Back to the Brotherhood House

"Well here we are," Lance said as they drove up the driveway. "The old Brotherhood House."

"You think we should have taken the X-Van?" Kitty asked.

"Hey we're only borrowing it," Lance told her. "We need it to pack up our stuff. It's not like we're taking it for joyrides or anything!"

"Ah the old homestead," Todd hopped out after Lance parked the van. "So many memories."

"Yeah and half of them were crap," Pietro told him as he got out.

"So this is your old hangout huh?" Althea looked around. "For some reason I'm not surprised."

"You think this is bad, wait until you see the inside," Kitty told her.

"You weren't kidding," Althea remarked as they opened the door. "No wonder the door's not locked, who'd want to steal anything from this dump! There's mold everywhere…pizza boxes…trash…"

"I suppose it's in disrepair from not being used," Xi remarked as he crinkled his nose.

"Actually it looks pretty much the same when we left," Lance told her.

"I can't believe we once lived in this dump," Wanda shook her head.

"I can," Fred said.

"Hey but you gotta admit the old place is filled with all kinds of things," Todd said.

"Yeah like roaches, rats…" Kitty grimaced at the mess around her.

"No I mean memories, all the stuff we did when we lived here," Todd told her. "Hey look! See that dent in the wall? That's where Mystique banged her head against it once for a solid ten minutes straight! We timed it!"

"Do I want to know why?" Kitty asked Lance.

"Not really," Lance sighed. "Let's just say it had something to do with Toad, a frog and a giraffe."

"Gotcha," Kitty looked pale. "Wait…a giraffe?"

"Don't ask," Lance groaned. "It's a long story!"

"And this is where Freddy threw me against the wall," Todd pointed at an old outline of a body. "And this is where we once had a huge food fight. You can still see the ketchup stains on the ceiling. Oh and this is where Tabitha blew up the closet. Of course me and Pietro were in it at the time. Ah memories…"

"You want memories?" Pietro grimaced. "How about all those months when we were without heat, food and water? If we didn't steal we would have starved!"

"Let's just get our stuff and get out of this dump," Wanda went upstairs.

"Yeah I'd love to see what Todd's room looks like," Althea followed her.

"Uh…maybe that's not such a good idea Poopsie," Todd gulped as he went upstairs.

"What do you mean?" Althea asked as she opened a door marked Toad's Room. She looked inside. "OH MY GOD! WHAT THE FREAKING HELL IS THIS?"

"Okay maybe it's a little messy," Todd gulped.

"Toad cities that have been bombed by nuclear warheads are a little messy! This is a disaster zone!" Althea cringed.

"Well it could use a little cleaning up," Todd told her.

"It could use a lighted match!" Althea groaned.

The others were downstairs scavenging. "Junk, junk…oh that's a good one," Pietro was zipping through a collection of books, videos and CDs. "I'll take that one and that one and that one, but I don't want that one! And that one…"

"I can't believe our stuff was here all this time and we forgot all about it," Fred said. "Ooh! Look! My hula hoop!"

"What's a hula hoop?" Xi asked.

"Oh god Xi don't ask that question please!" Pietro groaned.

"I'll show you later," Fred told Xi.

Meanwhile Kitty had followed Lance upstairs to his room. She caught him retrieving something from underneath his bed. "What's that?" She asked.

"What's what?" Lance whirled around quickly, hiding something behind him.

"Whatever it is behind your back," Kitty told him.

"Nothing. Really."

"Let me see!" She reached out to grab it.

"No way!" Lance yelped. He tried to keep it away from her but she phased her hand through his body and grabbed at the object, pulling it out of his grasp.

"Ha!" She laughed. "What is this?" It was a small blue blanket.

"Give it back!" Lance snapped, grabbing it from her. "It's…it's my woobie…"

"Your what?" Kitty raised an eyebrow.

"I know it sounds stupid," Lance held the faded scrap of cloth. "But it's the only thing I have left from my mom and dad. Well at least the guy I considered to be my dad."

Kitty saw the look on Lance's face. "I'm sorry, I didn't know."

"Yeah well," Lance frowned. "It's not exactly something I brag about. It's just…Promise you won't tell anyone?" He sat down on the bed.

"I promise," She sat down on the bed next to him.

"It's just…a reminder that I did have parents and maybe…maybe they loved me," Lance said softly. "Sometimes…after a real bad dream, just holding it makes me feel better. I don't use it often but…"

"I'm sorry," Kitty brushed his bangs away from his eyes.

"I really didn't have anything growing up ya know," Lance spoke in a whisper. "Sometimes this was all that kept me going. I didn't have anyone who cared about me, much less love me before."

Kitty hugged him tightly. Lance held onto her. "I know you don't understand my friends," Lance told her. "But they really are like family to me. We've all been through so much…apart and together…Especially in the past couple of years. With all the craziness that's happened, even when we act like jerks towards each other…it's just…we just know where we're coming from. Okay?"

"I think so," Kitty sighed.

Lance pulled away. "Don't be sad for me Kitty," He held her face in his hand. "I'm happy now. We're all together and in a good home now. That's the way it should be." He leaned towards her and was about to kiss her.

"Hey I hate to break up the touching moment here," Pietro quipped as he stood in the doorway. "But we could really use a hand!"

Lance glared at him and then started to applaud sarcastically. "Very amusing," Pietro folded his arms. "But seriously, we could use some help. Toad wants to bring home a moose head for some reason."

"Oh no," Lance groaned. "Come on Kitty. We'd better get to work."

Somehow they managed to get Todd to not take the moose's head. Soon they had gathered a collection of things at the bottom of the stairs. "Wow Lance I didn't know you played guitar," Kitty blinked.

