That Girl
by Red Monster
Disclaimer: James, Theresa and Paige are Marvel's. Kelly, Peter, and everyone else you don't recognize are mine. Okay to Pop-Up, not okay to MST. Feedback is welcome as always. For a frame of reference, read my earlier story, Nature's Wish.
Indicates thoughts.
"Can I sit here?"
Peter Jenkins looked up from his seat in the cafeteria of his small Midwestern college to find a very tall, graceful woman standing across the table from him, holding her tray. He was accustomed to eating alone because he was too shy to become part of any group. Finding a woman like this asking to sit with him at lunch was the last thing he’d ever expected. "Sure, go ahead," he answered.
The woman set her tray on the table and lowered her toned, big-boned frame into the chair opposite Peter. "What’s your name?" she asked, pushing a lock of whisper-fine, curly dark hair away from her light brown face.
"Peter," he began. Under the table, his leg started twitching up and down. "Jenkins."
"Okay, Peter Jenkins, my name’s Gloria O’Neill."
"That’s a pretty name," Peter said while fighting to keep his hands from shaking.
"Thank you. I was named after my great-grandmother. What year are you?"
"I’m a sophomore," he said. Peter was 19, and felt like he was in the Twilight Zone. I can’t believe this is happening. Just wait until I screw up.
"So am I. Except, I started school late. I’m 24 now," she said between bites of lasagna.
Peter nearly dropped his fork. "So, uh, what did you do between high school and college?"
"I had a few jobs," she shrugged. "I couldn’t start college right away, because I was on my own financially, so I had to save up some first."
"You couldn’t get help from your parents?"
"Didn’t want to," she said, and took another bite. "Don’t get me wrong, my parents are pretty okay people, but I can’t stand them, so I moved out on my own after high school."
"Well, at least you can support yourself, right?"
"Right. I’m doing fine," she said. "Also, Peter," she leaned across the table and lowered her voice to a whisper. "I won’t bite. Relax."
"Sorry." Then it struck Peter, that Gloria looked oddly familiar to him. "You know, I’ve seen a bunch of sculptures in the art building, that look a lot like you."
"If they’re students’ work, it may be because I model for the art classes."
He jolted at the news, and choked on a piece of broccoli. He coughed violently into his napkin, trying not to let any of the chewed vegetable get on Gloria. She stood up and hurried around the table to him.
"Hey, easy now. Eat it, don’t inhale it," she said, rubbing his upper back in broad circular motions. "What’s the matter? You seem awfully strung out."
"I have a big test at 12:30," he lied. "So I’m a little on edge about that." He looked at his watch, and confirmed that it was minutes until 12:30. "Oh, look, I better get going. Really nice meeting you, sorry to be running out like this."
"It’s okay. Hope you do well on your test."
Peter tripped his way out of the cafeteria and back to his room, where his roommate, Jim, an art student, was playing computer games.
"Jim, I need to talk to you," he said.
Jim looked at him like he’d just walked in with a watermelon on his head. Peter was very withdrawn and didn’t talk much. "What’s up?"
"Do any of your classes use live models?"
"Yeah, two of them do, Watercolors and Sculpture. Why?"
"Are any of these models a woman named Gloria O’Neill?"
"Yeah, we have a Gloria O’Neill model for us in both those classes. Why, you want me to sneak some photos in here of her modeling nude?" Jim smirked.
"Oh my God," Peter buckled. "No, it’s just that…she sat with me at lunch today. And talked to me."
"Peter, listen," Jim turned away from his game and looked at Peter. "This is a *good* *thing.*"
"But, why would she do it? I must be the biggest geek on campus!"
"Look at yourself, man. You’re not the biggest anything!" Jim snickered. Peter, all 125 pounds of him, slumped onto his bed. "Hey, I’m kidding. Give yourself a little credit. She probably thought you looked like a nice person, so it was safe to sit down with you. Even models need a place to sit at lunch."
"Okay, there’s that," Peter nodded. "But, she also wanted to know stuff about me. And when she told me she was a model, I choked on my food, and she touched me. I mean, she put her hand on my back and sat right next to me."
"You say it like she was trying to hurt you. What did she want to know, anyway?"
"I dunno, my name, and then what year I was in school. I don’t know what else she would’ve asked if I’d stayed longer."
"Your name and year in school, huh? Yes, this is the kind of thing people ask when they’re getting to know each other. Peter Jenkins, you just may have found someone who wants to be your friend!"
