Galatea

GALATEA CHAPTER SEVEN (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE (tm), Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta...Alan and Billy miss Watari...they keep looking to the east and sniffling... InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are squishy with loveliness for archiving/hosting. :) ProPhile is a belated smutmuse, lol. And Morgan gets extra musecookies for the letter to God. ;) Readers/Reviewers: *smoosh *And the ducks send their love... And yep, CyberEm, I know the legend very well. :)



"Gah!"
"Problems?"
"I missed an entire row of numbers!" Rogue threw her pencil at the computer screen along with a rude gesture. "Now I have to start all over!"
"What'd you do to piss Emma off?" Kitty rubbed absently at her stomach, the warm pain of her piercing fading as the day went on but still a reminder of her new ornamentation.
Rogue sighed. "No idea. She caught me an' Todd kissin' and told me I was gonna have to do the data entry for the month. Damn it." She rubbed at her eyes, smearing the neat dark liner to something more sinister. "She's got a stick up her ass lately."
Kitty shrugged. "Maybe it's PMS."
"Emma doesn't do anything as mundane as that," Rogue snorted. "PMS is beneath her."
Kitty smirked. "Maybe she has someone in Boston do it for her."
Rogue laughed. "Emma's nice, though..." She paused. "In that ice queen sort of way." She winced inwardly at the phrase...she knew what people said about her behind her back at Bayville High and even what some of the new students said at the Institute. _ It shouldn't hurt anymore, _ she scolded herself. _They're opinion's don't matter. _
Kitty shrugged again. "Maybe she's not getting any."
"I'm getting enough, thank you."
Both girls froze, pictures of abject terror at the sound of Emma's voice. "Emma!" Kitty squeaked. "We were..."
"I know what you were. Rogue, you're done for the day. Finish tomorrow and I'll be checking your figures. Kitty..." Emma swept a glance over her and frowned. "Go do something useful."
Kitty felt her mouth open and close several times as she tried to spin doctor her way out of trouble and embarrassment. The best she came up with was "I have some Midol if you need it..."
Emma frowned. "Go. A. Way. Now." She sank into the seat Rogue had vacated as the Kitty phased through the door. _That _ she thought _hurt. _ Sighing to herself, she picked up Rogue's abandoned pencil and turned it over and over in her hands. "Maybe Storm is on to something..."

Rogue groaned and let her head hit Todd's desk as he fiddled with the computer. "What the deal with you?"
"Emma heard me and Kitty talking about her."
"Yikes."
"Pretty much." She sighed and let her head roll to one side so she could peer up at him. "What are you doing?"
"Nothing," he replied quickly, shutting off the monitor before she got a good look at the screen. "You think you're in trouble?"
"Dunno." She sat up and stretched. "You sure I'm not bugging you?"
"Nah, it's fine." He managed a semblance of a smile and reached out to push her hair back from her face but paused. "Um..."
"Not till tomorrow." She cocked a brow at him. "You doing okay?"
"Fine..." He frowned then. "I still don't want to talk about it."
"You didn't even mention her while we were there."
"I don't want to talk about it!"
Rogue sighed and rubbed at her eyes again, smearing the makeup beyond recognition. "This ain't good, you know. I mean, she was your mother..."
"Marie, you don't understand anything about this." He pushed away from the desk and flung himself onto his bed, studiously avoiding her hurt gaze. "She wasn't nothin' to me."
"Todd, you can't just hold it all in!"
"There's nothing to hold in," he growled. "Stop being so Goddamn pushy!"
She sucked in a sharp breath. "What?"
"Stop being so Goddamn pushy," he repeated, though with slightly less conviction than before.
"Excuse the fuck out of me for giving a damn!" she said shakily, not quite a shout but not what Jean would term her indoor voice either. "I'll just take my nosy, pushy ass elsewhere!"
"Marie," he said weakly as she lurched to her feet.
"No. You don't need me butting into your life." She strode from the room with her chin held high, the very picture of abject defiance.
"Stop," he called, crossing the room in two strides, grabbing her elbow as she made it to the hall. "Look, that came out wrong..."
"How should it have come out?" she demanded, regardless of Amara peering at her from the opposite doorway.
"I...I don't know. Just... Look, I don't need you prying into why I'm not sad or whatever."
She felt his fingers tighten on her arm when it seemed as if she would pull away. Instead of kicking his shin as she so sorely wanted to do, she ground out, "I ask because I care about you, damn it."
"I wish you wouldn't. Ask, that is," he hastily corrected.
"I wish you wouldn't close off to me!"
"I wish you wouldn't pick!"
"Gah!" She twisted free. "I'm going to the movies. Amara, you're coming with me!"
"Canth."
"What?"
"Lanth wanths to gho..." She shrugged a bit helplessly.
"She's right...Lance and I are going later," Todd said as helpfully as he could.
"Fuck it. Put on some shoes and we're going out anyway," Rogue snarled to the Nova Roman, who shrugged and disappeared back into her room.
"Marie, don't be mad at me..."
She took a long, deep breath and exhaled noisily through her nose before responding. "I'm not mad you at you, Todd. I'm furious." She stomped to her room without a backwards glance.


