Alas, chapter two. It has arrived sooner than I expected, but more chapters means more reviews, so I'm not bothered.

Disclaimer: Don't own it. But if someone wants to buy me Aaron Stanford, I'd be thrilled. :-)

Chapter Two

First period was art with Professor Logan, which was the only class I had where we were given assigned seats.

Guess who he sat me next to.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

John was already in his seat, leaned back with the chair on two legs, making it impossible for me to get to my seat.

I stood next to him for a minute, and he still didn't move.

I cleared my throat and he looked at me, but still didn't move.

"John," I said, and he still didn't move.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

Professor Logan walked into the room and sat at his desk. "Pyro, quit being a pain in the ass and let her sit down."

Click. Snap.

John leaned his chair back onto all four legs and scooted back against the table behind him, so I had to squeeze between him and our table.

He leaned back and looked at me slyly and I turned toward the front of the class, so I wouldn't have to look at him as I was pressed against his legs.

I felt slight pressure on my ass as I was passing through, and whipped my head around to see John's fingers hovering next to my backside. He looked impatient.

"Keep going, Morphine." He said, raising his eyebrows.

It's amazing how much you can love someone who is such an ass to you.

"You are a cheeky bastard." I said, plopping down in my chair.

John moved his face to my ear and whispered, "It's not a crime to think you have a nice ass."

"But I'm pretty sure that touching it is a little thing called sexual harassment." I whispered back.

"Speaking of touching, I saw you and Bobby going at it earlier." John teased angrily.

"He kissed me, not that it's any of your business." I could feel my cheeks burning with embarrassment.

"What, you don't have a thing for Iceman? Or would you rather be with someone a little," he paused, flicking his lighter open and waving a flame in front of my face, "hotter?"

I snorted at his pun, and he leaned back in his chair. "Why, you offering?" I asked sarcastically.

"If I say yes, will you be on top?"

I tried to look away, but I couldn't. He touched my arm and sent a wave of heat over it. "Why do you have to make this so hard for me?" I asked, and scooted my chair over so he couldn't reach me.

He turned back to the front of the class with a satisfied look on his face.

"Today we will be doing a partner assignment, and it will prove how observant you are." Logan said, getting up and sitting on his desk. "Your partner will be the person sitting next to you. You will go to one of the easels, one of you on each side, so you can't see each other. You will use a charcoal pencil to sketch a headshot of your partner, and they will do the same for you."

I looked over at John. He was smirking at me.

"You are not allowed to look at your partner while you're drawing them, you have to draw from memory. Everyone get to your easel and get started." Logan finished,

Across the class one of the guys who hung out with Hydro and Hellion raised his hand.

"What?" Asked Logan.

"Are you sure it's a good idea to make the traitors partners? They shouldn't be together, since they don't even deserve to be back here. For all you know, they could still be working for Magneto, and only be here to carry through with some scheme to destroy the institute." He started laughing at his own joke, hoping other people would join him.

No one laughed, and Logan's face twisted into an angry sneer. "As long as they take you out first when they carry through with their evil plot, it's okay with me. Get out of my class, Trip."

He got up from his seat and exited the classroom, slamming the door behind him.

The class was silent as everyone moved to their easels and began drawing.

I knew exactly was John looked like. I was able to capture every detail of his face.

The four freckles on his face; one on his left cheek, one under his right eye, one under the left side of his lip, one on the right side of his chin.

The complexity of the colors in his eyes. How they faded from dark around the edges, to light in the middle.

The fullness of his pouty lips.

The small section of hair that always fell down in his eyes.

The dimples in his cheeks when he smiled.

"Time's almost up." Logan called.

I had lost track of time, and I was mindlessly shading in his hair and sideburns.

I finished quickly, signed my name at the bottom, and put my pencil down.

A few minutes later, Logan instructed everyone to take their drawing back to their seat, so he could decided whose was best.

I had mine face down on my desk, and John looked over at me and stared until I looked back at him.

"Do I not get to see it? It can't be that bad." He asked.

I looked over at his picture of me. It was perfect. My long hair was outlined, but not shaded in, because it's such a pale shade of blonde, my eyes weren't colored in, but from the way he drew and shaded them you could tell that they were supposed to be ice blue, my eyebrows were even and arched, my nose was small, with the bump in the middle I got from breaking it in a session in the danger room, and my lips were the perfect shape and size, with the corners turned up into a kind of smirk. He even drew the necklace I always wore. A silver chain with a jeweled star dangling from it.

