Scene Fourteen

"Hey Rogue are you okay? You look like you're gonna explode or somethin'?" Kitty didn't knock as she walked straight through the door into their bedroom and took up her position next to Rogue at the window.

"Huh," Rogue replied. "It's nothin'"

"Well it sure don't look like nothin'," Kitty commented as she followed Rogue's eyes outside to where a curly-haired redhead stood by herself, wrapped up despite the sunny morning in an overlarge trench coat. "Don't you like Blaze or somethin'? I think she's cool, what she did in the mall, that took some guts."

"It's not that," Rogue countered, increasingly flustered. "It's just…"

"Wait, I get it!" Kitty grinned and snapped her fingers. "Its all about that Gambit, isn't it! Don't tell me you got a crush on him now! Think I should warn Blaze she's got competition?"

"Shut your mouth," Rogue turned on Kitty with ferocity, "before Ah shut it for you!"

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Standing alone, still feeling cold despite the warming day and the snug coat around her, Blaze put a hand in a pocket of the donated coat and frowned as her fingers brushed something. She pulled the object out, a single playing card, the ace of hearts.

"I'm useless, aren't I?" she acknowledged Ilehana's approach. "The first bloke I'm actually interested in for ages and he's a lying, cheating, backstabbing evil minion of the dark lord Magneto…"

"Hey, for you that's an improvement," Vixen teased.

"Is he ok?" Blaze could barely bring herself to ask. She'd been pretty out of it for three days and everyone had refused to answer her questions until she was back on her feet.

"He's fine," The new voice was male, older and refined. Ilehana's father Professor Xavier, "and if I know Magneto, Gambit's earned himself a little of the man's respect despite his apparent treachery. Magneto knows now that Gambit will not stand to be pushed around, a quality easily admired."

"So the question is Blaze," Ilehana asked gently, not betraying the internal struggle she had had when this same question was posed to her on their return to the mansion. "Are you going to stand with the X-Men now, join their cause to stop those like Magneto?"

"Are you?" Blaze didn't really need to ask, but she did anyway.

"I guess so," Ilehana smiled at her father, and then included Blaze in that gesture. "But I can't share territory with Jean, not if she wants to be able to sleep at night."

"So we go home now then?" Blaze followed the thread of Ilehana's implications. Ilehana nodded.

"You don't have to decide now either. In fact I suggest you don't. Let's just go back to the apartment and get some breakfast my friend."

Blaze sighed, and then slowly returned the smiles of Xavier senior and junior. She turned the playing card over in her hand, setting in on fire and letting the ash scatter to the four corners of the world.

"I've already decided," she answered calmly. "I want to join the X-Men, if you'll have me?" Blaze's cheeks flushed slightly as she basked in the telepathic approval of both Xaviers. "Oh, there's one other thing. Can we steal some muesli at all? Only we're fresh out…"

(Roll credits…...)