Aqueous: Look! It's your favourite self-placement characters: Aqueous and Tailfeather!

Tailfeather: in a seat in the middle of the audience WOOHOO! YEAH! WOO! Erm. Woo..Hoo. Uh.. Yeah.

Aqueous: looks sad as no one else is cheering Fine, maybe we'll just never update it and you can all die wondering what happened next in our awesome supremely great fanfic!

Crickets: Chirp. Chirp. Chirp.play the world's smallest violin just for us

24:Home for the holidays

A few months later, with the school rebuilt (Boo!) and Thanks Giving gone (we do not know that the heck thanks giving really is, so we avoided it), seventeen mutants in the Xavier Institute were hanging up Christmas decorations and singing carols.
"Dec the halls with bows of holly!" Ruth sang.
"Fa la la la la, la la la la!" Everyone chorused.
"'Tis the season to be jolly!" Jean sang.
"Fa la la la la, la la la la!" Everyone sang again.
"Someone pass me some more ta-ape!" Scott joked in singsong.
"Here you go! Here you go! Here you go!" Sang Logan, throwing the tape across the room. (Yes! Even Logan! Tee hee!) And so on...
"Hey, where's the angel at the top?" Amara queried.
"Ah don't know if you noticed, but Ah have it. Ah just cahn't reach." Rogue said.
"Gimme gimme!" Ruth piped as she took the peg-with-some-old-doll-clothes angel, morphed into a snow owl and swooped up to the top.
"She never misses a chance to show off her powers, does she?" Kitty whispered to Rogue. Owl Ruth heard it and glared at Kitty. Now now, it's Christmas. No fighting. Xavier telepathically informed both of them. They both hmph-ed and went to chitter chatter with their friends. Kitty and Rogue just stayed in the corner while the rest of the girls were everywhere and the boys talked about... Boy things (football?). The girls were talking about going home for the holidays. Ruth, Angharad, Kitty, and all the new recruits where all going home for the winter, half because of a different religion half to be with the families. Ruth and Angharad where set to leave the next day to head for Wales.

"Miss you! And you and you and you, maybe not you, don't cry Jamie, it was a joke! Anyway I'll miss you..." Angharad went thought the institute pointing at people she'd miss.

"OK, Kurt, I'll ring, only if you ring first" Ruth reassured her boyfriend

"Ok, I'll ring" Kurt sighed "Do you know how big the phone bill will be?"

"If we don't pay it, why care! My penpal in Finland was glad that I phoned, thinking about it, there's Anna in China too..." Angharad started standing next to Ruth.

"I can't believe that we have to go home..." Bobby moaned

"Hey, at least your parents don't mind you being a mutant, I don't even know if I'll be coming back..."Angharad muttered

"Mum was a bit freaked, James found it cool, Dad didn't really care and Phoebe's missing me" Ruth sighed and thought about her cat.

"Phoebe won't like you any more, I mean your powers are bird type, cats and birds don't go, like me and Mr James!" Angharad pointed out. Ruth looked sad at this news. She turned to Kurt.

"Right, I'm ok, Kitty's going home to celebrate Hanukah" Ruth mocked "That means you can't talk to each other"

"Hey, I like Hanukah, I think it's cool" Angharad whined

"And this is coming from a girl guide" Ruth teased. Angharad shut up.

The next day, everyone was outside the front doors of the institute. Most were climbing into one car or another the rest were waving them off. Bobby, Angharad, and Ruth in one car were happily chatting when Ruth looked out the window. She waved to Kurt non-stop. She waved a bit at Jean who was literally clinging to Scott (She's not letting Rogue get him again!) with a jealous Rogue scowling from behind them. Xavier looked very wrong (Oh so wrong!) dressed not in a suit. The woolly jumper was not Xavier style, with Logan behind his chair with folded arms and a fake looking angry face while Ororo just smiled and waved her usual smiley-wavey way. (...?) Ruth gazed out of the window at them all and her elf until she smelled something weird.
"Oh! Bobby! Was that you?" She moaned waving a hand in front of her face. "That's disgusting! Open a window!"
"No! It's already cold enough in here!" Angharad complained with her fingers pinched to her nose.
"Hey! It's not that bad!" They fought until Bobby got off at his stop and Ruth and Angharad simply talked together to the airport, flying to Cardiff (not made up, a real place in Wales) and with their parents in the separate cars their families picked them up in.
"So, Angharad. How have you been?" Angharad's father asked.

"Uh, ok, I guess...and you?" Angharad sighed already missing her new friends.

"Fine, come on then, your mums waiting" Angharad's father said leading them off. Angharad gravely waved to Ruth and motioned a phone. Ruth looked around.

"James!" Ruth shouted as she noticed he brother, she run to greet him.

Meanwhile, at the institute, the remaining students Rogue, Scott, Jean, Logan, Ororo and Kurt where all watching a video until the doorbell went.

"Kurt, get the door!" Scott ordered.

