Her head was pounding. Denim moved a hand toward her face and felt something tugging in her arm, pain shot through it and Michelangelo's voice hit her ears like a sweet song. "IV… don't keep… you'll… pull it…. just… still."

She squinted at first, glad to find the room was dark. She was in a hospital bed with Michelangelo to her left, Constance her right and Allison sitting criss-cross applesauce by her feet, clutching a pink turtle to her chest.

Alli grinned, her baby teeth flashing beneath her little lips. Denim was so glad to see her mini-me, with her curly red pigtails and big blue eyes. "Hi, Mommy!" she near screamed with joy and Denim flinched as the sound hit her ears. If only her mini-me understood volume control.

"Shh, Alli. Mommy has one of her headache's remember?" Constance stood up, frowned at Denim then glanced at Michelangelo and gave him a look. "I'll go tell the nurse she's awake."

Michelangelo nodded. Denim considered it progress that they could be in the same room together. Connie was still being nasty, and yet Mikey being the exemplary creature he was, rose above her sneer and said nothing at all. Denim had as much respect for him right then, as the woman who had lost her son because of her and yet still forgiven her for it. It took a lot of self control to sit in a room with someone who berated what you were and in Denim's eyes it did not go unnoticed.

Connie left and Alli held up her turtle. "Mikey gave me her, isn't she bootiful? I call her Bootiful," Alli made a face, "no, no, that's not it. I call her… I call her… Pink Turtle. No, no, that's not it… I call her Cozy Cat."

"But she's not a cat," Denim said, gingerly lifting her hand to her face.

"I'm good at naming stuff," Mikey offered. "You should call her Pink Cat, yeah, no, no that's not it," he made a face, "how about Candy Cat, or Cute Cat, orrr, Happy Cat?" He shook his head, and Denim felt her cheeks ache for the smile on her face.

"Still not a cat," she murmured.

Allison looked at Mikey with wide eyes, waiting to see what name he would come up with next.

"No, no that's not it either…" he looked at the pink turtle, to the little girl holding it, then took a deep breath and set his gaze on Denim. "We should call her Hope. Cos' Allie, I sure hope your mom will forgive me for running off the other night."

Denim stared at him, would've planted her mouth against his if her daughter wasn't sitting right there. Shit, she still just might.

"I see you've met," Denim whispered, her eyes never leaving his.

"Mhm, she's pretty great. We speak the same language. How ya feelin'?" he stared into her, eyes so deep she felt like she was falling through a spring sky and not worried about ever landing.

"Better. I guess they told you?" Her heart sputtered and jerked, how long would he look at her like that?

"They don't tell mutants anything. I just listened. So there's a plate in your melon there, huh?" he didn't look away and she couldn't stand it anymore, her feet were rubbing together beneath Alli and she was biting her lip desperate to keep from grabbing him by the face.

"Old injury. Should be fine. Not supposed to bump my head," she murmured, sitting more upright, feeling an ache in the back of her head.

His eyes drifted to her mouth and they moved closer.

"I'm sorry," he whispered.

Her stomach dipped, he was so close she could feel him now, her lips tingled. "Sorry for what?"

"Bailing." His breath reached her lips and she could almost taste him.

"Don't do it again." Her voice was a barely audible sound.

"No. You either." He touched her cheek.

"No." She leaned into his palm, closed her eyes and opened them again.

"You want me to kiss you or what?" he asked then pressed his lips to hers, talking but not kissing her. She loved how she could feel him smiling.

"Yes. Please do," she begged then swept her mouth over his.

"Gross you're kissing!" Allison protested.

Mikey shifted as if he'd pull away but Denim grabbed the sides of his face, kissing him again before letting him go. With every passing moment she spent with him, letting him go again was getting harder to do.

XOXOXOX

It was another day before she was released from the hospital. Michelangelo had excused himself to return to work, but Denim knew his schedule and suspected he was just yielding to Connie. And Connie for once said nothing about him, instead asked questions about whether or not Denim felt well enough to look after Alli.

What bothered Denim was that it took more convincing than it had with other hospital stays. There hadn't been that many, usually following a bump on the head or a migraine but she'd never had to keep assuring her like this before. Denim noted the odd behavior, knew it was probably more about her seeing Mikey than anything and filed it away.

"Mommy," Alli said, while bouncing on the couch, "Are you and Mikey getting married?"

