Lucky Me

Chapter 083


If they ever accused mutants for causing all the problems in the world, I'd hit them over the head with their Pulitzer prizes and demand for them to take it back. Trouble didn't need an X gene or a Jean with an X or big black feathery wings. Nope, all trouble needs was someone who was human. Someone who happened to be my best friend from high school, Alexis.

I didn't know if there was a special store that brains went shopping at when we slept, but something put an evil thought into her head. We were walking toward my seventh hour class and she was chatting about something. I was too busy trying to not think about anything or anyone.

Of course it was the rare time of reflection that made Alexis stop, turn me around, and stare me dead in the eye.

"You have a problem," she stated matter-of-factly.

"And which online university did you graduate from?"

"I think I know what it is." She had that sly gleam in her eyes. When Alexis had a 'sly' look about her, I usually ran or claimed to be stupid or something.

"You." She poked me in the chest as if to make sure I knew she meant me. "Need a guy."

"Huh!" What, that little question/exclamation didn't clear my reaction up well enough? "I don't need ano-er, a guy!" One was enough to take up any time between warding off questions and accusations and running a team and going to school and practicing, see where I was going with all this?

"You've had, what, K'yo? Who hasn't. And then that weird thing with Adrian which I believed and hoped was one sided. Then that kiss with Chris you were crying over all last spring. You use to have that cutie Jack, but you don't talk about him anymore. You need a guy. A steady guy." She had her hands on her hips and would bop her head as she made her points. She was serious. I was in trouble.

"I-it's not like that! I'm just putting my education," and learning how to save the world in 10,000 casualties or less. "first."

"What-ever! You're seventeen. You should be putting your social life first!" Alexis rolled her brown eyes. "Give me your notebook."

Like I had a choice. She snatched it from under my armk, produced a marker from seemingly nowhere, and started to write on the back cover.

"Wait! You shouldn't do-" I tried to stop her, but she fended me off with an elbow and a look.

"You'll thank me for this later! I'll get this back to you tomorrow! You'll see this is for the best, girl!" She took off down the hallway like a rabid rat with a piece of prized cheese.

I sighed and shook my head.

"But that's Adrian's notebook."

"And you're late for class, Miss Summers." Mr. Drake pointed out, grabbed me by my arm and hauled me into the classroom.


My eyes were as large as a set of tennis balls.

She got the notebook back to me all right. Alexis also took the liberties of redecorating it. The poor paper thing was almost being pulled apart in my hands.

"W-what have you done?" My stutter had actually improved; ten seconds ago all I could do was squeak.

"Oh come on, girl! I made your notebook look like a normal teen's notebook, that's all." Alexis made her head do this funny little chicken move thing. "You should be thanking me."

I glimpsed down at the front of Adrian's notebook again. Before all it had was some weird little swirly designs on it and name of the class it was for written on the top. Now it was covered with hearts. Above the hearts was 'I' and below the hearts was a single name.

"W-why did you have to pick that name?" It was before first hour and Adrian hadn't come in yet (thank goodness).

"What? Don't you think 'Bobby' is a normal name?" I groaned. "Bob sounded too fake and Robert sounded too Mr. Drakeish." She shrugged; I dropped the notebook in my lap and hit my head on my desk.

"Hey, Kookie." Oh no, Adrian. "Is that mine? Can I have it back?" He seemed awful chipper this morning. I tried a couple of lame excuses but in the end, I handed over the notebook. "Thanks, Kookie." He smiled sat down and put the notebook on his desk.

My shoulders were tense, if he didn't notice it in class perhaps I could run away before getting yelled at.

Thankfully, I did make it through the rest of the class without him noticing.

Wonder how long it would last?

Little did I know that while I was trying to stay awake during 'MacBeth', Alexis fished out one of my other notebooks.

She'd get it back to me later.


It was October and D-M was taken from the ICU as the baffled doctors repeatedly told us they didn't understand how someone so sick could be healing! Heh, good thing they didn't send her blood out for a testing or anything. She was moved to the second floor of the hospital.

Although D-M still resembled a computer with ten different hook ups because of all the tubes they had popping out of her, she was off the oxygen. And that meant she could talk.

And since she had nearly a month to make up for, she talked plenty.

"And anyway, like I was saying…" I smiled and tried not to cross my eyes in pure boredom. Apparently the girl made buddies with a few of the nurses who really should have been soap stars. Their love lives were things that romance novelist would blush from hearing. "How's Chris?"

That caught my attention.

"Fine, why?"

D-M looked down at her hands then up at me again with a weak smile. The type of expression a child had after being caught with a cookie in her mouth before dinner.

"Ah'm not dumb, Kookie."

But I surely was.