"Maybe she just needs someone to help her study."
"Why do you say that, is she in any of your classes?"
"Well, no, but…"
"And I don’t think she knows you’re here on a full academic scholarship. So, why don’t you just chill out and stop trying to chase her away? Any other guy would kill to get that kind of attention from her."
"Yeah, exactly! So, what does she want with me?"
"Pete, you’re not in high school anymore. No one is going to stuff your head in a toilet now. So loosen up."
"I know," Peter sighed. "I know. I’m just not used to having gorgeous women like that be so nice to me."
"Feels good, doesn’t it? You know, I can talk to her in class, see how she feels about you. You want me to do that?"
"No, don’t ask her how she feels about me. Could you, just…tell her I’m sorry I ran out on her so fast? And that I didn’t mean to be so rude?"
"Sure, I can tell her that."
Jim went back to his game, while Peter took a moment to calm down. After a brief silence, he spoke up again.
"Does Gloria really model nude in your classes?"
"Oh yeah."
"God, sometimes I wish I’d chosen Art instead of Engineering."
"No, you don’t, Pete. You’ll make good money after graduation, I’ll be a starving artist. Getting a grade to look at naked chicks in college is the one reward I’ll get."
And so it began. A few months later, Peter and Gloria were officially dating. It started out with her offering to treat him to a simple dinner out or a movie or a little concert at a local coffee house, and he reveled in the variety of it. His whole life prior to that had been solitary, predictable. With Gloria, he could no longer assure people he’d be spending that evening in his room studying; there was always a good chance he’d be out with her. Finally, Peter worked up the gall to ask her if she wanted to be his girlfriend. With sweating palms and held breath, he waited for her answer. He almost broke down crying when she gave a shrug and a smile and said, "Of course."
Aside from the shock of being noticed, let alone appreciated, by Gloria, Peter found a great friend in her. He discovered that she was completely accessible, up front about how she felt, a great listener, and always knew how to cheer him up when he needed it. She was also brutally honest when he offended her, something Peter found threatening at first but learned to appreciate. Gloria O’Neill was too good to be true, yet as far as Peter Jenkins could tell, she was as real as the ground he stood on.
One still Spring evening while they were on the road, the weather turned sour. Peter and Gloria were now 21 and 26, respectively, and engaged. They were on their way to meet Peter’s family, with Gloria driving and Peter giving her directions. She’d looked frightened when he asked her to meet his family, and wouldn’t tell him why. She agreed to meet them, but still, he could tell there was something she was afraid of. No matter how hard he tried to communicate with her, though, she denied that anything was bothering her. She was set on meeting Peter’s family, but he couldn’t shake that feeling that Gloria was hiding something from him. So it was that during that tense drive from Indiana to Michigan, the sky turned an ominous, cottony shade of charcoal gray and ruptured into a downpour.
"Honey," Peter began, "maybe you should pull off the highway and park the car somewhere until this rain stops. I dunno about you, but I can barely see out of the windshield, and the road can’t be safe in these conditions."
"I’m not stopping, Peter," Gloria said sharply. "Not unless we run out of gas. And stop twitching your leg, you’re making me nervous."
Peter looked down and saw his knee was shaking madly up and down as it always did when he was nervous. He pressed his hand over it to stop the shaking, and found himself having a struggle between his knee and his hand. The farther they drove, the more Peter felt like they were about to drive into something dangerous. Still, he trusted Gloria’s intuition more than his own, and she seemed determined to keep going despite her apparent agitation.
After a few minutes of this, a car in the lane to their right and slightly ahead of them skidded out of control and turned sideways in front of them. Gloria swerved to avoid the car and crashed, driver-side front first, into the dividing rail. Peter found his heart pounding through his chest, and his vision scrambled. When his eyes cleared up a bit, he looked to his left and found Gloria slumped, unconscious, over her shoulder belt. It was too dark to see any injuries on her. Peter’s stomach dissolved into paste. He grasped her shoulder and gave her a light shake. "Gloria, wake up," he pleaded. She was the one who towered over him like a giant, she was supposed to be the tough one, the one that kept them out of trouble most of the time and got them out of a jam the rest of the time. Only this time, she wasn’t responding. "Honey, please say something."
