This is it you guys. Part of me is going to miss this, but then another part of me is glad that I never have to work on it again. I'll go ahead and post an additional chapter to answer all final reviews and thank the audience (Thanks you guys).

Ex-xox Plus Three- A famous author? Wow, I'm truly flattered, but no, not yet. One can dream, I suppose, but really I'm more of an artist (mostly drawing). I kind of wish I had a nightlight as well.

Hi, serria. Thanks for the review.

Miracle Chick- I'm beginning to wonder if my story might be effecting you a little *too* deeply. Please just don't try anything rash. And don't worry, even if this is the last chapter, it's also the longest and plenty of stuff happens. I think you will find most of your Lance concerns are addressed here. I may write another Bro-hood fic, but it wont be right away. I've got to get back to my art studies and I have school starting again on the 25th.

Charmedfan03, are you bleeding out the ears? No? Then you must be Ok! Yeah, I think you should try to be a little more careful when it comes to your happy dances.

On with the Show!

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In the course of his life, Lance had not been certain of many things, but he was certain of something: even if he lived to be one hundred years old, he would never get used to receiving telepathic messages. When he heard the words, "Lance, could I see you in my study for a moment," in his head, he jumped about ten feet in the air, earning him a few odd looks. "Uh --- it's nothing," he said to the confused people on the couch next to him as he got up to leave.

Professor Xavier's study was located across the mansion from the TV room (Lance had a pretty good idea that this was not by accident), so he had plenty of time to think as he dawdled along passed the library and game room and the girl's bedroom wing. It was no mystery what the Professor wanted to talk about. Now that he and Pietro had fully healed from their capture and inprisonment, Xavier would send them back to the Brotherhood house. And as far as Lance could see, there wasn't really any way out of it. He had no job, no money, and nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to live on the streets. Well, it's not like he could have expected the X-Men to allow their enemies to live with them forever or anything. Xavier might be nice, but he wasn't a saint.

Lance raised a hand to knock on the heavy, wooden door, but just as he did, he heard, "Come in," in his head. "Jeez!" Lance yelped, jumping in the air again. He shook his head. Telepaths.

"Have a seat," the Professor said (out loud this time) as Lance walked into the office. He took a seat in the big, comfy chair in the center of the study. The whole room seemed to scream intellectual, with its big bookcases and its fancy art. This was the kind of room you brought people to when you wanted to feel superior to them.

"Both you and Pietro seemed to have made a remarkably fast recovery," Xavier commented.

'This is it,' Lance thought. 'He's going to kick us out. Well, might as well take this like a man.' "Yes sir," he said.

Xavier nodded offhandedly. "I'll get strait to the point. I have a proposition for you."

Lance jerked his head up in surprise. This was unexpected. "A proposition?"

"Yes. Lance, the mutant population is growing all the time. As you and Pietro know firsthand, this world is dangerous place for young mutants. For these reasons, I plan to drastically expand the Xavier Institute over the next few years."

Lance looked confused. "I don't see where I play into this."

"More young mutants are going to require more instructors. Lance, I will be willing to send you to college, provided that you would be willing to work for me as a teacher."

For a few moments, Lance was stunned to silence. This was not at all what he had expected. "You want --- to send *me* to college? To be a teacher?"

"Yes. Naturally, you don't have to give me an answer right away. Take some time to think about it."

Lance pushed his lips into a thin line. "What would you say if I told you that I don't exactly strike most as the college going type?"

"I'd say you were an intelligent, young man who doesn't give himself enough credit," Xavier retorted.

"Well --- I appreciate the offer Professor, but I'm going to have to say no."

Xavier raised an eyebrow. "Might I ask why?" he said.

"I don't want to be an X-Man."

"Excuse me?"

"I don't want to be on the X-Men." Lance wrung his hands on his lap as he struggled to find the words to explain. "When you called me in here, I thought you were going to send Pietro and me back to the Brotherhood house, and I knew I didn't want to go back to that. But if I stay here and join the X-Men, I run the same risks I did in the Brotherhood." Lance's eyes shot down to his shoes. "If I were to get captured again --- I don't think I could survive it twice. I'm just not cut out for this kind of thing. Not anymore."

