Red or green, wasn't that the question? Hope mused as she stared at the apples in the fruit-bowl. Red apples used to be her favourite in her first life, but green apples had been what Hydra had given her and she had gotten used to them.

The slink of one of Logan's claws didn't really surprise her and she didn't flinch as he jabbed the green apple with it, she glanced up to find him staring at her before he took a large bite out of the shiny green apple.

"Did that help with your decision?" He asked around the apple.

"So kind of you to help me," she reached for the red apple. "You're all kindness and sweetness under that tough façade, huh?"

Logan snorted as he watched her pick out some other things for her breakfast like orange-juice and cornflakes—she had a serious problem with sugar, Logan noticed as he realised there was more sugar than actual cereal in the bowl—and a single slice of toast.

"Muffin?" Logan speared a chocolate muffin with another one of his claws and waved in her face.

She smirked as she pulled it off his claw and placed it on her tray.

"Gone lick the chocolate off your claw or not?" she asked as she glanced pointedly at the streaks of chocolate goodness on the tip of his claw.

He just arched a brow as he let it sink back into his hand and smirked at the face she made.

"Do you do that with everything that gets on them?" she asked. "You just sheath them into your body without a care for all the guck on them? Eww."

"You're really going to be squeamish about that?" he asked as they walked towards a table to eat breakfast.

"Do you not care for the things you're letting effect your body?" she asked as she grabbed a spoon. "All the bacteria you're letting in your blood-stream?"

"You're not a germaphobe are you?" he asked as she spooned some milky-sugar with a hint cereal into her mouth.

"With where I've been living for two years?" she snorted after she swallowed her mouthful. "I just don't want my teacher to get sick."

"I don't get sick," he declared firmly before frowning at her. "Do you?"

"Does being poisoned count as being sick?" she asked before she took another mouthful of cereal.

"Nope," he snorted as he bit into the apple again.

"Then I don't," she covered her mouth as she talked—her mother's scowl when she used to talk with her mouthful firmly in her mind.

"Glad you don't have a stupid-ass diet that I would have to fix," he nodded to her tray of food though he grimaced at the sugar. "Though I would lessen the sugar intake by at least half."

"I've spent the last two years with what I eat, when I eat and how much I eat decided for me," she folded her buttered toast in half. "I've learnt a whole new appreciation for food."

"Good," he still was eyeing her sugary cereal. "You still need to cut down on the sugar."

"Nope," she popped the 'p' before she took a bite of her toast.

Life at the School was easier than at SHIELD. There was no untrusting gazes that watched me walking through the halls which was a big plus and people could actually met my odd-coloured gaze and didn't stare at the metal that was my left arm.

I wasn't the only student in the School when I first started; Rogue, Bobby, Kitty and Peter were around and they were welcoming—which was strange considering how SHIELD treated me as an unknown that could later on be an ally though they weren't sure at the moment.

I got on best with Logan—we were both survivors, both been experiments, and there was a kinship between us—as we were the most alike in a way. (Scott was sure that Logan was corrupting me which made us laugh)

I was often paired against Peter in spars—neither of us had to hold back our strength when we fought, neither of us had to worry about accidently breaking bones (though once Peter had hit me hard enough for the metal grafted to my cheekbone was visible for a brief moment before it healed over) and it helped teach us to fight against people with a vastly different heights to us.

"'ello, Professor," Hope greeted though she didn't turn away from where she was staring at some of the kids playing basketball—term had started a few weeks ago and the School was no longer quiet as it was filled with young mutants.

"Hope," Xavier greeted warmly as he stopped next to her seated form.

They sat in comfortable silence for a moment as they watched the kids use their powers to make the game more interesting before suddenly everything seemed to freeze making Hope glance up at the bald-man next to her.

"Guess this is our private talk, huh?" she asked.

"I am sorry for bringing up bad-memories, Hope," Xavier apologised to her.

"Its fine," she shrugged. "I gave you permission to go snooping about, but I have a feeling that's not what this little chat is about."

"The knowledge you have could help a lot of people if you share it," Xavier finally said his real reason for the chat.

"I could also get people killed," she retorted. "This isn't a movie anymore, or a comic, or a game that I can re-start. This is real-life, their lives that I could make worse by trying to help."

"You could make them better," he said softly.

