Ooooh another chappie!! Sorry it took a little while to post… early decision app for NYU is in!! whoa, take a breath…. Ok. Thanks so much for reading and reviewing!!! Keep 'em comin'!! One more thing.. did everyone have a great halloween?? Lots of candy I hope! (Here's a tip, don't go see Scary Movie 3, it's really stupid. Instead, you can review my story!!)

*          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *          *           

            "French fry, you made bail." Was Gambit's wake up call. He sat up with a terrible headache. The prison guard unlocked the jail cell and walked away. He sat up on the flat bed and stretched a bit from his uncomfortable night's sleep.

            "Good morning, sunshine." He was surprised to hear Betsy's voice.

            "Where's the prof?" He asked groggily.

            "He wanted to wait until Pyro woke up to make sure he's alright… but I didn't want to wait." She answered. He slowly got up and walked toward her, out of his cell.

            "He alright?" Gambit asked.

            "Probably." Betsy nodded. Gambit smiled slightly, but they both refused to look each other in the eye. "The telly room on the other hand… not quite so fortunate."

            "Where'd you get th' money for my bail?" Just as Betsy was going to open her mouth to explain, Angel joined them just inside the doors of the police station. Gambit was surprised by his appearance, but Warren refused to acknowledge it.

            "I spoke with my father on the phone." He informed both Remy and Betsy, but spoke mostly to Betsy. "He and the District Attorney were roommates in college. He said he'll have the charges dropped."

            "Brilliant." Betsy said.

            "Look, I think we got off on the wrong foot." Warren said, clearly addressing Gambit. "Warren Worthington III." He said as he extended a hand to him.

            "Remy LeBeau." Gambit reintroduced himself as he shook Warren's hand.

            "Really? LeBeau, huh? Cause I just paid Kurt Wagner's bail." Warren smiled. Betsy's jaw dropped open as she looked at Remy.

            "I got a couple a outstanding warrants back home…It'll get expunged." He explained to Betsy. "I don't know how t' thank you, Warren."

            "Just consider it a loan to be paid in good deeds." Warren replied snidely. "Piece a cake, right?"

            "Warren…" Betsy chided him. "We need to get back."

            "Alright, I'll call you later." Betsy nodded as they kissed goodbye. Gambit rolled his eyes.

            "Thanks Warren…" She said as she sauntered out of the police station, pulled by Gambit. They walked down the street, still too hotheaded to look at each other.

            "I'm sorry I yelled at you." Remy caved.

            "Good. You should be." Her callousness made him regret his decision. "Listen, you can't get angry at me for my thoughts. If I can't vent there, then where am I supposed to?" He finally looked up from the sidewalk and over at her. "But I'm sorry too. I'm sorry I ever thought to doubt you." She paused for a moment. "And I've been doing a lot of thinking… I never really doubted you at all, not really. I know you're a hero. I wouldn't have invested so much in you if I didn't know. It's just that…" She paused again to try and compose her thoughts into coherent sentences. "You know the little engine that could?" He nodded, curious of the relevance. "Well, the little engine never would've made it up the mountain if instead of 'I think I can.' She'd told herself 'I don't deserve to.' You know what I mean?" He was suddenly struck with a moment of clarity. He nodded and put his arm around her shoulders. After a moment or two of awkward silence, he began patting at his sides. Betsy giggled and tossed him a pack of cigarettes. "Looking for these?" He smiled as he took them, but kept patting his pockets. Betsy then tossed him his lighter.

            "You got really good at that pick pocket stuff, huh?" Remy said, lighting his cigarette.

            "Well, I learned from the master… I never did thank you for that." Betsy said. "Sinister wouldn't have ever seen me as anything more than a test animal if I didn't have some of your skill.

            "I know." Gambit sighed. They walked silently for a moment. He put out his cigarette after only a few puffs.

            "What you did last night… that was really heroic." He scoffed at her.

            "It's a relief to hear that, cause I thinkin' 'bout what you said the whole time." He said facetiously. Betsy just looked at him as if he were crazy. "All I could think about was mon frère." He answered honestly.

            "Good." She smiled. "You know, I think you can write the worth of one life off that debt of yours."

