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poster: Jen date: 14 June 2002, 8:50pm EST I probably could have asked nicer, but in 30 minutes of her torturing me with her music and her god-awful singing she’d managed to give me a splitting headache and if I could throw up, I’m sure I would have from that stench she created. I cannot imagine what possessed her to put that disgusting stuff on her head. Yes I can. I’d suffer through that to appear human if I had to, but I do not fucking believe she shut the door in my face. Shut it in my face. And that simpering little ‘I know how thin these walls can seem.’ Bitch. I settled down on the floor of my room and tried to do one of the calming techniques Logan had been teaching me. They’d helped me keep my temper with Dr. Grey; I hoped they could help me now. I closed my eyes and the rainforest began to coalesce around me, filling my senses, blocking out the world around me. Unfortunately, my rainforest reeked of ammonia and my forest floor throbbed with the reverberations coming from Annie’s CD player. Five minutes into my meditation - not even five minutes - I’d almost blocked out the pounding when she cranked up the stereo again. Five freaking minutes. I didn’t ask her to turn it off, just down, and she can’t even do that. I don’t know what came over me. One second I was sitting on the floor, mentally sliding through the rainforest, the next I was ripping the power cord out of Annie's CD player.
poster: Allison date: 15 June 2002, 12:59am EST "What the HELL do you think you’re doing?" That little bitch just pulled out the cord of stereo; she is going to pay if she damaged anything. "Since you can't keep it turned down to a reasonable level, I thought I'd help you out." "I forgot, okay, I had on the hair dryer, I couldn't hear it." "How the fuck can you forget? The whole fucking floor is vibrating!" "I didn't have the bass up that high, the floor was not vibrating. You are delusional." "Everything was vibrating," Sarah hissed. "The ungodly amount of bass you use only makes it worse." "What the hell are you talking about, nothing was vibrating. Maybe some big magic truck rolled by your room and yours alone." "I feel every footstep and every noise in this dammed place. It's part of my mutation. I tried to deal with it and when I couldn't I tried to be nice, but you don't do nice." What the... "I can do nice if people will tell me what’s going on. How was I supposed to know what your goddamn mutation was? Did someone forget to give me a handbook, explaining what I’m allowed and not allowed to do because of other peoples’ mutations?" "I asked you to turn it down and you just kept turning it louder. You expect me to believe telling you my mutation would have changed a dammed thing?" "You never know until you try! I might have been more aware and not forgotten so quickly. People make mistakes; I’m human, get over it." "No, you're not." "You're right, I'm a mutant and you're a fucking robot!" "Is that what you think of me?" I opened my mouth to say something else, but then I stopped and actually gave it some thought. "Okay, maybe you’re not a robot, but you're, I don't know, just not..." "Right. I'm not right. I'm not like any of you." "But that shouldn’t matter, I’m a certified freak, and so were all my friends, just because you aren’t Miss Chatty Cathy, which by the way I would kill you if you were, doesn’t mean you aren’t an okay human being... mutant." "Yeah, right. Here's your cord. Drop me a note if you need me to get it fixed." She turned to walk out and I sighed, not exactly friends but we had turned in our weapons. "Hey, what’s going on with... Catie?" "Cassie. I don't know. She's probably just taking a breather. This place closes in on you after a while." "Yeah, it’s kind of a culture shock to a house with four people and two pets, to this. Well, I hope she... ends up back here and uh, good." It’s always nice to know my expansive vocabulary will stick by me. "Uh...thanks. I'm sure she's fine. I uh... I'm gonna go back to my book now." I watched her leave and reached towards one of the hamsters and squeezed the paw. "You know you make me wanna shout! Throw my head back and shout! Come on now!" I threw a pillow over him to muffle the noise, "Sorry!" I called through the wall.