Peter was interrupted by another car coming from behind them and slamming into the back half of their car, turning them around so that Peter’s side of the car smashed into the divider, and he and Gloria faced in the opposite of the direction they’d been driving. After Peter got his bearings back from this, and realized Gloria was still unconscious, he decided to get out of the car and look for help. As he struggled to dislodge himself from the badly dented car, a beam of light broke through his window and blinded him to everything else around him. A few seconds later, he blacked out.
He woke up in a laboratory of some sort, brightly lit and sterile. He recognized very little of the equipment in the room, the rest looked like it couldn’t have been invented yet. Gloria lay motionless in a bed beside his, hooked up to a monitor, with the top of her head wrapped in gauze. Peter himself had hardly a bruise or cut anywhere on his body, clad in some plain pajama-like clothes. He felt like nothing had happened to him, even though he plainly remembered the accident.
Peter sat up and spotted a tall, slender, labcoated blonde woman around 40, standing in a small glass-walled room in the lab while looking into a large monitor screen. She looked up and saw that he was awake, and came out of the small glass room.
"Good to see you’re awake," she said while walking towards him. "My name’s Paige Guthrie, M.D. How are you feeling?"
"I feel okay. But, what happened to me and my fiancee? Where are we?"
"You’re in the lower levels of a special school for mutants in Westchester, New York," began the doctor. "You got caught in the crossfire of a battle between two mutant groups, one of which lives here. They didn’t injure you, though, one of them just knocked you out. Kelly wasn’t quite so lucky. She’ll be okay, but she was injured in the car crash."
"Who’s Kelly?" Peter asked.
Paige raised her eyebrow at him, looking like he’d just asked her why he had hands. "Your lady friend here." She pointed to Gloria’s unconscious form.
"That’s not Kelly," Peter laughed nervously. "Her name’s Gloria."
"Gloria?" said Paige. "She’s got a lot of explaining to do when she wakes up. This young woman is the daughter of some close allies of ours, and she’s been missing for a few years now. We were very glad to find her, too. We used to have a device here that could have tracked her down, but it was destroyed years ago."
"No, this can’t be right," said Peter. "How do you know she’s the one you’re looking for? She might just look like your girl."
"We have technology here that can read and interpret DNA in a matter of minutes. I checked hers after she was stable. This is the girl."
Peter stared wide-eyed at Paige, while the confusion swirled around his head. "Is she a mutant, too?"
"Look, it’s not my place to tell you who she really is. I don’t know what’s been going on with her these past few years, so I don’t have the whole story. Let her explain herself after she wakes up, okay?"
"I can’t believe this. I must be going nuts," he said aloud to himself.
"Will you stay here at least until she wakes up and can tell her side of the story?"
"Yeah," Peter sighed. "The car’s probably totaled, anyway, so it’s not like I can go anywhere."
"Good," said Paige. "You get some rest while she’s out. Hopefully, it won’t be too long before she wakes up. You want anything to eat?"
"I’m not hungry," Peter said, with his eyes cast down.
"Okay. If you need anything, hit the little button on the wall behind you and yell," said Paige, standing up. "I’ll be nearby."
After the doctor left the laboratory and was out of view, Peter lay down on his side and stared at the woman he knew as Gloria. From what she told him, she was the only child of an unmarried cohabiting couple, who’d broken up while she was in middle school. Her father was Irish, her mother was Mexican. She was raised in the borough of Richmond, New York City, and stayed with her mother after her parents broke up. She clashed with her mother severely and often during her teen years, which prompted her to move out after finishing high school. After five years of living on her own, she decided she knew herself well enough and had enough saved up to go to college. She first enrolled at a very large school on the East Coast, then transferred over to Peter’s school. She liked the small-town atmosphere, the clean air, the feeling of safety. Peter now wondered if anything she’d ever told him was true.
Two hours after Paige left the lab, Gloria woke up. She lay on her back looking groggy for several minutes, but then her eyes snapped open. Her eyes darted around the lab, then she turned her head to the side and saw Peter. She jolted upright, then flinched at the pain in her head and abdomen and moaned, laying herself back down. "Peter…" she began.
"I’m okay," he said. He stood up to walk over to her bed, and sat down next to her. "What about you?"
"Me? My head hurts like hell and my stomach feels chewed up, but I’m awake, right?"
"Yes, you’re awake. But, who are you, really?"
"I’m Gloria, your fiancee. Did you hit your head, too?"
"Dr. Guthrie says she and the people here know you, she sampled your DNA, and your name is Kelly. She wouldn’t tell me much else about you, though. Said it wasn’t her place."