Denim was picking up toys, contemplating her mother in laws behavior, her mind slipping into how to get Connie to accept Mikey. Her daughters question jolted her back to reality.

"What?" Her head whipped up and around to look at Allison and she tried to school her face into a less shocked expression. Alli was only two after all. She wanted to marry her daycare teacher because he gave her fruit snacks. "Not anytime soon, and stop bouncing on my couch. You should come help me pick up these toys."

"Why?" Alli asked leaping from one end of the couch to the other.

"Well because you might hurt my couch," Denim grumbled tossing an armful of blocks into a box. "Do you have seven hundred dollars for a new couch?"

"No. I mean why aren't you getting married? I like Mikey," Allie leapt from the couch to the coffee table then did it again and Denim stood up, turned and caught her midflight.

"We just started seeing each other, Honey. Things may or may not work out, but something tells me no matter what happens he'll always be our friend." Denim put Alli on the floor and the toddler climbed back on the couch, resuming her bouncing.

"Alli, please," Denim groaned.

"I hope you marry him. I want a Daddy and he brought me Pink Cupcake Turtle Kitty and we played games while you were sleeping in the hopsital."

"You mean hospital. Alli, you know that's not a cat right?" Denim pointed to the pink stuffed turtle.

"Yeah, but so what?" Alli grabbed her turtle then bounced while throwing it in the air.

Denim sighed as she finished up with the blocks and started on little plastic horses. "Please stop bounci-" a fluffy pink turtle hit her in the face and Alli giggled.

Denim picked the turtle up from the floor and glared at her. "Young lady, get off my couch. And let's go, bath tub right now. Mommy is going out."

"With, Mikey?" Alli asked.

Denim couldn't tell Alli everything because she'd told Connie she was going back into work another shift. It was bad enough she was lying to her Mom, she didn't need to lie to her daughter too, and she didn't need her daughter outing her on accident. She could take Alli with them, Mikey would probably love that, but it wasn't him she was worried about. No. She'd let the world get used to her and Mikey a while longer before adding her daughter to the public mix. Denim opted to ignore Allison's question, instead reaching inside the linen closet for some bath towels…

XOXOXOX

"You're sure, Murakami's is okay? It's like our third time here." Mikey held the door open for her, asking not for the first time if their dinner choice was acceptable.

Denim pointed to a table in the far corner, a mischievous smile toying at the corners of her lips. "We'll just have to order something besides pizza gyoza. That will give us variety."

She glanced at Michelangelo whose mouth hung open then snapped shut then opened again, his eyes wide. "You can't possibly mean that."

Denim kept a straight face, though it wasn't easy. "No, no, I'm serious. We have to order something else tonight. Maybe sushi or noodles or-"

"Don't do this to me, Blue Jeans, please," he whined, sinking into his chair and staring at the menu. "I must have gyoza, I must, must, must-"

Denim laughed. "Don't worry. I'm teasing. I called ahead and told Mr. Murakami we were coming."

Mr. Murakami smiled as he approached them with a heaping plate of gyoza. "Hello to my favorite customers. Enjoy."

The two greeted him then he returned to his hibachi.

"So," Denim said picking up a gyoza with her fingers while Mikey snatched two up in his chopsticks. "How was your day?"

She watched him chew, his eyes closed, yet rolling back in his head when his eyelids cracked open. She never thought she'd smiled so much as to watch Michelangelo eat, and listen to him talk.

"I delivered pizza. I ate pizza. I ate a pizza I dropped… then I dropped another pizza so I could eat it-"

"Mikey that's gross!" Denim giggled. "You can't be serious."

He looked at her with a blank expression. "Of course I'm serious, Blue Jeans. One cannot waste good pizza."

Denim stared at him. "You are amazing, you know that?"

Mikey grinned. "I know, right, the best pizza eater in the world."

Denim shook her head. "No, Michelangelo it's just you, you're so passionate about everything, sincere, and honest, you're just totally refreshing."

"Aw, thanks, Blue Jeans." He popped two more gyoza in his mouth. "How was your day?"

How was your day? How long had it been since anyone asked her that? Had Kyle ever asked her that? She took a bite of a dumpling and thought about her day. "I worked this morning. That was boring. Well, except Keith, the security guard kept hanging around asking weird questions. But once that was over it went pretty smooth. Alli was really good for the most part. We had some trouble picking up our toys, but nothing out of the ordinary."

