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A Diamond in the Rough	By : DrunkenScotsman Category: X-Men - Animated Series (all) > General Views: 3410 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story.

Chapter List
- 7
- 8
- 9
Chapter 8: Black Swan Event

Unlike her first week at Bernhardt, Emma’s second week proved much less eventful. She attended classes, turned in her assignments, and bested various opponents in online chess. Professor Oglethorpe canceled her ballet session for the week due to “an unexpected last-minute meeting of the faculty senate” (whatever that entailed). She’d also successfully avoided any mishaps with her powers.
On Friday afternoon, Emma once again awaited Ms. Grey’s arrival at the Nor’easter, an iced latte on the table in front of her. Because of the warm weather, she’d worn a pale yellow sleeveless dress with matching heels, accented with a simple strand of pearls around her neck and single pearls in her ears. As before, she’d arrived early.
Ms. Grey entered just as Emma first sampled her drink. The barista on duty this afternoon openly stared, apparently unable to help himself. Even as he crafted Ms. Grey’s drink, he kept turning to gawk at the redhead.
Emma felt jealousy bubbling within her at the barista’s behavior. He did give me similar looks, she reminded herself to suppress the feeling. He simply has excellent taste, I suppose.
Ms. Grey maintained a blandly pleasant façade despite the barista’s obvious ogling. When she received her drink and joined Emma, that façade vanished, replaced with an exasperated roll of her eyes. “You probably want to avoid eye contact with that guy for a while,” the other telepath warned.
Emma raised an eyebrow. “I thought we didn’t read minds without permission.”
“I didn’t,” insisted Ms. Grey. “I’ve just seen that type of expression before, enough to know the thoughts behind it.” She snorted. “I even dated a guy for a few months in high school who seemed unable to stop drooling whenever he saw me.”
Emma smirked. “Somehow, Neanderthals don’t seem like your type.”
Ms. Grey laughed. “Let’s just say that’s how I found out they aren’t.”
Emma’s gaze flicked briefly towards the still-staring barista, but she took her counterpart’s advice and avoided eye contact. “His reaction would’ve been much more understandable last week, when you wore that striking dress.”
The redhead’s brows furrowed. “Was that supposed to be a compliment?”
Emma shrugged. “You wore this outfit on the first day,” she replied in a matter-of-fact tone. “I do think it’s a little drab in comparison.”
Ms. Grey inhaled deeply. After a moment, she answered tersely, “The dorm closet space is a little limited, even without a roommate.”
“You poor thing,” Emma replied, and she meant it.
The redhead sipped her drink for a long moment, eyes narrowed as if she were unsure what to make of Emma’s comment. Finally she seemed content to drop the subject, saying instead, “For this week, I’d like to try a different approach: Instead of trying to block or resist, I want you to deflect or distract.”
Emma felt her skin prickle all over; she didn’t like the idea of changing to a new approach. “What do you mean?”
“I’m going to search for some bit of information,” explained Ms. Grey, “and you think of other things to hide it. For example, if I’m looking for your middle name, you think about chess moves to keep me out.”
Emma could no longer hide her distaste for the idea. “Why would you want to know that?”
“Just pick an innocuous fact about yourself,” Ms. Grey instructed her in a strained tone. “Something I don’t know, but you don’t care if I find out.”
Emma’s eyes narrowed. “This seems like a waste of time… but I’m willing to follow your lead if it helps me master my abilities.”
With a curt nod, Ms. Grey closed her eyes. “Ready when you are.”
Once she’d chosen a fact – her birthday – Emma began running through various chess openings. The Queen’s Gambit tree alone has dozens of distinct lines, she thought. In her mind’s eye, the pawns and pieces slid into different configurations and reversed themselves when she needed to “reset” to a given position where a different line could be played.
As she played through one of the variations on the Semi-Slav Defense, Emma felt heat all around her, as if she were surrounded by an intense flame. One by one, the chessmen ignited and burned away, until only the white queen remained. She stood, tall and proud, among the flames, unwavering even as the board itself burned away.
Ms. Grey’s voice echoed through the void: January 11^th.
With a frustrated sigh, Emma opened her eyes. “That’s correct,” she confirmed.
Eyes still shut, Ms. Grey smiled. “That was tough, Emma,” the redhead reassured her. “Like I told you, I can’t see the board the way you do, so all those moves and countermoves were really disorienting.”
“Yet you still found your way,” Emma pointed out before drinking.
Ms. Grey merely shrugged. “I have a lot more experience with this, remember?”
“Very well,” Emma conceded, hating having to do so. “Shall we go again?”
Ms. Grey merely nodded, and Emma shut her eyes again, and she decided on a different tack for this round.
In her mind’s ear, the largest corps de ballet number from Swan Lake began playing. Because she’d performed the prima role just this past spring, she remembered her choreography perfectly. She hoped the combination of music and movement – not just her own, but her awareness of the entire company’s movements together creating a seamless moving tableau of dance – would suffice to force Ms. Grey to admit defeat.