poster: Jen date: 17 June 2002, 11:13pm EST Ripping the cord out of Annie’s stereo just firmly cemented my ‘bitch’ persona for her, I’m sure. Bitch I can handle. I even like it. Makes the rest of them give me a wide berth and keeps me safe, but robot? Ouch. I suppose I can see why she thinks that. Compared to them, I am pretty stiff and do I keep to myself a lot. Not that the other girls my age leapt to be my friend, hell, they don’t even talk to me and I haven’t made a lot of effort to get to know them either. I suppose I should try a bit harder. Couldn’t make them like me any less. But right now, I need to finish this book and go back a few chapters in geometry. Maybe learn a bit more of the stuff I only got half of the first time through. ~~~~~~~~ I was deep into the fascinating world of complementary angles and calculating segment lengths when Annie knocked on my door. "Come," I called, closing my text. "If I do, can I have a Scooby snack?" "A what? Never mind," I said shaking my head. "I don’t want to know." She is such a flake. "What can I do for you?" "Cammo isn't back, and I know Max isn't either, so do you want to go get some dinner?" She obviously didn’t know about my eating habits. At as uncomfortable as she sounds she’s trying to be nice. I guess I should too after that willful destruction of property thing earlier. "Sure. Dinner sounds good. Well, not good, but you know." "Fairly edible?" "Lets just say I’m glad I only eat 2 or 3 times a week." "Yeah, I ate at the mall earlier, hopefully I won't feel the need to eat too much of what they serve." I stole a glance at the clock and quickly put my stuff away. "We better head out. Mess certainly won't be any better cold." "Hee, Mess. Sorry." The growl that was forming died at her quick apology. She didn’t mean to make fun of me. Making friends with Annie was going to take more patience than I’d ever shown. We were simply from two different worlds.
poster: Amezri date: 19 June 2002, 12:48am EST A quick change and an e-mail check later, Cassie was headed to the main dining room for dinner. Except for the little - okay, huge - blow-up with the orb, her first day of training had gone pretty well. She couldn't wait until she was finished training so she could go back and see her friends... "Hey, Cass!" Cassandrea froze at the sound of the way too energetic voice. /No. Way. You have *got* to be kidding me. There is just *no way*./ She clenched her jaw and forced a smile. "Hi..." Alison Blaire, dressed in a red tank top and dark, denim bell bottoms, draped an arm around Cassandrea's shoulders. "Fancy seeing you here, chiclet. Finally figured out that Old Baldy's isn't the place for girls like us, huh?" The blond smacked the gum in her mouth and blew a bubble that popped loudly in Cassie's ear. Puzzled, Cassie could only stare while Alison blabbered on about the training program and the other students Emma and her staff were training. /Did she just say something about a werewolf?/ "Me and the other girls here are like family, ya know? Closer than Xavier's brats. Hell, I bet they don't even know you're here. Hey, listen, if you have any problems here, just let me know, okay?" With a wink and a thumbs up, the Dazzler skipped towards the table and plopped down in a chair. Taking in the small group of very interesting characters before her, Cassie was sure that this was one meal she wouldn't forget. It seemed that everyone at the Hellfire mansion was female - both students and staff. They had all been at a seminar in Genosha for the past few days and just returned, which is why Cassie hadn't seen them earlier. Over the course of the meal, Cassie was introduced to most of the staff and students. Callisto - tall, raven-haired, and blue eyed - was the former leader of the tunnel-dwelling Morlocks and taught courses in tactics and strategy. Next to Emma sat a woman with paper-white skin, flowing black hair, and a matching black dot that surrounded her left eye. She would only tell Cassie that her name was Domino and revealed nothing else. Of the six other students sitting at the table, Cassandrea was only able to remember three of their names: Rahne, Clarice (who could forget that purple skin and pink hair), and Sarah, who preferred being called Marrow. With the tight ship that Frost seemed to run, she expected dinner to... not be a circus. Anyone with telekinetic powers would levitate biscuits, butter, salt, pepper... anything they wanted. Part way through dinner, Rahne shifted into her half-wolf, half-girl form and growled menacingly at one of the students. /Note to self: do *not* try to steal food from Wolf Girl./
poster: nacey date: 19 June 2002, 2:19pm EST OOC: Sorry about the delay guys. Have I mentioned that my life is HELL recently? :( ~~~~~~~ By the time Wolverine and I got home, it was easily 4am. Wolverine and I were going to keep looking all night if we had to, but being the kitty-cat I was, dawn was breaking, and after one last burst of energy I was falling asleep on my feet after sniffing around the streets. He bundled me on the back of the bike and we headed for home. I trudged in, frustration building up inside of me. Cassandrea had been here as long as I had, and she kinda had always kept an eye out for me, me being younger than her by about a year or so. The day without Cass around was... weird. It was strange not seeing her amble about with Kurt. Kurt... the poor guy. Apparently he'd not returned yet, and I'm sure he was out looking as hard as I had been. I thought to check up on him at his room. Thankfully he was there, passed out, still in his uniform. I left him there and went to return to my room... I didn't want to go there. For some reason, it was too lonely tonight, and my mind was whirling with the memories of the less than pleasing aromas of Westchester and New York. I got changed out of my leather jumpsuit, then padding down the hall in my singlet and shorts, I knocked on Sarah's door. "Babe?" I called softly. "Can I come in?"