"I... I didn't even know you could draw..." I said, stunned.

He grinned slyly at my speechlessness. "Do I get to see yours now?"

I nodded and turned it over.

He stared at it for a moment and looked back at me. For a moment I saw that look in his eyes... the one he used to have all the time when he looked at me...

I could feel the barriers I built up to keep John from hurting me again crash to the ground, as I lost myself in his captivating hazel eyes.

"Ellie," he said as what appeared to be a reflex, and I felt a pang of intense happiness. My heart skipped a beat.

"John, I-" I didn't know what I was going to say, but whatever was going to come out was overtaken by a painful memory that entered my mind.

-Flashback-

I descended the stairs into the entry room of Magneto's mansion and saw John sitting on a couch reading. I sat next to him and he set the book, Fahrenheit 451, down on the arm of the couch.

"What?" He asked.

"John, why don't you love me anymore?" I asked, tears sliding down my cheeks.

"Look, Morphine, first of all, it's Pyro. And secondly, I don't have time for that nonsense right now. Magneto has given me a lot of important duties."

My heart sunk to my knees. I felt like I'd been slapped. Morphine? He had never called me Morphine before. Always Ellie. I felt hurt, disrespected, betrayed.

"But you have time to read a book about firefighters whose job is to set fires to burn books?" I started crying harder.

"Morphine," I heard Juggernaut's deep accented voice call from the top of the stairs.

"Yes?" I wiped away my tears and looked at him.

"It's time for training."

I looked back at John and for a second, looking for some emotion in his eyes, but he picked up his book and continued reading.

"I wish you could understand what you're doing to me." I said as I went back upstairs.

"Alright, let's see your pictures." Logan's voice interrupted my reminiscing.

He looked at them both for a minute and smiled. "These are great, but you made one major error in yours, Morphine."

"What?" I asked nervously.

"Pyro doesn't ever smile." He replied.

I laughed and thanked him as he moved on to look at the next pictures.

"John, I know this is random, but what's the name of the main character in Fahrenheit 451?"

"What?" He asked.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

Click. Snap.

"Do you not know?"

"I've never heard of Fahrenheit 451." He said, in an annoyed voice.

I turned back around and gasped. Reality hit me over the face like a bag of bricks.

"Mystique," I whispered to myself.

"What?" John asked.

Mystique had fucked her over.

"That bitch." I cursed her.

"What the fuck are you talking about?" John asked, louder.

"The best pictures in here are Pyro and Morphine's, so everyone else, you get an 80 for your daily grade, Pyro and Morphine, you both get a 100." Logan said as the bell rang for second period.

"John, wait!" I called as he picked up his picture and started to walk off. "Will you meet me somewhere to talk tonight?" I asked.

"Uh... yeah, I guess."

"In the garden? After dinner?" I picked up my drawing and zipped my backpack.

"Yeah," John held up his picture, "do you want this?"

I took it, thanked him, and held mine out, "You can have mine."

He took it and jogged off down the hall.

I smiled to myself and ran downstairs to my room to put the picture on my dresser, pulled my hair into a ponytail, and changed into my X-Men uniform.

I took the elevator to the underground floor for my defense class with Storm. I went to the Danger Room, and sat with my team; Kitty, with Lockheed at her feet, Leech, Colossus, Jubilee, and Siryn. On the other side of the room was the team we fought against every class; John, Bobby, Sway, Spike, Hellion, and Rouge.

Storm turned on the PA system from inside the observation room. "We're doing the mountain battlefield today. Your objective is to knock off all the members of the opposite team. You know the rules, no fatal blows and no shots to the face, these people aren't the real enemy; they are your classmates."

She hit the start button and the room turned into a 20 by 20 foot rocky area with sloping sides and a lake at the bottom. Both teams readied themselves. The alarm sounded and everyone started running for someone on the opposite team.

Hellion ran right into me, knocking me on the ground, into a sharp rock. I turned over and raised my hand, paralyzing him from the waist down. He stumbled to the ground, inches away from the edge of the cliff. He levitated a loose rock and made it zoom right for my head. Kitty dove for me and grabbed me, making the rock phase through us both.

"Thanks," I called and we both got off the floor.

Hellion went after Kitty and John came running towards me. I saw a large flame coming toward me and I made a numbing force field around my body. The fire wrapped around it and burned out.

"You need any help, Morphine?" Colossus asked, knocking Bobby back when he was about to freeze him.

