Disclaimer: The X-Men belong to Marvel and not me, but that’s really okay since 
I’m not making any money off of them.  Honest.  I take credit for the concept 
behind the story, but that is all.  

Revelations: Part 4
Chris Votulle, May 1997

     “Oh that’s disgusting!  Really, Ah don’t see how ya can eat that.”

     Rogue looked up at Sam from where she was sitting at the kitchen table.  “What 
d’yah mean?  What’s wrong with pizza?”

     Sam grimaced.  “It’s not the pizza by itself.  You’re drinking milk with it.  
Everyone knows that ya can’t drink milk with tomato sauce.”

     “And why not?  I don’t see how ya can be judgin’ what Ah’m eatin’ when 
you’re sittin’ there eatin’ bananas with peanut buttah.”

     “Bananas *go* with peanut butter.”

     “Oh do they?”  She flashed him a satanic grin right before leaping into the air 
and swooping down to steal his jar of peanut butter.  “Now the peanut buttah goes 
with me.”  She demonstrated this by flying around the ceiling while holding the jar.

     Jean looked up from the counter, where she was preparing herself a sandwich, 
and grinned.  “Are you two enjoying yourselves?”

     “Immensely.”  Sam returned the grin as he flung his banana peel at Rogue, which 
landed square on her face.

     Rogue was caught off guard and lost her concentration.  The result of this was 
that  she came crashing to the ground and dropped the jar of peanut butter which 
rolled across the floor to land at the feet of the two people who had just arrived at 
the doorway of the kitchen.  Rogue took one look at their astonished faces and 
broke out into peals of laughter.  

     Kali just stared in shock.  Lying sprawled out on the floor was one of the most 
beautiful women she had ever seen shaking with convulsive fits of the giggles.  But 
even more bewildering than her current situation was the fact that she had just been 
*flying* around the room.  Kali had never seen a person fly before and it was a 
little disturbing.

     Bobby bent down, picked up the jar of peanut butter, and asked nonchalantly,  
“Does this belong to somebody?”

     Sam stood up sheepishly and nodded as Bobby tossed the jar over to him.

     “Well Kali, I’m glad to see that you’ve joined us, but I wish that the welcome 
wagon could have been a little more. . . ‘welcoming’.”  Jean stifled a laugh as she 
made her way over to Kali and Bobby.  “I see you’ve already met Bobby?”  She 
arched her eyebrows in question.

     Kali smiled nervously, relieved to at least see a familiar face.  “Yes, we met in 
the lab.”  She blushed at the memory of her initial reaction to him, then blushed 
more fiercely when she realized that her embarrassment might be interpreted 
incorrectly.  She hated being the center of attention and hoped desperately that it 
wouldn’t last for long.

     Unfortunately for her, it persisted in lasting at least for the time being.  She 
noticed the young man who was holding the jar of peanut butter looking at the way 
she favored her right leg with concern.  He looked friendly enough, but despite that 
she just wished for the ground to open up and swallow her.

     “Are you all right?  Would ya like to sit down here?”  Sam pulled out his chair 
from the table and offered it to Kali.

     Before she had a chance to answer, the woman who had previously been on the 
floor approached her.  “Don’t ya pay any attention to Sam and his pamperin’.  
He’s got himself a whole slew of younger sisters and just can’t get over the habit of 
playin’ the overprotective brother.  Ah’m sure he means well, but it does get old 
after a while.  He knows bettah than ta try it with me though.”  She smiled widely 
and offered her hand to Kali.  “Ah’m Rogue.  Welcome to our humble home.”

     Kali couldn’t help smiling at her openness and gratefully shook her hand.  Then 
she made her way over to Sam and, to be polite, sat down in the chair he had 
offered.  She looked at him sadly and said, “I had an older brother once.  It’s okay.”

     Jean made her way over to the table and had a seat.  “If you don’t mind, Kali, I 
would like to have a chance to talk to you privately.  After you’ve had something 
to eat I thought that maybe we could go outside and discuss things.”

     Kali grabbed an apple out of the bowl of fruit on the table and stood up, 
extremely grateful for an opportunity to leave.  “I’m not that hungry.  This will do 
for now.”

     Jean was surprised at her willingness, but decided not to look a gift horse in the 
mouth and led her to the exit at the rear of the kitchen.

