Okie Dokie, Lots of Romy in this one, YAY!!! Next chapter'll be great, great, great!! As always, thanks so much for all of your wonderful and encouraging reviews. I'm so glad you all liked the last chapter despite it's sadness, it really means a lot to me. I will update soon, maybe before the weekend. Keep reading and reviewing!!

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            The three girls and Remy weaved their way through the clothing racks of the department store. Kitty fished through the immense amount of clothes, plucking out tops and skirts and pants and handing them to Betsy.

            "Oh man, this color would look great with your hair." Kitty said as she pulled out a white peasant blouse with purple flowers the same color as Betsy's hair on it. She put it at the top of the mound of clothes Betsy held in her arms, which reached much higher than head. Remy and Rogue followed them through the store, taking an occasional glance at something on a rack here or there, but they mostly just laughed at Kitty and Betsy.

            "Ugggh… I think my arms are going to fall off." Betsy mumbled.

            "What?" Kitty said, not being able to hear Betsy behind the clothes heap.

            "I mean… these are all nice, Kitty, but they're not really my style."

            "Oh." Kitty sighed. She was having fun playing dress up with very own 'ethnic-oriental' Barbie. "Well, what were you thinking?"

            "I dunno for sure, but can we put these back?" She had to fight a random garment for room to breath.

            "Okay, come with me." Kitty said. All three followed. She led them into the dressing room where she instructed Betsy to drop the clothes. She did so willingly and furiously tried to rub the feeling back in arms. "The people who work here will put them back."

            "Well that hardly seems fair." Betsy said as she measured the height of the pile by sight, but then followed Kitty, Remy and Rogue out of the dressing room. "Rogue and I are going clothes shopping. Kitty, you can play dress-up with Gambit." Betsy grabbed Rogue's hand. Rogue had no time to respond as Betsy dragged her out of the store. Remy stared in confusion as the two dashed away. Then he looked over at Kitty. She was eyeing him carefully.

            "What size are you? 31? 32?" She asked.

            "Uh… 31" he answered apprehensively.

            "Well, if you can't have Barbie, might as well play with Ken." She grabbed his hand to drag him to the men's department. He looked back to see if he could call Rogue or Betsy for help, but they were both gone by now, so he decided to play along.

            "Remy diff'rent from Ken in one very big, important way…"

            "Yeah," Kitty replied with out looking back at him. "Ken can keep his mouth shut!" she made him smile.

*          *          *

            Betsy was still holding Rogue's hand as they made their way out of the clothes towards the entrance to the mall. Rogue finally managed to pull her hand away.

            "Why do you wanna go shoppin' with me?" Rogue asked as she slowed Betsy down.

            "Because you've got style, I must say." Rogue was shocked

            "Nobody lahks the way Ah dress." She replied.

            "Not true, I like it. I mean, it's a bit much for me, but I'm much more delicate than you. It definitely works for you, sort of."

            "Sorta?" Rogue was growing offended.

            "Well, I can understand why you'd want to keep away the average acquaintance, but when it starts fending off the people you should become close with, it's a problem."

            "Y'all know what happens when Ah get close with anybody…" Rogue referred to her powers.

            "Yeah, it reminds you that you can't physically be close with them and it makes you hate them and push you away. In a sense, you screw yourself out of anything good that could ever happen to you." Betsy knew what she was talking about, but went deeper than Rogue liked to think about.

            "You don't understand." Rogue folded her arms.

            "Yes I do… That's why you're mad at me!" Betsy sang.

            "Alright, Dr. Elisabeth, how're you plannin' on fixin' me?" Rogue barked. People were always quick to judge, but they proposed a solution.

            "Baby steps, my dear. First thing you can do is start by uncrossing your arms. Folding up like that is a subconscious repellant… and gimme a smile." Rogue straightened her arms at her sides, but refused to smile. "Man, Ororo gave me all this money, I couldn't possibly spend it all on myself… but if I must, I must." Rogue smiled and grabbed her arm.

            "C'mon, we're goin' shoppin' f'r make up."

*          *          *

            Remy stood in the dressing room. At first it was fun having Kitty stare at his body while he modeled the clothes she'd picked out for him, but it was getting kind of boring. She was actually interested in how he looked in the clothes, not how he looked under them. He started putting on one of the black pairs of pants and black shirts, along with a new trench coat. Kitty knocked on the door.

            "Okay, let me see 'em now." She shouted.

            "Remy don' know 'bout dis batch, p'tite." He lied.

            "Oh c'mon! Just let me see 'em!" She shouted back.

            "Mebbe you jus' go find me some more?" He said, lacing up a new pair of black boots.

