The mansion was huge! Absolutely enormous! Darren sauntered through the hallways, still amazed at the sheer size of the building, of his new home. Sure he’d had rich friends with nice houses, and sure the Argo’s penthouse apartment wasn’t anything to complain about, but he’d never been in a mansion so large before. It made sense though, seeing how many students and adults lived in it. That shocked him too, the number of people attending the school. His class at his previous private school only consisted of one hundred students, but at Xavier’s...well, it was clear he was never going to remember all of those names.

Except Ami and Gina. He’d definitely remember those two.

The teenager blushed as he recalled meeting the girls three days previous, and couldn’t help but smile a little as he started up the stairs. He’d been further exploring the school the past few days, and the expansive library was his last stop. He’d only seen it briefly during his tour, but it had certainly left an impression.

A few minutes later, he was on the library’s third floor, staring at the sprawling area before him. Books and studying students covered every visible inch of the place, and he gulped as he tried to maneuver between them… Maybe coming to the library during its peak hour wasn’t such a good idea.

There! Go there! He noticed a miraculously quiet alcove in a farther corner of the room. There were two armchairs, one occupied by an older blonde girl reading a book. Darren tiptoed over and sank into the empty chair, breathing a sigh of relief. The girl didn’t seem to notice him.

In the book-less hand she held a steaming mug of something, and he wondered how she held it with such ease when it looked so hot. That’s when he noticed the steam increasing, and bubbles beginning to form at the top of the liquid. Could the girl be so engrossed in the book that she didn’t notice the hot beverage currently scalding her hand?!

Darren’s arm thoughtlessly stretched out in front of him and grabbed the cup just as the liquid was boiling over the sides. His bare hand burned as he held the mug, but he didn’t drop it until it was a safe distance from the blonde. It shattered on the hard-wood floor, but the boy was too distracted by the pain in his left hand to care.

“Is your hand o-okay??” He asked, wincing at his fresh burns. Ow, ow, ow, ow, ow!

Kate had spent weeks at the mansion going to class at Julliard and working on this mutation problem. She hadn’t wanted to go to school yet but Sam had talked her into it saying she shouldn’t put her life on hold because of her mutation. If she did that she would never live it. So reluctantly she attended every class and lesson as well as practiced on the piano down stairs as much as possible. In all honesty this was the first real day off she had had since the semester had begun. She started the day by having a large breakfast knowing it would hold her over for a few hours more than the average one and then proceeded to the library where she had been since. She hadn’t had much time to read with Hanna always dragging her around the city and needing to spend time with Albie. Thankfully the mansion had more books then she could possible want and right now that was exactly what she needed, a good book to escape into and forget her problems and the world around her for a few hours.

On this particular visit into the Eden they called a library she had decided to not go for the classics as usual and instead chose a new book to read. She was usually a stickler for the classics but something about the Dresden Files had pulled her in. It was a supernatural mystery novel that she had seen sitting on Albie’s night stand more than once but had never taken the initiative to pick up and read. If he liked it and she liked him then maybe, if logic served right, she would like it too. She had tried a lot of new things with that boy why not try one more, even if he wasn’t actually present to see it or talk to her about it. She actually found herself rather happy she hadn’t chosen Alice in Wonderland as she had originally planned upon entering the large room. There was such intrigue within this new book that she didn’t even notice the young lanky boy plop down in the seat across from her or her cup of tea bubbling over in a soft boil within her hand. That is until the boy across from her yanked it from her grasp only to let it shatter on the floor moments later.

“What do you think you’re doing?!” She looked over at him with a look of shock unsure as to why he had just taken her tea and shattered her cup on the floor. Sure it was not from her tea set and only one of the mansions many generic coffee mugs but still. She looked down at the still steaming liquid and then back up to notice the boy clutching his now burn hand. Oh great he was trying to help her. She sighed and let a smile creep across her face, “I’m more then fine. I’m a fire elemental. Are you alright?” She reached out to take his hand and check the burn. It was pretty bad and would need some attention for Prof Doc. She could already see the skin bubbling and smiled up at him, “Thank you for the help but I can’t be burnt. You however can. Let’s get you to the good doctor, shall we.” She continued to sit not wanting to risk pulling the boy along to get help and hurting him further.

What?! Why was she yelling at him? Darren had definitely just helped the girl out, saving her from far worse burns! Did she not feel the heat still lacing her fingers? Did she not feel the skin on her hands currently blistering, like he did? Geez, you’d think he’d get some gratitude or something—

>> “I’m more then fine. I’m a fire elemental. Are you alright?”

…Oh. Well, that certainly made more sense. The boy blushed, feeling foolish through his pain. Of course she was a fire elemental. Of course the reason she hadn’t screamed and thrown her cup across the room was because she wasn’t even affected by the heat. Heck, she had probably been the one making it boil. He was so stupid. School full of mutants, and he hadn’t even anticipated this possibility before grabbing a steaming ceramic mug of tea with his completely bare hand. At least the older girl was being nicer, although he wasn’t quite sure why she was smiling. He wasn’t smiling.

Darren was no stranger to painful injuries, but he had never received such a bad burn before, not over such a wide area. It stung as the skin warped, and he winced when the blonde took his hand. He also blushed, but the pain clouded most thoughts of bashfulness for the moment. At that point, several students were staring in their direction, alerted by the sound of the cup crashing and curious as to what had happened. He definitely felt a little tinge of embarrassment as his face heated up more at the wordless attention, but it was quickly dissipated when the girl spoke again.

