Title: Don't leave

"NO!"

Storm and Professor Xavier turned to see Jamie standing at the entrance with a shocked look on his face.

"Peprica's leaving!"

"Well, she feels like it but she's not sure yet." Professor Xavier said. Jamie's eyes looked down at the floor. He couldn't afford to let Peprica just leave like that, he didn't want her to leave. Jamie didn't know why he wanted her to stay but if Peprica leaves, he would feel very unhappy.

"It's up to her Jamie; let her decide on her own." Storm said as she pours more tea into her cup from the tea pot.

"But she can't leave! I mean…don't you think she should learn to master her powers?" Jamie said, trying to make up a good excuse to make Peprica stay.

"I really would want her to stay but we cannot force her Jamie." Professor Xavier says as he finishes his cup of coffee.

Knowing that it is all up to Peprica, Jamie decides to look for her. He quickly turns but accidentally knocks right into the wall. Jamie falls to the ground and multiplies five of himself.

Jamie gets up and retracts all his replicas. Storm and Professor Xavier looks at him and laughs out loud. "Heh…didn't see it coming…" Jamie shamefully replies and walks out the kitchen.

"Stupid kitchen wall…" Jamie mutters as he walks up the stairs rubbing his head.

"I think our Jamie here has a crush on Peprica." Storm says laughing away.

"Even without my telepathy, it's obvious that Jamie really wants her to stay." Professor Xavier says.

Dashing through the corridors, Jamie looks back and then in front. Kitty stepped out of her room and the moment Jamie turns back, Kitty is right in front of him.

"AHH!" Jamie and Kitty screamed. Kitty made herself phase through the running Jamie. Not stopping, Jamie yelled back, "Sorry Kitty!" After disappearing around a corner, Kitty scratched her head and continued walking.

In a lonely room, Peprica stands at her balcony with the wind blowing lightly against her. She's been thinking lately and deep down, she wants to stay but Peprica thinks that the others won't accept her.

"No one knows what I've been through…" Peprica says as she stares out into the sky. She wants to stay but then again, she feels like leaving. Here, she's been given a home to stay but at the Bell tower, that is where her real home is. "Argh…I don't know which is my home anymore!" Peprica said as she brushes her hair aside.

"Knock, Knock?"

Peprica turned around to see Jamie standing at her room doorway. "Can I come in?" Jamie asks. Peprica turns and faces Jamie from her balcony. "Just shut the door when you come in." Said Peprica smiling.

From Jamie's view, the sun is shinning down on her and she looked like an angel from that point of view. That sight took Jamie's breath away. Jamie tucks his hands in his pocket and walked over to Peprica and the two stared out into the sky. Then, Jamie gathered the courage to tell her what he heard.

"I heard…you're moving back?" Jamie said with an unhappy tone in his voice.

Peprica looked up with her eyes wide open. "Who told you that?"

"I…sort of overheard." Jamie said scratching his head looking away from her.

Peprica then settles down and looks back at the sky. "I really don't know Jamie…I…my home is at the bell tower but yet my heart is split into two. The professor has been very kind into letting my stay in his house and he even gave me a room. It's like a home and now, I have two homes and I don't even know where to go."

Jamie cocked his head to Peprica's side and sees how lost she is. Her eyes could really tell a lot about how she felt; it's like a window into her soul. "Well…the others didn't mean to well…talk like that about the Professors. I mean, they were just fooling around. They really didn't mean to hurt your feelings."

"My feelings? It's not my feelings that are the reason why I am angry at them. Its how they don't appreciate others you know? I mean, even if they think Jean and Scott is the perfect nerd couple, I don't think it was very nice. Don't get me wrong, I am not angry at them because they hurt my feelings; I am only upset that they don't know how fortunate they are to have a good home, school and great teachers." Peprica said as she uses her finger to twirl her white hair.

As she played around with her hair, Jamie realized that Peprica was right. Then, Peprica looks down at the ground and lets out a heavy sigh. "Now, I believe they don't even want to talk to me…"

"Wait, that's not true Peprica, I mean, well, they don't hate you. I mean…" Peprica cuts him off by growing out her wings. "Look, I am going out for a while, see you later. Bye!"

Peprica climbed onto the balcony's edge and leaped into the air. She spread out her wings and flies away into the sunset. Jamie just watched from a distance feeling pretty down.

Later in the afternoon, down in the living room, Kurt is busy surfing the net on his laptop while Kitty is watching Everybody Loves Raymond. Just then, Rogue comes in screaming in joy!

"AHHHH!" Rogue screams, so unlike her for once.

Kitty and Kurt turned around to see Rogue jumping around in happiness. Rouge then jumps onto the couch and sits in between Kitty and Kurt.

