A gentle voice woke her, 'nice to see you're finally with us.' Sarah sat up, wincing at the pain in her side. The thought ran through her mind before she could stop it, Well that's interesting, a blue man.

Hank was both impressed and slightly surprised, usually upon seeing him in person for the first time people tried to hide their reaction in some way, usually by looking away from his face or glancing at their watch - even if they had done so just seconds before laying eyes on him. Not so this woman. The Professor had spoken to him several times about her before putting his plan into action. She seemed to know little of the mutant community, only that it existed and played home to Magneto: who had a knack of making himself stand out from the crowd.

After the Alcatraz incident Hank had left behind all ties with the American Government, and shortly afterwards they had tried to cover up the whole Worthington mess. They had succeeded to the extent that the majority of the public and the international community had little idea of what actually happened that night, mostly because they knew so little themselves. It had been declared that Alcatraz had been victim to a terrorist attack, and, rather conveniently, all the perpetrators had perished in the attack. Of course the sudden movement of Golden Gate Bridge had been a difficult one to explain, so the government had eventually 'admitted', to having found the body of the notoriously dangerous, anti-homo-sapien , very powerful, previously incarcerated, Magneto. All nonsense of course, but luckily few had noticed.

Sarah Monaghan had been one of a few British citizens who had stumbled upon a forum post on a well known website, from a user claiming to be Magneto's right hand man, declaring to the world (albeit from a very small stage) that Magneto was in fact alive and well. The post had disappeared minutes after it appeared, and only those who had clicked on the link in the small amount of time it existed saw the message. One of the students in the mansion had come across the same website some time later to find an enormous thread discussing the Golden Gate Bridge incident, with one username in particular cropping up in the partial defense of Magneto - Ultraviolet. The Professor had eventually discovered Ultraviolet to in fact be a librarian from the United Kingdom. Why Charles was so keen not only to contact her but bring her safely to the mansion was the current unsolvable mystery. As far as Hank could see she had no mutation, although blood tests had revealed a considerable amount of the X-gene present in her DNA. If she had been in her teens or perhaps even early twenties Hank would have had the basis for the Professor's reasoning; however the woman in front of him looked to be in her early to mid thirties.

Hank's expression never faltered as he walked over to the head of his patient, calmly inspecting various cuts all over her torso.

'I'm Hank McCoy; I've been looking after you for the last couple of hours. You were very lucky you weren't worse off after running into Wolverine you know.'

'Worse off?' she replied, 'there's pain in too many places to count.'

'Yes well, you did run into a highly accelerated wall of adamantium and muscle. Then there was the claw damage of course.'

'Claw damage?'

The blue guy - Hank- gave her a small reassuring smile,

'That's what the stitches in your side are for. Various other bruises and cuts of course, and I'm rather surprised you haven't noticed your hand yet.'

She sat up with Hank's help and swung her legs over the side of the trolley she had been lying on. Sarah groaned a little after trying to mover her right arm, it was extremely stiff, not to mention painful in a numb sort of way.

'Your hand was essentially crushed I'm afraid. It seems you landed on it when you fell, broke a few very tiny bones. Your side was particularly badly cut, and it's taken a long time for it to begin healing because of the severity of it. Otherwise you are doing very well; just don't be too vigorous with your wrist for a while.'

A comfortable silence fell as Hank completed his examination, shining a light in her eyes he suddenly remembered what he had been meaning to ask her. Questioning proved his earlier guess about her age pretty accurate, 'I'm thirty-two, and yourself?'

He had smiled at her question, she certainly wasn't one to hide behind the usual social delicacies. Very straight talking.

'If you don't mind, I'm rather private about personal details and strangers.' He mused, giving the answer he had expected from her.

'Ah, I thought you would be,' she fired back. This was all very interesting to Hank, he was sure he had held this sort of conversation before, though it was proving hard to remember when or where. He held out his left hand for her to shake and introduced himself properly, 'Dr Hank McCoy, Xavier institute and school for the gifted.'

Sarah raised her eyebrows slightly as she grasped his hand and the door to the lab slid open, 'Institute makes it sounds like an asylum.'

Hank laughed as Wolverine entered, looking distinctly grim. Sarah spoke up once more, 'and don't get me started on the school for the gifted part.'

Hank's smile vanished as Wolverine glowered at him and Sarah, ''Some people might not find that so funny'. He ignored Sarah's presence completely and continued talking to Hank, 'There's a kid upstairs who wants some help.'

'Logan, I do remember asking you to take care of any of the students requests while I was down here.'

Sarah sat in silence, desperately unsure of how to react, uncertain whether to interrupt would result in making the situation worse. Before she had a chance to speak out as she wanted to Wolverine - Logan as it turned out - raised his voice again.

'Fine. If you want me to tell the kid that the pain he feels now will do nothing but increase, I best get to it straight away.'

In the moment that Logan's eyes met hers as he swept past Sarah realised who the man was.

Brown eyes. They were what had helped her recognise the man she had quite literally run into in the forest. Logan seemed to sense her gaze and stopped, allowing just two words to finally show he recognised her existence, "You're up."

'I hadn't noticed.' she replied, quickly getting up and overtaking Wolverine going out of the lab. Sarah heard him unsheathe his claws, but kept walking at the same pace.

Hank's voice suddenly echoed through the corridor as though nothing potentially explosive was going on, 'Sarah needs a room, and some clothes. I suggest you help her whilst I'm gone. Sarah, I'll come and find you as soon as I can.'

Ignoring Hank's words Sarah paid more attention to the steady footsteps that began to follow her own down the corridor- she kept walking, down the long passageway, taking a left, keep going, never mind the pain, just get out.

'Hey!'

A dead end.