"Duh." That was just the type of answer that dumb people like me gave.

"Ah see the way he looks at you." Oh no, not her too. "Maybe you should just go with it."

I wasn't too sure I could understand all she was saying. It was painfully obvious she still held a torch for good (ha) old Chris, so why was she so willing to shove him into my lap? And why the heck was everyone so interested in my love life all of a sudden? Or like life. Like-like life?

"I don't want him." It was the truth, something I avoided telling everyone since the chant of 'what do you know about George Wilder's death' started.

Daisy went from shy kid to ecstatic teenager.

"Really? That's great! Ah didn't really want the two of you together! Ah think you and-" Dad came in. "-er, Stitch make a cute pair."

Scott shrugged off her ramblings, probably thinking it was from the medication.

"Time to go." I smiled and said my good-byes to D-M. She was too happy to care much for anything else.

Wonder if Chris knew?


"Hey, girl," Alexis called cheerfully. She was the bad person who wrote 'I love Rick' all over my notebook which he found. Talk about hard to explain.

"You!" I growled. It was her fault that after visiting D-M, Jack cornered me and forced me to tell him who 'Rick' was. After getting it through his head she was the one responsible for the messed up notebook, I was finally able to get some sleep. Until the house alarm went off. No, no threat, just a 'glitch' in the system.

Alexis took a step back. "What I do?"

I jerked up my notebook (now missing its front cover).

"You did this."

She crossed her arms.

"No, I didn't. I gave you that back with a cover."

"You ruined it!" I was ready to use the spirals to tie her up when she shifted subjects on me.

"Can you come over Friday? You know, to spend the night?"

I blinked at her in surprise. "Huh?"

She pulled me closer by the arm and whispered.

"My folks are out of town, I can get us into a few clubs in a city a little east of here. Sounds like fun doesn't it?"

I plucked her arm off of me.

"Yeah, if I want to die."

"Oh come on! Even if you do get caught, which you won't, what's the worst they could do?"

Images of the Danger Room and one-on-one training with Dad and Mr. Logan at the same time came to my mind. There were worse things they could do, and such thoughts sent shivers down my spine.

"Trust me, death would be a blessing."

"That many rules, huh?"

My dead pan voice probably surprised her.

"They have a ninety page, spiral bound book they hand out."

Her jaw dropped.

"You're kidding me!"

"Nope." I sighed. "Anyway, I'll see what my parents have to say." I wasn't going to actually ask to go, just tell them Alexis' plans, and back out.


Later that night, I was in the boathouse watching Jean pack up for the weekend. Scott and Jean had planned a little get away for the weekend or something.

Remember when I said I wasn't going to ask to go to Alexis' house? I changed my tune when I was again harassed by questions. Even now, with Jean packing she was bugging me in more subtle ways.

It had been five hours of torture and after weeks of being poked and prodded to death about George, I was fed up. They honestly thought I was guilty without any proof but a Wolverine's nose. If they thought I was such a hooligan, then I might as well act the part, right?

Grinding my teeth together, I forced out, "So, can I?"

Scott popped out of nowhere with an armful of laundry.

"I'm not sure, Kerry. You've never been away from the mansion without any of the others since you've come here."

"Which is way I think I'm overdue for a vacation." I was attempting to make my wish come true. I wasn't going to do anything totally stupid like get drunk and get carried away to a hotel. I was doing this to show them that I could do something really stupid, had an open opportunity, but didn't.

Scott and Jean shared a look. The look meant they were 'discussing' things mentally. After five minutes with only a stop to fold underwear (gross), Scott finally shrugged.

"I guess so. Just leave Alexis' phone number with someone."

I jumped off the bed, gave an enthusiastic 'thanks', and ran out of the room. Boy, were they going to regret that decision.

Xx

Thursday and Alexis threw me another twist.

"You can? Great!" That's not the twist, that's just grasping the edges. "Then I can say I'm staying at your house and we can have the night all freed up!"

I dropped my sandwich.

"What?"

"Come on, girl. You don't really think my Dad and Mom would ever let me go to a party?"

"I thought you said club."

She shrugged.

"Both."

This was the time when the wise reconsidered and beat a hasty retreat. Instead, and because I was myself, I smiled and asked, "What time do we have to be ready?"


Friday night, probably Saturday morning for as much as I cared, and the world was made of oils.

The bright lights were hurting my eyes and doing an interesting fade in/fade out thing. I knew I shouldn't have had that much! Actually, maybe I should have another. Alexis slung her arm around my shoulders, tilting sideways, and almost taking me with her.

"W'at ya doin' girl?" The world started to look like a giant fish bowl.