            "I'm sick a debts… they ruin your life." Betsy squinted at him in confusion.

            "What was your debt?" She asked. "What was worth the massacre?"

            "Nothing." He mumbled under his breath. "It wasn't worth it." She looked at the ground, knowing that pursuing the subject was futile. They walked silently the distance back to the mansion. When Remy walked in, he was dumbfounded by the charred remains of the front foyer and rec room. The kitchen, to the other side of the stairs, was left remarkably untouched. "Mon dieu…" Remy muttered.

            "Shhhh!" Betsy said. "Everyone is still asleep."

            "Not everyone." Wolverine said, walking toward them from the kitchen. "Gumbo, I wanna talk to you." Remy looked to Betsy for an explanation, but she had none to offer, so she walked carefully up the soot covered stairs, praying the weakened wood wouldn't give beneath her.

            "I'm going back to bed." She announced.

            "Sweet dreams, p'tite." She smiled back at him, then continued on her way. Remy turned around and walked back out the front door, lighting another cigarette. Logan followed him out.

            Remy put the cigarette to his mouth for a second puff when Logan smacked him on the back of the head, ripped the cigarette from his lips, tossed it on the ground, and stomped it out. "You don't get to do that." Logan explained. Remy just sighed and sat down on the front steps. "Welcome home, kid." Remy just chuckled coldly.

            "'Welcome home'…not a phrase I'm used to."

            "We're workin' on it, Cajun… just gotta give us a chance." Remy shook his head.

            "Wherever I call home… they always want somethin' from me. Steal from that guy… break these people in here… slaughter that race of innocents… fight for some crazy ideal I don' even know if I believe in."

            "Home sweet home, ain't it, bub?" Logan sympathized. "This place is different. It grows on you, these people become your family… if you let them. That idea becomes less and less crazy once you see the alternatives--"

            "I've seen the alternatives… fought for all of 'em. This is just the lesser of so many evils… We shouldn' have t' fight at all."

            "No, we shouldn't." Logan finally sat down on the steps next to him. "If you don't wanna fight, Gumbo, you don't have t' fight. We can't force you to do anything… it's always your choice."

            "Not if I want this place t' be my home... damned if I do, damned if I don't…Catch 22…" He sunk his head between his shoulders. There was an awkward silence again.

            "Home is where the heart is." Logan said it because it was a trite maxim with the word "home" in it. It sounded helpful, although in this context, it really had no meaning.

            "My heart is sleeping upstairs." Remy smiled. Logan smiled too.

            "Like I said, kid, welcome home."

*          *          *  

            "Rogue… you're awake already?" Betsy said as she walked into the bedroom to see Rogue, sitting on her bed, writing in her notebook.

            "Oh, yeah." She responded, looking up from her writing. "I'm waiting for the prof to get done with Pyro so we can go get Remy out of jail… where ya been? It's almost 9:00 and I woke up just before 7:00 and you weren't here. That's, what? 3 and half hours of sleep?" Betsy smiled as she shook her head.

            "Ten steps ahead of you… he's down stairs."

            "Who?" Rogue was confused. Betsy stopped in the middle of putting her PJs back on, and looked at Rogue as if she were stupid. "Remy?" Rogue concluded. Betsy nodded. "Why didn't you take me with you?" Rogue shouted excitedly as she jumped off the bed and primped.

            "I wanted to talk to him." Betsy said wearily, her three hours of sleep catching up with her.

            "Did it work?" Rogue asked. Betsy nodded as she climbed into bed. "Good. Sleep tight, Betts." Betsy grumbled as she quickly fell asleep and Rogue slipped out of the room.

*          *          *

            When Betsy next opened her eyes, she found herself in a big, dark room. She could see no walls or ceiling, only an eerily illuminated hardwood floor beneath her feet. She sat in her X-Men uniform tied to a large, leather arm chair, by pink bands of energy across her legs, arms, and chest. After orienting herself for a second, she began to look around feverishly for a way out, thrashing against her restraints.

            "Calm down, Elisabeth." She heard frighteningly familiar voice call out to her. She stopped looking around for the source when she heard high heels clicking on the floor behind her, making their way in front of her.

