Guessing (Charles Xavier)

6. Mistakes I Never Made

(Photo above is my life in a nutshell)

I spend the majority of the next day throwing little force bubbles at my bedroom wall.

It's not much different from university life. I go out for a run in the morning. I read the rest of the day. I just have less work to do and people are usually busy around the house. I don't even have Francesca to keep me company- I ring her up in the morning but the time zone issue makes it difficult for us to talk for long, since she's at work. I don't have much to say, anyways; she doesn't know about the mutations and I don't want her to. Charles made her think I'm on some long holiday, and I'd like her to keep thinking that.

Lying on the bed on my back, I practice spinning a force field bubble in my finger like a basketball when someone knocks on the door.

"Come in," I say, pretending to shoot into an imaginary hoop. The bubble disintegrates as another one forms on my fingertip again.

"You look extremely bored," Alex says.

"I have all my psychology books memorized and I really can't read one word about mutations written by people who haven't experienced them," I tell him. A bubble bounces off the window and disappears instantly. "What's up?"

"Sean- or, as Raven dubbed him, Banshee-" I chuckle, and Alex suppresses a grin- "is doing a little stunt and we thought you could be helpful."

"Oh, God, this sounds fun," I smirk as I prop myself up from the bed. "Don't tell me what he's doing, but I'm sure it's idiotic."

Alex just grins wider.

I follow him to a window in the west side of the house, where everyone is crowded. Sean is seated on the sill, wearing an ugly yellow suit that makes him look like a bumblebee, and Charles has his hand placed on his back, saying something to him.

"I got Haven," Alex tells the group, and everyone turns to acknowledge my presence for a second.

"Fantastic," Charles says. His eyes seem to be saying things that I can't decipher quite yet. "Haven, will you stand opposite me and place a force field around Sean? He's gonna try to see if he can levitate himself with a super-sonic scream."

"Of course," I say. Sean rants on about how he's gonna die, and though he says he trusts Charles, he also states bluntly that he believes Hank (who made the horrendous suit) and me will be the cause of his death.

Hank looks slightly offended, but he doesn't really defend himself- he's a young scientist and engineer, not a lawyer- so I pat Sean on the back. "If you doubt me one more time, I promise that I'll forget to make you a little protective force field," I grin, and Sean immediately shuts up.

It's only a three story fall, so he couldn't get die unless he intentionally tried to break his neck or something of the sort, but I make sure he's covered anyways.

After crossing himself nervously, he falls off from the window sill, but the scream he lets out it more a yelp than anything, so it's pretty obvious that he's not breaking any sound barrier. He bounces off the surface of impact, suspended in my dome of protection, but I let go right as he's about to his the ground again, so he isn't completely pain-free.

"Oh, what the hell, Haven!" He yells from the ground.

"Sorry!" I say happily. The rest of the team is laughing at Sean lying sprawled out on the lawn.

"Sean? Would you be alright with trying again? You just need to scream loud enough," Charles calls out gently, even though he catches himself on the edge of a laugh in-between words.

"Hell no," Sean groans as he gets up on his feet, holding his back dramatically. "Not with that woman to protect me."

"Even better, you can do it one more time without me," I say, and Sean starts to shake his head at Charles.