"I'm not arrogant enough to believe that I know what could make them better," she scoffed. "I could chose something that could end up killing them or destroying the people they will be. It was different when I was writing stories about them, changing them and things to suit my wants, but that was when they were fictional characters and not real people."

"You won't stay away though," he was confident as he spoke.

"And why's that?" she asked.

"Because you are like Logan, you're loyal and will go to great lengths to those that have earned it," he stated simply.

"I don't trust them so why would I be loyal to them?" she asked with a scoff.

"Because you loved the people they will became later in life, you admired them and wrote about them, read other peoples stories about them, you watched their movies over and over again and began reading their comics," he said simply. "And you're loyal already to my other students, you'll fight in the up-coming battle for the world if only to protect them."

"You make me out to be a better person than I am," she said softly.

"Perhaps you're making yourself out to be a worse person than you really are," he told her. "You have been hurt badly since coming to this world, and have changed greatly from the child you was, but you're still a good person underneath it all."

She just snorted in reply.

"You've been made into a woman that I'm not sure can properly die before you have fulfilled your role," he believed every word that came out of his mouth, Hope could tell. "Be your role of protector, shield or simply friend."

"Any more pearls of wisdom?" she asked as the world went back to normal.

"I only have a gift," he held out a silver chain with a long silver tube—about the length of her forefinger—hanging from it and she took it with a confused look. "Open it."

She twisted the lid off the tube and shook it on to her palm till a rolled up piece of paper fell out, she put the necklace beside her as she began to unroll the paper and paused as she saw what was drawn on it.

A round face, almost sharp nose, pale eyes, short hair the curled around the ends framing her face.

"Mum," she breathed as she tenderly stroked the side of her mother's sketched face.

"I got Peter to draw her from your memories," Xavier told her softly.

"Thank you," she carefully rolled the picture up, put it in her tube and placed the necklace around her neck.

"I only bought the necklace," he told her. "You should thank Peter for the drawing."

Seeing that picture, I wanted to cry. I didn't want to stop looking at her face, taking in all the wrinkles that gave her face character, and I realised that my memories weren't enough.

Peter and Xavier had given me the only picture I would probably ever have of my mother, I wouldn't let anything happen to it. It would always be my most precious treasure, my last tie to my old and first life.

"Where's Hope?" Kitty asked as they stretched under Logan's eyes in the danger room.

"Ah saw her watching the kids playing basketball," Rogue grimaced as she stretched her back.

"She'll be here soon," Bobby twisted his upper-body under Logan's stern gaze.

Speaking of the Devil and she shall appear, Kitty thought as the danger room's doors slid open and Hope walked in dressed in her own black leather suit though there was a glint of silver around her throat which was new.

"Peter!" Immediately she bounded towards Peter and surprised everyone with giving him a tight hug.

Peter grunted in slight pain before his skin turned to steel so she was no longer hurting, almost breaking, his ribs as she seemed to forgotten that he wasn't a durable as she was without his body being steel.

He peered down as she continued to hug him tightly, probably the only one apart from Logan that noticed the slight tremble to her shoulders, and felt the thin tube of the necklace that the Professor had placed his recent drawing in against his chest—the woman must have been important to Hope if it was affecting her this much.

He placed one of his large hands on the back of her head, short curly dark strands attempted to tangle around silver fingers, and wrapped the other around her slim waist to return her hug.

"Break up the love-fest," Logan growled making Hope pull away from Peter with a light flush to her cheeks—the first blush they had ever seen her do. "We've got a training session now."

SHIELD wouldn't let me stay at the School, they were happy for them to teach me to control my strength but I would never be able to be an X-man or anything like that.

SHIELD had found me, they owned me in a way, and in the end I would become a SHIELD agent and not a X-man—which was a shame as I felt at home at Xavier's in a way I hadn't still I woke up in this world.

Though I still deserved my pokémon in my next life—if I have a next one—but I must admit that I wouldn't mind being a mutant and actually becoming a proper X-man instead.

Rogue huffed as she let herself fall back on her ass on the floor and grimaced at the feel of her leather suit sticking to her sweaty skin and smiled as Bobby's cool arms wrapped around her waist—it really was great having a human ice-cube as a boyfriend.

Kitty groaned as she flopped beside them, making sure to press against Bobby's side to get the benefits of his cool skin—Kitty had never seen Bobby break a sweat before—while Peter sat next to Hope as they both caught the breaths back a lot quicker than the rest of them.

