Authors Note: I apologize for taking so long to update. I've been working really hard on my other ROMY story "New Beginnings" which hit a bit of a wall for a really difficult action sequence that needed a lot of work. Because Allison's story takes place after all of my other Romy stories, I'm also trying to give them a little more time so that I don't reach a point in this story in which my AU falls apart because I say something here that I then change over there. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

FYI:
I do not own the X-Men, but I do own Allison and all of her complexities. I quite like her complexities.

Chapter 7: A Day at the Pool

Allison sat on her bed with her laptop and enjoying the breeze that blew through their balcony doors and ruffled the curtains. She was instant messaging with her friends from back home and attempting to make her life at the institute sound rather normal instead of describing the training sessions and mutant ball games. She found herself smirking though as she imagined what it'd be like if Sam really could use his powers at the football tryouts. They'd be crazy not to have him as a running back then. But even without his powers, he was fast.

DragonPride37: So whats it like?
Kicks87: not bad...found ur twin
DragonPride37: o?
Kicks87: name's Sam and ur both wrecks around gurls
DragonPride37: not true
DragonPride37: im cool round u
Kicks87: thats cuz im like a guy
DragonPride37: first guy ive met with boobs then ;P
Kicks87: shut up

Allison sat back against her pillows and huffed. She still couldn't figure Mark out. He'd kissed her and now he was acting like nothing was different. Granted, she was guilty of doing the same. So maybe she was just as much of a wreck around guys as he was around girls.

DragonPride37: sounds like ur makin friends
Kicks87: yeah
Kicks87: its not like home tho
DragonPride37: its not home here w/o u either tho

Allison hesitated before shooting back her response. She reread their conversation and realized that he was actually trying to be meaningful. She was the one trying to dodge things. Shit...

Kicks87: Suck up
Kicks87: How's FB?
DragonPride37:FB is FB
DragonPride37: the new kicker sux
DragonPride37: u trying out up there?
Kicks87: uh huh
Kicks87: tryouts are fri
DragonPride37: gl
Kicks87: dont need it
DragonPride37: got plans this weekend?
Kicks87: possibly the beach
Kicks87: U?
DragonPride37: nuthin
DragonPride37: wow...the beach huh?
DragonPride37: u havent been 2 the beach since you were a kid

Allison's hands slipped from the keyboard as she chewed on her lower lip. It was true. It'd been almost six years exactly since she'd been to any beach. Prior to that, it would be at least twice a summer that she'd go fishing with her father.

DragonPride37: u still there?
Kicks87: yep
DragonPride37: sorry
Kicks87: for?
DragonPride37: 4 bringing up ur dad
DragonPride37: i know thats a sore subject
DragonPride37: sorry
Kicks87: u can stop apologizing
Kicks87: its ok

Allison was incredibly grateful that he couldn't actually see her. It made lying a little easier. It really wasn't okay. She roughly wiped at her eyes as the door to her bedroom opened and Betsy came in wearing a dark purple bikini. She was digging through her dresser and glanced back over her shoulder to see Allison. "Hey, Luv."

"Hey. Going some place?"

"Down to the pool," she said tossing aside a cover up with disgust before digging in again. "You coming? It's bloody hot today." She settled on a pink sarong that she quickly tied around her waist before grabbing a towel to throw around her shoulders.

"Sure, why not?" Allison said smiling. She needed a distraction and the timing couldn't have been better.

Kicks87: hey, g2g
Kicks87: ttyl
DragonPride37: k
DragonPride37: byes

Allison closed her laptop as Betsy disappeared back out the door again. She got up and dug through her dresser until she'd located her favorite swim suit and quickly changed. She grabbed a t-shirt to throw on over top and ducked into the bathroom for a towel. By the time she was halfway down the hallway she'd already forgotten to be upset about her father.

The boys were all standing around the far end of the pool by the diving board trying to decide who amongst them would be the reigning cannonball champion. There were far too many of the girls attempting to float peacefully on rafts to let the opportunity slide by.

"I'm telling you, that you don't stand a chance in a cannonball contest with me," Bobby said crossing his arms over his chest.

"Bobby, mah name is 'Cannonball'!" Sam replied rolling his eyes.

