Agent-G: I wouldn't call the Mansion empty either then, I can send you an e-mail what will happen in a rough story line, if you want. And, uhm, about Puppets without Strings, you see, I save all my stories on floppy, because, well, I nicknamed my computer Crash, that should say something. But I kinda lost the one I have Puppets on, which also has the first half of the next chapter in that story, so I'm frantically trying to find it.

Vacation - Home

There was no place like home, Marianne knew that now for sure. The mansion had been nice to see again, but the, already, worn down house of the safehouse, seeing that back was amazing. She was at home, finally.

Saying goodbye to her friends at the Institute had been long, and in Michael's opinion nearly endless.

But Marianne had realised very well now that her home was no longer the Institute with the X-Men, what she remembered of it was long gone. Times change, she knew that, homes changed.

"Marianne! Thank god you're back. If you're ever leaving with Michael again, please! Please! Take me with you!" Luka came running towards the van.

"I think Tank and Sarah have shown just how mature they are," Michael chuckled as he remained inside the van.

"But when I called last time, it was just the trainingroom," Marianne recalled the conversation in her head.

"How much time was in between that and now?" he raised an eyebrow, looking at her.

"Enough," Marianne swallowed painfully, before getting out of the van, "What did they do, Luka?"

"Driving me insane," the woman groaned, "Ever since I told them you guys were heading home, they've been acting like children! Fighting about everything, disagreeing on how to go on missions. Honestly, Connor had to pull the apart. Ben has locked himself in the lab two days ago, should I go on?"

"Please don't," she had even Michael wincing with her summary.

"Time to pull the 'mom/dad' act back together, Michael, I'll get Ben and Sarah, you get Tank," Marianne grinned broadly, speeding of to get Ben out of his lab and to find Sarah.

"She'll never admit it, but she loves it," Michael sighed, before following Marianne into the house and going to look for Tank.

It didn't take long before Marianne had found Sarah, she was in her gardens. Marianne tapped Sarah's back, already having her 'You're in sooooo much trouble'-face in place, causing Sarah to gulp, loudly.

"You're coming with me. Now. We're going to have a very serious talk," Marianne grinned, a slightly twisted glint in her eyes, making clear she had already thought up a punishment.

After that, it was Ben's turn to be found.

"Ben! Open that freakin' door or you can stay there for as long as this house is standing. I swear!" Marianne said, pounding on the, with steel enforced door. After the last explosion, and fire afterwards, they decided they needed to not only have the trainingroom extra-enforced, but also Ben's workplace, and to keep the drones under a very strong lock and key ever since Ben's mistake in programming them.

A rummbling sound on the otherside, followed by the door slowly opening, Marianne groaned as she saw Ben's appearance. Dirty, completely, utterly covered in dirt, a lot of singed part of his clothes and she wasn't even beginning about his hair.

"You're coming with me, and after that, you're going to take a ten-hour bath," Marianne waved her hand in front of her nose: he smelled awfull too.

"Just lemme..." Ben trailed of as he saw the look on Marianne's face, "shut something of?"

After about an hour, Marianne and Michael had a list of damages, destructions, new refugees and Tank and Sarah sitting together in an otherwise, completely, empty room.

Ben was now, once more, clean and smelled a whole lot more pleasant then before. As it had turned out, he had been tinkering around with a device that would be able to do what Drifter, better known as Joey, who had got Marianne and Michael together, could do with his power. Which meant that they would have a very fast transportation system, if it worked. Which it didn't. Yet.

Now, however, Marianne and Michael faced a crisis: telling the kids they would be moved out for the time being. The feeble, half lie, that they needed to be around other kids their age, was not accepted, Samanthe had resorted to pouting and stamping her feet, Jonathan acted as if he didn't care, Ezra was sniffling in a corner and Connor, well, he knew there was a very serious reason, so he sided with the adults.

Sam's emotional black-mail, however, was taken care of when Marianne called Jean and had her promise the girl that she would take care of her. Same thing went with Ezra and Ororo. Which left them with Jonathan, who had got more angry by the minute, and ended up yelling that they just wanted to get rid of them, followed by him storming to his room and slamming the door.

"I'll take care of it," Marianne quickly stopped Michael from going after the boy, before marching there herself.

"Jonathan?" she knocked on the door.

"Go away!"

"Flash, please," she knocked again, "we don't want to get rid of any of you."

"Tell that to C!" the angry boy yelled back.

Marianne winced at the mention of the little girl they had left at Vincent's: "I promise we'll try to get C to come live with us again. But we had no choice in sending her to a relocation house, you four are under my custody, C wasn't."

Some shuffling noises, followed by Jonathan opening the door to his room: "Promise?"

"Yes, I promise, and you know I keep them. Can I come in now?" she smiled at him, Jonathan nodded and let her enter his room. Marianne cringed at the mess.

"Yeah yeah, I'm cleanin' it as soon as I can," Jonathan shrugged, noticing Marianne's cringe.

"Good. Look at it this way, you get to torment Scott again, I'm sure Kurt and Bobby still haven't grown up so you'll get to learn some new pranks to wreck havoc onto the safehouse," Marianne winked at him, remembering fondly how happy Scott had been that Jonathan had gone home, and how disappointed both pranksters. They had practically taken Jonathan as their apprentice, with Scott as the main victim.

"I can?" he perked up at that, "I mean, you and Michael won't scold me for it?"

"Flash," Marianne chuckled, "when I was still with the X-Men, however short it was, I was one of the group that wondered how far that stick went up. If I remember correctly, Kurt was collecting money to have the stick removed."

- = Next day = -

The leaving of the four kids had been... strenuous, to say the least. Samantha had changed her mind about wanting to leave, and locked herself up in her and Ezra's room. It had taken Jean two hours to talk the child out of the room.

Ezra had disappeared into the garden, leaving Connor and Ororo to look for her, and a girl who could control plant-life hiding in a garden was not easy to find. No matter if you're a strong empath, or a weather goddess.

Then, ofcourse, there had been the ever so charming Jonathan, who had already started to play pranks on Scott, encouraged by Kurt. They had actually got Scott so that his left eyebrow was twitching and the man was constantly looking over his shoulder.

But they were gone now, with the X-Men and, what Marianne and Michael both hoped, safe from whatever that was going to happen with Underground.

"They'll be fine," Marianne whispered as she watched them take off.

"They'll be fine," Michael agreed.

Bothe of them ignored the clenching, nervous feeling that seemed to crush their hearts as they turned to go back inside of the house. They still had many things to do.

.

End

The next part in the Underground Universe will handle the upcoming betrayal and will, in result be a tad bit darker and angstier then my normal writing. Who will survive?