Professor Xavier shook his head. "I understand your concerns, Lance, but you misunderstand me. I'm not looking for another X-Man, although there is always a place on the team for you if you change your mind. I'm looking for an instructor, someone to teach math or history or English, as well as help the children develop their powers. The institute is being transformed from a safe house where mutants can learn to control their abilities into a school with a full curriculum."

Lance looked up from his lap. "So I *wouldn't* have to kill anyone, or have people trying to kill me?"

"No, hopefully you would be able to control your students without resorting to corporal punishment."

Lance considered all of this. Teacher? It was definitely a *weird* career choice for a guy like him. But then again, it sounded like a pretty weird school. And then there was the mansion. A part of him didn't really want to admit it, but this place had grown on him, a kind of symbol for new beginnings. Even the other X-Men were kind of Ok, except for Scott, whom he didn't think he could ever get used to. Besides, where else did he have to go? He raised his head again. "Pietro?" he asked.

"The same offer is extended to him, once he graduates from high school."

Lance glanced at the hundreds, maybe thousands of books on the shelves. "I think I should discuss this with him."

Professor Xavier nodded. "Of course. Take all the time you need."

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In the den of the mansion, Pietro sat very still on the couch. "So let me get this strait," he said slowly. "You want to work for the X-Men."

Beside him, Lance shrugged. "I think it might be a good opportunity. Besides, I wouldn't exactly be working for the X-Men. I'd be working for Xavier as a teacher, not fighting or going on dangerous missions or anything."

"You'd be training kids to be X-Men. That's working for the X-Men."

Lance waved a hand around as if it didn't really matter. "Whatever, the point is, this is a good chance to get out of everything. We wont ever have to worry about getting captured again. We can go to college, work here for a little while, then get new jobs and live *normal lives*."

Pietro made a face. "Yeah, and all we have to do is sell out to the X-geeks for a few years, is that it?"

"Those 'X-geeks' saved your life, Pietro," Lance snapped at him. His eyes instantly softened. "Look, why don't you think about staying? It will give us someplace to stay, and---"

"I already *have* a place to stay. With Mystique."

"But you don't even know where she is!" Lance cried out in exasperation. "Where do you think we have to go?!"

Pietro was quiet for a moment. "We could find her," he said finally. "It couldn't be that hard. Will you come with me?"

Lance shifted on the couch, his eyes darting every which way but at Pietro. "I don't want to loose you," he said softly. "You're all I've got left of --- of anyone, really. You're like my little brother." He was silent for almost a minute before speaking again. "I can't, Pietro. There's nowhere to look. Mystique doesn't want us to find her. *I* don't want to find her. The Brotherhood is dead, and I'm not interested in starting a new one. I'm nobody's soldier."

"No, you're not," Pietro spat. "You're a traitor. You're abandoning Mystique --- hell, you're abandoning me, and just because you're a big coward."

A hand shot out and pinned Pietro to the couch. Lance twisted his body to face Pietro, his eyes blazing with a sudden rage. "Listen to me," he ordered. "I am *not* abandoning anyone. Are you so thickheaded that you can't see that it's not about what side we're on? The point is getting the fuck out of situations where we could be captured and tortured and killed. And I am NOT a coward, you asshole! I'm just finally figuring things out for myself."

Pietro jerked away from Lance's hand. "Fine! I'll find her by myself! I thought you were my friend but I guess I was wrong!" In a flash, Pietro was out of the room and upstairs. 5.7 seconds later, was back in the den with a packed suitcase. "Goodbye Lance. Try and find me if you ever come to your senses." With that, Pietro was out the door so fast, he looked like a gust of wind.

"Pietro, wait!" Lance called after him. His face turned sour. "Fine, be that way! Just forget about all the shit I did for you when we were locked up. I fucking made sure you ate!"

Scott poked his head in the doorway. "Hey Lance, who're you yelling at?" he asked.

Lance scowled at Scott. "No one. Just leave me alone." With that, Lance marched up to his room and didn't come out for almost the rest of the day. Finally, though, around nine o'clock, he gave into his hunger and went down to the kitchen. Kitty was already there.

"Hey Lance," she said, and then paused. Lance's hair was disheveled and his eyes looked red rimmed and tired. "Are you, like, Ok?"

Slowly, almost uncertainly, Lance nodded his head. "Yeah," he said. "Yeah, I'm Ok."