     “It was nice meeting you.”  Kali smiled genuinely before walking outside after 
Jean.  <Maybe I can get used to this after all.>

     Once she was gone, Rogue turned her attention to the man who was still 
standing in the doorway and smiled that wicked smile of hers.  “Cute girlfriend 
Bobby.”

     His face turned bright crimson.

* * * * *

     Jean walked Kali over to a bench in the backyard of the X-Mansion.  She had 
originally planned on a tour of the grounds and although she doubted that the girl 
would protest, Kali didn’t look like she was up for much walking.  She had already 
reverted to using her morphed hand as a cane.  <That really is a neat trick.>  She 
shook her head.  <Time to be serious here Jean.  Although I suppose that assessing 
her powers *could* be considered ‘serious.’  However, despite what Scott may 
think, finding out about Kali’s life is more important than finding out what she can 
do with her powers.  That will come soon enough.  Besides, it’s obvious that she is 
extremely nervous about using her abilities so she probably wouldn’t be willing to 
talk about it anyway.>

     They sat down and Jean began talking.  “I know this must be very 
overwhelming for you, and I’m sure that you have many questions you want to 
ask, but I was wondering if I could ask you a few of my own first.”

     Kali gulped down the last bite of her apple and looked Jean in the eye, trying to 
see if she could possibly have some motive behind her inquisitiveness other than 
genuine concern.  Kali didn’t want to reveal much about her past -- it was too 
painful and embarrassing -- and she was afraid that that was exactly what Jean was 
trying get her to do.  However, despite all of her reservations, she decided to trust 
Jean for the moment.  It was the only thing that she could do if she wanted to find 
out where all of this was heading.  She nodded.  “Sure, go ahead.”

     “Well, I can’t help wondering what you were doing alone on the streets of New 
York.  It was rather obvious that you’d been living there for some time.  What were 
you running away from?”

     “Why do you think I was running away from something?”

     “Well, for one thing you were disguised.  If you weren’t running away, then 
why were you pretending to be someone else?”

     Kali sighed.  This wasn’t too difficult to answer -- at least she didn’t ask about 
the distant past.  “Being a young girl on the streets of New York isn’t necessarily a 
very smart thing to be.  I found that if I disguised myself as a boy, I was generally 
left alone.  Same thing went for being a prostitute.  I guess that making the goods 
available takes all the sport out of stealing them,” she said sarcastically.  “But 
don’t worry -- I only dressed the part.”

     Jean was horrified.  What kind of life had this girl led? “How long did you live 
like this?”

     “Like what?  On the streets?  I was only there for three weeks.  Before that my 
life was pretty normal.”  Her eyes seemed to glass over as she gazed into the past.  
“Well, at least recently it was.”
  
     “Then how did you end up on the streets?”

     Kali snapped out of her self-reverie and smiled sadly.  “That’s a rather long and 
complicated story, but I’ll try to make it short for both of our sakes.  It started 
when I graduated from college.”

     Jean interrupted her without thinking.  “You’re a college graduate?  How old are 
you?”

     “Twenty.  I started early.”  She was used to questions about her age.  She knew 
that she looked incredibly young and it irritated her to no end, but she figured that 
she’d appreciate her youthful looks more when she was fifty and only looked 
forty-five.  “Anyway, I had just graduated and landed what I thought to be a dream 
job in a small engineering firm in New York.  I moved into a small apartment on the 
west side and dove into my work like a madwoman.  It was going great for a while, 
but then the results came back from some bloodwork I had done during what I 
thought to be a routine employee physical.  It turned out that the head of the 
company was an extreme mutant hater and had all of his employees blood screened 
for any x-factor genes.  When I turned up positive I was fired and he turned my 
name over to the FOH, telling them that I was an extremely destructive mutant 
who aspired to eliminate all humans.  I only had a few hours to pack up everything 
that was of value to me and get out of my apartment.  I had no where to go so I put 
my belongings into storage and hid out on the streets.  I couldn’t risk staying with 
past acquaintances -- they had my name and no doubt the names of my friends.  I 
didn’t want to place others in danger.  So, that’s where you found me.  I don’t 
know how much longer I could have kept it up.  Who know where I would be if 
you and your husband hadn’t come along.  Thank you.”  She lowered her eyes.  
“I’m sorry to seem ungrateful for not thanking you before now.  I just find it very 
difficult to trust people.”  Her eyes misted over and somehow she found the 
courage to look Jean in the eye again.