"He's got you there, Icepick," Ray snickered and Bobby shot them both a glare for bringing up such logic.

"We'll let Jubes judge," Bobby suggested feeling certain that Jubilee would back him up. She'd finally come around to him a little more.

"That's not fair. You two are practically dating," Roberto argued. "What about Amara?"

"No," Ray said shaking his head. "The two of you used to date."

"Well, then who do you think will be fair?" Roberto asked resting his hands on his hips.

Both Bobby and Ray quickly scanned the girls who were still around the pool area and Bobby grinned. "Kitty!" But none of the other guys even seemed to hear him. He looked at his friends and then back towards the rest of the students and still couldn't see what was capturing their attention so fully. "What?"

"The new girl," Ray said practically drooling.

"I don't think she likes me," Bobby muttered as he turned to look. Near the shallow end where most of the students were reclined on chairs or drinking lemonade under picnic umbrellas, Allison was setting her stuff down on a chair near Betsy's. She was in the middle of removing a t-shirt to reveal her electric blue tankini top and matching boycut shorts. Both had black lines that drew all of the boys' eyes to her accentuated curves.

Bobby turned his head away and could see that his friends still had not. "What gives?"

"She's hot, man. That's what," Ray said finally coming back down to earth.

Roberto shot him a grin and nodded in agreement. "You have to agree."

"I dunno. She's not that cute. And besides, it looks like she's showing off," he said glancing back over his shoulder again. Allison was now resting her hands easily on her hips while she stood over Betsy talking. "Right, Sam?" For once, Sam was not immediately in agreement with his best friend. Instead he was still watching as if his eyes had been glued to her. "Earth to Sammy?" he said nudging him in the ribs.

"What?" he asked blinking as he turned to look at Bobby.

"Isn't Al hot?" Ray asked grinning slyly and Sam just shrugged making Ray and Roberto roll their eyes at his denial.

Bobby just grumbled under his breath at his friends. "So are we doing this contest or what?"

But Ray and Roberto were now far more interested in giving Sam a hard time. "Come on, you can't tell me you don't think she's good looking," Roberto urged.

"She's okay," Sam admitted giving the girl in question another glance as Allison was now walking along the edge of the pool and paused to talk to Kitty. He looked back to his friends with another feeble shrug.

"Forget it Ray, Sam doesn't think any girl is cute," Bobby said getting annoyed by the ongoing conversation. He didn't like not being able to contribute. But right after the first training session with the new girl, he'd immediately forced himself to not even consider Allison as an option. There was no point if you couldn't touch a girl without knocking her unconscious. He'd done the same thing when he'd met Rogue too. It wasn't that he didn't like her, he just didn't see any use in getting overly friendly. And there was especially no use in ogling what you couldn't touch.

"Icepick, Kitty's the cute type. Al…she's the hot kind. Tall and filled out in all the right places if you know what I mean," Ray said waggling his eyebrows.

"Do ya have ta talk 'bout the girls like they're pieces of meat?" Sam looked indignantly at Ray who ignored him. "And Ah do think some girls are cute."

"Oh, who then?" Bobby asked glad to see that Sam might actually be cracking a little. Perhaps this could be a little fun. He'd certainly not been able to work the Betsy angle ever since the Brit had started dating Warren.

"Well…um…" He stammered slightly as he was backed up against the metaphorical wall.

Bobby just rolled his eyes and then winked. "Watch this guys," he said over his shoulder as he walked towards Kitty and Allison. He smirked as he contemplated his plan of how to make Allison fall into the pool. That's when they'd find out just how much of a girly-girl she was or wasn't.

"Ya can't do that! You'll freeze her," Sam called out as he knew the kind of antics Bobby usually got up to.

"You're like actually going to swim?" Kitty asked as she trailed her fingers across the surface of the water. That was about as close to getting into the pool as she planned to get today.

"Duh, that's what you do in a pool," Allison replied shrugging her shoulders.

"But then your suit and hair will like get all yucky from the chlorine." Kitty looked and sounded truly concerned and Allison bit back on her tongue not to laugh at her new friend.

