from where it hit the wall, anyway.

Gradually, my eyes adjusted to the darkness and I could finally take a look around at the room I'd woken up in. Don't get too excited though, it wasn't anything special. In fact it was surprisingly… ordinary.

I was in a lounge room, set up on the couch with a few blankets and a spare pillow thrown down, no doubt to make me more comfortable. I blinked the sleep out of my eyes and struggled to my feet, rubbing the painful spot on the back of my head.

I heard the squeak of an old sofa bed, and my head darted to the left. It hurt to focus my eyes too much, so I could only just make out the lump of blankets, which I'm gonna go ahead and guess was another person.

I felt my heart stutter back to a normal speed, and got a fix on the location of the door. The glowing light creeping through the crack under it was what gave it away, really.

I fumbled for the doorknob (which is an exceptionally difficult thing to find in the dark) and opened it just far enough that I could squeeze myself though the gap. I was doing my utmost best to not make too much noise; I didn't want to wake the other person up.

Having clipped the door quietly shut behind me, I turned to walk away and only just managed to hold back a shriek as I suddenly noticed the form of the redheaded woman -- Jean I think. I guess I should start learning their names at this point.

"Welcome back to the land of the living," she said, grinning at the fact she'd almost killed me. "How do you feel?"

Still clutching my heart, and keeping my voice low, I muttered, "Well, apart from the heart attack you just gave me, just a bit of a headache." I glared at her, but then remembered my manners, and added a tart, "Thank you for asking."

Jean raised an eyebrow at me. "Why are you talking so quietly?"

I looked back at the door I'd just come through and then jabbed a thumb towards it. I was hoping she could work out my meaning from the fact that my eyebrows where now huddled together confusedly.

I saw her eyes whizzing around, taking in the movement I'd just made and trying to decipher what it might mean. Then they widened in sudden realisation.

"Oh! Her? Don't worry about her; she's completely out of it." She smiled again and waved a hand dismissively at the door. "She's a heavier sleeper than you are. Believe me; that's saying something."

Great, the one time I don't fall over something and wake everyone up, I find out it wouldn't have done anything anyway.

"Come on," she said giving a half smile and nodding in a direction down the corridor. "I'll get you a hot chocolate and explain everything."

"Sorry we had to set you up on the lounge," Jean sounded genuinely apologetic. "We didn't have any rooms prepared. We weren't expecting to have you for another few days, let alone two new students in the middle of the night."

I nodded silently and followed her into kitchen.

"So, who is she?" I had to shade my eyes as we moved further into the brightly lit room.

Jean was busy digging in the highest cupboard, and so all I got in return was a distracted grunt of "Huh?"

"The girl in the room," I repeated a bit louder. "Who is she?"

"Oh," she said, jumping down once she'd finally found the cocoa. "Her name is Aisha Fawn. About an hour after you fell asleep, we got a distress signal from one of our team members, Wolverine."

Gee, what a friendly sounding name.

"He found her unconscious in the woods with the letters F.O.H. smeared on her forehead in pig's blood. It wasn't too far out of our way, so we stopped in and picked them up."

Wow. Suddenly I'm starting to think that maybe my life doesn't suck quite so bad.

"Is she okay?"

"She's fine," she stated calmly, pulling off the lid of the can and scooping some of its contents into a mug. "Our doctor, Hank, gave her a look over and said she'd be good as new after a few days of rest. She woke up for a little while. Just long enough for us to explain what was happening and for her to tell us her name. After that she fell asleep."

I'm not surprised. She would've had to have been pretty tired.

My eyes got huge as I remembered something that I hadn't asked yet that seemed pretty important. "Where are we?"

"Salem Centre, Westchester County, in the state of New York," she rattled off like it was something she'd memorised from a text book.

My eyes almost popped out of my skull.

"New York!?" I live in California, so I think my reaction was acceptable. "How long was I out?"

She took a deep breath and I could see the cogs of thought turning in her brain as she calculated her answer.

"Oh, I'd say a good… fourteen hours."

"Fourteen hours!?"

Fourteen? Seriously? Well, there's a huge chunk of my life I'm never getting back.

"There you go." She placed the mug before me and went to work putting the used ingredients away.

"Thank you." I didn't grab the mug straight away, instead opting to let the drink cool down first.

I pulled up my jumper sleeve and began absent mindedly picking at the dead skin on my forearm. I hadn't been able to do this at home, but I had always wanted to.

Jean looked over and asked in a generally conversational way, "Does it hurt?"

I glanced up and cocked my head to one side. "Um… not really." I had to think before I continued my answer, because I'd never really paid that much attention to it before. I just tried to imagine it wasn't happening. "It's not really a gross and hurty type of thing," I began. "I mean, obviously it's gross, what with my bone growing up through my arm and all- but it's not wet, and it doesn't bleed or anything. It's just sort of, dry and flaky and itchy. Like a rash."

Jean nodded to show that she understood and there was quiet once again as she finished packing up and I started drinking my hot chocolate.

It tasted exactly the same as my mum used to make it. There must have been some kind of innate knowledge in women for making good hot chocolate, because Dad never quite grasped the idea that hot chocolate is supposed to taste nice.

I wouldn't tell Jean, because she might take it the wrong way, but when I'd first woken up in that room, for one bright and shining moment, I'd thought it had all been a dream.

"I wouldn't blame you for wishing it never happened."

"Oh, so you're a telepath too." I gave her a seriously unimpressed look which had been polished to perfection by years of practice.

"Among other things."

By the tone of what she said, I think she got the vibe I was sending out that I didn't like the idea of people poking around in my private angsty thoughts. Y'know, or she could've just read my mind.

I didn't like it. They had no right to be messing with my head like that.

"I know, I'm sorry," she sighed, reading my thoughts AGAIN. "But, just remember that if you ever need to talk about anything, I'm all ears."

But that's just it. She obviously didn't get it. She was all ears, but I didn't know her. If I wouldn't tell my best friends this stuff, why would I tell a total stranger?

"But sometimes, that's what you need. A total stranger."

"Get out of my head!"

That wasn't a sentence I'd expected to say this week.

Jean looked a bit shocked at my snapping. "I'm sorry, Seven. I'll try and keep your thoughts to yourself in future."

Uh… what?

I mumbled an apology as well, but I wasn't really all that sorry about it. Some sick sadistic part of my mind kept playing the moment over and over again in my head and pointing out how much I'd sounded like Dad.

I dropped my eyes back down to my mug and took another sip, letting the kitchen drift into an uneasy stillness.

"You should probably try and get some more sleep." I must hand it to her; she is a very brave woman for breaking that silence. "The Professor wants Hank to take a look at you bright and early in the morning. Find out what the whole bone thing is about." She waggled a finger at my arm for emphasis.

I shook my head. "I think fourteen hours sleep is enough for one night. And besides," I smiled for the first time in what felt like years. "It's only a couple more hours 'till the sun comes up."