Xaviers!

He stared at a slip of paper in his hand. Was this really the right place?

It didn't look like a school so much as a hospital to him. One of those sanitariums he had read about and seen pictures of in high school history classes during the post Great War bits.

He didn't have a working smart phone like most of his age group, so he couldn't consult Google maps to see what it had to tell him. Instead he had to trust that the people at the train station hadn't steered him wrong.

He noticed a button next to a speaker, and began examining he area closely to see if there was also a camera as well. He hit the button as he did and prayed internally that whoever was supposed to let people in could see him somehow. Once he located said camera, he quickly scribbled on a post it note-

'Can't speak. Looking for someone.'

He followed by holding up a sketch to the camera. This seemed to be enough to get him buzzed through the gates anyways. Security gave him the once over and confirmed for themselves his situation. Since he seemed harmless, they allowed him access to the campus, but somehow he suspected their lax attitude towards his entry meant that he was still being watched.

((Open))

Wanda was walking across the grounds, bundled up and just enjoying the outdoors. Seeing the lone figure who seems to be lost, she alters course and approaches. "Hello," she says with a wave.

The young man with the braided hair and nerdy glasses waved back at Wanda and mouthed the word 'Hello', then immediately showed Wanda the page with the phrase 'Looking for someone', before flipping to the drawing he had done.

The person definitely seemed familiar, a middle-eastern sort with medium-long hair who had been around campus a lot for awhile, but was seen less and less since then.

Wanda's briefly startled by the non-verbal response, but she adjusts. "Yes, I've seen her around. I think she may still be here somewhere. Though a lot of people left for the holidays, so it's hard to say."

Ainsley's face lit up like the sort of trees that lit up at this time of the year, and shook his head so excitedly his braids flew back and forth. He flipped to a new page and wrote.

'No family. No home.' he furrowed his brow for a moment, trying to think of where she could be hiding.

'Dorm?' he added.

"If she's our age, that's where she'll be. It's over this way," Wanda says, gesturing towards the dorms.

With a spring in his step, Ainsley happily followed after Wanda. Why wouldn't he? This was after all a safe place, right? So she must be OK.

Assuming he might be deaf, Wanda turns around so he can see her face. "What about you? Did you just come here looking for her?"

Ainsley nodded, pulling out his unconnected cellphone. it was a slide keyboard, making it easier for him to type with both thumbs. For a moment it looked like he might be ignoring Wanda in favour of texting like the young people do nowadays, but when he was done in a few seconds, he showed it to her.

'I'm Ainsley.'

"Nice to meet you, Ainsley. I'm Wanda. Do you need a place to crash?"

'Maybe. Maybe will crash w/ Shari.

They allow that?' He asked, somewhat skeptical of the idea that non-students could just use the place as a flophouse. It seemed pretty posh, at least compared to what he was used to. They probably didn't want homeless chavs like him cockin' the place up.

"Might have to arrange something at the administration building, but if you need a place to stay for a bit, I'm sure they wouldn't mind. I don't mean to be rude, but are you a mutant?"

He paused for a moment, not certain how to answer the question. After a moment he shrugged his shoulders then slowly nodded with a sheepish sort of look on his face.

He clapped his hand to his throat a couple of times to call attention to it, then made the English world's hand gesture for 'no go', a flat hand wagging left and right.

"Sorry to hear that," she says, obviously meaning the throat thing. "Almost everyone here is a mutant so that's not a problem. Just handy to know. This is a school for mutants."

'What do you study?' He asked via cell, breaking the pattern of the conventional 'what's your power' question.

"Environmental Science, for the moment," she responds. "Of course that has a lot to do with my abilities. I don't know if I'll continue with that long term."

"Abilities?" He asked, tiling his head.

She gestures and a small wind spout picks up some of the snow, spinning it around before dying back down. "Everyone here has special abilities of some sort," she says.

Ainsley's face lit up again in surprise, a big dopey grin painting itself on him.

He realized how she had done it, but since he couldn't too, he instead picked some up and flicked it through the air to mimic her, then nodded approvingly with the same dopey grin, as if he had just performed some kind of magic.

He clearly dug it.

"I think it's a cool thing too," she says, opening the door into the dorms for him.

Ainsley nodded politely and stepped inside.

He then immediately started sizing up everything around him, trying to assess any potential threats.

Wanda notes the behavior, having seen it with a few other people of her acquaintance. "No one here will hurt you. The X-Men work hard to keep this a safe place."

'Ex-Men?' He types, then tilts his head in confusion again.

"Some of the students here go through some special training: self-defense and that sort of thing. They protect the school and occasionally help out when things get a little too strange for the local police."

He seemed impressed by this and checked out the dogs more casually.

Then after a moment, Wanda would notice he was looking at people instead.

Probably trying to ID Shari.

"I think I remember seeing the name Shari on one of the doors down this hallway," she says, "She might be in her room." As they started down the hallway, Ainsley might notice the odd thing that the names on the doors they passed were more masculine. Soon they stopped in front of room 105 which listed its occupants as Will Stanton and Shari.

Ainsley did seem a bit confused, but assumed Wanda knew what she was doing and followed along.

He visibly swallowed a scowl when he saw a boys name next to Sharis, quickly reaching out to knock.

"Yo, what's up? Door's open!" Shari calls out from inside.

Ainsley practically busted the door down in excitement at the sound of the familiar voice.

Shari is lieing on the floor, her legs up on her bed, reading a magazine of some sort by holding it above her face.

"Will's not here." she informs them without looking over. Usually that's who people came looking for when they knock on the door.

"Shari?" Wanda pokes her head in, "This is Ainsley. Do you know him?"

Ainsley stood still beaming at Shari. He's smart enough not to run up on a street mutant, but that seems to be the only thing keeping him at bay.

Shari turns her head and her eyes go wide when she sees who just walked in. She flips her legs off the bed and in a weirdly fluid motion that defies what shifting Ainsley has seen her do before she's on her feet. Her face shifts and her middle-eastern features change to ones he's more familiar with.

"What the what? Ainsley? What are you doing here!?" she asks excitedly.

Convinced now it was definitely her, Ainsley basically jumps at Shari for a hug.

Shari returns the hug, then pushes him back a little bit with her hands on his shoulder to look at him.

"Man, it feels like forever since I've seen you. It's only been what, a month or two? How are you?"

Ainsley makes a worried face for a moment, then shrugs and forces up a smile. He started looking around the room again for something specific, though what wouldn't be readily apparent to Shari *or* Wanda.

Wanda looks around the room as well, though from the respectful position of the doorway. Not seeing anything, she says "Is there something you need, Ainsley?"

"You getting enough to eat?" she asks, trying to interpret the shrug and the glancing around.

The room is kind of strange. One side is cluttered somehow despite not even having that much stuff in it. It's obviously Shari's, judging by her jacket and backpack lieing on the bed. The other side is neat and even more devoid of things except for the big bathtub-like contraption in the back of the room.

To Wanda, Ainsley smiled and shook his head pleasantly and mouthed the words 'thank you' while using the BSL signs for the same.

To Shari, Ainsley made the side to side hand motion that was the universal sign of 'eh'.

His eyes immediately fixated on what he could only assume was a hot tub, and went right to it and started eyeballing the interior.

"I can go to the admin building and make sure everything's cleared with them if you want me to, Shari," Wanda offers.