poster: Allison date: 19 June 2002, 6:15pm EST I don't know what woke me up, just something woke me from an altered version of the Pirates ride at Disneyland. I went to turn on my stereo but that might've waken Sarah and I still hadn't gotten my headphones from the car. Luckily the cord had just been pulled from the jack and slipped back in quite easily. I tried, but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. So, I decided to take a shower, maybe the warm water would make me sleepy. I was about to turn on the water when I realized, I wasn’t suppose to wash my hair for another few hours, so my new hair color could set in. I had only traded the teal for neon green this evening, so a shower would have to wait. Instead, I wandered downstairs and into the kitchen, I had an urge, and no my urge was not to "herbal". It took about 15 minutes to find everything I needed, but soon I was mixing away at the cupcake batter and the cookies were next on the list. An hour passed quickly, and I hardly noticed it as I frosted my cookies and waited for the oven to beep at me. I admired my handiwork, not too bad for someone who hadn’t touched a pastry bag in three months but years of practice were still ingrained into my muscles. When I was satisfied that the sugar cookies had been adequately disguised as pumpkins I held the bag over my head and squeezed the orange frosting into my mouth. Nothing like frosting shots at four am to keep a girl in the baking mood. Suddenly a figure appeared in the corner of my eye. "Howy fit!" I garbled. Cammo was standing in the kitchen wearing a rather kinky black leather outfit, looking thoroughly confused. "Annie, what are you doing?" "I’m doing frosting shots while I wait for my cupcakes. What are you doing in that...that!" I gestured to his ensemble, I mean I thought my pjs were odd, a red striped tank top, green plaid boxers and Blue’s Clues slippers, but they just didn’t compare. "Racing car driving," he said oddly. "Er... no, sorry, I want to be the new Evel Knievel." "Lying sack of shit," I challenged, trying to not grin at his awful excuse. He sighed, running his hand through his hair. "Are you sure you want to know? If I tell you, you gotta promise not to tell anyone. I mean - everyone knows here but they all made the same promise. We're all loyal to Xavier." "Scout's honor," I raised my hand but couldn't remember which fingers to use. He lifted a brow in doubt a moment, then crossed his arms. "I'm a vigilante." I snorted, "Yeah, you and Wyatt Earp." "You can go ask anyone here, it's true. All the teachers are too, and the college students," I eyed her. "Even Jubilee." Honestly, that wasn’t so hard to believe she was the perkiest bad ass I’d ever met. "Ok, so what exactly does being a ‘vigilante’ entail?" "Well, we go around stopping people bash up on poor unassuming mutants," he said. "The older more experienced X-Men get to go on ultra-secret missions and root out extremist groups that would be a threat to society." I shook my head, this was too surreal. "The X-men? Aren’t they those people in the tabloids?" He smiled. "They're the people running this facility. They take in mutants and help them, and if the mutants choose to, they can join the X-Men to help others." "There is no way, Doc McCoy is some super hero, he wouldn’t hurt a fly!" I protested, but this made a little too much sense. "Oh, Doc McCoy is a very nimble man," he said, "You should see him scale some of those scary 8ft walls with the razor wire on the top." He wagged a finger in circles. "He knows how to incapacitate an enemy, but he also knows to defend himself." He sighed looking over himself. "I would have liked to introduce the idea to you slowly but um..." He shrugged. "I guess I forgot myself." "Oh yes, because I can see how easy it would be to forget you’re wearing that," I was back to the skintight leather. And I thought he looked pretty in running shorts... Fortunately, my train of thought was derailed by the oven timer. "Oooh, my cupcakes!" He smiled winningly. "Any chance a tired trainee can have some sugary goodness?" "Yeah, just let me get it ready..." I popped one out of the tray and grabbed the start tipped