Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution. I do own Lorelai LeBeau, Monica and Joey Summers, Lucie Cartwright and her parents, and Sara and Judy Grey.

Chapter Forty Five – Parental Ignorance

April 1999

The Brotherhood Boarding House was never in a state of normality. At least, it was never what most people would consider normal. For the seven mutants that lived there, it suited them just fine.

On this particular morning, Lucie had a headache rivalled only by Lance's and that was only because recently his powers had been causing them anyway.

In the space of only a few hours, Pietro had nearly killed Todd three times because of slime everywhere, Tabby and Wanda had had several loud debates about whether to help or stop him, and Fred had slowly eaten his way though the contents of the kitchen.

The doorbell rang and Lucie groaned, letting her head fall back against the couch. "I'll get it."

"Here." Lance tossed a tub of aspirin to her as she stood up.

"Thanks." Lucie popped the lid off, tossed a couple into her mouth and summoned a stream of water from the faucet in the kitchen, catching it and swallowing on her way to the front door.

Pasting a bright smile on her face, she opened it. "Good morning …"

Her voice trailed away and the smile faded, seeing her parents standing on the doorstep. For a second, time seemed to freeze.

Then she caught sight of Sara and Judy behind them and stifled a sigh of relief, deciding to focus on them first. "Aunt Sara, Aunt Judy, how are you?"

"Wonderful." Judy slipped between her parents and gave her a hug. "Do you know these people?"

"I did once." Lucie scowled.

"Darling, don't be silly." Maggie Cartwright laughed. "We're your parents."

"And don't worry." David Cartwright added in a whisper. "We've found a solution to your little problem."

"You mean my mutation?" Lucie asked in a normal tone; her parents both hushed her, glancing worriedly at the two women with them. "What? Don't you want people to know I'm mutant? I'm sure they won't mind. Especially since everyone else who lives here is as well. Why don't you come in?"

"Good idea." Sara shot a disgusted look at her parents, having heard the story over Christmas and embraced Lucie as she passed, ushering her sister in ahead of her. "Lance!"

Lance hurried out of the living room, rubbing his head. "Hi Mom, Aunt Judy. Hang on." He hugged them and stuck his head back into the living room. "Pie … Quicksilver, put Toad down! Toad, go and clean the slime up!"

Lucie smiled sweetly at her parents, who looked slightly shell-shocked. "Coffee?"

For the first time in about two years, when Kitty reached the Boarding House, she rang the bell instead of simply phasing through the door.

The reasons for this were sleeping soundly in their pram, looking like complete angels, rather than the terror-twins already nick-named 'Search' and 'Destroy' by the inhabitants of the Institute.

With Scott and Jean on their honeymoon – having brought their wedding forward due to stress of planning – the rest of the X-Men had been left taking care of Monica and Joey. Today, Kitty had decided to take the little darlings for a walk, before they found themselves inducted into the Danger Room sessions early.

True to Kitty's guesses at Christmas, Joey had inherited his mother's telepathy and telekinesis, and nothing was more fun to him than watching someone trying to rescue his teddy bear from the ceiling. It seemed to be the telekinetic equivalent of throwing a toy from his pram and watching an adult pick it up over and over again.

Monica, on the other hand, took after her father and, every now and then, when she was crying, her eyes would glow ominously red, causing everyone to duck, just in case. This usually caused the crying to stop, and some of the more paranoid X-Men (mostly Bobby) were convinced that Monica knew what she was doing and did it on purpose.

Of course, it was unlikely that a four-month-old child was cognitively advanced enough to be doing that, but no one had any doubts that once she was, she would.

Despite all this, and Lorelai definitely having inherited her father's powers, it had been agreed that Kurt and Kitty wouldn't use their powers when holding the children until they were at least a year old, unless it was an emergency, just in case.

Strangely enough, the door was opened almost immediately. Kitty hushed Tabitha before she could say anything, gesturing to the babies.

"Hey." Tabby whispered. "If you want them to stay asleep, bringing them here might not be the best idea. Lucie's parents are visiting."

