Disclaimer: I do not own X-Men. However, the characters of Temperance "Firefly" Bellview, Jennifer Bellview, Jackson Bellview, and Caleb Rousch are my own creations.
1:20a.m.
Her clothes were dusty. How gross is that? It had only been a month, and her clothes were stiff and dusty. Temperance couldn't even think of a way for the dust to get into her bureau. It was madness!
1:22a.m.
I wonder what I'll have for breakfast today?
Thought's buzzed through Temperance's head purposefully. She would not let herself sleep. Yesterday night had been scary enough. Nightmares plagued her subconscious, and she awoke in the frighteningly white sick bay below the mansion. Her wounds, caused by exploding glass and metal and the occasional flame, had been sterilized and bandaged. Her parents had been called.
They were taking her home.
Today was November third, and her parents would be showing up to take her back to her home in New Jersey.
New Jersey. Why do all the other states make fun of New Jersey? Mysteries of life.
Kitty had left around 12:30a.m to bunk with Rogue and Jubilee. Evidently Temperance's new sleeping habits were getting on her nerves. Lucky today was a Sunday.
She slipped her clothes into one of the large suitcases she had brought with her to the school. Packing hurt her oddly, a dull ache in the pit of her stomach.
Temperance stopped around 5:00a.m, and went to the girls' showers like she used to in the morning. After cleaning herself, she dressed (no socks,) and ambled down the hall, around the corner, around another corner, and down the stairs into the lobby, where she followed the hall to the kitchen.
No one was in the kitchen.
She sighed with relief. A very thin, hair of a thread was holding her to sanity. She was afraid a confrontation with anyone, friend or foe, would make her break down. Temperance retrieved her breakfast, a glass of apple juice, and went back to her room to wait for the sun.
Logan ran into the kitchen only three seconds later, and was only comforted by the fact that her scent still lingered in the air. Sulfur and apples.
"You're back." The smooth baritone voice called into her room, and Temperance had a hard time placing it. She turned around and took in the not-quite-tan face and wavy, dark brown hair of the boy from her algebra class. He looked different. Still a bit fidgety, but different somehow.
He has new glasses. She thought. They suit him well.
"Yeah...I'm back." Temperance strikes a pose and does a jazz hand maneuver before regaining her sanity. And then laughing a little too hysterically under her breath.
"Um, I never, uh, gave this back to you. Yeah..." He walks into her room and gives her a sharpened down pencil. The eraser is almost gone.
"Oh, thanks. You can keep it." She smiles weakly at him and sits down on her bed. He sits down next to her.
"I copied these for you. I figured you would need them when you came back." He hands her the pile of papers he had been holding, they could have made up a small book. Her name was neatly written on the first sheet. It was all her math notes from the past month. He had written all her homework and test reviews and class notes for her. Temperance's eyes began to tear up. He had missed her and she didn't even know his name.
"Hey, are you okay?" He looks genuinely concerned, and that makes the first of many held in sobs erupt from her tight throat.
She had been so stupid. People, lots of people had missed her. People had worried for her, and she couldn't give them the time of day before. They had still cared, even after she shunned them for 'their own good.'
The boy puts an arm around her shoulder, and the warmth almost makes her catch fire. Temperance holds it back with very little effort. It got easier every day.
She cries into his shoulder and enjoys feeling the vibrations of his deep voice as he tries to sooth her. Poor guy, he only came in to give her a pencil and some math notes, and now he's automatically her therapist.
"I'm s-sorry." Temperance finally gets a hold of her emotions. A few deep breaths later and the tears and sobs stop coming. She pulls away from him, a deep blush warming her cheeks to a dangerous degree. "Thank you, for this, but I'm leaving again."
"What? But, you just got back!" He looks very upset, and Temperance really wishes she knew his name.
"My parents are really upset about the kidnapping thing," she replies, "they're picking me up today."
"Oh." He looks really dejected. "Well, then, I'll have to tell you something a lot sooner than I had first wanted to."
Firefly pouts, trying to think what that might be. He gets up from the bed and inspects her face.
"You sound like violins and cellos and acoustic guitars. And you look really pretty with your hair like that." The boy from her algebra class then turns around and walks out of her room. No sooner had he left than Logan had entered.
"You smell like salt, Smarts."
"Yes, well, I just can't suppress my sailing habits." She grins at him, and the tear stains on her cheeks shine in the lamp-light.
He grins at her, and then his face falls back into serious-Logan-ness.
"Your parents are here to take you home. The Professor's tryin' to convince 'em to let you stay here." His voice is low and somber; a funeral march.
"They won't give in; not after what's happened. They love me too much." Temperance looks at the floor, another wave of tears threatening to make a break for it.
"Do you want to leave, Firefly?" Logan is trying to make eye contact with her, but she's too busy trying to count the threads in the carpet.
"...I don't know. I don't know if I can stay here with the nightmares. They took me right out of that hallway, and I couldn't do a thing... No one could do anything." Temperance shivered.
Logan put a hand on her shoulder and levered himself into a standing position.
"Smarts, nobody ain't ever gonna take another kid from this mansion. Professor X nearly had a conniption when you were taken. The mansion's been security high, and I don't think it's ever going to let it's guard down again. You don't have to be scared anymore."
Temperance sniffs and stands up. "So what are we gonna do to make 'em let me stay?"
