"You can't be serious!" Thea exclaimed in the middle of the hallway. She and Warren were on their way back from dinner when Warren told her he would be joining the X-Men on their mission that night.

There was a mutant wreaking havoc on Chicago. Apparently he could control the four elements – earth, fire, wind, water. He called himself the Great Father. It was a terrible name, in Thea's opinion, but the Great Father was playing off of Mother Nature. But the name 'Father Nature' sounded pretty stupid and not very threatening. But honestly, 'Great Father'? How arrogant can someone be? Seeing as how Magneto was out of the picture, this deranged evil-doer decided it was now his time to shine. He had cultivated a following of less powerful mutants and was putting Chicago under siege, taunting the crippled X-Men to come and fight him and his minions this lovely holiday season.

A bunch of students stared at Thea's outburst. They all knew she wasn't a very passionate person unless she was about to start a fight.

"I'm going," Warren said adamantly.

"You're an idiot! The last time you went out you got so hurt!" Thea shouted.

"I've had training now," Warren countered.

"You've been here for five months! You have a little more than four months of X-Men training. Everyone else has had at least a year!" Thea yelled.

"I'm good! The X-Men need all the help they can get. Hank is gone! Marie is gone!" Warren shouted back.

Thea knew he had a point. Hank was the UN Ambassador now. Marie, after taking the Cure, was no longer able to be an X-Man, though she still lived at the mansion and helped out.

"This Great Father jackass could burn you, drown you, suffocate you, or bury you, and what are you going to do? Fly away?" Thea ask scathingly.

"I don't need to defend my choices to you of all people," Warren attacked.

Thea felt the sting of those words, but if Warren was going to go there, he might as well go there all the way. "What is that supposed to mean?" she spat out.

"You have quite possibly the most precious mutation there is. And you don't do shit about it! And when you do something, you feel bad? Shit, Althea! You should be out there, with the X-Men, saving people, not holed up in here bringing flowers back to life," Warren said angrily.

"Shut the fuck up! You don't know me!" Thea cried out. His words were too familiar because they were the same words she said to herself all the time.

"You're right, I don't! Because you can't stand the idea of letting me close to you!" Warren said frustratingly.

God, why did he make her sound so awful?

"Don't put this on me. You can't stand the idea that you haven't achieved whatever your next challenge was regarding me! What was it? Make her tell you her tragic past? Make her reveal why the hell she's so fucked up? Make her trust you completely?" she attacked.

Warren looked at her disbelievingly. "You are so wrong it's pathetic. I'm not the bad guy here," he retorted angrily.

Thea backed away. She glanced fleetingly at the rainbow holiday lights twinkling cheerfully from the walls. Christmas was just a few weeks away, but there was nothing Thea was cheerful about at the moment. Holidays sucked.

"No, you're not," she admitted. The bad guy was herself, her own demons.

Warren was breathing heavily but not saying anything. His blue eyes were cold and his stance was formidable. He looked furious.

"Go ahead, Angel, go out there, fight the bad guy, be the hero. Be the person I can never be. Get your ass kicked or come out unscathed…whatever," Thea said, no longer shouting. Her voice, instead, sounded empty and resigned.

She ran past him and towards her room. She didn't stop until she had closed the door behind her and collapsed onto her bed.

Thea wasn't really surprised by what he had said. To be honest, she had been waiting for him to open his eyes and realize she wasn't worth the effort he put in to being her friend. There were things about her he would never know, and if he couldn't deal with that, then oh well.

It wasn't even like he would be at an emotional loss. She wasn't a very good friend, and she knew that. Sure, okay, she made him clothes. Big whoop-dee-doo. He chose to spend his time with her. He got her to socialize with the other students. He took her flying. He had been a much better friend to her than she had been to him. If their friendship ended because of this fight, it would be her loss, not his.

Her loss. To lose something meant that you had it in the first place and that you cared about it. She hadn't meant to care about him or his friendship. But somewhere along the line, he made her care about him. A lot. She hadn't meant to let him get to her, to let him inside, but he had gotten in regardless. Damn him for that.

She wondered if he was upset at that moment. It was bad to enter a fight mad. He could lose concentration because of the anger, and that could lead to injuries. Or death.

Thea tore out of her room and ran like a mad woman to the elevator. She pressed the button impatiently as she waited for the elevator to arrive. When it finally did, she got inside and pressed the button to get to the lower level numerous times, as though pressing the button more meant that she would get there faster. She ran through the curved hallway to the plane room, only to arrive just as the door was closing. The space was too small for her to slip through, so she tried to stop it from closing but to no avail. Hearing the roar of the engine, she caught a glimpse of the plane rising through the opening in the basketball court. Then the door closed completely.

She was too late.


"You alright, man?" Bobby asked Warren as the X-Men flew back to the mansion.

