DISCLAIMER: I do not own anything here and you should know that by now.

(To Laceylou76 - As my Pyro would say, you're a peach and I'm really glad you're following this the way you are because you're an inspiration. Roguescholar, thank you for letting me know things are meeting with your approval. Anon goddess, thank you for your 'status report reviews' on how I'm doing, like Laceylou76 you are inspiring me to write and making the process so much more enjoyable. Damnedknight, thank you for taking the time to review, I'm glad you like things^^ Bloodypassion, thank you for your joy, it makes things so much more fun and I love that you're so enthusiastic! I hope noone's been forgotten, and I appreciate all your reviews so much I can barely express it. Thank you, all.)

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~Scarlet Letter ~

Anger Management.

Walking along the gravel of the driveway, John heard a slamming of the door that for some reason made him think instantly of angry women. Drawing nearer where Kitty Pryde was stood sobbing just beyond the porch, he thought 'Well, close enough'.

"'Ello there, little Sheila," he said as cheerily as he could in an attempt to avoid any sort of shrieking. This failed miserably. The diminutive Valley Girl jumped two feet into the air and made a noise like someone stepping on a hamster.

"Oh my God, Pyro, like, stay away from me," she said, a bit of attitude sneaking in between sobs, but then she hiccuped and the threat just fell off the whole performance.

"Alrigh' then, if that's what y' want. Jus' curious ta know why you're out here cryin' your eyes out. Thought Lance took better care of his Kittens," he said casually, making a wide berth around her and walking towards the door.

"What do you mean, Kittens, like, plural?" He shrugged, not turning back, and she stamped her foot and screeched,

"Pyro, don't you dare walk away from me!" He sighed dramatically and turned to face her, shaking his head.

"Easy now, Katherine, I was only teasin' ya. An' I thought you tol' me ta shift?" She sniffed.

"I've changed my mind. I can change my mind."

"I'm sure you can," he said reasonably, turning away again when she suddenly said,

"Lance is an asshole..."

"It's a bloke thing, don't let it get to ya."

"He told me – he – am I fatter than usual? Seriously!" He turned around and made a show out of looking her up and down.

"Would ya phase me heart outta me chest if I told ya you're as stick-like as ever?" he said sarcastically, and she smiled at him.

"No." He grinned back.

"Then that's the official line we're takin'. For fuck's sake, ya couldn' get any thinner if ya tried. Ya prob'ly jus' misunderstood each other." She crossed her arms and tossed her hair.

"He said I was fatter than usual and I hate him. It's over," she said sadly, and he rolled his eyes subtly and said,

"Well then how are ya gonna get that non-existent arse o' yours home, eh?" She bit her lip and shrugged.

"Didn't think that far?"

"No... He usually takes me home or I catch a lift with Rogue but she's not here tonight... Logan and Scott totally had a go at her earlier and she's locked herself in her bathroom and won't come out until they, like, apologise..."

"Seems fair," he mused, then made a gesture that spoke of long years of being put-upon and sorting other people's shit.

"Then we're stealin' his ride an' takin' ya home. Bloke's a nutter if he'll jus' let ya fend fer yerself. After all – there are people like me out at this time o' night. Lord knows what could happen to ya."

"Wanda says you're not so bad..."

"Well, Wanda's a peach, what can y' do? She doesn' know me very well - I jus' give her tea an' keep a low profile," he said in a voice that said he was under-exaggerating like all hell and Kitty giggled.

"You'd seriously take me back? You don't have, like, a life or anything?" He didn't answer, just started heading in the direction of Lance's jeep.

"Comin' or walkin'?"

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Upon entering the mansion the first person she met was Logan on his way to the kitchen and he sniffed the air before growling,

"You smell of Pyro, Half-Pint. What's that all about?" She just treated him to a disdainful look and said,

"Is Rogue still in the bathroom?" Logan nodded in understanding. The field was lost.

"Point taken." He went on his way and she continued up the stairs, veering off at the last moment to go the opposite way and ended up in front of Kurt's door.