"Ouch." Kitty winced. "Well, that's alright. Maybe they'll be incentive for everyone to keep quiet." She levitated the pram over the step and pushed it into the living room.

Greetings were exchanged, introductions were made and Monica woke with a soft cry.

Sara scooped her granddaughter up and she settled down. "There we go, sweetie."

"Unbelievable." Kitty muttered, sinking into the chair next to Lance. "It took us three hours to get them to sleep."

"They know their grandma." Sara smiled. "How are you, dear?"

"Exhausted." Kitty admitted. "Why did we end up looking after them again?"

"Luck of the draw." Lance told her, kissing her forehead. "I offered to have them here, but Scott wouldn't hear of it."

"It's still weird hearing you call him by his first name." Kitty commented. "So what's going on?"

"We're trying to figure out why Lucinda won't come home with us." Mrs. Cartwright answered tearfully.

Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Couldn't have anything to do with the fact that you threw her off a ship when you found that she was mutant, could it?"

Lance nudged her lightly. "Kitten …"

"What?" Kitty asked. "Everyone's thinking it; I'm just saying it."

"We did not throw her off the ship!" Lt. Cartwright protested. "She fell."

"Right." Kitty rolled her eyes. "She wrapped herself in a blanket, fell overboard and, despite the fact that she could breathe underwater and swim, you couldn't pull her back up."

"She's got a point, you know." Lucie commented, quietly observing her parents. "Let's face it. You'll never be able to accept the fact that I'm mutant."

"We can fix that!" Mrs. Cartwright pleaded.

"That you can't face it or that she's mutant?" Sara asked sharply, moving to wrap an arm around Lucie's shoulders, adjusting Monica as she did.

"Uh oh." Lance murmured. "Mom's got her 'Mama Bear' face on."

"This should be interesting." Kitty agreed just as quietly; they both knew how protective Sara could be of her 'children'.

"She's not mutant!" Lt. Cartwright protested, causing his daughter to flinch. "She's just going through a … a phase!"

Lance groaned. "Oh, God, now you've done it!"

Kitty smirked and stood up. "No, this is going through a phase." To the Cartwrights' obvious disgust, she disappeared through the wall to the kitchen, returning with a cookie. "Anyone else want one?"

"We're good, thanks." Wanda told her with a sigh. "I swear, you're worse than Lance with the rock puns."

"I'm not that bad." Lance grumbled, pulling her back down onto his lap and sliding a protective arm around her waist.

"My point is," Kitty continued, looking at the Cartwrights, not intimidated by their expressions in the slightest, "this isn't something that will go away. There's nothing you can do to get rid of Lucie's powers, short of killing her. It's in her DNA. It's the equivalent of telling someone to stop having blue eyes."

"Look, we know a doctor …" Lt. Cartwright began, sending spasms of horror through everyone in the room.

Lucie let out a little gasp and Todd reached across to take her hand, almost automatically, beating Wanda to it, who settled for patting her shoulder.

Her father seemed not to notice the effect his words had caused. "He assures me that …"

"Bullshit!" Sara interrupted, her eyes blazing.

"Go Mom!" Lance exclaimed, sounding stunned.

"Either this person is lying or you are volunteering your daughter for experimentation." Sara stood up. "Well, I won't have it! If you can't accept your daughter for who she is, you clearly are not fit to be parents!"

Lucie stood up as well as Monica jolted awake with a wail, and took the baby from her grandmother, cooing softly to her.

"Madam!" Lt. Cartwright barked. "I am a commissioned member of the US Navy and I will not be intimidated! I …" But then he trailed off, staring in horror over Sara's shoulder.

Kitty followed his gaze and saw that Lucie had set Monica down in the pram beside her brother, who had also woken up, and was levitating droplets of water above their heads, shaping them into pictures, to their obvious amusement.

"Oh, God, they're here …" Lexa's voice groaned.

Lucie glanced up with a grin. "Now, now, Lex; that's not a very nice thing to say about my parents."