The Great Father was no longer great. But Warren had to admit that Chicago looked pretty bad when they had arrived. The people there would be having a very difficult holiday season.

The Great Father had torn up the streets and trapped a lot of people in overturned buses that his mutant minions circled dangerously. The X-Men had arrived, havoc ensued, and eventually Wolverine got close enough to the Great Father to shove his claws through the mutant's heart. Warren had focused on getting the people out of the buses by flying them to the rooftops of nearby buildings. He got into a few confrontations with mutants along the way, and though he had been in danger, he handled it well. Training had taught him to anticipate and to react quickly.

Warren shrugged at Bobby's question.

"You did a great job back there, but you seemed a bit off," Bobby continued.

"I got into a fight with Thea before we left," Warren said.

"Oh," Bobby replied. "Over what?"

"She didn't want me to go to Chicago," Warren said.

"I see," Bobby said, a smile on his face.

Warren looked at him critically. "What do you see?"

"She cares about you," Bobby said simply.

Warren scoffed. "That'll be the day," he muttered. A month ago he had told her, albeit rather haphazardly, that he cared about her. And although he didn't want some sort of declaration of undying love – that would have been scary – a little acknowledgment of feelings on her part would have been nice. Then again, the openness and glowing happiness he saw in her eyes when they landed after the flight was a pretty damn good consolation.

"She does," Bobby insisted. "Why else would she fight?"

Bobby had a point. Sometimes it did seem like Thea cared about Warren's well-being. She made him clothes, didn't she? But she was just so closed off most of the time that Warren could never tell where her true feelings laid.

"I'm impressed that you're friends with her," Bobby said.

"Why?"

"Well, when I first met you, I thought you were cool. But you come from a really privileged background, so I thought that would make you want everything your way," Bobby explained.

"I kind of do what things my way," Warren conceded. He wanted to know about her past, and he wanted her to tell him. But she wasn't saying anything. Thus the frustration.

"But with Thea, you're not going to go anywhere unless it's her way."

Warren looked at Bobby skeptically. "You think I want to go somewhere with Thea?"

Bobby laughed at this point. "I'm not blind," he replied.

Warren didn't have a response to that. Sure he thought about his relationship with Thea escalating. He even stupidly admitted it to her. She was a pretty girl; and she was strong-willed, opinionated but uncertain and closed off as well. It was all very intriguing. Certainly he had thought about how that would translate in a physical relationship. But that didn't mean he wanted one. Getting involved with friends was very tricky, and getting involved with a friend like Thea would be even trickier. He had no idea what would hurt her because she seemed so unfazed by everything. He didn't want to unknowingly hurt her, and getting physically involved with her would result in more chances of doing just that.

Bobby was right. If things were to go anywhere, it would be on Thea's terms. Assuming, of course, Warren wanted it to go somewhere and she wanted it to go somewhere. And those were two big assumptions.

The plane finally landed and Warren got out. He stretched he wings and his back out after being confined in the seat.

"I'm so ready for a shower. You?" Kitty said, her voice sounding distant due to the height of the plane room. Warren turned his head back to see if she was addressing him, but it turned out she was talking to Peter.

"Is that an invitation?" Peter asked flirtatiously.

Warren caught sight of Kitty blushing before turning his head back. He wondered how Thea would feel about something going on between Kitty and Peter. Thea was quite protective of her younger friend.

There he was, thinking about Thea again. Their fight rang through his ears as he made his way to the changing room. He had said some pretty mean things, but she had as well. He also hated fighting with girls. Girls had such amazing ways of manipulating the conversation so that whatever the guy said when he apologized, he sounded like an asshole. He had no clue how he was going to do damage control.

He got out of the X-Men uniform Storm had gotten tailored specifically for him. It was modeled off of the shirts Thea had made for him, but the snaps were replaced with a sturdy zipper. The rush of cool air that hit his chest once he was out of the uniform made him shiver. He pulled on his jeans and inspected his body for any wounds. His abdomen was sporting a large bruise from one of the punches a mutant had nailed him with. Even though the X-Men uniform provided a bit of protection, the bruise was a sickly yellow-green color. By tomorrow it would be purple. Other than that, he looked okay. He hadn't fought much anyways.

Soon he walked back to his room and he thought about his fight with Thea more.

Perhaps he would go see her after his shower. It was a little past one in the morning, but Thea liked staying up late. It was probably best to settle the fight before going to bed and letting it fester.

As he opened the door to his room, he saw that the light was on and Thea was sitting at the edge of his bed. Her face had been in her hands as she crouched over in a defeated position just before she raised her head to see his entrance.

He knew shock was evident on his face because he was feeling it. How did she get in? Oh, yeah, he hadn't locked it. But that was beside the point. What was she doing in his room?

