Disclaimer: I do not own the X-Men; I do own all OCs especially Samantha and Blaze. Ilehana Xavier belongs exclusively to Corrinth and is used with permission.

A/N: Enjoy!

Scene 07

Even as Gambit re-donned his infamous coat and warned Sam to guard her eyes, Blaze was putting her fingers to the cave-in that blocked their way. It was thick, tough enough that none of Sam's subsequent attacks had loosened the tumbled rubble at all. She stepped back again as Gambit came to join her, a card already in his fingers.

"You set Laura?" He asked, the use of her birth-name causing her to pull her face at her friend in response. It might not hold the same sting it did when she first admitted it to him about three years ago, but the girl who's burst of new mutant power had killed her own family could never accept that name casually again. Still she steeled herself to reply "Always Remy."

The fireball was dancing on the end of her glove even as he charged his card. The two attacks struck the rubble simultaneously, causing a landslide of dust and rubble, and a hole just big enough for a stubborn Cajun to wriggle through. "You comin'?" was all he called back as the structure groaned and creaked around them. The girls didn't need asking twice, Gambit grabbing Sam's arm and propelling her towards the nearest exit even as her tired feet gave up and she crumpled under her own weight. "Don't worry Cherie," He spoke evenly, trying not to betray his worry at the increasing amount of dust falling from walls and ceiling. "Gambit carry you." And so he scooped her up and started to run, trusting Blaze that she would keep close behind.

They had nearly made it; found their way to a partially open exit through which daylight shone like hope through a ruin. Gambit didn't bother reaching for a card, putting bared fingers straight onto the rubble and leaping backwards with Sam still in his arms as it exploded in a million directions. Briefly, true daylight found them, warm and inviting. Then disaster struck.

The building, creaking and groaning and raining cement dropped on them like nothing on earth. Gambit ducked and rolled instinctively, pushing Sam in front of him towards where he trusted the door to be. Some part of him knew before he'd even had chance to think it that they weren't going to make it. Then like a red dawn something changed. A familiar blast shot through the rubble, falling bricks were blown off course, a way made clear through the chaos and carnage. Sheltering the teenager with his own body, Gambit pushed her towards it; aware as she was not that this new devilry was a friendly force. Cyclops grabbed both of them by the scruff of their necks and hauled them clear with inhuman strength.

"Blaze!" Gambit's words were choked on dust, but his panic for his best friend was clearer than air.

"Get the kid out of here!" Cyclops would not take no for an answer. "I'll get Blaze." Without looking back he dived into the melee, trigger finger clicking his visor again and again as he fought his way through the tumbling building. No one was getting left behind! Not again!

He'd no idea how he found her. Perhaps the Professor had led him to the spot without having time to relay proper instructions. Perhaps it was just the 'thief's luck' that Logan so frequently cursed at cards. Red laser blasts cut her loose of the fallen rubble, strong arms wrenched her free despite her protests of pain. Let her blame him later, Scott would just be glad that she could.

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"Can you not do anything right? When I get my hands on you, you will understand the real meaning of failure! I cannot believe that still you can show such incompetence as to..." Pyro stopped listening, holding the hospital phone away from his ear with his good arm as Mystique continued to rant and rave at the other end. He just didn't care right now. Let her do her worst; he just did not care. He didn't even have to go back to her or the brotherhood. They hadn't come for him, at least not in the time it had taken for some humans to find him by the side of the road, take him in and drive him to hospital. He supposed he should be grateful to them, but he couldn't care enough about that either.

The growl behind him was Sabretooth. Had the lackey actually been worried about not being able to find John? Not for Pyro's sake for sure, but a twitch of the big mutant's head towards the door indicated it was time they got going. Pyro put the phone down with a resounding click and followed Sabretooth back out to his car.

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"How you doin' Petite?" Gambit asked when finally he was allowed into the infirmary to see Blaze.

"It itches more than it hurts." Blaze replied with a grumble, indicating to the expansive cast on her broken leg. Broken in multiple places, and as battered and bruised as the rest of her, she'd been confined to the infirmary for the duration, no matter how much she complained about it. "But I can't get up, and I can't do anything interesting, and Dr Ilehana is * far * to busy to bother talking to this here invalid."

"You are by far the worst patient I have ever had in this infirmary." Ilehana commented from across the room, before exchanging grins with Blaze. They both knew the Professor's daughter didn't mean it. After all, she'd had Gambit as a patient here too often too.

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"We have an unfortunate number of runaways at this school, Samantha." Professor Xavier told the girl sadly as he led her on a tour of the school's grounds. She'd never met anyone like this man; even his X-Men were only shadows in comparison to the commitment and steely drive of Xavier. It made Sam very glad that his cause was so well thought through, his motives so just. She could only imagine the damage he could do if he sided with Pyro's kind. She could see it all clearly now, as Xavier had shared his thoughts and feelings openly on the subject. There was a battle for power running between mutants like Pyro and humans like her father. It was up to Xavier and those like him to prevent these battles from happening, and to strive always for a future where mutants and humans could live together. She'd never thought of it like that, never dreamt that could be possible but simply accepted that mutants and humans were to different to co-exist. Xavier had shown her that simply wasn't true. It was a jolt to Sam when Xavier spoke again.

"For most of them, getting in touch with parents who do not understand what they have become is too painful, too impossible right now. I know you think that you are one of them, but you need to understand something. Your father knew you were a mutant before you ran away. Like any good tactician he had made it his business to learn about mutants, so as to more effectively campaign against them."

"So you're telling me that he hates me now as much as he hates all the rest of mutant-kind?" Sam replied in a sulky voice as they rounded the corner of the mansion and looked out on children playing. So many mutants, did anyone even know how many there were?

"Exactly the opposite." Xavier counselled sagely. "Though it pained him at first, he came to realise something. He is your father, and no matter what you do, who you bring home, what you are, he will always love you."

Sam issued something like an indignant snort. That didn't sound much like her father. If that were true, he'd be at home more often. He'd ask her for opinions on his girlfriends, not some bunch of political advisors. He'd stop her from doing all the bad things she did himself, not leave it for others to mop up.

"I sense your disbelief, Sam. In some ways I understand it, but as a father myself I can only bemoan the biggest weakness of fathers everywhere. We are only human, and we make mistakes. If it hadn't been for your father putting his career on the line, going against a powerful force that was trying to blackmail him and asking a virtual stranger for help, I would never have found you. I needn't tell you what would have happened if I had not, if my X-Men had not come and rescued you."

He didn't need to at all, images of Blaze's crumpled and near unconscious body in Cyclops' arms as he ran up the ramp of the jet were all too fresh in Sam's mind. The redhead would be okay, but if Cyclops had not been there...

"So what are you saying, that I should give him another chance?" Sam replied with a question of her own.

"Only you can decide that Samantha. And only when you are ready."