Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes: Thank you to blue_lioness for your review. For you, I post the next chapter.

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Amanda gets up and goes around her desk to hug Serena goodbye while Storm picks up the small duffle bag at the girl’s feet. Logan pretty much ignores them as he opens the door and steps out into the outer office. The others follow shortly and he continues on his way not bothering to check to make sure they’re behind him.

A minute later they’re standing outside the elevator doors and he finally casts a quick glance at the females, regretting it instantly. Serena has her arm around Amanda’s middle with the lawyer’s arm around the teenager’s shoulders and the other hand is holding one of Storm’s hands. She has a grin on her face that seems to stretch from ear to ear and the adult women are smiling nearly as widely.

“Not to kill the love fest going on, but those reporters are probably still downstairs waiting for their story,” he grumbles.

“Yes, Logan, we know and we did take that into account,” Storm replies. “That’s part of the reason why I wanted to bring the Mercedes since it has four doors. I’ll go get the car and when I drive up, you and Amanda bring out Serena as fast as you can. Then you and Serena hop in the car and we take off. Piece of cake.”

“Uh huh, sure,” he growls. “You expect these reporters to walk away from this experience?”

“I expect you to set a good example for our new student,” she warns as the elevator doors open with a ‘ding’.

“And if I don’t?” he challenges.

“Then we find out how well a metal skeleton conducts electricity,” she tells him in a tone that promises much pain.

Logan reluctantly follows the women into the elevator and takes up a position in the back, scowling at Storm. The tension in the small space is so thick you can practically taste it causing Serena to hold onto Amanda a bit tighter and the woman just squeezes her shoulders reassuringly. A short eternity later, the elevator doors open onto the lobby and they step out, relieved to be out of that confining space.

“They’re still there,” Storm confirms as she goes around the corner. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Keep your claws sheathed, Logan.”

With that, she quickly leaves the building and weaves her way through the reporters who pay her no mind. Logan leans against a wall where he can keep an eye on the front door while Amanda and Serena wait around the corner. After a couple of minutes of them standing there, a security guard comes over to see what’s going on and Amanda calmly explains as Logan stands there and glares at the rent-a-cop who scurries away a few moments later.

“Would you please not scare the security guard?” Amanda requests. “He’s just doing his job.”

“I’m supposed to play body guard to a girl who turned three two hundred plus pound football players into paste,” he snarls and Serena shudders at the memory.

“Then look at it this way,” Amanda calmly replies. “You’re keeping the reporters safe from frightening her so much that she loses control again.”

“I don’t know,” he responds as he scowls at the reporters on the other side of the glass doors. “World might be a better place with a few less reporters in it.”

“While I agree that they’re worse the nosey neighbor we had when I was a kid, killing them isn’t the solution,” she points out.

He mumbles something under his breath about vultures and then goes silent. He leans against a wall while Serena and Amanda quietly talk about staying in touch. Finally his gaze wanders back towards the two and his curiosity finally gets the better of him.

“Why?” he asks causing the other two to look at him.

“Why what?” Amanda counters.

“Why’d you take this case?” he questions. “I know you didn’t do it for the money. So why’d you do it?”

“Because I could,” Amanda answers with a smile.

“Bull,” he growls. “What was in it for you?”

“Peace of mind,” Amanda replies. “I couldn’t sit by while an innocent girl was sent to jail for defending herself. Believe it or not, Mr. Logan, there are a few honest lawyers in this world.”

“Yeah right,” he snorts and turns his attention back to the front door when he hears a horn honking incessantly. “She’s here. Let’s go.”

Amanda and Serena come around the corner and quickly heading for the door as Logan takes up a position in front of them. They barrel through the doors as the reporters rush them, sticking microphones in their faces and yelling their questions at them. Logan roughly pushes the crowd out of his way while the other two follow closely in his wake.

A reporter manages to grab Serena’s arm, pulling her to a halt and making the girl yelp in surprise. The reporter asks a question that can barely be heard and then sticks the microphone in Serena’s face. Before any one can so much as blink, there’s a flash of light reflecting off of metal, the microphone is sliced in two and the reporter is forcefully pushed away as Logan grabs Serena’s now free arm and drags her to the waiting car.

A moment later, Serena finds herself rather unceremoniously shoved into the back seat of the Mercedes with Logan landing nearly on top of her. The door is slammed shut and Storm floors it, causing the tires to squeal. Serena quickly gets herself situated into a seat and puts her seatbelt on while Logan just gets himself into a seat.

“Easy Storm, this was Wheel’s favorite car,” Logan teases, smirking at the woman’s lead foot.

“My foot slipped,” Storm replies rather testily. “Serena, have you had lunch yet?”

