A/N: I've been putting my new Pat Benatar CD on repeat the entire weekend. I've been practicing my singing and acting, I really hope I get the lead in the school play this year, unlike the past three years running.
Jujube111: No, Kurt won't get his powers for a little while. Now imagine me smiling slyly. Bamf! Hey, you mentioned Concrete Angel before. Do you know who that song is based on? I do. Her name's Judith Barsi, go read about her on to see what I mean. Go to bio and notes. And thanks for your feedback on my friend Jenn, but I don't think she'd appreciate that advice. She's very melodramatic.
Toxic-Beetle: I'm glad you think the future book thing is funny. I just feel stupid…and that it's funny. Future book, hahahahaha. I'm a little hyper, can you tell? And as I said before, you're not really supposed to like Caroline, as she is the antagonist. Is that how you spell it?
A/N 2: My friend Jenn and her boyfriend broke up yesterday! (Again). But they're still really good friends, so that's okay. But NOW she likes my mortal enemy, the guy who said I was fat (in front of the entire cast of our school play) and tried to choke me backstage (I think).
A/N 3: None of my friends will shut up long enough to let me complain, so I will do it here. These are the things that are wrong with my life: The guy I like likes this girl who hates me, my singing voice sucks and the lead of the play will undoubtedly go to someone who's been having voice lessons for years, I'm very zitty right now, my friends all went to a movie I told them I wanted to see WITHOUT me (which sucks), and I failed an English test (I think) and got a 75 on a history test right before parent/teacher conferences. Yay! Not.
Oh, and my friend Nora was sitting alone at a cafateria table with Hot Nirvana Guy, so I went to keep her company, and HNG got up from the table quickly. AAAAAAAAH!
Sorry for that little whinefest. I needed to vent.
Disclaimer: As usual, I do not own the X-Men. If I did, I'd use Cerebro to track the guy I like every minute of the day, in a stalker way.
Chapter Ten: Point of No Return
New York, Present DayGwen settled the blanket around herself in a comforting way and snuggled deeper into her bed. The air conditioner had been turned up to the fullest extent, thanks to Rogue, whose many layers made her hot in the summer. She was freezing, but at least she had an excuse to hunker down in the middle of the day.
She glanced at the clock on the wall, and mentally sighed. It was two in the afternoon, she'd been sleeping for thirteen hours somehow. It was the last time, she promised herself, that she'd stay up till one playing cards with Kitty and Rogue.
Gwen couldn't fall asleep after seeing Kurt so disrupted, so she had woken up a very angry Rogue and challenged her to a game. She had a bruise on her arm from where a shoe had been thrown at her, but at least it took things off her mind.
She heard the door creak open as she was thinking and turned over sleepily to face the person in her room. Her eyes were barely open, but she could make out Storm's brilliant white hair standing over her. She groaned.
"I'm sleeping, test me later." She rolled onto her stomach and buried her face into the pillow.
Storm wasn't having it. "Come on, nobody sleeps the entire day. It's impossible," she laughed.
Gwen pressed her head underneath her pillow. "Well, I do," she muttered grumpily.
"Get up and go eat something, I'm taking some kids to town today." Storm shook Gwen gently.
Gwen sat up, rubbing her eyes. "Can we go to Sephora or something? I need more lipstick."
Storm sighed. "Fine."
Gwen jumped out of bed, pulling the blanket around her shoulders. "Yes!"
Her teacher rolled her eyes and left, letting the door shut behind her.
"Hum," she murmured to herself, after laughing a bit at Storm's expense. She grabbed her favorite Wicked t-shirt off of the desk chair and sniffed it. It could go another day. Pulling on the skirt under the table leg and wiggling her hips into it, she left, pulling at her hair with her brush. She could primp later; right now she was hungry. Gwen jogged to the kitchen, smoothing out the wrinkles in her clothes at the same time.
The new woman was sitting at the counter, eating a sandwich and looking pissed, as usual. Gwen laughed. Anyone who didn't like Kurt, she didn't like. Boy, would she have some fun with this uptight little-
Better stop there, she thought, before you say something stupid.
"Hi," she said, running over to the fridge and looking through it. There was only soda and some vegetables. She shut the door.
The woman sat up, placing her sandwich on the plate in front of her and looking wary. Gwen smiled sweetly.
"I'm Gwen," she said. "What's your name?"
The woman pursed her lips, obviously at a loss. "Caroline."
Gwen shut her eyes, thinking. "Caroline…hmm…you're part German, that's obvious. You hate that name, and you thought about changing it more than once. Am I right?"
Caroline stood up slowly. "Are you another one of these freaks?"
