Family 10.5

** AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hey there! I wanted to let you know that I've decided to publish the entire backlog of Rogue Evolution on my website, artoflupin.com. There you'll find chapters as far ahead as "Snow Fall 11.6", and in a couple of weeks, I plan on having the log on my website be a chapter ahead of any other site I post to!

If you'd prefer to wait for uploads here, no worries, uploads will continue here as scheduled.

Thanks! **

 The outdoor breeze ransacking the school's courtyard was enough to keep all but the most determined outdoor eaters inside. The most determined evidently being Anna, Evan, and the crust-goth kids sitting at their usual bench in the most shaded end of the courtyard. Anna and Evan's umbrella had been bound shut keep it from running away, but with the dark overcast looming above, Anna was half tempted to open the thing. At least that way they'd have some chance against that evening's rain should it want to get an early jump on things.

Anna managed to gulp down all her school lunch slop asside from the mound of semi orange colored mashed potatoes. Handily enough, it was so strangely dence it acted as a fairly decent anchor against the wind and kept her tray in place. She tucked a dislodged hairs behind an ear. "Does New York get hurricanes?"

Evan, tending to a laptop with one hand and a sloppy joe with the other, ripped another bite out of the beef bleeding sandwich. "Sometimes," he said through a mouthful. He chewed and swallowed. "We should be at the end of the season so I doubt this is anything." He put down his sandwich and checked his watch. "You haven't heard from Kurt have you?"

"Nah. I know Kitty had to stay after class to finish some test, but I didn't hear anything from our blue boy."

He pulled out his phone, tapped something into the screen with his thumbs, then rested it screen down on the table. "Well, I was gonna wait for everyone to be here, but I can go ahead spill it to you. I've been doing some reserch into what we found in Xavier's study."

Anna crossed her arms and tucked her hands under her armpits. Maybe going inside wasn't such a wussy idea after all. It was getting harder to shake off the chill nipping at the back of her exposed neck. "Oh yeah? What in particular?"

"I'm still working on cracking the cipher. I'm not even really sure where to start without knowing more about his day-to-day and getting some context. But I was thinking about the JFK date you put together. What if he's referencing the airport?"

"How do you figure that?"

"Think about it. It's every Sunday, it's his whole day, and none of us remember seeing him on any given Sunday. So he must be going somewhere. 11221963, JFK's assassination, what else would every Sunday have to do with some dude's death?"

Anna's lip pulled back just enough on one side to form a grin. "Well, you know a lot of people make every Sunday 'about some dude's death.'"

"What do you mean?"

Anna pulled her hair out of her face for the thousandth time and shook her head. "Never mind, Ev. What else you got?"

"I'm not sure what he's doing at JFK. Maybe meeting someone or flying somewhere -"

"If he's flying, why not just take the Blackbird?"

"Because he doesn't want us to know he's flying somewhere."

Anna gave a shallow nod and allowed her chin to lower towards her chest on the down stroke. She took one of her hands in the other and pulled at the fabric of her glove. She watched as the soft leather tightened when she applied pressure and crinkled when she let go.

"I also started looking into that material that Kitty couldn't phase though. I couldn't know exactly, of course, but I found this alloy called Adimantium. Apparently it's hard to make and super expensive. Since Xavier has never been one to cut on cost and is a super private guy, I thought it might be a good lead."

"Learn anything else about this stuff?"

"Not a lot is available on it. There was the scientist dude who fabricated it in a laboratory and patented it. How it's made and what it's made of seems like a pretty well guarded secret."

Anna's eyes wandered the courtyard till they spotted The Brotherhood boys walking through the breezeway between school buildings. The same breezeway they had their bare-knuckle brawl not that long ago that ended with Anna laying Blob out in a heap after a scalp massage.

It was Toad who first noticed her. He pulled sallow skin under his right eye with a finger and gave her an ugly face. Blob stared from over a stiff lip and squared his shoulders. Avalanche only looked at her a moment, then opened the glass door to the cafeteria and slipped inside. The other two boys followed close behind him without further incident.

"I never got around to telling you guys," Anna looked back at Evan who had his face still buried in his computer. "I talked to Xavier the night I went down to Cerebro."

"He caught you, huh? Kurt and I figured something was seriously off when the dude disappeared on us while we were talking with him upstairs." Evan lowered the screen to his laptop and faced Anna head-on for the first time since sitting down. "He didn't kick you out, so I guess it could have gone worse."

"No, he didn't kick me out." Anna glanced down at her glove. Despite the multiple increases and decreases in pressure in one spot, not even a new wrinkle had formed. "He actually answered some questions for me. Even admitted he probably shouldn't have been so shut off to us."

"Really? So he went ahead and gave you the code to the cipher, told you what JFK was, and explained the creepo painting we found?"

"He said he had a younger brother but didn't get much further into it than that. He didn't say anything about the cipher, but he did let me touch him and enter his mind."

