Disclaimer- I own nothing that looks familiar. If it doesn't, then I
probably own it.
Author's Note- Ok, I decided we need some Todd in here, so here's a lot of Todd. Swears up ahead. Actually, this chapter might be R because one of the agents in here swears *a lot*. Not to mention that Todd has quite the potty mouth.
Chapter Six- Misery
Todd fell into a depression for the first few weeks he had been there. Now, realizing a month ago that it would just get him killed, he toughened up. He had to survive for the others. He had to survive to make sure that Pietro was okay.
He never was strong. He was always the follower of the group, while Lance and Pietro assumed roles as leader. Although he was angry with Pietro for the longest time after the little 'incident', he couldn't hate him now. Pietro didn't deserve this torture, no matter what he did in the past.
Once, when they were to be given virus shots when they were at the prison, Pietro freaked out once he saw the needle. He ran around the small room, knocking things over, and trying to escape. Five men had to hold him down while the doctor stabbed his arm with the thing. There were two other prisoners in the small room with Todd and Pietro, waiting their turn. They were absolutely shocked.
Later that night, Pietro had confessed to Todd about his fear of needles. He said it started awhile after his father had started to inject him with them. He was afraid of them because they had always brought him and Wanda pain, and they caused Wanda to be angry and not in control of her powers which caused her to be sent away. Not that she would remember any of it.
He hoped Pietro hadn't been the victim of Trask's needles while they were there. He just hoped that it would be a lot longer before he was. They had been there for almost two months, after all.
Todd had a tattoo on his arm. He wouldn't actually call it a tattoo, but a brand. There were a set of numbers and a barcode to the right of it on his left forearm. The numbers read: TT8090109. He had memorized it now, it became more like a third name to him, Todd and Toad being his first and second.
There were three other people in his cell with him. There was a woman named Clarice Ferguson, who's eyes were white and showed no sign of pupils, and her hair was a mix between pink and purple. She had some sort of teleportation powers that Todd didn't even bother to understand. Another was a girl a few years younger than him named Paige Guthrie. He asked if maybe she was related to a 'Cannonball' and she nodded her head and said that Sam Guthrie was her older brother. Her powers were some sort of shape- shifting ones. She explained that if she was to tear off her outermost layer of skin she could shape-shift. It generally freaked Todd out, but in a way, he thought it was cool. The last one was Russell Collins, whom everybody called 'Rusty'. He had bright red hair and he could shoot flames from his hands.
Todd never really talked to any of them. He didn't bother to get close to them because he might get hurt if something happened to them, it was bad enough that Pietro was there.
"Hey!" shouted a voice from outside of the cell and then they heard a club whack on the bars.
"Git over here, ye fuckin' frog," he yelled, banging on the bars even louder. Todd sighed and rolled his eyes, even though he was frightened. He walked over there casually.
"Whattaya want?" he asked. The agent spit at his feet.
"Yer ta come wit me," he said. From the sound of his accent he sounded Irish. So Trask, Gyrich, and Stryker were going global now?
"Yeah, well, why don't you go and get drunk, while I stay here, yo?" Todd said, wrongfully stereotyping the Irish.
A club banged on the bars right in front of where Todd's face was. He gasped and jumped back.
"Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth!" he yelled. Then he opened the door and yanked Todd out roughly by the collar of his gray suit.
"McCormick!" another agent shouted down the hall, walking faster to get to them.
"What?" McCormick snarled looking up at the agent coming to him. It was a pretty Asian woman. Although she was small, she looked like she could kick some ass.
"There's no manhandling the prisoners unless ordered to!" she snapped at him. She seemed to have higher authority out of the two.
"Trask wanted the fuckin' frog 'ere," he muttered, handcuffing Todd.
"You watch your language when you're around me, Conner," she said and looked at him harshly. He scowled at her and then she just stepped aside and continued her way down the hall.
