Making Memories

Authors Note: This story coincides most heavily with the films. However, it pulls some characters and backround story from the comics and cartoons. I am aware of the mashup of canon. 

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Olivia stood in front of her closet for a full twenty minutes trying to figure out what to wear. She did not think that the faded and tattered yellow bunny terry cloth robe and the lemon yellow towel currently twined around her hair were appropriate for the first day of classes.

“C'mon Liv,” she muttered to herself. “You can do this.”

She didn't want to give anyone the wrong impression. The problem was Olivia wasn't entirely sure what the right impression would be. The introductory packet for Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters hadn't come with a hard dress code. There had been a fairly long bit of literature about the ethics of using ones mutative powers on other students and the importance of open communication on campus but the dress code had been littler more than a few lines about dressing your best.

“What is that even supposed to mean?”

Her wardrobe ran high towards tiered skirts and peasant blouses; usually in gem tones and earthy hues. She reached in and grabbed at cloth randomly pulling out six possible outfits and then tossing them all behind her in nitpicked disgust. That one was too dark, the other too light, she could see the threads coming loose in yet another choice, that one was too showy and the last one was far too plain. Utterly disgusted with her own choices in clothing Olivia stomped off to deal with her still drying hair. Her bare feet made small impressions along the soft gray carpet. It was too new to have been the same carpeting that was in her childhood dorm room but the shade was the same.

Her adult dorm room was outfitted with a bathroom that was shared with another room. Some rooms had their own private bathrooms. Olivia had not opted to have one. She had grown up with seven brothers and sisters in a house with one bathroom, sharing a bathroom with one person was approaching luxury. For other mutants it was a personal necessity. She hadn't met her dorm mate yet but she had heard someone moving around in there last night while she had unpacked. The steps had been light and careful. The occupant has slim or small, whomever they were.

The bathroom itself was done in shades of green. A toilet, a medicine cabinet, the sink with a mirror, and three shelves took up one wall. The connecting door was on the far side, currently locked. Someone, because Olivia couldn't picture Professor Xavier doing it, had hung a nearly sheer curtain decorated with tropical fish along the shower beads of water from her earlier shower still clung to its back. A few bars of pale green soap with a light pine scent sat on one of the shelves with the spare toiletries. Last night she had unpacked her own personal items to add to the bottommost shelf. Her dormmate had taken the middle shelf with an impressive set of quality hair products and nail kits.

Olivia gathered her own toiletries and set to doing something about her appearance. She readjusted the tie on her bathrobe and tried not to shiver.

It was colder in New York than in Nevada. She would have to get used to that again. Olivia shook as she unwound the towel and released a long splay of damp black locks. While wet her hair hit nearly the middle of her back. She poured out a dash of moose and began working it through the locks, adding a blast of cool air from a hair dryer to aid in the styling.

It was strange to be back here again, all things considered. She had spent almost six years of her youth here, learning from the enabled Professor X and his colleagues. She had been part of the fourth graduating class, along with twenty other mutant students. When Olivia had received her diploma from Professor Xavier's academy she fully believed that she was going to leave the neoclassic mansion and the problems of mutants behind her. Life, as it turned out, had different plans.

Her hair dried, falling just past her shoulders now in tight curls. Hints of burgundy naturally wove themselves through her otherwise inky color. She opened a small wooden box and dug through its contents pulling out a small hammered disk of burnished copper, nearly the same shade as her eyes, and used it to pull most of the locks back into a pseudo-tamed tail at the base of her neck. A few tendrils popped free but there was hardly anything she could do about that now. The effect was a a handsome one.

She had strong Mexican features, a pleasantly rounded face and wide brow. Her nose was broader than she'd like it to be. Her momma had constantly referred to it as a 'baby nose on a girls face'. Olivia had been less than amused. You couldn't tell, just from a glance, that she was a mutant. She plucked a small vial of liner from another box and added win tips to the side of her eyes, illuminating their deep set shape. With a brush and a practiced hand she added a bit of copper powder to the lid.

“Well, that doesn't look half bad,” she told the mirror.

Olivia heard footsteps in the other room again moving towards the door at a lethargic pace. Someone touched the handle and then knocked on the door.

