Make This Last

an original X-Men Movieverse fan fiction

written by: jennifer s. a.k.a. assassinelektra

Disclaimer:

I do not own the X-Men movies or comics, or their characters. This is a fan fiction story meant only for the enjoyment of myself and other X-Men fans.

Title: Make This Last

Genre: Action/Adventure, Romance, Angst

Setting: Right after The Boy Who Destroyed the World

Pairing: John/Kitty

Rating: R (for possible language)

Author's Note: Borrowed a few moments from Astonishing X-Men again. I just can't help it, because Whedon's a master at character development…

Thanks eldee on lj for the beta!

Also, just so you guys have a visual, I think of Ashley Hartman as Emma, since she was originally rumored to play her in X3 (A long time ago...).

"Please, slow down, girl
We're moving way too fast for their world
We've gotta make this last
Slow down girl
We're moving way too fast for their world
We've gotta make this last

I know it hurts to feel so all alone
I'm by myself, more then you could know"

Hawthorne Heights "Decembers"

"they think that your early ending
was all wrong
for the most part they're right
but look how they all got strong."

Filter "Hey Man, Nice Shot"

(I love that song…)

Chapter 4

He woke up to the sound of yelling and jumped out of bed, only realizing after he was standing that Kitty wasn't lying next to him, nor was she even in the room anymore. Instantly he figured something was wrong.

John threw his pants on quickly and ran out of the room, following the sounds of the shouting voices. He recognized one of them as Kitty, and the other sounded vaguely familiar but not enough so that he could put a face to it.

As he turned the corner to find Kitty yelling at none other than the infamous Emma Frost, he stopped and started to back away slowly.

"What are you doing here?" Emma asked, and he supposed she'd sensed his mind before his actual presence. Kitty turned to look at him too, wondering how he knew the White Queen, but he didn't know how to respond. "Say something." Emma insisted.

Kitty returned her glare to the blond woman and started yelling again. "I refuse to believe that the Professor let you into the school, let alone gave you a job!"

Emma looked back at the younger woman with indifference. "I'm the new English, Ethics, and History teacher, so get used to it."

"You teach ethics!" Kitty spat in disgust.

"Why is that so hard to believe?" Emma asked, folding her arms in front of her and raising an eyebrow. "A person can change."

"The first time I met you, you tried to kill the X-Men, not to mention confused the hell out of me and almost made me join your school!" Kitty snapped, and the way she was bunching her fists, John was afraid she'd strike out at the other woman.

He rushed over to her, pulling Kitty aside. "Look, she's not someone you want to mess with," he said, motioning back towards Emma.

"You know her?" Kitty asked.

He hesitated. "A little. She was…working with Magneto for a while."

"Ha!" Kitty looked back at Emma with a proud smile. "I told you! There's no way you could have changed because you were part of the Brotherhood!" The smile that crept across Emma's lips told Kitty she'd just made herself look incredibly stupid.

"And what about you?" Emma asked, raising an eyebrow. "Sleeping with someone who's a member of the Brotherhood."

"I'm not—" Kitty held up her hand, and he didn't finish his sentence as she walked back over to Emma, giving her the darkest of glares.

"You know about that?" She asked.

Emma's smile grew. "I have to get my thrills somehow."

Kitty wanted badly to punch the other woman, to just knock her fucking teeth out. She was concentrating so hard on that mental image that she forgot that Emma could see her thoughts. Emma glared up at her, hatred flashing in her eyes, and John once more pulled Kitty aside. Or tried to, because Kitty just phased through him and stayed where she was.

"You stay out of my fucking thoughts!" Kitty screamed into Emma's face, yelling so loud that the other woman actually took a step back. "If I ever find out you've taken something from me like that again, I swear I'll kill you." It was a threat that the three of them knew she would carry out too.

"What is going on?" They all turned to look at Logan, who had just walked into the room with a look that said he didn't appreciate being woken up by something like this. He glanced at Emma, took in the details of her more-than-revealing outfit, then glanced at Kitty, recognizing her look of pure hatred, and finally his eyes rested on John. He looked at the shirtless mutant for a moment, and then grinned slightly. "Bout time you came back." He gave John a wink that said he was also aware of their activities from the night before.

"Oh my gosh!" Kitty exclaimed in irritation. "Does everyone know we slept together!" She glared at John like it was his fault.

"They do now," Remy grumbled, walking into the room with the Professor and Warren behind him.

"Oh…" Kitty glanced nervously between Remy and John, as if expecting an inevitable fight to break out. It didn't.

"Kitty," she turned to look at the Professor as he spoke to her, "Miss Frost is going to be a part of the teaching staff here."

"But—"

"And I expect you to be able to put aside your differences and work together for the students," he continued, ignoring her argument. Kitty sighed and glared at Emma.

"No way," she said without hesitation. "No way in hell."

Warren smiled at this, and it was only after the Professor gave him a glance that he forced that smile away. John saw that Remy was looking suspiciously at Emma, as if he didn't quite trust her. Knowing what he knew about the woman, John sure as hell couldn't argue that.

XXXXXXXX

All night she had kept feeding Rogue with her magical strength, had continued to heal wounds that had been fatal and should have stayed that way. It had nearly killed Illyana, and now, the next morning, she could barely move.