Just as Bobby started to get close and was going to ice the edge of the pool for Allison to slip on, she quickly waved her hand causing a large wave of water to leave the pool and hit Bobby directly in the face. He sputtered for a moment, wiping his hand down over his face as Allison turned and grinned at him. "Don't even think about it, Icy." She smiled prettily before turning and dove backwards off the edge of the pool into the water. Her entrance was so smooth that even though she hit the water less than foot away from Kitty, there wasn't the slightest splash.

The rest of the boys were all busting up laughing as Allison resurfaced again and Bobby looked more than a little flustered. This new girl was turning out to be nothing but problems for him. Allison leaned against the side of the pool and smiled up at Bobby. "Sorry, but I wasn't going to take any chances of you freezing me too," she said. "Friends?" she asked holding up one hand for him to shake and Bobby contemplated it for a moment before reaching to shake it. She yanked it back just in time and laughed. "You might be a little dense, but I do like you," she said winking.

There was a fresh burst of laughter from the other three boys at Bobby's second mistake and Bobby could only shake his head. "You win," he admitted. "Friends."

Allison glanced down to the other group of boys and smiled as Sam shot her a thumbs up. Meanwhile Ray looked like he was suffering from an appendix that might burst as he clutched his stomach trying to control his laughter. It was hard not to notice just how ripped every guy at the school was. Granted, she'd gotten a pretty good idea of that from trainings. But now that they were all in swim trunks it was even more obvious. And what was more impressive to her was that they were all juniors and sophomores. Yet they could all probably give most Abercrombie models a run for their money.

Allison's attention was drawn away as she watched two of the younger students chase a brown wolf-like dog around the pool. The dog had a towel in its mouth and was running at practically break neck speed. Meanwhile, Jamie and Sarah chased it between chairs and tables trying to keep up. "Rhane! Give me back my towel!" Sarah cried out laughing.

"I'll get it!" Jamie shouted as he quickly multiplied to surround Rhane. She then morphed back into her human form laughing as she held out the towel in defeat. She returned to the table with the other girls and quickly rearranged her red hair into two short pigtails and adjusted her Hawaiian floral print one-piece swim suit.

Allison's attention was drawn away from the younger students as she turned to watch Bobby try to coerce Kitty into being their judge. "Please, Kitty. We just want you to tell us who has the biggest splash."

"Like there's no way I'm letting you splash me," Kitty said sitting up a little on her raft to lean back on her elbows.

"You won't get splashed," Bobby promised giving her his best puppy dog eyes.

"Yeah, right. Like I'm not that stupid. I know how you guys are." She gently paddled herself over to the edge of the pull and pulled herself up onto dry land. She brushed past Bobby on her way to the lounge table where Piotr and Betsy were sipping lemonades. Kitty promptly sat down on Piotr's lap and crossed her arms over her chest refusing to look at Bobby.

"Please?" he begged. "You can watch from right here."

"Ask one of the other girls," Kitty said reaching for the pitcher of lemonade.

"The guys think it's fixed though if I ask Amara or Jubes."

"Like what's wrong with Allison?"

"She's going to favor Sam in a heartbeat," Bobby moaned. "Come on, Kitty."

Allison let herself drift away and back under the water at Bobby's last statement. Everyone seemed to be under the impression that there was something more between herself and Sam but there just wasn't, was there? She hadn't even known him yet for a week. And she didn't know the rest of them any better yet either. So how could they possibly know who she liked?

She swam into the deep end letting the cool water rush over her. She had always loved to swim ever since she'd been a little girl. Unfortunately, back home not many people owned a swimming pool and all of the lakes and ponds were such that you didn't want to stick a toe in, let alone your whole body.

She surfaced near the ladder and slicked back her hair before climbing the ladder. Bobby had given up on Kitty and the boys were back to arguing over how to hold their contest sans judge. She just shook her head in amusement as she made her way back to where she'd left her towel on a lounge chair and wrapped it around her waist before starting across the lawn to the kitchen.

"Hey, wait up." Allison turned to see Sam jogging to catch up with her and she paused. "They can't make up their minds an' Ah'm gettin' tired of waitin'."

"Well, I'm glad to be your back up plan," Allison replied grinning. Sam frowned in confusion and Allison laughed as she wrapped an arm around his bare shoulders. "It's cool. I was gonna see if they have enough sugar in this joint to make a decent pitcher of sweet tea."