Gwen's smile faltered a little, but she contained her anger and kept a fake smile on her face. "I'm not a freak, no one here is, but yes, I am a mutant, as you're so blatantly saying. I telepathic, which means I can read your mind real easy. I could actually be doing it right now, and you couldn't stop me." She bit her tongue, fighting the sudden urge to smackthe womanupside the head.
Caroline suddenly looked nervous. "Did you read my mind before? About my name?"
"No, I'm just really good at reading body language, but thanks for the compliment." Gwen straightened, keeping herself relaxed, and Caroline sank back down into her chair.
"So…you're a mutant."
"Everyone here is. Even you." Gwen tilted her head slightly. "Sorry," she said sarcastically.
Caroline stood up again, looking mad. "No, I'm not."
Gwen turned around to the cabinet. "Yes, you are. Get over it." She reached for the knob, but drew back suddenly when she received an electrical shock. She whirled around.
Caroline's hair was getting frizzy, and her eyes were blazing. Gwen noticed with a jump that the lights were flickering.
"No, I'm not."
Gwen pointed to the lights. "Yes, you are. You've just been ignoring it, so you have no idea how to control your power." She turned back around. "Was that the last of the turkey?"
She heard a clattering behind her and felt Caroline standing next to her. She froze.
"No, I'm not."
"Ever heard of personal space?" Gwen gave Caroline a little shove, hoping she'd get the message, but she pushed back. Gwen was about to retaliate, but decided she wasn't in the mood. Maybe after she'd eaten. "Step to the side a bit, will you?"
Caroline, instead of moving, stood closer. Gwen was about to speak, when she felt a hand grab at the back of her hair and pull until her head touched her neck. She gasped.
"No, I'm not."
This wasn't fun at all, Gwen decided. "Let go of my hair!" She swung blindly to the side, but Caroline only pulled harder. "Let go of me now!" Gwen raised her voice. "Someone get her off of me!"
"No, I'm not."
"Fine, you're not! Just let go of me!"
She felt the woman's hand loosen and breathed a sigh of relief. What a nutjob. She hadn't been here for a day and already she could have been charged with assault. Gwen ran to the other side of the counter, avoiding any leftover fight that Caroline had.
"What the hell is wrong with you?" she asked, rubbing her aching scalp. "You have issues, you realize that, right?"
This was apparently the wrong thing to say. Caroline moved quickly to the side Gwen was on, forcing her to run back around to the spot she'd been standing moments ago. The other woman followed her, and they repeated this for a while. Gwen thought it was funny, but she was too scared of the maniac in front of her to laugh. She ran around again, and made a move towards the door, only to have it slammed on her bare foot.
"Motherf-" she started, grabbing her toes, but stopped mid-word when she saw Storm.
"She tried to kill me," Gwen stated angrily, pointing at Caroline, who stiffened. Storm suddenly had an expression on her face that Gwen had come to see her wear whenever they were talking.
Storm stared at Caroline, then at Gwen. "Please," she said, sinking into a kitchen chair and pressing her face into her hands. "Fill me in on the details."
Gwen and Caroline both gave their accounts of the past few minutes.
Two hours later, Storm and Gwen left the professor's office, leaving Caroline in there with him, both looking either annoyed or angry. Gwen was angry.
"It's not my fault she went nuts," she muttered. "I refuse to do detention for a week. That decision was totally one-sided on his part."
"I'm saying this as a friend, not as a teacher," Storm told her, "but shut up."
The TV Room
"…a week," Gwen said to Kurt, "of sitting in a classroom, doing nothing, because I got attacked by a nut. She could have ripped my hair off, and she said she didn't, so she's automatically right! No one believes me!"
Kurt sighed, and slid over on the couch closer to Storm, trying to avoid Gwen's flailing hands. Gwen stared at him for a moment, wondering why he looked so sick.
"This is the part where you go, 'I believe you, Gwen.'"
"Do you have detention with me?"
"You suck, you know that? And yeah, Professor Chuck E. Cheese thought it'd be a good idea." She snorted, chewing on her fingernail.
"You're lucky that's all you got," Storm interrupted, leaning over Kurt to look at Gwen. "Taunting a new person at the school." She shook her head.
"What's wrong with you?" Kurt asked.
"I didn't taunt her, I simply informed her that she had special genes that allowed her to control electricity. And she took it personally. She's kind of mean, anyhow. I bet if she was famous she'd have an episode of a Law and Order series based on her life. I bet they based the Deacan Briggs 1 thing on her, only with guys."
"No, they didn't."
"Shut up, Kurt, you don't watch Law and Order. And I think your accent is funny. Funny! Storm, can we please go to town now? I need to take my mind off of things with some new lipstick." She flicked Kurt in the forehead. "What's with the death look?"
"I'm fine. Go get ready."