            "Miss Frost." Betsy mumbled as the woman revealed herself, standing in front of Betsy in all her white, innocent, beauty.

            "'Miss Frost'…" Emma repeated, rolling her eyes. "Please, love, we can drop the formalities. Besides, 'Miss Frost' sounds so witch like…" She said looking off into space, tapping her bottom lip with her index finger, sarcastically seeming pensive.

            "Only makes it more fitting…" Betsy muttered bitterly.

            "What did you say?" Emma said calmly as she tightened the bands holding Betsy down with her mind.

            "I'm not dreaming… am I?" Betsy asked, writhing as if she were a mouse being constricted by a snake.

            "Well…" The restraints loosened as the subject changed. "Technically you are, but I'm altering your dreams so your conscious just not… awake." Emma smiled.

            "What do you want with me, Emma?" Betsy finally asked.

            "'Me me me' it's always about 'me', isn't it?" Emma scoffed.

            "No, darling… you always seem to steal the spotlight." Emma looked at her with utter hatred as the pink bands began digging into Betsy's skin.

            "You think I'm self-centered, do you?" Emma shouted. "After all I've done for you, teaching you to use your powers, taking you in after your parents died as if you were my own, looking the other way when you began selling our secrets to STRIKE?"

            "Only because you murdered my parents. They gave you everything we had… what more did you want… my brothers?" Betsy forced out in defense as she cringed.

            "A little 'thank you' would have gone a long way." Emma said as she turned around and walked away from Betsy, releasing the tightening hold of the energy bands.

            "A little anything doesn't get very far with you, Emma." Betsy said, gasping for air.

            "Even now, love, you don't respect what I do for you." Emma sneered.

            "Now? What have you done for me now?" Betsy said, frightened. Emma shook her head and rolled her eyes.

            "You've become too comfortable in that body you ripped off that Asian girl… poor thing, and you let her die." Emma said coldly.

            "How do you know about Kwannon?" Betsy shouted. Emma knowingly hit a nerve.

            "Oh please, Nathaniel Essex and I have always had a very close, working relationship. For example, all he had to do was give me a few age-defying modifications, and you were his for the taking."

            "But he came to me." Betsy said as her conception of her past fell to pieces.

            "No, love, I led you right to him."

            "But--"

            "You're missing the point anyway, Elisabeth dear." Emma put her hands on the arms of Betsy's chair and lowered her face close to Betsy's nose, interrupting her before she could get a word in edge wise. Betsy stared her in the eye, confused. "Flap your wings, butterfly." Emma whispered. For the first time, Betsy realized she was a body in the astral plane, not a butterfly. She was her normal, Japanese self.

            "What have you… how did you--" Betsy said frantically as she tried to pull herself free again. Emma smiled as she stepped back.

            "Well… I didn't do it… I couldn't have… but it was my idea." Emma folded her arms. "I had a friend help me out, a new protégé, if you will. Since you've been gone so long, I decided it was time to take a new mind under my wing." Once again, Betsy looked at her, confused. Suddenly, a squawking bird of flames hovered above the two. It came down out of the abyss as if it wanted to prey on Betsy, wrapping its wings around her. She braced for impact. Then the bird began to dissipate. Betsy first opened one eye to see if the coast was clear, then she opened the other. She trembled as she looked up at Emma. Jean was now standing by her side, dressed all in black leather, contrasting with Emma's pure appearance.

            "That was fun, my queen." Jean giggled.

            "Instilling fear in others is always fun, my dear." Emma said, both her and Jean eyeing Betsy as if she was a bug in a jar.

            "Jean, what are you doing?" Betsy finally uttered. Jean looked back at her, perplexed.

            "Not Jean, Phoenix." She responded.

            "I know we've had our differences, but I can't stand to see Scott pine for you--" Emma stomped her foot and the restraints tightened around Betsy squeezing her harder than any of the times before, cutting her off mid sentence.

            "Scott?" Jean muttered, ignoring Betsy's suffering. "Scott… I know that name… It makes me feel… lonely."

