This has been edited (mainly just the ending – there's a reason for that)… I posted it on Friday, but by the lack of reviews it either sucked or no one's read it yet….

After a funeral, a shooting, and a car accident all in the first chapter, I thought you guys might enjoy something a little lighter in tone. So, on that note here is the slightly more amusing second chapter.

Chapter 2 – Breaking in and breaking out

"Oww…" Bobby had imagined being waken up in the middle of the night by Rogue before. However, it was safe to say that in none of these scenarios had he involved Colossus, Kitty, or the floor of his bedroom being quite this hard. "What was that for?" Getting up from the floor, Bobby found himself encircled by his three best friends with Colossus barring the way between him and his warm comfy bed.

"Sorry sugar, but you ain't getting back to bed till we pay a little visit to the med lab." The words 'med-lab' peaked Bobby's interest even through the haze of sleep that surrounded him. The students usually weren't allowed to go down there, and they certainly weren't allowed to break in during the middle of the night. Bobby's eyes lit up briefly at the prospect of a challenge and though he quickly reverted his face back into an expression of bored sleepiness Rogue had caught it. Winking at Kitty she walked around Bobby till she stood behind him.

"So how about it Iceman? I'd hate to leave two ladies in distress to fend for themselves." Colossus spoke to Bobby calmly and seriously, but even the darkness couldn't hide the smile which belied his serious pronouncements. From her corner Kitty began to pout and used her best Puppy dog eyes. Behind Bobby, Rogue began walking her gloved fingers down his spine.

"Please?" Even though he couldn't see it, Bobby knew that she too had her best little lost puppy expression on. For a moment refusal was on the tip of his tongue. However, realizing that such an effort would be futile he quickly gave in.

"Alright, I'm in, but may I at least ask why I'm signing myself up for a months worth of detention?" Before he'd even finished asking the question, his three friends were already in action.

"Get dressed we still have to meet Jubes and Livewire downstairs. Colossus and I will explain the rest on the way.' Grabbing Rogue, Kitty went out the door, leaving Bobby to get changed and Colossus to supervise. As Rouge exited the room after her, she noticed a cheeky grin on Bobby's face, one that she hadn't seen since they had fled Bobby's house in Boston weeks ago.

Back in the bedroom the two mutant boys blinked at each other, simultaneously the same question reached their lips. "Who's Livewire?"

~ ~ ~

Livewire was the newest addition to mutant high. So named for her ability to short circuit any electrical system, via her mutation. At thirteen years old, she could already claim a year's (former) membership in a group that dealt in high stakes bank robberies. From the time she had been eleven, she had been occupying herself by facilitating armed robberies. Six months ago, that all ended when one of her 'foster parent's' accidentally killed someone during a heist. For five months afterwards, she had been on the run.

Two weeks ago, she had seen Ororo Munroe on the news and had decided to seek out Xavier's institute. Which was how she ended up creeping down a dark hallway with Jubilee at the three O'clock in the Morning. "Remind me why I'm doing this again?" Livewire liked Xavier's Institute. It had offered her the closest thing to a normal life she had ever had; and while she considered Jubes to be one of her closest and best friends, she didn't relish the idea of taking part in a scheme that could potentially get her kicked out.

"Because I owe Kitty a favor and you need to keep them skills of yours sharp." Jubilee smiled broadly, and Livewire couldn't help grinning back.

"Why does she want to go down there anyway? And what does she need us for? Can't she just go through the doors or something?" Livewire, like Bobby, had not yet been privy to the plan concocted by Jubes, Kitty, and Rouge, and as of yet was still relatively in the dark.

"Well, Kitty hit this mutant in Briarcliff today when Colossus was teaching her how to drive. The two of them brought him back here to the mansion but Dr. McCoy wouldn't let them see him. Kitty feels really bad and wants to apologize."

"At 3:00 AM?" Livewire broke in.

"Well he's been out cold since four in the afternoon." Jubilee answered logically. "Anyway, we need you to disable the security cameras – make it look like a power outage or something, I'll help – Colossus to open the doors once the powers out, and Bobby in case something goes wrong and we start a fire or something." When Jubilee finished, Livewire looked perplexed.

"So what are Kit and Rogue gonna do?" She asked

Jubilee grinned cheekily and would have answered had she not heard a man's voice coming from the doorway they were about to pass. Immediately the two froze. It took only a few seconds for them to realize the man was muttering in his sleep.