"Fuck ye, *Allison*," he muttered darkly when she was out of earshot, emphasizing her name. He hated it when she bossed him around like that. Why couldn't she act like she used to?
Todd had looked between the two amusedly. "Girlfriend?" he asked jokingly.
McCormick scowled at him. "Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth if ye know what's good fer ye."
"Guess she's not then," Todd said.
"Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth, ye fuckin' frog," McCormick snarled.
"Actually, they call me Toad," Todd corrected. McCormick just scowled at him.
"You know, I miss my home, yo," Todd said with a hint of sadness in his voice. He knew that the Irishman would not hurt him; he just wanted to intimidate him. He knew that some of the agents really didn't believe what Trask and the others said about mutants.
"Ye better shut that shit hole of yers," McCormick growled, although he seemed less mean than he had before.
"You got any brothers or sisters, yo?" Todd asked. "I don't have any blood siblings, although one of my best friends is here, and I count him as a brother. I have two others."
McCormick was silent, his face unreadable. Then he answered, "I have a twin and a sister."
Todd didn't speak for a while; he was so surprised that the Irishman answered civilly.
"What are their names?" Todd finally asked after a short silence.
"Later," McCormick said as he stopped in front of a door and then opened it. He led them to what would be Todd's misery.
"McCormick? Ah, yes, just after his examination and when you escort him back to his cell you may go on your break. Be sure to be back in exactly an hour." A man in a white lab coat said.
Todd was shoved down onto a metal examining table and a tranquilizer gun was pointed at his back just in case he tried anything funny, and there was also three men surrounding him to restrain him if needed. He stayed silent and unmoving, keeping his face neutral.
The man in the lab coat (Todd recognized him as Trask), checked Todd's pulse, blood pressure, ears, mouth, eyes, reflexes, and for some reason, joints.
"Hmm," Trask grunted.
"Mr. Tolensky, May I ask you to demonstrate how you use your tongue?" Trask asked coldly.
"Would strangle you with it, yo, if I didn't have this fuckin' collar around my neck," Todd snarled at him.
Trask growled and backhanded Todd across the face. Todd, furious, went to jump at him, but the three men that had surrounded him jumped in and held him tightly to his spot, McCormick included.
Then Trask leaned in very close to Todd's face and hissed, "I have very little patience for your kind, freak, and right now is no exception. You will obey me or you will seriously regret it."
Todd grinned mirthlessly, "What do you have against me that will make me regret any of my actions? You deserve whatever shit you get."
"You have a little buddy here also, do you not?" Trask sneered. Fear flickered across Todd's face for only a millisecond before he quickly covered it up. Trask grinned coldly, "Pietro Maximoff. I can't wait to see him."
Trask then took out of his pocket a little key, and he turned the collar around Todd's neck around so the keyhole was facing him.
"Now, you will cooperate or you might as well say goodbye to dear Pietro. He'll either be dead or too insane to live properly or to remember you," Trask said. He stared Todd in the face for a few more seconds before slipping the key into the keyhole and with a click, it unlocked. He gently tugged at either end of the lock and it pulled apart, and he took it off and set it close by.
"Grab that cup over there with your tongue, freak," Trask demanded, pointing over to a plastic measuring cup over on a table at a corner.
Todd glared at Trask before saying, "Maybe if you don't call me a 'freak' or a 'monster', yo, I just might."
Trask rolled his eyes. "Fine, *Mr. Tolensky*, why don't you grab that cup over there with your tongue?"
Todd gave him a death glare for a few seconds more and then turned to stare at the cup. Looking at it, he judged the distance from where he was sitting to where the cup was placed and, a second later, a long green and slimy snake-like tongue came out of his mouth and wrapped itself around the plastic cup and brought it back until it was before Trask, slime dripping off from it.
Trask raised an eyebrow and took the cup, and Todd noticed for the first time that Trask had rubber gloves on.
