A/N: Sorry to all my readers I have been really ill with bronchitis. I hope to be writing more now though, enjoy.

Chapter Ten

Nicole walked around the small run down kitchen worried were he was. It was late way too late for what he had said he was going to do. She sat down defeated and scared.

Nicole Jennings was twenty-nine years old but looked around ten years older. She was thin with dark circles under her eyes. Her face was gaunt and framed by her greasy brown hair that hung limp and thin. The array of drugs she had taken had grated savagely on her appearance, trying to clean herself up wasn't going as planned.

She was in a dank kitchen, the linoleum coming up in the corners of the small one bedroom house. It had massive amounts of moss on the roof, and leaky bathroom and living room and a chain link fence around the front yard. He kept saying they would get out and move on up but it never seemed to happen.

Nicole looked up and pulled the old ratty fleece house coat around her boney shoulders as she heard the screen door open and slam as the front door creaked open.

"Hun?" Nicole stood up looking like a beaten puppy. Her boyfriend entered the kitchen and started to rifle through the empty fridge. He pulled out the last beer and started to drink it. He glanced at Nicole barely regarding her existence. Nicole was used to it. "Did the deal go well?"

"Well enough," He grunted. He got up and walked into the living room and slouched on to the coach. "What's for lunch?"

"I dunno, I will have to go out later, look we need to talk."

"No we don't." He said gruffly turning on the TV; he hit the thing when the picture wasn't good enough.

Nicole took a deep breath. She didn't like confronting him but she had too. "Yes we do." He looked at her surprised by the change in her tone.

"Yeah, about what?"

"I am pregnant." He laughed and went back to the TV. When he noticed Nicole wasn't backing down he stared at her.

"So? How is this my problem?" Nicole rolled her eyes.

"Because it is your baby,"

"I don't want a baby,"

"Too bad," He stood up and Nicole stumbled backwards.

"Look, I don't care what you do but I don't want a kid." Nicole surveyed him with disgust.

"I am not getting rid of it."

"Then get out!" Nicole's mouth hung open.

"What?"

"GET OUT!"

Shade sat up in bed panting. She was sweating but she doubted t was due to the dream. If she even knew who Nicole was it might make her feel a little more emotionally attached to the ex-junkie but as it was she didn't care.

The man in the dream intrigued her more than anything else she hadn't seen his face. Shade lay back down and looked beside her; Pyro was out cold. She smiled and got up. The room had to be about a million degree's.

Pulling on her sweat pants and big black hoody she quietly left her room. The rest of the house was cold, as it should be in the winter. The stone was cold under Shade's clammy feet.

It had been a week since she and Pyro had gone out to dance. After about fifteen minutes though Shade had realized there was no idea that Pyro was going to dance. So sitting at the bar they kept an eye out for the new mutants to the area.

It turned out they didn't have to because the mutants found them, or at least Jag had found Shade. He had asked her to dance and Pyro was ready to jump down the guy's throat but Shade recognized him.

After getting a booth Shade and Pyro were introduced by Jag to Surf and Willow, the five were instantly friends. And the three, Jag, Surf and Willow, didn't take a lot of convincing to come with Shade and Pyro to join Magneto. In fact that was who they had been looking for.

Surf was from California and a classic surfer dude. With his long blonde hair in his face and tall gangily build he was very attractive, he was nineteen. Willow was shorter than Shade and the sweetest person Shade had ever met, she was fifteen. Jag was a ladies man all the way and could talk himself out of anything, he was seventeen.

Shade stood in the big entrance hall of their hideout/mansion. Sighing she was happy in her new home. Shade turned and saw Magneto coming down the stairs towards her. He was giving her one of his all knowing smiles.

"I couldn't sleep," Shade stuttered. She wasn't sure why she felt she needed to explain her self to him. He was her boss of sorts but she did live here now.

"I don't think that is entirely true, I think it was what you saw in your sleep that upset you," Shade stared at him with her mouth open, he could read her like a book. "Or maybe it was just too hot." Shade blushed and smiled guiltily. Magneto laughed, "Ah, to be young again."

He turned and walked into his drawing room. Shade hesitated before following him. He was sitting behind a grand oak desk. He looked up at her and smiled.

"How…how did you know I was dreaming?" He smiled more.

"Guess,"

Shade smiled and nodded.