     “You don’t have to thank me.  I just did what any decent person would have 
done.”  Jean felt nothing but compassion for the girl sitting in front of her.  She just 
wished she knew how best to help her.  “Have you contacted your family?  I’m 
sure they’re worried about you.  I heard you mention to Sam that you had a 
brother.”

     Kali felt the flood of tears that she had been trying desperately to hold back 
begin to overflow.  “He’s dead,” she whispered.  “I have no family.”  Her voice 
gradually began to rise in volume.  “I have nothing.  Oh *God*, what am I going to 
do?  I can’t get a job because who knows what awful lie my ex-boss created about 
me and attached to my resume.  I can’t find a place to live because I have no money 
and even if I did I couldn’t risk being discovered by the FOH because they would 
just take it all away again.  I have no one to turn to and as a result I’m now bawling 
my eyes out to a complete stranger.  Why do I always end up so alone?”

     Jean placed her arms around Kali and held her gently as she cried.  “It’s okay.  
You’re not alone anymore.”

     Kali looked up at her and wiped her eyes.  “I’m sorry.  Please forgive me for 
making such a fool of myself.  I’m not usually like this -- if you can believe that.” 

     “Of course I believe you.  Now just calm down.  There’s one more thing that I 
want to ask you.  Don’t worry -- it’s not about your past.  I’m more concerned 
about your future.”

     “W-what is it?”

     “Well, you’ve made it quite obvious that you have no where to go.  Also, it 
appears to me that you have little experience using your powers.  I think it would 
benefit you greatly to stay here with us.  We can offer you safety from those who 
wish you harm and we can teach you about your powers and how best to use 
them.”

     Kali was mortified.  “Oh no!  I didn’t tell you my sob story just so you would 
feel sorry for me and invite me to live with you.  I could never place such a burden 
upon people who have been so incredibly kind to me.  And I don’t want to learn to 
use my powers better.  I do have experience with them and it seems to me that the 
only things I am capable of doing with them is hurting people.  Why should I want 
to learn how to hurt people?”

     “But if you don’t learn how to control your powers properly you could end up 
hurting yourself.  I’m not asking you this out of pity.  Please, consider my offer.  I 
can’t help you unless you want to help yourself.”

     Kali could feel her shields slipping.  Too many raw emotions were surfacing and 
she was loosing control.  It had been so long since she had let herself feel anything. 
 The hurt was unbearable, but in a strange way it felt good.  It felt good to have this 
woman hold her.  She couldn’t even remember the last time that she let someone 
get so close.  There was a part of her that wanted to stay here, but there was a part 
of her that warned her that getting close to people only led to pain.  A pain that 
she would cause.  She was torn between the two sides of herself and didn’t know 
which path she should choose.

     Jean could sense her hesitation and quickly acted on it.  “At least think about it 
for a while.  In the meantime, you look exhausted.  Why don’t you come with me 
to the boathouse that Scott and I share.  We can be alone there and it will give you 
a chance to relax.  I’ll make some tea for your nerves and you can ask me anything 
you want about life here, okay?”

     Kali gratefully accepted the offer.  She felt that she could use some time to sort 
her thoughts out.  It might make things seem a little clearer and help her to come to 
a decision.

* * * * *

     Scott was looking out of a window at his wife and her new protégé, Kali, when 
someone stepped up beside him.

     “I heard that you brought a new mutant here last night.”  The large, black man 
stood at attention, toting his equally large gun.  “I was concerned that she might 
pose a security risk.  Have you done a background check on her yet?”

     “No, Bishop, I have not.  I promise to get on it right away though.  In the 
meantime, Jean is talking to her right now trying to get her to open up and tell us 
about herself.”  He pointed to Jean and Kali where they were sitting on a bench 
outside.

     “Do you know anything about her?”

     “Not much, but Beast  believes that she is an extremely powerful mutant with 
several different powers.”

     Bishop frowned.  “That does not lead me to believe that letting her stay here 
unguarded is a wise decision.”

     “She’s just a girl.  I know that she may be capable of great destruction, but that 
is precisely why I think she should be here. It’s my job to make sure that she 
doesn’t harm anyone -- including herself.”

     Bishop nodded.  “If you say so.”

     At that moment Kali and Jean stood up and started towards the boathouse.  
This movement caused Kali to face the window and Bishop got a first glimpse at 
her face.  Scott could feel him tense considerably, but his expression was 
completely unreadable.  “What is it Bish?”

     Bishop’s eyes narrowed as he looked at the girl standing a few feet in front of 
him.  “I know her.”