Chapter 1
Space is wonderful.
Space is the best, because your memories of space are always good. There is no space in cold labs in the woods or stars in hell and there are no stars when you are half-dead and your best friend’s boyfriend is trying to grow your skin back with golden fingers, but there are always constellations when you are fourteen and you see your first meteor shower with your cousin on the roof of their house and there are planets through your father’s friend’s telescope that he said you can use whenever you want (whenever you want!!) and there are asteroids when your teacher took pity on your bored classmates and beamed-you-up-scotty to space, as she called it (the gear felt so good and if you were not already a superhero you would choose being an astronaut, the first clone in space, probably, how absolutely breathtaking is that!!)
Whenever you think about space your brain gets all fast and so you start moving to get it out, pacing around and flapping your hands and popping your claws out and in and out again and talking more in a few minutes than you had for the first thirteen years of your life. Someone always listens, sometimes Sooraya in your old room when neither of you can sleep and sometimes Gabby when you are trying to explain how suns explode, it does not quite matter who but it does matter that there is someone, because you cannot do it to yourself, your Thing needs to be heard and witnessed by others who have never witnessed how Good it is.
It is your Thing and you do not think your Thing will ever Not be space, because it is infinite and there is always more to learn and see and do in the stars. It is not like fighting, which you have known back-and-forth since you were created but not because you wanted to, not like how you wanted to learn more about the solar system and you felt so good about it that Ororo brought you to the library in town for new books. (You had a hard time speaking to the librarian but it was all worth it because you got four (four!) books on Jupiter and the moons surrounding it and you got to learn!) It was not training, it was not work, it was fun, it was enjoyable for you and no one else profited from it and that within itself was wonderful.
You have that side of your Thing and you also have other Things about you. You have your Thing with not using contractions ever (they do not feel right and no one really cares about it, apparently, so you continue with your do not and your they are and no one objects). There is also your Thing with clothing- only sweatshirts, even in the heat of August, and only jeans to go with them, and always always always your necklace on the middle of your neck, only taken off to shower or for check-ups after missions and tied immediately back on afterwards.
Kitty calls that a comfort object, like her old C-3PO figure and Jubilee’s cowboy hat, and she makes you a small electronic tile so you can find it should you ever lose it on a mission. You lose it only once and proceed to go non-verbal for a solid two hours until Kitty finds you in the rafters of the Danger Room and coaxes you down long enough to use her remote to find your necklace again, tucked in your uniform, coated in blood but otherwise unmarked.
She helps you get in on, tied the Right Way that she apparently took the time to learn (for you! she learned it for you!) and then she takes you to the kitchen and makes scrambled eggs in the middle of the afternoon.
That was a Good part of that day and you had your necklace, so of course it was. Megan had given it to you, so it was what made everything better and kept her safe. If anything were to happen to it, you would not be able to protect Megan.
(You realize that this is not how these things work, but the necklace makes you feel safe anyway.)
Lastly there is your Thing with your movement. Your hands always rest under your head when you sleep, your body curled into a ball, facing either left or right and never straight up. These things must be occurring or you will never fall asleep, and even when you are in the Right way sometimes your brain still decides to move too fast (did I do my homework where is Cessily how quickly could you get to the moon what page did I leave off on are my hands my own am I real is anything real?) for you to ever drift into sleep. Josh let you borrow his weighted blanket for those nights. It helps the thoughts slow down. When that does not work, you run around the halls until your brain feels safe again and no one objects, not even the half-asleep teachers.
The Things that make you up are alright at Xavier’s, which is apparently rare in the human world for the not-gifted and non-mutated. You pray you never have to live in that world.