Chapter 11: Promises To Keep

Back in K's cottage, Annie, Leslie Ann, Kamala, and Miles certainly had their hands full with all the little ones. Annie had experience with the twins taking care of two very young babies who weren't quite mobile yet, but that meant she was with Cody and Kari most of the time, and the three younger babysitters were getting fairly worn out from playing with the older kids all the time.

The two bamfs who had stayed behind with the group were doing their best to help too, playing with Zoe and James. James had discovered that the bamfs were great at catching him before he fell over and seemed to have taken this as a challenge to run faster and farther than he was supposed to, laughing hysterically every time the bamfs 'ported him back to where he started from — all while Zoe seemed to be egging him on.

Kamala and Miles had all of the older kids in one big pile in the living room with hot chocolate as they watched the snow, and Annie had just put the littlest ones to bed when the comm Scott had given her chirped — with Scott letting her know that they were on their way home.

Annie beamed as she leaned against the kitchen counter in both relief and genuine exhaustion from taking care of this many kids for so long. "Is everyone alright? Should I get some food together for the healers?"

"No, no," Scott said. "I'm sure you've been busy. We'll just order in. Looking forward to some quiet time to tell you all about it."

"You'll have to tell me everything," she agreed with a little smile. "See you soon." With that, she put away the comm and turned to see one of the bamfs grinning broadly at her, his little tail waving lazily behind him.

When the little guy met her gaze, he giggled and teleported away in a poof of smoke, reappearing with Kamala and Miles and Leslie Ann with their group of kids as he started chattering away.

He hadn't been chattering for very long before Krissy threw her arms around the little guy in a hug. "Really?" she asked him brightly, and when he nodded, she laughed delightedly and turned to the others. "Mama and Papa comnin home! Everybody comnin home!"

"When?" Charlie asked eagerly, and Krissy shrugged and turned to the little bamf, who started chattering away again.

"Really soon," Krissy reported. "He don' know when is soon, though."

"How do you even know what he's saying?" Miles couldn't help but ask the little girl.

She broke into little giggles. "He talks just like everybody, silly!" she said as if it was blatantly obvious.

"She did learn to talk around them," Kamala pointed out with a little smirk as they watched Krissy and the excited little bamf go back and forth for a while.

"We gotta get ready," Krissy told the other kids. "We gotta go home, 'cause there's too many people to come here."

"Back home with the bamfs?" Sying asked with his head tipped to the side, and Krissy nodded and giggled.

"Good. I miss our house," Chance said with a little nod. "And Dad."

"Your dad comnin," Krissy assured him. "He called MissAmmie."

"Is everybody okay?" Charlie asked, but Krissy just wrinkled her nose and shrugged.

"I dunno."

"They've got Ty and Doctor Fuzzy. They're fine," Chance assured his sister before he bounded over to his mom to start 'helping' her put things away for the trip back to the mansion.

The two little bamfs started trying to help as well, following the kids around until they felt like everyone was sufficiently ready before they started up with teleporting everyone back — Annie first to warn anyone back at the mansion and then the kids in groups of two.

When Annie arrived, she was a bit surprised to find that Erik had called in a few former mansion residents to help him run thing while everyone else was gone — since, after all, there were still students at the school even if all the staff were kidnapped or trying to rescue each other. It looked like he had called up his daughter to come — no surprises there — but also most of the members of Excalibur. And Kitty had clearly brought Peter Quill with her, because he was the first one to spot Annie and to run over to her with his eyebrows high on his forehead.

"Where've you been?" he asked. "It's been days, and the place is totally empty. It's creepy, let me tell you."

"With the littlest ones," Annie explained to him with a little smile as, almost on cue, the bamfs reappeared with both twins. "We thought it would be safer while the staff was gone."

"Well … I can see that, I guess," he said with a little frown. "At least until we got here. These kids have been missing their regular instructors."

"Yes, but it's always fun to have guest instructors," Annie assured him.

