Disclaimer: I do not own any Marvel characters; please don't sue me I am a poor college student. I am not making any money off of this and I am just writing it for the benefit of my own entertainment as well as the entertainment of the other fans out there. Also, this is a story from my own imagination, any resemblance to real life events, or even those in fiction is completely coincidental. As an additional note, there are so many fan fiction stories out there on this site as well as others, so any similarity is coincidental or great minds just happen to think alike. I do claim the non-Marvel characters, such as the Williams family and the new offspring of the LeBeau and Summers families. Thanks!
Note: I apologize for the spacing and random indents and anything of the sort. When the pages are loaded onto this site everything seems to get a bit messed up. I noticed that single lines get double spaced randomly. Sorry about that.
Through the Years
Chapter 21: They Grow Up So Fast
A few weeks after the prom and life was back to normal in and around the Mansion. The next graduating class would be leaving at the end of the month and no one could believe that another school year was finished. It was after midnight and with any luck her charges were peacefully sleeping in the dorms, resting for the day of learning that was ahead of them. Ms. Lee, as she was known to her students was sitting at her desk finishing grading the tests she gave her class the day before. As she paper-clipped the pile together and placed it in her bag she took notice of the framed photos on her desk. The first one was of her with some of the X-men not long after she joined the team. Back then she was seen as a mall-hungry, boy-crazy Valley girl and now she was a respected teacher at the Xavier Institute of Education though she still was mall-hungry and boy-crazy. But no one could deny that she had matured a great deal since then. She then looked at a second photo. It was a photo of Kitty, Rogue, and Jubilee when they had spent one night staying up, talking and laughing, and just having a chance to act their age for once instead of saving the world. Wolverine was walking by the room at the time and they convinced him to snap this photo. It was taken not long after Illyana had died. Kitty Pryde had come back to pay her respects and Jubilee had a chance to get to know the legendary X-man. Before Jubilee had joined Kitty had been the youngest and initially Jubilee was a little jealous when she returned, but after they had a heart-to-heart, the animosity had faded. Now she and Kitty kept in touch via letters and e-mails. Jubilee loved this photo because it showed some of the youngest X-men to have ever been on the team at one time or another. Sometimes she was afraid that the others forgot that she wasn't much younger than Kitty and Rogue. They were only a few years older than her and as the years passed them by each of those years meant less and less.
Then she spotted something in the background that she had never noticed before. Bobby Drake was standing in the doorway making a face, knowing full well that the girls were taking a picture. "Bobby", she thought with a smile. He was also only a few years older than her, and had also matured a lot since then. Now he is the head of the boys' dorm. But Bobby was still as much of a clown as he was back then, constantly pulling pranks on her. The students loved this man-child that was in charge of them; though he could be serious when need be. "Oh Bobby, if only you knew," she sighed. Despite the fact Jubilee had a date nearly every night with different men, she couldn't deny the feelings she held for her fellow teammate. But she figured that in his mind she was still the teenager in that first photo she looked at. Sighing, she put the photo back in its place and got ready for bed.
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The next day was business as usual at the Mansion. Well, for the most part.
"I don't know how this happen," Cyclops said. "Honestly Jean, I left the room for one minute and when I came back I found this." He motioned to the mess in front of him. Spaghetti was everywhere, on the kitchen walls and floor, on the children's clothing, in their hair. They had managed to climb down from their booster seats and were running around the room.
"Ok FREEZE," Jean commanded as Nathaniel dumped his bowl on David's head and Jessica dropped a handful of noodles down Nathaniel's shirt. When the youngsters saw Jean, their faces reveled that they knew they were in trouble.
Jean sighed and knew that this was going to take a while. "Now I don't know what started this, but we are going to get you cleaned up first. Scott, start cleaning the kitchen and I'll take the children outside and do damage control." She took David's noodley hand on her right side, Nathaniel's saucy hand on her left side while his free hand grabbed Jessica's hand. Jean and her messy bunch marched outside while Cyclops wondered why he offered to feed the children lunch in the first place. As he got out the mop and bucket he made a mental note to schedule Danger Room sessions or meetings during lunch time from now on.
Jean took the kids to the back and attempted to hose them off rather unsuccessfully. Watching the struggle, Storm came up with a better plan and created a delicate rainfall, washing the spaghetti right off of the youngsters. They thought it was great fun running around in their underwear with a small rain cloud over their heads. Jean was glad they were standing on cement instead of the grass because she could just picture them going from a tomato sauce mess to a muddy mess. Once the youngsters were cleaned off she and Storm took them upstairs and put fresh clothing on them. Knowing that the children did not usually misbehave she asked them what made them decide that having a food fight was a good idea. Not having any type of answer, she had no choice but to give them a short time out to think about what they did. But she also knew that they were only children and children, no matter how well behaved they usually were, could sometimes cause mischief, especially when no adults were present.
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Jean was not always the one to watch the children. One day a few weeks later when Jean and her family was out of town and Remy wasn't covering any classes since the students were taking finals, he watched David and Jessica. They were in the backyard when he thought he heard the doorbell ring. A few moments later he came back outside with Nightcrawler only to find the children missing. They had been playing hide and seek but he didn't see them anywhere. Usually they hid in the bushes or behind the tree, places he could easily spot them.
"Look who came t'visit us my little Wildcard! Jessica? JESSICA ROSE LEBEAU? Where are you girl?"
"Up here Poppa," a little voice shouted. Remy looked up and saw them up in the tree.
"Petite?! How you and David get up in that tree?! Come down here dis minute!"
"We can't Mr. Remy. Jessie-Rose and I got up but…," David said.
"We're stuck Poppa," Jessica finished.
He could only imagine how they got up there. David had turned four a few months earlier and Jessica was still three for a few more months. David's ten year old sister Carlie was still at school or else he would have assumed that she had a hand in this. But the branches were low and the tree wasn't very high. Adventurous children could easily pull themselves up there by either jumping or standing on each other's shoulders. Unfortunately they were just out of his reach and he didn't want them jumping down to him. Without being asked, Nightcrawler BAMFED up into the tree and brought the children down.
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The summer sped by quickly and before anyone knew it, the school year had started up again. Early in the summer, David and Nathaniel were enrolled at the local pre-school for the upcoming school year. Upon learning this, the LeBeaus decided that it wouldn't be a bad idea to enroll Jessica. They found out that her birthday in October was barely within the age cutoff. She'd be one of the youngest in her class, but she'd be with her friends. Throughout the whole year, the X-men heard all about what the children did in school and watched breathlessly as they grew and matured over the course of the year. Even though they made other friends at the school, they were still as "T'ick as t'ieves," as Remy constantly described them.
Since the weather was pleasant that following March, Remy and Wolverine built David a club house barely off the ground at the base of a tree in his yard hoping that would keep the children out of the LeBeau's tree. It turns out that this did the trick, the children constantly sought refuge from the outside world in the club house. In that sacred little place it didn't matter that there was a world outside that hated and feared mutants, that any one of them if not all of them could be shunned someday. Right now it only mattered that David, Natey, and Jessica, or Jessie-Rose as David called her for as long as he could talk, were friends. And hopefully nothing would change that.
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Author's Notes- Just a light little chapter to get everyone in the mood for what's to come. Read on dear readers, read on. Since I have been unable to post lately, I posted an extra chapter today! Enjoy!