Sam raised an eyebrow and then broke out into a grin. "That sounds like a far better plan than anythin' the other guys have cooked up."

Sam dug through the cabinets until he'd found a pantry while Allison pulled together any bags of sugar she could locate in the pantry. Kitty was already in the kitchen and refilling the pitcher of lemonade for outside and smirked as she watched the two of them together. "I think it's like totally cool how well you two get along already."

"Why?" Allison said standing back up straight again with her arms filled with sweet tea supplies.

Sam shot Kitty a stink eye from behind Allison's back for good measure too before he turned on the tap and began to fill the pitcher with water and ice. But it apparently had no effect whatsoever on Kitty. "Well, Sam's usually really girl shy. So it's cute to see him flirt for once."

Sam stiffened and dropped the pitcher which bounced off the tile floor, meanwhile the water and ice hung in mid air. Allison waited until Sam had recovered and picked up the pitcher again before she waved her hand through the air and the liquid dropped back into its container again. "Watch it there," she said laughing.

"That was awesome," Kitty gushed. "I can't believe you have that much control already."

Sam sighed a little in relief that the subject had changed and Allison just shrugged. Sam just stood back and let Allison take over the prep figuring that too many more comments from Kitty and he'd be dropping a whole lot more than a pitcher by the time it was all said and done. They watched as Allison put three mounded scoops of sugar into the pitcher and stirred before adding another three. She stirred a while longer and frowned at the brown mixture in front of her. Finally she picked up the bag of sugar and upended it into the pitcher.

"Got enough sugar in that?" Kitty asked as she leaned on the counter to watch as the sugar dissolved.

"I hope so," Allison said as she poured out a glass for herself. "There wasn't very much left." She took a sip and smiled before handing the glass to Sam. "What do ya think?" she asked.

Sam drank and grinned. "That's about right," he said setting the glass down.

"It's such a good thing you aren't Pietro or else you'd be like up the walls by now," Kitty commented as she watched Allison finish off the glass.

"Who's Pietro?" she asked.

"One of the Brotherhood," Sam said. "They're our mortal enemies fo' one, second they're total jerks…"

"And third, they're like totally annoying. Especially Pietro. He thinks just because he's super fast that he's totally the best too." Kitty rolled her eyes to emphasize her dislike for the boy and Sam nodded.

"Oh, okay. So where are they hanging out? Some secret lair?" Allison asked waggling her fingers as she made a spooky 'ooo' face.

"Nope, a boarding house down town where their leader, Mystique puts them up," Kitty said thumbing in the general direction of Bayville.

"Seriously?" Allison said trying not to laugh. When both Sam and Kitty nodded she just shook her head in disbelief. "Alright, Mystique and Brotherhood—baddies. Got it."

"Oh like it's not just them. There's Magneto and Apocalypse too."

"Okay. So what happened to all of these people as children to make them so evil and hate the world?"

Sam looked thoughtful for a moment as he hopped up onto the counter. "Well, we haven' a clue 'bout Mystique ta be honest. Apocalypse was the first mutant on the planet an' he wants ta make ev'ryone on the planet a mutant too. Magneto grew up durin' World War II and was in a concentration camp."

"Ouch," Allison breathed letting that information sink in. "Well, lucky us. We ended up turning into mutants simply because of our raging hormones." She leaned back against the counter while Kitty helped herself to a glass.

"Hey, this is good. Where'd you learn to make sweet tea like this?"

"My dad," Allison said bluntly as she crossed her arms over her chest.

Unfortunately for her, she'd done too good of a job coaching Sam in how to keep a conversation going. "You haven't talked much about your family. What are they like?"

"Yeah, come on and spill already. Do you have a cute brother or something?" Kitty asked grinning.

"I though you were dating Piotr?" Allison replied raising her eyebrows at Kitty's eagerness.

"Well, I can ask can't I?" Kitty gave her a pout and Allison caved in.

Allison sighed as she considered where to start. "It'd take me a week to tell you about my whole family, so I'll just give you the cliffnotes version. Where I come from everyone's cousins and second cousins and twice removed and so forth so it gets really confusing. For the most part it's just my mom, my gram, my Aunt Vicky and her two children."