"Maybe if it's one or two? But the whole schedule? Not so much," Peter said.

She had to nod at that as the bamfs arrived again, this time with Kamala and Kari, who was still sound asleep and snuggled into the young woman. "Oh. Hey, Star Lord," Kamala said, sounding surprised. "When did you get here?"

"Um, you know, about two hours after we got the call from Erik," Peter said as James barrelled right for him and he had to crouch down to catch him before he fell over. "Dude. You can't do that," he told him as he picked him up, mostly because James had gone from giggling to wrapped around his neck, and he wasn't getting away very easy.

"That's what we keep trying to tell him," Kamala said with a little laugh as the bamfs arrived with Krissy and Elin.

The repeated bamfs had drawn some attention to the entryway as Erik and Kitty both arrived to investigate, which of course had the kids running to go see their friends — excited to get to play with somebody new.

"We runned away to the pretty house," Krissy explained to Kitty as soon as Kitty had scooped her up. "But we back now."

"The pretty house?" Kitty asked with a little frown. "Where is that, honey?"

"It's where the big lake is!" Krissy giggled. "With really loud waves when it's windy!"

"It's windy a lot there," Elin said with a little nod.

"Did you miss us? Huh?" Krissy pressed, still giggling. "We were gone a long time!"

"Of course I did, little Elf princess," Kitty replied with a squeeze. "Did you have fun while you were gone?"

She giggled and nodded. "I always have fun at the pretty house," she said matter-of-factly before she leaned in and whispered, "Even if Mama and Papa aren't there."

Kitty looked up at Annie with a little frown. "Where were you guys and why weren't Kate and Kurt there?"

Annie let out a sigh. "Like she said — we had to run away." She was half eyeing the kids as she was clearly choosing her words carefully and mouthed out the word "Shi'ar."

Peter cringed and made a face at that. "Well that explains where the staff disappeared to, then."

"And of course, they sent Sabretooth as a distraction," Annie continued.

"Is Logan alright?" Kitty asked, suddenly paying a lot more attention — since Erik hadn't known about that to tell her it was an issue.

"He's fine," Annie promised. "At least ... he's fine when it comes to that. As I understand it, it was Tyler and K who took the brunt of that."

"He was fine when I saw him," Leslie Ann offered. "He was the one stitching up everyone else, like Noh. He said he'd take me to Japan when he got back, too."

"Oh, that should be fun for you," Kitty said. "Just don't touch anything he doesn't tell you to."

"Okay, I'll do that," Leslie Ann agreed. "Dad said the same sort of thing about going to school here — I'm supposed to listen to the teachers."

"That's right. And be respectful," Annie said, to which Leslie Ann just nodded her head.

"Were you worried about everybody?" Charlie asked, her eyes wide as she held her hands up for Erik to pick her up.

"We always worry about you," Erik told her lightly. "That's what you do when you care for someone." She seemed to consider this for a moment and then nodded seriously before she hugged him around the neck.

It wasn't much longer before they saw Noh's ship come in out of the large windows in the living room. Sying rushed over to the windows and excitedly pointed at the ship. "Look, see? That's my dad's ship!" he informed Kitty with a very proud smile as they watched it come in — which was, of course, the cue for Annie and Leslie Ann to try to keep the kids from mobbing the hangar, just in case the others were coming back injured.

Those in the best shape were out first, and Scott and Rachel of course disembarked together seeing as they hadn't released each other for much of anything for the entire way back. He was telling her to head down to the med bay, and she was insisting he do the same. The ferals had waited for half of the plane to clear out before they tried to do the sneaky slip around everyone — though they should have known that wasn't going to work out very well for them.

Jana ended up being the one to meet Leslie Ann before the bulk of the X-Men left the ship, and she too was trying to avoid actual med bay time. It was hard to do, though, when her best friend was wincing over her shoulder and insisting that she "at least get a Twinkie so I can snitch one too."

