"And-then-later-after-the-rest-went-to-to-bed-she-she-gave-summa-her-p-powers-and-I-could-t-touch-Kurt-but-n-now-shes-DEAD!" Rouge managed to get out before breaking into fresh sobs.

"No I'm not! But how do I make them realize im still in here?" I suddently remembered that the professor was a telepath and felt very stupid for not doing so from the start." He was taking my pulse again and getting worried. "Professor, I'm not dead, I just cant seem to move. Or breath. Or do much of anything. But I think that all we need to do is have Rouge give me that power back. I think it was tangled with some other abilites." Like being alive.

"Rouge, shes not dead. She just contacted me telepathically. Just focus on giving her the power back." The all looked at him like he was crazy. Thank God no one had thought to shut my eyes yet. And that I didn't seem to need to blink. I'd noticed that recently, especially when I was sleeping. I'd wake up with my eyes already open.

Rouge hesitantly walked over and picked up my hand. She seemed to be focusing on something. There was another zap of blue light and I blinked and took a breath. "See, I'm not dead." But before I could say anything else, something blue and furry was on me, giving me a hug. A split second later there was Rouge, apoligizing frantically between sobs and then half the others. We were just lucky no one touched Rouge.

After a few minutes, the professor interruped with a loud. "Hmm" "What professor?" someone asked. "Well, I'm just pondering why and how this happened. You can block Rouges power, and it seems that you can transfer something that blocks it from inside her own body, making it useless. It seems to take all signs of life from you in the process. Hmmm." "Well, it felt like I was giving her like a ball of yarn, a ball of powers, all knotted together. Maybe it was knotted to too much and killed me or something." Memories. Most my powers were linked to memories.

"What if I gave Rouge a memory that tricked her body into thinking she was before the age she got her mutant powers. It made it revert back to how she was before she had her powers. And it was tied too many neccesarry things and I really did die, but I was preserved as a memory inside myself. I mean, practically all my other mutant ablities are linked to memories."

The professor seemed to nod. "That will have to do as an explination until we figure out whats going on. But I think you might be on the right track. One can never be sure. Well, you all should at least try to go to bed. You have school in a few hours." Everyone trudged back to bed, many shooting me fearful, furtive looks as if I might drop dead. Again. I was too busy thinking to really notice.

As we reach our room, I decided to do another experiment. I grabbed Scott and Jean and nodded for Kurt to follow too. "K', Scott, just focus on receiving what im gonna try to give you." He refused, saying "Oh, no, were not going that again. What if its even worse this time?" "We'll Jean is a telepath, so I can talk to her. And it'l work just like last time. If anything does go wrong, you can just push it back. C'mon, doncha wanna see? In colors, I mean." He seemed to realize what would happen if it worked. "Fine, Jean, you watch her." We touched fingers and the blue zap moved between us. I heard Jean's voice in my head. "You Ok?" "Yeah, tell him to take off his glasses and open his eyes. Better have him point them at an open window. Just in case."

Jean relayed the message and Scott slowly opened his eyes. They were blue. He blinked a couple of times, disbelievingly, looking around. "Its all in colors. I can see normally." Then he look at Jean. By this time he was trying not to cry and miserably failing. "My god, she's beautiful." He murmured under his breath, and then hugged her. After a few more minutes he gave me my power back, along with a hug.

He and Jean left, talking. "We could try Kurt next." I said. "But it probably wouldn't work on his fur. That's your apperance, not a power." He looked slighty disappointed. "How long have you been able to teleport? Was that memory on the tightrope the first time?" "Yeah, that I know of. Maybe I could do it before, but I just didn't realize it, or something."

I can search your memories, see if you remember anything from when you were little. I put my fingers to his head like usual, but this time instead of letting any memory come, I tried to find a specific one. It was like looking through boxes and boxes of pictures. The images would fly up for a brief second and then fade away as a new one came. As we went further back in time, the pictures grew fuzzier. I didn't know how I would be able to find what I was looking for, the memories were going by to fast for me to look clearly at any of them, but suddenly they stopped by themselves and the memory it stopped on flickered to life.

There was a baby crying, falling, the sound of rushing water speeding towards it, and then a loud bamf and the baby was much further downstream. The memory was becoming too distorted to be able to identify anything any longer, so I pulled away. "I guess you've always been able to teleport, then. I wouldn't even be able to stop that. I mean, if the theory I told the professor was right."

Rouge was looking confused, since she hadn't seen the memory. She cleared her throat in a would-somebody-like-to-fill-me-in sort of way. I looked at Kurt for permission and he gave a small nod, so I projected it onto the wall. It might have been my imagination, but they seemed to share a secret glance, as if there was more to the memory than I had seen.

I looked at the clock and noticed it was three in the morning. "We should probably get some sleep. Besides, all this investigating and experimenting is making my head hurt." I could hardly keep my eyes open at that point. Kurt and Rouge both went into the hallway, talking in low voices that I couldn't hear. It didn't matter, I fell asleep in a matter of a minute anyway.