Mikey tried to fit four gyoza in his mouth, mumbling with it packed full. "Bwab bind bof buestions?"

Denim made a face. "Huh?"

Mikey chewed twice then swallowed. "What kind of questions?"

What had Keith been asking her? She thought of his creepy mustache, his beer belly, and onion breath. He'd been too close if she could smell his breath. There was something about what he was saying that made her feel uneasy. "I don't know. I'd only been half listening. He was on some anti-mutant rant and I can't listen to that crap so I tuned him out after a few minutes. I get so sick of hearing people." She frowned and Mikey rolled a dumpling toward her with his chopsticks.

It slid onto her plate and she looked at the sweet upturn of his mouth, wondered how anyone could have such hate for someone so damn kind. All because of how they looked. Those idiots were without. But she, she was in good company.

She tried to pick the dumpling up with her fingers but he blocked her with his chopsticks. How did he get so good with those things? He used them like fingers, blocking her each time she reached for a dumpling, the smile on his face growing wider by the second.

"Mikey, what are you doing?" she laughed after her third blocked attempt. "You put it on my plate, but you're not going to let me eat it?"

"You," he squinted his eyes and mocked a Japanese accent, "must use chopsticks, Blue Jean-san."

"You are a mess," she giggled.

He reached across the table and put the sticks in her hands, positioning them for her. "Remember this stick stays-"

"Still," she nodded then attempted to use them, but failed and after her third try he jabbed the dumpling with one stick and held it up for her.

"You need lots of practice," he grinned.

She leaned forward and took a bite, wiping sauce from her lip and telling him, "You finish it. I'm full."

"Thasss disssgustin'. See they're trying to steal our women nowwww too. See that, Joe? That there mutantsss tryin' tryin' ta screw a human. Come on Joe, I'm goin' over therr mmm' gonna putta stop ta this shit," a large, drunk man yelled from the bar area. He motioned to his friend and the two walked over to Michelangelo and Denim.

Denim's hand slid under the table, coming to rest on her hip. At some point she knew this might be an issue. She just hadn't expected it to happen so soon. Right then she was glad she'd come prepared.

The man leaned forward, pointing his beer bottle toward her. "Was' a pretty lil thing like you doin' with a nasty thing like that?" He motioned to Michelangelo without looking at him.

Shocked, Denim's mouth popped open then snapped shut. She straightened in her chair and glared at the man. She was about to tell him where he could go when Michelangelo spoke up.

"Dude, we're having dinner. We aren't bothering anyone and we don't want any trouble."

The drunk snorted. Then everything happened in fractions of seconds. He broke his beer bottle on the edge of their table sending glass and beer flying everywhere. Denim turned her head away, beer soaking her clothes and glass cutting her exposed skin.

Her heart slowed despite the adrenaline coursing through her. She wrapped her fingers around her nine millimeter then pulled it, aiming her weapon at the drunk's temple at the same time he pointed the jagged edge of the bottle at Mikey's throat. In her periphery Michelangelo's mouth fell open then closed just as quick, his gaze shifting from her to their attacker.

Denim gave the drunk's companion a warning glance then looked at their attacker again. "I haven't shot a man in two years. Do either of you want to be the one who breaks my dry spell?"

The drunk tried to be still but his hands were shaky. "Nah, nah, lady," he dropped the beer bottle then put his hands up. "What your doin' is a crime against humanity but I ain't willin' ta die over it. You go ahead and screw this thing."

Denim's hands held steady, her breaths well practiced smooth inhales and exhales. Her eyes shifted to the drunk's wingman then back. He took a step back, hands up. But the second she lowered her weapon the drunk took a swipe at Michelangelo.

Mikey blocked him, popping up in his chair at the same time driving his foot into the guy's chest, launching him across the room. The drunk's friend lunged at Denim. She ducked under him, got in close and drove her knee into his groin. As he crumbled forward she jumped up, smashing the butt of her weapon into the side of the man's face. He stumbled back before falling on his butt, while the first drunk was getting to his feet.

Michelangelo grabbed her hand and called to the restaurant owner, "Sorry Mr. Murakami, gotta go!" Then he glanced at Denim as he led her from the restaurant. "Lucy, you got some serious esplain'in to do!"