bag, quickly dotting the surface with yellow frosting. "There you go." He excitedly took up the cupcake, taking a healthy bite of it. He started bouncing on his toes then, giving her a thumbs up. "Bloody beautiful." "Thank you," I grinned, "My dad has a bakery back...home. I make a mean snickerdoodle," I explained. Cammo laughed. "What the fuck is a snickerdoodle?!" I sniffed, "The first cookie I ever learned to make, thank you very much! Its got cinnamon and sugar and other cookie stuff." "Oh..." He chewed on the cupcake. "Sounds like those weird icing-coated pfeffernusse that Max likes so much." "I can’t say I’m familiar with that one... Want a cookie?" I offered up the grinning jack-o-lanters. "Yes please," he said with a renewed smile. I passed him one before analyzing the bare cupcakes; "These need decorating..." "Mmm," Cammo nodded. "Mrrrphhaaa-offhen!" "Mrrpha offen? More frosting?" He nodded, mouth still full of cookies. "Well yes, more frosting, but what sort of design, and no more pumpkins!" "Umm," Cammo wiped his mouth and leant against the counter, bending over and laying his head on the counter. His long blonde hair fell down over his face, and the poor guy was tired. "Little X's. Little X’s inside circles." He looked so pathetic, "Go to bed you ninny, I’ll finish up here and leave the deserts as an anonymous treat to whoever finds ‘em first." He smiled and squeezed my shoulder. "Night An." "Sleep tight my little vigilante," I cooed. He winked at her and plodded sleepily from the kitchen, waving in the air behind him, his sun-bleached blonde hair mussed and messy. I just snagged the pastry bag and began my work once more.
poster: Jen date: 19 June 2002, 11:36pm EST I rolled over and grimaced at the clock. 4:17 am. Nothing ever good happens when someone comes to your door at this hour. "Come." He looks like hell. Tired, ragged, down. A man with bad news. Might as well bite the bullet. Making him say it would just be too mean. "She’s dead, isn’t she?" "What?" On second, he was standing in the doorway, the next I was wrapped in his arms. "No, baby, no. But we didn’t find her either." He’s holding me so tight I don’t think I can breathe. "We looked everywhere, Sare, and we still don’t know where she is." "You need to sleep. You can’t do anything else tonight. Come on." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sarah wasn’t sure why she was here. Xavier didn’t require students to attend chapel, so she hadn’t been since coming to the school, but this morning... Sitting down in the back pew, Sarah picked up her hymnal and scanned the church, amazed at how unnerved she was being surrounded by humans. The pastor was reviewing the announcements when the woman at her side handed her the pew pad, whispering instructions. Sarah gave her a faint smile and flipped it open. And stopped. There was a line to leave an email address so the Welcoming committee could contact you. Email. That was it. As soon as she the service was over, she’d email Cassie. Cassie’s mom emailed her once a week. If she were gone voluntarily she’d be checking her mail. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Sarah slipped back into her room, her email sent and smiled. Max was sprawled across her bed, snoring lightly. She changed out of her church clothes and slipped back into bed, snuggling against him. Max awoke as Sarah’s cold skin pressed against him. He groaned and rubbed a hand across his face. "Where’d you go?" "I had something I had to do." Used to her evasiveness, Max didn’t pursue it. "What did you do yesterday?" Sarah squirmed at the question, feeling a twinge of guilt at spending the day studying and watching movies while others combed the city for her missing roommate. "I studied, wrecked Annie’s stereo and then we made up, had dinner and watched Monty Python’s Holy Grail." "Her choice or yours?" "Hers." Sarah made a face. "She was showing me ‘real culture’ or some such crap. The ice cream was good though." "You ate ice cream?" Max asked incredulously. Sarah never ate ice cream or cake. "A few spoons and then I introduced Annie to the sauna." Max just couldn’t get over that. "Ice cream?" "I used to love ice cream, but now I’m going to have to have to spend hours in the Danger Room if I want to keep it off my hips." Max laughed. "Don’t you laugh at me! You can’t laugh at me in my own bed." Sarah couldn’t let him get away with that. Retaliation was required. Unfortunately, as I started the ticking I got tangled in the sheet and he pinned me within seconds. "I like your hips." He drawled, dragging a finger down her hip. "Sure you do." Max grinned. "I guess I’ll just have to show you." "I guess you will."