"I done it last time, you do it!" Kurt answered.

"I done it the time before that, Jean open the door!" Scott ordered Jean.

"Make Logan do it!" Jean moaned.

"Grrrr Stripes, get the door" Logan smirked. Rogue wasn't bothered to complain. She opened the door to see...

"Warren...Hi!" Rogue stuttered.

"Hi Rogue" the angel said embracing her.

"Are you staying?" Rogue asked

"Of course, only until January, then I'm going home to New York. So can I come in?" Warren asked shivering.

"Hey Scott, look who it is!" Rogue said leading Warren into the living room.

"Warren!" Scott said shaking hands with him "Long time no see!"
The others just sat back and watched the two boys greet each other like old friends.
"... So, you gonna introduce us or are we waiting for a drum roll?" Logan growled.
"What? Oh, yeah." Scott awoke from his shaking-hands-forever welcome. "Ok, this is Jean," she waved. "this is Professor Xavier, this is Logan, Ororo and Kurt." You could see Warren recoil slightly at Kurt's appearance, but soon got over it. "Everyone, this is Warren, from New York!" Scott smiled. Very cheesy.
"Hey Warren!" Most of them replied their greeting while Logan gave a grunt.
"Hi... Everyone. Um.. Hi..." Warren was lost for words but saved himself with a dazzling smile that would melt any girl's heart. Oh, wow! How come I've never seen him before? He's like an angel! Jean thought. Jean, get a hold of yourself! You're starting to drool. Plus, you have a boyfriend, you have Scott. Jean snapped back to reality when everyone started chatting to Warren, wondering what his powers were, wondering about him. He's just as Ah remember him, a true angel. sigh. I want him, maybe more than Scott... Hhmmm... Rogue thought, she glanced at Jean. Oh my God! Jean lahkes Warren! Too good! Now was the perfect time for Rogue to get Scott. She planned to use it while Jean was glued to Warren's side.

Nothing much happened over Christmas. The girls flirted, the boys got over protective and everyone had a nice Christmas. January was to be the time when everyone came back. The girls got back (unfortunately for Kitty and Rogue) on a first class Jet. Kitty had a nice Hanukah, The new recruits were very hyper and Kurt was waiting for Ruth to get back.

When Ruth got though the door, first thing she ran and hugged Kurt. As she hugged Kurt she noticed a tall Angel like figure. She let go of Kurt.

"Hey, Who's that?"

"Oh, Just Varren" Kurt sighed watching Ruth walk over to Warren. He walked to Bobby who was listening to a story about a jet Angharad saw in the airport.

"-So then it flew over the airport and landed with a really loud noise like- Oh, Hi Kurt" Angharad greeted.

"Hi" Kurt answered.

"Where's Ruth?" Bobby questioned.

"Vith him" Kurt pointed at Warren.

"Hey, Cool, who's he?" Angharad asked.

"Varren" Kurt sighed.

"Hey, He has wings!" Angharad squealed running over to Warren. The boys sighed and went over to the girls. Tails are much cooler than wings, Kurt thought bitterly. Jean, Ruth and Angharad kept asking Warren all sorts of things. They batted their eyelashes and gazed at him all day. Though by the next day they'd gotten pretty bored of him, well not Jean. The two noticed some gloomy looking boys playing foosball in the rec. room. It was Bobby and Kurt. They walked up to them but couldn't meet eyes. The boys didn't even look up from their game, they simply ignored them.
"Uh, guys?" No answer. "We're sorry, me and Ruth." Angharad said quietly watching the ball kicked back and forth between little wooden men. They stopped their game and looked at the girls. They were about to give a witty comeback when the girls literally leapt on them, hugging them (I'd take that as 'back together happily ever after' and I can't think how to word it! Stupid brain.)
Being in a forgiving mood, Ruth and Angharad made their way out the front where Kitty and Amara were coming home. Rogue was waiting for Kitty and glared at Angharad who ... smiled back.(?) When Kitty came out of the car leaving her bags behind, she saw Rogue and ran up to her.
"Hey Rogue! I'm like back! And-" She saw Ruth. "Oh, right. It's you." She said flicking her hair.
"Rogue, Kitty. We've come to make amends." Angharad announced startling Rogue and Kitty.
"Yeah, we stole your men and been mean and ... stuff." Ruth carried on.
"So we were wondering if we could be friends." Rogue and Kitty stared at them for a few long seconds

"Why should we be friends with you!" Rogue spat

"Well, We have a number of ways to blackmail the boys..."Ruth started

"Like?" Kitty began. The girls closed in closer and started whispering.

Tailfeather: Was it just, moi? Or was that chapter shorter than usual?

Aqueous: Four pages on Word, as usual.

Tailfeather: Hhmmm. is suspicious

Aqueous: Review fast, happy people, for a long life is not a guarantee.

Tailfeather: Neither is a long chapter. Throws cookies to reviewers, especially hihihihihi.