And here's another chapter for all you lovely folks out there. As always, reviews are welcomed gladly, and I hope you enjoy - Alex finally makes an appearance!

P.S: as for other story ideas, I've had a few more (way to make it easier for myself) that include an AU Game of Thrones fic with an Arya/Gendry pairing because I just love them and I've made them closer in age to make it not so weird, and (I don't know if anyone will have even heard of this, but just in case..) a Red vs Blue fic with an Agent Washington/OC pairing - it's a web series that uses Halo games to portray the story, and it's really very good.

DISCLAIMER: Pretty much everything except Evelyn belongs to Marvel.

Chapter 4 – Internal Conflicts

As soon as Erik and Charles left, I felt the bubble of security and serenity I had been living in pop beneath me, dropping me into the murky waters of vigilance and tension; whenever something had seemed like it was going to get nasty, one or both of them had always miraculously appeared around the corner, ready to save the day, but that safety net was no longer available to us anymore, and the agents knew it as well as we did.

It had been five days since the older mutants left, and for five days I'd been steadily growing more uneasy and twitchy. I kept seeing the white coat and black eyes everywhere, and the mild nightmares that had been bothering me every night were getting worse and more frequent – most nights I'd have at least three nightmares. I'd thought that after I stood up to the agent, I was finally starting to move on, but everything had just gone downhill after that point, and having my safety net taken away wasn't helping at all. After all the progress I'd been making, I was now becoming quieter and sinking into myself further day by day. That only made me more miserable and ashamed.

Before he'd left, Charles had sought me out and told me that the next recruit was in a similar situation to mine; he'd said that he was sure I'd be glad to have someone who knew how I felt around me more frequently than Erik, and that it might take longer for them to bring this one back to the facility. I didn't want to meet another recruit who'd had a similar experience to mine. I longed to believe I felt like that because I wouldn't wish my experience on my worst enemy, but that wasn't my primary reason – I didn't want to have another, more prominent and unavoidable, reminder of my time in the asylum; I didn't want to talk over things with someone else. I wanted to move on, to leave it all behind me, and how was I to do that when there was a reminder in front of me all day, every day?

Charles had said that he understood how I felt and why I felt that way. I didn't believe him.

I'd taken to sleeping during the day and wandering the facility at night, effectively avoiding the other mutants who had finally relented and let me be. The building was just so much more enjoyable when there were barely any agents walking around and I didn't have someone constantly asking whether I was okay or I needed some food. I'd eat dinner with them in the evenings, and possibly breakfast if one of them was up early enough to run into me, but then I'd go straight to bed. I wouldn't actually get to sleep for hours, and then, when I did, I would only be under for about half an hour before the nightmares kicked in. My mind was slowly slipping away and I was worried that there wasn't anything I could do about it.

I was in the main atrium of the facility, looking around at the empty, shadowed building, when I decided I wanted to test my mutation. No one was awake, no one would see what I was doing, so I didn't see any problems. I walked outside into the cool, fresh air, breathing it in, and started down the pathway.

I knew that there were plants on either side of me, and I tried reaching out with my hands, but I couldn't feel that pulse that I usually felt. Wondering whether that meant that I couldn't control the plants unless my emotions peaked, I turned left at the end of the path and headed out onto the huge field of grass, making a beeline for the fence perimeter, beyond which was the woodland.

There wasn't a buzzing sound emitting from the fence, so I assumed it wasn't going to electrocute me if I touched it, and pulled myself up and over it. I looked up at the large tree in front of me, contemplating whether, someday, I'd be able to manipulate the bark, before climbing up it into the higher branches. I settled down on a thick one, stretching my legs out in front of me, completely unafraid of falling, and leant back against the trunk contentedly. It was comfier than my bed.

3rd Person

Erik slipped out of the car, stretching his cramped muscles, as he tuned Charles' ramblings out – the new recruit would just have to deal with them himself. His back cracked satisfyingly and he sighed, turning to face the two, their faces hidden slightly by the darkness. "Are the others all asleep?" he asked Charles.

The telepath brought his fingers to his temple, his eyebrows furrowing a little. "Most of them are," he replied. "Evelyn isn't in her room or the recreational room."

Erik's fists clenched. If the agents had hurt her– "Where is she?"