"Kurt? Are you like, in here?" she called, phasing her head through the door, and he looked up from his math homework.

"Come in Kitty... I can't concentrate anyway..." Phasing all the way through and walking over to him, she sighed sympathetically.

"Rogue?" He nodded.

"Scott and Logan really went to town on her, said she was irresponsible and all kinds of things. Jean took care of Scott I think, but Rogue really cares about Logan's opinion and she told us that Gambit wasn't there to hurt anyone and he just came at a bad time when she was already crying. I believe her..." Kitty gave him a quick hug and said,

"It's like everything's falling apart, huh? Lance and me are over – I'll tell you later," she said at the raising of his eyebrows and the concern in his eyes. "Gambit's back and even though Rogue doesn't, like, hate him for what happened back then he's making things worse for her just by being here, and Pyro's moved into the Brotherhood house. Wanda says it's no big deal but I'm just not okay with it even though he did drive me home and he was a perfect gentleman. Said he'd be mean to Lance and not tell him why for me, so he can't be all bad."

"Yeah... What's up with you and Lance breaking up? You're like, the American couple, Uptown Girl and Hood Boy and all that..." Kitty sniffled and tears welled in her eyes and Kurt looked horrified for a moment, bracing himself for the worst when she burst into tears and sobbed,

"He told me I was fat!" Kurt was clearly not expecting this but gave her the hug anyway and Kitty perched on his lap like she always did when she was upset and borrowing Rogue's brother. She'd always wanted a brother like Kurt and secretly she'd been way jealous to find out that Rogue and Kurt were adoptive siblings – something they both took very seriously now that the full extent of their familial dysfunction was common knowledge.

"Awww... Kitty, don't cry... Want me to tell Logan he was mean to you? We could all go and beat him up – it might resolve some tension since he can't catch Gambit and no one's seen Sabretooth in a long time..." Kitty smiled through her tears and wrinkled her nose a little.

"No thanks... I'll be fine... But it's so over between us now and I just – it's so hard to accept..." Kurt patted her back and handed her tissues until she calmed down and then they both went foraging in the kitchen for break-up food. At least he could help one of his pretend-sisters.

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Rogue was not still in the bathroom. She had crept out after they'd left her room and instead barricaded herself in by pushing the desk in front of her door. Not that it would stop and angry Logan but it would cow Scott. He'd gotten fairly cowardly on the whole since his engagement to Jean, she scoffed internally. Probably trying to stay in her good books – not that it seemed worth it. Everyone – at least the girls – knew that Jean had taken one of those weird pledges to stay a virgin until her wedding night. She even wore a pledge ring whatever the hell that was all about. What, you're having a snog-fest and you're supposed to look at your ring and think no, mustn't go too far now, and then go and have a coffee break? Stupid... Like a sort of self-imposed chastity belt.

She felt tears come into her eyes again at the thought of Scott and Jean's engagement – how excited Jean seemed, how she was already planning the wedding with all the bells and whistles and whatnot. Kitty had even let slip that Jean had started looking at baby names because she and Scott wanted to start a family as soon as possible. It was like Jean's perfection was extending far beyond the natural reaches of her own self and her work. It now touched on Scott and their whole future together, like some sort of fascinating, frightening web of pre-manufactured bliss she was suspending over the whole damn thing, waiting for it to click into place so she could tie it off and enjoy it forever. It wasn't good enough that she was the best and the most beautiful, she was going to have everything, and then some.

Logan and Ororo were fine with Scott and Jean and everything they did, they even grudgingly accepted Kitty and Lance being together, mostly because it had just gone on forever and it wasn't going anywhere soon so they had to just get with it. They didn't mind Kurt and Amanda because that was mutantkind reaching out to the world and asking acceptance – even though Rogue knew Logan would rather see Kurt accepted despite everything and not have to beg for it. He might be furry with a tail, but he was more human than a lot of the people she'd gone to school with over the years. And he was her brother. She wondered where he stood in all this. Did he side with Scott and think it was wrong for her to want to talk to Remy? Did he believe her when she said there was nothing sinister in Remy's mind concerning her whatsoever? Did he feel the way Logan did, that it was too soon to trust someone whose entire life had been a tapestry of lies and deceit and whose character was based on the fact that there wasn't a better thief anywhere in the world?

