“Alice, you’ll be fine,” Toby said for what seemed to be the tenth time. She sighed and tried to smile. She desperately wanted to believe him, really she did, but the events of the past two weeks had left her so dazed, she had trouble grasping anything. Her brother was truly a godsend, driving her all the way to New York from California because of her flight fear. The whole trip, he had been nothing but sweet and completely understanding, even when she occasionally broke out into teenage hysterics and whining. And despite his fatigue from driving for six days straight, he volunteered to give her a tour of the mansion. Though he was not a student anymore (he had graduated the semester before), the mansion was still his home, and he was more than familiar with all of the ins and outs.

He knew the school like he knew her, meaning a lot. There was an abundance of information to absorb during the tour, even with the guiding map and brochure. And it didn’t help that the school, which was actually a mansion, was enormous. Seriously, “large” was an understatement. She had a feeling she would be clinging to the map for the next few days…or forever.

She tried her hardest to stay focused and memorize all of the facts that were being thrown at her, but her attention span would just not allow it.

“This is the Girls’ Wing. Your room is down the hall, right over… Hey, are you okay? You look a little out of it.”

“Huh?” Alice gasped, turning her attention back to her brother, “Oh! Yeah! Sorry, I got a little distracted…”

Toby gave a quiet chuckle, and placed his hand on her shoulder. “Look, don’t worry. I know how you feel right now—a little scared, nervous, freaked out about what’s going on with your body—I’ve been there before. And I promise, it gets so much better. Xavier’s is a fantastic place, and everyone here understands what you’re going through because they’ve gone through it too. Trust me, you’ll love it here.”

She gave a half-hearted nod, trying to understand his reassurances. It was hard to wrap her brain around a prospect so wonderful, but she assured him she would try her best to do so. The siblings walked down to her room, her bags already dropped off at the door. Toby handed his little sister the key and gave her a bear hug. Once more he told her she’d be okay. She smiled, a genuine one this time.

“And don’t forget! I’m only half an hour away!”

Right… Alice thought, taking a deep breath. Toby would be less than thirty minutes away at NYU, which was comforting. He had missed nearly two weeks of school, though, so she quickly shooed him away. Sighing, she slipped the shiny, silver key into the keyhole and opened the mahogany door. As her head entered the room, her mouth split into a wide grin.

“Hello!”

Two twin beds sat a few feet away from each other in the center of the room. One bed was still made up so well that a coin would bounce off of it, but the other, further away from the door, was a mess. A small redheaded girl sat cross-legged on this bed, pencil in hand, with a textbook labeled Algebra 1 laying open on her lap. Her gaze shot towards the door as it began to open.

“Hey,” she replied, matching none of the volume or cheer present in the newcomer’s greeting. “You’re Alice, right?”

“I’m Kaitlyn.”

Kaitlyn was not smiling. Honestly, she seemed a little annoyed about this whole ‘roommate’ thing.

The response she got was not what she had been expecting. First of all, her roommate was young, as in younger than her. She hadn't really thought about age regarding roommates, but she had definitely gone in with the expectation that her roomie would at least be in the same grade as her. Secondly, whoa, she could definitely tell which side of the room was hers. No offense to Kaitlyn, but their room was going to get a substantial makeover...starting with her side. (She made a mental note to find a vacuum.)

But perhaps the thing that struck Alice the most, as she passed through the doorway, was the complete lack of enthusiasm in her roomie's dull greeting! The younger girl did not even have a hint of a smile on her face! In fact, she looked downright irritated... Alice's smile shifted into a nervous one. Maybe Kait was annoyed that she had interrupted her studying? Or maybe she was just having a bad day? Alice tried to stay considerate and optimistic.

"Yep! It's really nice to meet you!" she chirped, hauling her many belongings into the room. Kait remained on her bed, not offering any assistance. "So, uh, what grade are you in?" she asked in a desperate attempt at small talk. Taking a break from pulling in boxes, the fourteen-year-old skipped over to her irritated roommate and offered her hand, ever-grinning and expecting a shake. Surely, Kaitlyn would comply?