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Over the next month, time moved fairly quickly for everyone in the mansion. The X Men were kept busy with their training and Lance concentrated on figuring out how to deal with everything. Without Pietro around, everything seemed kind of lonely and boring. At first it seemed that no one here *really* wanted to hang out with him- they were already all such close friends, so what did they need with him? On more than one occasion, Lance found himself sitting in his newly gassed up Jeep, ready to go hunt down Pietro and tell him he was sorry for staying with the X-Men, that he would never do it again. But then he would look up at the institute and remember his plans. This was his only chance to have a semi- normal life; he could not let it slip away, even for Pietro.

So he stuck with it. He kept having nightmares and stomachaches, though between medication and just plain getting over it, both were becoming fewer and farther between. He still met up with Logan in the TV room when sleep was impossible or not worth it, and the two of them would watch late night infomercials until morning, or until they both conked out on the couch. One morning, Scott had taken a Polaroid of Lance, who had fallen asleep on the couch next to Logan. At some point during the night, Lance's head had slid from its place on the back of the couch, and landed squarely on Logan's chest. Said Polaroid was now carefully filed away for blackmail purposes.

Problems with Scott aside, the rest of the X-Men were slowly warming up to the idea of Lance as a permanent resident as apposed to an injured pity case. Lance himself had spent a significant amount of his life with no real family to speak of; after his parents died when he was nine, he had been bounced around from foster home to foster home, and not all of them were friendly, if you catch my meaning. Then, of course, there was the eight months he spent in a boy's correctional facility when he was thirteen, a fate he would wish on no one, not even Summers. It was quite possibly the only place on Earth that even came close to the horror of the SHIELD cell. All in all, Lance had spent a good part of his childhood learning to get along with just himself.

But after a year with the Brotherhood, that all changed. For the first time in eight years, Lance had people who he could depend on, and who could depend on him back. It wasn't a situation he wanted to give up. So he did something that he would have never dreamed of just three months before.

He started hanging out with the X-Men.

It was kind of awkward at first, especially since Scott and Jean were pretty much the leaders of the group, and they both regarded Lance as little more than a punk. But Lance was not discouraged. He had learned long ago that if he had to be the outcast of any group, the best people to seek out were the other outcasts. And since the closest things to outcasts in the X-Men were Rogue and Kurt, he started spending more of his time with them. And he found out that he didn't hate it. Gradually, the others began to accept him as well, and Scott managed something like distant tolerance.

Now, on the morning of August 28, Lance pulled his green Jeep into the parking lot of the Bayview Community College and found a spot. He parked the Jeep, took the keys from the ignition, and continued to sit in the drivers seat and contemplate the mess he'd gotten into. 'Oh God, what was I thinking?' he asked himself. 'College? Guys like me don't go to college. They don't get teaching degrees. They become mechanics or construction workers, and- and I can't even *spell* construction worker! I'm screwed!' It was ten minutes to his first college class ever, English, and to put it mildly, he was freaked. "I can't do this," he said to no one in particular.

"Yes you can."

Lance jumped so hard, he banged into the steering wheel and honked the horn, startling a girl nearby. He waved an apology and then returned his thoughts to the voice in his head. 'Professor Xavier, you *know* how much that creeps me out."

"Sorry. I just thought you needed some encouragement. And yes, you can do this. You're too smart to be a construction worker, so give yourself a little credit, Lance. Besides, it's only the first day. Give it a chance. Surely you've done harder things than this."

It was hard to argue with that kind of logic. Lance had most certainly done harder things than this. "All right, Professor," Lance thought back in mock irritation. "If it's really *that* important to you-"

"Atta boy. Good luck Lance. And don't worry, you'll do fine."

Taking a deep breath, Lance stepped out of the Jeep. In front of him loomed the English and Fine arts building, which housed classroom number 117, the room his first English class would be in just seven minutes. "Well, here goes nothing," he said softly to himself, glancing once again at his schedule. "Sure hope this works out---"

The End

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX Well, you guys, that's it. It has been a lot of work, but it was a labor of love. Thank you to everyone who read, and special thanks to everyone who reviewed. If you have any questions or comments, review and I will come back with an extra page to answer. I will also tell you what my original plans for the epilogue were (they had to be abandoned because of sucky writing). Of course, if you don't review, you'll never know!