Logan chuckles, "What every kid is born to do: Whine and plead and complain until we get our way."
Temperance snorts and flourishes at Logan, "The man with the plan!"
She makes her way out of the room, Logan right behind her.
"Temperance Evangeline Bellview!" Her parents descend upon her immediately upon her entrance into the office. Through a small space between her mother's arms and her father's chin, Temperance can see Logan mouth, "Evangeline?"
"I'm alive! It's okay, I am alive! I won't be for much longer if you keep cutting off my air supply!" Temperance's strangled yell can barely be heard through the mountain of parental worry and love. They thankfully remove themselves from her head and neck.
"It's time to go, Temperance." Her mother says stiffly, "get your things in the car."
Students in the lobby were treated to an odd sight: A teenaged girl with fluffy brown hair and a large red scar being dragged towards the large oak doors by an angry/relieved short woman, a taller man in glasses sulking under the weight of two large suitcases; and the party being chased to the door by the Professor and Logan.
"Please, Mrs. Bellview, Mr. Bellview, take some time to think about what you are doing! Temperance has come so far! Her mutant abilities have improved dramatically since the time she came to the school!"
"Since the time she was kidnapped, you mean?" Her mother finally turned around, still gripping her daughter by the wrist. Temperance wrested from her mother's grasp.
"Mom!" Everyone turned in Temperance's direction, and she flushed under the attention.
Her mother is shocked, and actually looks at her daughter for a minute. The group and a handful of nosy students watch as Mrs. Bellview takes in the determined expression on Temperance's face, and then Temperance's face as a whole.
"Your hair..." Tears suddenly welled up in the woman's eyes, and she embraced her daughter. "You are so beautiful. I don't know what we would have done if we had lost you."
Temperance pulled away from her mother gently. "I know, Mom, everyday was hell thinking about you two worrying about me. But I'm back, and I'm alive, and... I don't think I want to leave this place forever."
Mrs. Bellview ran soft fingers over her daughter's face, lightly touching the smooth skin under her left eye and along her cheek.
"I know you want me to come back with you, and I want to go home with you, too, but the school is good for me. The Professor said I've come so far, and he's right. I mean, look at me." Temperance spreads her arms out, and her parents view the new hairstyle and clothing decisions. The baggy t-shirts had been done away with, and she was actually wearing pants that fit her. Temperance lifted up her right hand in front of her, as if she was accepting something, and the air above her palm wavered with heat. Small sparks and flames roiled above her hand until they formed a compacted ball of fire.
"That's an improvement from last time." Her father put in.
Up to that point, the Professor and Logan had remained silent so that Temperance could defend herself. The Professor felt it a good time to input a compromise.
"Because of the unfortunate happenings of the past month, Temperance has fallen behind in all of her classes. I understand that the staff has been acquiring all of her missed assignments so that she may do them at her leisure." He turns his wheelchair slightly more towards Temperance, and speaks directly to her. "We understand that this was an emotionally draining experience, and we're going to try to catch you up as quickly as possible." He turns back to her parents. "It would be possible for Temperance to go home from now until after winter vacation, so that she could be with you and have more time to focus on her studies."
Temperance's parents seemed to consider this option seriously.
"Is this what you want, Temp?" Asked her father, "We only want what you want." Her mother nods, resigned to the fact that her daughter would have to come back to school.
"Yes." Temperance sighs with relief, the fear of never seeing Logan or the boy from math class ever again draining from her body. "I'll come back after Christmas break."
"Very good." The Professor's blue eyes twinkle with a proud kind of satisfaction. "We will send your homework along shortly. Study hard, Temperance. The greatest of any power is knowledge. You don't need to be a mutant to have it."
Firefly smiles brightly, a smile that shows in her eyes. Her parents shake hands with the Professor and then Logan, and begin to trek out to the car, weighed down with their daughter's luggage. Firefly is left with Logan and Professor Xavier in the lobby.
"I look forward to seeing you in class again, Temperance. Lord knows I could use more students who actually enjoy reading Shakespeare." Says the Professor, and Firefly shakes his hand before he wheels off down the corridor back to his office.
"Gonna miss ya, Smarts." Logan says stiffly.
"Yeah, I'm sure you'll begrudge the extra hour of sleep every morning." She jokes with a half laugh that dies in the air.
"See you after the break." And Logan sweeps her up into a quick, stiff hug. She laughs as he lets go.
"Hey, can you do me a favor?" Logan looks back at her, Firefly rifles through some papers in her messenger bag. "Can you give me the name of the guy who wrote these? I feel bad I don't even know his name."
"Got an admirer, huh, Smarts? No problem," He takes a whiff of the stack of papers and gives them back to the young fire-starter. "Smells like Caleb Rousch."
"He have brown hair and rectangle-ish glasses?" Firefly inquires, making sure Caleb is the boy from her algebra class.
"Yeah, manipulates sound waves or some such. Music freak, but not a bad guy. I'll keep an eye on him, for you."
"Thanks, Logan. I'll see you later."
"Later, Evangeline."
Firefly walks out the great oak doors of the mansion, rolling her eyes and feeling that everything was finally right with her world.
A/N: Firefly is finally complete! Oh, joy! I usually hate people who beg and plead for reviews at the end of chapters, but since this is/was my first attempt at fanfiction, and I've finally finished it, I would really appreciate it if you would tell me what you think of my little story! Thank you for reading!