After another tense moment, Charles found her and lowered his fingers. "Sleeping in a tree by Cerebro."

Suddenly finding an image of the exact tree she was using stored in his mind, Erik turned and walked away from the telepath and the recruit, making his way towards Evelyn. When they had gone to recruit her, Charles had told him of her treatment at the hands of the asylum. Even when he hadn't known her, he'd been angry for her. Humans were disgusting with their experimenting and their blind disregard of the fact that mutants had nothing wrong with them; they were better than the humans in every way possible. Evelyn was an example of this, as was Erik himself – despite the trauma and torture they both went through, they came out with barely a scratch on their mental state, compared to how a human would have turned out; a human put through their experiences would have probably succumbed to the madness by now and either killed themselves or morphed into a murdering psychopath. And, no, he wasn't being extreme thinking like that, thank you very much.

He couldn't help the protectiveness that overcame him whenever he saw her; it was just in his nature. He knew what she'd been through, experienced it firsthand himself, and he didn't want a fellow mutant to ever go through something like that again. So, he was going to ward off anything traumatic that came her way, because he'd had no one to do that for him when he was her age.

When he finally came upon her tree, he frowned in bewilderment. She was nowhere to be seen. He knew she was there, somewhere, hidden amongst the branches, but she was completely unnoticeable. Then he really paid attention to the branches. They looked natural enough, but when he looked closer, he saw how they were bent at weird angles in order to wrap around the tree, presumably encasing her against the trunk. He smirked, a spark of pride igniting in his chest at the sight.

"Erik, Darwin just told me that Evelyn has been acting strangely lately. She's been sleeping during the day and avoiding them all. I think it would be best if we leave her to sleep in the tree tonight; it might help her."

"Can you see what she did?" Erik asked, ignoring the worrying news for now – he could ask her about it when she woke.

"Yes, it's incredible. I knew she could do more than grow flowers."

"I'm going to stay here, to make sure nothing happens during the night."

"Alright, Erik. Goodnight."

When Charles said nothing more, Erik sat down against the fence and looked out over the grass field towards the lit facility, pondering Evelyn's change in behaviour.

Evelyn

Birdsong broke through the thick cocoon of slumber and dragged me out, igniting awareness of my surroundings. I was so comfy, and it was so warm and dark in here, but there was something not right. First of all, when I usually woke up, I'd wake up on my bed; second of all, I was inside something dark, but I could hear the birds, and there were slivers of light breaking through whatever barrier there was between me and the outside world.

Feeling fear and panic course through me, my hand shot out and made contact with something hard and unrelenting. I was trapped. I didn't know where I was and I was trapped there. My voice was struck in my throat and my heart was hammering against my ribcage so hard I thought it would burst out any second.

Then I felt it: I felt the pulsing. "Get me out," I whimpered, pushing at the pulsing with all that I had.

The barrier uncurled itself from behind me and separated into several thin strands, stretching out away from me until they came to a rest, scattered and broken. I blinked. They were branches. They were branches and I was in a tree. I felt myself relax instantly, letting out a tired chuckle as my head fell back against the trunk. I'd gotten myself worked up over nothing.

Except it wasn't nothing. My head shot up again and I stared wide-eyed at the branches. I'd controlled them, I'd made them move! This was incredible. I had to tell Erik.

My mood dropped and I sighed – Erik probably wasn't back yet, and he'd wonder why I'd been out here in the first place, which meant that I'd have to tell him about the nightmares and avoiding everyone all the time. "Fabulous," I grumbled.

The branch I was lying on was thick enough to hold my weight until about halfway, but, luckily, that's as far as I needed to go before I could drop down on the other side of the fence. As soon as I did, there was movement on my right and I flinched away, untrusting. But then I saw who it was. "You're back," I stated, staring at him as I frowned disbelievingly.

He rubbed the sleep from his eyes and stood up. "You're observant," he replied.

"Did you sleep here?"

"Yes."

"Why?"

"To make sure you didn't fall out of that tree."

"Did you see what I did?"

He smirked. "Yes. Well done."

"I don't even remember doing it," I told him, "I must have done it in my sleep."

"Either way, you're getting stronger."

