Chapter 14

Ellie found herself falling asleep for only an hour before waking up in the dark living room of the Brotherhood House. She let out a groan as her eyes landed on the glowing green numbers of the old VCR that was placed beneath the television. 11:57 p.m. Rolling over in an attempt to get comfortable, Ellie's nose smashed against the back of the couch. After letting out an aggravated moan, she sat up and looked around the room.

The dark rug that was wrinkled on the scuffed floor was covered in very noticeable dirt and the aroma of week-old garbage filled the room. With her nose crinkled at the terrible odor, she climbed off the couch and left the room. The narrow hallway was even darker than the living room and Ellie bit her lower lip lightly. Her eyes darted around the room to make certain that she was alone before she popped her thumb up in front of her. Within seconds a small flame danced along her thumbnail.

Ellie winced at the slight burning sensation in her thumb before making her way into the kitchen. Just as she expected, there was a pile of garbage bags lying against the wall, flies circling the bags eagerly. Ellie flipped the light switch up and extinguished the flame on her thumb before walking further into the room. The hairs on the back of her neck stood up when she stepped in something wet on the floor. Grossed out at the thought of what it could have been, she jumped into the air and hovered the rest of the way to the garbage bags.

"Boys are disgusting," she muttered to herself as she noticed a slice of pizza sitting on the counter with green fuzz coating a good portion of it.

Ellie crossed her legs and rested her head on her hand in the air as she rethought her previous statement. Not all boys were as filthy as these boys were. For instance, Eli was actually quite clean and tidy, it was very rare that she had ever seen him looking shabby. The thought of her brother made her jaw clench. She worried about him being on his own tonight and hated the thought of what the X-Men must have been saying about him. Without realizing it, Ellie had gathered two garbage bags in her hands and flew them into the hallway.

Ellie needed to occupy herself so she would not worry as much, so she decided to clean up the house. She made sure to be quiet when exiting the house to drop the garbage off at the curb and kept her disgusted noises to herself so as not to wake any of the boys upstairs. Although she was still unsure of her decision to ask the Brotherhood for help, the least she could do was help them out with a few chores. She had just started spraying the counter tops with a bleach spray when Toad entered the room.

"What in the heck are you doing?" he asked, his fist rubbing his eye roughly as he made his way into the kitchen. Ellie stopped cleaning and turned to face him.

"Sorry," she said calmly. "I'll stop." Toad's eyes widened as he noticed the kitchen was nearly spotless.

"Yo did you clean all of this?"

"Yeah."

"Man, we should have recruited a chick into the Brotherhood years ago!" Ellie did not like that he had used the word "recruited". "Hey, where's the garbage?"

"On the curb, stinking up the neighborhood." Toad groaned sadly.

"Aw man! My midnight snack was buzzin' around that trash man!" The greasy boy slumped his shoulders, pouting over the loss of his insects.

"Well feel free to nab a few spiders from the living room. I'm cleaning in there next." Toad smiled at her attempt of humor.

"Not big into spiders really. Anything that bites back is usually a deal breaker." Ellie gave him a small smile before returning to cleaning the counter tops. Toad looked around the room, confused as to what he should do next.

"Aren't you gonna be tired in the morning?" he asked. He watched as Ellie's shoulders lifted then fell.

"I'll sleep in," she replied coolly.

"But tomorrow is Friday. We have school."

"You have school. I'm done with Bayville High." Toad began to scratch his head.

"So, you're what? Droppin' out or somethin'?"

"Dunno. Maybe. I just don't really want to see anyone from the X-Mansion right now." Ellie straightened up at the sound of her voice. She did not mean to tell Toad that much information.

"Not even that twin of yours?" Toad leaped onto the counter, leaning into Ellie's view.

"Get off the counter!" she commanded, pushing him to the floor where he landed on his feet. "I'm just not going tomorrow, okay?" Toad cocked an eyebrow at her before dropping the subject.

"Y'know, I'm sure those losers at Xavier's school probably told you some things about me and the guys, but they aren't all true." Ellie moved her sponge a bit slower now.

