Disclaimer: I don't own X-Men: Evolution or the Marauders – any information about them I got from Wikipedia, so if it's wrong … eh, I'll use these anyway. I do own Lorelai LeBeau, Monica and Joseph Summers and Lucie Cartwright.

WARNING: This chapter includes discussion of miscarriages; it doesn't warrant a higher rating, but I feel I should leave a warning anyway, just in case.

Chapter Forty Six – How Fragile Life Is

July 27th 1999

Scott Summers was, quite possibly, the most irritating person on the planet.

Belladonna wasn't entirely sure how it had taken Kitty the better part of five years to come to that conclusion, but it was obvious she wasn't going to forgive him any time soon.

How had she realised this?

Well, it had started shortly after Lucie's parents' visit, when Scott and Jean had returned and Kitty had confronted Scott about the ever-increasing number of training sessions.

What had followed was an argument about her relationship with Lance that the whole mansion heard that had culminated in Kitty running to Belladonna in a rare bout of hysterical tears.

Even three months on, Belladonna had to suppress a shudder, remembering how Kitty had collapsed onto her couch, shaking and crying …

"Kitty? Sugar, what's wrong?" Belladonna asked, hurrying over to her. She'd heard the argument, of course she had, but she couldn't see what …

"It really, really hurts." Kitty whispered, still crying, her eyes wide. "Belle, I think I'm losing the baby."

Belladonna cursed under her breath and hurried Kitty back through into the infirmary, getting her settled in a bed. She'd commented, months ago, on the stress of telling Scott in particular about her pregnancy and she'd heard of stress causing miscarriages, but she'd never even dreamed that it could cause one. "Are you bleeding?"

"I haven't checked." Kitty admitted shakily. "I'm too afraid to."

Belladonna glanced down at the sheets and the tan pants Kitty was wearing. "I don't think you're losing the baby, hun. But I want to keep you in here anyway."

"I'm not complaining." Kitty curled up under the covers, lacing her hands protectively over her unborn child. "I'm not telling him."

"I don't blame you." Belladonna agreed. "I'll tell him to ease off … you said your mom had loads of problems?"

Kitty nodded. "Why?"

Belladonna sighed. "I'm sorry, Kitty. I should have realised that would make emotionally stressful situations worse than physically challenging ones."

The doors opened and Professor Xavier wheeled in, thankfully, alone. Belladonna breathed a sigh of relief. "Professor, you've got to get Cyclops to stop. It's putting both of them in danger."

"I know he means well." Kitty spoke up. "But it's going to kill one of us."

"I will talk to him, Kitty." Professor Xavier assured her. "Just look after yourself."

Fortunately, Scott had listened to the warnings and gotten rid of the individual training sessions, leaving them with the whole-team sessions, but they had been on the increase lately, due, once again, to his stubborn nature.

It had started about halfway through May, when Sabretooth – on a rare, but not unexpected, homicidal urge – attacked downtown Bayville with a gang of mutants called the Marauders:

Arclight – a super-strong mutant with the ability to produce shockwaves that maximised the impact of her blows;

Blockbuster – a super-humanly strong mutant;

Harpoon – a young man who could charge objects much like Gambit;

Prism – a cold-blooded mutant, whose body seemed to be permanently crystalline and could reflect most forms of energy attacks;

Riptide – a brutal man who could spin at top speed shooting out shards – after research, Beast had come to believe that they were made out of the man's own skin – as he did so;

Scalphunter – a ruthless ex-soldier who was capable of techno-morphing – altering technological devices – and used this to create an impressive weapons arsenal and;

Vertigo – a young woman who could psionically induce a sensation of vertigo in her opponents.

The fight between the X-Men and the Marauders was one of the worst and most difficult they had ever experienced, including the Apocalypse; at least then, each group was facing only one opponent, however powerful they may have been.

In this case, there were seven Marauders, plus Sabretooth, who was equal to them all.

Unfortunately, by the time X-Factor had been alerted and reached the scene, two people had been killed and seven injured. The New Mutants and X-Force were sat on tenterhooks back at the Institute, waiting for the call to arms. The Brotherhood, having heard about what was happening on the radio, had raced to meet them.

Despite Scott's protests, the rest of X-Factor agreed that they needed all the help they could get and Cyclops reluctantly changed his battle plan to include the Brotherhood. He ended up suggesting five possible strategies, but Lance pointed out possibly fatal flaws in each, before coming up with his own. Running out of time, and with no one arguing with the new plan, they leapt into action, beating the Marauders and preventing any further casualties.

Of course, admitting that Lance a) was right and b) had probably saved his team from whatever injuries his not-thought-through-properly plans would have caused was too much to ask of Scott.

The next day, Scott had run the scenario as a new simulation in the Danger Room. These simulations were unique, because they didn't test powers or abilities; they tested plans. So, when Spyke and Rogue were both 'killed', the session proved Lance right.

