Disclaimer: Although it's an AU, I don't own the characters. Unfortunately.

Chapter Eight – Dates and Dances

May 1996

"Jean!" Kitty hurried into the garage just as the redhead was unlocking her car. "Any chance of a lift?"

"Yeah, of course." Jean gestured to the front seat. "Jump in. Boarding house?"

"If it's not too much trouble." Kitty strapped herself in carefully, minding her dress. It had been a present from her favourite cousin, who – although male – had an amazing eye when it came to women's fashion.

"Kitty, I don't know if anyone's told you," Jean glanced at her as she started the car, "but that dress is exactly the same colour as your eyes."

"Yeah, that's what Karl said." Kitty agreed. "He's my cousin." She added, seeing the question in Jean's eyes. "It was a Christmas present."

"He has excellent taste." Jean commented.

"I know." Kitty agreed. "Felicity likes to joke that he's better at shopping than most girls are."

"Is she his girlfriend?" Jean asked knowingly.

"No." Kitty smirked lightly. "Just his best friend; they're a real live 'Will and Grace'."

"Really?" Jean glanced at her. "Do his parents know?"

Kitty laughed. "Jean, you've met my parents; the whole bloody family's like that! No, I'm the only person who knows at the moment. Well, me, you and Lance. And Felicity for obvious reasons. You won't tell anyone, will you?"

"Of course not." Jean assured her. "My lips are sealed. How come Lance isn't picking you up?"

"I thought it was unlikely that Scott would let him leave the Institute in one piece." Kitty rolled her eyes. "God knows what his problem is. Why are you going to Duncan?"

"Wolverine scares the hell out of him." Jean answered, her lips twitching with concealed amusement.

"That's my theory out the window." Kitty commented, only half-joking. "I thought he just didn't have any brains. Honestly, Jean, I don't know why you don't just dump him!"

"He hasn't given me reason too." Jean answered, with all the conviction of a robot.

Kitty raised an eyebrow. "Since when is 'he's a complete douche-bag' not a good reason?"

Jean didn't answer and Kitty knew a lost cause when she saw one, so she changed the subject.

The remainder of the journey was filled by casual chat and, within ten minutes, Jean had pulled to a stop outside the boarding house. "I'll see you there."

"Thanks, Jean." Kitty got out. "Try to keep Matthews in line."

Jean laughed. "I'll do my best."

Kitty waved her off and nervously made her way up to the front door. There was no real reason for her to be nervous; she'd been here several times and, if Lance said there was nothing to worry about when it came to his team-mates, then there was nothing to worry about.

Unlike her last visits, the door was opened immediately, by Tabitha, who was wearing a large smirk and an even bigger dress. "Hi, Kit."

"Hey, Tabby." Kitty glanced past her warily. "What happened?"

"Nothing." Tabby assured her, standing back to let her in. "I just find it funny that the boys are always on my case for taking so long to get ready and they're the ones currently rushing around in a panic."

Kitty sniggered, following her into the living room. "That is quite funny. How are we all getting there?"

"Pietro's already gone," Tabby answered, "so we'll all fit in the car no problem. Hey boys."

Kitty turned around to see that Fred and Todd had appeared in the doorway. "Hey."

"Hey Kitty."

"Hi Kitty." Todd echoed. "Nice dress."

Kitty glanced down at it. "Thank you."

"Lance should be down soon." Tabby commented. "We'll wait outside for you."

"'Kay." As soon as the front door closed, Kitty immediately checked her reflection, unsure why she felt so nervous.

It's just Lance. You've been to school dances with him before. She reminded herself. That was different though. You weren't on a date then.

"Wow…"

Kitty started, having not noticed Lance's appearance. He was wearing a semi-formal suit and an awestruck expression. "Hi."

"Hi." Lance walked over and kissed her cheek, lingering a little longer than was necessary, before offering her his arm. "You look beautiful."

Kitty felt a blush rise in her cheeks. "Thank you." She took his arm and they made their way out to where the rest of the Brotherhood was waiting for them.

Possibly due to the glare Tabby was directing at the two boys, neither said anything, and the journey to Bayville High was filled with civil conversation for once.

Once again, Kitty found herself marvelling at the inner workings of the Brotherhood; the way they interacted was so much smoother than it was with her own team. While the X-Men might move like a well-oiled machine in training, in real life it was a lot more difficult; they were all so different.