"Oh really?" she asked over her shoulder. "Like what?"

"Well, like that we're bad guys and all that. We're not really bad. We just don't have much guidance, ya know? I mean heck, Xavier never came knockin' on my door askin' me to join his team."

"So you're bitter?"

"Heck no! I love all this freedom. I can use my powers however I want and whenever I want, no consequences." Ellie turned over her shoulder now, interested in the conversation.

"Really?" she asked. "No consequences at all?"

"Nope. I mean those losers come ruin everything most of the time, but that's about it."

"Why?"

"'Cause they're losers. They've got some problem with mutants that don't conform to what they think we should be doing with our powers. Heck, I was born a mutant and I'll use my powers however I want yo! Nobody is gonna tell me how to live." Ellie nodded, understanding exactly where he was coming from.

All she ever wanted was the freedom to be herself, whoever that was now. Before the X-gene was discovered in her DNA she got to live like any other normal kid. She had tea parties with stuffed animals, she fell off her bike and she had friends. But now, all of that normality was gone and so was that normal little girl. She had been searching for a place where she could simply live without fearing that someone was coming after her. Everything that Toad was telling her seemed to fit that description.

"I'm sorry I got rid of your flies," she said. Toad looked at her, seeing that her usually cold blue eyes had a slight warmth to them now.

"Ah, it's no big thing. Midnight snacks give me nightmares anyway," he replied with the wave of his hand. Ellie nodded before tossing the damp sponge into the now empty sink. She looked around, impressed that she had gotten the entire room cleaned.

"Well, I think the living room will have to wait until tomorrow," she said, rolling her neck from side to side. "I'm pretty beat."

"I bet. Well, g'night Dingo!" Toad said excitedly before jumping out of the room. Ellie ran to the open archway and leaned into the hallway.

"It's Ellie!" she whispered after him. Toad bounded up the stairs and she returned to her couch, tucking herself in and accepting sleep.

The X-Mansion

Eli had a difficult night. Every time he started to doze off he was woke right back up by some awful nightmare where something bad happened to Ellie. He sat, alone, at the long dinning room table rubbing his hands over his face slowly. The skin below his eyes was a light grey, and his eye lids were heavy. Eli barely noticed when Mr. Logan entered the room.

"Looks like you had a rough night, kid," he grumbled as he poured himself a cup of coffee. Eli nodded slowly.

"Sounds about right," he replied. "Mind pouring me a cup?" His natural charm was wasted on Logan who ignored his request and crossed the room.

"You're just too kind," he sarcastically said to his mentor before getting up to pour his own cup. Logan scoffed at him before turning his attention to the morning paper.

"Hey, any news in there that would be important to me?" Eli asked in a serious tone. Logan looked at him now.

"Your sister is fine, Waterboy. I'm sure she's just blowin' off some steam," Logan replied. Eli nodded.

"Right."

The two turned their attention to the noise of numerous voices entering the room. Eli stared at the X-Men who talked over one another as they raided the room for food. He stood with his coffee mug hooked over his fingers when Kitty approached him.

"Whoa, looks like you got up awful early," she said, surprised. "You're already dressed!" Eli raised his mug to her.

"The early bird gets the worm," he replied with a wink as he lifted his mug to his lips. Before he could take a sip, the mug was snatched away from him by Evan.

"And the slow bird loses the worm!" he laughed before drinking the coffee himself. Eli shook his head at the boy before pouring himself a new cup of coffee.

"Eli, you want to ride to school with me and Kurt?" Scott asked after placing a hand on Eli's shoulder even though he was a few inches shorter than the boy. Eli looked at him curiously.

"Depends," Eli answered. "Do you have a nice car?" Scott grinned at him.

"The nicest."

"Then I'm in." Scott nodded before grabbing a muffin from the table. Eli looked at the table to see Amara and Tabitha staring at him.

"He is just too cute," Tabitha whispered before the two girls started giggling. Eli smirked as he registered the secret comment and finally took a drink of his coffee.

The Brotherhood House

"Is she dead?" Lance whispered as the four boys stood over the couch where Ellie was sleeping.