((OOC: I hope the line about Kait not helping Alice move things is okay? If not I'll change it!))

Kaitlyn could only sit and stare while her new roommate carried stuff in. Something about another person’s presence in her room felt unnatural. She was still getting used to the idea that she would be sharing all of her personal space with this girl.

This girl, who owned far more boxes of stuff than she could reasonably need. Each time Alice brought a box in, Kaitlyn thought that was the last of it, only to be proven wrong when Alice brought in another one.

She accepted Alice’s hand, barely managing a faint smile. “Eighth, mostly,” she said proudly, “and there are some ninth graders in my Algebra class too.”

“You need help with some of that stuff?” Kaitlyn nodded at the growing mound of boxes, which already amounted to more than she’d ever owned at one time. She almost felt guilty, watching Alice carry in so much stuff without any help.

Alice let out a silent sigh of relief when Kaitlyn shook her hand. The other girl was even smiling! Okay, it was barely a smile, but it was still there! The fourteen-year-old felt a surge of confidence run through her as she went back to her boxes and listened to her new roommate proudly declare her eighth-grade status.

“…and there are some ninth graders in my Algebra class too.”

“Wait, no way!” Alice suddenly exclaimed, running to the red backpack sitting on her bed. She rummaged through the front pocket for a few seconds, pulling out various papers and pamphlets before finally settling on a slightly wrinkled class schedule, running back to Kait and waving it in front of her face. “Who’s your teacher?? I might be in your class!” She handed her the paper, excited at the prospect of having algebra with her roommate and future BFFL. Even though she was a freshman, she had many difficulties with mathematics, and thus…was probably one of the ninth graders in Kaitlyn’s class.

“You need help with some of that stuff?”

”Oh sure!” she replied happily, “I only have a few more things left.” She led the way to the hallway and pointed to the few bags and boxes remaining. “I know I have a lot of stuff…” she said, a sudden timidity in her voice, “…but my parents insisted I take ‘everything I need,’ yanno? I’m not really sure when I’m going to be able to visit home so…yeah…” She cleared her throat, fighting the sudden sadness trying to settle in. It was not the time for such emotional matters!

"Um...so what's your family like?" she chirped, returning to her cheerful disposition.

Kaitlyn examined the class schedule. “Huh. We both have Mr. Sanders’ fifth period. That’s cool.” She tried to sound excited, but fell short.

With that, she set her homework aside, got to her feet, and followed Alice into the hallway. The redhead grabbed one of the smaller boxes. It was deceptively heavy, and she struggled a little to carry it back into the room. If this was Alice’s parents’ idea of ‘everything she needed,’ Kaitlyn mused, then maybe the word ‘need’ meant something different where Alice came from.

Alice probably came from somewhere nice, too. Maybe she used to live in an actual house, with two parents who both lived and cared about her. It had to be hard, she decided, to get sent away from something like that.

“Umm… so what’s your family like?”

Alice asked it before Kaitlyn had the chance.

She stopped, just in front of Alice’s still-growing pile of stuff, still holding the deceptively heavy little box.

“Well…”

She put the box down slowly, and took a deep breath.

“I'm not really sure if… uh…” Her voice cracked and shook.

She spun around and left the room to bring in more of Alice’s stuff. Her face was pointed away from Alice the entire time.

Oh. Crud.

She had done it again, hadn’t she? With her awkward, invasive questioning and lack of filter, she had upset and driven away another potential friend…Alice stared at the mumbling, retreating figure of her petite roommate and felt like flailing. What had she done?! What was she going to do?! (And uh…what kind of difficult family life did Kait have that she did not want to share?) The fourteen-year-old knew firsthand the fissures and cracks that could form in a family after the activation of a mutation, but she also knew of families that had turned out much worse than hers did. For example, her own father had been disowned by his parents (the grandparents she had never met, and probably never would) at the age of sixteen, when his teleportation ability had first manifested.

She could not imagine the pain a person—a child—went through in such situations. Sure, her family was plenty dysfunctional, but no one, except perhaps her mother, had turned their backs on her when her dangerous, poisonous, appalling mutation became known.