"No, I can handle him, Piotr." I did a round off into a back handspring and kicked John in the chest.

He fell down, but quickly got back up and picked me up. He was about to throw me, but I paralyzed him, causing him to drop me and fall on top of me.

"Dammit, Ellie." He said, trying to lift himself up, but finding he couldn't move his arms.

My heart palpitated, skipping a beat. He called me Ellie again.

"Sorry," I said, embarrassed that he was on top of me, so close to my face. I released the paralysis from his limbs and he got up and dusted himself off, going to fight Leech.

As Spike was running past, he shot a handful of spines at me, and they all stuck into my shoulder. I numbed my shoulder, and yanked them out.

"You son of a bitch!" I yelled, paralyzing him as he was running along the edge of the cliff. He fell and tumbled off the side.

I looked to my left; Siryn and Rouge were trying to wrestle the other off the side.

To my right, Hellion was sending rocks flying at Kitty, who was phasing through them all. She phased into the ground, and came up under him, knocking him to his feet. He grabbed her ankles, making her fall, but she phased into the ground and phased right back up a few feet away.

I ran toward Hellion, who was halfway through getting off the ground, grabbed both sides of his head, and kneed him in the face. He landed on his back and used his arms and back to push himself at me with both feet out. I grabbed his calves and flipped him over so he landed with a thud on his front side.

"I guess it's a good thing Magneto taught me how to fight." I said sardonically, paralyzing him, dragging him to the edge, and pushing him off.

I turned around in time to see John shoot a large flame at Leech, sending him toppling off the edge.

Siryn was missing, and Jubilee was shooting fireworks at Rouge and Sway, who both backed up so far that they fell off.

Bobby froze the ground where Jubilee was standing and she slipped and slid off the edge.

Bobby aimed his hand at me, and was about to shoot sharp ice crystals at me, but John bumped into him so he missed at hit Colossus. The crystals bounced off his armored chest and clinked onto the rocky ground.

"What the hell, Pyro?!" Bobby yelled angrily.

Bobby shot a stream of ice at me, coating the whole front side of my body so it was frozen solid. Kitty grabbed the back of my arm and phased me through it. The shell of ice fell to the ground and shattered.

I looked over and saw John aiming at Kitty, and I wrapped my arms around her and put a numbing force field around us both.

I backed away from Kitty after the fire had burnt out and I had the wind knocked out of me by a hard rush of ice. I fell down and Bobby shot a strong snowy wind at me, rolling me to the edge of the cliff. I grabbed it just before I fell and started pulling myself back up.

Kitty tackled John and started hitting him in the chest. She grabbed his arms and rolled over, pushing him right towards me. My hands slipped out from under me and my ribs impacted with the cliff's sharp edge. I screamed out in agony and numbed my torso to get rid of the throbbing pain.

John tumbled off the edge, and he hit me on his way down, causing me to fall down right after him.

We fell a few feet and the large river turned into pixels, then disappeared. We both hit the thick mat at the bottom at the same time. I started to roll over, but realized it was a bad idea if I had cracked my ribs.

"I think my ribs are broken." I moaned.

John turned around to see me laying there and looked up and saw Bobby falling.

He put one arm under my knees and the other under my arms and picked me up, getting me out of the way just before Bobby hit the mat.

The alarm sounded again and Colossus and Kitty jumped down onto the mat.

"That's right, four sessions in a row." Kitty said, bursting into dance.

"Yeah, yeah, quit bragging." Sway said, wiping sweat from her forehead.

Storm came into the Danger Room and congratulated our team for winning.

"Morphine, are you okay?"

"I'll be fine." I said, waving my hand to dismiss her concern.

"Morphine, Kitty, great teamwork, but you need to start helping your whole team, instead of just each other. Pyro, you got plenty of cheap shots in on Jimmy. Bobby, you should use your powers less and do some more hand to hand combat. Hellion, you are being way too violet. Need I remind you that they aren't the enemy, this is just practice."

Hellion scowled at her. "Well, not all of them are the enemy."

"Fuck you!" John and I yelled at the same. He almost dropped me, so I wrapped my arms around his neck as an impulse, but instantly regretted it as I felt my cheeks turn red.

"John Allerdyce, Eleanor Anholtz, watch your language!" Storm scolded. "And Hellion, I've had enough of your hatred for Pyro and Morphine. Detention for all three of you. Tomorrow morning after breakfast. Come on, Pyro, let's take Morphine to the hospital ward."