Gwen stood up from the couch, smoothing her skirt and stomping out of the door. She poked her head back in the room at the last minute.
"One day you're going to wish you'd listened to me! Everyone here is a moron!" She ran out of the door, letting them catch just a glimpse of her giving them a certain finger.
Kurt stared after her for a moment, then pushed himself into the space where Gwen had been before, and curled his knees to his chin.
Storm poked his shoulder gently. "What is with the death look?"
Kurt uncurled himself reluctantly. "Nothing."
"You really do look sick, Kurt."
"I'm not sick. I'm…just tired."
Storm sat up straight, letting her right leg hang down. "This is about last night, isn't it?" (A/N: I'm writing this while listening to the Outkast song Roses. Listen to the lyrics, don't they tie into this fic? Caroline!).
Kurt closed his eyes, looking slightly pained. "Ororo, I'm used to it."
"Kurt"-
"I just wish I wasn't."
Whatever Storm was about to say, she couldn't remember. She was shocked by what Kurt had said. All she could do was grab the hand wrapping around his folded knees again and give it a squeeze. He squeezed back, stroking the skin between her forefinger and thumb. They sat there for a few minutes, neither saying anything, until they heard footsteps in the hallway.
Gwen was back in the door, this time with Rogue, Kitty, and Jubilee. Kurt and Storm jumped and pulled away.
Kitty raised her eyebrows, and Gwen smirked, although not for the same reasons.
"I just told everyone how old your parents were when you were born, Kurt," Gwen said loudly, looking triumphant. "Twenty two and sixty three. I hope you enjoy all the teasing you're going to get for the next two weeks. That's for not stopping my detention." She turned to Storm. "This is everyone who wants to go." She motioned to her friends, then at Storm, indicating she should stand up.
"Let's go," Gwen said, marching past the door haughtily, sticking her tongue out at Kurt on the way. Kitty, Jubilee, and Rogue said goodbye and followed her.
Storm watched them leave, then quickly bent down over Kurt and hugged him.
"It'll be okay," she whispered in his ear, then straightened and went after the girls.
Kurt sat on the couch for a while, staring off into space. The past few minutes had been a little weird. First of all, he couldn't ever tell if Gwen was telling the truth or not – after all, she was the one who had convinced him she hadn't been the one to set his bed on fire when she was twelve, even though she'd been caught with a packet of used matches five minutes afterward – so she might have been exaggerating about Caroline attacking her.
And how bad, he wondered, did his luck have to be for her –of all places – to end up here, the one place where he felt safe? He pressed his knees to his face again. Was he safe here? He wouldn't have put it past Caroline to try and hurt Gwen, but Gwen was extremely dramatic. Kurt didn't know whether to feel defensive or outraged.
All he knew was that, six years ago, when Gwen, as a skinny, energetic eleven year old, had come to his circus and somehow harassed her way into his heart, he had made a promise to himself to take care of her.
So that meant, he realized, he had to go see Caroline now. He closed his eyes and straightened himself out, giving the couch a few frustrated punches as he stood.
Kurt walked out into the hallway, taking a few deep breaths, then laughed nervously. What did he possibly have to be scared of? He was stronger, she was a lot older, he was bigger, and all she had done last night when she had seen him was scream. He breathed in through his nose. What did he have to be scared of?
He exhaled slowly, feeling his heartbeat slow down, and began to walk down the hall. He'd find Caroline, she wouldn't hurt him, he could take care of Gwen. Right?
There was no turning back, if that's what it meant.
1- The Deacon Briggs episode of Law and Order: SVU is the only time I've been truly scared. There's this guy who's been molesting boys for like twenty years, and he has this room where he keeps all of the baseball caps of the boys. There's this part where he is supposed to identify them all, and he sniffs the hat he picks up dreamily, then recites the boy's name, age, baseball team, year he was molested, etc. I swear to god I felt like throwing up. And that was in the first half hour. Go to and look for the Quarry episode, that's it. I just mentioned it because it creeped me out, and Caroline is supposed to be creepy.
A/N: Well, that's chapter ten! Sorry it took so gotdang long. I've had like a buttload of homework, and today is parent/teacher conference day. I'm dead.
On the other hand, I got into this a capela group! Yay! It's the first time I've tried out for something and actually gotten in!
A/N 2: Yes, everyone in the story is clueless. But if they weren't, well, Caroline would be kicked out, and everyone would be happy! That wouldn't be interesting, would it?
Next chapter: Will Kurt go bungee jumping off the Statue of Liberty?
Of course not.
Kurt angst, but I think I'm going to do something with this chapter a little…unorthodox of myself. Evil smile. I'll also tell you how parent/teacher conferences went.
Stay tuned!