Sorry guys.. been almost a year since I worked on this. Oh well, I'm here now. Let's see if I can work on this some more ^.^.

Songs I rocked out to, and so should you. :) My inspiration songs. Slide- The Goo Goo Dolls, Swing Life Away- Rise Against, and The Mariner's Revenge Song- The Decemberists

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"Wow, So, Like, we're supposed to have this rad new cook. Some, like, old friend of Professor McCoy's from way back when." Kitty shouted at them as they rode back from school in Scott's car. Scott and Jean sat in the front, while Kurt, Rogue, and Kitty fought the wind from blowing back their hair and into their eyes.

"Totally dude, she looks like she had no where else to go. She looked homeless and she hugged Professor McCoy like they hadn't talked in ages. I wonder vhere she came vrom."

"That is a good question, Kurt!" Jean responded, her head turned around to face then, her long fingers were trying to hold back her red hair.

"I dunno guys, I'm more concerned if she knows how to cook!" Scott added. Jean and Kurt laughed at his witty remark.

"It's okay guys, If she's, like, terrible, I can still cook my muffins!"

"That's alright, Kitty. I'd rather just deal with her food," Rogue responded bitterly, her hands on her lap as she subconsciously tried not to touch the two people she was crammed between. Kitty looked slightly offended but didn't say anything as Scott pulled into the garage trying to quickly avoid the argument he could foresee coming.

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Quinn was settled in very quickly. It wasn't like she had all that much to unpack. They let her leave with very little. Throwing her now empty bag on the floor and tucking both hands deep into her pants pockets, she left her room and headed to the bottom floor to scope out the kitchens.

It took her several minutes, but she successfully managed to get completely lost. She wandered up and down several different halls that all looked distinctly the same before she found exactly what she wasn't looking for. All the reds and dark wood tones had been traded in for platinum white walls and heaps of technology.

"Yep, I'm lost." She turned around to try and back track to her room when she ran into the man named Logan.

"What are yeh doin' down here?" he asked her in his gruffest voice. She stepped to the side to let him pass.

"I was just looking for the kitchens. Sorry if I wasn't supposed to be down here or something…."

"This is just a training area for faculty and students only. I don't think this is a place for a," he passed for a minute, seemingly sizing her up. He even sniffed at her, "cook." Her eyes narrowed in response.

"Understood, but you telling me not to be down here isn't going to help the fact that I still don't know how to get to the kitchens. Could you please tell me where the kitchens are," she paused for a moment, "Professor Logan". A long blue hand edged around the door frame, and Hank emerged with glasses on the tip of his nose and a hand curled around a book.

"It's quite alright Quinn, I'll take you to the kitchens. You might want to go ahead and find some kind of snacks for the students; they'll be back from classes soon and will be quite hungry."

So Quinn quickly pushed past the both of them and hurriedly had Hank direct her to the kitchens. She was not in the kitchens for a full minute before she had a counter top full of ingredients spread out at her disposal.

"I'll just leave you to it then, Quinn. I have a class to prepare for so I'll see you at dinner." He waited, hopefully almost for her to respond, she just nodded as she began to wash her hands in sink. He sighed and gently closed the door behind her.

"It's good to have you back," he whispered as he ambled down the hall.

Back in the kitchens, Quinn began cutting a cabbage. Her bottom lip was tucked between her teeth as she tried to think of the ingredients and not of the man who had just walked out of the kitchens.

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According to all of his students Quinn's cooking had been a huge success, not that anyone had seen her to tell her so. They informed him that when they got home, huge amounts of fresh homemade egg rolls were waiting for them on a table. Then, we he came down to dinner, a huge array of grilled sandwiches were spread on the table, along with, much to Rogue's delight, fresh from the south sweet tea. Dessert was type of cheesecake that tasted strange, but very delicious. The only thing that Hank thought was missing was the woman who made it.

After dinner, Hank excused himself walked up to Quinn's room. He wanted to thank her, and well, talk to her. He hadn't been able to talk to his best friend in over twenty years. He rapped gently on the door at first, and then knocked a little harder a second time.

"Quinn? It's Hank! Do you mind if I come in?" He heard no response, not even the sound of movement was heard behind the door. He pressed an ear to the door and he could tell that the room was dead silent. His hand grazed the door knob as he tried to debate whether or not he should go inside. His curiosity got the best of him, and without even knowing why, he opened her unlocked door and walked inside.

There wasn't much, a pile of clothes were in a neat lump on the floor and a dresser top was covered with the contents of a spilled art box. Her bed was still neatly made and a sketch book was lying open on the bed. An old piece of lined paper was glued into one of the pages, it was covered in old script, handwriting, he instantly recognized.

Hey Beastly, we should make a Bucket List!!!

We should pay attention to the teacher, Van Gogh.

Eh, Why? If I want to know how reproduction works, I can just find one of my dad's playboys.

I'm not even going to grace that remark with an answer. Fine, Let us see.

Number One, Win a Nobel Peace Prize.

Lame! ;) Hum….

Number Two: Fight Crime!

Yes, since that is not cliché either.