poster: cammogirl date: 20 June 2002, 6:53am EST I slept for six hours, and at 10am there was a rough knock on my door. I plodded to it, and swinging it open I stood straight and to attention, even if I was in my jammies. It was Cyclops. "Hey, Cam," he said, lips tense. He was as worried about Cassie as the rest of us. "We've got a team meeting in an hour. We're going to outline our strategy for finding Cassie." "How are we going to do that?" I asked. "We don't even know where to start looking for her." "We scoured the area, Cammo," Cyclops said, folding his arms. "Wolverine and Claw have sniffed out the end of her scent trail." I frowned. "Oh? Where's that?" He clenched his jaw. "The central train terminal in New York." I felt the warmth drain from my face as I realised this was going to be a harder hunt than I imagined. "Ohhh... crap." Cyke nodded. "We're going to need you on this Cam. I'll tell you moer in the meeting. It's in half an hour - get yourself ready." I showered and got changed, and I ducked downstairs. As I swept past the main kitchen, a plate of cookies on the sideboard caught my attention. I grinned, and popping in, I grabbed a bowl and a handful of cookies, and filled the bowl with them. I went to the 'secret' elevator, keying in my code, and slipped down to the sublevels where the meeting room was. I felt my heart beat in anticipation. Meetings always got me giddy. I strolled into the steely meeting room, and with a smile I put the cookies on the table. "Compliments of our newest addition to the family," I said, pointing to the bowl. I wasn't surprised to see Max down here. Sure, he had a X-name and a uniform, but that was only because he was deformed, and had little chance of integration into society. The X-Men was all he had. Same with Kurt, and he was there, pacing in the corner as well. Me, I chose it. I wanted to do it. I guess, without swimming, it was all I *wanted* to do. Xavier reached for a cookie, and he took a bite. He nodded with lifted brows. "Annie possesses quite a talent. Please forward my thanks." "Did she change her hair colour?" Jean muttered with some curiosity, leaning on a hand and looking utterly exhausted. "Lime green," Max said. I was rather disconcerted. I hadn't noticed. "She did?" I scratched my head. "I saw her this morning. Why didn't I notice that?" Max sniggered suddenly. "You were too busy checking out her ass!" Logan smirked, as did Rogue, and Xavier coughed behind his cookie. "Now... let's everyone settle down and get to business." He waited for us to all sit down. "Logan and Max have followed Cassandrea's scent trail to the train station." "The trail died there," Logan said. "She's gone, and I reckon it's south." Cyclops frowned. "What makes you so sure." Logan looked to him firmly. "The nose knows, Bub." Rogue swallowed down a smile. "If that is the case," Xavier said, "Our best course of action is to send Logan and Max out to follow the trail." Max looked about himself in shock and then to Xavier. "But what about school?" "You can take your homework with ya, sport." said Logan. "Plenty of room for that if we take a car." "Right," said Xavier. "The Blackbird is not appropriate for this sort of mission. I'm afraid the both of you will have to take a road trip." Rogue's face was priceless. She was facing weeks without Logan around. I could practically see her twitching. "If and when you find Cassandrea," said Xavier, "I want you to come straight back. We will reconvene and decide a course of action based on her situation." Logan tipped his head. "I don't see why this can't be a grab and go mission, Chuck." Xavier folded his fingers and smiled calmly. "Because I sense there is something astray in