"Dr. Guthrie? I…don’t know who you’re talking about."
"Paige Guthrie, M.D. Does that name ring a bell? She says we’re in the lower levels of a school for mutants, in Westchester, New York. How much of this do you know about?"
Gloria raised her hands up next to her face and raised her eyebrows. "I don’t know any of this, Peter. This doctor must be mistaken."
Peter hit the button on the wall behind his bed, and spoke into the screen next to it. "Dr. Guthrie, my lady friend is awake, and she doesn’t know who any of you are."
Within minutes, Paige strode through the doors of the lab, straight up to Gloria’s bed. "Honey, your mother gave us this." She took a small plastic card out of the pocket of her lab coat, and handed it to Gloria. Peter spotted the words "Learner’s Permit" at the top of it.
"Paige, can I have some time alone with him?" asked Gloria, her face crinkling up with discomfort.
"Sure. But, remember, whatever you tell him, he can go over it with me after you’re done." Paige left the learner’s permit with Gloria and walked out of the lab again.
"I’ll ask again," said Peter. "Who are you?"
"Look. My life before I met you isn’t how I said it was, but I can explain."
"Alright, then. I’m listening. Start from the beginning."
"Okay. From the beginning. My name is Kelly Cassidy Proudstar. I’m not 26, I’m 23." She took a deep breath, and bit her lip before continuing. "My mother is Irish, my father is Apache. They were married before I was conceived, and as far as I know, they still are. I have a twin brother named Johnny. I really was brought up in Richmond, though."
"Are you a mutant?"
She turned her face away from him, and didn’t answer for a moment. "Yes," she finally said. "I have enhanced strength from my father, and sonic powers from my mother."
"Sonic powers? What do you do with sound?"
"I scream at things and they shatter," she shrugged, looking back at him. "I’ll tell you more about it later. Anyway, yes, I’m a mutant. My parents are mutants, my brother is a mutant, my grandfather is a mutant, my uncle was a mutant, but he died long before I was born. That’s not why I lied to you, though."
"Why did you lie to me, then?"
"Well. When I was seventeen, in my senior year of high school, I met a guy named Dominic Trent at the Starbucks near my family’s apartment. He was a few years older than me, he liked me, and told me I was beautiful. None of the boys my age wanted to date a girl who stood six-foot-four in her bare feet, so Dominic’s interest in me was a big surprise. I just fell right into his arms. I never thought anyone else would ever love me, so I didn’t ever want to leave his side, and before long, I was crazy in love with this guy."
"Was he tall, dark and handsome?"
"He wasn’t very tall or dark, but I thought he was handsome. But, what really mattered was that he made me feel beautiful, when I was used to feeling like an overgrown freak."
Peter went from feeling betrayed to shocked. He was not expecting to hear that Gloria, or rather Kelly, had ever felt unattractive.
"My parents, on the other hand, weren’t so taken with him. My dad just didn’t really trust him, and my mom absolutely hated him from the get-go. She said it to me right in front of Dominic, too, so I was furious. Mom and I had a lot of arguments over him for the next few months, so I wasn’t really lying when I told you I clashed with my mother a lot during my teen years, I just didn’t tell you why.
"So, after I graduated, I moved in with Dominic, and basically told my folks to piss off. That was the last time I spoke to them. After I’d been living with Dominic for a few weeks, he wasn’t so nice to me anymore. I was starting to make friends with other girls, and he didn’t want me to hang out with them, he wanted me to always be with him. And, when I was with him, I always ended up feeling like dirt. He told me I was ugly, and stupid, and pretty soon I got the idea that no one else would ever love me, so I was lucky to have him."
"So, basically, this Dominic guy was an abusive asshole?"
"Yes. Only, I didn’t know it at the time. I thought abuse had to be physical, so what he was doing couldn’t be that. Whatever it was, I totally believed I deserved it. After a couple months of that, Dominic did get physically violent. He got mad at me because I forgot to vacuum the living room, and he hit me. Only, since I have mutant strength, I hit him back, and he knew then that he couldn’t beat me up physically. So he went back to beating me up emotionally.
"I was absolutely miserable with him, but I didn’t know where else to go. I couldn’t possibly go back to my parents, and I didn’t have a job, so I couldn’t very well leave him. Plus, I kept on thinking he’d get better if I just loved him enough. Looking back, I can’t believe how stupid I was, but back then, I was totally under his spell.
