Guessing (Charles Xavier)

2. Buddy Holly and the Mutants

(Haven above)

Francesca and I went on for a few weeks without any more parties or attractive young professors, but I couldn't get the idea that perhaps Charles wasn't lying under alcohol, and that there were people who were as... Messed up as I was, as I am.

"So I talked to Raven today," Fran says to me slyly when I get off from school one afternoon.

"She's a sweet girl," I say. I drop my briefcase on the sofa tiredly.

"We talked about you."

"All good, I hope," smiling as I pull out some papers and my textbook to start on some schoolwork.

"Quite," she says. I hear some cups clink as Fran prepares a cuppa tea. "Particularly involving a certain Charles."

"He's a nice young lad."

"Haven, you must think more of him than that! As far as I've been informed, he spent the majority of his thesis party with you. And he's a very eligible, educated-"

"I'm not interested in making romantic connections with anyone, I'm afraid," I say firmly. "And we've gone over my potentially permanent availability multiple times."

"He likes you."

"And I like him. He's a very intelligent friend whose company I am learning to value very much."

"You're impossible," Francesca grunts as she hands me a cup of tea.

"I'm twenty-one and you're trying to marry me off to every guy on the pavement. Of course I'm being difficult."

We sit for a while as she talks my ear off about Raven and Charles and an attractive regular customer named Nicholas, so I'm very thankful when a doorbell interrupts her daily dose of gossip.

"I'll get it," she chirps happily. "Probably Mrs. Gibson from next door telling us about her daughter in medical school or some shite like that."

"All yours," I mutter as I start to take notes on a new chapter for one of my genetics classes.

I hear Fran talking lowly with whoever's at the door, and since I'm expecting it to be our chatty neighbor, Mrs. Gibson, I find myself completely taken aback when Charles Xavier stands in front of me, with my grinning flat mate behind him.

"Oh, bloody hell!" My tea cup slips and lands on the floor, shattering.

"Sorry, bad time? I'll help you clean up-"

"No, I'm just unprepared. Fran, will you make him a cup of tea?" Fran nods and I kneel down, starting to pick the shards up.

"You could hurt yourself, you know."

"Not with my so-called mutation," I sigh. "As long as I'm not caught off guard, I can't get hurt."

"I get the feeling that you're not happy about that."

"Of course not. I'm a genetic mistake."

"I think you have a beautiful gift. Wait, here," Charles says, placing his fingers on his temple again. Francesca comes from the kitchen with the tea, and Charles looks at me.

"What do you want her to say?"

"What?"

"I'm showing you my mutation," he grins. "I'm in her head, tell me what you want her to say."

"Um, that I'm the most fantastic flat mate and she's blessed to have such an irreplaceable friend?"

"Haven, you're the most fantastic flat mate and I'm blessed to have such an irreplaceable friend," Francesca says to me sincerely. So he was honest with me.