"I-don't remember?" What was I going to do? Checking my hand, my sense hit me. Oh yeah! I was going to call Jack and invite him to the party! Kenney might be a complete sleaze, but he did throw the best parties…I think. This was my first one so there wasn't a real comparison.

What was I going to do?

"Get 'nother drink." Alexis swayed on her feet and staggered away from me. I think she was staggering, I couldn't tell because I don't think I was standing perfectly still. Why was the house moving?

I tried to follow her but a jerk at my hand made me look back. Oh right, the phone. Maybe I should order pizza? Yeah! Yum, that would be fun!

Jack! I was going to call Jack and ask him how to do something.

I think.

Feed my cat? Must be. I dialed the number, and when an old man answered I hung up. Hmm, the must have switched the numbers on the dialing pad around on me.

Studying the phone intently, I pushed each button for a good ten seconds before pressing the other one. Tinkerbelle was caught up in the phone because she kept cussing at me in a phone ringing way. Jack must've killed her because I heard his voice instead of Tink's.

Oi, my throbbing head!

"Hello?"

"Heeeey!" I slurred loudly. "I need you to beat a bat."

"Kerry? Is that you?" He sounded so serious.

"Poison. Feed the cat po-zin." I scratched my shoulder where someone kept taping me. After the seventh time I was going to drag them through the mud until I remembered it was my wings.

"Are you drunk?" He sounded like cold stone. Wait, how would I know what stone sounded like? I didn't even really remember what the Rolling Stones sounded like, but that was okay because it was a magazine anyway.

"Noo!" I waved my hand in front of me. "I jus' had a few-"

"Where. Are. You."

"By the phone."

I heard a deep sigh.

"Whose phone?"

"Dunno." I picked up the base and examined it carefully. "AT & T's phone."

Another sigh.

"What part of town are you in?"

"Kenney's."

Then he hung up on me.

Sheesh, what a loser! I hope I told him to take the cookies out of the oven.

That's why I called him right?

Wait, call. I was supposed to call someone.

Did I call?

Maybe I should call and ask.


I woke up in a moving ship.

Wait, not a ship, a car. A nice car. At least it smelled nice.

"Where-"

"With me." Oh, I knew that voice! It was Jack! An angry Jack? No fun!

Turning my head, I noticed I was in the passenger seat of one of the community cars. The Onvoy if I wasn't mistaken and given my current state of affairs, I probably was. After an eternity I finally felt my brain start to slosh around in my skull.

Jack didn't look happy. His expression was of a person who just got held up by a squirrel with a gun or something. Lethal, yet pathetic at the same time. His jaw was locked tightly. Even through my buzz I knew I was in trouble. "

Say something." I pleaded, poking him in the arm with one finger.

His eyes, I never seen any ones so cold. He wasn't upset, he wasn't mad; he was a volcano ready to erupt and boil the villagers below. We drove in complete silence, Alexis was moaning in the back. Oh goody, I was hoping we hadn't forgotten her. I didn't think she knew where she was or where we were. I could call Jack by his real name and she probably wouldn't have ever known.

The roads were rainy and dark. We had a good half an hour yet to go before the mansion. I didn't think it could have gotten any more frigid in the vehicle without starting the next ice age.

"I'm taking you home, Alexis." Razor sharp words which probably what cut through Alexis' drunken haze the way his icy eyes sliced into mine.

"No! Owww!" She moaned, "You can't." Her hand crawled up the side of the chair, with a grunt she pulled herself up into a sitting position. "M-my parents aren't expecting me back until tomorrow morning. They think I'm over at her house." A dangerous sound that made me think she was going to hurl followed the statement. "They'd kill me."

"Why should Kerry die alone?"

"Die?" I questioned looking over toward him— wait, them? Why did Jack have three heads? And why were two see-thru?

How very strange.


"Wuz thiz?" Alexis croaked as Jack hauled her out of the car and dragged her toward the boathouse. I thought I was going to be in big trouble, but my 'rents weren't there! Nope! They were gone to rekindle a fire or something.

Hope they didn't set Jean's hair on fire….two bald telepaths! What a riot!

Jack collected me next; I was laughing my head off picturing Jean with no hair and a stern 'do or death' expression like the Prof's.

Good ole Charlie.

That got me to laughing again.

"Yeah, laugh it up," Jack muttered. Slamming the door to the car and then to the house after we entered.

"Ow!" Not so loud. The little band in my head upped the volume when he slammed that door! Evil man!

He quite literally dropped me in a kitchen chair and started to do the dishes. Wait, no, he was getting the dish cloth wet and bringing it back to me? When he pressed it against my forehead I yelped, it was cold water he'd put on there!

