Three more days to go!!! Three more days 'till Christmas! Blimey…for the amount of time I spend, day and night – seriously, I was up till 2 in the morning finishing last chapter so that it could go up (sure it was late but no one cares…lol) – I've received TWO reviews?! It makes me so sad…even if you don't like it just tell me why and maybe I can make it more likeable? Constructive criticism is better than no criticism! Thank you

Key:

"…" Speech

'…' Thoughts

(…) Extra information

Songs are in bold

Written letters or notes are underlined

"Telepathic thoughts and the other line of the phone is in Italics and speech marks"

Chapter 3

VvV Festive Feuding VvV

22nd December, Xmansion, early morning; 6:00am (!!!)

"RIGHT!" bellowed a voice over the tired but passionate complaints coming from everybody in the Danger Room and immediately the New Mutants silenced, automatically forming a line that Logan began to march down. "Charles is away and in his place I'm the one to hand out punishments…"

An anonymous voice rang out from further down the line; "for what?"

"Yeh what did we do?"

"Innocent until proven guilty!" Jubilee's words silence the gang of mutants who all looked down the line at her causing the girl to hop from foot to foot in her embarrassment.

Amara nudged Jubilee, whose eyes shifted nervously around, blushing slightly, "we don't even have anything to be innocent of."

"Well now; I don' quite agree with that," snarled Logan, "although I guess it was my fault…I shouldn't have left 'icepick' here in charge," and the older mutant caused Bobby Drake to blush furiously as the rest of the New Mutants laughed quietly at this remark. "As for your question, Drake, 'for what?'" getting up close and personal in Bobby's face quietened the laughter from the rest of the New Mutants. Scraping his teeth together, Logan scowled at Bobby before pulling back to address the whole group. "Number 1: sleeping in the Rec. room without permission is forbidden! Number 2: staying up all night just because there are no mature adults to tell you to go to bed is not allowed! And number THREE!" every single mutant bowed their head, unable to catch Logan's eye, but as Wolverine's voice suddenly softened they all looked up; too ashamed to look away. It would have been much better to have been shouted at and all of the mutants would have rather Logan yelled at them for ten more minutes than use the disappointed tone of voice he was talking in now. "To potentially ruin two people's Christmas…that's just not acceptable."

Wishing they could all say something, several members of the New Mutants opened their mouths but nobody could make the situation any better. They had all witnessed Rogue getting up and leaving the Rec room; silent except from a sob that managed to escape her lips…and nobody could forget the desperate manner in which Betsy had called after her friend.

"Iceman," called Logan in a slightly less harsh tone this time, "you're first. Game's snowball-fight; level 3."

At this no one even cheered because the simulation wasn't even slightly fun; you had to stand on your own, dodging and attempting to take out machines that consistently fired snowballs at you whilst being humiliated as they constantly hit you from every direction. It was more a tactic to get the mutants used to subject humiliation and none of them liked it one bit. Besides, the bruises that came with it weren't exactly welcome.

VvVvVvV

Remy and Rogue's dorm; lunchtime

"Chere?" knocks resounded on the door but they were blatantly ignored; after the first few attempts to get in the room, Remy seemed to give up and the room fell into silence again, leaving Rogue alone so she could continue crying into her pillow. It was something the Goth had seen Kitty doing many a time but she never knew who satisfying it was to let it all out whilst muffling the sound. Nobody could hear her anyway; each of the older mutants was allocated an individual dorm unless they were married, in which case they shared it – these dorms down a different side of the mansion to permit a bit of privacy.

However the fact that she shared with Remy made no difference; Rogue had locked the man out at first and hadn't spoken to him the whole of yesterday night. Being experienced with Rogue in bad moods, the Cajun had thankfully left it.

But Remy Lebeau was not a patient man.

With a sparkle in his eye the man looked carefully around to make sure nobody was outside and with deft movement he swung himself out of the bathroom down the end of the hallway – the couples all had an ensuite but it was just in case. Planting his feet securely on the windowsill, Remy gripped onto the ledge of the window, crouched down whilst he scanned the visible garden for any human life. Unable to notice any with his unusually expertise eyesight, the boy straightened up and pulled himself with swift, controlled movements onto the roof above. Above the window the roof was in a sort of V shape and stuck out slightly, so the Cajun straddled this before picking out his favourable route – this was a common occurrence with Rogue. Sure he could just pick the lock but that would infuriate the woman and knowing Rogue, she'd have left the key in the lock especially

Problem was in winter the roof got slippery…and Remy hadn't had the need any winter before to break into this exact room so he had no idea what route was best for the icy conditions. Not to mention the snow as a light flake landed on the tip of his nose.