She knew better than to think he was ever going to be a boy-scout or a do-gooding milksop like Scott or Bobby – the clean-cut American Dream boys who ended up marrying their prom dates and getting the white picket fences and the whole shebang before they were thirty. She wasn't naive enough to think he'd ever 'turn over a new leaf' – a new card perhaps, while hustling poker for stakes higher than any white picket fences ever cost, but that was who he was. A thief and a liar and a damn nice arse in tight jeans and he knew it too. She wasn't expecting anything at all from him – he was here for unknown reasons since that memory she'd dredged up could just as well be some half-arsed, drug-induced haze of 'yes, this seems right just now but it's the morphine's idea, I just nod and smile at the appropriate bits'. She knew full well he could be somewhere far away making bucketloads of cash just flipping cards or sneaking around so the fact that he was here was even weirder since she didn't think there was much call for that in Bayville.

But he'd comforted her when she'd been upset. He'd been a gentleman when she – in a moment of insanity – invited him back to sleep in her room. He'd been at the concert for his own enjoyment, that had surfaced while she was sifting through the baggage of memories he'd given her. The fact of the matter was that he'd never actually harmed her intentionally, even when he'd been exploiting her for her help to save his bastard father, and he'd never lied to her.

She found his lilting Cajun accent comforting, a reminder of the warmth and the diversity of her Southern roots. She found his abilities intrigueing and his control and use of them fascinated her, the fact that he made an artform of the mutations nature had bestowed upon him instead of denying it or trying to hide it. She liked that he was ironically completely open and honest about the fact that he was a professional thief, took pride in the fact that he lied and cheated and stole to suit his purposes because he knew he did it well. And she liked that too – his honest admiration for those who used their gifts and were proud of them no matter what those gifts might be. She liked the way he flirted with everything that might have worn a skirt at some point and a few who possibly never had because she knew as well as he did that it was all bullshit and just another way for him to make life easy. Another game. And both sides always knew it for what it was - and for what it wasn't. He used everything about himself to ease his passage through life – where he could he bent the passage or tricked it into going in a different direction even but he made it so easy for himself by only giving what he had to and judging things by how much was required and how to bypass requirements. Or fool them. He was probably the sort of person they'd allow in a dress-coded restaurant in torn jeans and a leather jacket and he'd have everyone else feeling underdressed. His charm was his strength and his powers were the cast-iron fence around the moat of the fortress wherein he kept the truth. Only the best thief in the world could get to it and he wanted it to stay put. She understood that. She could respect that.

She had no respect for those who pretended their bad sides made them worse people and tried to make out that said faults were really caused by someone else because they were ashamed. It was weak and stupid. Remy LeBeau owned every single one of his flaws and celebrated them like they were his only virtues instead, and you couldn't help but respect that in the end. It was part of his charm, part of what made him so difficult to hate because he was so ready to admit that it was fair enough if you hated him if - you could defend your own mistakes. She thought that was why Scott hated him the way he did. He was living proof that striving after clear, shiny perfection was easily undermined by the achieval of a more satisfying kind by just playing by your strengths and forgetting there are rules. Jean was more forgiving in that. She saw the man Gambit and saw the professional, the calculated way he fought, she acknowledged his talents such as they were and forgave him his lack of loyalty to any cause. Plus she couldn't deny he was better built than Scott. But Scott couldn't complain – he didn't work for it. He didn't work at all. And Rogue knew that anything Remy LeBeau had ever acquired, he'd worked for.

And it was crying on her bed at the injustices around her as well as inside her that she came to the realisation, through all the anger and the hate, that she didn't really need to know why he was there or why he was pursuing her. She just wanted him to keep coming back.

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