            "Alright." Kitty groaned. He heard her bump into a mannequin as she walked away. It made him smile. He ripped the tags off his clothes, and put on his sunglasses from earlier. He flipped up the collar of his coat since he didn't have the trade marked face piece from his uniform. He slipped on his fingerless gloves, and he was ready for business. He stepped up on the bench in the dressing room and put his hands on the top of the flimsy makeshift walls. He hoisted himself on top of the wall, and stayed crouched until he could gain his balance. The man in the dressing room next Remy's noticed him.

            "Hey? What are you doing?" the man shouted. Gambit hadn't noticed him before, and he glanced down to see where the shout had come from, only to catch a glimpse of the man in his underwear.

            "Hey!" The man shouted again, trying to cover up. Gambit looked away quickly.

            "Lissen homme, you might wanna have a doctor check dat out!" He yelled back as he stood up, hoping the wall would support his weight. Gambit was too tall as he had to bend down to avoid hitting his head on the ceiling of the store. He put his hands up on the ceiling to level his balance as he walked across the top of the wall. The next row of dressing rooms, sharing one long wall with the men's, were the women's. One of the dressing room occupants looked up to see Gambit. He didn't notice her as he was he was focused on the thin balance bean he was forced to walk.

            "Security!!!" She screamed bloody murder. He walked much quicker now, and jumped off the wall back into the store, landing with the grace of a master thief. Three rent-a-cops were approaching him from the left. Gambit smiled at them and took off running to the right. He made the next left, then ducked into a rack of women's underwear as the security guards kept going straight. He rolled his eyes at the ease of his exploits. He stood up and adjusted his coat, realizing where he was. He looked around to see if anyone was watching, then picked up a pair of panties. He felt the material and was struck with an idea.

            "Can I help you?" He heard a bitter sales woman ask from behind him. He smiled his irresistible cocky smile as he turned around.

            "Oui mad'moiselle. Do you have dis in green?" He showed her the garment and flashed his pearly whites.

            "Yes, but I don't think this is your size." She said, shattering Remy's pride. But he didn't give up, he never gave up, not with a woman.

            "Size don' matter, chère. I jus want the material, can't hardly feel it."

            "Whatever floats your boat." She said as she picked up a few pairs and walked to the cash register. He followed behind, then stayed in front of the counter as she slipped around to the other side.

            "You get an employee discount?" He asked as sweetly as possible.

            "Yes…" she said suspiciously as she rang up the underwear.

            "How much?" He asked.

            "Why?"

            "Jus' curious 'bout yo' job, chère." He said, sounding utterly sincere.

            "Are you trying to hit on me to use my employee discount to purchase women's underwear either for you, or someone else?" She said indignantly, putting the garment down. Remy pulled off his sunglasses and looked her directly in the eye.

            "Course not, mad'moiselle. Jus' tryin' to make conversation." She was immediately struck by his deep brown eyes. She couldn't look away as she felt her will power and self control drip out her ear.

            "Oh." She said, mesmerized.

            "What time you getting' of this evenin'?" The sound of his voice was hypnotic.

            "Five o'clock…" She said, captured in his charm.

            "You hear from Remy by then." He said. He slowly looked down to the underwear on the counter.

            "Oh… will this be cash or credit?" She whispered, exasperated.

            "Ca dépend… how much?" He looked back up at her and tilted his head.

            "Uh… $44.63 minus 20% employee discount… 35.70." She said. Remy smiled at her and handed her the cash. When the exchange had been made, he picked up her hand and kissed it gently. Remy could feel it as her heart skipped a beat.

            "Merci for all yo' help, mad'moiselle." He slipped his sunglasses back on as he turned to walk away.

            "Uh… bye…" She said quietly as she watched him disappear into the store.

*          *          *

            "Here we go." Rogue said as she approached the make up counter of her choice, Betsy following behind. Rogue was looking at all the different shades of lip stick while Betsy admired the eye shadows.

            "Wow, this color would look really good on you!" Betsy said as she showed Rogue the sheer red color. Rogue shook her head.

            "Nah, too light."

            "Oh c'mon! Just let me see!" Rogue sighed and took some of the makeup remover hidden behind the display to wipe off her dark purple make up. She then shut her eyes and turned to Betsy. Betsy rubbed the applicator in the eye shadow went to put it on Rogue's lid. With the first touch, she jumped back.

            "Maybe Ah ougtta just put it on." Rogue said with her eyes still shut.

            "I won't touch you." Betsy assured her. "And if I do, then when I wake up, which I will, I'll come into your head myself and kick my own ass out your ear canal." Rogue couldn't help but smile, picturing the image in her head. She sat up straighter and apprehensively leaned a little forward. Betsy began to carefully apply the make up. When she was finished, Rogue opened her eyes. Betsy's jaw dropped open, and her eyes went wide.