"Don't you go picking up the bad habits of those idiots you went to rescue," Annie told Jana sternly when she saw what her niece was up to with Jana. "You get yourself seen to, and then you get some sleep in your own bed. You all look exhausted."

Leslie Ann grinned triumphantly at that and scooted off with her best friend on her arm being pulled along.

The tide of little ones did end up making it to the hangar when they broke away from Miles and Kamala, so there was suddenly a lot of happy giggling and squealing as everyone went to their respective missing parents.

"Papa, are you okay?" Krissy asked after Kate swept her up in her arms, her little tail switching behind her with honest worry.

Kurt leaned over and kissed Krissy's forehead. "Don't worry, liebling. I'm fine," he promised her as he readjusted his shirt the slightest bit to hide some of the wrapping. "I missed you, Prinzessin. Won't you tell me what you've been doing while we've been gone?"

Krissy beamed and immediately launched into a retelling of everything that the kids had been up to since they left, hardly pausing in her storytelling when Kamala handed Kari to Kurt and the little pink elfling snuggled right in.

Sying was similarly fussing over his dad, concerned over the fact that Noh wasn't quite up to snuff as he took Noh's hand and started to lead him upstairs. "Come on, Daddy. We gotta go upstairs for food and sleepnin," he said with absolutely no room in his tone for argument, which just had Jubes grinning.

The twins, of course, followed after Scott and Rachel as they voiced their concern over how wrapped around each other the two of them were — since that usually meant something happened.

But it was Zoe who stole the cake for the cutest welcome home greeting. The usually reserved little girl broke into a very loud shout of "YAY!" when she saw her parents and ran as fast as her chubby legs could carry her to simply attach to Natasha's leg and refuse to let go as she kept repeating "miss Mom and Dad" over and over until Natasha and Clint had to crouch down and hug her right there in the hangar — since she wasn't going anywhere.

It was the first time in two weeks that James didn't go toward someone at a dead run, instead walking carefully through the other little ones, wide eyed; they all seemed so worried. When he and Elin got to their parents, he just held his arms up for his mother, and Elin took Logan's hand — perfectly content to get her snuggles once they were out of the hangar. They were the only ones that didn't ask if their parents were alright, simply happy to have been reunited.

They barely got out of the elevator once they'd slipped away from the rest of the crowd when they met up with Kitty and Peter, who looked somewhat surprised to see them upstairs so quickly.

"Oh, I thought you might want to make sure the others were alright," Kitty said to Logan as the two little ferals shared a quick look and a minute smile — since they could tell just by scent why the two Guardians had even been in the area to help out.

"No, they have plenty of people fussin' over 'em," Logan replied before Kitty took the couple of steps closer and wrapped him up in a tight hug. "You stickin' around for a little bit?"

"I guess that depends on how much you guys need us," Kitty said.

"You should stick around until the end of the school year," K suggested. "I think I may steal this guy for a little while after he gets back from Japan."

Kitty had to smirk a little bit at that. "I could cover self-defense," she said.

"Who's coverin' it now?" Logan asked.

"Me and sometimes Cap. The Avengers have been helping, which is kinda weird but also really helpful," Kitty said, shaking her head.

"Yeah, let Cap do it," Logan said. "He needs the practice. You're fine."

"Yeah, I am," Kitty agreed with a little smirk that had Peter laughing at her outright. She shook out her hair for a moment before she said, "Leslie Ann told me you're taking her with you when you go to Japan. She's pretty excited."

"Seemed like a pretty fair trade off to keep her from tryin' to follow us to the Shi'ar homeworld," he said.

Peter visibly winced at that and shook his head. "Oooh, yeah, good call. That kid doesn't need to be anywhere near those guys."

"No big deal; I'd like to go back to Japan anyhow. Cherry blossoms will be blooming soon," Logan said. "I'll take her to Mount Fuji and see how much sushi she'll tolerate before she's beggin' for cheeseburgers."