"Guess what? Remy just wrote me a letter! Yesterday, ah met him outside the school before ah went to look for you Kurt, and he gave me a letter! He told me not to open it till now!" Rogue said happily. She and Remy have been quite close together and the both of them would talk on the phone for hours unless Kitty tells her to get off.

"Well? What are you waiting for! Open it!" Kitty said excitedly. "Yeah, get on with it!" Kurt said.

Rouge ripped the envelope open and took out a letter. She opened it and read it out loud.

Dear Rouge,

Remy has been thinking a lot about you lately and I cannot take my mind off you.

Rouge stops reading half way and looks at Kurt and Kitty being totally engrossed in the letter. Rouge then folds the letter back up and gets up from the couch.

"Maybe ah I should read it alone. See ya!" And for that, Rogue headed off to her room.

"Thank for killing the joy!" Kurt shouted.

"Aww…it was getting good, just right after the first sentence!" Kitty exclaimed.

Kurt and Kitty then went back to what they were doing before.

While surfing the net, Kurt found out that a carnival is coming in last minute three days later. "Hey Kitty! There's a carnival coming!" Kurt exclaims. However, Kitty is already absorbed by the show that she didn't hear Kurt at all. After thinking about it, Kurt felt that instead of letting the others know, he might as well use this chance to hang out with his mother. Hey, it was only yesterday that they finally had one another.

Kurt then teleports to his room leaving Kitty behind, still absorbed by the show.

In the room, Kurt looks through the website about the carnival. It seems that it is last minute but hey, it has a merry-go-round, bumper cars, a magic show and all sorts of fun things. He made a booking for tickets and then typed out a letter for his mother.

Over at the Brotherhood Boarding house, Kurt rings the doorbell and Toad answers the door.

"What do ya want blue fur ball?" Toad says.

"Is my mother home?" Kurt asks.

Toad grins and then says, "Lemme check it out." After that, Toad slams the door in Kurt's face. From outside, Kurt could hear Wanda yelling at Toad. Then he hears a loud thud sound and Wanda opens the door. "Is…my mother there?" Kurt asks, hoping not to get hit by her hex beam.

"Hey Kurt, I am sorry but she isn't in right now. She left to attend a staff meeting back in school. Need me to pass a message?"

"Umm…could you pass this to her?" Kurt said as he passes a sealed envelope to Wanda. "It's important that she gets it." Wanda looks at the letter and smiles. "Sure, I'll make sure she gets it."

"Thank you."

"No problem and one more thing, can you tell Kitty that Lance wants his sweater back?" Wanda says.

"Alright, see ya."

Wanda closes the door and looks at the letter. She heads to the stairs and passes by the living room. In the living room, Freddy is well already and is watching cartoons while Toad is tied to the chair with an apple in his mouth. Upstairs, Wanda slides the letter underneath Mystique's door.

Back at the institute, Jamie, with his head hung low walks back to his room which he is currently sharing with Bobby. It seems that Bobby's room water pipe burst and is currently being fixed. Jamie plops onto his bed and thinks whether he should tell the others. Just then, Bobby comes in after a nice good shower.

Bobby turns to see Jamie is on his bed feeling pretty upset.

"Hey man, what's up with you?" Bobby said as he hangs his towel around his neck. Jamie turns over to look at Bobby and then got up.

"Peprica is thinking of leaving the institute back home." Jamie said softly.

"What? Why?" Bobby said astonished.

Jamie looks down at his shoes and nervously replies. "She thinks that you guys don't like her after what happened that day."

Bobby was taken aback for a while, all of them thought she didn't like them and didn't care. It was a total misunderstanding.

"No, I thought she is angry with us…we like her as a friend." After thinking for a while, Bobby grabs Jamie by the arm and leads him out of the room.

"Where are you taking me? Peprica just left if you are intending to see her; she went out for a flight." Jamie says.

"We're going to round up the others and I think we should make it up to Peprica. Besides, I think we should have considered her feelings and that it was wrong for us to make fun of the professors." Bobby said, still dragging Jamie.

A door opens and Mystique steps in. She sees a letter under her door and picks it up. A face broke into a smile as she finds out it is from her son. Life seems to turn for the better for Mystique.

At the same time, Peprica is at the park on top of the monkey bar. Her thoughts were deep and she doesn't seem to know that the kids in the park are starting to run off. Something or someone scared them off and not even she hears their screaming. The shadow slowly creeps up behind Peprica.

Next Chapter: Facing the enemy

Author: Thank you rogue-scholar07 for your review, it was really nice of you. You really made my day. This is a special thank to you and all those that have reviewed my story. Haha…I know I am making a big deal out of this but I am excited about this I guess. Very embarrassed right now…