"You just mentioned your dad though," Sam said taking a sip of his drink but he didn't miss the flash of bright blue that passed through Allison's eyes before the returned to their usual shade of silvery green.

"I haven't seen him since I was eleven. Didn't bother to call me on my twelfth birthday and haven't heard from him since."

"Oh." Kitty's voice was as tiny as a mouse as she began to study her iced tea closely.

"When I was little, I used to visit a lot. He'd take me fishing and even taught me to ride a motorcycle. He said that when I got older, he'd buy me my first bike and teach me how to maintain it..." she trailed off and Sam watched as her eyes shifted to a pale gray as Allison set her unfinished glass of tea down. "Excuse me," she said before practically running out of the room.

Kitty and Sam exchanged look of confusion. "Was it something I said?" she asked.

"Actually, Ah think it was somethin' she said."

Allison laid across her bed kicking herself for ruining a perfectly good afternoon. She hated how she could go through vast periods of time without ever thinking about her father and then all of sudden he would seem to pop up on her mind every ten minutes. She palmed away the tears from her eyes and forced herself to sit up straight as she crossed her legs under her. She took a couple of deep breaths and managed to get her breath to stop hiccuping in her throat.

When a knock on the door forced her to stop her self pity she closed her eyes and cleared her throat. "Come in," she said standing up from the bed. She crossed the room towards her bookshelf and started trying to locate the album that held pictures of her friends from back home.

Sam stuck his head in through the door and gave her a slightly worried and puzzled look. "Ah jus' wanted ta check on ya. Um...if ya want, Ah'll come back another time." A part of him wanted to add on to the end 'or not at all' but somehow he managed to stifle the insecure voice.

"No, it's okay," Allison replied again wiping at her cheeks to try and remove any lingering trails from her brief cry. "I probably look like shit," she said sniffing.

"No, the other girls would look worse," Sam said trying to be comforting as he stepped inside the room. "Ya know with mascara runnin' an' all that."

He crossed the room to sit down on the green unused bed and Allison looked up at him and gave him a wry smile. She appreciated his effort at humor. "You know just how to make a girl feel better."

"Ev'ryone's always sayin' that if somethin' hurts ta jus' talk 'bout it. Personally Ah think's a load of bull, but if ya…" He looked up from his wringing hands to Allison as she sat back down on her own bed cross-legged, the album lying unopened on her knee.

"You probably could care less," she said taking a deep breath and he shook his head emphatically in the negative. Allison sighed running a hand over her wet hair. She knew that eventually someone would drag it out of her, so she might as well take control of the situation and tell it while she was already in a bummed mood. "My parents divorced when I was really little because my father was a drunk and my mom didn't want him to be around me all the time like that. It was the average divorce, my mom got me and my dad got a new wife," she said with a shrug and then laughed lightly as if she'd made a joke. "I got to visit my dad three or four times a year and had to put up with a step mother who hated me just for existing and two step brothers who were jealous of my father's attention. Apparently he wasn't much of a superstar father to them either but he made an effort when I was around."

She let her gaze fall down to the album in her lap and flipped it open to look at the first picture inside. It portrayed her and Mark both on horseback while Kelly stood in between holding their reigns. Looking at the happy memory helped a little and she managed a weak smile. "Eventually my mom wanted to move back to her home town to be near my gram after my pappy died. After that my dad stopped calling and even stopped seeing me. It's stupid really, but it's basic 'daddy issues'."

"'S not stupid. It sucks an' yo' father doesn' know what he missed out on." He'd stood up and was now standing just a little in front of her as Allison looked up.

"Thanks for letting me get that off my chest," Allison said forcing another weak smile. "But I should probably pull my act together or I'll be repeating this whole conversation with Betsy when she gets back. And I'd kinda rather not."

Sam nodded in understand as he placed a hand on her shoulder. "Ah understand. Mah daddy died when Ah was eleven. Ah used ta be really mad at him for abandoning mah mom and our family. You can always come talk ta meh...anytime."

Allison nodded and smiled a little more genuinely as Sam turned and left the room.