Marvel owns the X-men, no profit is to be made from this work.

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Jubilee had spent nights awake getting to know the usual noises made by the house that was promised to be her new home. She got to know the faces to those on their nightly excursions, peeking from cracked doors and old fashioned keyholes until she knew their routine. But tonight footsteps the likes of which she didn't know crept down the hall, footsteps that didn't belong to the house so late at night.

"Terri?" Jubilee whispered, "Terri?"

Peeking over the top bunk, Terri slept the deep slumber of someone untroubled by the things that went bump in the night. It had been comforting at first, being free to creep from her bed and investigate the school with no worry of waking up her roommate, but tonight Jubilee found it annoying at best and a tiny bit terrifying to tell the truth.

The door swung open subtlety slow revealing a shadow she didn't know. Jubilee played it against memories of her midnight visitors and found none that fit, pretending to be asleep as the silhouette crept closer. Holding her breath as her heart raced, panic clutched at her chest.

Risking a peek at last, a stranger stared back from just over the edge of the safety rail that kept her from taking a tumble out of bed. He reached for her and she made her choice, letting the panic out in a burst of dazzling light and deafening snaps and pops. Terri woke with a scream to be cut off as Jubilee grabbed her by the hand, the tumble from the top bunk not really that bad as long as she expected it.

Racing out the door, someone grabbed her and hoisted her up as she screamed. Squirming against the strong grasp, a couple of kicks found her target told by a pained grunt, making sure her attacker wouldn't be getting up anytime soon as she gave him one last kick with all her strength.

"Run!" Jubilee screamed, taking Terri's hand to lead the way.

"What's going on!?"

It was a voice Jubilee knew and trusted, Scott Summers, the man who promised her a home. Jean was just a few steps behind, crouching to take Terri and her in a hug that swore they were safe now. Wincing as the lights were turned on and blinking away the spots that danced within her vision, the men stumbled about with their hands raised in surrender.

"Alex?" Scott asked, his own hand falling away from his glasses along with the unspoken threat therein.

"Hey bro, nice boxers." Coughing hard and cupping his crown jewels, he didn't bother to get up from his pained crouch.

"Daddy?!" Terri gasped, rushing to the ginger of the pair that stumbled from her bedroom.

"Come give your Da a hug Theresa."

Feeling her face burn red out of embarrassment, Jubilee looked from the men to Jean who clearly was struggling against a fit of laughter.

"We heard screaming?!" Kitty was silent in her arrival, ghosting through a wall in pyjamas but looking ready for a fight.

"False alarm." Scott said with a shake of his head, tying up his robe that hung open with how hastily it had been thrown on.

"Am I in trouble?" Jubilee asked.

"Not so much as I think you all owe each other an apology." Jean soothed away any feelings of guilt with a smile, giving a push to urge her on.

Glancing back to see Bobby, John and Pete standing in the hall in track pants and shorts, Jubilee's blush went from beet red to nearly purple as Ororo jogged in from the other end of the hall. Stubbornly willing herself forward, she picked Alex first because she didn't want to interrupt the scolding Terri was giving her dad.

"Sorry." Jubilee mumbled past her tightly drawn lips and hollowed out cheeks.

"Back at ya half pint."

This time she didn't fight him as he reached for her, pulling her into a hug that let her hide her face from the crowd. He smelt of spicy aftershave and the cold, telling traces of snow melting against her cheek as she hid in his arms.

"Alright boys, you know the drill. At least I won't have to listen to any stories of how many there were this time as I patch you up." Jean ordered with an air of routine to her words.

"They're never gonna let us live this down." Terri's dad groaned, heading off down the hall with his daughter in tow.

"Nope." Alex grunted, hobbling along after while tenderly holding himself where it hurt.

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"You paffed Sean?" Kitty asked between a fit of giggles.

"I didn't know who he was! Just saw some dude reaching for me in my bed, so I paffed him." Grumpy was something Jubilee did really well, a work of art fit for the sketches Pete doodled of her, just the right mix of petulant and adorable.

"He was probably trying to tuck you in." John added from the stove, setting a pot of soup to heat for their guests.

"I was plenty tucked in!"

A little voice in the back of her head told Kitty that she was bullying Jubilee, but if there was one thing she was getting to know about the girl, it was that she didn't back down from a fight. It was that little bit of insight that let her get to know the girl through their arguments, painting a picture every bit as pretty as Pete could.

The touch of ice at her neck sent a shiver through her spine, spinning about to glare at Bobby holding up the offending ice cube. She didn't know whether to scowl at him or smile, he had a playful side that couldn't resist a prank, or so she was learning. There was a rivalry brewing between him and John that was likely to spill out of the den to the mansion at large, their games of Halo growing more heated as they honed their abilities, steel sharpening steel.

"Careful Bobby, I'm not above bribery."

"Bribery?" Bobby seemed confused, though Kitty smiled at him in a way that wasn't so sweet, a smile fit for a shark.

"Jubilee has a sweet tooth and I know where all the snacks are hidden, you do the math."

"You know where the Twinkies are?" Kitty had Jubilee's attention now, all her teasing was forgiven in the light of an illicit treat.

