Ask for Answers
Chapter 1
by
Aquila
Dedications and thanx: Tess, my x-cellent best mate, who has co-edited this with my beta, Winona. My english teacher who doesn't lose her head too much when I hand in ridiculously long essays discussing the triangle between Logan, Rogue and Jean, when it should be about D'arcy and Elizabeth in Pride and Predujice. All dreamers. They have true vision. Punk and rock bands. You can never have too much hair dye.
NB. The 4th chapter is still being worked on, so bear with me. Hope you like it!
She had to get away. Away from the constant questions of whom she was going out with, where and why. Their questions weren't laced with parental concern though, even though they were her parents. Rather it was knowing for knowledge's sake. And they never stopped, even when they were visiting relatives in America.
Half the time she wondered if it was because they had finally found out about her highly developed senses. She had always had them, even as a little girl. Over the years she had trained herself to block the messages that went to her brain, but occasionally, usually when she was stressed, she let her guard down and then she could see, hear, taste, smell and touch like she had always wanted to, but was too afraid of doing.
Her parents were not mutant friendly to say the least, and she highly suspected that the scientific work they did, and was kept so hush-hush from her was part of the 'mutant enlightenment' work that was done by the British Medical Association. After all, she did have a best friend who could change into animals, although she never told her parents that tiny little detail about Rachel, and they already knew her feelings towards mutants, that as a whole, as long as they didn't harm anyone, they were perfectly legitimate members of society. She also couldn't tell the girls at the school who, although nice, were not the most sensitive class of people. They were the sorts who would point and stare at her, and also do what she hated the most - ask stupid questions about her mutation. She could already hear them, and she clenched her fists and then gasped as the pain in her hands worsened. "Jeez, it felt like something was pushing through. This is seriously not looking rosy. Seriously.", under her breath.
She was a slim girl of fifteen, with short black hair that she spiked and dazzling hazel eyes. She had been told that when her mood changed, the colour of her eyes changed as well, but that wasn't really unusual she thought, her mother's eyes also changed colour, and the colour didn't change that much, surely. She smiled at the memory of her grandmother calling her eyes 'dragon eyes', and for the rest of her stay with her grandparents her grandfather teasing her about it in the way only a grandfather can. A pang of guilt coursed through her. She had been gone a week, and that was usually the amount of time that was needed to clear her head. She had only managed to take $200 from the house, as that was the amount that her conscience had allowed her, as she was meant to be a nicely brought up middle class English school girl, who went to a nice and middle class girls school. 'Lovely' she thought, 'I'm the epitome of everything sweet and English'
The $200 had mainly been spent on travel and accommodation, if you count sleeping on buses or renting rooms and then getting lost, travel and accommodation. She had only managed to pack a toothbrush, toiletries, and a couple of changes of clothes. Luckily, there were blessings called Laundromats in America for her small collection of clothes.
She hadn't eaten for the past day. The last thing she had eaten was a bag of donuts, and she was beginning to get the shakes again. Also the pain in her hands was getting worse, especially just then when she had thought of the girls at school. It was pure fate that she had ended up in New York. She could tell she was in the better part, but that didn't put her mind at ease. She glanced at her watch. It read eight in the evening. "God, I'm tired. Too much walking and not enough food. Not good Not good." She looked around. Not much. The last building had been an hour away. She must be heading into some estate or something. There was a walled building that looked promising. Maybe she could scrounge a few hours sleep there in the trees that made up the grounds. "My god! I'm regressing to a five year old! Sleeping in trees. Next thing I'll be catching a live breakfast." she muttered as she threw her bag over the wall and climbed the oak tree to catch a fitful sleep. She had been climbing trees since she was five, and had stopped as she got older, but recently had found the skill a necessity to survive when she couldn't rent a room, or wouldn't as sometimes the case was.
She settled down among the branches and prayed silently that the nightmares that had been plaguing her and had driven her from her home wouldn't come tonight. They were what she was really running from.
I'm tied down on a operating table, and I can't see their faces and they're cutting me open and I'm still awake and then they. "NOOOOOOOO!" She screamed and nearly fell out of the tree in the process. This had been the second time this night that the nightmares had come. The first time had left her drained until she was forced to sleep, but this time she was determined that she wouldn't sleep again. As the nightmare had left her drained her senses came alive. Her night-vision always amazed her, and as she slowly and silently climbed down the tree, she took in her surroundings. She had been so eager to get to sleep that she hadn't thought of where she was. Now she saw a large stately house, and suddenly grew scared. What if somebody found her? What if they took her to the police and then were forced back to her parents? The latter scared her the most. The whole lack of privacy thing really made her paranoid. The week before she went to America, Rachel had rented out 'The Truman Show', and after that she couldn't bear living in the house.'
