Galatea

Galatea Chapter Twenty (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta...the cakes are catching. Three of 'em. InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena...*GLOMP * ProPhile is frozen now. Morgan-did you survive? Readers/Reviewers: *twirly dance with the Killer Kitties (tm) * Thank you!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Kitty smoothed her ponytail and checked her lip gloss in the reflective glass of the window. "Okay, Pryde. Play dumb."
"Yes, ma'am?" the desk guard, a cheery looking woman who was scarcely out of high school chirped.
"Um, I was, like, supposed to do this huge school project about the whole immigration thing and junk? And like, my teacher, she said I could, like find tons of stuff here and all?" She kept her smile plastered on her face, letting her phrases end as questions like she was as vacant as people liked to think. "So, um, where's this archive thingy?"
The guard's expression was distinctly condescending as she moved around the desk. "Up those stairs, then take the elevators to the fourth floor. Oh, here..." She shoved a Visitor badge at Kitty. "We close at two on Saturdays."
Kitty giggled her thanks and trod up the stairs with a bouncing gait, letting her ponytail swing. Only when she rounded the landing to the next floor did she lengthen her gait and let her expression become serious. Her contacts itched like Hell but she was determined not to take them out. _Glasses would make me look smart and if I look smart, no one will help me... _
The elevator opened onto the fourth floor and she blinked at the dim light. The smell of old papers assailed her senses and the faint scuttle of someone moving in the stacks was the only sound once the doors slid shut behind her. Kitty shivered in her sweater, wishing she had not left her jacket in the car, but she forced herself onward. She could not see anyone who appeared to have authority so she sat down at the first computer she came to and sighed. It was a dinosaur, thanks to tax cuts and the library's ineffectual fundraising. _Hello, slow lane... _ She heard people, albeit few, coming and going from the old archives as she brought up the state's vital records archives. The library's security systems were almost as old as the computer and, in her mind, therefore obsolete and easily circumvented. The state's were a bit harder, but it took a solid ten minutes of manipulation to get through to the part she needed access to. _Amara is so going to owe me big time. And Lance, for that matter. Big time. Huge. Enormous. _
"Can I help you, miss?"
"Ah!" Kitty clapped a hand over her mouth at her own outburst and shifted to face the librarian. "Uh, no? I'm, like, almost done!" she giggled.
The librarian narrowed her eyes and glanced at the computer screen. "We have the older records on microfische."
Kitty grinned. "Great! I'll head there next!" Even after the librarian returned to her desk, Kitty felt watched. She hurried through the rest of her self appointed tasks before pausing one small moment, weighing what she was about to do next. _It's a necessary evil, _ she sighed inwardly before hitting the key. The screen shimmered, then blinked, then went black before coming up on the start screen. "And she vanished like a thin tin the night," she murmured, looking around and phasing through the floor. She exhaled in relief when she re-solidified in the janitor's closet, part careful planning and part luck. The door was locked from the outside so she took a chance and phased into the dusty hallway. It would be a few minutes before they noticed the computer was screwed up beyond repair and she had to hurry. She fairly threw the badge at the guard on her way out and barely had the car door shut before starting the engine. _Big time, Amara... _


"What do you want, Sean?" Emma glanced at where Rahne stood, bent over some piece of equipment with a screwdriver. "The walls have ears."
Sean sighed softly and tried to sound pleasant. "The Professor would like all of the foreign students gathered in his study in about an hour for a briefing."
"Is that all?"
"Well...yes..."
"And here I was hoping you had grown a spine. Okay." She turned her attention away from him and said loudly, "Rahne, Jono, please put your things away and go to the Professor's study for a brief meeting."
Rahne and Jono exchanged glances but did as they were told, leaving Emma alone with Sean. He shifted uncomfortably as she studiously ignored him, flipping through the business checkbook and balancing it efficiently. "Emma, I don't know what you want from me," he finally blurted."
"Honesty would be nice," she murmured.
"I was honest!"
"Hardly," she sighed, closing the book. "You said you were sorry we had sex. You weren't."
"Yes, I was."
"If you were so sorry," she smiled in a very feline fashion, "then why are you thinking *that * right now?"
Sean stared after her, embarrassed. "Do You hate me?" he asked the ceiling. "I mean, is it the mutant thing?" He sighed. "Thanks a lot..."

Beast stood as straight as he could manage and cleared his throat. "Cecilia, in light of the negative experience of our most recent outing, I would like to suggest a quiet evening in..." He sighed. "No, that sounds...bland." He smoothed his fur and tried again. "Hello, my dear...oh, blast, that was fake!" He turned his back on the mirror and knuckled his way across the room and back, thinking. "Cecilia, I would like to take you out. No, that sounds like a _Sopranos1 _ episode. I am a doctor, educated at the finest schools available, an educated man...why is this so difficult?" He sighed and rocked back on his heels. "Cecilia, you, me, dinner!" He snorted at his own audacity. "Hmmm...Cecilia, would you like to go to dinner tonight?" He smiled, pleased with himself, and grabbed the phone before he could lose his courage. Their disastrous last outing made him skittish about any more actual dates but he felt she deserved as close to a normal relationship as he could manage. The phone rang twice before she answered it, breathless. "Cecilia, come to dinner with me tonight," he blurted, wincing as the words came out.
"Henry?"
"Yes..." _Was she expecting someone else? _
"You didn't sound like yourself there... Dinner out? Um...I'd rather...not... How about I make something and you bring a movie?"
"Okay," he sighed. " See you at seven?"
"Seven it is."
He hung up the phone and frowned at it's plastic shell. "Damn it. Romance she deserves and romance she shall have... I wonder where Kurt is now?"


1 Series about the mob.