Disclaimer: I don't own any rights to any of the Marvel characters that I use, and I'm not getting any profit from it...hm...yes, as of now I do believe that each chapter you read, you should send me ten dollars...just a joke, please read freely. If you've got something you don't like about the story or my writing, please tell me so that I can make it better for future fics. Enjoy the chapter!

The next day was Sunday and I woke up late, confused by being in bed with my clothes on and not being under the covers, but having one of the school blankets over me.

I rolled out of bed and tripped over my shoes that were right in my way. I caught myself on the chair beside my bed before I fell into the floor. As I was standing there, I couldn't quite remember everything that had happened the night before, but I could vaguely recall Logan carrying me to bed, kissing my forehead and telling me he couldn't do… something.

I quickly ran through my bathroom routine, not minding to even change my clothes before going to breakfast. When I got to the dining room, the staff table was nearly full, only missing Logan and the Professor, whom I had passed on my way through the hall, going to his office.

"Hey Chloe," Jean said as I sat down beside her.

"Hi," I said.

"Rough night?" Scott joked.

I shot him a look and Jean slapped his arm. "Scott!" she said.

"Actually I did, thank you. Jason and I broke up last night,"

"Aw, are you okay?" Ororo asked sympathetically.

"Yeah, I think so,"

"Why did you break up?" Scott asked as Logan came in and sat down beside Bobby and Rouge.

"Uh, well, he asked me to merry him and I said no, so we…broke up,"

"That makes sense," Scott said sarcastically, to which Jean slapped him once again.

"Why didn't you want to merry him?" Rouge asked.

"Of course she would want to know why I didn't want to merry him. She would love for me to go off and live somewhere else," I thought.

"I just didn't like him all that much," I lied. Sadly, the truth was that if that song hadn't been playing at the same time as he was talking, I probably would have said yes. Darn you Conway Twitty!

That was the last we spoke of it and I could have been happier. As far as Logan knew, I was getting married, but unfortunately, he walked into the conversation right at the time when I didn't want him to. It would have done him some good to think that I was getting married just a little bit longer. If nothing else, he knew I was still mad at him at least.

I finished eating breakfast and didn't feel like staying around and talking, so I decided to go back to my room to clean out everything Jason. I had just reached the bottom of the stairs when I heard someone behind me, assuming that it was a student, I moved out of the way to allow them in front of me, but they stopped just behind me. I turned around and saw Logan standing a few feet away from me.

"What do you want?" I asked.

"Can we talk?"

"No,"

"I want to know why you're mad at me,"

"Didn't we talk about this last night?"

He ran his hand through the back of his hair, and then grabbing my wrist he pulled me over to an empty spot in the hallway, pushing me up against one of the pillars. "We need to talk,"

"Well this is a great way to kick-start a conversation about why I'm mad at you," I said sarcastically.

"I'm serious Chloe, we need to talk,"

"What do you want to talk about, I told you why I was mad at you; you lied to me yesterday,"

"Do you not remember anything you said to me last night?"

"Yes, I told you that Jason proposed to me, I told you that you couldn't tell me what to do and you said that I was acting like a kid,"

"You don't remember anything you said after I took you to bed?" he asked, staring at me so fiercely that I shuddered as cold chills ran across my skin.

"I was asleep, no I don't remember, but I'm not sure that anything I said could validate you man-handling me up against this stupid pillar," I spat.

"You told me that you were mad at me for playing pool with that woman because you were in love with me, and when I tried to leave, you told me to stay there with you last night,"

If my heart had been attached to a machine, it would have done something called 'flat-lining'. After my heart finally started beating again, it felt like it was going to pound itself right out of my chest. Have you ever had your heartbeat so hard and loud that you wondered if the person you were talking to could hear it? Well, the thing with Logan was that he could hear it.

"I was asleep, I didn't know what I was saying," I choked.

"Are you sure about that, darlin'?" he asked.

Darlin'. Oh how that one word spoken only by him could reduce me into a giddy, blushing schoolgirl.

I swallowed hard and just shook my head 'yes' wordlessly. He moved his eyes away from mine, bent his head and then nodded at me before moving his arm, allowing me to leave, but I didn't. Instead, I attempted something stupid; I attempted to speak.

"Are you sure that I said that I was in love with you, or did I uh…did I say that I…loved you?"

He looked at me with a patronizing glance. "What's the difference?"