"You never know. She might decide she likes it there and you'll have a hard time getting her to leave," Peter said with a smirk.

"Ain't happened yet," Logan replied. "Kitty was sick of it in the first two hours. Jubes was over it before she even stepped foot outta the first restaurant."

"Well, we can definitely stick around until you get back. Now I'm kinda curious as to how long she holds out," Peter laughed.

"You can be the one takin' bets," Logan replied before he pulled K with him — though Elin was leading the way, yanking on his other hand.

The little family was almost entirely gone before Kitty bit her lip, bouncing from one foot to the other. "And … we'd be sticking around anyway… since you should definitely be there for me and Peter when… you know."

Logan turned to look at her flatly with an expression that clearly said he wasn't going to let it hang on just "you know."

"Hey, we'll let you know when we find out if it's a boy or a girl, huh?" Peter put in, which as least got an affectionate smile out of K and a hug before Kitty almost sheepishly made her way over to Logan for a hug that he quickly turned into a bear hug.

It had been several weeks since the incident with the Shi'ar, and while things were back to normal at the school, that didn't mean Leslie Ann was about to forget that she'd been promised an adventure, especially when she'd been having to listen to Jana and the others talking about outer space and all the stuff they saw for weeks now.

But everybody had come back pretty banged up, so she was trying to be patient and give the teachers some space. They really seemed to need it, especially when Miss Kitty and Star Lord and then Storm and Forge had announced that they were expecting. So even after everyone had recovered, there was a whole other kind of thing to deal with, and Leslie Ann knew they would want to celebrate, so she didn't want to push…

Still, she felt like about a month was a reasonable amount of time, and even though her dad had always taught her that it was impolite to impose on people or to demand things, she just wanted to make sure that Logan hadn't forgotten.

So she waited a little bit longer after history class, after everyone else had left and she was left standing in the classroom with all her books gathered up and her courage only half gathered as she scuffed one foot against the ground.

"Something on your mind, little darlin'?" he asked before he looked up at her from where he was leaning on his desk.

"Actually, yeah," she said before she took in a deep breath. "I was wondering about Japan. I mean ... I know it's the school year, but I didn't want you to forget or…"

"Believe it or not, I had a talk with your dad about that not too long ago," he told her. "If you still wanna go, we can take a few days over break."

She broke into a wide, excited grin. "Of course I still want to go!" she said as the flower in her braid bloomed just a bit brighter. "I've been excited about it for weeks!"

"Well, the timing works out right," he said as he stood up. "What do you know about springtime in Japan?"

"I just know about the flowers," she said. "I've been researching a lot about plants all around the world so I can grow stuff in my greenhouse."

"If the weather works for us, then there's a really nice spot I think you'll like at the base of Mount Fuji. Sakura should be in full bloom when we get there."

"That sounds really cool!" She beamed at him. "It's easier to bloom flowers that I can see in person and not just in pictures."

"Some of those trees are hundreds of years old," he said. "It's a busy time in Japan — but hard to beat for pretty."

"Do you think… I could touch some of those trees?" she asked hesitantly. "I like the older trees. They're peaceful."

"They don't stop you from touching much of anything," he replied.

She beamed wider at that. "And you don't mind just taking me to watch me touch trees?" she asked almost bashfully.

"We're gonna do more than just hang out with the trees. There's a bamboo forest on the mountain, and I'm sure I can come up with things to do in Tokyo."

She grinned delightedly and nodded. "Thanks so much!" she said, unable to hide her excitement as she flung her arms around his neck.

"Just make sure you're up to snuff on your hand-to-hand," he said as he gave her a little pat on the back.

"I will!" she promised. "I'll practice after classes. I'll — I'll ask Uncle Scott and Miss K and maybe Miss Kate too help me."

"I'll let Bobby know we have plans then," Logan said as he headed for the door, leaving Leslie Ann perfectly thrilled in his wake.