Number Three: Leave the Country, (Paris Preferably, I would like to visit the Louvre)

Wow, you are so lame and nerdy. I love it!

Number Three: Live to see my thirties.

Well, that isn't morbid at all, I must say.

Number Four: Find a place where we are both accepted.

Good Luck with that one. :P

Number Five: (Don't make fun of me!) Fall in love.

Don't worry, I won't, though I have several witty retorts.

Number Six: Discover something worth a Noble Peace Prize.

But Beastly you already have, You've discovered me!


Number Seven: Spit off the Effiel Tower!

One, Van Gogh, that is crass. Two, It is spell Eiffel.

Their Bucket list went on for several pages, some of them were marked out. Much to his amusement, the Eiffel Tower one was marked off the list. Then she went on and added more to the list as the years went by. One that caught his eye was "Find, my Beastly," and it was recently marked off with a black felt tip pen. He flipped back to the first page, "Fall in Love," was not.

"What are you doing?" Hank was shocked out of his thoughts as his head snapped up to find a red faced Quinn standing in the door way. She stepped forward and pried the old bucket list from his hands as he sputtered his excuses and apologies.

"It's our old list." She told him, though it wasn't needed because they both knew that he had already been looking through it.

"You've enhanced it with a bit of your own, too, I see." He added as the awkwardness that had accumulated had begun to evaporate around them. She nodded and sat down on her bed, legs tucked under her. She patted on the bed beside her. He quickly obliged. He noticed that she smelled strongly of dish soap. She flipped through it a little bit and then turned to look as him.

"Will we ever be able to go back to the way it was? It seems to have just been awkward between the two of us since I showed up. Did you want me even to come back?" she asked softly. Hank just sighed and picked up a felt tip pen from behind him. He flipped to the first page and marked out "Find a place where the both of us would be accepted." She smiled and leaned her shoulder against him.

"I should be mad at you for being such a snoop, but I just don't feel like it." Her head leaned against the curve of his shoulder. "I know it's a sore subject, but well… How did you become all blue and fuzzy?" He smiled an almost grimace.

"I meddled in things I shouldn't, and tried to pretend that who I am wasn't who I was." She just nodded. He could feel the waves of exhaustion roll of her. He closed the old notebook and set it on her bedside table. "Get some sleep." She nodded, standing to walk him out of her room. He kept walking as he heard the door click shut behind him.

After he was good and far down the hall, Quinn gathered up her clothes in the corner and tried to re-find the laundry room that Storm had shower her previously. She found it easier than she had found the kitchens. Throwing in all the clothes she had in one washing machine and adding liberal amounts of the washing powder she found on a shelf and then sat down on top of one the dryers and sat thinking to the hum of a dryer whirring behind her. She sat their staring at the back wall until her clothes finished with a quiet ding. She leapt down and began throwing all her clothes into the dryer. She began to get hot, standing next to dryer. So when she finished throwing her close in the dryer she unzipped her sweater, revealing a plain orange tank top.

"Wow, sweet tats!" Quinn turned around. A dark skinned youth stood in the doorway. A white basket oozing dirty clothes sat in his hands. She looked down at herself.

"Yeah, I like them, too." She said. He could see the long pattern of browns and yellow spots that stretched from her neck, down between her shoulder blades, and with the slip of skin that her tank top reveal, that it edged around her back and loop around one hip. She hastily pulled her tank top down. Her left wrist had a thin flame pattern around one wrist, and on the right had one that looked like water. Both were about the size of a thick bangle.

"I'm Spyke. Are you the new cook?" He told her as he dumped his clothes on a table and reached for the same box of community detergent.

"Oh, well, yes. I'm Quinn O'hara." She smiled at him and reached out and shook his hand.

"Dude those egg rolls today were rad. Loved them! Where did you learn to cook like that. You don't look Asian." She kept smiling as she hopped back up on the dryer.

"Oh, here and there. I picked up things from quite a few people, but I'm glad you like them. So, is Spyke your real name?" She highly doubted it was, but eh, you never really know.

"No, It's my mutant code name. My real name, is uh, Evan Daniels. Do you have a mutant name, too?" he asked.

"Well, I guess. Hank used to call me Van Gogh years ago, it kinda stuck." She pulled up one of her legs that was dangling down from the dryer to her. She noticed that she needed to re-patch the hole in that knee. "Why do they call you Spyke if you don't mind me asking?"

"Um, well… I can shoot spikes out of my skin at will." At that moment he inhaled too much detergent and sneezed. She ducked just in time to dodge a slew of spikes that hit the walls.

"Bless you." She managed. He smiled and apologized.

"Why do they call you Van Gogh?" he grunted as he tried to dislodge a spike from the wall. She hopped down and pulled a white china marker from her pocked. She looked down at one of the grey tables and began to draw a quick sketch of a basketball. Placing her china marker back into her pocket, she placed a hand on the drawing. When she lifted it up, a round grey basketball came with her. She bounced it on the floor once and then handed it to him. The drawing on the table was gone.

"Sweet!" They talked until her clothes where dry and she bunched them back up and walked back to her room to fold them.