"You know as well as I do that I was talking about the twins." Lexa growled.

"Hey!" Pietro protested with a frown.

Wanda rolled her eyes. "The other twins, idiot!"

"I'm not an idiot!" Pietro insisted.

"Yeah, you are!" Lexa slipped into his arms and pressed a chaste kiss to his cheek. "But you're my idiot."

Only Pietro and Kitty heard the last part, but the latter ignored it, while the former smiled happily and sat down, pulling his girlfriend into his lap.

Lucie went back to entertaining the twins, but her demeanour had changed slightly; Kitty had a feeling she'd seen the expression on her parents' faces when she looked up. She reached over and tapped the other girl on the shoulder. "How about we take the twins to the park?"

"Sure." Lucie stood up and stretched, sending the water back to the kitchen with a wave of her hand. "Which one?"

"The actual park." Kitty elaborated. "We can take them to the duck pond."

"You can't do that in public!" Mrs. Cartwright hissed in a scandalised whisper.

"And why not?" Lucie demanded, crossing her arms. "I live with this lot. Everyone knows they're mutant; therefore everyone knows I'm mutant. You are the only people who seem to have a problem with it. I'll pick up groceries while I'm out, guys."

"Well, if you insist." Wanda shrugged. "Means I don't have to do it."

"I'll come with you." Tabby decided, jumping to her feet. "You could cut the tension in here with a knife."

"She's really good with kids, isn't she?" Tabby asked quietly.

Kitty glanced up from mopping Joey's chin and shielded her eyes to see what her companion was talking about. Lucie was sitting by the lake surrounded by children and several parents and seemed to be telling them a story.

There was nothing unusual about that, but droplets of water were acting it out in front of her and the children were captivated.

"Yeah, she is." Kitty agreed, grabbing another tissue. "God, you are so cute when you're behaving, you know that?"

Joey just gurgled happily in response and Kitty instinctively reached out and grabbed his teddy bear as it floated out of the pram. "Why did I say anything?"

Tabby sniggered. "You have that problem a lot?"

Kitty nodded. "Him and Lorelai. If he's not floating them out the window, she's blowing them up."

Tabby tilted her head curiously. "You ever thought about having children?"

Kitty's hand moved automatically to her stomach and she smiled. "Sometimes."

"You'd be a good mother." Tabby told her.

"You think?" Kitty asked, trying not to sound anything more than quietly curious. Lance assured her of that fact on a regular basis, but it would be nice to hear it from someone else.

"Definitely." Tabby confirmed. "You'd be that mom, you know. The one all your kids' friends meet and say, "I wish she was my mom"." She paused. "Maybe I was the only kid who did that, because my mom was really sick and couldn't do anything."

"No, I did it too." Kitty told her, squeezing her hand in silent comfort. "I used to wish Lance's Aunt Samantha was my mom."

"And now?" Tabby asked quietly.

Kitty shrugged. "Now I wish Sara was my mom."

Tabby laughed. "We all wish that."

"That's because you've all been very unlucky."

Kitty tilted her head back. "Hey, Sara. What happened to Mr. and Mrs. Crazy?"

"I convinced them that, if they really loved their daughter, they would give themselves time to come to terms with her mutation and that it would be best for everyone if they stayed away until they could." Sara answered evenly, with a cool note in her voice that Kitty knew wasn't directed at her.

"Good." Kitty murmured. Standing up, she deposited Joey into Tabby's outstretched arms and jogged down to the lakeside, immediately recognising the story as Cinderella.

"… and they all lived happily ever after." Lucie finished, and the water-based representations of Cinderella and her Prince Charming dissolved into a shower of hydro-fireworks.

The children, and the parents, applauded loudly and Lucie got to her feet, bowing to the crowd. "Thank you, thank you." As they dispersed, she turned to Kitty. "Pity life doesn't end like that, really."

"What, happily ever after?" Once again, Kitty's hand drifted down to the gentle swell of her stomach. "Maybe not. But I think we can get close enough."

AN: Sorry, ended on an incredibly cheesy note! Review please!