“No, ma’am,” Serena answers. “Amanda was going to order some take out for us, but she got called into a meeting with Mr. Steele and Mr. Jones.”

“We need to stop by your old home to pick up your stuff first and then we could go get lunch,” Storm states as she makes a turn and nearly hits a bicyclist going to the wrong way down the street. “Or do you want to eat first?”

“Let’s stop by my parent’s place first,” Serena answers, sounding about as thrilled with the idea as having a root canal without Novocain. “I don’t want to be sick while I’m there.”

“Yeah, let’s get the bad stuff out of the way,” Storm agrees.

“Oh, this should be fun,” Logan grumbles, crossing his arms and slouching in his seat.

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“You go, girl,” Amanda snickers as Storm burns rubber to get out of there.

Turning to go back to work, she’s confronted with a wall of cameras, microphones and the anxious faces of the reports desperate for a story. She spends a few minutes answering questions not to keen to stay there any longer than she has to. As soon as she sees them back off a bit, she starts to force her way through their ranks, intent on getting back to work. They don’t give up easily, but eventually she makes it to the safety of the doors and gets through relatively unscathed. With a sigh of relief, she heads back upstairs to the office and walks in just as Betty hangs up the phone.

“Are they gone?” Betty asks.

“Yeah, they’re gone,” Amanda replies.

“Did you see the ass on that guy?” Betty nearly pants. “How can he breathe with pants that tight?”

“I’ve never wanted to be a piece of denim more in my life,” Amanda agrees with a dreamy sigh.

“So what do you think?” Betty questions. “Boxers or briefs? Silk or cotton?”

“What if he goes commando?” Amanda inquires; trying not to laugh as the receptionist suddenly turns bright red and grabs a file off of her desk to fan herself with.

“Oh god, now I’m going to have that mental image running amuck in my brain all day,” Betty moans as she slumps in her seat.

“Should I call your husband and tell him to have the champagne and chocolate covered strawberries ready when you get home?” Amanda teases.

“You coming over to baby sit?” Betty demands.

“You couldn’t afford for me to baby sit,” Amanda laughs.

“You’d be amazed what I’d be willing to pay,” Betty replies.

“I’m not talking about money, I’m talking about what I’d do to your kids,” Amanda snickers.

“What would you do to them?” Betty demands, a bit worried.

“I’d feed them candy and ice cream and sodas until they were bouncing off the walls and then I’d return them to you,” Amanda chuckles evilly.

“Now that’s just evil,” Betty laughs.

“Yeah, but it guarantees my sister will never ask me to watch her kids again,” Amanda grins.

“Don’t you want to have kids some day?” Betty inquires.

“Every time I get the urge to have a baby I go spend the weekend with my sister,” Amanda answers as she starts to move towards her office. “A couple of days with three kids will put the old biological clock on snooze in no time.”

“You’ll want them some day, trust me,” Betty warns.

“God, I hope not,” Amanda groans just before she disappears through the door and heads back to her office.

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Several hours later, a silver Mercedes Benz makes the turn onto the road where the mansion is located. Storm reaches over and gently shakes Serena awake.

“Huh, wha…?” Serena mumbles groggily.

“We’re almost there,” Storm tells her and points up ahead as Serena yawns and stretches. “There are the outside walls. We’ll be there in a minute.”

“Oh, ok,” Serena replies, suddenly getting nervous again.

The teenager watches as they get closer to the gate and her heart beats faster with every moment they draw nearer to their destination.

“Take it easy, kid,” Logan grumbles from the back seat. “You’re going to give yourself a heart attack at this rate.”

“I’m just a bit nervous,” Serena admits. “When I was in jail the girls in there were mean to me.”

“Don’t worry,” Storm says as she slows the car to make the turn onto the gravel driveway. “These kids aren’t like those girls. You’ll see.”

No sooner does the car come to a stop then the place explodes with bodies pouring out of the mansion. Logan cringes at the noise coming from the students as they rush the car yelling at the top of their lungs. Serena doesn’t even get a chance to undo her seatbelt before one of the girls leans into the car, grabs Serena’s hands and pulls the startled girl out of the car straight through the still closed door.

While Serena is still getting over the shock of being dragged through a car door, the students are introducing themselves to her. Before Logan or Storm can get out of the vehicle, Serena is herded into the mansion in the middle of the hoard of students. By the time the two adults do get out of the car, the students are long gone and the front door is closed behind them.

“Well, I think her worries about being accept are now put to rest,” Storm smiles as she shuts her door and starts to head for the trunk when the car suddenly dips as if someone just got in. “Hello, Kurt, did the kids behave themselves?”

“Guten abend, Ororo,” Nightcrawler greets from his perch on the roof of the car. “Vell, they did not burn down the mansion, though I vould not go into the kitchen if I vere you.”