"Interesting, although disgusting," he muttered, narrowing his eyes. "How long is your tongue?"
"I dunno," Todd snapped at him rudely.
"Really?" Trask asked, raising an eyebrow, "You never bothered to find out?"
"I didn't think it was important taking a tape measurer and sticking my tongue out as far as it can go," Todd spat. "What was the use?"
Trask glared at him. "Take him back," he said to McCormick, "I'm done with him for today."
McCormick put the collar onto Todd, while Todd glared at him scathingly the whole time. McCormick's neutral expression faltered slightly. Then the Irishman grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and led him out and back the way they came from.
"What are your twin and your sister's names?" Todd asked suddenly. For some reason, he wanted to know, and he knew it would comfort him somehow.
McCormick looked at him sharply then let out a sigh. He said softly, "Me twin's name is Seamus and my sister's name is Colleen."
"What are you doing here? You don't believe in any of this shit, do you?" Todd asked.
"Fuck, I dunno what I'm doing 'ere" McCormick sighed. "I hate bein' called by me last name. I'd rather I'd be called by what Mam named me. I jus' want ta go home."
"I'll call you Conner, although in private, of course, if you'd quit callin' me a fuckin' frog," Todd said to him, feeling only slightly sorry for the young Irishman behind him. It was the Toad, of course, who was in an even worse predicament.
McCormick, or rather Conner's, mouth twitched up in a slight smile for a second before going blank again.
They stopped outside of his cell. McCormick took off Todd's handcuffs as he pushed him, although not as rough as he would have, inside of the cell.
"Whatever, Toad," he said and locked the cell.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Professor! We really gotta find her!" Sam Guthrie a.k.a Cannonball wailed desperately.
"Sam! Patience is what Paige needs right now! We will not find her if we rush into things!" Professor Xavier said harshly over his shoulder to the desperate mutant. He turned back to the screen as he continued to search for the mutant known as Husk.
"Ah shouldn't of let her go out alone! Not after what happened to Jean and Bobby and the others!" Sam scolded himself. He was around the age of seventeen now, his blond hair short from a recent haircut. "Ah'm so stupid."
Charles just sighed. He understood Sam's desperation, he really did, but the youngster just needed to be a bit more patient. He was glad though, that Sam had less of a temper than Lance. And then Wanda . . .
He shook his head, trying not to think about the little incident in which the Scarlet Witch had strolled onto the mansion's lawn and let herself in the mansion. The encounter with her and the other X-Men had not been pleasant, and he actually had to calm her down using his telepathy, she was that out of control.
Now Charles was more determined than ever. It was not only Jean, Bobby, Jubilee, Amara, Roberto, or Paige that counted on him, but also Pietro and Todd and all the other mutants that were captured and locked away.
Suddenly something beeped. The Professor turned to the screen and his eyes widened.
He found the Toad's use of his mutant powers. He had only used them for a minute, but that minute was all he had needed.
He couldn't pinpoint an exact location but he was sure it was in the area a little south of New York State, which it narrowed it down to several states.
He tried to concentrate more but found he couldn't, mostly from Sam's ranting, his feelings of guilt, and that he was projecting quite strongly.
"Please Sam! You're projecting!" The Professor reprimanded. Sam looked down at the floor, blushing.
"Sorry," he muttered.
The door to Cerebro automatically opened and Rogue walked in. Her hair was still the same length, although now she had outgrown her gothic makeup and had gotten a tan. She really was a beautiful young woman; she just covered it up during high school.
"Professah," she said curtly as she walked up right next to him.
"Good evening, Rogue," Charles greeted as she stood next to him and gave her a slight nod.
"Fahnd anything yet?" she asked, her Mississippian accent thick. The Professor guessed it was Gambit who brought it out of her, being southern himself.
"Todd used his powers very briefly, but that was all I could find," he said and pinched the bridge of his nose lightly and closed his eyes.
"Tha's too bad," she said and looked down at the floor.