Completing that number, Emma next recalled the Black Swan pas de deux, in which she danced the impostor princess. Her partner, Damian, had been dancing with her since middle school, and they’d developed a strong rapport for lifts, tosses, and extended pirouettes where he essentially spun her on the tips of one set of toes. There’d never been any awkwardness between them, either, due to Damian’s archetypally-flamboyant personality.
As the pas de deux began in Emma’s mind, however, she found Ms. Grey dancing the part of the prince instead of Damian. Ms. Grey’s long red hair hung in a long braid over her left shoulder. The prince’s costume – black tights and black tailcoat with gold cord embroidered across the chest – had been form-fitting enough on Damian, but the redhead’s curves filled out the costume in ways Emma never would’ve considered otherwise.
They danced. Emma maintained her focus throughout the piece, each leap and pirouette just as she’d rehearsed. Ms. Grey’s hands felt noticeably, but not uncomfortably, warm on her own, on her waist during lifts, on her calves when she needed to be spun while en pointe on a single foot. The redhead wore a puzzled, yet elated, expression the whole time.
At the end of the piece, Ms. Grey held Emma around her waist as she dipped her. One of Emma’s feet stretched straight up, pointing at the ceiling; one arm held the back of Ms. Grey’s neck. Their eyes remained fixed on one another’s.
The two telepaths surfaced together, returning from the shared mindscape to reality. Emma’s face felt quite flushed, as if she’d actually just danced two numbers back-to-back. Not even a sip of her iced latte sufficed to cool her entirely. For her part, Ms. Grey stared at the table. Neither young woman spoke for a long moment.
The redhead broke the silence first. “That was… impressive, Emma. I had no idea ballet was so… involved.”
Emma risked a glance upward, away from her drink. “How do you mean?” With a smirk, she added, “You’re quite right, of course, that I’m impressive. I just want to hear you explain it.”
The other telepath chuckled and shook her head. “Remembering not only your own choreography, but every other dancer’s too,” she answered. “In the duet –”
“Pas de deux,” Emma corrected.
“—the precision timing of the movements with your partner. I picked up the name ‘Damian’?”
Emma nodded but didn’t interject.
“You two moved in such perfect synchronicity,” Ms. Grey continued. “The level of trust felt… intimate.”
A strange sensation climbed up Emma’s spine and prickled all over her skin. “I… can’t say I ever thought of it that way,” she replied, mouth suddenly dry.
Ms. Grey’s tongue darted between her lips. “Not your boyfriend, then?”
Emma’s laugh emerged as sharp as diamond. “Hardly. If anything, he’s more likely to have fancied my older brother.”
The redhead hummed. “I see.”
“Damian and I had, simply, been dance partners for years, and we’d rehearsed for dozens of hours just for that pas de deux,” added Emma.
A smile graced the other telepath’s lips. “At any rate, I’ve never experienced anything like that. You remember my friend Kitty?” Emma shook her head, prompting Ms. Grey to explain, “I was on the phone with her that one afternoon.”
“I can’t remember someone I’ve never met,” Emma sniffed as she took a long drink.
Green eyes rolled. “Fair enough. Anyway, she also danced, but she’s never shared that experience with me.” A strange smile – melancholy, perhaps? – graced her lips.
A flash of insight prompted Emma to ask, “You’ve never danced?” Did I glean that from her mind while our minds were in contact?
The redhead shook her head, and her smile took on a rueful edge. “Before being outed as a mutant, I went to exactly one school dance. But I didn’t actually get to dance.” At Emma’s raised eyebrow, she added, “Long story overall, but my date that night was that Neanderthal mentioned earlier.”
“You poor thing,” Emma replied, shaking her head. “I’d heard that the typical teenage boy is nigh-useless when it comes to dancing of any sort.”
Ms. Grey nodded, now staring out the store window, appearing deep in thought. After a lengthy pause, she asked, “Did you go with Damian to your school dances?”
“We didn’t have them,” Emma answered simply. At her counterpart’s expression of surprise, she elaborated: “All-girls school. I don’t know if they didn’t believe in ‘outdated frivolities’ – the official policy – or if the liability concerns with having a large number of non-students on the campus were too troublesome.”
The redhead hummed before drinking from her cup. “After being outed, my friends and I were banned from all extracurricular activities, including school dances. I’d picked out this gorgeous dress for prom, but…” She sighed as she trailed off, her eyes unfocused, as if she were lost in thought again.
Unsure how to respond, Emma pursed her lips. She decided to steer the conversation back to its original purpose. “Did you discover the information I intended to hide?”
Ms. Grey breathed deeply, her eyes meeting Emma’s as she returned to the present. “It wasn’t your dance partner’s name?”
Emma smirked and shook her head. “My brother’s. Which I won’t be divulging, so I can use it again.”
Ms. Grey held Emma’s gaze for a long moment. Emma felt the barest heat, like sunbathing on a pleasant day in late April, against her mind. Before she could push back, the heat withdrew. “You’re telling the truth,” she murmured. “Congratulations, then, Emma. You won this round.”
Emma preened. “My favorite words.”
Victory always, always tasted sweet.

