Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution.

I'm really sorry this is moving so slowly; I don't know what happened. I'd just like to state now that I don't read the comics, so any characters you recognise from the comics are going to be different, either in powers, personality or story-line.

Chapter One – Welcome

November 1999

"Alex? Alex? Alex? Alex?" Lorna sighed, giving up, and balled up the sheet of paper in her hand, lobbing it at her best friend's head. "Hey, Sharkbait!"

Alex looked up. "Yeah?"

Lorna raised an eyebrow. "Wow, you're distracted. You hate that name. What are you doing?"

Alex absently scratched the back of his neck with his pen, leaving an ink mark. "I'm trying to figure out how to change my name from Alex Masters back to Alex Summers."

With an exasperated sigh, Lorna grabbed a cloth and rubbed the ink off, reading the form over his shoulder. "Alex, that looks fine. What's the problem?"

"I feel kinda guilty." Alex admitted. "I mean, my foster parents took me in and put up with all the hell I put them through and … doesn't feel right, just writing them off."

"Then why don't you change it to Alex Masters-Summers?" Lorna suggested.

Alex brightened. "Why didn't I think of that? Thanks, Lor!" He grabbed his pen again, but paused, staring over her shoulder. "Sam, what are you doing?"

Lorna followed his gaze to see Sam furiously scribbling on another sheet of paper, surrounded by Todd, Fred, Jamie, Evan, Lucie, Tabby, Rahne, Warren and Taryn, all of whom occasionally shouted a seemingly random name. "Yeah, Sam, what are you doing?"

"Writing my Christmas list." Sam answered briefly.

"William." Jamie said.

Sam shook his head. "Got him."

Lorna and Alex exchanged a confused glance and the latter shrugged, leaving the questioning up to his best friend.

"Isn't it a little early to start your Christmas list?" Lorna asked.

"Well, I'm not entirely sure how many siblings I've got." Sam admitted.

"Okay," Warren sighed, "let's go through them. Paige, Will, Lizzie, two Stevens …"

"Three." Sam corrected. "No, wait … maybe it is two."

"What in God's name …?" Another voice asked.

"Hey, Robbie." Sam greeted without looking up. "Do you know how many brothers are called Steven?"

"Four." Robbie answered immediately.

Sam frowned at his list. "Are you sure?"

"We've shared a room for three years." Robbie reminded him. "One's a footballer, one's into street-dancing, one answers the phone with weird messages and the fourth is like Jamie on sugar laced with crack."

"Oh yeah!" Sam nodded with a grin. "Thanks."

For her own sanity, Lorna decided to take herself out of the conversation. Remembering the intercom ringing, she glanced up to ask Robbie who it had been, but her question was answered before she could voice it.

Standing a little behind Roberto was a young blonde woman about her age, who was watching the interaction with a mixture of apprehension and amusement.

Remembering how unnerving her it was for her, even with Lexa, Alex and Warren joining at the same time, Lorna jumped to her feet. "Hi!"

"Lorna, this is Carole Danvers." Robbie said, seeing they had her attention. "Carole, Lorna Dane, aka Polaris, second-in-command of X-Force."

As always, the statement threw Lorna off-guard. She was one of the leaders of the X-Men.

Granted, it was a new team, but her opinions were listened to. It always amazed her how a group of teenagers, so against authority most of the time, formed themselves into an unwritten hierarchy in the Danger Room and on the battlefield. She had been surprised that Alex had chosen her as his second, but then maybe she shouldn't have been; they were best friends and she knew him better than she knew herself. What had really surprised her was that Lexa had stepped back and let her explain the problem they had both seen.

"It's nice to meet you, Carole." Lorna gave her a quick hug and turned back to the other students.

Rather predictably, they were completely oblivious to the by-play and were now discussing how many of Sam's siblings were girls. Sighing irritably, she lifted her hand and sent a metallic shockwave through the room. "Hey!"

The jolt knocked several people off balance, including Alex, who had to pick himself up off the floor. "Lorna, what was that for?"

Lorna shrugged. "Look, if I was Kitty or Lexa, I would've whistled, but I can't do that; I had to get your attention somehow. Everyone, this is Carole Danvers. Carole, this is everyone; this is Sam. That's Lucie and Tabby. That's Rahne, with the red hair. The sickeningly sweet couple in the armchair – get a room, guys – that's Warren and Taryn. Todd, Fred, Evan … and the little one's Jamie. And this," she clapped a hand on Alex's shoulder, ignoring Jamie's protest, "is Alex, aka Havoc, the leader of X-Force."

"The one person she has to listen to." Alex joked, shaking her hand. "Welcome. Lorna, could you sort out a guest room; Jamie, try to find Miss Munroe or Mr. Logan, tell them we have a visitor; everyone else … see if you can find out how many damn sisters Sam has!"

Lorna rolled her eyes and lopped her arm through Carole's. "Come on, hun; I'll show you around. What brings you here?"