"Well," I started timidly. "I do love you, even thought I don't say it, but the difference between the two is, um…"

"When you figure it out come and talk to me," he said, walking away.

My knees finally gave into their threats and I sank to the floor, pushing my back again the pillar.

"What's going on?" I wondered.

The slow adjusted faze that I had gone through those three months of living there was quickly catching up to me in a unforgiving way. I thought that having a boyfriend would be a nice, regular thing to have to keep me grounded while I was living with 'The Justice League', but that plan fell through as soon as actual feelings became attached and Jason had begun to forge a future with the idea of me in mind.

I thought that I was safe, but I was falling apart. Slowly but surely I was disintegrating. Like fog riding on the back of waves in the sea, my vision shifted slightly and my view changed. I couldn't tell what Logan wanted from me, I didn't know what to tell him even if I did know what he wanted, because I wasn't sure of how I felt myself. All I did know was that we couldn't keep up what we were doing for too much longer. I spent most days yelling at him and the nights watching TV and joking around with him. Our relationship was a fiery, passionate one. Passion, yeah, Jason would 'love' to know that that's where my passion was going; into yelling and making up with Wolverine, who seemed to steal my energy for sharing the same type of passion for anyone else. Yes, if we kept it up for much longer we were both going to end up crazy or hurt. I had been through both before and personally favored being insane over getting hurt again. At least when you're crazy you have fun.

Wednesday morning I had an interview with a girl named Sarah so I was trying to get ready in time to grab some breakfast before heading out. I hadn't stopped putting all of the thought into my work wardrobe as I had when I first started. I figured that it wouldn't hurt, even if it didn't help, and so in result I wore blue to nearly every interview. On that day, I was wearing a long blue sweater, a scarf tied around my neck, a brown corduroy skirt and brown knee high boots. I didn't pull my hair into a ponytail, but I had pulled some of it back with a clip.

I had around forty-five minutes before I needed to leave, but I wanted to speak to the Professor for a few minutes and give him back some of the folders that he had given me with information about the interviews and get a few new ones.

As I was heading out of my bedroom, I saw another present lying in front of my door. I looked around and once again, saw no culprit. I picked up the curious package, carried it back to my bed and unwrapped it to reveal a three box set of 'The Three Stooges' movies. I smiled; they had to know me pretty well to know that I loved 'The Three Stooges'.

"It must be Jean," I thought. "She's psychic; of course she would know my favorite scent of perfume and my sense of humor. Very good choice, I'll have fun watching theses tonight,"

I threw the paper away, placed my new movies beside my TV and was completely satisfied with both of my Secret Santa gifts, and was happy that Jean could read my mind.

I had left Rouge's second present in her gym locker the day before and I was pretty sure that she had like it, because I had seen her wearing one of the scarves that night at dinner.

After making my way down to breakfast, I found that everyone was gone and everything had been cleaned up, so I went to the kitchen for a bowl of cereal. While I was eating, Scott came into the kitchen.

"Good morning," he said, pouring himself a cup of coffee.

"Morning," I said, my mouth full of Frosted Flakes.

"Charming," he smiled at me.

"I know, one can only wonder why I don't need a stick to beat off all of my admirers," I said sarcastically, smiling back. "How are classes?"

"Not so good, the girls keep complaining about how cold the garage is since the vents got messed up in there last week,"

"They're girls, they're supposed to complain," I said. "When are they supposed to come fix it?"

He looked at his watch. "Two days ago,"

"Ah yes, aren't the holiday's just lovely?"

He just shook his head and smiled at me.

I loved Scott; he was great, a little up tight at times, but great nonetheless. He was truly like a big brother to me. We could joke around and laugh about anything, he was so serious for the most part but he let me see the funny side of him, and I think he knew that I needed it. When everything felt so serious around me, I liked to keep the situation light with humor. I didn't do well when I couldn't crack a joke about something, and I thanked Scott sincerely for allowing me to keep my sanity by acting crazy with him, if even just for a little bit.

"Have you got an interview today?" he asked.

"Yeah, Sarah Watson, age thirteen, mutation is cat like abilities. She can see in the dark and has good hearing. Her father is dead and her mother is incarcerated for hitting a man with a car while intoxicated. Her grandparents on her father's side are dead; her grandparents on her mother's side are divorced, with her grandfather in a nursing home and her grandmother has an estranged relationship with her ever since her mother's imprisonment,"

"You've got some work on your hands today,"

"I'd rather be doing that than teaching mechanics in the freezing cold garage; at least it's going to be heated where I'm at," I smiled.