She rose from her seat on his bed and tucked her hair nervously behind her ears. Her eyes held relief and uncertainty.

Warren wanted to say something, but he didn't know what to say, and she looked like she wanted to say something. She opened her mouth to speak, but words weren't coming out. Looking away, she tried to speak again, but still there were no sounds. Thea closed her eyes and frowned. It looked like she was scolding herself. She quickly brushed by him and fled out the door.

What the hell…Warren thought. Had she been worried about him? He remembered she had waited in the hallway while Kitty and the rest of them went to Alcatraz because she had been so worried over Kitty. So, chances are, she had been worried about him now. And if she worried, that meant she cared. Right? He smiled at the thought. But that was exactly what it was, just a thought.

He wanted to know.

Turning a little awkwardly towards the door, the bruise on his torso sent a pulse of ache through his stomach and chest. Recovering quickly, he went to the room diagonally from his and opened it without knocking.

"Listen, we need to…" he said before he heard a screech and looked towards it. Naturally he had to catch Thea as she was changing clothes for bed. And naturally he just had to look towards her upon hearing the weird sound, which apparently had sprung from her throat, to see that she was clad in pink and black striped underwear and a flesh colored bra. And just naturally he had to continue to stare like a teenage boy at the scantly clad woman because honestly, she had really nice curves and a very perky…

"Warren!" she shouted in that high pitched voice Warren didn't even know she possessed as she scrabbled to cover herself with something from the chest of drawers she was standing in front of.

All she pulled out were socks.

"Shit!" Warren said, looking away, knowing full well Thea saw him staring unabashedly at her figure. And over a month ago he was telling her he thought about having sex with her. Great…what luck. Couldn't the Powers That Be give him just one measly iota of tact when it came to this girl? Apparently not.

"Stay there," she ordered, her voice now resuming its normal register.

Warren could hear her rustle as she pulled on shorts and a shirt.

"Okay," she mumbled.

He turned towards her to see she was wearing red cotton shorts and an oversized black shirt that said something about Australia.

"I'm sorry. You were just there," he stammered, pointing in the general direction of his room, "and so I thought, you know, I just…shit…sorry," he finished lamely.

She settled on her bed and shrugged. "Whatever," she said, but her tone was not as blasé as it normally was and her cheeks were quite red. His were too probably.

"I just…um…I just wanted to know why you were in there," he said, finally able to speak.

She shrugged again and did not look at him. "I take it the fighting went well?" she asked, her attention focused on picking at the fuzz on her bed's comforter.

Warren sighed with frustration. "Why can't I ever get a straight answer out of you?" he asked heatedly. It was strange how quickly the mood changed from awkwardness to anger.

"You didn't ask a question," she retorted quickly.

He could feel himself getting mad. Was she baiting him for another fight? "The fight went well. Wolverine killed that Great Father guy. Why were you in my room?" he asked, hoping his tone was calm and not too forced.

"I just wanted to be there," she said. "I'm sorry if you left here upset. It was stupid of me to upset you before you went out."

Warren wanted to sit next to her on the bed, but he figured he was a bit too sweaty and sticky and dirty for that. He settled for the chair. He tried to sit up as straight as possible to avoid putting pressure on the bruise.

"Don't worry about it," he said.

The mood was still tense, and they hadn't even talked about the fight yet.

"Can't help it," she said back, looking up to meet his eyes briefly before returning her attention to the comforter.

Warren's lips quirked up. So she did care. "So why did you want to be in my room?" he asked.

She slapped the comforter. "You just don't let up, do you?" she said, her voice edgy.

"No."

"You know this is hard for me. You keep on pushing and pushing and that doesn't make me want to push back at all," she said evenly, looking at him with sharp eyes.

"I just want to know," he said.

There was a long silence as Thea stared off. She was thinking hard about something because her brow was creased and her eyes were distant.

"Do you really want to know a secret I never told anyone?" Thea asked.

Warren didn't know where this was going, but he was curious, as always.

"Yes."

"Don't you think I want to tell you?" Thea asked quietly.

"What?" he asked, thoroughly confused.

"Do you think I like always avoiding your questions? Do you think I like hearing that you care about me and not say anything back?" she asked.

"I…I don't know," he said truthfully.

"Earlier today you said that I can't stand the idea of letting you get close to me. But that's not it. I like the idea," she revealed.

Woah, Warren hadn't expected that. "Really?" he asked. He realized he was sounding stupider by the second.

"Yeah. But I just…can't." She snorted and looked actually embarrassed. "I'm messed up, Warren. Jubilee might pretend to be cheerful, but I pretend to be okay when it is glaringly obvious that I'm not. With you, I feel better than okay. I feel…good. And when you ask your questions and expect answers, it reminds me that I'm not okay, that I can't do something as simple as answer a question."