"How have you been, Rogue?" The Professor asked her pointedly. He was talking about her psyches.
"Ah'm fahne," she said tersely. Charles sighed.
"I really do hope we find them soon, Paige has already been gone for almost two weeks now, and Jean and the others have been gone for even longer . . ." he trailed off.
"Professor," Sam said from where he was sitting. "Is there anythin', anythin' at all that Ah can do?"
"Hope," the professor said. "Hope. But look anywhere you can that you might think would be helpful: libraries, police departments, anywhere. Just look."
Sam looked a little disappointed, but then he nodded and stood up, but he muttered just as he walked out of the door, "Like tha' helped anythin'."
Charles almost smiled to himself. In fact, he himself was impatient with this whole ordeal.
"Nevah thought ol' Cannonball here would be so impatient," Rogue regarded with some amusement, the corner of her lip curling up slightly.
"Can you really blame him, Rogue?" the Professor sighed, "Can you really blame Wanda?"
Rogue looked down at the floor, whatever trace of a smile that was there vanished. She said softly, "No, Ah can't. Ah don't blame any of them."
"Ah hope that we find them soon, an' take the whole lot of 'em outta their misery," she whispered.
"I do too, my dear Rogue," The professor sighed, taking the Cerebro helmet off of his head to take a break. "I do too."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hurrah! Another chapter done! Thanks to all who review, you really know how to make a gal feel good. xoxo!
There will be no slash in this story, since I am against that, unless they were written that way or specifically said that they were gay in cannon. Or unless they are original characters. Then I would not mind. I just don't see it any other way.
The only romance so far that has been hinted is Romy, and a little itsy bitsy bit of John/Wanda. But they only dated briefly. Oh, and Kitty/Piotr. But now I'm going to say that anything might not last, or might not happen, so don't get your hopes up.
So, if you came this far . . . REVIEW! I'll give you a Pietro plushy, or a Gambit, or whoever the hell you want, just review.
Author's Note- Ok, I decided we need some Todd in here, so here's a lot of Todd. Swears up ahead. Actually, this chapter might be R because one of the agents in here swears *a lot*. Not to mention that Todd has quite the potty mouth.
Chapter Six- Misery
Todd fell into a depression for the first few weeks he had been there. Now, realizing a month ago that it would just get him killed, he toughened up. He had to survive for the others. He had to survive to make sure that Pietro was okay.
He never was strong. He was always the follower of the group, while Lance and Pietro assumed roles as leader. Although he was angry with Pietro for the longest time after the little 'incident', he couldn't hate him now. Pietro didn't deserve this torture, no matter what he did in the past.
Once, when they were to be given virus shots when they were at the prison, Pietro freaked out once he saw the needle. He ran around the small room, knocking things over, and trying to escape. Five men had to hold him down while the doctor stabbed his arm with the thing. There were two other prisoners in the small room with Todd and Pietro, waiting their turn. They were absolutely shocked.
Later that night, Pietro had confessed to Todd about his fear of needles. He said it started awhile after his father had started to inject him with them. He was afraid of them because they had always brought him and Wanda pain, and they caused Wanda to be angry and not in control of her powers which caused her to be sent away. Not that she would remember any of it.
He hoped Pietro hadn't been the victim of Trask's needles while they were there. He just hoped that it would be a lot longer before he was. They had been there for almost two months, after all.
Todd had a tattoo on his arm. He wouldn't actually call it a tattoo, but a brand. There were a set of numbers and a barcode to the right of it on his left forearm. The numbers read: TT8090109. He had memorized it now, it became more like a third name to him, Todd and Toad being his first and second.
