Pardon Me

Chapter Four: Blob No Baby-Sit.

"How much of this place is metal?" Audrey asked, looking over the large canning equipment as they walked past it.

"About ninety percent of it." John replied, somewhat bitter. "Keep it down,"

"Sure. Fine. Whatever." She sang. She was indifferent to his grouchy mood and that bugged him a little.

John flicked his lighter and furrowed his eyebrows. He watched Audrey from the corner of his eye, he was suspicious now that she might do something stupid like try and run away.

"God, how far away is the bathroom?" She demanded in a stained whisper.

"It's just up there." John told her, pointing to a door just ahead of them in the hallway.

"Excuse me." She chirped and ran down the hallway as fast as she could.

John's chest swelled, he took off after her.

It was over in a second, he had her by the arm.

Audrey squealed as she was forced against the wall.

There noses were barely a centimeter apart.

John's expression was dark, angry.

Audrey seemed unfazed by this proximity, by his intensity.

"I have to tinkle!!" She howled, twisting madly in his grip. "I was running to the bathroom."

"Oh." He released her.

"Gotta go, gotta go, gotta go right now." Audrey chanted while sharply turning into the bathroom John had pointed out for her.

He leaned against the wall just beside the door and waited. Twirling his lighter between his fingers.

When Audrey emerged she was smiling pleasantly at him for a moment.

Then her smile faded into a pout.

"I have to go back to the cage, don't I?" She asked, quite serious.

John nodded.

"Fine. But I don't have to like it." She stated, crossing her arms.

"No, you don't."

"Good, then… " She held out her hand to him. "Please escort me back to my cell Sir."

John sighed and took her hand in his, only to receive a sharp zap of static electricity.

"Ouch." Audrey whined, pulling her hand to her chest and shielding it from him.

He could tell she was trying to not smile.

He smirked at her and after a second she held her hand out to him again.

"Don't zap me this time."

"Yea, because I meant to do it the first time." He said under his breath, taking her hand. He led back past the canning machines..

His hand was warm and Audrey found herself enjoying the fact he was touching her. Any other person might debate having emotions for someone who helped kidnap you, and if it was wise or not, but Audrey didn't often debate how she felt. If she felt it, it was good enough for her, and with John she felt it.

John on the other hand was completely bewildered by how she was acting. He had kidnapped her yet she was treating him like a lifelong friend.

He looked over her shoulder at her. She grinned.

Either she was really weird, or she was into him.

His ego let her believe she was into him.

"Pepperoni." She whispered to him.

"What?" He asked, stoppng.

"Sausage." Audrey told him, smiling. "I'm hungry."

He didn't answer. He started walking again.

She repeated. "I'm hungry, are you hungry?"

He still didn't answer.

"Really, that's so funny you're hungry because I am hungry."

"You're not going to shut up until I get you some food, are you?" John asked.

"Ah, barely known me that long and your reading me like a book." Audrey said appreciatively.

When Amelia could not break free of her dark thoughts, this is where she came. She stood in the middle of the old tennis quart, the one far from the schools grounds, the one far from the schools unsuspecting students

Light played with the shadows cast on the large muted green court. Tree's rustled in the wind. This place was forgotten, this place was hers.

A tennis ball launcher stared at her from thirty feet away. The small timer attached to the side of it ticked down and dinged.

A ball launched. It soared through the air towards her.

Amelia blinked, still focusing on the ground beneath her feet.

The bright green tennis ball burst into a fine black mist.

Amelia's mouth twitched.

This was boring to her now, two months ago it had been impossible, now it was just easiest, most dull thing to do.

Still, it was all she had and she clung to it.

Xavier had given her this old court shortly after she'd arrived, he had given her the machine, and he had given her all the balls she could use to practice on. Though at the time she had fought him tooth and nail against it at first, she had grown to love it over the past months. It had become her sanctuary.

Still, even this place couldn't ease her. Her mood continued to sour with each minute that passed.

Her little sister was in danger, and she could do nothing about it. No, she had agreed to do nothing about it.

Amelia's jaw tightened, she glared hatefully at the ground.

The launcher dinged, another ball was released.

Amelia did not flinch or pay attention to the flying projectile. She didn't have to see it to know where it was, she could feel it.

It imploded into nothingness, into dust. She couldn't feel it anymore. That was the best part though, feeling that it was gone.

With every tennis ball she obliterated, her stomach sank further.

It was like drugs. Your whole life people tell you to not do drugs, to just say no, that they were bad and destructive. So when you finally grow up a little, when you decide to be fearless and take a hit off of that joint the buzz is ruined by the guilt.

When she did this, when she reduced things to ash it felt great, it felt amazing, it was almost like what she was designed to do.

Amelia smiled bitterly.

Then there was the guilt, there was that dirty feeling, that haunting weight in her stomach was what made this so hard for her.

It was in her DNA, t was forged into her every molecule. This was what she was wired to do.

Guilt gave way to anger, anger would cause her to lose control. Her loss of control could be nothing or it could be cataclysmic.

Her mutation was like a loaded gun.

Amelia gritted her teeth. She walked over to the tennis ball launcher and turned up the firing speed.

She returned to her place across the court.

She closed her eyes and listened to the timer.

Tick. Tick. Tick. Tick.

Three tennis balls came out, rapid fire.

Swoosh. Swoosh. Swoosh.

Her eyes opened, black engulfed grey.

Three tennis balls burst into ash.

"You're really bad at this whole kidnapping thing." Audrey said, smirking.

"I'll just take this back then." He replied.

"No!" She reached through the bars and grasped John's hand just as he was beginning to slide the pizza box out of her reach. "I meant it in a nice way." She said looking up at him and smiling. "The very best way!"

John tensed under her light touch, feeling a warmth course its way through his body.