But the Brotherhood all had…something.

An unspoken connection.

Kitty knew that Tabby's background was less than happy and she could guess that Todd and Fred were similar. Pietro, she knew, was Magneto's son and that couldn't have been easy.

But Lance?

There was something almost parental in the way Lance acted towards his team; like he felt responsible for them.

And maybe he did, Kitty realised.

"Kitty?" Tabby asked. "You alright?"

Kitty shook herself from her thought. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just thinking."

"I was just saying that Kurt didn't teleport home from school today." Tabby repeated. "Why was that?"

Kitty pondered her answer for a moment. "Forge found some way of slowing his teleportation down because he had this idea that Kurt passes through some other dimension when he teleports. It worked, but the camera he took showed these weird demon creatures and they attacked when Wolverine went through with him. So Professor X doesn't want him to teleport again until they've found out more."

This wasn't entirely true; Kurt had refused to teleport again without any outside influence whatsoever.

"Fair enough."

The conversation was stopped there, because Lance had pulled into the school parking lot. Kitty climbed out, smoothing her dress down, glancing over at the archway of balloons over the entrance to the school hall. She took a deep breath. Here goes everything.

Forge's machine, it transpired, did more harm than good; it created rifts between the two dimensions and the demons that lived there had broken through, disrupting the dance. Thankfully, Forge and Professor Xavier managed to get there before they could do any real damage, sending them to the 'Middleverse' where Forge had been trapped since the seventies, until the X-Men rescued him, inadvertently aided by the Brotherhood.

The rest of the students had swallowed the story that the AV club, who had boycotted the dance on principal – though no one was really sure what that was, even the club themselves – had set up an elaborate prank to scare everyone. It had been Jean's idea; she knew that no one in the club was above taking credit for it and a simple mind-tweak would stop them from thinking any more about it.

"What's wrong?" Lance asked quietly.

Kitty glanced at him. "Nothing."

The majority of the dance floor was filled – the song playing was rather popular – but it was one neither of them particularly liked, so they had decided to sit it out.

She wasn't really lying; there wasn't anything wrong, per se. She just couldn't understand how just calling something a date could make it so nerve-wracking.

The music changed suddenly, flowing into a slow-song, causing the dance floor to empty a little and those remaining to pair up.

Lance turned to her. "Dance with me?"

Kitty took his offered hand and followed him out into the numerous other couples, feeling his other arm wrap around her waist, pulling her close.

This was new.

In all the time they'd been in Northbrook, in all the times he had put an arm around her, in all the times he had given her a comforting hug, they had never been this close and it had never meant this much.

Slipping her hand out of his, she let her fingers trail up his arm to his shoulder, clasping her hands behind his neck. As she did, their eyes met and she felt another chill travel through her, similar to the one she received when he'd smiled at her earlier.

Gently, Lance brushed away a loose strand of hair from her face, his eyes never wavering from hers.

Kitty felt her heart skip a beat, sure that the already-narrow distance between them was decreasing. Oh my God, is he going to kiss me?

The space between their bodies was almost non-existent, the gap between their faces was diminishing rapidly; her eyes fluttered closed, but before their lips could meet…

SMACK!

A few minutes earlier…

As everyone paired off, Jean saw Taryn move into Scott's arms and found that she wasn't too upset, although that might have been because Kitty was in Lance's arms on the other side of the room; if Scott was busy with Taryn, he was unlikely to beat her brother up.

"Hey Jean."

Jean started, having not see Rahne and Jubilee approach her. They were the only other X-girls who had gotten a date for this evening; Rogue had come, but she and Risty were spending the evening sniggering at peoples' outfits, and Amara had decided to stay at home.

The first didn't surprise Jean, but the second had; after all, it had been Amara who had told them about the dance in the first place. She was a little concerned that Amara may have found a boyfriend who didn't go to Bayville High; Rogue hadn't told her anything when she returned from following the younger girl when she sneaked out; just that she was safe.

I suppose it's really none of my business, Jean decided, offering a smile to the two girls. "Hi girls. Where are your dates?"

"Why is it," Jubilee began seriously, "that cute guys have no brains?"

Jean laughed. "I'm sure that's not universal! That bad, huh?"

"Worse!" Jubilee groaned. "All he talks about is football! All the time, football!"

"Tell me about it." Rahne sympathised. "My date hasn't stopped talking about himself once. I wouldnae mind, but he's resorted to telling me how his dog has finally learnt to catch a Frisbee in its mouth! I can do that!"