There were three other people in his cell with him. There was a woman named Clarice Ferguson, who's eyes were white and showed no sign of pupils, and her hair was a mix between pink and purple. She had some sort of teleportation powers that Todd didn't even bother to understand. Another was a girl a few years younger than him named Paige Guthrie. He asked if maybe she was related to a 'Cannonball' and she nodded her head and said that Sam Guthrie was her older brother. Her powers were some sort of shape- shifting ones. She explained that if she was to tear off her outermost layer of skin she could shape-shift. It generally freaked Todd out, but in a way, he thought it was cool. The last one was Russell Collins, whom everybody called 'Rusty'. He had bright red hair and he could shoot flames from his hands.
Todd never really talked to any of them. He didn't bother to get close to them because he might get hurt if something happened to them, it was bad enough that Pietro was there.
"Hey!" shouted a voice from outside of the cell and then they heard a club whack on the bars.
"Git over here, ye fuckin' frog," he yelled, banging on the bars even louder. Todd sighed and rolled his eyes, even though he was frightened. He walked over there casually.
"Whattaya want?" he asked. The agent spit at his feet.
"Yer ta come wit me," he said. From the sound of his accent he sounded Irish. So Trask, Gyrich, and Stryker were going global now?
"Yeah, well, why don't you go and get drunk, while I stay here, yo?" Todd said, wrongfully stereotyping the Irish.
A club banged on the bars right in front of where Todd's face was. He gasped and jumped back.
"Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth!" he yelled. Then he opened the door and yanked Todd out roughly by the collar of his gray suit.
"McCormick!" another agent shouted down the hall, walking faster to get to them.
"What?" McCormick snarled looking up at the agent coming to him. It was a pretty Asian woman. Although she was small, she looked like she could kick some ass.
"There's no manhandling the prisoners unless ordered to!" she snapped at him. She seemed to have higher authority out of the two.
"Trask wanted the fuckin' frog 'ere," he muttered, handcuffing Todd.
"You watch your language when you're around me, Conner," she said and looked at him harshly. He scowled at her and then she just stepped aside and continued her way down the hall.
"Fuck ye, *Allison*," he muttered darkly when she was out of earshot, emphasizing her name. He hated it when she bossed him around like that. Why couldn't she act like she used to?
Todd had looked between the two amusedly. "Girlfriend?" he asked jokingly.
McCormick scowled at him. "Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth if ye know what's good fer ye."
"Guess she's not then," Todd said.
"Ye shut yer fuckin' mouth, ye fuckin' frog," McCormick snarled.
"Actually, they call me Toad," Todd corrected. McCormick just scowled at him.
"You know, I miss my home, yo," Todd said with a hint of sadness in his voice. He knew that the Irishman would not hurt him; he just wanted to intimidate him. He knew that some of the agents really didn't believe what Trask and the others said about mutants.
"Ye better shut that shit hole of yers," McCormick growled, although he seemed less mean than he had before.
"You got any brothers or sisters, yo?" Todd asked. "I don't have any blood siblings, although one of my best friends is here, and I count him as a brother. I have two others."
McCormick was silent, his face unreadable. Then he answered, "I have a twin and a sister."
Todd didn't speak for a while; he was so surprised that the Irishman answered civilly.
"What are their names?" Todd finally asked after a short silence.
"Later," McCormick said as he stopped in front of a door and then opened it. He led them to what would be Todd's misery.
"McCormick? Ah, yes, just after his examination and when you escort him back to his cell you may go on your break. Be sure to be back in exactly an hour." A man in a white lab coat said.
Todd was shoved down onto a metal examining table and a tranquilizer gun was pointed at his back just in case he tried anything funny, and there was also three men surrounding him to restrain him if needed. He stayed silent and unmoving, keeping his face neutral.
The man in the lab coat (Todd recognized him as Trask), checked Todd's pulse, blood pressure, ears, mouth, eyes, reflexes, and for some reason, joints.
"Hmm," Trask grunted.
"Mr. Tolensky, May I ask you to demonstrate how you use your tongue?" Trask asked coldly.
"Would strangle you with it, yo, if I didn't have this fuckin' collar around my neck," Todd snarled at him.
