Disclaimer: Obviously I don't own this

A/N: Thank you for the reviews, I did have someone review the last chapter but for some odd reason it will only show up in my email. whatever. I am loving the reviews please continue.

Chapter Nine

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~ Minnesota ~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~

Niki Sullivan, or now that she was married she was called Niki Paaverud. Niki was happy with her life for the most part; she had a catering business that was very successful, she had a beautiful seven year old daughter named Aurora but most of everyone called her Rora instead, and Niki had a wonderful husband who worked in computer technology not that she knew much on the subject. She lived in a nice house in Minneapolis where she was able to run her business easily and where her husband could work with more job opportunity – it was a nice place and she loved where she lived.

Something was missing from her life though – her sister Norah. No matter what Niki did and no matter much she tried to refrain from thinking about her little sister but somehow she always managed to come to Niki's mind and god, some days Rora reminded Niki of her sister so much that it killed her. It was unfair for Niki and it was especially unfair on Rora who would never get the chance to know her aunt like she should have been able to, sure she had an aunt on her father's side but she wasn't all that hands on and kids seemed to instill a fear in her for some odd reason. All Niki wanted some days was to be able to have her sibling again, to be able talk to one and another about anything and everything that came to mind, to have girl's night with just the two of them and would eat tons of ice cream and pizza. Niki wanted that again, she wanted to have her sister back so that they could do that again.

Niki was more than willing to admit that she and her mother had been wrong when they confronted Norah about being a Mutant and then proceeded to tell her what they thought of Mutants and what they knew of them, which they were wrong about a good majority of it. They had told Norah without actually saying the words that being a Mutant was wrong, that it's unnatural, that she should be ashamed of being a Mutant and that she needed to go to the doctor to get fixed from her being a Mutant. Obviously there were some dangerous and powerful Mutants out in the world who could easily take advantage of people without even having to put forth much effort but there good Mutants too – Jean Grey and Charles Xavier being some of them. They were good people and good Mutants who were trying to put to rest all of the tales that were said about Mutants, about all of the stories that gave their kind a bad name.

Norah didn't mean to be dangerous when she blew the shed in the backyard to bits and pieces of wood, she had just come into a new power other than her power of being able to transport herself from one place to another and well…..they had reacted wrongly and drove Norah to running away at the age of fifteen and stealing their mothers spare car.

A few times a year Niki would search for Norah using everything and anything that was available for her to use and with all that she could remember about her sister and anyplace that Norah may have said she had always wanted to visit. She searched and searched and searched some more and nothing ever came up, once Niki had married David she had hoped with his computer skills that he might have an easier time of finding wherever it was that Norah ended up living in but nothing turned up when he did a search either. Niki wasn't going to give up though; she was determined to find her sister again one way or another. Niki didn't care if by the time she and Norah were reunited that they were both old elderly ladies living in a retirement home, the only thing that mattered is that they have the chance to see one and another again. Niki wanted to find her sister again and introduce her to her family and to Rora, she was going to tell Norah how sorry she was and how much she loved her, missed her appreciated her and how she really didn't give a flying fuck if she was a Mutant or not, she accepted her wholeheartedly.

"Oh Norah, I'm sorry." Niki said softly as she ran her fingers lightly over a framed picture of the two of them when they were younger, Niki was around twelve years old and Norah was about five or so and had the most stubborn look on her face which summed up the sort of person Norah was.

After Niki had a child of her own and felt the love that only a mother could have for her child Niki couldn't even begin to comprehend how their mother wasn't able to accept Norah as she was – a Mutant. No matter what Niki would accept her daughter; she'd love her if she decided to be a nudist, if she came out as bi or gay or wanting to be a man, she'd love her if she decided to join a polygamous relationship. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this world would be able to make Niki not be willing to accept her daughter and whatever she chose to do in life and because of the love she felt for her daughter Niki couldn't wrap her head around why her mother disliked Mutants and the idea of Mutant's so much. She knew that her mother missed Norah a lot more than she let on, it was in her dark eyes that were an exact replica to Norah's but she could also see it when she looked down the hall of her home and at the door that had once been Norah's room, when she went to family gatherings and saw the rest of their family with their children. Niki could see the sadness in her eyes when her mother looked at their relative's daughters and was reminded of her own daughter that ran away.

Cheri wouldn't even talk about Norah; not to Niki, not to Norah's father or any of their relatives and not even to a therapist and Niki wasn't exactly sure why that was. She thought that it was because it hurt for her to think about, that she missed Norah so much that it brought her to tears to think about, that she was embarrassed because Norah was a Mutant…..any of those could be why Cheri refused to talk about Norah but Niki couldn't be certain the reason. Niki had asked her mother to help her search for Norah once, but instead of agreeing wholeheartedly Cheri shook her head vehemently, as if she was asking her to stick her hand in acid, and told her to never speak about Norah and the fact that she ran away. That she couldn't talk about it and to leave the subject be.

Niki would honor her mother's request and would talk about Norah when she was around but she would be damned if she stopped all together, she would talk about Norah to anyone that wanted to know about her sister, she told David about her sister, she told Rora about the aunt that she hasn't met yet and why she hasn't met her yet, she told them about the fact that she was a Mutant and that she was proud of her sister for accepting her status as a Mutant and she told people about the person Norah was when she had known her.

When, not if, they were reunited Niki knew that she was going to have to get to know Norah all over again because it has been almost eight years and a person is bound to change in that amount of time no matter the circumstances. Norah is twenty-two now and will be twenty-three in a six months' time in April, rather than being her baby teenage stubborn as hell sister who Niki felt tagged along with her too much, Norah was now an adult.

All Niki hoped for now was that she got a lead, a phone call, something that will put her in the right direction of where her sister was.

~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~_~~_ Author's Note ~_~_~_~~_~_~_~_~_~~_~_~_

I used my sister's name in this story for my character's sister. Ha!

Thank you for takign the time to read this and review it, I appreciate that and love you all. Thank you!

Quotes:

"We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers - but never blame yourself. It's never your fault. But it's always your fault, because if you wanted to change you're the one who has got to change."

― Katharine Hepburn, Me: Stories of My Life

Sister. She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child."

"That's the best thing about little sisters: They spend so much time wishing they were elder sisters that in the end they're far wiser than the elder ones could ever be."

― Gemma Burgess