“I…uh, I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to ask something so personal. I totally get if you don’t want to talk about it.” Uncomfortable pause. Alice moved another box in. There was one more left. "Ah…so, what are some your hobbies?” That was a safe question, right? There was no possible way she could offend Kait with that, right? Right? Flail.

Kaitlyn waved dismissively at Alice’s attempt to change the subject. “No, it’s fine,” she insisted. Her cracked, quavering voice indicated otherwise. She took a deep breath and wiped her eyes on the sleeve of her t-shirt, leaving behind a few damp streaks.

“It’s fine,” she repeated, this time a little more calmly. With another deep breath, she reached down and picked up the last box.

“What I was gonna say was...” her voice trailed off. She was going to say that she didn’t really know if she had a family anymore. But that wasn’t true. “I have a family. It’s just that it’s pretty different from yours, is all.” When Kaitlyn turned around to bring the box into the room, her face was red, and her eyes still slightly wet, but she refused to look sad.

After setting the last box down with the rest, she even managed to inject some optimism into her voice. “There’s my dad, and he’s pretty cool. He adopted me a couple years ago, and he has about six identical twins who are kinda like my uncles.” She sat down on her bed again. “I also have an aunt, and some cousins, and we live with a lot of other people in this place in Brooklyn called the Sanctuary. A lot of them are kinda like my family, too.”

By now, she seemed perfectly comfortable talking about her family. This would continue to be the case, as long as she managed to stop thinking about Lori.

...Kaitlyn was crying. Alice had made her cry. She had made her cry. They had not spoken for more than five minutes, and she'd already upset the other girl to the verge of tears. She cringed as she heard her roommate's voice shake and quake and felt her insides twist up in guilt and regret. If only she had kept her mouth shut, gotten the hint that Kaitlyn did not wish to talk to her, did not wish to even share a room with her... Even whilst the younger girl assured her that her question was alright, Alice felt like kicking herself in the shins.

She silently watched as the final box was brought in, perching on the edge of her neatly made bed. She fidgeted and toyed with the ends of her sleeves. She appreciated that Kaitlyn was making an effort to appear calm, happy even, but the redness in the other girl's eyes were a tell-tale sign that Alice had broken a dam she was not supposed to touch.

“There’s my dad, and he’s pretty cool. He adopted me a couple years ago, and he has about six identical twins who are kinda like my uncles.”

Adoption? Six twin uncles? And not to mention all of the aunts and cousins that came with those uncles. Geez. Kaitlyn was right when she'd said her family was much different from Alice's. For one, the fourteen-year-old had a virtually nonexistent extended family, her maternal grandparents residing in Italy and her paternal grandparents doing their best to avoid her father and his mutated family. She had a few cousins scattered across the United States, but her family had never been really big on gathering or anything. And yet her roommate used to reside with all of her family, plus other people who were kind of like family? Wow.

But isn't a sanctuary a church? she thought to herself, though deciding not to ask. Kaitlyn's family, or rather, adopted family, seemed to make the girl quite happy, though it was strange that she had only been adopted in recent years. Wasn't she kind of old for adoption? (Another question Alice would refrain from asking just yet.) Maybe that was why the younger girl had gotten upset. Maybe there was something about the adoption or her biological family or her lack of a biological family. Thinking about made the teenager's brain hurt.

"Ah, I so jealous of your family. It's so big! I think I'd love to live with so many people...I just live with my mom. Uh...I mean, I used to live with both of my parents, but they got divorced and stuff so... But my brother used to go to school here!" she rambled on, realizing that her family did not sound nearly as cool as Kaitlyn's did, "Do you visit them often, then? Since they live so close."

Kaitlyn couldn’t tell whether Alice was patronizing her or telling the truth. She was lucky to have her uncles and everyone, of course, but there wasn’t anything for Alice to be jealous about. Alice got to grow up with an actual, normal family.

“I haven’t yet,” she admitted. “But I’ve only been here a week. I’ll probably spend some weekends over there, soon.”

She sniffed, and wiped her eyes off again.