            "Phoenix--" Emma said, interrupting Jean's train of thought. "Why don't you hold the reigns on our friend for a little, see how that makes you feel." Jean smiled like a little girl as if her mother just let her have a piece of candy. Emma stepped out of the way as the firey Phoenix flared up around Jean again, goading her on as she pulled the restraints around Betsy. She giggled maniacally as she derived a sick pleasure from Betsy's torture. "And this isn't all, Elisabeth darling. This is just a warning." Emma hissed in the background. Betsy flexed every muscle in her astral body. It hit her then, that one can't feel physical pain in the astral plane. Her realization caused her to lose focus. As she relaxed, the chair around her broke under the tension of the energy bands. Betsy hit the floor with a thud to find herself sitting straight up in bed.

            She heaved from the sudden abandonment of her pain and was once again startled to hear a few bottles of perfume and makeup fall off Rogue's dresser and onto the floor. Startled by the noise, she looked up to see Remy perched on the bureau.

            "Scared the crap outta me, Betts." Remy explained. "You alright?" She nodded in the dark bedroom like a deer caught in headlights.

            "What time is it?" She whispered, surprised to be back home. Remy looked at her concerned, then glanced down at his watch.

            "'Bout 2:30." He said.

            "2:30…?" She counted on her fingers. "That's about 17 hours." She calculated.

            "Plus 24." He added.

            "What?"

            "You went to bed yesterday… well, th' other day, technically." She stared at him blankly. "It's Tuesday mornin', Betts." She was still having an out of body experience as she looked down at her clammy hands in her lap. "The prof. went in t' look for ya a couplea times, but he kept gettin' blocked."

            "It only felt like a few minutes." She said in a amazement. Remy was worried.

            "What happened, Betsy?"

            "I'm just… gonna go wash my face." Betsy said, having halfway not heard him. She felt her hair plastered to her head. Remy watched her suspiciously as she got up from the bed and walked out of the room like a zombie. He climbed off his perch from watching Rogue sleep and followed Betsy to the doorway, and watched as she walked down the hall toward the bathroom. Once she had disappeared, Remy ran off down the corridor in the other direction.

            Betsy stared at her face in the mirror above the white porcelain sink. She shut her eyes and opened them up, half expecting to see her old self. She wanted to see her thick, blonde hair and fair skin, her narrow, chiseled jaw and blue eyes. Instead, she stared at her dark brown face and flat nose, her thin, brown eyes, and pulled her long purple hair back into a pony tail. She cupped her hands under the running faucet and pressed her face into them. She dumped the water in the sink and took a deep breath as she watched it swirl down the drain. She did this a few times, constantly screaming at herself to do something, to go after Emma, and hit her with a mental grenade. It seemed as though she couldn't hear herself as she was running on auto pilot. She picked up the hand towel beside the sink and dried her face. She saw herself in the mirror and was confused by the markings all the way down her upper arms. She ran her other hand over them, feeling the tenderness of deep, purple bruises. She lifted up her white tank top and saw them across her chest. She dropped the towel and lifted up the legs of her black satin PJs and saw the same bruises around her ankles, all the way up to her knees. Each one corresponded with a pink band from her "dream". Hit with another earth shattering brick, she walked out of the bathroom, dazed. She quietly walked down the hallway and into Kurt's room. She pulled a cigarette and lighter out of Remy's drawer. She stopped on her way out to see Kurt sleeping peacefully, then continued on her way. She walked down the hallway, down the newly re-enforced staircase, and out the front door.  She felt relieved by the rush of cold, late autumn air against her sweaty body. She crouched on the stoop, bringing her knees to her chest, and put the cigarette in her mouth and lit it. She puffed on the cigarette as she stared off into the dark night sky.

            "Betsy?" The professor approached her calmly, wheeling up beside her in his green silk PJs. "Are you alright?" She was asked again. She stared up at him blankly as Remy crouched down at her other side, watching the cigarette tremble between her fingers. Betsy silently looked away from Xavier, and resumed staring off into space.

            "What happened, Betts?" Remy projected his concern, hoping it would snap her out of her fog. She merely looked at him with the same glazed eyes as she had the professor.

            "I've been violated."