Trask growled and backhanded Todd across the face. Todd, furious, went to jump at him, but the three men that had surrounded him jumped in and held him tightly to his spot, McCormick included.
Then Trask leaned in very close to Todd's face and hissed, "I have very little patience for your kind, freak, and right now is no exception. You will obey me or you will seriously regret it."
Todd grinned mirthlessly, "What do you have against me that will make me regret any of my actions? You deserve whatever shit you get."
"You have a little buddy here also, do you not?" Trask sneered. Fear flickered across Todd's face for only a millisecond before he quickly covered it up. Trask grinned coldly, "Pietro Maximoff. I can't wait to see him."
Trask then took out of his pocket a little key, and he turned the collar around Todd's neck around so the keyhole was facing him.
"Now, you will cooperate or you might as well say goodbye to dear Pietro. He'll either be dead or too insane to live properly or to remember you," Trask said. He stared Todd in the face for a few more seconds before slipping the key into the keyhole and with a click, it unlocked. He gently tugged at either end of the lock and it pulled apart, and he took it off and set it close by.
"Grab that cup over there with your tongue, freak," Trask demanded, pointing over to a plastic measuring cup over on a table at a corner.
Todd glared at Trask before saying, "Maybe if you don't call me a 'freak' or a 'monster', yo, I just might."
Trask rolled his eyes. "Fine, *Mr. Tolensky*, why don't you grab that cup over there with your tongue?"
Todd gave him a death glare for a few seconds more and then turned to stare at the cup. Looking at it, he judged the distance from where he was sitting to where the cup was placed and, a second later, a long green and slimy snake-like tongue came out of his mouth and wrapped itself around the plastic cup and brought it back until it was before Trask, slime dripping off from it.
Trask raised an eyebrow and took the cup, and Todd noticed for the first time that Trask had rubber gloves on.
"Interesting, although disgusting," he muttered, narrowing his eyes. "How long is your tongue?"
"I dunno," Todd snapped at him rudely.
"Really?" Trask asked, raising an eyebrow, "You never bothered to find out?"
"I didn't think it was important taking a tape measurer and sticking my tongue out as far as it can go," Todd spat. "What was the use?"
Trask glared at him. "Take him back," he said to McCormick, "I'm done with him for today."
McCormick put the collar onto Todd, while Todd glared at him scathingly the whole time. McCormick's neutral expression faltered slightly. Then the Irishman grabbed him roughly by the shoulder and led him out and back the way they came from.
"What are your twin and your sister's names?" Todd asked suddenly. For some reason, he wanted to know, and he knew it would comfort him somehow.
McCormick looked at him sharply then let out a sigh. He said softly, "Me twin's name is Seamus and my sister's name is Colleen."
"What are you doing here? You don't believe in any of this shit, do you?" Todd asked.
"Fuck, I dunno what I'm doing 'ere" McCormick sighed. "I hate bein' called by me last name. I'd rather I'd be called by what Mam named me. I jus' want ta go home."
"I'll call you Conner, although in private, of course, if you'd quit callin' me a fuckin' frog," Todd said to him, feeling only slightly sorry for the young Irishman behind him. It was the Toad, of course, who was in an even worse predicament.
McCormick, or rather Conner's, mouth twitched up in a slight smile for a second before going blank again.
They stopped outside of his cell. McCormick took off Todd's handcuffs as he pushed him, although not as rough as he would have, inside of the cell.
"Whatever, Toad," he said and locked the cell.
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
"Professor! We really gotta find her!" Sam Guthrie a.k.a Cannonball wailed desperately.
"Sam! Patience is what Paige needs right now! We will not find her if we rush into things!" Professor Xavier said harshly over his shoulder to the desperate mutant. He turned back to the screen as he continued to search for the mutant known as Husk.