“I’m not cleaning up their damn mess,” Logan growls as he steps towards the back of the car.

“Don’t worry, I’ll make them clean up the mess,” Storm assures him as she opens the trunk of the car. “I think that will be their project for tomorrow since they didn’t do any school work today.”

“Vould you like some help?” Kurt asks as he suddenly appears between Storm and Logan.

“Yes, please,” Storm answers. “Would you mind taking these boxes up to Kitty’s room? I’ll have Serena bunk with her for now.”

“Certainly,” the blue mutant replies with a smile for Storm as he grabs the first box and disappears in a cloud of wispy smoke.

“Great, now that’s taken care of, I’m out of here,” Logan growls as he starts to walk away from the mansion.

“Where are you going?” Storm asks.

“Away from the noise,” he calls back over his shoulder.

Storm pauses to listen and even she can hear the ruckus the kids are making. With a sigh, she shakes her head and starts towards the house in hopes of restoring something that resembles control. As she steps through the door, she’s met by Warren but before he can say a word someone turns on some music at near ear bleeding levels. With a sigh, she goes to reign in some of the enthusiasm of the teenagers.

She steps through the door to the rec room and sees streamers hanging from the ceiling, the pool table has been covered with a sheet and there are a wide array of bowls and plates filled with snack food on it. All of the furniture has been pushed against the wall to make room for a dance floor and a banner proclaiming ‘Welcome, Serena’ hangs across one of the walls. The students are laughing, eating and dancing and Storm is barely able to manage to squeeze through the crush of bodies to get to the stereo and when she finally gets there she hits the ‘pause’ button causing most everyone to make various sounds of disappointment.

“I’m glad to see that you are all excited by Serena’s arrival,” Storm announces loudly. “However, there need to be few ground rules to this little party. First, I will set the volume of the music and it is not to go above that. Second, I want everyone to stay out of the kitchen, so I will order pizza around six this evening.”

To that, there’s a lot of cheering.

“Next, the party will stay in this room, no taking it into the hall, other rooms or the garden,” Storm continues. “Finally, everyone is to be in bed by ten like normal. Is that understood?”

“Yes, Miss Munroe,” the students reply.

“Good,” Storm states as she turns to the stereo, adjusting the volume before pressing the ‘pause’ button again.

The students go back to what they had previously been doing before they were interrupted and Storm works her way across the room towards the door. She notices most of the breakable items in the room have been pushed into a corner with a buffer of furniture around them for which she is grateful. She catches a glance of Serena before she leaves the room and sees that a young Asian woman is talking to her and considering how much Jubilee is bouncing around as she talks, Storm wonders how much sugar the girl has already eaten.

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Many hours later, Kitty shows Serena to their room and the new girl gladly collapses onto her new bed. Kitty laughs and helps her get her things a bit more organized before showing her where the bathroom is. Once they’re under the covers and the lights are turned off, they both lie there staring into the dark.

“Was it weird going back to your old home to get your stuff?” Kitty quietly asks.

“Yeah,” Serena answers sadly. “I saw all the places I knew growing up and yet it was like I hadn’t seen them in about a million years. Luckily my dad wasn’t there. He’s the one who threw me out of the house with just the clothes on my back. My kid brother and sister were there. They didn’t understand where I had been or why I was going away again. They’re only little kids so I told them I was going away to a special school that was going to teach me all sorts of neat things. They think I’ll be home for Christmas. I didn’t have the heart to tell them I won’t ever be coming home. Mom was crying the whole time.”

“That’s pretty cold that your dad kicked you out,” Kitty says.

“Well, he’s not really my dad, he’s my step-dad,” Serena replies softly. “When my mom was eighteen she got pregnant, but when she told her boyfriend he skipped out on her. She was raising me with the help of my grandparents until she met my step-dad when I was about eight. After they got married he adopted me and we moved to New York. A few years later Mom had my baby brother and a few after that she had my sister.”

“Where’d you live before you came to New York?” Kitty questions as she lets out a huge yawn.

“Miami,” Serena responds as she lets out a yawn herself. “My grandparents still live down there. Maybe I’ll be able to go and see them again some day.”

“I’m sure you will,” Kitty assures her sleepily.

“How can you be sure?” Serena questions, barely keeping awake.

“Because when you’re with the X-Men,” Kitty mumbles, “anything is possible.”

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Guten abend – German; good evening

Author’s notes: Hope everyone is enjoying my story so far. This is going to be a fairly long story and I will update as often as I can. But for fair warning, I am writing three other stories so sometimes there will be a lag between chapters. However, chapters 3-5 are done and are simply waiting for a review to this chapter.