The next day, they ran Scott's second plan; the next, his third. Eventually, they had run all five plans and proved Avalanche right; if they had gone with any of Scott's plans, the day would have ended tragically.

Unfortunately, this wasn't enough for Scott.

Oh, no.

He had rerun each simulation over and over again, ignoring all requests from his team-mates to come up with a new plan that wasn't going to get them killed if they ran into the Marauders again.

"He's only doing this because Lance was the one to point out the flaws!" Kitty ranted. "If it was one of us, we wouldn't be having this problem!"

"Calm down, Kitty." Belladonna soothed.

"I am calm!" Kitty insisted. "I don't know how Jean puts up with him!" She paused. "I'm not boring you, am I?"

"No, you're not." Belladonna assured her as they hurried along the corridor. "However, if you lot got your heads out of the Danger Room for once, you'd know that I do have things to do aside from listen to Scott's downfalls. Jubilee's gone into labour."

"Oh my God!" Kitty quickened her pace. "Is she okay? How long?"

"Couple of hours; she's fine. It's amazing timing; her parents were flying in this morning anyway." Belladonna hesitated outside the door to the infirmary. "You'll have to …"

"Wait, I know." Kitty jumped up and crossed her legs, sitting in thin air.

"I don't think I'll ever get used to that." Belladonna commented.

"Well, I've got to lose them eventually." Kitty shrugged with a grin. "I figure I'll take advantage of it while I can."

Belladonna shook her head with a fond smile and pushed the door open, letting it swing shut behind her. "Hey, sugar; how you doing?"

"Is it supposed to hurt this much?" Jubilee groaned, her head falling back against the pillow.

"Apparently, yes." Belladonna slipped some gloves on and took a look. "Okay, it's time to start pushing."

"I'm right here, sweetheart." Bobby kissed his fiancée's forehead and held her hand, wincing and she squeezed it hard.

Belladonna caught his eye and shook her head; it wouldn't do his health any good to mention any pain he might be feeling. "Alright, I see something …"

"Bobby …" Jubilee whispered, nodding towards the other woman.

Reluctantly, Bobby released her hand and joined Belladonna. "Oh my God!"

"Don't 'oh my God'!" Jubilee cried. "'Oh my God' what?"

"What is that?" Bobby asked, sounding concerned.

"That's the baby's buttocks." Belladonna answered with a small smile. "It's breached."

"Thank God." Bobby sighed, returning to Jubilee's side. "I thought it had two heads."

Belladonna rolled her eyes. "Jubes, this means you're gonna have to push even harder, okay?" She checked her watch. "The next contraction should be in about 30 seconds."

Bobby kissed her forehead. "Nearly there, honey. I love you so much."

"I love you too, but I'm going to kill you for doing this to me." Jubilee tensed up. "30 seconds, my ass!"

"It's okay." Belladonna soothed. "One last push." The baby's crying filled the room and she swiftly turned it over. "It's a girl."

"It's a girl?" Jubilee repeated, propping herself up on her elbows.

"A girl." Bobby confirmed in an awed whisper. "A beautiful baby girl … and some other stuff I'm gonna pretend I don't see …"

Belladonna cleaned the little girl up and placed her in her mother's arms. "Congratulations." She didn't get a response and, indeed, hadn't expected one, so she gave the new parents some room and retreated to her desk to start the paperwork, pulling out an empty birth certificate.

Parents: Robert Drake and Jubilation Lee … God, Jubilee's parents must have hated her.

Date of birth: July 27th 1999

Name …

"What are you going to call her?"

"Cynthia." Jubilee answered, not taking her eyes off her daughter. "Cynthia Drake."

"Cindy for short." Bobby added.

"Oh, that's a beautiful name." Belladonna commented. "Middle name?"

"Elizabeth." Bobby finally looked up. "After Jubilee's grandmother."

"Cynthia Elizabeth Drake." Belladonna filled in the rest of the information, finishing just as the intercom rang. "That'll be your parents, Jubes?"

"Probably." Jubilee agreed.

"Kitty's outside; can I let her in?" Belladonna asked, standing up.

"Go ahead." Jubilee told her with a smile.

As Kitty phased through the door and hurried to Jubilee's bedside, Belladonna headed upstairs with a smile. Living at the Institute had brought a fair amount of insanity with it, but she wouldn't change it for the world.

Two days later …

It was still dark when Kitty became aware of someone shaking her and she awoke with a start. "Huh? Wasgoinon?"

"Well, you're eloquent this morning." Anna commented with a weak smile. "Training session. Happy birthday."

"Thanks. Happy birthday to you too." Kitty yawned widely and looked at the clock. "Anna, it's four in the freakin' morning!"