"I thought you said this hallway was unoccupied?!" Livewire whispered accusingly.

"It is! There are seven storage rooms, two unoccupied guestrooms, and an uninhabitable bedroom." Suddenly, Jubilee noticed that the door to they were about to pass was ajar, unable to keep a hold on her curiosity, she stepped forward and peeked in.

From her stand point, Jubilee saw only three things: tousled brown hair, a man's naked back and two pale, slim feminine arms, sticking out from beneath the blanket. Whirling back around, she grabbed Livewire and made a sprint for the stairs, eager to share this new bit of gossip with her friends.

~ ~ ~

Spectre, who was generally a light sleeper was awakened by the sound of fading footsteps. Disconcerted, she mentally ground to a halt as she realized that this wasn't her bed. For a moment she was puzzled, staring up at the canopy over her head, she tried to remember what had happened and where she was. Once she had, she noticed the other thing that was wrong.

She was comfortable, yes, and very warm to. Too warm. With a jolt, she realized that she was visible and that she wasn't in bed alone. Visible? Why am I visible? The sleepy part of her brain asked. Because he's touching you nitwit. He's probably a mutant. The rational part of her brain answered. Whenever a mutant touched her, it was very rare that Spectre was able to remain invisible as she did most of the time.

Gulping, Spectre took three deep breaths before she was calm enough to asses the situation. From his calm and even breathing, she could tell that the man next to her was asleep. In all likelihood this was his room and he had stumbled in here too tired to notice her clothing on the floor. Now, at whatever hour of night it was, he had somehow managed in his sleep to pin her to the bed with one strong arm around her waist and his head calmly resting on one of her shoulders. He's pretty damned cute, the sleepy part of her said, but why the heck is he wearing sunglasses in bed? Breaking this train of thought, Spectre tried to concentrate on the matter at hand: How to get out, and how to do it without being seen.

Spectre wanted to simply lift this man's arm off of her, and then slip her shoulder out from under his head; unfortunately, doing this presented a very good chance of waking him up. Looking toward the edge of the bed, Spectre decided that the best thing to do would be to simply slide her entire body away from him. Thinking this she started inching carefully away from him, using her free hand to ease his head onto the pillows and off of her body. As she continued to inch away, she realized at the last minute that the edge of the bed wasn't wide enough to hold her as she tumbled onto the floor.

That woke Scott up. Cursing silently, Spectre willed herself back to invisibility, shoved her feet into her boots, grabbed her clothing, and rolled under the bed. She was now invisible, but until she was wearing them, her cloths wouldn't be. In the cramped space, Spectre attempted to dress as silently as possible. A feat which was, quite honestly, 'difficult' at best.

"Jean?" The first word out of Scott's mouth was whispered, for a few seconds he wondered what had caused him to awaken. Realizing that he was alone in bed, and remembering that Jean was gone for good, Scott stood up and walked across the room. The clock on the bedside table read 3:30 am. Groaning, Scott began pacing rather than going back to bed. The question of why he had woken up, still nagging at his mind. And then, he saw something that hadn't been in the room before.

A plate, a fork, and dainty looking little knife. Did the one of the kids come up here? He asked himself. Suddenly on alert he quickly surveyed the room.

From under the bed Spectre, now fully dressed, wondered how she was going to get out of here. Even if he couldn't see her, chances were he'd hear her. Desperately, she summoned her strength and tried to think of something… and then she remembered. It was a trick she'd learned years ago, from a fellow Mutant who was a telekinetic. A mutant who had pretty much taught her how to control most of her mutation. Taking a deep breath, she tried it, hoping that the years hadn't dulled her skill.

"Hello." Whirling around, Scott saw a pale woman with long black hair standing by the window in a white night gown. Confused he shook his head, but when he looked up, she was still there.

"Who are you?" The woman didn't answer but began backing away from him and, coincidentally, away from the door. Slowly, he followed her. "I'm not going to hurt you."

Seeing that he was distracted, Spectre darted out from under the bed and quickly out of the door, letting the illusion she had created drop the moment she reached the staircase, sweating from the execration of having maintained it as long as she had.

"Who are you?" Back in the bedroom, Scott repeated the question again, but the woman only stepped quietly back into the shadows – and into nothingness. In another two steps, Scott was certain that he was alone again. Left with only with the company of shadows, and the sounds of the gathering dawn.