"Ssh!" Jean hushed her. "Calm down! Something wrong Jubes?"

Jubilee sighed, not even bothering to deny it. "I think I like Bobby."

"You mean as more than just a best friend?" Jean asked. "When did you come to this conclusion?"

"A couple weeks ago." Jubilee answered. "The day you went missing. I told him I was impressed by how he handled the Danger Room…"

"Which you should not have been in." Jean inserted dryly.

Jubilee flushed slightly. "His idea. Anyway, he seemed oddly pleased at that and then said that I was his best friend; why wouldn't he want to impress me? And I realised that that reason actually hurt slightly, like I wanted him to try to impress me for a different reason and since then I haven't been able to stop thinking about him; it's driving me crazy!"

"Alright." Jean soothed. "Alright. Have you considered just telling him?"

"Are you mad?" Jubilee responded. "You don't tell your best friend you lo…like him; it makes you look like an idiot and our entire relationship could go down the drain."

"Did you just say love?" Rahne asked, perking up like a dog on the trail of a rabbit. "Do you love him?"

"No!" Jubilee answered. "Yes! I don't know! It doesn't matter! Because everyone knows that once something goes down the drain you need either a very good plumber or a very, very long coat hanger to get it out!"

"Honestly, Jubes, I don't know what took you so long." Rahne shrugged. "Everyone can see there's something between you two except you two. You're as bad as her." She nodded to Jean.

"And what's that supposed to mean?" Jean asked, more calmly than she felt.

Jubilee sniggered and nodded over to where Scott was dancing with Taryn. "Hello?!"

"Well, at least Scott would dance with me instead of goofing off with his mates." Jean sighed, knowing she was repeating the same excuse she'd given Risty earlier.

"Or getting off with a cheerleader." Rahne added quietly.

"Exactly." Jean agreed. Then she froze, the younger girl's words suddenly making sense.

Slowly, she turned around to see her boyfriend pinning a voluptuous blonde against the wall, looking for all the world like he was trying to suck her tonsils out.

"Excuse me." Cursing her voice for shaking and willing the tears to stay away at least for the moment, she broke away from her team-mates and stalked over to her boyfriend, jabbing him in the shoulder. "What the hell are you doing?"

With a noise that sounded like a plunger being removed from a sink, Duncan broke away from the other girl, who at least had the decency to look embarrassed. "What?" He asked obliviously. "It's not like you were gonna put out tonight…or ever."

Had he been anyone else's boyfriend, Jean would have felt sympathy for the other girl, who looked as outraged as he felt. But he had been her boyfriend; he had made her feel guilty for spending time with her friends instead of him and now he did this? "That's it!" Without hesitation, she lifted a hand and slapped him as hard as she could, which was considerably hard. "We are so through!"

The sound of the slap cut through the hall like a knife and Lance and Kitty started, their gazes moving automatically towards the sound.

A blonde girl Kitty recognised as one of the cheerleaders was leaning against the wall, her face red with either embarrassment or anger. Duncan Matthews was next to her, holding his face.

Murmuring ran through the hall and Kitty looked back to Lance. "What do you think happened?"

"I've got an idea." Lance muttered, glaring in Duncan's direction. "Where's Jean?"

Kitty noticed Jubilee and Rahne heading towards them and tightened her grip warningly. "Just remember no one knows you're related." She smiled at her team-mates. "Hi girls."

"Did you see that?!" Jubilee hissed. "Duncan was totally cheating on Jean and she just let him have it!"

"I hope she's okay." Kitty frowned at the door, guessing that Jean had left.

"Do you want to go and check on her?" Lance asked.

"Is that alright?" Kitty glanced at him. "I don't want her to be on her own if she's upset. And I have a feeling Scott'll just make the situation worse. You two stay here." Looking around, she caught Scott's eye and signalled that she'd leave, receiving a mouthed 'thank you' in return.

It took them just over fifteen minutes to get back to the Institute; once outside, Kitty punched in the access code to open the gates. "Are you okay with cutting this short?"

"Yeah, of course." Lance assured her, kissing her cheek. "Just as long as she's okay; I'm gonna go back and beat Matthews up."

"Oh no, you're not." Kitty disagreed. "You're going to stay here and give me a proper goodnight kiss."

It surprised her how easily the words slipped out of her mouth.