Kitty buried her face in her hands as Kurt fretted over some detail of the training schedule. He had been ordered by Logan to take the youngest group's Saturday gym sessions and to focus on flexibility and strength training. "I have no idea abany any of these kids," he sighed. "I need to see them on the equipment first..."
"Kurt, this isn't How to be an Acrobat in Ten Easy Lessons... It's gym. Just make sure no one slaps anyone with a wet towel and you'll be fine."
He leaned across the table and pushed her hands aside gently, making her look at him. "What's wrong?"
She sighed and told him the mini saga of the badmouthing and frowned to herself. "I can't believe I said that... That was, like, so mean!"
"People say things they mean but don't mean all the time..."
"Sense that did not make," she drawled.
"It's like...when I said I thought you should change skirts the other day because the blue one made you look..." He froze, a look of 'oh, shit!' coming over his features.
"You never said that to me...and how did it make me look?"
"I was thinking of someone else!"
"Your other girlfriend?" she asked snidely. "How did it make me look?"
"Short," he admitted. "I thought it made you look short."
"Kurt, I *am * short!" She stood up as if to emphasize the description. "I barely come up to here on you," she railed, gesturing a certain distance off the ground, "and you're not exactly tall..." She narrowed her eyes at him. "Just who did you say that to?"
He winced. He had been sitting with Wanda and Tabby in the rec room as Kitty flitted around, getting ready to go out. She was trying to find her left shoe and wandered by hot on the trail when Tabby made a comment about the skirt being a pretty color. Thus the disastrous comment was tied in his mind with Kitty being present. As he told Kitty this, her face reddened. "You said that to Tabby and Wanda?" she demanded, but she already knew the answer. "I'm burning that skirt!"
"Katzchen, don't pay attention to me! What do I know about skirts?" She glared at him. "Forgive me and I'll tell you something funny."
"Tell me something funny first and we'll see..."
"Beast is trying to arrange some romantic weekend with Cecilia and asked me for advice."
Kitty snorted, then laughed. Her stomach hurt from the action but she did not care. She could picture Beast, embarrassed and clinical, approaching someone more than half his age for advice. "What did you say?"
"I said I'd get back to him," he mumbled. "It was verdammten embarrassing!"
"I imagine!" She slid around the table and onto his lap, slipping her arms around his neck. "What are you going to tell him?"
He sighed, happier than before and kissed her ear. "Well, I have no idea. I don't even want to suggest anything I would do with you just because I think I'd never be able to look at either of them again without seeing scary images."
Kitty giggled. "I forgive you."
"Danke." He kissed her again. "Any ideas?"
"For us or for Beast and Cecilia?"
"Both..."
"Well, for us, it'll have to wait a bit. For them..." She bit her lip and leaned against his shoulder, thinking. "Hm. I think we have a project."
"Was?" He leaned back to look her in the eye. "I don't like the sound of that."
"Why do you think Beast came to you for advice?"
"He said it was because I seemed to be the least...er..aggressive male in residence."
"And because you're a romantic soul," Kitty added with a grin."
"Ah." He was not sure he liked the idea of Beast thinking of him thusly. "I think maybe it was desperation."
"You know what we're going to do?" she asked as if she had not been listening.
"Does it involve lots of Kitty skin?"
"Ew, Buffalo Bill.1 We're going to give them the perfect romantic weekend."
"Kitty, I don't like the sound of that."
"No, listen. Hear me out..." She wiggled happily, adjusting her position to look at him more easily, regardless of his growing discomfort. "We don't, like, send 'em to a hotel or anything...Teach by example!"
"Kitty," he groaned, "stop it..."
She rolled her eyes. "I'll take Cecilia. You just answer whatever Beast asks you to." She hopped to her feet and kissed him blithely.
"Where are you going?"
"To call Cecilia!"
Kurt sighed. "My life is an I Love Lucy episode..."


A/N Storm/Logan, some angsty bits and definite smut next chapter.


1 Serial killer in _Silence of the Lambs _, based heavily on Ed Guin, a serial killer from Wisconsin who operated in the 50's. I was born on his birthday. Go me. *shudder *