"So, eventually, a couple of my girlfriends convinced me to leave Dominic, and let me move in with them. I thought that would be the end of it, but, wrong again. He showed up at our apartment one day, telling me I needed to come back home with him. I said no, I wasn’t going with him, I was staying where I was. He pulled out a gun and pointed it at me, saying if I didn’t start packing my things right now, he would kill me. So, I used my sonic powers to shatter the gun. Then he got totally steamed that I was a mutant, and lunged at one of my roommates, threatening to kill her if I didn’t do what he said. I kicked him in the head to get him off of her, only I didn’t have very good control over my powers, so I didn’t realize how hard I was kicking him. I broke his neck, and killed him. So then I was in over my head.
"Since I’d killed a guy and my girlfriends knew I was a mutant, I had to get out of there, and fast. I grabbed a few clothes and all the money I had, and took the next train out to Indianapolis. During the train ride, I made up this new history for myself and decided to rename myself Gloria O’Neill. I lived in the train station for a little while until I got a job there, then I answered an ad in the papers for a non-smoking female roommate."
"Where did the name Gloria O’Neill come from?" Peter interrupted.
"Gloria is the name of an ex-girlfriend of my dad’s. She was great at first, but then she betrayed him in a big way. I got the impression that she had no way around it, but she still hurt him. So, I took her name to remind myself of what I was running from, and what I’ve become in doing so. O’Neill is the family name of my mother’s mother’s mother. I really was named after my great-grandmother, just not in the way I told you.
"Anyway, back to my story. I lived with the roommates and worked for the train station for a couple years, and then I enrolled in school. You know the rest."
At first, Peter just sat there on her bed while shaking his head. "I don’t know what to say…Kelly."
"I wasn’t planning on keeping you in the dark forever. I wanted to tell you the truth eventually, but…I just never knew when would be the right time, then all of a sudden we’re engaged, and…I didn’t want it to get to this point without you knowing the real story. It just sort of, spun out of control."
"I’m not sure if I should marry you now. This changes everything."
"Peter. I understand if you’re angry with me, but remember that I’m still the same person you fell in love with. You’re still talking to the woman that you asked to marry you a few months ago. The only thing that’s changed is now you know what really went on in my life before you met me."
"No. The woman I fell in love with was honest. And she didn’t kill anyone."
"It was an accident!" Kelly interrupted. "And I had a perfectly good reason! You try loving someone who kills you slowly, then judge me for killing Dominic."
"I can understand why you attacked him," Peter continued. "And, I guess you had a good reason to assume a new identity and feed everyone else a great big lie about who you were, but did you ever stop to think about how I would feel? Did you ever consider that maybe I wouldn’t appreciate going out with a woman for two years, being totally, hopelessly in love with her, having every intention of spending the rest of my life with her, only to then find out she’s not who I thought she was? Or were you just using me this whole time, is that it? Am I serving some purpose in your double life? Why did you choose me, Kelly?"
"I told you why I chose you, and it’s still the truth. I used to date some real jerks, and they all hurt me. Okay, I only dated one jerk, but he was bad enough for several of them. So, in our sophomore year, I was lonely, and wanted to start a new relationship. I sought you out because you obviously weren’t at all like Dominic."
"So, basically, you looked around the room, picked out the geekiest little reject you could find, and went for him because he couldn’t possibly have the spine to mistreat you, is that what you did?" Peter stood up from the bed.
"You know, you’re the one who decided you were a geek and a reject, not me. Would you rather I made friends with you, then hooked up with another asshole and complained to you about how bad he was? Would that have made you happier?"
"Okay, you never said I was a geek. I’m sorry for putting those words in your mouth. But, just look at me! Do I look like a ‘chick magnet’ to you? Do you think any woman would ever give me the time of day? I thought that had changed when I met you. Now I find out it was all a lie."
"It wasn’t a lie, Peter. Yes, I told you some whoppers, and kept big secrets from you, but I’ve been completely honest about everything that’s happened since I met you, and that’s more than most people can say. The relationship we had before you found all this out isn’t over. You didn’t fall in love with the name Gloria O’Neill, or with the past I made up, you fell in love with the person I was. I’m still her. That much hasn’t changed." She reached out of bed with the arm nearest Peter, wiping his damp face.