>> “Let’s get you to the good doctor, shall we.”

The doctor? Doctor who? The blonde girl promptly got up and led him to said doctor, DocProf, the mansion’s resident healer, the one who manned the second-floor infirmary.

“Hello, Kate. How are you, dear? And who’s your friend?”

Kate could see the pain in his hand as she carefully led him through the halls. Even the air seemed to make him flinch in pain. This was not the first burn she had ever witnessed and every time she saw one she had caused it was all the worse to watch. She so wished she could save her knight but she sadly couldn’t help his pain stop. The only person she knew in the whole school that could do that was the DocProf and the required them to go to the other end of the school.

She led him through the winding halls and to the doors of the infirmary where the kind older looking man was waiting with a smile. At the moment he had to patients which meant he could see to them right away. She knew this would probably only take a moment for the man to heal but she was more concerned with the waiting than anything else. She imagined that burns hurt just as much as frost bite which for her was excruciating. She defiantly owed this boy something after this was over.

Kate smiled politely at the older man knowing him well from her many cuts and bruises thanks to Sam and his training. All she needed to do was release energy each day but he insisted that they train and she complied for some reason. “I actually don’t’ know his name. He is a new student I assume or at least one that came to be while I was gone. He saw me boiling over my tea and tried to save me from it. He rather hurt himself in the process.”

“Ah I see.” The older man turned to look the boy in the eyes, “Didn’t know she was a fire elemental did you? It was very nice of you to come to her rescue anyhow.” The Doctor turned and began puling out what he would need for a burn. He may have been a healer but he would still want to clean the wound so he could get a better look at how bad it was.

Why was DocProf’s office so far away? Darren resisted groaning as the tiniest things—a wayward breeze, a slight finger twitch—renewed the pain in his left hand. The whole time they walked, he continuously berated himself for being such a fool. It wasn’t the older girl’s fault at all that he’d been burned. It was by his own folly, and he repeated that to himself as he trailed behind the blonde. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he also wondered if he had to go back and clean up the mess he made. Surely someone had to mop up the liquid and discard the broken ceramic shards before some poor, unsuspecting person stepped on them.

>> “I actually don’t know his name. He is a new student I assume or at least one that came to be while I was gone. He saw me boiling over my tea and tried to save me from it. He rather hurt himself in the process.”
>> “Ah I see. Didn’t know she was a fire elemental did you? It was very nice of you to come to her rescue anyhow.”

Again, Darren felt stupid as the girl, Kate, recounted his tale. The elderly healer responded kindly, even commended the teenager on his attempt, but it didn’t do much to alleviate the boy’s shame. A large flaw of his was his limitless self-deprecation, came with the lack of confidence.

“So what is your name, young man?” DocProf asked as he collected antiseptics and cotton swabs from a drawer and descended on the teenager’s injury.

“D-Darren Argo. I’m n-new. M-moved in a f-few days a-ago,” he answered, before letting out a swallowed cry of pain. He had not been prepared for the stinging sensation the yellow liquid would bring to his burn. It was agonizing. It didn’t help that DocProf was currently poking around the affected area with a cotton bud, either.

“Don’t worry, just cleaning and inspecting. Should’ve warned you about the sting, I suppose,” the healer said, chuckling. He checked one last spot before nodding and activating his mutation. “I’m going to heal you now. It won’t hurt, I promise,” he said reassuringly when he saw Darren’s worried expression, “You’ll just feel a warmness. Ready?” The boy nodded with a big gulp, steeling himself for whatever was about to happen.

DocProf smiled and rolled his eyes a bit, and beckoned for Kate to come forward. “Dear, would you please hold this poor boy’s hand or something? Despite my assurances, it appears he is still a little apprehensive. Just a little friendly chat to distract him would do as well.”

Kate frowned as she listened to the poor boys stutters through what should could only imagine was rather excruciating pain. Yet another victim of her fluctuation powers. She had hoped that they would be fixed by now but they just seemed to be getting worse with every passing day. She would lose more and more control and everyone around her would fall victim to the carnage that followed. Since being back she had just nearly missed lighting another student’s hair on fire which would have assuredly caused them to lose a bit more than just their hair, lit multiple pieces of furniture on fire which she graciously offered to pay for replacements for, and now she had practically maimed this boys hand. If it weren’t for DocProf she would have probably given him a permanent scar. In all truth if she didn’t’ live in a mansion full of mutants she would have likely burned the place to the ground by now, but thankfully there were enough people around that could get her fires in check without any permanent damage.

There was a release of breath she didn’t even know she was holding in as she heard the words ‘I’m going to heal you now.’ Something about those words made it a little better what she had just done to Darren. It may have been that somewhere deep down she was terrified of the day that she would hurt someone so badly that DocProf couldn’t fix them. They were so terribly maimed that he could not reconnect all the tissue and it would be too late for them or whatever body part she happened to have destroyed.

Kate didn’t want to move forward at first but knew she should at least try and help the situation. She pressed her hands to her face as she moved across the room and felt nothing. Though for her that didn’t mean they weren’t warm she just hoped that they weren’t scalding. She smiled as she reached her hand to take his and hoped he would receive it.