"Promise you will not take the pizza away." She commanded, still holding onto his hand.

He nodded.

"Promise."

"Do I really have to?" He asked, dragging his gaze from her hand, up her arm, over her neck and too her face.

"If you ever want your hand back you do." She told him with a sly smile.

He smirked, but remained silent. All the while he was making no attempt to move his hand from hers.

Her face fell a little.

"I'm thinking about it." He said.

"Think faster." She told him, voice filled with false urgency. "The pizza is getting cold."

"Fine, I promise." He agreed drudgingly.

She let go of his hand and put her other arm through the bars as well, opening the pizza box and beaming at the carb loaded glory before her

John sat back and watched her, knowing now for the first time exactly why he liked her. She was different, not just different compared to other girls, but different compared to people in general. She didn't seem to judge people at first glance. There weren't any awkward silences when she was around… in fact she hardly ever shut up.

Why was he staying with her tonight? He was trying to figure it out, Magneto hadn't told him to stay and watch her, or feed her.. Or touch her…

John pulled out his lighter, feeling that warmth in his body he had felt when she grabbed his hand.

This girl might just end up getting him into trouble…

"I was seven I think, and Amelia was fifteen. There was this movie we both were dying to see… I actually can't remember what movie it was now, weird.. " She thought a moment and then shrugged it off. Taking a bite of pizza and continuing. "Anyways, Amelia and I wanted to see this movie so bad, but she only had enough money for one ticket. So I got her to buy the ticket and give it to me, and so she could sneak in without getting noticed. I distracted the usher by barking at him… don't laugh. I stood there and just, barked at him while Amelia tried to sneak through the theater doors right behind the guy, stop laughing.. " Audrey stopped and looked at John who had broke out into a fit of laughter.

"You barked at him? That's the best plan your sister could come up with to distract him?"

"Actually it was my idea." Audrey grinned and John started laughing harder. "Hey it worked!"

"Where did that story come from?" John asked, fighting the last rolls of his own laughter.

"Not a story." Audrey said, taking a large bite of pizza. "It really happened."

"No, I meant why did you just start talking about it." He clarified, reaching down and grabbing a slice of pizza for himself.

She shrugged. "I don't know. Your pretty when you laugh though."

John's eyebrows furrowed. "Did you just call me pretty?'

"Yea." She told him. "Not in like a weird girly guy pretty way. Your pretty in a guy-guy-manly." She cleared her throat. "Kind of way." Barely a second of silence passed between them before- "Awkward.." She sung, her eyes floating up to the ceiling.

"Kind of." He said nodding.

"Your turn." She said, ripping some of the crust off her pizza.

"My turn to what?"

"To tell me something about yourself, like- have you ever barked at someone?" She asked him.

"No." John replied.

"Hmm, you should try it. Its oddly liberating." Audrey said and began to peel the pepperoni off of her pizza and place it on a slice in the box. "Alright, what about- mewing?"

"Mewing?"

"Like a cat."

"Oh." John said, "No."

She finished pulling the pepperoni off and began to really devour her piece of pizza.

"Any animal noises at anyone ever?" She asked.

"No." He said, finishing his piece and dropping the curst in the box, he picked up the slice with extra pepperoni and seemed to think a minute. "Wait, do sheep noises count?"

"Kind of. It depends on if the people you made the sheep noise at were sheep's or not. Because if they were sheep's metaphorical or literal- it doesn't count. But if you 'baa'd' at someone who wasn't a sheep and was a complete stranger, it would count." She said, and if John had to guess she's actually formed up these rules in an organized manor years ago.

"That made no sense." He said.

"Hmm. Have you ever stuffed a snowball down the front of someone's pants?" She asked, lifting her eyebrows.

John smirked. "What kind of question is that?"

Her eyes widened . "You have!"

Amelia had shed her long black jacket. With it she had also shed her stoicism.

In a white tank top and long boot cut jeans she paced up and down the court like an animal. Her features were expressionless, her pale white skin shed pearls of sweat.

The summer afternoon had turned into a hot and humid dusk.

The air was dense, it pressed against her skin.

The timer's rapid ticking tickled her ears.

The balls launched, this time far more than three came screaming out.

Amelia's eyes now darted to each one before it disintegrated.

"You're getting pretty good at that, eh?" Logan's calm voice broke her concentration.

A tennis ball smacked her in the shoulder.

"Damn it!" She shouted, stumbling backward as the ball slapped her.

She glared at him through the chain link, he was leaning against a tall oak.

"You should probably keep your eye on the ball." He commented.

"Yes, thank you!" She was fired up now, she grabbed the ball which had struck her and threw it back at the machine violently. It hit the metal ball launcher with a loud resonating bang. "I'll try to remember that!"

She stared at him, her breath hitched.

He was wearing a burnt out wife beater, she could see the muscles in his shoulders twitch. He was carrying something with him, but she was not focusing on that at the moment.

No, she was focusing on the fact he'd entered her territory. This was her space and she did not want anyone else in it. He was a trespasser, he was an irritation.

"You've been out here for hours, y'know." He told her, walking towards the chain link of the court.

"So?" She snapped.

Logan's eyebrows knotted. He stared at her, his body tensed. A large bead of sweat rolled down her neck and couldn't take his eyes off of it for what seemed like the longest time, too long.

"I don't want you out here." She clarified, walking to meet him at the fence.

"Fine." He growled, dropping the bag of fresh tennis balls he'd been carrying beside the fence.

Amelia's stomach dropped.

Logan turned and started to walk away.

She wanted to say thank you, she wanted to apologize but she couldn't.

Amelia's fingers entwined in the chain link, through it she watched him disappear into the forest, on his way back to the school grounds. She rested her forehead against the fence. She closed her eyes and sighed.