Title: You've Got To Go There To Come Back
Author: Iris, sleepall-day at Livejournal
Rating: PG-13.
Timeline: Directly after Alcatraz events of X3.
Summary: After the fight at Alcatraz, Pyro is found and brought back to Xavier's mansion. For his criminal actions he has been given house arrest at Xavier's School and he must learn to adjust.
Author's Note: This is my all-time first fic, and lovethiscity at Livejournal was only recently created purely to post it. As I'm a new writer, I'd appreciate any comments, feedback, suggestions, or Aaron Stanfords that you would care to throw at me.

Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men or any Marvel characters. This is just for fun. Any resemblances you find to actual people, living or dead, shows that you have strange friends.

Chapter 18: "Hey, come back soon, okay?"

I wasn't sure if I should hold Kitty's hand or not, but I knew either way, I wanted to hold her close, so I just wrapped an arm around her shoulders and led her back up the stairs to the mansion. I'd been barefoot when she drove me outside in anger, so there was the ugly sound of my metal tracker clinking on the concrete stairs.

From the hallway, someone sounded like they were throwing up in the kitchen. I stopped walking and listened. "Yup, definitely someone vomiting," I said to Kitty.

"Barfing," she added.

"Yeah, but there's also heaving, and retching. Spewing your guts."

"Don't forget puking," Kitty said with a smile. Not the conversation I would have picked for us to have after the first time we kissed, but as I was quickly learning, there just are too many things you can't pick about life.

I walked in and saw that Rogue was bent over the kitchen sink, one hand on the counter for support and the other across her stomach, and – well, insert your favorite word for what she was doing.

"I'll give that a three," I said to her. "But you'll do better next time."

I gave her a pat on the back, which immediately caused Rogue to shriek, "Don't touch me!" She backed sharply away from the sink and was breathing heavily. "Don't touch me," she said again, more calmly this time.

I was standing frozen, holding my palms up in the air, one clutching my lighter. "Hey, chill. I was just trying to make you feel better," I said, to calm her down.

Rogue was running the water now and finished rinsing her mouth out. She said flatly, "Oh, since when do you do that, Pyro."

Before I could respond, Rogue started to leave, and Kitty shot me a worried glance and I nodded to her, saying it was all right for her to go. "Hey, Rogue…" Kitty called after her.

I sighed. Rogue had been downright unpleasant to me lately. I ran the garbage disposal myself.

Storm, meanwhile, seemed to be having a hell of a time trying to deal with the political side of things without Hank's presence. After the two girls left, I was sitting in the common room, trying to collect some thoughts together about what had just happened moments before with Kitty. Specifically, the fact that I kissed her. And that she kissed me back. Okay. So. Hopefully she wasn't going to want to talk about it, because I wasn't sure what I would say to her yet.

I didn't actually get to think too much about it, though, because the X-Men were hurriedly trying to get the team ready to leave somewhere. I could hear them trying to make some last-minute plans and it was a few minutes before I realized – if they were off to a fight, or something, that meant Kitty was probably going, too. And I wouldn't be. I sat up.

I ran a hand through my hair nervously, and grabbed the attention of the next person who walked past, which was Warren. "Hey, man. You know where the X-Men are headed?" I asked him.

"Oh, it's not just the X-Men," he answered seriously. "I'm going too. So are some of the other students."

I waved my hands in frustration. Yeah, that's what I meant, but I guess some of the students weren't official, real, live X-Men yet, simply because they were too young. "Okay, so, where are you guys off to?"

"Conference," Warren shrugged and then started to walk off again.

"Wait, what? Conference? Are you serious?" I demanded. "There's more, right? Everyone's worked up."

For the first time, a look of annoyance crossed Warren's face, and he answered, "Well, of course they are. We are missing somebody, and we're trying to get him back."

"So everyone's just going to sit around and discuss it?" I asked, trying to squeeze some answers out of him.

"No. Not exactly. We're just going to it to get caught up on the latest news, and then we're leaving to go get him," he admitted.