I nodded mutely, thinking to myself. Then something occurred to me. "Is the new recruit here?" He nodded, watching me as I sighed and ran a hand over my face, suddenly feeling tired again. "I don't want to be reminded of the asylum."

He put a hand on my shoulder and started leading me back to the facility. "I don't think he wants to be reminded of solitary confinement either. You don't have to talk to him about it if you don't want to."

"That hadn't occurred to me," I admitted, smiling bitterly at my ignorance.

"What's going on with you? Why are you acting strange?"

Sometimes I wasn't too fond of Erik's blunt approach to things. "I think I'm just worrying that this freedom isn't going to last forever," I replied, staring at the grass as it passed beneath my feet. "And that I'm going to have to go back at some point."

His fingers tightened on my shoulder. "You're out of there for good, Evelyn. You're never going to go back."

He sounded so adamant that I allowed myself to believe him, if only a little. "I hope not."

"I won't let you," he said then, looking down at me firmly, his grey eyes burning with hatred for the place.

I couldn't even speak. He was that angry with the asylum because of the way they treated me. He was angry on my behalf. No one had been angry on my behalf before. No one.

Erik was the first to go through the doors into the recreational room, with me following behind uneasily. I was worried how everyone would react to seeing me at this time of day. Would they be annoyed with me for avoiding them? Would they give me what I had once wanted and ignore me? Had I broken the only friendships I had?

"Evelyn!" I only had the time to catch a glimpse of the relief on Darwin's face before his arms circled around my back and brought me into him, his cheek against my temple. I was frozen with fear, clenching my eyes shut against memories of the asylum, completely still and unresponsive in his arms. "We've been worried about you," he murmured quietly. "I'm sorry if we did anything to upset you."

My body relaxed and the memories dissipated as I acknowledged his words. They weren't angry with me, they didn't hate me, they weren't going to ignore me; I'd been so wrong. They were truly the best people I could have surrounded myself with. They were everything I needed to help me get better, and I'd distanced myself from them because I was a coward.

Hesitantly, my arms reached out and around Darwin's waist, lightly holding onto him. This was my first hug in years. "Thank you," I whispered. "You didn't do anything wrong, though. I was just afraid."

He pulled back and held my shoulders as my hands fell to my sides. "Afraid of what?" he frowned.

"That you'd all be taken from me and I'd be alone again," I replied quietly, avoiding his eyes.

He grinned widely, squeezing my shoulders so that I'd look up at him. "We're not going anywhere. I promise."

I smiled back, nodding. When he stepped to the side, I looked around and noticed that Erik had left at some point, but when I spotted Angel, Raven and Hank all grinning genuinely at me, I realised that I felt just as comfortable with them as I did with Erik. At first, he'd been the one I was most at ease with because he knew what I'd been through, he understood; now I realised that was not all that I needed. I needed people who were different from me, who'd had better lives, so that I didn't have to be surrounded by the memories of past traumas all the time. I didn't have to move on from my childhood alone; they'd be there for me, reminding me of how good my life now was in comparison.

"Hey, guys," I smiled at them, cherishing their friendly and cheerful replies. "Sorry I've been a bit moody recently."

"If we're gonna put up with how flirtatious Sean can be, I'm sure we can put up with your mood swings," Raven teased, grinning.

I grinned back before walking over to the bar, feeling thirsty. "Speaking of Sean," I said, "Where is he?"

"He went to wake up Alex," Angel replied, coming over to sit on a stool. "Who, by the way, you're gonna love."

I quirked an eyebrow at her, lifting a Coke bottle to the rest of them to ask if they wanted one, receiving nods all round in reply. "Why's that?" I asked Angel.

"He's hot," she smirked.

I was twelve when I went in the asylum, so I knew what she meant, but I'd never really come across a guy I considered "hot" before. Sure, Darwin was handsome, Hank was cute, and Sean was... well, aesthetically he was a little appealing, I supposed, but none of them were strikingly attractive. If I did find this guy that attractive, I didn't know how I'd react since I didn't have the experience; I just hoped I wouldn't do anything stupid. But, then again, looks had never really meant much to me, so maybe that's why no one had stood out to me before. "Why does it matter?" I finally replied, retrieving seven glasses and seven Coke bottles.