"You’re right," he managed, composing himself. "You haven’t turned into someone else, okay. But, I can’t just go on and act like nothing’s happened. This is major."
"I don’t expect you to, sweetie. Just, don’t cut me out of your life because mine wasn’t what I told you it was. I wouldn’t do that to you."
Peter was sitting on Kelly’s bed, facing away from her. He assumed his old posture of curling into himself so that all the outside world could see were some shoulders and the top of a head. Neither of them spoke for a minute.
"Besides, there’s something else serious that you should know," Kelly finally said.
"What now?" he croaked.
"A couple months ago, I missed a few days on my pills. So now I’m pregnant."
Peter turned around to face Kelly. "Are you sure?"
"Yes, I’m sure. I had a positive test before we left. And I think I’d know if I miscarried because of the accident."
Just then, they saw a man enter the hallway leading up to the lab’s entrance. He wore a wrinkled flannel shirt and jeans on his tall, muscular frame, and had his long black hair pulled back at the nape of his neck. Kelly’s eyes went wide, and she gasping in quick, shallow breaths. "Oh my God," she started.
"What’s the matter?" Peter asked.
"That’s my father." Her voice cracked. The man entered the lab and speed-walked up to Kelly’s bed. She held her arms up to him, and he bent down and hugged her. "Dad…" she sobbed. "I’m sorry."
"It’s okay, honey," her father said. "We’re just happy to know you’re alright. No need to apologize."
"Is Mom here?" Kelly asked through her tears.
"Yeah, she’s here. She’s upstairs talking to Paige."
"I don’t want her to come down here and give me the I Told You So talk."
Kelly’s father gently leg go of her, and knelt down beside her bed. "She’d never do that. Your mother’s been just as worried as I’ve been, and now she just wants to see that you’re okay. Besides, what would she have to gloat about?"
"Dominic turned abusive," said Kelly. "When I left him, he tried to kill me and my friend. I killed him, Dad. But it was an accident, I swear! I was just trying to hurt him, not kill him. So I had to run away, so I wouldn’t get caught."
"I believe you, and I still love you," he assured her. "You’re still my little girl." He looked up at Peter. "Who’s this?"
"Dad, this is my boyfriend, Peter," Kelly said, swallowing her tears.
"Nice to meet you," said her father, shaking Peter’s small hand. "James Proudstar."
"Same here," Peter said quietly. "Now I see where Glori—I mean, Kelly, gets it," he remarked. Kelly, who dwarfed Peter as if he were a small child, looked average size next to James.
"Yeah, I know," James smiled. "How did you two meet?"
"We go to school together," said Kelly. "I asked to sit with him at lunch, and it kind of went from there. Also, his roommate was in two of my classes."
"You’re going to school?" said James, sounding pleasantly surprised.
"Yeah, Peter and I are about to graduate. I’m getting a degree in Communications."
"You’re going to college. I’m so proud of you," James said. "It’s more than your brother has done."
"How is Johnny?"
"Johnny is doing fine, but he’s annoying your mother. You see, he loves it at home so much he doesn’t want to leave, and your mom is threatening to throw him out on the street if he doesn’t get a job really soon."
"But he’s staying out of trouble?" Kelly asked.
"Yes, he is. And he really misses you, Kelly."
"I missed him, too," she nodded. "Listen, could I have a few minutes alone with Peter?"
"Sure. I’ll be upstairs with your mother," James kissed Kelly on the forehead and left.
Kelly struggled up into a sitting position in bed, and looked at Peter. "Now, I need a decision from you, as to whether we’re still engaged or not."
"Well, yeah, we’re still engaged. We’ve got a baby coming, I can’t walk away from that."
"No, Peter. I don’t want you to marry me just because I’m carrying your baby. That won’t work."
He took her hand in his. "You’re still the woman I love, too. I just know more about you, now."
"But are you okay with what you’ve learned? You don’t mind that I’m a mutant?"
"I don’t care about you being a mutant. What really gets me is that you used to feel like a freak." He leaned forward and stared into her eyes as seriously as he could. "I know how that feels, too."
Kelly’s face broke into tears again. She grabbed Peter by the upper arms and pulled him over to her in a tight hug. "I know, sweetie," she sobbed. "Guess you didn’t expect to have that in common with me, did you?"
"No," Peter croaked in the tightness of the embrace. Kelly loosened her grip. "But I guess it explains a lot. I mean, about why you’d see something in me. Was that it?"