"Well, my parents were killed in a car accident when I was five." Carole answered slowly, but with no sense of reluctance. "And I went to live with my mother's sister. I started noticing that I never got as many scrapes and bruises as my friends and realised I was pretty much invulnerable. As time went by, I got stronger and stronger and … well, there was an incident with a truck and a mud-pit. My aunt could deal with all that, even when I started reading her mind accidentally. She could make excuses for all that stuff, you see. Then the flying started and she told me to get out."

"That sucks." Lorna squeezed her arm. "So you came here?"

"Yeah, I heard about it on the news." Carole explained. "Seemed as good a place as any."

"You sound like you're from down South." Lorna commented. "Where'd you grow up?"

"Tennessee." Carole answered, slightly dreamily. "I miss it, really. What about you?"

"I was raised in a children's home in Connecticut." Lorna told her. "Left on the doorstep as a child. I know nothing about my mother and only as much about my father as the X-Men can tell me. Eric Maximoff-Lehnsherr." She elaborated, almost spitting the words out. "Magneto. I doubt he even knows I exist, but … You ever heard of him?"

"I think I might have heard his name mentioned somewhere." Carole frowned. "Wasn't he one of the possessed horsemen last year, or whatever they were called?"

"Yeah, that's him." Lorna sighed. "Listen to me; I've gotten all depressing. Right, back to here. There are three teams in the X-Men; if you stay, you'll be joining X-Force and training with us. X-Factor were the original team, the New Mutants were the first batch of new recruits and X-Force … well, we're whoever's left basically. Except the babies, of course."

Carole's face lit up with a smile. "Babies?"

"Yup, Generation X has five members at the moment." Lorna confirmed. "Typically, mutation doesn't reveal itself until puberty, or at least a period of heightened emotional stress, but apparently, it's a lot earlier if both parents are mutant. Lorelai is thirteen months old; Monica and Joey are eleven months old; Cindy is four months and Liam's two months." She paused and counted up. "Oh, and Amara's due in December; keep forgetting her, she's only known for like two months."

"How do you not notice for that long?" Carole asked curiously.

Lorna shrugged. "She hasn't had any symptoms. Just a few cramps over the summer." She laughed. "I'm not doing too well with the tour, am I? Okay, we've just come from the rec room; the living room's directly opposite it. That door there is the kitchen, which is a lovely room, but you never see much of it when it's being used – you'll see what I mean tomorrow morning. That door's actually an elevator that leads to the lower levels, but I won't overwhelm you by explaining that just yet …"

"We're home!"

The call echoed both out loud and in Lorna's head and she spun around on the bottom stair too see that Kitty had just closed the front door behind her and Lance, Liam wrapped up in a snowsuit and blanket in his father's arms.

"Hey. Cold out there?"

"Freezing. Hey, Lorna." Kitty greeted, hanging up her jacket and taking the baby so Lance could do the same.

Seeing the inquisitive gleam in her team-mate's eye, Lorna gestured to the newcomer. "Oh, this is Carole Danvers. Carole, this is Lance Alvers and Kitty Pryde, and their son, Liam."

"Nice to meet you." Kitty tilted her head. "If you're showing her to a spare room, Lor, I'd go via the other staircase; apparently, Bobby's left a bit of an ice slide in the East Wing."

"Is that our idea of 'a bit of an ice slide' or Bobby's?" Lorna asked knowingly.

"What's the difference?" Carole wanted to know.

Kitty laughed. "Well, what Bobby would call 'a bit of an ice slide' is what the rest of us would consider a frozen river. No idea though, Lorna. It was Bobby who told us, but Jubilee was standing next to him and didn't argue."

"But Jubilee's got a strange sense of humour." Lance pointed out. "So that doesn't mean much."

"True." Kitty conceded. "I'd go the other way just in case."

"Good idea." Lorna agreed. "This way then."

As the two girls disappeared down the hallway towards the back staircase, Kitty's smile faded into a soft frown.

"Oh dear." Lance murmured.

Oh dear what?" Kitty asked, unbuttoning Liam's snowsuit.

"I know that look, Kitten." Lance told her. "What don't you like about her?"

"I don't know." Kitty admitted. "There's just something about her that I … not dislike necessarily, but there's something …"

"Sweetheart, you need more sleep." Lance kissed her forehead as she trailed off. "I like to think that I can read people as well as you can and I didn't pick up anything."

"Yeah, but you also trusted Mystique when you first met her." Kitty pointed out.

"Oh, low blow!" Lance poked her side lightly as she took Liam back, causing her to giggle softly. "It's probably just a residual feeling from the whole 'HYDRA' fiasco." His arm settled protectively around her waist and pulled her closer.

Kitty smiled. "Yeah, you're probably right."

But even as they carried on to the rec room, she couldn't shake the feeling that there was something about Miss Carole Danvers that she just didn't trust.

AN: What do you think? Is Kitty being paranoid? Or is Lance dismissing her too quickly? Review please!