Day Two: Revelations

[Rogue 4]

Natalie chuckled. "That's a little too far out of Marcus-world to be of concern. If only he had known."

[Drake 53]

Marcus grinned. "Yeah, seriously."

Natalie was crouching down to read the book titles on the bottom shelf. She had a colourful scarf, made of a light fabric, wrapped around her neck. Marcus had noticed that Nat wore them occasionally even though it seemed too warm out to wear one, most of the time.

While looking down at her, Marcus caught a glimpse of something under the scarf. From this angle, he could see the skin of Natalie's neck and he saw that it was bruised.

"Nat, are you alright?" he asked, concern lacing his tone.

[Rogue 4]

Natalie, who was still half-smile from her previous comment looked up to him curiously. "Of course I am. Why wouldn't I be? It's not like I'm doing this project on my own..."

[Drake 53]

"No, not that. I mean..." He reached down and lowered the scarf with a finger. "I mean those."

[Rogue 4]

Natalie bristled, suddenly feeling uncomfortable. She stood up slowly, trying to compose herself before answering. She sighed, brushing her hair back over to cover the bruises. "I'm fine. It was just these kids down the block got into a fight yesterday and I tried to break it up."

[Drake 53]

Marcus frowned. "Nat, I've seen the kids on your street. What are they, like, twelve? Those were made by hands. Adult hands." He lowered his voice and leaned closer to her. "It was your dad again, wasn't it?"

[Rogue 4]

"He's...he's had a rough time since the accident..." Natalie avoided his gaze, setting the books down on one of the shelf ledges. She didn't understand why he couldn't have just bought her story. Things would have been simpler that way.

[Drake 53]

"So he takes it out on you?" Marcus was having trouble keeping his voice down. He turned and saw the librarian looking at him. He shrugged and turned back to Natalie. "That's not right, Nat. You know that. He's, like, twice as big as you. Why didn't you call the police?"

[Rogue 4]

"Because he's my dad, Mark." Natalie told him, crossing her arms and looking away in embarassment. She felt like the whole library was looking at her now, and she couldn't help but be a little scared and angry at the attention. "Mom ran out on us, James is dead...He's the only family I've got"

[Drake 53]

Marcus put a hand on her shoulder. "I know, Nat. But that still doesn't make it right." He gave her a hug. "Look...you're my best friend. It's my job to make sure you're alright and keep you from getting hurt."

[Rogue 4]

Natalie lingered in his arms for a long moment, letting him comfort her. It felt good to know that he was there for her. That she had someone around to take care of her and look after her now that James was gone. She didn't know what she would do without him, Kelly and Lance. "I know, Marcus. But I'm a big girl okay? I can take care of myself too. Just please...don't tell anyone about this."

[Drake 53]

He released her and took a step back. "You know I never would." Marcus scratched his head. "Uhh...should probably get back and hit those books up." He cringed at the terrible choice of words then rephrased. "I mean...work on your project."

[Rogue 4]

"It's okay." She said, dismissing his choice of words. "I just have to take the books out. Kurt, Brett and I are going to work on it at the Cove later." She ran a hand through her blond hair, feeling a little awkward herself. She looked over her shoulder towards the front desk. "That is if the librarian will let me now..."

[Drake 53]

"Well, you go see if you can," said Marcus, backing out of the row of books. "I'll just go back and...work on stuff."

He started back to his cubicle, silently chiding himself for being an idiot again. When he sat down again, a thought entered his mind and he smiled. Suddenly, he couldn't wait until lunch.

[Andy 60]

Danny suppressed a smirk as he walked down the school corridor. The toilets he had half-destroyed earlier were was locked with an 'out of order' notice on the door. Trent hadn't been seen all day; rumours were flying around the school that he'd gone to the hospital.

He was quickly realising that he was a mutant, and that it was a gift rather than a curse. He intended to use that gift to his advantage... But right now he was late for class. He wasn't bothered though; back home he wouldn't even be going to school.

* * *

Chase was bored out of his mind; the teacher was droning on about algebra. Chase was pretty sure he'd learnt all there could possibly be to know about that back at his high school in England. It's not that he wasn't good at mathematics; he just found that 98% of it was completely pointless. He felt like he was going to fall asleep.

Roll on lunch time, he sighed.

* * *

Mr Mitchell pulled into the driveway of the Xavier school. He wasn't quite sure what he expected, but it looked like a nice place. He had known that his boys were intelligent, Chase especially was always top of his class and ended up bored if he felt the class was moving to slow, but he hadn't expected a prestigious learning centre such as this to be interested.

He got out of the car and walked up to the door and rang the bell.