He shifted clumsily onto his knees in front of her. Wow, he really hadn't expected that kind of response.

"I'm sorry," he said.

He had no idea that was what she had thought. He had assumed that Thea was just the closed off type, the type who didn't want to tell secrets because that made her vulnerable. But, instead, Thea wanted to tell him things and was frustrated by the fact that she just couldn't let herself.

Thea shook her head adamantly. Warren was shocked to see her eyes watering though no tears fell. "It's not your fault, it's mine. I'm sorry. But if you expect that if you stick around long enough, you'll find out all my secrets, you're going to be severely disappointed. And I don't want to disappoint you," she said.

Warren felt ashamed. He was an asshole for pushing her to tell him secrets, thinking it was just some kind of game that eventually he would win with enough time. He didn't know what this was, but this wasn't a game.

"You won't disappointment me," he said comfortingly.

She scoffed.

"I didn't even expect us to be friends at all. All expectations have been exceeded. So you won't disappoint me," Warren said encouragingly.

Thea laughed. "Really?"

Warren nodded. "Yeah. You were so annoyed with me in the beginning, I didn't think I'd wear you down," he admitted.

A slow smile spread over Thea's lips. With her eyes shimmering from the unshed tears and her lips curved up, she looked almost soft. Warren hadn't realized she could look so soft.

"I reward tenacity," she said jokingly, her smile turning into a sarcastic grin. She no longer looked soft, and Warren didn't know if he missed that look or was relieved to see they were heading towards normalcy.

"I'll keep that in mind," he replied easily. "I should take a shower," he added absently.

"Oh yeah, you're rank," Thea stated.

Warren laughed. "Well, aren't you sweet?" he said. Suddenly he sprang from his position on the floor and wrapped his arms around Thea, lightly tackling her down onto her bed.

"Warren! I'm going to bed. Now I smell like stinky Warren!" she shrieked like she did when he saw her scantily clad body. She struggled in his grasp, but he continued to hold her tightly.

"Geez, your voice can get so high," Warren complained, wincing.

"In case you haven't noticed, I am a girl," Thea retorted. "Girls have high voices."

Warren couldn't help but smirk at the opening she gave him to make lewd comments. He shifted so that he now hovered over her with his arms balancing himself on either side of her head. "Of course I notice. You gave me quite a show earlier," he teased.

Thea's mouth dropped open at the comment and her eyes hardened. She punched him hard, but not too hard, in the gut. "Jerk," she muttered.

Pain shot through Warren's body since her punch landed mostly over the bruise he already had on his abdomen. He body practically crumpled over her as he grunted in pain."Warren?" she asked concernedly. One of her hands supported his weight on his shoulder. The other hand trailed down his sticky chest pressing delicately around until she found the spot where she had punched him. She saw the bruise. "God, I hadn't noticed that," she said, surprised and upset. She lightly touched the bruise and though he knew it was to assess the injury, Warren found himself wishing there was more to it than that.

"Yeah, you were just checking me out before," he teased, now able to support his own weight as he hovered over her.

"Don't make me punch you again," she warned, making a fist against his bruise for emphasis.

"Okay, okay," he acquiesced.

She hand flattened out onto his torso, and her attention was on his minor injury once again. "I can heal it," she said softly.

He was really trying hard to concentrate on the conversation rather than her small, warm hand on his stomach. When he thought about it, it really said something that she offered to heal him. It wasn't a life threatening injury, they both knew how she usually got after she healed people, and yet she still offered.

He shook his head. "Don't worry about it. I should keep the bruise as a reminder of what happens when I go off trying play hero," he said.

Thea laughed and pushed him, signaling that he should get off of her. "Fair enough. Go shower. And don't come back in here because I have to change out of these clothes you made smelly," she said sternly.

Warren got off reluctantly. Without the pressure of her hand on his stomach, he felt like something was missing. When did he turn into such a sap?

"Do I really have to miss the second show?" he asked teasingly.

Thea glared at him warningly and he knew he should get out while he still had all his limbs properly attached.

He sighed dramatically. "Fine," he said. He made his way out of her room and back to his own to get ready for a cold shower.


Author's note: Here's a super-sized chapter! I figure since I've been away for a week, I should make up for it with this long chapter. This chapter was a lot of fun to write, esp. the seeing-Thea-nearly-naked part. Although Thea has now realized that she cares about Warren, she never did say it. Also, if you expect kissing or other non-friendly physical contact between Warren and Thea to come up soon, you'll be disappointed, but they are getting more physical. Anyway, thanks for the support and all the lovely reviews! You guys telling me I need to update soon for the sake of your sanity is very flattering, I have to say. Hopefully I haven't made you guys go insane…yet. ) Thanks again, please review!