"Yeah, yeah; I know." Anna sighed. "Scott clearly has no life. You'd think, with the twins, he'd cherish every moment of sleep he gets; I know I do."

"Urgh, fine." Kitty got out of bed, shivering slightly; it might have been summer, but four in the morning was still four in the morning. "Do you know what …?"

"He wants us to run the Marauder simulation again." Anna told her.

Kitty groaned, pulling her uniform out of her closet. "Again? Tell me he's going to come up with a better plan this time."

"It's Scott, Kitty." Anna reminded her, leaning against the wall as she waited for Kitty to change. "Captain Pole-Up-The-Ass admit that he's wrong?"

"Hmm. Good point. But who in their right mind runs a training session at this time of the morning." Kitty slammed her closet door shut and paused. "Am I the only one getting a strange sense of déjà vu?"

"Well, I will be if you start muttering about ungodly hours and Lance shows up." Anna checked her watch. "Come on. He'll kill us himself if we're late."

"Hang on." Kitty paused in her doorway, trying to decide if she felt sick or not. Luckily, she hadn't experienced any morning sickness or cravings, although her appetite was bigger than it normally was. But for the last few days, she'd been feeling … something; a sort of soft fluttering in her stomach. She wasn't sure if it was nausea or if the baby had – finally – started moving.

Deciding it was probably the latter, she smiled. "Never mind."

"I knew I should've stayed in bed." Kitty muttered to herself, two and a half hours later.

True to her guesses, Cyclops had run the least successful of the battle plans and, somehow, despite remembering Anna's, had managed to forget her birthday. After two hours, X-Factor had crawled back to their rooms, changed and dropped back into bed.

After tossing and turning for half an hour, Kitty had given up and gone down to the kitchen.

And that was where she was sat now, sipping a mug of decaf coffee and examining the new bruises on her arms, cursing Logan for making the simulations so realistic.

A shiver ran up her spine. Though even her telepathy didn't make her psychic, Kitty was famed for her instincts and her instincts told her that something awful was either about to happen or had happened already.

Standing up to put her mug in the sink, Kitty spun around as a gust of wind blew through the kitchen, fighting to keep her nightdress down. Too tired and irritated to feel embarrassed, she glared at the intruder. "I didn't get up early just to give you a cheap thrill! What the hell are you doing here?"

Pietro didn't even smirk. "Happy Birthday, Kitty."

"Thank you. At least someone remembered." Kitty commented, but it seemed like the least important thing in the world all of a sudden. On closer examination, she realised he was nowhere near as well-groomed as he normally was. "What happened?"

"I need you to come with me." Pietro told her, his voice cracking slightly. "We need your help."

Kitty knew how much it would have cost his pride to ask any of the X-Men for help, even if it was her, and knew it was worse than she'd originally thought. "Right."

They took off, her only a micro-second behind him, and came to a stop about five miles away. On one side, the trees lined the road like silent soldiers, the darkness within lightened by the morning sun. On the other lay a barren wasteland, covered in bits of debris and loose brick. The rest of the Brotherhood was standing in the road, like Pietro, still in their night-clothes.

For once, they were silent, though Wanda managed to muster up a weak smile and birthday greetings.

Acknowledging her with a wave, Kitty looked around. "Where are we?"

"Home." Pietro answered quietly.

The word seemed to echo in the air between them and Kitty looked again, recognising, with a sharp gasp, her surroundings and realising that the debris littering the ground was actually what remained of the boarding house.

"Oh my God … What happened?" Kitty whispered, though she had a pretty good idea.

"Lance … he had a power surge." Pietro answered, proving her right, shivering despite the warmth of the summer morning. "We've woken up to tremors before, but this was different, so we got out and then …"

"Was anyone hurt?" Kitty asked, painfully aware that something wasn't right. No one answered her and she turned to face them fully, running an eye over them.

Pietro stood closest to her, a strange expression she was afraid to identify in his eyes. Lucie was crying softly, clearly in shock, and Wanda and Todd were comforting her. Tabby and Fred stood beside them, apparently beyond words.

One … two … three … four … five … six …

No matter how many times she counted, she returned to the same conclusion and she closed her eyes, silently praying, forcing herself not to panic.

When she spoke, her voice was strangely calm and didn't sound a bit like her own. "I have a feeling that there will be many times in the coming years when I will regret asking this question but … where's Lance?"

"Kitty …" Pietro began, stepping forward, the same expression she didn't want to know in his voice, and she turned away from him, back to where the remains of the boarding house had been swallowed by a crater that could have served as a parking lot for a UFO.

Her heart seized up, dropping to her stomach, which fluttered all the more insistently. "No …"

AN: The amount of reviews I'm getting seems to be ever-decreasing! 71 people read the last chapter; 4 people reviewed. It only takes a few minutes to tell me whether you like it or not; you don't even have to log in, so please review! I really don't want to have to beg XD