            "What?" Rogue asked worried when Betsy didn't say anything. She grabbed a mirror. "What it is?"

            "It's you." Betsy finally said as she smiled. "At first I thought it was Jean, but that wasn't right… because it's you. It makes so much sense." She said, she'd realized she'd seen Rogue's eyes before.

            "What's me? What makes sense?" Rogue asked, worried. Betsy smiled and shook her head.

            "It's nothing." Betsy sighed, snapping back into reality and out of her thoughts. "You just have the most beautiful eyes I've ever seen." Rogue blushed.

            "Oh… uh, thanks." She smiled.

*          *          *

            Kitty and Remy were sitting the middle of the food court, waiting for Rogue and Betsy to get back from shopping. Kitty was messing with a french fry, using it to draw pictures with ketchup on her paper plate. Remy watched her as he slurped a soda.

            "What's on yo' mind, p'tite?" He asked her, breaking the uncomfortable silence.

            "It's nothing." She said. She drew smiley faces even though she was rather sad.

            "Remy's an empath. He know better then that." She looked up at him.

            "You wouldn't understand."

            "You'd be surprised, Kate."

            "Kate? Everyone calls me Kitty, why do you call me Kate?"

            "Cause y'all havin' trouble trustin' the Acolyte. Givin ya my own special name makes it more personal. And your name is Katherine, right?" She nodded. "So if ya don' mind, Remy's gon' call the kitty-kat, Kate."

            "Whatever." She shrugged her shoulders.

            "An' like I said, Remy's an empath. If I could feel your burden, then yo' overwhelmin' sense of relief is surely ringin' in my ears." She looked back up at him. She thought she had changed the subject.

            "You're a jerk, you know that?"

            "You have no idea, Kate. Now spill it." She sighed, defeated.

            "I think my parents are splitting up." She said. Remy leaned back in his chair, absorbing what she said.

            "Oh chère, Remy's sorry. I thought--"

            "Thought that I was being over dramatic about something stupid and pointless? You know, they all think I have only stupid problems." She grew bitter. "Nobody ever thinks I have more than two ounces of brains just because I say 'like' like, way too much." She started playing with her french fry again, having vented her frustration.

            "You unload on Remy anytime, Kate. I'm real good f'r that. An' I'm definitely the first to admit that I'm stupid an' shallow. I'll work on it f'r ya." Kitty smiled at him.

            "Whoever your type is…" She started, " she totally isn't good enough for you." Remy smiled back at the compliment, but he didn't believe a word she said. "But it's not even the fact that they're splitting up that bums me out really." She went back to staring at her plate. Remy sat up again, attentive. "I think it's mostly that so much is changing back home, and I'm missing all of it."

            "That's part a life, p'tite. Only one who can avoid that is Jamie Multiple." She smiled at him, but it didn't really make her feel any better. "Ya homesick, Kate, not f'r home so much, but the home ya left behind. Y'ougta jus' be happy ya don' have ta jus' sit around an' wait for change to happen." That actually did make her feel a little better.

            "There you two are!" Betsy shouted as she and Rogue approached their table. Betsy smiled at Remy, wickedly. She knew something he didn't, sort of.

            "Oooooh, let me see what you got?" Remy's eyebrows perked up at Kitty's complete personality swing, but he didn't say anything. "Oh no!" Kitty shouted, peeking into one of the many shopping bags Betsy and Rogue came back with. "There's so much black!" She reeled.

            "Well," Betsy said, standing up to model her new clothes. She now wore a tight dark purple top, slightly redder than her hair, with purple and black stripes down the long sleeves, with her thumbs in pre-cut holes. She also wore a loose fitting pair of black cargo pants, showing off her toned midriff, along with black boots. Her hair was pulled back in a lazy bun, held by chop sticks courtesy of the Chinese food restaurant in the food court. "It works for me, doesn't it?" Rogue smiled as she watched Kitty in agony.

            "Oh, no! There's two of them!" Kitty bellowed, referring to the similarities between Rogue's clothes and Betsy's. Remy smiled as well, then leaned over to Rogue.

            "There could never be two of you." He whispered in her ear. Rogue just looked at him angrily for spoiling her fun, watching Kitty's histrionics, by saying something halfway serious. Betsy noticed and grabbed Kitty's hand.

            "C'mon, I need some new skivvies." Betsy dragged Kitty to the nearest lingerie store to leave Remy and Rogue alone. Rogue waited for them to be out of sight before she spoke.

            "So what were you and Kitty talking about? It looked pretty heavy." Remy thought for a second, then nodded. "So what was it?" she asked again. Remy shrugged his shoulders.

            "If she wanted you t'know, she woulda tol' ya." The corners of Rogue's lips turned up at his loyalty, but they went back down before anything showed.