“It's safe.” Olivia called. “Just finishing up now.”

The door clicked open and revealed one of the most staggeringly beautiful people that Olivia had seen. She was a tall brown skinned woman. Her statuesque build was currently clad in a long shapeless nightgown of pale purple. But it was perhaps her hair that was most fetching. A long fall of snowy white and silver that shifted back and forth with the woman’s stiff morning movements.

“I'll be out of your way in a moment,” Olivia promised.

“No rush,” the woman’s voice was clouded with sleep and tinged with an accent that Olivia couldn't place. The woman reached up and grabbed at some of the hair products and a toothbrush. Olivia stepped around her and put her own away.

“I'm Olivia Juarez.”

The woman started the water in the sink and wet her toothbrush. “Ororo Munroe.” She added a liberally gob of toothpaste to the brush and rewet it.

Olivia stood there for a moment feeling awkward. She ought to just leave it at that and return to her room. But, aside from the warm greetings of Professor Xavier upon her arrival, Olivia had met none of the other inhabitants of the school. She had heard them, but she hadn't seen them.

“I...uhm....I'm new.”

Ororo glanced up with her mouth full of foamy toothpaste and raised a perfectly styled brow.

“Okay, that may have been the most ridiculous phrase and timing I could have managed...” Olivia sighed at herself. “I'm...going to wade back into the struggle of my wardrobe now and put this particular moment behind me.”

Olivia made a smooth escape and paused when she heard Ororo chuckling.

“You don't have to do that,” the husky voice called, more awake now than it had been. “I get it, you're nervous.”

Olivia hovered in the door-frame between her room and the bathroom. “Like I never thought possible. Are you a teacher too?”

Ororo nodded, “I am.”

“What do you teach?”

Ororo rinsed off her toothbrush and stuck it back on her shelf, pulling out a brush and working it through her hair. “Whatever they need me too, geography mostly.”

“Professor Xavier asked me to handle life skills.”

Ororo knitted her brows and paused her brushing, glancing up with inquisitive eyes. “I didn't know that was a class we had.”

“It wasn't...until now.” Olivia shrugged one shoulder. “It was a whim thing really. The Professor came to see a lecture I was giving at my community center. Life Skills for Youths. He was impressed. Asked me to come teach the same thing here on a regular basis. I figured that mutant children need life skills as much as anyone so why not? I mean it's a paying job which is a good deal better than what I was getting there and my sister Maria could always take over at the community center, she's been asking to do that ever since Tina...I'm rambling. Sorry I do that. It just sort of happens. It's worse when I'm nervous.”

Ororo's lips quriked in a bemused grin,“Life Skills for Youths?”

“Oh! Well, it...it's a little complicated. I mean, most schools teach you the intellectual basics. Math, Science, Literature, good schools will even teach some culture by adding in Art and Music classes to their regular curriculum. But most people expect parents to teach their children about choosing the bank you work with, opening accounts, savings, when to get loans, how to get loans, choosing between college or jumping into the work force...”

“You don't think college is for everyone?”

Olivia winced visibly. “Oh gosh no.”

“Gosh?”

“I work with children, sue me.” Olivia laughed. “I swear like a mom in a nineteen fifties sitcom.”

“That's terrifying.” Ororo said, obviously amused.

“You should hear me when I bash my thumb.”

“The angels must weep.”

“I'm sure they must. But the fact is,” Olivia steered the conversation suddenly back to its main point. “No, not every student should go to college. Especially these days. Higher education is great but it's not ultimately necessary. I come from a pretty low income area and for a lot of us college isn't an option. I want every youth to know that it's perfectly acceptable to go into something else, directly into the work force, the military, even going into business for yourself...”

“You're very passionate about this.”

Olivia shrugged, “I've been there...most of us have been there. We spend all these years being told where to sit and what to do and how to pass tests but then we step into the big wide world expected to make all these decisions for ourselves...and suddenly the quadratic equation means a whole lot less than it once did.”

Ororo set her brush aside and gave Olvia a warm smile. “You are going to do well here.”

“Yeah, if only I could decide what to wear.” Olivia smirked, “They don't have a class for that.”