"You never asked," Lance grinned.

"Hey Kitty if you wanted to listen to Lance serenade you all ya have to do is watch this?" Todd held up a videotape.

"What is that?" Lance asked, dreading the answer.

"Just a little home movie we made!" Todd snickered.

"Oh yeah I forgot all about that!" Pietro grinned. "We gotta watch it! Is the TV

and VCR still here?"

"Yeah and it's still got juice in it," Fred grinned.

"Movie time!" Pietro shouted.

"Oh I have got to watch this," Althea sat on the couch next to Todd.

"What is it?" Xi asked.

"Lance making a complete fool of himself," Pietro told him.

"So what else is new?" Xi shrugged.

"Hey!" Lance snapped. He watched the video. "Oh man, I'd forgotten all about that night!"

"We didn't," Pietro snickered. On the screen was Lance serenading Kitty at the X-Mansion.

"Oh my god I remember that night," Kitty snickered. "I was soooo embarrassed!"

"This is funny!" Xi laughed.

"That's nothing, wait until you see what happens next yo!" Todd laughed. "Here comes Summers! And another night of discussion on the front lawn."

"It's not funny!" Lance snapped. "Rogue burned my butt when she borrowed Jubilee's powers!" Everyone howled with laughter as the scene came up. "It's not funny!"

"The hell it isn't!" Pietro chuckled.

"Oh really?" Lance looked through a box of tapes. "You wanna see funny? Well Mr. Smart Guy, how about this for laughs?" He put in another tape. Suddenly the image of Pietro in a multicolored bird costume came up. "Remember this?"

"Oh my god I'd forgotten all about that!" Pietro went white as everyone laughed.

"What was this?" Xi giggled.

"Whatever it is I love it!" Wanda howled. "I want a copy!"

"Pietro tried to hypnotize me but he ended hypnotizing himself!" Todd laughed.

"Yeah that sounds like one of my brother's plans all right," Wanda snickered.

"This is so humiliating," Pietro covered his face.

"As you can see we had a lot of fun with this! Of course this was right before Lance took off to X-Geek land!" Fred chuckled.

"What?" Althea asked.

"Yeah he tried to join the X-Men," Fred folded his arms and pointed at Kitty. "Three guesses why?"

"Well looking at the tape it's not that hard to see why he left," Kitty stuck her tongue out at him.

"You tried to be an X-Man?" Althea looked at Lance.

"Yeah well it didn't exactly go well," Lance groaned. "I didn't even last a week there!"

"Obviously!" Xi snickered.

"Hey I wasn't the only one who switched sides, remember?" Lance told them. He took out another tape. "Remember this?"

"Oh is that from that day?" Fred asked.

"Oh yeah…" Lance grinned. He put it in. "This was taken when Tabby was living with us. Let's just say we all got a little fed up with her one day."

"Is that her underwear all over the lawn?" Kitty snickered.

"Oh yeah," Fred chuckled. "And this is the part where we get her with silly string!"

"I have got to bring a copy of this back to the mansion!" Kitty laughed. "How many tapes do you have?"

"Quite a few," Lance pointed at a few boxes. "Let's just say some of them are quite entertaining."

Not long after they decided to finish packing. It didn't take them long to bring everything outside. "Man I never knew you guys had this much junk," Althea wiped the perspiration from her brow. "What's with all the garden gnomes?"

"That was one of Toad's little hobbies for a time," Lance snickered.

"Well I think it's time to go," Lance sighed. "Even the X-Men would have noticed we were gone by now."

"Bye house!" Todd sadly waved at it.

"I'm amazed nobody's bothered to condemn it," Wanda said.

"They don't have to," Lance huffed. "Sooner or later this dump will fall down on it's own!"

"Yeah but I am gonna miss this place in a strange sort of way," Fred scratched his head.

"This was our home," Pietro said. "As crappy as it was."

"You have a new home now," Xi told him. "A real one."

"A better one!" Fred pointed out.

"Is that everything?" Althea asked.

"I think so," Lance looked around. "Uh oh, looks like we got our stuff out just in time!" He pointed to the jeep coming up the driveway. "Busted."

"There they are," Shipwreck drove up in his jeep with Jean and Ororo. "I told you they'd probably be right here."

"So you did," Ororo sighed.

"You owe me a date," Shipwreck grinned.

"What were you guys doing?" Jean asked angrily.

"Chill out Jean they were just getting their stuff," Kitty said. "I went to help. That's all!"

"Well you should have told us where you were going!" Jean sniffed. "Especially with those guys!"

"Okay Jean you found us out," Pietro folded his arms. "We were going to take her to our secret laboratory and turn her into a Care Bear. Happy?"

"Jean they're not the Brotherhood anymore so relax okay?" Kitty snapped.

"Well you still should have told us where you were going," Ororo said.

"We did," Althea pointed. "We told my dad!"

"WHAT?" Ororo yelled.

"Heh, heh," Shipwreck grinned weakly.

"Why you…." Ororo growled.

Pietro noticed that Jean and Kitty were giving each other dirty looks. "Don't worry," Pietro whispered to her. "If Jean hassles you any more we've got a few good shots of her in our little collection."

"How much?" Kitty asked.

"You tricked me!" Ororo snapped. "I only said I'd go out with you if you could find the kids!"

"You didn't specify how I knew," Shipwreck told her. "A deal is a deal!"

"He has a point Storm," Lance said.

"But he tricked her!" Jean protested.

"Hey if my pop didn't trick people he'd never get any dates at all," Althea told her.

"All right! All right! I'll go on a date with you tonight," Ororo groaned. "Might as well get it over with as soon as possible!"

Next up, it's date night! But who's chaperoning who? Find out in the next chapter!