nextgenerationmarvel | Unexpected & New

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Unexpected & New

Getting called to the headmaster's office was usually more fraught with trepidation when one was a student at Xavier's. Rachel was slightly nervous herself, but that was mostly because she had felt some sort of different current in the air. There was the usual end of semester freedom excitement from the student body. However, there was something else around that she wasn't quite sure of.

She mentally adjusted her clothes as she approached the big, wooden doors. Her clothes reacted to her thoughts. She let out a puff of breath and raised her hand to knock on the door.

She tried to banish feeling like she was getting called to the headmaster's office for tugging on someone's pigtails.

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"Ah, Rachel," the voice within said. "Good of you to come. Please, enter."

Rachel opened the door without touching it again and stepped inside. "Professor. You sent for me?"

She shut the door behind herself and moved toward the man who had started this whole thing. She wasn't sure why she was called here, but she wasn't going to run away now that she was over the threshold.

"I did," he agreed. "Thank you."

He wheeled himself around his desk slightly. "Please, make yourself comfortable. I have something rather important to discuss."

"You're welcome, Professor." Rachel settled herself into one of the plush chairs in the office. She did sit more toward the edge of the chair than comfortably lounging back.

"What's on your mind?" Telepathic humor du jour.

"As you know," he began, "things have become rather... chaotic, since the revelation of the school's nature, and my own, more personal revelations."

Rachel relaxed slightly. This wasn't about Brooke. That was a relief. She nodded.

"Yes. Thankfully most of the media has left our front gates."

Xaiver nodded in agreement. "Quite fortunate. As time has passed, the spectacle has died down quite significantly. But there is still quite a lot of work to be done, and it becomes even more important to press the issue while it is still in the minds of the people."

He went on. "Unfortunately, I cannot do that and continue to run the school."

Rachel followed him right up until he said he couldn't run the school anymore. Her mind sputtered slightly. Not that he was stepping down but more that he was talking to her about it.

"I can see that it would be very hard to split the two duties, yes..." She didn't sound very sure where this was going.

"I've no intention of closing the school, of course," the Professor went on. "But it does require leadership. Your father's generation are imminently qualified... but have also begun to busy themselves with their own lives. A certain youthful perspective is required for the school as it is today, with a much larger student body than when I started it."

"I would like, very much, for you to become Headmistress, Rachel."

If Rachel had been drinking anything at that precise moment, she would have done a spit-take. As it was she only manage to momentarily gape. She caught herself and snapped her mouth shut.

"M-Me?" If her father's generation was out, she couldn't ask why not her father or Ororo or Hank or someone who doesn't occasionally disappear into the time-stream. Like Kitty! Kitty would be a great choice.

But Kitty was not in the office, and Rachel was.

"You," Charles repeated. "You're certainly more than qualified. And you and Doug already do a great number of the general tasks associated with running the school."

"Well, I..." She took a breath. She ran a post-apocalyptic religious order. She could maybe hand a school.

Full of teenagers.

"... I'd be honored to carry on your legacy here at the school."

"I suspect you would," Charles said. "But thank you, Rachel. I know you'll do us all proud."

"Are you-How are we announcing it to the school?" Well, with her taking over headmaster duties, the usual telepathic announcements could still happen. Rachel tried to focus on how to transition to her. It was not something she entertained. She had always assumed her father or Ororo or someone elder in the X-Men would get the mantle.

"I think we'll introduce it to the other staff first--though Scott and Ororo already know--before making a more formal announcement to the rest of the school."

Rachel nodded once. "Sounds good."

She was trying hard to not look shell-shocked. She knew she had been picking up duties at the school, but she hadn't been aware anyone had been paying attention.

Charles had. And so had Scott and Ororo, both of whom had recommended her for the position.

"We'll make the transition as smooth as possible. I'm not due to be heading to Washington for a bit yet."

One the things the psychic rapport Rachel had with her husband gave her an unerring sense of where Doug was on this plane of existence. She made her way to the computer lab after a quick pit-stop to the kitchens.

She came in the lab with a sandwich on a plate in hand. "Hey, sweetie."

Doug looked up from his programming and grinned.

"Hey, babe. How was your day?"

"Not like I expected when a woke up," she answered as she sauntered over. She set the plate down by him.

"I've got some ... interesting news."

There was the slightest arched eyebrow. "Interesting" could mean a lot of things. And he wasn't nearly as good at reading Rachel as he was other people.

"Oh yeah?"

Rachel was slightly better at reading her husband, but she cheated by being a telepath. She smiled slightly.

"I got a big promotion. You're married to the next headmaster of Xavier's."

"...Whoa."

Yep, Doug's real articulate sometimes.

"That's awesome! Congratulations!"

"It was very unexpected, but thank you." She rested her hip against the corner of the desk.

"There will probably be some staff shuffling. There usually is with change. I assume you still want the IT job?" She couldn't help herself. The teasing distracted her from the enormity of what she was being entrusted with.

Doug chuckled. "Well, I had considered applying for the physics position, but I think Hank might pout if we took it away from him."

"And no one can stand blue furred pouting. Sorry, sweetie, you're going to have to be my IT guy. Headmasterly decision. I'll try not to let all the power go to my head." She smirked slightly. Then she gave the plate a small telekinetic nudge toward Doug.

"Eat up. You'll need plenty of energy later to either comfort or congratulate me more later. Preferably naked."

Doug chuckled. "I can't help it if I'm naturally skinny, you know," he said.

He grinned. "But I do make up for it with energy. Lots of energy."

"There's skinny and then there's heading toward worrying. Just placate your wife and eat more sandwiches." She made the plate float off the desk and swing back and forth in what were supposed to be enticing motions.

"You do more than make up for it. The school will be glad for my strong mental shields."

Doug snagged the sandwich off the plate and took a big bite of it. "'s good," he said. "Thanks."

She gave her husband a smile. It was an easy way to placate her.

"You're welcome." And later, you'll have something entirely different to eat.

Ah, yes. Dessert to look forward too.

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