* * *

"You're sure you don't know who this might be?" The Professor asked again, "Think Logan."

"Professor, I've pissed off a lot of people in the last 15 years, but I can guarantee that most of them are either dead or in no position to try something like this." For the past half-hour, Logan and the professor had been sitting in the latter's bedroom discussing what had happened earlier that night. After waking up, Logan had changed out of his bloody clothing and immediately come here. Deciding that if there was someone in the mansion waving a gun around, the professor needed to know.

When he had gotten here, the professor had already been awake, and after Logan filled him in on the details the two had began to talk in earnest. So far they had decided that whoever did this didn't know Logan that well, (if they knew what his mutation was they wouldn't have shot him,) and that this was too be kept quiet from the children.

Professor Xavier appreciated Logan's coming to him, knowing that Wolverine was a very private man who liked to handle things on his own. It showed just how much he had changed that he had come down here thinking of the well being of the others in the house.

"Logan – ." The door creaked open, before he could continue, and Storm's head peeked through.

"Charles?" Seeing that he was awake, Storm stepped into the room, nodded politely at Logan and then turned back to the professor. "I think there's something downstairs you should see.

* * *

"Well Rogue, you're on." The six teenagers, in the med lab, were gathered around Gambit lying in the sick bed. So far, everything had gone according to plan, they had broken in, Bobby hadn't had to stop any fires, and best of all, they hadn't been caught.

Looking at her friends, Rogue nodded tensely, and then looked at the stranger intently. "You don't have to do this." The words came from Kitty, soft and reassuring. Rogue almost took her up on that offer. Dispite everything a large part of her still feared to touch people. She hadn't learned to control her powers, but she had a slight idea of how much and what type of touching did the least amount of damage. Rogue was afraid to do this, but she was even more afraid of giving in to fear.

"I want to. We need to know if he's a mutant or not." Taking a deep breath, Rogue pulled her hair back, leaned down, and kissed Gambit quickly on the cheek before drawing back. For a second, she had to steady herself as she tried to figure out what sort of power she had just absorbed. In another moment, she had it. "Fire, he makes things explode."

The five teenagers around her smiled, so Kitty had done the right thing bringing him here; with the way things were if they had brought him to a hospital he might have been refused treatment because he was a mutent. "Now it's my turn." Kitty was about to shake Gambit awake, but he suddenly jerked awake on his own - violently. Reaching out, he instinctively grabbed the first thing he touched – Rogue's gloved hand.

"Where am I?" Looking around, it took Remy a minute to realize that the six people around him were young – and that they weren't armed… and that four of them were very, very, lovely.

"You're safe suga', but I think you're cutt'n off the circulation to my hand." Turning in the direction of the southern drawl, Remy saw Rouge for the first time, next to her, Kitty started to fidgit.

"I'm awfully sorry about this afternoon, I was just learning to drive… I didn't mean to hit you." With a wave of his hand, Gambit dismissed her apology.

" 's ok mon aime. Ta wake up to four beautiful angel's like you? I think it was most c'rtainly worth it." Smiling, Gambit stifled a yawn.

"We should probably let him sleep," Colossus broke in, "getting hit by a car is probably tiring." And indeed, Gambit was indeed already drifting away again. Beckoning for the others to follow, Colossus took point and led them out into the hallway. Originally their plan had been to get in and get out as fast as possible, now however after such a short meeting with the new mutant their plan changed, after all – how often would they get to come down here?

Silently, they agreed to split up, letting their more reckless side take over. Rouge and Jubes went towards the danger room, Kitty and Livewire to take a closer look at the med lab, and Bobby and Colossus headed for the garage – the other garage.

After rounding the first corner however, Kitty and Livewire ground to a halt. There in front of them sat the professor with Storm and Logan on either side. One thought ran through their collective minds. Shit. Busted.

End chapter 2

AN – I have to say that working with this many characters at once is new for me. It's only one plot but with more than ten main characters and two original characters writing in this fandom is fairly daunting – so to my fellow fanfiction.net xmen writers – I applaud you.

Also, there's a little button that says go at the bottom of this screen PRESS IT and fill out the little form that comes up if you want the next chapter.

Toodles,

Calypso (Toodles? What the heck am I saying?)