Angel gaped at me. "It means our job has just gotten a lot more entertaining!"

"Do you have any idea how shallow that makes you sound?" Darwin chuckled, sitting down at the table nearest the bar. I smirked at him and looked to Angel's offended face.

"Where I come from, looks are everything," she retorted.

"She's got a point," I told Darwin, pouring out the drinks.

When I was opening the seventh bottle, the top fell off the bar and down onto the floor, rolling underneath one of the cupboards. Sighing heavily, I put the bottle opener on the bar and got down on my hands and knees, pressing my face against the floor to try and locate the top. I heard the door open and two sets of footsteps entered the room, accompanied by Sean's voice. "Is Evelyn not back yet?" he asked disappointedly.

My eyebrows rose at the emotion as Darwin replied. "Yeah, she's right– oh... Evelyn?"

My fingers closed around the bottle top and I pulled it out, rising to my feet quickly. Too quickly. My head throbbed in pain as darkness clouded my vision momentarily, but I just blinked a few times and it was gone, letting me see Darwin's amused features. "The bottle top fell," I explained lamely, holding it up for him to see.

"Evelyn!" Sean cheered. I turned to look at him, smiling at his delight as he sauntered over and leant an elbow on the bar, smirking as usual. "You've been playing hard to get." I rolled my eyes at his behaviour, unable to stop the amused grin from breaking out across my lips.

"Hey, Evelyn," Angel said pointedly, gaining my attention. "That over there is Alex, the new recruit I was telling you about."

I followed her finger and found myself staring at a guy my age with deep, dark blue eyes and short, blonde hair. He was tall, but shorter than Hank, I estimated, with broad shoulders and muscular biceps exposed by his short-sleeved, white shirt which hung over a set of blue jeans. His face was full of strong, sharp features, and his eyes showed caution and a hint of fear.

But Angel was right, I realised: he wasn't bad to look at in the slightest.

My first attempt at speaking didn't work that well, so I cleared my throat and tried again, managing to get out, "Hey, do you want a drink?" despite the confusion I felt towards unexpectedly losing the ability to speak.

He nodded, swallowing, and replied, "Yeah, please," in the deepest, most masculine voice I'd ever heard. Suddenly I was very aware of the fact that I was wearing shorts and a loose tank-top.

"I'll have one too, since you offered," Sean remarked sarcastically, tapping the bar surface.

I rolled my eyes at him again – I was sure he would make my eyes fall out one day, just like Raven was going to give me a heart attack – and pushed a glass towards him. "Already made you one, Sean."

His fake, offended face fell into a smirk again. "You know me so well," he winked.

"Too well," I replied, smirking at his pout as the others chuckled. You see? I told myself. You can be comfortable with these people too.

Everyone came over and took their glasses, Alex murmuring a "Thanks" as he did, and dispersed into their own areas. Alex and Sean went to sit with Darwin, while Raven and Hank went to sit on a sofa and Angel stayed where she was, on the stool at the bar. She leaned over the counter towards me. "Told you he was hot," she grinned.

I picked up my glass, shaking my head at her, and went over to sit on the spare sofa. To my disappointment, she followed me and plopped down at my side, eyes shining. "Angel, seriously?" I sighed.

"What?" she pouted. "You can't tell me you don't find him attractive, not after what I just saw."

I frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

Her eyes widened with delight, and she looked across to a smirking Raven and slightly confused Hank. Then she looked back to me. "It was so obvious," she said.

"Do I even want to know?" I groaned, rubbing my face.

"I think we should let her figure it out for herself," Raven said.

"But what if she realises when it's too late?" Angel whined.

"We can tell her before it gets to that point, if it's really obvious she's not going to figure it out."

"Does anyone want some food?" Sean called out suddenly from across the room.

"You ate an hour ago," Hank replied, bewildered.

"That's no excuse, Hank," Sean told him seriously. "C'mon, I want a snack. Someone come with me?"

I stood quickly. "I'll come. I haven't eaten yet."

"Great," he grinned, getting up and walking towards the doors. "Man, I love snacks."

I shared a smirk with Darwin, catching Alex's gaze as I looked away. He blinked before looking back to his drink, and I followed after Sean, wondering why the eye contact had felt so awkward.