Summary: Sequel to What We Don't See. Picks up right where that one left off. The X-Men kids go out for ice cream, but their cool time gets uncomfortably hot when their triple date gets crashed.

Disclaimer: Stan Lee, thanks for the use of your characters! And thanks to Fox for making the movies, too. Obviously, neither of them are me, so on with the fanfiction.

Triple Scoop

"Well it's about time," Piotr breathed when he and Kitty broke apart.

The infirmary's beeping machinery was drowned out by their heavy breathing. In the dim light of the monitors' greenish glow, Kitty saw Pete actually smirk.

Kitty wrinkled her nose at him. "Ok, so it took me a while. You could have given me a hint or something."

"I thought almost pummeling Bobby was a pretty big one."

"Oh...Well, yeah, I guess." Kitty honestly couldn't believe she hadn't noticed sooner that Piotr had been interested in her. It wasn't until just this morning that she had seriously looked away from Bobby and seen that Pete had been there the whole time. Now, after their first kiss, in the deserted infirmary, Pete seemed like the only one in Kitty's life.

That was a dangerous thing to think, Kitty knew. She had let herself think that about Bobby for the longest time and she didn't want to make that mistake twice. It was easy to miss out on things that way.

"Kitty?" Piotr asked, not for the first time. She looked up at him. "You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. But you," she poked him playfully in the chest, "should be resting."

Pete frowned at her. "I'm far from tired."

Kitty frowned right back and said threateningly, "Well if you don't get some sleep today, we won't be able to go out for ice cream tomorrow with Jimmy."

Pete perked up. "Ice cream?"

"Well Logan took Storm and it sounded like fun. Do you not want to take me?"

Pete kissed her again and then pushed her toward the door. "Go away and let me get some rest then."

xxx

Kitty needed to remind herself not to shut out the world for a guy again, so she grabbed a notebook and a pencil from her room and ventured out into the backyard. For the second time in as many days, Kitty found herself sitting in the lush, well-manicured grass in front of Jean, Scott, and Xavier's monuments with a pencil in hand, poised to draw.

Yesterday, drawing these three stones had given Kitty the inspiration she needed to finally let go of her crush on Bobby and notice that Piotr had developed one on her. Today, she hoped to remind herself to keep her eyes open, even in the face of her mounting interest in Piotr. Unlike yesterday, when Kitty had drawn only the three headstones in a blank space, today she tried to capture everything. She drew the three headstones, of course, but she also drew the grass, and the flowers and bushes beyond them. She tried to include everything. When she was done, she held it at arm's length and squinted at it. Kitty Pryde would never be mistaken for an artist, but she had to admit it wasn't bad. She at least seemed to have captured everything - if not in the best detail. Kitty carefully folded the drawing and slipped it in her back pocket.

The school grounds were quiet now and it was well past sunset. Students had trickled back inside to eat and do the homework they had put off during the day. Kitty liked the quietness of the moment, softly illuminated by ground lights surrounding the monuments. In the strangely lit courtyard, the professor's little constant flame made the shadows dance. Kitty wished she could have drawn that. Piotr could and he might, if Kitty asked him to.

Her silence was interrupted not by something loud - it was impossible to be loud in this couryard, surrounded by a sadness that seemed to have seeped into the very atmosphere around the monuments - but by someone silent. Rogue wordlessly stepped into place on Kitty's left and for a while the two just stared at the graves.

"It's strange," Rogue said from seemingly very far away. "I was there when Jean died..."

Kitty understood her to mean the first time Jean died. Rogue, like Logan and perhaps for his benefit, made very clear distinctions between Jean's two personalities. When she used Jean's name, she was referring to the Jean Grey who had been their teacher; the Jean Grey who had been an X-Man. Jean was the one who had died at Alkali Lake and that was the death Rogue was referring to.

"Scott and the professor were there too. That was the last time I saw all three of them together. And then we came home without Jean and everything was different. We became X-Men, Scott was a mess, John was gone..." Rogue trailed off for a while.

Kitty had never really known John all that well. She remembered him as sort of a class clown, a little wild sometimes, but not the kind of kid she ever imagined as Magneto's right hand man. It was easier for her to think of him as the maniacal pyro that tried to fry Bobby at Alcatraz. Rogue apparently had a harder time seeing that in her former friend.

"I guess you can't tell with some people," Rogue went on. "I mean, who would have thought Jean would turn into the Phoenix and join the Brotherhood?"

Kitty nodded absent-mindedly and wondered if Rogue was really talking about Jean or if she was thinking about Pyro. Either way, Kitty thought she would use this friendly, if somewhat depressing moment, to build a better friendship with Rogue. "Hey, do you and Bobby want to go out with me and Pete and Jimmy tomorrow?"

Rogue was surprised by the question and turned her head to look at her former rival. She seemed to decide that Kitty was being sincere and then she raised an eyebrow and smirked. "You and Pete, huh?"

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A/N: Ok, as of this posting, I'm not done with the final chapter, but I figure I can finish it in four days, which would give me a time frame of a chapter a day. I'm writing instead of doing my homework, but just in case I get something I can't put off, sorry in advance for any delay on chapter four. And Shadowdancer9, I promise not to "hold it hostage" this time! Thanks for reading!

--X