this situation. I cannot read Cassandrea via Cerebro." Kurt spoke up finally. "She is dead?!" "No," Xavier said, eyeing the boy firmly. "If she were dead, there would be a lack of a brain signal." He licked his lips, looking thoroughly disturbed. "There is a... a mental blind spot, as it were. I sense her, but I cannot reach her mind. It's as if..." "Someone's blocking you," Jean said, her green eyes darkening. Logan ground his teeth, and he stood, folding his arms. "Fine. Let's get going then. The longer we dilly-dally the more the scent fades." "Yes," Xavier said. "Usually I advise against hastiness, but I believe in this situation Wolverine knows the best course of action." He looked to the rest of us. "I would like you all to take on additional hours training, to prepare yourself should we need to retrieve Cassandrea from a perilous situation. Cammo, Jean, Rogue and Cyclops... I want you all to be prepared. I have a feeling you may be the most appropriate people for this problem." ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I walked with Max back to the upper levels. He was dressed in his regular singlet and slacks. The guy didn't need that much clothing thanks to the skerricks of fur, and he was barefoot most of the time around the mansion. His claws clicked on the polished floor, his paws padding softly as we strolled towards the recreation room. "Man," he sighed. "Sarah is gonna flip." I thumped him on the shoulder and winced. "You need to help Cass though." "Yeah," Max nodded. "Well... she'll flip or she'll demand to come too. I dunno. She's pretty unpredictable." I grinned. "Makes things fun." There was no amusement in his eyes. Only worry. "I hope Cass is okay," he said.
poster: Allison date: 21 June 2002, 9:23am EST Geometry books are very boring. That was the only thing I had learned in the past half-hour I’d been staring at the text. Well, that and if you don’t blink for a really long time, everything gets all fuzzy. Unfortunately, these pearls of wisdom were not going to help me during the test Mr. Worthington is giving on Monday. I flopped back on my bed, giving up on studying for the moment, "Mehhhhhhh." I grabbed at one of my feet, Hank had advised against try out my powers on vital body parts, until I was sure I had control enough to return them to original size. So, my toes had become my body’s gineua pigs. My pinkie toes had just reached equal lengths with the big toes when there was a knock at my door. "Come in, please come in!" I begged. Cammo poked his head in, "You all right?" "Yeah, just bored out of my mind," I answered, wiggling my toes. "What are you up too?" he asked motioning at my feet. "Hank says I need to work on my powers, safely. He didn’t much like my voodoo trick, thought it was too dangerous." "Voodoo?" "Head shrinking, I do it better than any psychiatrist," I answered, gesturing with my hands. "Of course, he doesn’t want my brain to get all squishy so I’ve been banished to toes." "Well, if you got stuck it might be a bit odd, until you changed back." "Do you think it’d get me out of my geometry test?" I asked hopefully. "I couldn’t say. What do you need help with? I’m fairly reasonable with that stuff." I held up my book, "See this? As far as I’m concerned, it’s kindling with pictures." He laughed, "Come on now, it can’t be that bad." "I got a D+ on the last test and I was surprised it was that high," I answered. "I don’t like circles." "You mean radii, tangents and that sort?" "That was last time, now we’re doing arc measurement and arc length. What is the difference?" I groaned. "According to the book... Arc measurement is in degrees as a fraction of the circumference, and arc length is the physical length of it." I eyed him cautiously, "Where does it say that?" He pointed to the spot on the page he had been reading from. "Oh." "And, to figure out the arc length you make a fraction out of the measure over 360 degrees and multiply by the circumference." "The book did not say that twenty minutes ago," I protested. "Shouldn’t you be taking notes?" He asked in a voice frighteningly similar to Mr. Worthington’s. "I would Mr. McMannus, but you’re sitting on my pen," I deadpanned. He