I slapped him across the shoulder. "See, that's what I was looking for!"

Warren shrugged again, and replied in his deadpan way, "Okay. Well, I'd love to stay and wrestle, but we have to leave really soon."

As he left, Warren passed Wolverine in the hallway, who said to him, "Hurry up and get changed, bud. We don't have a lot of time."

Storm, who was already in her X-suit, was running down the stairs and came to a halt when she saw Wolverine, and said, "Oh, Logan! Come on! You were supposed to already be in uniform! Let's go!" Then she caught sight of a uniformless Cyclops, and she glared at him open-mouthed.

"You too!"

"I can't! My motorcycle's been stolen!" Cyclops replied, clearly distraught. He was holding a fist to the side of his head and was pacing around.

"Already!" blurted out Wolverine in mock ignorance. "I just parked it two minutes ago!"

"You had it! Why, you little…" Cyclops started seething, until his and Wolverine's words were both jumbled into a heated argument.

"We can't do this right now!" Storm snapped. "We have to get moving!"

Kitty, Bobby, Peter the Shirtless Wonder and Warren all arrived, suited up and ready to go. So I'd been right about Kitty. And Rogue was obviously missing, useless to their mission.

I saw the confident look on Kitty's face and felt dumb immediately for worrying about her. She could take care of herself better than most people – after all, she couldn't be hurt if no one could touch her. But I couldn't help feeling concerned anyway. I took a few tentative steps forward so I could whisper to just her, "Hey, come back soon, okay?"

She looked at me through the corner of her eye. Kitty gave me a little half-smile and said, "Of course."

"All right, everybody into the Blackbird now," Storm said. "You two just get changed and meet us there," she added, addressing Wolverine and Cyclops, who had finally stopped squaring off and were simply crossing their arms at each other.

"Bye," I called to the two of them, since they were passing by me. Both Wolverine and Cyclops acknowledged it with a nod.

As Storm stepped down the stairs, while she was still taller than me she gave me a little rub on the top of my head, and said before leaving, "Be good and watch everyone in the mansion, okay?"

Maybe she really did feel bad for her accusations earlier. I shrugged inwardly and almost forgot to resent her for acting like I didn't actually have to be there if I didn't want to.

For what seemed like the millionth time, the mansion felt totally empty, since everyone had gone and left me behind because I couldn't go anywhere. I'd also been left with the annoying, nagging feeling that they would have left me behind because they didn't trust me even if I could go places. I decided to just head back to my room to do some writing.

I passed Rogue's room in the hallway on the way to mine, where a television was showing the news. The door had been left open, so I could see that Rogue wasn't watching the TV. She was lying on her bed, not even under the covers, with her forearm over her arms.

I couldn't help it. I was too curious. I poked my head in the room and knocked on the door. Rogue slowly lifted her head up and gave me a puzzled look. "What d'ya want, Pyro?" she asked weakly.

"Just… wanted to see how you're doing," I said. It wasn't a lie, exactly. In any case, I wasn't about to lie, so I added, "I was wondering what was wrong."

"Nothin'," Rogue replied sternly, and then sank back down onto her pillow. "Just tired. And a little sick."

I leaned against the doorframe and said, "Why don't you get some water?" since I didn't feel like being a gentleman to her by offering to get some.

Rogue looked like she was considering the idea for a moment and then said, "Nah. It's okay." She looked at me awkwardly and then slowly said, "I'm pretty sorry about havin' been so rude to you about… well…"

If Rogue wanted to interpret my curiosity as concern, that was fine with me. I shrugged and said, "What, you mean you're sorry for doing exactly what everyone else was doing to me?"

I don't mind picking fights with people, but Rogue didn't accept this one. She just replied calmly, "No, I guess I meant I was sorry for not being more understanding."

"Understanding?" I repeated. "You don't even know what I'm going through! You don't know what it's like."