"Calm down. It'll help." I think I smiled up at him, I was not sure. "What on earth made you decide to do something stupid as this?"

"It was Alexis fault!" Even with the slight hum in my head, I was ready to give the trouble to someone else.

"Oh really? I suppose she held a gun to your head and made you drink?"

"A very likely possum-ility."

He sneered! I couldn't believe it! I didn't think he could make that face! I thought only bad people could do that but there Jack was breaking the rules!

"You're unbelievable!"

"Don't scream!" I hissed, grabbing my head.

"It's the least you deserve!" Jack grabbed me by my shoulders, forcing me to look at his face. "Do you have any idea how stupid you are? Man, Kerry, you could have been hurt!"

My tears were stinging. Alexis stopped groaning from the living room.

"Just because you wouldn't be able to find out who 'Rick' was."

"Damn it! No! That's not the reason! What if you had been slipped something in your drink? What if that guy had been able to take Alexis somewhere before I was able to get there?!" Jack's eyes were—watering? Did he suck a lemon? "You could have been—I mean you were passed out in a house full of guys!" He turned away from me and stormed toward the door. I called his name, perhaps it could have been louder, but he just slammed the door.

I winced.

"Creep." Deciding that putting my head on the table was probably the smartest thing to do in order for my eyes to stop rolling around in my head, I did just that.


When one wakes up, aches were inevitable. Throbbing, murderous headaches were not.

"I feel like someone just tried to pierce my ears and brain with a jackhammer." Another nauseous wave went over me. "A malfunctioning jackhammer."

"Try Jack Daniels." My eyes searched out the voice and there Jack was with a stern face and looking rather messed up himself. "Feeling better?"

"I was feeling worse? I find it hard to believe."

"At least you've seem to have sobered up." He drew closer. "And drooled all over the table. Charming."

Funny, he didn't seem to be in a good mood. I peeled myself off the chair and table and got to my feet. For some reason I was slightly-falling over.

"Where's Alex?" Even whispered, it made my head hurt.

"Home," he seemed to scream, but it was a normal volume. "Her parents weren't happy that a strange male brought their baby girl home plastered." He flicked his image inducer off. "Of course she did leave you a gift in the living room."

I hiked an eyebrow and wobbled my way to the living room to check out the 'gift'. I nearly added to the 'present'. Alexis apparently lost her (past week's worth of) lunch. All over the living room rug.

"Uh, gross!" I shrunk back from the sight and bumped into Jack's chest.

"Going to be one heck of a time trying to clean all that out."

I turned to him with a question on my tongue but I suddenly understood and stepped back from him as if he slapped me with plastic vomit.

"You-you expect me to clean this mess?" The rank smell got in my nose and I moved to the kitchen again.

"You did the deed; you clean up the product of it." I glared at him. I knew he had a point but come on this was someone else's mess! Why didn't Alexis clean it up?

"What if I don't?"

"Then Scott and Jean will know for sure. Without having me tell them." He crossed his arms and got ready for a battle. Oh, and trust me there was a battle.

"What! You can't tell them! I'll clean up! I promise! Just don't tell them!" Jack's eyes narrowed with that cold look back into them. "Promise me; promise you won't say a word to them."

Another minute of me begging (using his name) and he caved in.

"Fine, I won't breathe a word to them, mentally or verbally."

"Will you help me clean this mess up?" I tried the big puppy eyes.

He snorted.

"Don't push your luck." Disappearing into the kitchen I half hoped he was going to help me. Instead he came out with a bucket of water, rag, and sponge.

"Gee, thanks."


It took all Saturday for me to clean up Alexis' mess and get rid of the stench. I had to leave every window and door opened to air out the house. The rest of the smell was handled with an odor killing spray. I stayed over until Sunday when the happy couple was scheduled to return.

They were surprised to see me there, even more surprised that I had cooked their lunch. Little did they know it was another attempt to cover up the smell. After lunch, Jean helped me do the dishes and we talked for about an hour. I was surprised my nervous sweat and smile didn't give too much away. I lied and said I was just worried about whether or that the lunch wasn't any good. Big fat lie, heavy on the fat.

Scott disappeared into the living room and since he didn't come back to ask me about the smell or the sudden wetness of his carpet I didn't think he was any wiser. Of course, Jean pried for information regarding George. That's when I decided to leave.

On my way out, Scott called me back.

"Uh, Kerry, before you go," I turned, nervous smile still twitching on my lips. "Can you tell me whose this is?"

He was holding up Alexis fake ID. When Scott brought it closer, my eyes started to hurt because they increased in size. It was my fake ID.

With arms crossed and the door shutting behind me (thanks to Jean no doubt) he gave me an evil cat grin that yowled only one thing: Busted.