Kara couldn't help but feel uncomfortable as she stepped out of the bright yellow car. She put her head down as they approached the double doors to the mall not letting anyone see her face. Her reptilian eyes glanced up at those who walked by every now and then. The slits of her eyes examined everyone, the way they walked with bliss or confidence, those who talked about important business, families becoming louder. The mall wasn't as crowded as it could be but they only came through the entrance. There was so much more to discover. More shame to face.

"You'll be fine," Jean whispered into her ear. Kara nodded slightly and tilted her head up to see the new boy watching everything in wonder. It surprisingly didn't bother her, just made her curious how he didn't feel the need to hide away from others. Terrifying fangs contrasted with the smile that stretched across his face. 

Everybody else treated it like another nice day of shopping. Oh, how much Kara missed shopping. Getting off the escalator Kara saw all the old stores she used to go to. 

"This place is like a temple!" Kurt exclaims. "I've never seen anything like it." Kara and Kurt glance at three kids leaning against a wall and talking. The guy didn't look away, gawk, or run in fear. Kara could feel her heart beating faster, the hope getting to her. "They don't fear us." Kara slowly reached up, her scaled hands trailing over her hoodie and taking down the hood. Her eyes darted everywhere wondering who was ready to attack.

"Look, come on man, let's go have a little fun."

The five play in Space Port, Scott and Jean competing, Jubilee trying to beat a high score, and Kurt and Kara competed for another game while he played a racing game with his tail.

"How are you winning and racing at the same time?" Kara asked as she aggressively hit buttons and tried to focus on not crushing the joystick. Games all around buzzed, beeped, playing their theme songs. 

"I don't know. But it's fun." Kurt laughs. Kara glances at him and smiles. 

"Cool." She hears a kid say about Kurt when she looks back at him staring at his tail.

"I could do that. Just get me super angry and I'll get a tail too."

"Well I don't want to make you angry." Kurt says with slight concern.

"Let me win then." Kara chuckled going along with her joke and looked at Kurt but then went right back to the game to not lose focus because of that boy.

"I don't want to do that either, sorry."

-

After continuous losing and Kara giving up, the five of them went to the food court. Kurt drank a slushy happily as Kara picked at fries that sat on her tray. 'No one is getting the pitch forks' Kara thought to herself as she glanced around the food court of people eating. Her hoodie now sat behind her on the chair, she sat tracing her scales on her arms, her sleeves rolled up in the heat. 

Kara is interrupted from her thoughts to the sound of Kurt in seemingly agonizing pain. "Something's wrong!" He exclaims.

"It's called a brain freeze." Scott explains to him as the rest of them held their slushies. Kara had denied hers earlier claiming "she was not a slushy person".

"What?! I froze my brain?!" Kurt cries out in confusion and fear. Kara chuckled and looked away, but turned back trying not to laugh. 

"Yeah it takes a while until it thaws." Kara then laughs with Scott who bursts into laughter. 

"You're both jerks." Jean shakes her head with light laughter. 

"You're good. Don't worry. The slushy won't kill you." Kara says to Kurt, patting his shoulder. She turned back to her fries and shoved them in her mouth ignoring the voice of Jean in her head, teasing her happily.

-

Girls dragged their mothers towards the other racks in the clothing stores, boys stood and waited for their girls to be done trying on clothes. 

The five mutants passed the stores and Kara gave up on the memories that whisked her away to a time when she was normal in her eyes. While in the music store with Jean, Jubilee and Scott, she felt a tug and looked behind to see Jubilee tugging on her shirt.

"Let's go inside the store next door! I haven't been here in so long I saw you staring." Kara looked back at the other two and nodded while going silently into the store. She wondered where Kurt was in his curious state in the mall. 

Strolling through the store, her clawed finger tips brushed against the crop tops and oversized shirts, carefully feeling the fabric. Kara clutched her sweatshirt pulling the hood closer to her face once again afraid of the possible staring from girls and women in her section.