"Then can I beat him up?" Lance asked.

"No." Kitty rolled her eyes. "You know the rest of the football team will get involved; you're not that good. Just let it lie; he'll get his."

"I guess." Lance sighed.

A clanging noise alerted them both to the fact that the gates were fully open; Kitty's attention was temporarily diverted, when she felt Lance's hands on her waist, pulling her in again.

Then his lips were on hers in a soft caress unlike anything she'd ever felt before, seeming to steal her ability to breathe for a few minutes.

Almost hesitantly, Kitty slid her hand to the back of his head, her eyes closing of their own accord. The pressure increased for just a second, then he pulled away.

"Goodnight Kitten."

Kitty swallowed. "Yeah. Goodnight." Her skin still tingling from his touch, she stepped back through the gates, letting the shut behind her with a clang. Then, once he was out of sight, she hurried up the driveway, mind still reeling from what had happened.

She never dreamed that a simple goodnight kiss could make her feel the way she did right then.

The front doors opened before she reached them and Logan stepped out. "Want me to hurt him, Half-Pint?"

"Who? Duncan?" Kitty asked, startled by the question.

Logan gave her a strange look. "Alvers. What did Matthews do?"

"First, no." Kitty rolled her eyes. "Second, cheated on Jean with one of the cheerleaders. Isn't she here?"

"Yeah, went running past us in tears just now." Logan answered, looking grim. "Ro's outside her door at the moment, but I figured one of you'd be along sooner or later and I'd find out what happened from you. Then I saw you and Rock-Boy and decided to wait."

"Well, Lance offered me a lift home so I could make sure she was okay." Kitty stated calmly. "I think it's Duncan you want to be focusing on."

"Don't worry." Logan growled. "I am."

"Good." Leaving that with him, Kitty slipped past into the Entrance Hall, running up the stairs, having to phase through Bobby to avoid a collision.

"Hang on, Kitty; what's wrong with Jean?" He called after her. "Even Storm's given up!"

"Go and get a tub of chocolate ice-cream from the freezer!" Kitty called back. "And meet us in her room!"

"But…"

"There's no time; this is an emergency!" Kitty snapped without stopping. She skidded to a halt outside Jean's room and knocked quietly. "Jean?"

There was a soft sniffle. "Go away!"

"Honey, I'm the only one here." Kitty called. "Apart from Bobby, but I've sent him to get ice-cream."

"Okay." There was a soft click and the door swung open.

Without hesitation, Kitty hurried over and hugged her tightly. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault." Jean dabbed at her eyes with a tissue. "You all tried to warn me; I should have listened."

There was a tap on the open door and Bobby cleared his throat. "One tub of chocolate chip ice-cream, as requested. Are you okay? What happened?"

Jean gave him a watery smile. "I will be. Duncan cheated on me."

"So saying," Kitty added, as he dropped the ice-cream and spoons in front of them and leaned over to give Jean a hug, "you're welcome to stay, but we will be discussing every single down-fall of the male by-species."

Without missing a beat, Bobby sat down. "We're all complete bastards."

August 1996

A few months had passed since the Sadie Hawkins' dance and things had continued in much the same way.

Scott was still dating Taryn, despite Jean now being single.

Jean was starting to realise the depth of the feelings she had for her best friend, but not doing anything about it.

Kitty was upset because Lance hadn't mentioned their kiss after the dance and she was rethinking her worry that she couldn't read him as well as she used to.

Jubilee was still pretending she had no romantic feelings for Bobby, who was in a slump, because he had a crush on her and felt it wasn't reciprocated.

Rogue was despairing about all of them, but kept her thoughts to herself.

This particular evening, at the Xavier Institute, activities had been interrupted by a team meeting called by Professor Xavier. For the members of the Brotherhood, however, it was just a normal Tuesday.

Lance was playing his guitar. Freddie was clearing up after dinner. And Todd, Pietro and Tabby were…

Playing a board game.

Yes, you read that right.

A board game.

Contrary to popular belief, the Brotherhood did not spend their free time mugging old ladies, vandalising Bayville and stealing candy from small children.

In fact, they never did any of that.

Apart from maybe the second one.

But he deserved it.

Of course, playing a board game with Pietro was never easy, since he got bored very easily and tended to cheat. But this particular evening, he was behaving himself.

All was well.

Until…

"I'm back!"

AN: Review please!