"Yeah, you hit the nail on the head," she smiled. "Now, can we let my parents back in here?" She let go of Peter.
"Sure," said Peter, standing up. "Would it work if I paged Dr. Guthrie?"
"Yeah, she’ll get them."
Peter went back to his bed and hit the button on the wall. "Dr. Guthrie? Are Kelly’s parents around? She wants to talk to them."
"Be right there," came Paige’s voice through the screen.
Kelly’s mother was the first in the lab. She was a smaller middle-aged woman, with curly grayish hair with a few red streaks running underneath. She ran up to Kelly’s bed and leaned over just enough to hug her daughter’s head and shoulders.
"Hi, Mom," Kelly whispered.
"Darlin’, I’ve missed you so much," her mother squeaked.
"I’m sorry I walked out," Kelly said.
Kelly’s mother unwrapped her arms from her daughter’s head and pressed her hands on her shoulders. "Don’t apologize." Peter heard a distinct Irish accent. "What matters is you’re here, and you’re okay."
At that moment, James came back into the lab with Paige just behind him. "Now, Theresa, you’re not giving our daughter the I Told You So talk, are you?" he joked.
"Of course not, Jimmy! I know better than that," said Kelly’s mother.
"Mom, there’s someone I want you to meet," Kelly began, indicating Peter.
"Oh, I’m sorry!" said her mother, turning to Peter. "I just walked right past you, didn’t I? I’m Kelly’s mother, Theresa." She shook his hand.
"Peter Jenkins. I’m Kelly’s significant other," he said.
"Dad, did you tell Mom what I told you about Dominic?" Kelly asked.
"Yes, he told me," said Theresa. "But, we’ve known this whole time he was dead, we just thought it was an accident."
"What?!" said Kelly.
"We waited for you to contact us for a few months," James started. "When we heard nothing from you, we asked for help from the police. Later on, they told us Dominic’s body was found at the bottom of a flight of stairs in an apartment building, with a head injury and a broken neck. They couldn’t get any information from anyone in the building, so they wrote it off as an accidental death. They still didn’t know where you were, though."
"Yes, Kelly, where were you all that time the police couldn’t find you?" asked Theresa.
"I was in Dominic’s apartment most of the time, I guess," Kelly said. "He didn’t let me go out very much. Then after I left him, I was in my girlfriends’ apartment, hiding from him. But, wait a minute, Dad. You knew all these years that he was dead, and you didn’t even say anything when you were in here with me crying in your arms?"
"I didn’t want to interrupt you," James shrugged.
"Anyway," Theresa began. "We told the X-Men you were missing, and they promised to either tell us where you were or bring you back here if they ever found you. But you hid yourself really well."
"So, the authorities know Dominic is dead, but they think it was an accident?" Kelly asked. "This means I can stop hiding, right?"
"Honey, you’re in no danger," said James.
"I guess your girlfriends made it look like an accident so you wouldn’t take the rap. That was a big risk they took," said Peter.
"Wow," Kelly said. "Just, wow. I owe them a lot." Kelly looked at her sheets, while no one said anything. "There’s something else I have to tell you," she said, looking at her parents.
"What is it?" Theresa asked.
"I don’t know how to say this. Paige, is my baby still okay after the accident, or did you check for that?"
Theresa and James both leaned in towards Kelly. "What is this? Kelly, are you pregnant? What’s going on?" asked James.
"Yes, it’s doing fine," said Paige. "I found it while I was examining you, then I did an ultrasound, and it looks great. Do you want to know what sex it is?"
"No, I just wanted to make sure it’s okay.
"Yes, Dad, I’m pregnant."
"Oh my God," said Theresa. "Well, when is it due?"
"In November. And before you ask, Peter and I are getting married, in fact we got engaged before I got pregnant. I was on birth control, but I missed a few days."
"Kelly and I are getting our degrees at the end of May," Peter chimed in. "And I already have a job lined up, so we’ll be able to provide for the baby." His voice cracked a little bit at the end. He desperately hoped Kelly was more prepared for parenthood than he.
"This is lovely," said Theresa. "Come here, darlin’, give your mum a hug." Kelly held her arms out for her mother, who quickly sat down next to her and returned the embrace.
"Wait until we tell Sean he’s going to be a great-grandfather," said James.
Peter sat quietly in his place for a little while, as the happy conversation went on. "Kelly, are you feeling better now?" he asked.
"Yes. Thank you."