"Hey!" She turns to see Jubilee holding up a top to herself. "How does this look?"

"Cute." Kara replies curtly. After a moment she got rid of her scowl and gave a small smile. "You'd look nice in it."

"Oh, it's for you. I already have something like this. I think it'd look amazing on you. Try it!" She said excited. Kara staggered forward shocked at the offer, slowly reaching her hand out to grab the hanger from Jubilee's hand. "Do you like it?"

"Uh, yeah." Something in her almost was scared that Jubilee would switch up and laugh at her for taking the shirt. "It's nice. You should find something too." 

"Yeah, maybe you can help. I like your style." 

"Thanks." Kara says. 

Jubilee awkwardly stood for a second before speaking again. "You know, I hope you know I was never one of the ones to make fun of you. Or be scared of you. You were nice to me when I first came. You probably don't remember." Jubilee stood for a second before turning back to go to the other side of the store not waiting for Kara to respond.

Kara smiled to herself and blinked away the weariness from her eyes. Or maybe it was the tears. 

"Kara." The voice wasn't high pitched and sweet like Jubilee's causing Kara to instantly turn around in defense, her claws to her side fanned out. There stood her brother, Colton, a blonde boy by his side.

"You know this chick?" His friend asks with a chuckle.

"Leave us alone, Ryan. I'll meet you at Space Port." Colton tells his friend brushing him off. His friend scoffs, adjusts his heavy jacket and leaves the store. The siblings stood awkwardly in their stances and observed each other, the changes both made over the years. "It's cool you're uh  going out. Good for you."

"Yeah I'm with friends. From the school." Kara answers his remark. "Listen, just leave me alone, don't tell them you saw me. Pretend like this never happened."

"I won't tell them. Mom will freak out probably. But you don't have to worry, I won't say or do anything, trust me. She's been on me ever since you left."

"Yeah cause she didn't have me to berate every second of the day."

"Yeah I used to think you were just being dramatic, but I get it." Kara scoffs and throws the clothes down next to her.

"You have no idea, Colton. She treated me like I was lucky for every little thing and treated me like I was nothing. You were treated like a king. And being a mutant did not help. It was just an excuse for me to leave."

"No, I get it now, Kara. Things are different at home. After you left, things changed."

"You mean after mom made me go. That wasn't my choice."

Jubilee from the back of the store heard the commotion near the front and sees Kara get more angry, her claws digging into her palms, blood dripping every few seconds. With a fast pace, Jubilee made her way towards the two. Kara kept her gaze on her brother, but noticed the bright yellow jacket that came closer.

Colton sees Kara's friend get closer but he just needed to talk to her more, have her hear his side. He quickly picked up his arm and his palm emitted a strange dim light.

Jubilee stood in place with the rest of the store. Frozen, Jubilee had a worried countenance expressed for her concern for Kara.

"What did you do?" Kara asks in shock looking at the girl. 

"That's what I wanted to tell you. I'm like you. I'm a-"

"mutant." Kara finishes his sentence. The people in the store stayed in place cut off from the rest of the mall it seemed. "What is it? I mean what do you do?"

"I don't really know. I just really started learning. I used to freeze the whole neighborhood when I tried to freeze dad."

"So you're some kind of telepath."

"No. I don't do anything with minds. I think it's something with time. I don't try to use it much unless I have to."

Kara looked at her brother, for the first time in years. She observed how he stood, his stance was tall as ever. He looked as confident as ever. She then started laughing.

"What are you laughing about?"

"You think we're the same now. But we're not. What, because you can make people freeze you think you have had the same struggles as I have. I didn't have anywhere to live until the Professor brought me in. Even then people were scared of me or they thought I was disgusting. Do you know how that felt?" Colton stayed silent as he looked his sister in the eyes,  cold eyes that didn't have any love for her family it seemed to him.

"No I don't. I'm sorry." He looked back to see people coming near the store and brought out his hand. Once again the store was filled with life. Jubilee was on the move and stood next to Kara.