Looking up, the Cajun pouted in a huff whilst thinking carefully about his decisions and finally, after much time spent just sat there, he made a move and – with both feet planted securely on the bottom of the room where two bits stuck out slightly, he stood up tall. Surveying the roof with a frown, Remy placed both hands on the point of the roof he was straddling and edged forward – slowly but swiftly.

Gripping hold of the main roof, Remy swung up onto the steep slope and began to scale it before finally, in hardly a minute he had got to the flat bit in the middle of the roof; now it was simply locating the right window…

Remy and Rogue's dorm

Marylin Manson wasn't exactly soothing, and the decibels at which she played the music weren't really making her headache go away but it took the woman's mind off of things. Namely Betsy Braddock. Within minutes though, even over the loud music and her own heart wrenching sobs, Rogue ears pricked as she heard movement outside. How she heard the faint sounds of somebody dropping carefully onto her balcony, she had no idea but she did and within moments the woman realised the one door around this place she hadn't locked. Remy came waltzing in through the double doors, leaving them open behind him and fully pulling back the curtains to let daylight into the pitch-black room.

"What tha fuck ahre ya doin'!" exclaimed Rogue only to receive an unimpressed glance from Remy as the man began to remove his clothes there and then whilst heading into the bathroom.

"Dis Cajun needs a shower petit, et a change of clothes."

"But ah-" and Rogue left her sentence at that, open mouthed and wide eyed as Remy disappeared into the bathroom almost immediately. With a growl and a furious glare at the door, Rogue turned off her radio and instead chose to stand on her balcony, leaning over the railings without a care in the world for the freezing weather.

Soon Remy joined her, walking up behind the Goth to cuddle her from behind, pulling the shivering woman into this warm chest as Remy wrapped his trench coat around the two of them, kissing Rogue's snow covered cheek. Neither said a word, neither had to; the silence was enough in the grey, mid-afternoon lack of sun.

VvVvVvV

The Nursery; 3:00pm

Sat down in the middle of the playpen, Elizabeth Grey Braddock was lonely. The only children in the room were Iris, Tory and Maddie Maximoff; only there because their parents were visiting for the afternoon and they all had needed a long nap. Having hidden in the room all day long, she didn't bother leaving it even when Lexa came down and delivered her children to their temporary cribs; Pietro hadn't noticed Betsy sat in the corner but Lexa had and – able to sense the woman's emotions – just left her. Due to her state, Betsy was grateful; she was not one to enjoy company when she was in a state.

Without warning, very faint giggling – as though she was trying not to let anyone else know that she was laughing – came from Tory's cot and the toddler sat up, watching something.

Attempting her very best to ignore the girl was proving impossible for Betsy and finally she decided to find out what the source for this amusement was. Simple; a large spider was slowly making its way delicately around the edge of Tory's cot, creeping around it in such a manner that seemed to cause immense delight to the toddler; it looked like Tory was her mother's child. When her secret amusement was discovered though, Tory smiled at Betsy nonchalantly and lay back down in her cot, laughing quietly to herself. It was as though she knew that Betsy wasn't in too good a mood, although it only seemed to cheer up the stretch-mark, child fearing model and within seconds Elizabeth Braddock had meandered over to the older twin's cot, leaning over to smile down at the girl.

"Hi, hi!" exclaimed Tory and shortly after saying this, her sister Iris spoke up.

"Hi, hi! Play time!"

"You wanna play do you, luv?" cooed Betsy down to Iris how was in the crib next to Tory's and as they both stood up, gripping the edges of their cots, the two almost simultaneously started to bounce up and down. "I guess so…" muttered Betsy at the chanting of 'play.' Picking Iris up, Betsy set her down in the playpen and then returned to Tory to let the girl join. When the three of them were comfortable, Betsy looked down at the two young girls and frowned, "stupid question, but; what do you want to play?"

"Tag!"

"Nooooooooooooooooo!" walking carefully over to a box full of toys, Tory – the older and more dominant of the twins – seemed to fall back in a sitting position and then opened her box. "Sharks!"

Joined instantly by Iris, the girl shoved the mentioned animal into her sister's face but Iris just frowned, "no, no!" throwing a 'My Little Pony' out behind her in disgust, Iris picked up a different toy, exclaiming delightedly; "Buuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuzz Lightyear! To the rescue!"

"I wanna be Woody…no, no; I wanna be Rex! ROAR!" and with that a game of who-knew-what began, leaving Betsy to the last Maximoff child who began to wake slowly up at the noise surrounding her.