But then the memories started up again. It started with Jean and Scott. Kurt was pulling down the hood of his trenchcoat, they were looking very shocked and horrifyed. Then Kitty, looking at him for the first time, actually fell over, screaming, from the shock. Rouge's gasp as she turned off his image inducer. Evan falling back against a wall, looking terrifyed. Then a bunch of people I didn't recognise, all reacting in much the same way. Fear, horror and disgust. Then I was being chased by an angry mob with pitchforks and torches. They were getting closer and closer and…I screamed, bolting up in my bed.

Kurt and Rouge ran in the door. "Was, Mein liebe?" Kurt asked, worried. I opened my mouth to explain, still breathing hard. "There were people, all scared looking at me, or someone. And then I was being chased by a mob. They wanted to kill me, but…" I trailed off, thinking, confused. Kurt was looking a little paler.

"It was just a nightmare." Said Rouge consolingly. "No, it wasn't. I don't have nightmares, I have memories."

"Was?"

"Ever since my powers started kicking in, I just go over memories while I sleep, I never have my own dreams. But they werent my memories. I think…I think they were yours, Kurt." I projected just the end onto the wall. "Ja, that's definetly mine. Remember, from what I was showing you about my school in france?"

"Yeah, I suppose they were all yours. Gosh, is that how everyone acts when the see you?" Then I remembered he hadnt seen the dream. "Was? Like what?"

"Like this." And I projected the rest of the dream onto the wall. He gave a sort of laugh. "Yeah, pretty much everyone. Just my parents, and the professor, and…you." His smile was more genuine this time. Then my memories seemed to catch up with the present me. He called me his liebe. But did he mean it…? We all said good night, after I had repeatedly apologized for bringing up such awful memories and he repeteadly told me it was no big deal. I purpousfully chose to play a memory of me riding my bike, so that I wouldn't have nightmemories again.

The next morning, I was awakened to very loud music and people telling whoever had turned it on to turn it off in a very rude way. I rolled over, ignoring it and continuing my dreaming. Kurt bamfed in to see if it was us.

"Liebe, what are you doing?" I woke up very suddenly and the music stopped. Suddenly I figured out where the music was coming from. I always listened to music when I rode my bike, and I always had it on full volume. I had also recently started sleeping with my mouth open right before I woke up. I must have been projecting my dreams again…along with a very loud audio. No wonder my throat hurt so much.

Luckly, the next sound that was heard was several alarm clocks all going off at the same time. It must be time for school. "Sorry, Kurt, I was dream remembering. I didn't mean to wake everyone up." It once again took awile for my memories to catch up with the rest of me. It must have been the lack of sleep that made me blurt out what I was thinking. "Wait, did you call me Liebe again? Do ya mean it?" He blushed. I took that as a yes. "Aww, I feel the same way, Mein Kase."

We hugged each other. "Did you know you just called me your cheese?" he asked, slightly confused, but mostly amused. "Yeah, but trust me, Its definetly a good thing. My friends and I hold cheese in the highest honor. We could start fights if anyone disturbs the good name of cheese. I think it was the first German word I learned. It usually is, since I tend to learn "I like cheese" in whatever language it is I'm trying to learn." He laughed again. "Well, its perfect then. And I'm gonna have to meet these friends of yours. They sound interesting."

"That can be arranged, but you'll probably end up regretting it. Well, as long as you don't have sugar, it shouldn't be a problem. Or glitter for that matter. Or sanity."

We got ready and set off downstairs for breakfast. It was outside the door that I remembered I had woken up pretty much the entire institute. "Uh, I'll skip breakfast today." I turned to try and get away, but Kurt had my hand in his. "Don't worry, they won't be mad." He said, sounding like he could read minds. I followed him in timidly. Some of the people looked slightly ticked off, but it mainly looked like "Night of the living sleep deprived"

They all looked up as we entered. "Sorry, I didn't mean to wake everyone up." I tried a smile and nearly succeeded. "Don't worry 'bout it. Were mainly just bummed because the Tv's busted." Evan explained. The smile worked this time. "I might be able to fix that."

"How? I sorta shot a spike through it after Amara blew it up and bobby turned it into a hunk of ice."

I tapped the side of my head. "I got an idea. Anyone got any preferences?" We decided on the episode of the Simpsons where Homer ends up eating his pet lobster. I turned off the lights and projected it out of my eyes. I remembered it perfectly.

At school, I noticed that a lot of the brotherhood were in my classes. Todd, Fred, and Lance were all in my gym class, and Pietro was in my science and english. Tabby was in my Spanish. During last hour, an announcement came over the PA system telling everyone about the assmbly that period, welcoming our new principal. Our old one had retired the previous year. Kurt and I sat with my friends Andy, Good Dan, Jenn, Liz and Staci, but some of the other students from the institute were nearby. They were whispering something about on of their old principals and someone named Mystique. I leaned over and whispered to Kurt, "Who's Mystique?"