XXXXX

The next morning, the ringing of her cell phone shook Emma from her slumber. A glance at her alarm clock showed an unreasonable time to wake up on a Saturday: five after eight. Who on earth? she wondered as she groped for her phone.
She hated waking up early, especially on the weekend. Upon seeing the caller ID, Emma’s mood soured further.
“Mother.”
“Good morning, Emma darling! I didn’t wake you, did I? Of course I did. You’re such a slug-a-bed on the weekends. I’d hoped you’d grow out of that. Early bird gets the worm, you know.”
Emma rolled her eyes. She knew better than to try to get in a word edgewise once Mother got started. She barely stops to breathe; it’s likely the long-term oxygen deprivation has caused brain damage, she snarked to herself.
“I’m calling to tell you we’re throwing a pool party for Labor Day. Quite a few of your father’s business associates will be there, along with their eligible sons.” Her voice when she mentioned them dropped into a sly register that Emma utterly despised.
Mother continued unabated: “We expect you home that weekend so you can attend as well, dear. Who knows? You might not want to return to that little college, transferring to a different school, wherever your new boyfriend goes.”
What did I do to deserve this? Emma wondered as she stared at the ceiling. “Not likely,” she muttered.
“Never say ‘never,’ darling,” Mother chided. “We expect you home Friday afternoon, so you can spend the whole weekend with your poor empty-nest parents.” Emma started to protest, but Mother cut her off: “At least one of our children should visit regularly.”
Emma sighed. She missed Christian, but in this moment she resented him for staying away and leaving her with sole responsibility to fulfill the role of “dutiful child.” Naturally, she also resented Mother more, for leveraging Christian’s absence against her like this.
Aloud, she acquiesced with “Of course, Mother. I wouldn’t miss it.”
“Of course not, darling.” Mother sounded much too smug for Emma’s tastes. “During this week, I want you to eat well and get plenty of exercise. We want you looking your best in your swimsuit for the boys.”
Emma fought not to grind her teeth. “Yes, Mother.”
“I’ve got to run, darling. My weekly mani-pedi, you know. See you on Friday!”
Once Mother hung up, Emma rolled over and went back to sleep, already dreading next weekend.

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A/N: I meant for this chapter to be finished a month ago, but the holidays are always a real bear. I've got a lot of plates spinning the next few months, so no idea when the next chapter will come out.
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A Diamond in the Rough