"What did you find?"

"It was hard to sift through all of it. It was mostly a tangled mess of emotions at first… then some stuff about Jean… a helicopter… and then I watched a conversation through Xavier's eyes with Logan. They were arguing about politics and what to do about a Sentinel factory."

"What were they arguing about with the Sentinel factory?"

"What to do about it. Logan wanted to go and destroy it, I think, but Xavier wanted to try something else." Anna rubbed her forehead. "Like I said, there was so much raw feelings to sift though. Like, I know how my body and mind and stuff works, but when I jump into some else's mind its totally different." She paused and her hand fell as her eyes wandered. "But it also feels kind of good… Like getting jacked into a wall socket, but in a good way."

"You didn't get a chance to download a copy of Corebro's brain, did you?"

Another long pause as her eyes continued to explore somewhere only she could see. "No, I didn't get the chance."

Evan nodded, "Great. Sounds like we're about where we started. It's all just a lot more cryptic now. We have a desk made out of magic metal Kitty can't get in, a supercomputer we can't touch, an airport Xavier does something in, and the knowledge of an argument between Logan and Xavier."

"It's not all Xavier and I talked about." Anna returned to earth as the weight of the conversation found its way back on her shoulders. As soon as it was settled in, she was already missing that comfortable void she'd slipped into moments ago. "It seemed like he genuinely felt bad for pushing us away. He said he wanted to turn a new leaf. He said he would tell us all in time, but right now, with school and everything already going on, he didn't feel like we were ready to know. But he seemed willing to share what he could. That's when he told me about his brother from that portrait."

"Then went on to tell you nothing else."

"Maybe it's just one of those things we will learn more about when the time is right."

Evan leaned back and his head nodded his head way that reminded her of a bobble head that had a loose spring. "You're not seriously going to start to defending this dude, are you?"

"I'm saying I don't know what to believe, but he did let me in his head. I think that means something in itself. In there I felt so much… fear, pain…and a lot of guilt."

"Guilt is an interesting word to hear. Probably about all kinds of stuff he's not telling us."

"But what if he is right not to, Ev? What if we just aren't ready yet? It's not like Logan and Ororo are spilling the beans about everything that's going on either."

That was the wrong thing to say.

Evan's shoulders squared. He tucked in close the table, slammed his laptop shut, and pulled out his backpack.

"Ev…"

He shoved his laptop inside his backpack, drained the last of his milk carton, and stood when Anna put her gloved hand on his forearm. He froze in place and stared at it.

She too stared at her hand a moment before tentitivlely taking it off and returning it to her lap. "Please, Ev, stay."

He froze like a statue for a short while before dropping his pack on the ground and sitting back in his spot. He stared at her from across the table. "What did you and my aunt talk about on the roof?"

Anna had to summon some courage to meet his gaze. "She told me about her son, her partner." She swallowed. "She told me about your mom and your dad."

"She had no right."

"Maybe," Anna's eyes fell to the right sleeve of his hoodie where the ends closest to the thumb were heavily frayed. "I'm sorry for what happened to your dad."

"I don't need your pity." He sucked in a breath and cocked his head to one side then the other. "It taught me something early a lot of people have a hard time putting together. Don't trust anyone. My dad would be here right now if it wasn't for some shit-head officer who put him in the line of fire of a sniper. My dad would be alive if it wasn't for some pointless war in some faraway place doing god knows what."

He planted his hands on the table. "Every time I thought otherwise, thought I could let my guard down, I've always gotten bit on the ass."

"Like with your Aunt helping The Brotherhood escape?"

He hissed through his nose, "Yeah, like that. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm a little skeptical of this 'new leaf' Xavier wants to suddenly take. I'm not planning to watch anyone else die for another pointless cause."

Anna put her hand on his and felt the muscles underneath tighten as hard as a rock. "What I saw in Xavier's mind was confusing… but that argument between Logan and Xavier, it was about how to best keep us safe. Neither of them wants any of us to get hurt. I was in his head, Ev. I felt his emotions, his pains, his insecurities. He is truly trying to help. I think he's just trying to figure it out like the rest of us. And Ororo, well you know your aunt better than any of us. Has she ever done anything to hurt you?"

Evan's fist relaxed, even if it was just a little. "She loves you, Ev." Anna continued, "She cares for all of us. She sees us all as a family. It's just difficult because there are people in The Brotherhood who are also a part of her family. Family, as I'm learning, is kind of a complicated thing."

He turned his head and pressed a tongue into his cheek. She could see his eyes getting misty.

"I don't pity you, Evan. I just know what it's like to have your world suddenly turned upside down. People you thought you knew turn and become something totally different. It's moments like that where the good people in your life shine the brightest."

Evan pulled his hand away and stood. He shouldered his backpack and looked at her. His eyes were red and puffy. He turned and walked away without a second glance.