"One of these days I'm going to get you in there,"

"I don't work on anything but my own truck,

"Which you have to work on constantly,"

"It's fine," I defended, standing and putting my bowl in the dish washer.

"The Professor would give you one of the schools cars, if you want?"

I made a slight pouty face. "I like my truck," I said.

He laughed, walked over and gave me a kiss on the forehead. "Good luck with your interview today," he said.

"Thanks, good luck with the girls out in the cold garage," I said, smiling up at him.

"Alright, bye," he said, walking from the kitchen with his coffee in hand.

"Bye," I called after him.

I slowly pulled up to the entrance of St. Timothy's Foster Care, feeling an all too familiar eerie chill run down my spin as I noted the bars across the windows. I felt so sad, just from standing in the parking lot, that I debated whether I even wanted to really go in. Professor Xavier would understand if I just wanted to run away in fear and self-pity, right? I mean, he was an intelligent man, he could see that all I was, was a bottle of emotion, just waiting to be shook up by all of the events until I popped, fizzing over with everything inside of me. But, I couldn't do that; not to the school, not to Sarah, not to myself. I had to suck it up, I was an adult and I needed to start acting like one. Therefore, I did suck it up and walked into the very sad building.

"Hi, I'm from Professor Xavier's school for the gifted and I had an appointment to see Sarah Watson," I smiled politely to the portly, older woman sitting behind the desk by the front entrance.

"What's you're name?" she asked.

"Chloe Rynolds,"

She thumbed through a few pages in a clipboard. "Alright, follow me," she said, standing and leading me back further into the building, down a series of halls and into a small room with around five straight chairs all sitting around a little round table. There was a tiny, little girl sitting in one of the chairs all by herself. "Have at it," said the woman and the left.

I stared back at the closed door, slightly in shook by how very unprofessional she had been, but then wondering why I was shocked. I knew that most of the staffs that I had met while working were very unprofessional unless working with their clients.

"Hi Sarah, I'm Chloe," I said to the small girl who was curled up in her seat, her face pointed down. "I'm here to talk to you about something you might like to hear,"

"Am I going to live with you?" she asked me in a small voice.

"Well, that's sort of what I wanted to talk to you about," I said. She raised her face up to look at me from over her forearm where she was resting her chin. I smiled at her. "I work at a school and the owner, who is a really nice man, would like you to come live there with us,"

"What kind of school is it?"

"It's a boarding school for gifted kids,"

"What kind of gifted kids?"

"Ones a lot like you,"

"What do you mean?" she asked, looking at me with her golden cat eyes.

I leaned in closer to her, even thought I knew she could hear my perfectly well from where I was. "The students at the school I work all have gifts, unique powers, just like you,"

"What kind of powers?"

"There are some who can walk through walls or can go invisible. I have a friend who can create ice with his hands and another who can control the weather,"

"Why does the owner want me to go, I can do anything like that," she lied.

"Sarah, I know that you're scared for other people to find out about it, but what you have is a gift, not a curse, not like other people have told you. This school is set up so that you can go to classes with other kids your age, you can practice your powers without anyone judging you and no one outside of the school will know about it. It's your secret and it'll be kept safe,"

"But if you say that it's a gift and not a curse then why do we have to hide it?"

"Because there are a lot of people out in the world who don't understand us, and people fear what that don't understand,"

"Us?" she repeated.

I smiled at her and nodded my head. "Yeah, 'us', I'm in this with you too, kid. I've even been in one of these places before, too," I said, resuming my original position in my seat and looking around. "It does get better, I promise, and this school can be your first step towards making it better,"

She looked away for a moment and when she returned her gaze back to mine, there were tears rolling from her big eyes. "I'm scared," she whispered to me.

"I know, it's a scary thing to have to deal with, but-"

"No," she said, cutting me off. "I'm scared. My daddy, he sent me letters, he wants to kidnap me and take me to Mexico,"

I paused for a moment, remembering the file that Professor Xavier had given me; it had said that her father was dead. "How is that possible?" I asked.

"I don't know,"

"Sweetie, your daddy, he passed away two years ago, he can't be sending you letters," I said, trying to be careful with my words.

"No, I thought he did but he didn't. He said that he did something bad and had to go away, so he was pretending that he died. If he can make the police think that he's dead then how would they find me if he took me away?"

I was in way over my head and had no idea what to do next.