Another former alumni of Xavier's had come by to play tutor to a girl who was bad at math through no fault of her own, that Jubilee suffered from Dyscalculia had been shared with Kitty so she might help her when Hank couldn't be around. Twinkies were just the kind of treat to see the girl through the word problems and equations that gave her so much trouble.

"Go take these sandwiches down to the boys, there just might be something waiting for you when you get back." Kitty hinted, passing off a plate stacked high of corned beef on rye.

"Hey Drake, mind the soup. I"ll give Hollywood a hand." John offered, grabbing a pitcher of iced tea and a stack of plastic cups.

Alone at last, Kitty felt the words on the tip of her tongue and bit down against them. They hadn't been alone since his first days, playing tour guide and showing him around. For a school that felt so empty at times, moments like this were few and far between.

"You ever wonder what we could have actually done if...?" Bobby let the words die in his throat, shrugging them off with a smirk as he drew patterns in the sink, tracing ice in the dishwater.

"If it hadn't been Alex and Sean?" Kitty felt her stomach grow tight remembering her own worry and fear at hearing a scream in the middle of the night.

"I mean Pete could break anyone in two, sure, and John, well..."

John could literally light somebody up, but what could they do Kitty wondered. Bobby couldn't do much more than give someone a good shiver in the heat of the moment, as for herself, all the theories Hank had shared with her couldn't change the fact that all she was good at was running.

"Jubes took pretty good care of herself actually." The words felt weak even as Kitty said them, an excuse for her own failings.

"She shouldn't have to."

Not her, Terri or Jones, they were the youngest and Kitty felt responsible for them, just as Bobby surely did. She didn't feel shy as she joined him at the sink, offering him a hug that she herself needed. He didn't turn to embrace her but that was alright, something felt right about how he stood against the counter brooding in his own way, warming her cheek against his back and listening to the even beat of his heart.

"We could always try training, figure out ways to do something if we ever have to." Kitty was known to take walks alone and the school had plenty of places they could be alone given how large the estate was.

"All the stuff they don't teach in class?" Bobby hit the nail on the head, their classes were about control, how to live with their powers.

Teenagers they were and it was their right to be cynical, but the future didn't look so rosy, all it took was an evening with Jones watching CNN. They had people they wanted to protect, people they wanted to save from having to do something they might regret, people like John, Jubilee and Pete.

Kitty knew they all had endured enough pain already even if they didn't want to talk about it, even Pete for how quiet he was, missing his family everyday that didn't care that he had his strange power.

"Just not today." Kitty hugged Bobby tightly then, because they both could take comfort knowing they had everyone there to protect them when they finally curled back under the covers for a few hours of sleep.

Twisting in her grasp, Bobby turned and returned her hug, giving her the hug she longed for and needed.

"Shit, I still owe her a Twinkie." Kitty blurted out with a giggle that felt good as it rolled from her chest.

"Just where do you guys hide them anyway?" Bobby asked, earning himself a playful smack before getting shooed out of the kitchen.

Figuring out just what she could do with her gift in a fight could wait until tomorrow or maybe the day after, Kitty had a plenty good use for it at the moment, finding the secret stash of Twinkies tucked away from the only girl around that could snoop better than her.

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"I'm sorry I paffed ya."

Looking from the girl he was tucking in down to his daughter the next bunk down, Sean let go of a weary sigh realizing he was going to have to tell a story he'd been holding onto. Now of course his darling daughter knew he could fly, that wasn't anything he could keep from her, but the story about how he learned to fly...that was a secret he'd been keeping until he'd really gotten himself into deep shit with her.

"And here I just got you tucked in. I'm gonna help you down, just warning you ahead of time, then you're going to sit down with my wee Theresa so I can tell you a story." Sean said, finding a bit of that Irish brogue he'd picked up after falling in love with a lass from that emerald isle.

Wrapping the girls up in the warm fleece Theresa liked so much, Sean settled off in an old beat up recliner that had seen him through nursing her when she'd just been a babe in his arms.

"Now just so you know Theresa my dear, I told yuir Ma this same story when you were giving her a belly ache that had us up all night." Sean started, rest her soul, the love of his life was alive in the eyes of their daughter, "It all started off with Hank and his daft theories..."

Like the insane notion that a man could fly if only he screamed loud enough as he fell, it was fit for a cartoon coyote except that it had worked. Not at first, of course not, not until the day he'd been pushed out the nest, fly or fall his only options. But in for a penny, in for a pound. One story lead to another, and by the time he finally had two angels tucked in for the night, the sun was coming up.

"Sweet dreams girls." Sean whispered, draping a blanket from the top bunk so they could sleep soundly in the bottom.

Closing the door with nary a noise, it'd been all he'd meant to do earlier when the whole fiasco had started. He hadn't known his wee Theresa had finally gotten her wish for a roommate granted, stealing a peek of the girl on the top bunk becoming his own undoing. Catching a bit of bunk time until he got up to make his girl brunch instead of breakfast, Sean said his prayers to the Lord above if just so the Almighty could pass along the love for a lady always kept waiting.

"Watch over our daughter for me would you mother? I'll see you in my dreams."

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