Shaw walked over to her, smiling proudly. "See, this is why I kept you around." Then he backhanded the girl, making Rogue—who was still flighty the way a spooked horse is—flinch. Illyana didn't even try to wipe the blood away from her lips, she just turned her head and glared at him.

When he went to smack her again, something amazing happened: she simply disappeared. It was like the cheesy special affects of an old movie where they stopped filming and removed the actor to start up again. It was a disappearing act that left everyone in the tiny room—Shaw, Magneto, and Rogue shocked and confused.

"What just…"

"I'm not supposed to be here," Rogue announced, looking down at herself. She still had no memory of her death, or what had led up to it. She had memory of only one thing: The X-Men. And she knew that she had to get to them, because they would know what to do.

"Of course you're supposed to be here." Magneto insisted, using a fatherly tone.

Rogue looked at Magneto, and his face brought back the image of only one thing: pain. He wasn't anyone she wanted to be around, that much was clear. So, she stood up and started walking towards the door.

"You can't leave," Magneto told her, ignoring the worried glance that Shaw gave him for not physically stopping her. "You have nowhere to go."

"Tha' ain't true." Rogue said, glancing over her shoulder. "And ya know it."

"You won't want to find them," he assured her. "You see, Rogue, you came back…different." Magneto smiled when her worried eyes fell upon him in question.

"Get back on the table," Shaw told her firmly, clearly not in the mood to play Magneto's mind games.

"No," she said, facing him. Rogue had never met the man, she was sure of that, but already she hated him.

"Sit back down!" he shouted. He appeared frustrated with Illyana's 'disappearance,' and did not seem the type of man one should be testing when angry.

"No!" she yelled back. It hurt to yell; vocal chords that hadn't been used for who knew how long were still fighting against working for her at all. But she got her point across, and it just made him angry. Rogue didn't care.

XXXXXXXX

Magneto watched as Rogue appeared more restless and unsettled by her captivity, and as Shaw grew angrier with her increasing insubordination to his demands.

Magneto watched as Sebastian Shaw, his temper to be rivaled by no other force, reached out and grabbed Rogue by the arms, meaning to keep her there. He completely ignored Magneto's warning before he did so. He noticed that Shaw was growing weak—a sign of Rogue's mutation that he himself was quite familiar with. By the look of surprise and shock on Shaw's face, it was probably the first time that had ever happened. Shaw fell to his knees, gasping, and Rogue looked down at him then back up at herself and finally at Magneto.

Eric was not an idiot. He knew now that Rogue possessed Shaw's ability to absorb energy and revert it to strength, so he was not going to stop her. She stared at him for a moment, then turned and kicked the door.

It shattered. The metal didn't just bend; it shattered into a thousand pieces. And Magneto realized then that Shaw must have been saving his energy up just for such an occasion as this, only he had thought things would turn out quite differently.

"You're going to hurt them," Magneto warned, careful not to tell her exactly who 'them' was. She already knew, and there was no need to say the name.

Rogue ignored his warning and started walking away, her movements jerky and almost robotic as it was the first time in nearly a year that her legs had been used.

XXXXXXXX

"I can't do this," Kitty told him. He was following her as she stormed away from Emma and the others, and John could barely keep up with her she was walking so fast. "I just can't," she said, finally stopping in front of a door long enough to open it.

They stepped into what looked like a large, empty globe, and John looked at her curiously, wondering where they were. Then the world around them shifted as panels flew from the walls and a landscape was created.

In all appearances, they now stood just outside of the school, with Emma Frost walking towards them. Kitty walked over to her and punched the woman again.

"Hey, what are you…" she glared at John and he paused. "Why did you hit her?"

"I didn't," Kitty told him sharply. "Haven't you ever been—" She punched Emma again, "in the—" another punched and her jaw was broken, "Danger Room?" Kitty asked, kicking Emma so hard she landed against the ground with a loud 'thud' and appeared to be out cold.

"Uh…no," he answered, looking around nervously. A place called the 'Danger Room' didn't sound like much fun.

She sighed and walked over to him as the images around them faded and they were standing in the large globe of a room again. "It's a training program the Professor designed. I helped him with some of the programming, but it was mostly him," she explained. "It allows us to test our powers without actually doing any damage."

Then Kitty shifted back to what she'd been saying before. "John, I just can't watch her be a teacher here. I can only imagine the crap she's going to teach, and I'm confused as hell as to why the Professor—who can read her mind—hired her at all!"

He reached out and pulled her into a hug. "I'm sure he knows what he's doing." What a fucking lie that was. John didn't trust Xavier, and he probably never would, but he wanted to calm Kitty down.

She sighed again. "I know. I just don't want her around." Kitty lifted her head and looked at him. "I'm so glad you're back."

He kissed her forehead and decided to lie again. "Me too."

XXXXXXXX

Rogue stared at the mansion, and even though she knew this was where she would find the X-Men, she was hesitant to walk through the front doors. This wasn't their home, after all. Their home had been destroyed, and the Avengers were merely being hospitable.

She was shaking, still cold because all she had to wear were the tattered remains of the clothes she'd been wearing before she'd…woken up? She couldn't remember. But the clothes were covered in dried blood.

She jumped at the sound of a woman's voice. "Hi, can I help you with something?" the blond woman asked, looking skeptical and worried all at once at the presence of such a strange sight.

"Who are you?" Rogue asked.

"My name is Carol Danvers," the woman replied, looking a bit surprised that she didn't already know who she was. "And you are?"