"Don't know what what's like? Being surrounded by a bunch of people who are scared of you and don't trust you? Yeah, Pyro, if that's what you meant, then I guess you're right, because when I put my old boyfriend Cody into a coma, nobody wanted me near them or even around them." Rogue, still lying back on the bed, had been holding herself up on her elbows and then let herself fall back flat again.

Silence. Even the TV seemed quieter after that.

I didn't want to apologize for snapping at her, and I didn't have to, because Rogue just said weakly from her supine position, "I just meant that I was sorry I haven't tried to give you another chance. I really haven't tried. But I knew I was wrong about that when I found out the truth about who set up Hank. So I'm sorry."

I shifted my eyes uncomfortably, and said, "Well, you shouldn't really be, since it's not like I've given everyone here a chance. Or even the chance to like me."

"True enough," she agreed.

There was another pocket of silence, until she offered, "We are livin' together. I'll try to be nicer, even though it's not goin' to be the same as before."

I nodded, although lying down she couldn't see me. "Yeah," I said, which was the closest I could get to saying I would do the same. Then I tried to change the subject by saying, "You sure you don't want to get some fresh air or something?"

"Huh? Oh… nah. It's fine. Besides, I don't want to miss the broadcast if they have one."

"What broadcast?"

"The Friends of Humanity sent the Department of Mutant Affairs a recordin', and they might play it on the news," Rogue answered.

"That's what they're going to the conference for?" I asked. I was secretly glad I was finally having a normal conversation with one of the other kids here other than Kitty or Warren.

"Yeah… and I think maybe they told how to get Hank back in the video, too."

"I see…" I said slowly. Rogue turned her head to look at the TV, and for a minute we both just stared at it as though we could will it to show us the video. But I guess we hadn't hit prime time yet, because they were just breezing through some sports news. They also talked about reconstruction that would be going on at the Humanistic Inquiries Instructional Building.

I didn't feel too comfortable with hanging out in Rogue's room, but she didn't feel like moving to the common room. There wasn't any point in watching the same thing separately though, so I just sat down next to her and played with the flame from my lighter while we waited for the news.

When an anchorman announced that exclusive footage from the Hank McCoy kidnapping was going to be aired, and I knew that the X-Men had to be already in the know and on their way to him. Every Friends of Humanity member in the video had their face concealed, but fortunately, the anchorman announced that someone called Nicholas Swisher had already been found to be involved. It was because of the DMA board member, Stan Anarvine, Hank was supposed to have been meeting when he'd been kidnapped. I remembered someone saying that the board member was involved somehow, but he wasn't part of it. Apparently Swisher had contacted Anarvine and tried to arrange a meeting, and filled in all the holes where the Anarvine said he was booked already. Somehow this extremely unscientific method had yielded results for Swisher, and that's how he found Hank.

The video itself was worse than I expected. I know as well as the next guy how soft it makes me look – but I felt terrible looking at Hank's face. Rogue gasped as we watched it. He was tied up and gagged, which would normally never have held a mutant like him captive, but also on enough drugs to keep him from escaping. His normally intelligent, alert eyes had a drowsy look, but at the same time he looked frightened. I felt awful. I was no prisoner compared to that.

The terrorists proceeded to tell the viewers that they were going to force Hank McCoy to sign documents that admitted to the crimes that he and the mutant population as a whole had committed against humanity. Hank had not done it yet, but if he didn't sign the papers saying that he would work to legalize the Mutant Registration Act, the terrorists claimed they would unleash their new strain of the Legacy Virus on Hank himself, and leave him to spread it to everyone else.

I was suddenly concerned for my own safety, as I had nowhere to go. I looked at Rogue. She looked a lot like how I felt. She was wide-eyed and held a hand to her trembling mouth.

Some chapter notes:
- Yep, the barfing dialogue was definitely a homage to my favorite book series ever, Animorphs, as I have been looking for a way to incorporate a dedication to that series in this fic.

- Yes, every single member of the Friends of Humanity is named after members of another group that I hate. Sorry. But I do. And if you catch it and know who I'm talking about (see previous chapter for more members), you'll either hate me, think I'm being funny, or think I'm being ridiculous.