"Are you alright? Who is this guy?" She asks.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to bother Kara. I just wanted to talk to her." He took out a pen and stood closer to Kara. He grabbed onto her arm, ignoring the cool scales against his warm tan skin and wrote his number down on her palm. "Call that, please." He put his pen away and walked off out of the store and Kara hoped out of her life.

"Who was that guy? Did you know him before you came to the school?" Jubilee asked Kara who just watched her brother go off. 

"Yeah. Uh, let's keep shopping. He's not coming back." Kara shook off the pain and the guilt that sat in her chest and pushed it down. 

-

Jubilee and Kara were able to catch up with the other three, enjoying more the mall had to offer them including dancing from humans and their fellow mutant, Kurt. Each place they went Kara pleaded with whatever fate that she would not run into her brother and his friend again. 

"Whoa, Kara." Scott called out as they walked through the mall. 

"What, glasses?" She groaned out.

"What's with the phone number? Some guy decide they want to actual give you his digits? How did you threaten him?"

Kara froze internally, cursing herself for not wiping away the blue ink from her palm. "It's none of your business, glasses. Buzz off."

"Nah, come on, we gotta know. Right Jean? Jubilee? You must have been there to see it."

"It was more like he threatened her. He wasn't scared for a second." Jubilee tells Scott, while Kara looked down at the number, tracing over the numbers lightly. 

"Wow, good for you, didn't think you had it in you."

"Shut up, idiot."

"Okay, how about we watch a movie." Jean suggests in between Scott and Kara.

"I'll teach you a few moves with the girls." Scott whispers to the boy to Kurt's confusion.

"What movie?" Jubilee asks. 

"Star Wars is out, we could watch that." Kara couldn't help but say. One of the few things to make her feel human and normal would be the space movies. It was only a few years ago she went to watch the first movie with her family and then the second with friends from school. Only a few years passed and she could barely remember their faces and how she felt with them. But the movies were experiences that she wouldn't forget, they'd be the ones to guide her from a certain darkness.

"What's Star Wars?" 

"You're kidding me right?" Kara asks in all seriousness. 

"So you're surprised he doesn't know about Star Wars, but a mall is acceptable?" Scott remarks.

"Doesn't matter now, we have to go." Kara says pulling Kurt by the arm. "Now this is of importance." The three other mutants followed her lead all surprised by her sudden interest and actions, in the school she never acted in this way, energy overflowing inside of her now. 

Sitting in the dark theater Kara could bring herself to glance around at those surrounding her. Her hood covered her scaled skin but not her snake like eyes that analyzed everyone. No one looked at her. Everyone went to their seats thinking she was a random teenage girl with her friends. The movies were now her favorite place to be. The bright screen flashed the logo and she looked to her right seeing Kurt's surprised face. 

"You won't know what's going on but you'll love it." Kurt smiled and nodded gleefully. 

"If you say so, I'm sure I will." Kurt smiled back before turning back to the screen. Jean looked at Scott happy that Kara was feeling comfortable in the theater. Scott just scoffed but Jean knew he felt a bit of warmth seeing Kara happy.

Jean couldn't help but try to see what made Kara nervous when Scott brought up the number, seeing her brother and what he wanted, what he was now. She didn't say anything to Kara, not yet. Jean just wanted Kara to watch a movie in the dark, with a boy who thought she was pretty.

___

Hey guys! New chapter is up and more interactions between Kara and everyone from the deleted scenes of the mall so that's where all this came from. Just know that she's struggling with herself and how she views society, so she's not perfect she's a little selfish and can be mean like how it was with Colton. She's still learning. I loved writing this chapter cause everyone is having fun and Kara can be herself once again after thinking she couldn't ever be again in public. 

QUESTIONS!! 

What do you think of Kara? 

Who do you like her interacting with most?

Do you think her and Kurt are cute? 

What do you want to see more of?

Who do you want to see Kara interact with more? 

THANKS FOR READING! VOTE AND COMMENT!! Love you guys!