“Don’t worry about the crying thing, by the way. I thought I’d stopped doing that. It’s not a big deal.” The Orderling couldn’t believe that she’d actually cried in front of this girl, during the very first conversation they had together. It would take a long time for her to salvage her reputation. She sighed.

“Just… don’t tell anyone, okay?”

Oh! So we're both new! Alice mused, happy to find something the girls had in common, even if it was their lack of experience at Xavier's. Perhaps they would be able to commiserate over getting lost or something.

The fourteen-year-old solemnly nodded as Kaitlyn asked her not to tell anyone about her brief crying episode. Of course she would not speak of it, and she only felt awful that she had made the other girl cry... "I promise I won't!" she said, offering her pinky for a pinky-swear, "And uh...I'm sorry I asked about your family and all..." I didn't mean to be a huge, accidental jerk.

She leaned back on the bed and stared at all of her bags and boxes, dreading the thought of unpacking them. And she would feel bad to ask her roommate for help, not after what had just happened. Her stomach rumbled at the most opportune time. "Um...wanna grab lunch or something?"

After wiping her eyes dry one last time, Kaitlyn solemnly wrapped her pinky around Alice’s and made eye contact. “Seriously, though,” She said sternly, “I’ve got a reputation to keep up. This never happened.”

With the pinky-swearing ritual complete, the redhead gave a nervous laugh and wiped her eyes dry one last time. She stared at her math book, trying to think of a way to salvage that ‘reputation’ of hers with Alice. She was much less upset with Alice than she was with herself.

“Sure.” Lunch sounded like a good idea. “I’ll show you where the dining room is.” The Orderling stood up and walked to the door, wiping her eyes dry for the last time stop doing that it’s supposed to be over now. “I should be the one who’s sorry, by the way. It’s a stupid thing to cry about.”

Kaitlyn held the door open. “I’m usually a lot cooler than this.”

"Seriously, though. I’ve got a reputation to keep up. This never happened."

Alice couldn't help but brighten up when Kaitlyn accepted her pinky promise, despite the stern warning. It's not like she had anyone to tell anyway, really. She was curious about what sort of "reputation" the younger girl held, though. Apparently it included not getting emotional and crying, though the fourteen-year-old did not see any issue with it. Wasn't it only human to feel emotions? But she digressed.

Kait accepted her lunch proposal and even offered to escort her to the dining room, widening the brunette's smile. It seemed that despite very recent happenings, the redhead was warming up to her! Or at least that is what she hoped. Alice got up, walked through the door, and patiently waited for her roommate to lead the way through the large and confusing mansion.

“I’m usually a lot cooler than this.”

She shook her head. "You already seem cool to me!" she said with a sincere grin. It was true! Kaitlyn was obviously very intelligent, being in Alice's algebra class and all, but that was not all. The fourteen-year-old could tell that Kait was smart in other ways too. Street smart, life smart. Something like that.

"So you said you got here a week ago? How do you like it so far?" Hopefully the answer would be positive. Sure, Toby had already given Alice positively glowing review of the school, but she wanted to hear from someone who was currently attending it.

Kaitlyn shrugged, and started leading her down the hallway.

“Eh. It’s nice for a school. The food’s not bad, either. But it feels kinda weird to live here. Especially since… well,” she glanced at Alice, “what do you think about the X-Men?”

A voice in the back of Kaitlyn’s mind told her that she really shouldn’t have brought that up. The voice sounded a lot like Mr. Holloway’s.

“Eh. It’s nice for a school. The food’s not bad, either. But it feels kinda weird to live here. Especially since… well, what do you think about the X-Men?”

The X-Men? That was a foreign term. Alice tilted her head in confusion, unsure of how to respond to her roommate. While she did not want to seem ignorant or clueless, a part of her was very curious on what exactly "The X-Men" were. She bit her lip and contemplated her options. She could pretend to know what Kaitlyn was talk, but that would be dishonest! But at the same time, she didn't want to look stupid...

"Um...they're..." she stammered, waffling between her decisions. She sighed. It was no use. "What exactly are 'X-Men?'"