I need something to eat' she thought to herself.
<THEN why don't you come in? >
The voice filled her head and she looked around sharply, trying to find the source.
'What the hell is going on? I'm going mad. I've finally lost it!'
<YOU haven't gone mad. You're in the School for the Gifted. >
"Oh." She said out loud
She took a few steps forward towards the house and then stopped. It was obviously a telepath, she wasn't that ignorant of mutants, but she didn't want them to find out that she had, effectively, trespassed. But the voice didn't sound angry. In fact it seemed concerned and a little amused at her mental ramblings. She could tell it was a man's voice, and that he was English, and obviously quite cultured.
'I'm sorry for trespassingI didn't know. If youum, want me to go, then I will. Now'
<NO need>
'My names' She thought irritably, and then changed her tone mentally.
'My name's Saffy. Saffron in full.'
A thought suddenly struck her.
'How do you not know that I don't belong here? I might not be gifted, as you choose to call it. In fact, I could be trying to infiltrate this place. I could be one of those anti-mutant people'
<NO Saffy. I know you're not. I accidentally picked up on the truth you've been concealing for most of your life. I'm sorry for telling you this way, but when your nightmare made me aware you were here, it also woke me, and I unwittingly read your mind. It was very powerful and woke most of the telepaths in this school as well. You're not alone in having those nightmares.>
Saffron turned to run. This was getting far too near the mark for her. The fact they knew about her senses and her nightmares made her so-far blip-free reassessment thingy take a sharp nose-dive. Damn.
' I'm not staying here sir.'
<AND where would you go? >
'Somewhere' she thought petulantly.
<STAY here for now. You've woken up half the school already; you should at least make yourself comfortable. >
'I suppose. . . you don't mind do you? I'll go if I cause too much trouble.'
<NO. We don't mind. >
'Is this the Royal we or the collective we?'
She heard him chuckle in her head.
< The collective we. > Saffron could hear his voice was tinged with mirth.
'Oh. O.K. Just a minute.'
Saffron came back after five minutes carrying her bag with her. When she came to the house, there was already a greeting party for her. She looked at them all before deciding to speak. There were two women, one a beautiful dark woman with snow-white hair, the other a slender redhead. There were also two men. She looked warily at one of them. He was gruff looking and about six-foot, looked around thirty-something with the strangest hair she had seen. It was sticking up in two places on either side of his head, and looked like he hadn't seen a razor in six-months. He eyed her for a moment, and said something she didn't catch. The other one looked younger than the other man, and wore a pair of sunglasses. He had that 'I'm fresh from college' look about him. The body language between them both told her that they weren't the best of friends. After surveying them all for a critical moment, she finally spoke.
"I'm sorry for waking you all up. I didn't know this was a school. I'm not stopping for long."
Saffron looked at her feet on the last sentence, and swung her bag gently in embarrassment.
"You can stay as long as you want here."
Saffron looked up at the dark woman with snow-white hair and saw she was smiling at her. She nodded in response.
"Umm. . . May I have something to eat? I haven't eaten in the past day and a bit, and I'm lucky to be standing right now."
"Yes you may. Come in, you must be cold."
The dark woman led her indoors. Saffron stopped dead in her tracks. The hall was very grand, and led off to various room and offices. She suddenly felt very uncomfortable. She turned and looked at them and then at the front door behind them and back again. The tall gruff man noticed her looking at the door and spoke.
"Ya thinkin' of goin' somewhere?"
Saffron looked at him in surprise. His voice was rough and with an accent she couldn't quite place, but had definitely heard before. She looked at the ground. She didn't want to look in those eyes. They looked straight through her and into her soul.
"Dunno. Don't know this place. Don't know you. Could be anyone." She paused and looked up. "I'm sorry I'm here. And 'sides I have to get goin' soon and been gone a week, and they'll be worryin' and I got school next week and. . . oh Christ"
'Oh God, don't you dare cry Saffy,' she inwardly scolded herself. 'Don't embarrass yourself in front of complete strangers who have more or less beamed you in It'll only make things worse'
But the pain in her hands was now breaking down her defences, and coupled with hunger and tiredness she had no resolve left.
"Oh fuck! How can you think you understand what will help? My hands hurt, and they'll shout at me when I get homeand I don't want to go home!"
Before she knew it she was slumped on the floor in tears being cradled by the redhead woman.
"I can't go home They watch everything I do. It drives me mad. I have to get away sometimes. From them." Saffron whispered before falling asleep. The last thing she remembered was being carried upstairs in strong arms.
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