"Dunno," Fed replied. "I've never heard anyone make that noise before." The boys exchanged nervous looks.

Ellie was lying on her back, her mouth wide open as she snored loudly. She had one arm resting over her head and the other had fallen over the side of the couch. Her legs were sprawled out so that one leg rested over the back of the couch and the other teetered on the edge of the cushions. Pietro kept glancing at the small sliver of her stomach that was exposed before poking her in the face.

"What?" Ellie shouted, frightened as she flew up into the air. "What?" she asked nearly out of breath as she looked around.

"Oh…yeah," she said, embarrassed as she remembered she slept at the Brotherhood House last night. Her eyes darted up and she groaned. Her hair was twisted around like she had just been out in a tornado.

"You're alive!" Fred said happily. Ellie sat back on the couch and combed her fingers through her hair.

"Yeah," she replied, wincing as she snagged her finger on a strand of hair. Pietro folded his arms over his chest.

"I said you could stay here, not that you could clean our kitchen," he grumbled. "You know those flies were Toad's breakfast?" Ellie rolled her eyes at him.

"Leave her alone Pietro," Fred said.

"Yeah man, I'll grab some food at school today. Yesterday was meatloaf day, so I'm sure those trash bins are buzzin'," Toad added. Pietro glared at his housemates.

"So, did anyone else notice that we have almost no food?" Lance asked. Fred nodded sadly.

"I'll go grocery shopping today if you want," Ellie said. All four boys gave her confused and surprised looks.

"You'll what?" Pietro asked.

"What? You let me stay here, I can return the favor by feeding you." The boys looked around at each other.

"How do you plan on paying for the groceries, huh? We have no money."

"I have money. Now do you want to eat or not?" Fred gave Pietro a pathetic look.

"Fine. Go play housekeeper for the day. Just stay out of my room." With that, the silver haired boy left the room. The three others waved goodbye to Ellie before following him outside of the house and loading into the Jeep.

Ellie watched from the window as the boys sped off down the road with their radio blaring Rock music. She smiled to herself as she thought about taking care of them for the day. That smile faded quickly when she realized what she was actually doing. Ellie had taken care of Eli for so long, that she didn't know what to do with herself when he wasn't around to look after. She was using these four boys to fill the hole that was left when she left him.

"What am I doing?" she asked herself, sitting on the windowsill. She rubbed her bare arms as she thought to herself.

She had spent one night in the Brotherhood house and had already established some sort of relationship with three of the occupants, cleaned their kitchen, and was now offering to buy them groceries. This was not her. She did not sign up to mother four delinquents. All she asked for was a place to stay for the night. Ellie let out an angry groan before running her hands over her face.

"If I keep the house looking nice, they can't say that I owe them for letting me stay here," she told herself, justifying her earlier offering. She had not fully convinced herself yet, but she already told the boys that she would buy them groceries and she was not going to make a liar of herself. Ellie made her way to the bathroom to prepare herself for the day.

Bayville High

Pietro, Lance, and Fred leaned against the wall outside of Bayville High as Toad eagerly snatched a few flies from the air with his tongue. Pietro scowled as he noticed Evan and Tabitha walking into the school. Lance seemed to perk up a bit, scanning the area for any sign of Kitty.

"I wish Ellie was here," Fred said, awkwardly. Pietro lifted a brow at him.

"Why?" he asked, moving in front of his friends now.

"'Cause she's cool," Toad answered, rubbing his sleeve over his mouth. Fred nodded.

"You're both idiots. That girl is annoying as hell! I mean, she comes to our house in the middle of the night and basically requests that we give her a place to stay. I swear, she's gonna have our house turned upside down when we get home." Before he could react, his back was slammed against the brick wall.

"Hey, get off him!" Lance yelled. Eli stared down at Pietro, his hands gripping his shirt tightly as he pushed him harder against the wall.

"What did you do with my sister?" Eli asked menacingly, his eyes burning a direct line into Pietro's.

"Hey, let me go!" Pietro yelled, squirming in his grip. He knew now that he should have just kept his mouth shut, or at least looked around before opening it.