"Ah shouldn't of let her go out alone! Not after what happened to Jean and Bobby and the others!" Sam scolded himself. He was around the age of seventeen now, his blond hair short from a recent haircut. "Ah'm so stupid."
Charles just sighed. He understood Sam's desperation, he really did, but the youngster just needed to be a bit more patient. He was glad though, that Sam had less of a temper than Lance. And then Wanda . . .
He shook his head, trying not to think about the little incident in which the Scarlet Witch had strolled onto the mansion's lawn and let herself in the mansion. The encounter with her and the other X-Men had not been pleasant, and he actually had to calm her down using his telepathy, she was that out of control.
Now Charles was more determined than ever. It was not only Jean, Bobby, Jubilee, Amara, Roberto, or Paige that counted on him, but also Pietro and Todd and all the other mutants that were captured and locked away.
Suddenly something beeped. The Professor turned to the screen and his eyes widened.
He found the Toad's use of his mutant powers. He had only used them for a minute, but that minute was all he had needed.
He couldn't pinpoint an exact location but he was sure it was in the area a little south of New York State, which it narrowed it down to several states.
He tried to concentrate more but found he couldn't, mostly from Sam's ranting, his feelings of guilt, and that he was projecting quite strongly.
"Please Sam! You're projecting!" The Professor reprimanded. Sam looked down at the floor, blushing.
"Sorry," he muttered.
The door to Cerebro automatically opened and Rogue walked in. Her hair was still the same length, although now she had outgrown her gothic makeup and had gotten a tan. She really was a beautiful young woman; she just covered it up during high school.
"Professah," she said curtly as she walked up right next to him.
"Good evening, Rogue," Charles greeted as she stood next to him and gave her a slight nod.
"Fahnd anything yet?" she asked, her Mississippian accent thick. The Professor guessed it was Gambit who brought it out of her, being southern himself.
"Todd used his powers very briefly, but that was all I could find," he said and pinched the bridge of his nose lightly and closed his eyes.
"Tha's too bad," she said and looked down at the floor.
"How have you been, Rogue?" The Professor asked her pointedly. He was talking about her psyches.
"Ah'm fahne," she said tersely. Charles sighed.
"I really do hope we find them soon, Paige has already been gone for almost two weeks now, and Jean and the others have been gone for even longer . . ." he trailed off.
"Professor," Sam said from where he was sitting. "Is there anythin', anythin' at all that Ah can do?"
"Hope," the professor said. "Hope. But look anywhere you can that you might think would be helpful: libraries, police departments, anywhere. Just look."
Sam looked a little disappointed, but then he nodded and stood up, but he muttered just as he walked out of the door, "Like tha' helped anythin'."
Charles almost smiled to himself. In fact, he himself was impatient with this whole ordeal.
"Nevah thought ol' Cannonball here would be so impatient," Rogue regarded with some amusement, the corner of her lip curling up slightly.
"Can you really blame him, Rogue?" the Professor sighed, "Can you really blame Wanda?"
Rogue looked down at the floor, whatever trace of a smile that was there vanished. She said softly, "No, Ah can't. Ah don't blame any of them."
"Ah hope that we find them soon, an' take the whole lot of 'em outta their misery," she whispered.
"I do too, my dear Rogue," The professor sighed, taking the Cerebro helmet off of his head to take a break. "I do too."
*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*
Hurrah! Another chapter done! Thanks to all who review, you really know how to make a gal feel good. xoxo!
There will be no slash in this story, since I am against that, unless they were written that way or specifically said that they were gay in cannon. Or unless they are original characters. Then I would not mind. I just don't see it any other way.
The only romance so far that has been hinted is Romy, and a little itsy bitsy bit of John/Wanda. But they only dated briefly. Oh, and Kitty/Piotr. But now I'm going to say that anything might not last, or might not happen, so don't get your hopes up.
So, if you came this far . . . REVIEW! I'll give you a Pietro plushy, or a Gambit, or whoever the hell you want, just review.