Bursting bubbles and squealing delightedly as Betsy's face appeared over her crib, Maddie raised both podgy hands expectantly and was lifted from her sleeping quarters into the snugly arms of Betsy, who took a tissue from nearby – one of many – and wiped the baby's mouth. "Afternoon. Good nap?" and with that Betsy bounced baby Maddie on her arm, blowing raspberries at her for the girl's delight. "What are you sisters doing? Hmmm?" using her baby voice, Betsy continued to croon at Maddie before sitting down with the girl nestled in her lap.

Letting out a little scream in delight as Betsy picked up the 'My Little Pony' from nearby, Maddie tried to take it but gave up after a while and instead chose to bat at the pony's hair, making gurgling giggling noises. "Pony!"

"No Maddie," plodding over, Tory picked up Bo Peep on the way with the porcelain doll's toy sheep and dangled those in front of Maddie's face making the girl scream in further excitement. Laying out a blanket for Maddie to comfortably lie on as her sister showed her the 'right toys to play with', Betsy turned to Iris who was sat in her dungarees with her legs stuck out in front of herself, rolling a ball between her feet.

"Watcha got there, Iris?"

"Ball…" the girl said dejectedly until Betsy offered to play. "Right," taking the chance at being in control, Iris stood up and showed Betsy where to sit, taking her hand to lead the woman there. "You sit here and I'll sit here!" doing as she said, Iris plonked herself on a cushion and proceeded to throw the ball more at Betsy than to her.

"Oi cheeky!" laughed the model before rolling the ball past Iris who couldn't quite reach it. Falling off of her cushion, much to Betsy's amusement, Iris went tearing after the ball and before long had picked it up, throwing it with everything she'd got back to Betsy.

After a while of playing this game Tory joined in, and Betsy decided to make it more of a triangle, sitting next to Maddie as the youngest girl kicked her legs about and lifted her head slightly to look around. When the ball came rolling past her the young girl opened her palms and managed to do several claps which not only delighted Betsy but the other girls too and they all sat around Maddie. Tory stood in Betsy's lap to clap at her at which the youngest girl screamed delightedly before copying the movement.

Outside the room

"She's never clapped for me before! Ooh; that's so cute!" crooned Lexa in a whisper and she turned to Warren standing beside her, "you're telling me that that girl doesn't want kids? She's fantastic with them; Tory hasn't hit Iris yet!"

"I dunno…you know what she says whenever I mention them; 'I've got an important runway in half a year'; 'I need to think about my figure…'"

Frowning was all Lexa could do but eventually she turned to Warren, "how's Rogue doing now? I heard what happened yesterday"

"Won't talk to her and so Remy's sticking up for the girl by ignoring me; he just wants to anyways cuz of Rogue and mine's past," at this Lexa giggled before turning back to watching Betsy. "Ah well; it's Christmas. They'll make it up," Lexa made an agreeing noise and at that the two of them left Betsy to the kids – it looked like Lexa had made the right choice about Maddie's godmother.

VvVvVvV

Rec. Room, late afternoon; 5:00pm

Closing her eyes, Amara snuggled into Roberto's shoulder as the boy wrapped an arm around her, watching as Bobby iced Tabby up to finally put the fairy on the Christmas tree. Decorations finished, it was now time for the presents…but it looked like they still had several days to wait. Without saying a word to anyone, Ray spontaneously turned on the television and frowned, "hey! I forgot the Christmas fair was opening this evening, aren't some of the other guys working on it?"

"Yup, they went out earlier."

"Do you think Logan will let us go?"

At that precise moment Logan himself walked into the room, frowning thoughtfully at Rahne's words, "I'd been thinking about that one myself this morning…if it were up to me, it would definitely have been a no."

"But it was up to me, upon Charles request and I decided I think you've all learnt your lesson," her eyes roamed to a colourful bruise rising on Jamie's arm. "Logan was just coming in to offer you all a lift down; I suppose you'll all be going?"

A cheer resounded throughout the room at this and most of the mutants stood up; Amara, Jubilee and Rahne however stayed seated and just smiled, "we're babysitting tonight," Jubes stated. This was met with a few groans in remembrance and Ray kissed his girlfriend on the cheek.

"I'll win ya something; I promise."

"What? Some candyfloss?" giggled Tabitha, before raising both hands as she was given a look, "joking! Just joking! Well have fun here you guys; I expect my secret stash to be left well alone," and with that she winked; Logan having left the room at the amount of cheering. Linking arms with Danny as the group of New Mutants left the Rec. Room, Tabby smiled, "looks like it's just you and me, eh girl? We'll have a blast!"

"You betcha!" exclaimed Danny, racing the other girl towards the garage.

End of Chapter

Hey, hey! Hope you liked; not too eventful, mainly just sentimental values of Christmas. Fair next chapter though, so that should be fun! Please enjoy and review! .x.Thriller.x.