"She was important to you then?" Peter asked Hope as she fiddled with her new necklace. "The woman I drew?"

"Professor didn't tell you who she was?" Hope was surprised as Peter shook his head. "She was my Mum."

Rogue's attention couldn't help being caught with how Hope said 'she was my mum' as the slightly standoffish girl used the softest and fondest tone that Rogue had ever heard from her.

"You've drawing is the only picture I have of her," Hope tilted her head back to flash a soft smile—so different from her distance with an edge of left-over anger (which no-one could really blame her for as she had been used as an experiment) smile—at Peter. "Thank you."

Rogue had to swallow thickly as she entwined her gloved hands with Bobby's bare hands. Before she had run away, back when she only just discarded the name Marie, she had made sure to pack pictures of her parents and couldn't imagine not having them with her. For Hope having no picture till the Professor got Peter to draw one was almost unthinkable—no wonder she seemed softer, happier, today.

"I'll draw more if you like," Peter told her as he rested one large hand on Hope's petite shoulder and she flashed him a smile.

"Thank you."

I had thought I wouldn't have to deal with Hydra invading Xavier's, or anyone else really, as it was 2007 when I joined the school but I had learnt swiftly that the movies only showed part of the picture, especially when there was none for 2008, and I really shouldn't have been surprised by Siren's scream on the night the Professor and Jean had to leave.

Hope didn't think as she bounded out of her room and snarled as she tackled a uniformed man that was attempting to take one of the kids, Artie, and she doesn't flinch as he fired bullets into her before she crushed his throat with a well-place squeeze of her left hand before looking up at the young mutant.

"Hide," she ordered the scared boy who nodded and did as he was told.

Logan's roar echoed through the mansion followed shortly by Beast's.

"Hope," Peter turned the corner with some of the other students trailing behind him in his steel form.

"Hide with Artie," Hope told them as she gestured to her room where Artie had disappeared to and they hurried to it. "Let's go."

Peter and I double-teamed anyone we came across that dared attack our home. They had underestimated us and now their corpses were being taken away from by the police as Logan and I healed from our gun-shots—we were the only ones that didn't bother dodging the bullets despite the fact they could hurt us, unlike Peter with his bullet-proof steel-skin, and had to recover from it as the Professor and Jean came home—they didn't come home alone though.

Hope's lips pursed and her face tighten as she watched Coulson follow Jean and Xavier and knew her time at the school was up.

"Coulson," she greeted in a way that tipped Logan off as he stood almost protectively next to her with Peter moving to flank her other side.

"Hope," Coulson eyed the two man either side of her and almost seemed sad that he was breaking them apart—almost being the key word because Coulson was going to follow orders either way. "New orders for you."

"You're attempting to take my student?" there was a dangerous undertone to Logan's growl as Peter's face tightened as silver spread across his flesh as it turned steel.

"She's part of our division as she has been ordered to come back as her training has been completed," Coulson informed Logan with mild ease. "She has no other reason to stay here."

Logan opened his mouth, no doubt to tell Coulson and his division to go fuck themselves, when Xavier cut him off.

"We cannot stop them Logan," Xavier told him simply and Logan glared at him once before turning his glare back on Coulson.

"I should pack than?" she asked almost idly though part of her heart was breaking—she had finally found somewhere that felt like home and SHIELD was taking it away from her.

Coulson just nodded and she stood swiftly and left before anyone could see the tears that were threating to fall—her life sucked and just wasn't fair at all damn it.

SHIELD owned me in a way, and I always knew I wouldn't be able to stay at Xavier's forever so I shouldn't be so upset.

But I was. I had made friends, became part of the large rather fucked-up family that was Xavier's, and now I had to leave it because I had completed my training.

Fury would be in deep shit if I ever found out that he was behind the attack on the school just to see if I was ready.

AN: A few questions for readers;

1. Should this stay a gen-fic or should Hope be paired with someone? If you would like a pairing, please say who.

2. Should I do another fic about Hope being reborn again but as a mutant this time and a mostly strictly X-men verse? If so should she born in it to one of the Canon characters? If so, please say who. Or should she wake up fully grown like this one just were fuzzier memories so she doesn't tip of Xavier to her first two lives? Also should it be gen or pairing fic?

3. If I do end up writing the other fic, what mutant power do you think she should have?

4. What should her third life's name be?