Change in Me

Fandom: X-men Evolution Pairing: Tabitha/Amara

Though I'm currently writing a Tabby/OC multi-part fic, I couldn't help but need to write this after noticing the special bond that Tabby and Amara develop through the end of season two and into season three. So this is just a rambling of Amara's thoughts about Tabby, and how they are together, and how she feels. Rated PG for slight innuendos.

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You saved me once. I don't think you really remember it, but it meant a lot to me. Even though you weren't a prince on a white horse coming to rescue me, you were there for your own reasons, it still felt like you had come to sweep me away. Just like in the fairy tales my mother used to tell me before I went to sleep.

You're back now, and I don't think you notice, but I watch you when you sleep too, dreaming perhaps of something different than a fairy-tale prince. They aren't really your style. I remember when we both came to the mansion and Professor Xavier roomed us together. I was scared to death of everything, nothing back home was this.advanced, and then you walked in the room with your single suitcase and blaring headphones and frightened me even more. I didn't like you then. You were loud and obnoxious and personified everything that scared me about the world. And then, just when I was learning to tolerate you, you up and left to join those idiot boys who the others are always putting down. I was furious. How could you do that, just leave, just when I thought maybe you could be a friend after all? Childishly I vowed never to speak to you again, I can be like that. My father always yelled at me when I acted that way at home, in Nova Roma, hoping that I would break the habit. I guess I just can't, its part of me.

Maybe Jubilee's right when she calls me a selfish, whiny little brat. A stuck-up princess who cares for no one but herself. You don't think so though, do you? You didn't have to tell me, I saw it in your eyes the first day you saw me again, at school. Every fiber of your being screamed that you had missed me, and I knew then that I missed you too, more than I would have thought. But I didn't think anything of it. Not even when I was watching you fight crime, clad in leather that clung to your every curve so perfectly, wondering what made you look so perfect. Thank the gods that none of the other girls noticed me watching you, or I think they'd know. They would have said something about it, right? Maybe not. It doesn't matter anyway. All that mattered is that when I got home and hung up my own leather outfit for good, I realized I was going to miss watching you, and I didn't want to admit why.

There's one thing, especially, that I remember from our short time as the Bayville Sirens. Remember when we kinda took over the music store and danced like no one was watching? Well, even though I was kind of doing my own thing, I still saw the way you moved. No one at home ever danced like you do, with total abandon, without care if anyone else existed. Our dances were all formal and ritual and never so free. Even now you move like that in my mind and I can't help thinking what it would have been like if I had danced with you that day, not Jean.

That's what made me realize, I think, when you came screeching up to the mansion, yelling my name like you thought I was going to die. I very well could have, you know, but I like to tell myself I would have gotten away from the lasers in time. You called for me to get into Lance's jeep, which you of course stole, and we drove away from the danger. I was selfish again, I forgot all about the others trapped inside the haywire mansion. All I saw was you. And then I realized that I wasn't waiting for a prince on a white horse to come and sweep me off my feet. I was waiting for someone like you to open the world to me and show me that boys aren't the only ones worth loving.

After the mansion was rebuilt, and everything died down, you came back to live with us at the Institute. I was thrilled, and you could probably tell, but you never said anything. Your space in our room hadn't been filled, so it was ready and waiting. And now you sleep there, and I watch you, and I think about how you've changed me.

And though I doubt I'll ever tell you, Tabby, I think I'm in love with you. I wonder what they would say at home about that.