Edited May 14, 2008 by Andy

[Ayingel 24]

"Who said anything about being miserable?" Gertie ran a hand through her hair. "I mean, you were the one who bumped into me."

[Rogue 4]

"Ay, and that makes me miserable. That's a bit of the horse's hoof I think." He looked to her pointedly. "A little bump and you start acting the maggot, and yellin like the feckin' appocolypse just landed on yer lap."

He shook his head at her. "You really are in a desperate state."

[Drake 53]

Peter had been waiting at the door when Mr. Mitchell rang the bell. He had changed into some more formal clothes, a button-up shirt and black dress pants, for the meeting with Chase's father.

He opened the door and smiled to the man on the other side. "Hello. You must be Mr. Mitchell. I am Piotr Rasputin, one of the teachers here. You can call me Peter." Peter stepped to the side and let the man in.

"Professors Grey and Summers are waiting for us in the study. Please follow me."

Peter led the man out of the lobby, to the headmaster's study.

[Mara 29]

"August, over here!" Bridget called to her as she entered the classroom. For once the girl had gotten to a class early. August wondered if that was a bad sign but went over to sit by her friend.

"Hi," she smiled.

"We should get together sometime."

"Brig, it's just the first week. That project's not due till--"

"No, no... for your party." The girl grinned.

"Oh.. well--" August was saved when the teacher walked in to start the class. She shrugged and faced the front of the classroom, getting out her notebook.

* * * * * * *

Joseph loved his sculpture class. It was one of the few classes that had less restrictions. He whistled softly to himself as he dug around and shaped his brick of clay. No one noticed; most of the others were talking among themselves. And Miss Evans didn't mind as long as they weren't disruptive.

He bit his bottom lip, trying to get it to form the way he wanted it.

[Vergere 1]

After a few more classes, Kelly headed to her locker to get her lunch, only to be sneaked up upon by Brett. She let out a yelp and jumped at least a foot as he touched her on the shoulder. "Brett!"

Brett glanced down, "Sorry, Kel. I didn't mean to scare you." He looked back up at her - she was one of the few people he was comfortable enough around to look in the eye for an extended period of time. "You made Natalie be my lab partner." It wasn't an accusing comment, more of just a general examination of how things played out during second bell.

Innocently, she shrugged. "I don't know what you're talk-"

"Come on Kel. I know you better than that."

She sighed. "I just want you to be more comfortable around people.... not everyone's out to get you. And you know Natalie and I are good friends... we're not that much different than each other." She closed her locker and draped an arm over his shoulders. "Come on, let's go eat. You should join us for lunch. You don't have to say anything, either. Deal? You sit with us, and you don't have to talk?"

He walked with her to lunch; it was hard not to. Her grip around his neck and shoulders, as casual as it looked, was a grip of iron that made it difficult not to follow her. "Yeah... sure." He sighed as her grip loosened.

"Wonderful. Hey, Nat!" She waved as she saw her friend.

[Ayingel 24]

Gertie slammed her locker shut. "Now you look here you little foreigner." Her eyes narrowed and she lowered her voice. "I'm not the one bumping into girls just to get a better look at their cleavage. At least I know that I can walk up to any reasonable guy here and get exactly what I want from them." She gently poked his chest with two of her fingers and slowly walked them up. "Seems to me you're the desperate one." Gertie pushed him playfully with her fingers as she softened to a smile. "Though that accent just might get you places." She turned and started walking away, swaying her hips all the while.

[Rogue 4]

"If I wanted to see clevage I'd bump into someone who actually has some!" He yelled at her down the hall before walking right out the door and into the courtyard. "Little Foreigner...that right sleeven. All she's gonna get is a head full of empty from any of those jockstraps."

He hung around in the courtyard until lunch, skipping his fourth period class.

***

"Hey Kelly!" Natalie exclaimed, moving her bag off the table to make room for the people she knew would eventually join them. "Hey Brett! How's it going?"

[Vergere 1]

Brett immediately lowered his eyes and nodded slightly, frustratingly shy and quiet.

Kelly plopped down beside Nat and pulled out her lunch. "Brett said you two are working together in Biology...? Whatcha'll doin' in there? Anything cool and exciting?"

[Rogue 4]

"We're doing a project on Dolphins actually." Natalie said. She didn't have a lunch in front of her, just sat there relaxing. "It was Brett's idea, and I really like it."

[Vergere 1]

"Dolphins?"

Brett glanced at Kelly as she asked her question, and then just shrugged slightly as she looked at him. Softly, "Well, I like dolphins. And we watch them all the time out back, so... I thought it'd be cool to learn more about them..."

Kelly just looked at him for a moment before grinning. "Well, good job, Brett. Sounds like a good project." She looked back at Natalie. "And you would like it..." She stuck out her tounge.