            "Ya got tight lips, Cajun." She said.

            "Actually chère, the politically correct term for a descent of the earliest known French settlers is Acadian." He spoke without his accent, trying to sound as much like a dictionary as possible. She just looked at him, unimpressed.

            "And the only correct term for me, that won't result in a dismemberment of one or more of your limbs, is 'Rogue', Cajun."

            "An' if ya really wanna see how tight my lips are…" She put her gloved hand over his pouty face and pushed him back.

            "Okay, swamp rat. Enough of this stupid flirtin', you're gettin' under mah skin."

            "Can't go over it, can't go around it, can't go through it, might as well get under it. One barrier down, only eleventy billion t'go." Rogue looked at her hands and sighed as she dropped them in her lap. Remy hit a nerve. "That's not what I meant, chère."

            "But it's the truth." She said. "Even when Ah do want more, Ah can't."

            "You sayin' you want more wit' Remy?" All of his flirtatious feelings melted away to show his avid interest in her.

            "No…" she said defensively. "Ah wouldn't do that to you."

            "But I could do it to myself?" He asked.

            "Why would you want to? You know what happens when Ah touch ya. You know it's not worth it." He rolled his eyes at her self deprecation.

            "When I look at you, I don' see dark, heavy make up, I don' see the black clothes, I don' see the poisonous skin. I see a little girl that huddles away from the world cause she been hurt one too many times. An' when I see a girl who's about ta cry, even if it's only on th'inside, I can't help but wanna make it stop, make her happy again." She spent a moment absorbing his words and the honesty behind them. Still looking at her hands, she watched as one of his slid over one of hers. She quickly shook him off and refolded her hands back in her lap.

            "What're you sayin', swamp rat? That Ah'm some sad, defenseless little girl that needs you ta save me?" She spat venomously.

            "Non." He was whispering in her ear. "Jus' that I'm gonna make it my life's mission to make you happy." She could feel his breath on her ear again, as he drew swirls and heart on her back with the tip of his finger.

            "You're fightin' a loosin' battle, LeBeau." She leaned back in the chair, away from Remy, forcing him to stop touching her. He still smiled at her.

            "Don' nobody know how much Gambit loves a challenge."

*          *          *

            Kitty and Betsy casually stood at the cash register as the cashier rang up Betsy's purchase.

            "I can't believe Rogue infected you with her Goth disease…" Kitty joked.

            "First of all, I'm not Goth, I'm British punk. And second of all, it's not a disease, it's just a personal style." She chided Kitty for insulting Rogue behind her back.

            "I know," Kitty admitted. "It's just that it's ruined Rogue's social life, and it's had, like, a domino effect on the rest of her life."

            "Rogue did that on her own… and I think it's about to change." Betsy once again developed a wicked smile, knowing Kitty would love to hear what she had to say. Her body got sort of giddy.

            "What?" Kitty asked, "Why?" Betsy's smiled grew as she pressed her lips together. "What do you know?" Kitty begged for information.

            "Well I can't tell you… but if you were to guess…" She trailed off enticing Kitty to guess.

            "Okay, it has to do with Rogue…" Kitty confirmed as Betsy nodded. "Does it have to do with Scott, or Logan?" Betsy shook her head and rolled her eyes. Kitty got real cold, real fast. Kitty looked around as the thought struck her. "Oh! Does it have to do with Remy?" Betsy's eyes got wider and her smile reappeared as her nods were big and obvious. "Does Rogue like Remy?" Kitty asked slyly, thinking she got the answer right.  Betsy just shrugged her shoulders.

            "I dunno, maybe… but keep guessing, you're sooooo close!" The two girls began walking out of the store and back into the mall, on the second floor.

            "Okay…" Kitty thought for a second. "Does Remy like Rogue…?" Betsy's grin grew to reveal her teeth  as she nodded her head furiously. "You're kidding!" Kitty shouted. Betsy shook her head, still smiling. "Ohmigod! It makes so much sense!"

            "I know, doesn't it?" The two girls were so excited about their friends, they didn't notice the trickle of people in the mall that had begun running and screaming, until somebody bumped into them, knocking them on the floor.

            "Hey, watch where you're going!" the girl shouted at Kitty and Betsy.

            "I do believe you're the run who ran into us." Betsy said.

            "Jubilee?" Kitty identified the girl.

            "Oh, sorry, Kitty." She said.

            "What's going on?" Kitty asked Jubilee referring to the trickle of people that had quickly grown into a flood. Suddenly, crashing foot steps could be heard, and much smaller explosions. Betsy leaned to one side to see around the corner. She could see Gambit furiously throwing playing cards at giant robot.

            "Oh god." Kitty said, as she saw it too. "It's a sentinel."