stood up and sure enough, my pitiful chewed on Bic was lying on the covers. He scooped it up and tossed it at me. I missed, not that that was surprising or anything, but as I looked around I couldn’t find it. He hadn’t thrown it that far so I didn’t think it was behind the bed. Of course, Cameron wasn’t offering much help, sitting at the foot of the bed looking like he was about to crack up. "What?" I asked, thoroughly confused. He leaned over and plucked the pen out of my hair, apparently the cap had hooked its self in. "Nice hair by the way. Uh, sorry I didn’t notice before," he looked a little ashamed. "What, you mean at 4 am, after you had been out searching for Cassie for hours on end? I think I can forgive you for not noticing. Its only hair." I actually would’ve been surprised if he had noticed, I mean when I was nine, my mom was the only one who noticed I chopped off eight inches. Guys just aren’t into hair; it’s a fact of life. "But it’s lime green..." "Next time, I’ll let you pick out the color, that way you can be the first to notice," I placated. "Now will you stop feeling guilty and start helping me with my studying? Please?"
poster: Jen date: 21 June 2002, 11:10pm EST "So you’re just going to blindly drive all over the country until you happen to run into her? Is that right?" Sarah was trying very hard to keep her voice calm and level. "We gotta do something, Sare. We can't just abandon her." "I know that." Her shoulders sagged. She might have convinced Logan to take her too if school wasn’t in session, but since she flunked the last chemistry test, she didn’t stand a chance. "I guess I’ll see you when you get back." "I'll miss you," Max said, nuzzling her ear. "I haven't been without you since we met." Sarah pulled back. She didn’t want to get involved in a big emotional scene. They were unbecoming. "You’re a big boy. You’ll live." "I'll write to you. It'll give me something to do nights when we're stuck in dingy motels." "I’ll look forward to them, but," a frown crossed her face, "There won’t be any way for me to write back." "I know," he said. He broke into laughter then, a sad kind. He shook his head. "Wanna hear something ironic?" Sarah arched an eyebrow at him, urging him to finish his story. "When Logan and Rogue first got here, and Logan went off on a mission that lasted... some time... well. He wrote her, every day." He chuckled. "She totally fell in love with him, and uhm... yeah. By the time he got back she was old enough... uhm. You get the idea." He blushed. "You intending to be gone that long?" "Oh hell no," he said. "Logan will probably send me back before then. I think Xavier just wants Logan to train me on the road." "I wish I could go too. It’s going to be dull around here without you." "I know. Being on the road all that time with Logan isn't going to be too flash either. At least I get along with him, and we share a taste in music. Heaven forbid if I'd be on the road this long with my Dad." He grimaced. "There's only so much John Denver I can take." "That sounds like a fate worse than death." "You have no idea." "You’d better go pack. You... um... want to borrow my bag?" Sarah asked, a blush flooding her face. "It - it’s broken in and easy to carry," she added, hoping not to look as pathetic as was sure she did at that moment. Max gave her a lingering kiss. "I’d love to. Thanks, babe. I’ll be back as soon as I can." ~~~~~~~ Max and Logan had gone off on their wild goose chase. I couldn’t believe that that plan was the best the mighty X-Men could come up with. Max talked about these people as if they were one step below God, but this seemed like a big waste of time and resources to me. How the hell could Logan tell Cassie was going south by the scent in the train station? North and south trains left on the same tracks all day every day. It didn’t make sense to me, but I certainly wasn’t going to demand an explanation from a superior. I hoped to God I was right and she’d just taken a breather from life in this fish bowl and not been taken by someone. I’d never be able to live with myself if those few hours of silence got Cassandrea killed.
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