Disclaimer: Marvel owns all mutants, Sarah Pezzini belongs to Witchblade, All My Children belong to Marvel.  The idea for Emma's ex-husband belongs to Melissa Lucey.  This work is mine.  It builds on things found in my time line Facing The Music.  Several events are found in two stories not yet published, 'Scaling The Castle' (the introduction of Silver and the whole Pete/Domino/Tony stuff) and 'Tomorrow And The Day Before' (the introduction of Lucky).  Leary assures me that Scaling The Castle will be written... sometime.
 

      Celeste sighed and rubbed her temples as she mentally counted to twenty.  With her Godfather, counting to ten was never enough.  "Yes, Ariel was arrested last night." she finally answered.

        On the other side of the phone, she could hear J. Jonah Jamison down blood pressure pills like they were M and M's.  "Why?" he asked, already knowing the answer.  He was more concerned about the fact that his youngest Goddaughter had gotten herself into too much trouble and his oldest hadn't come to him for help a long time ago than about the actually charges.

        Celeste blinked back the tears, only hearing the strong bark in his voice.  She had failed twice at being a mother.  "She stole Emma's car, picked up a friend and got drunk.   Then she ran into a graveyard.   The friend had shoplifted some stuff, I think.  She won't be charged but I let her stay overnight."  Emma had made a generous donation to the policeman's ball to get Ariel out of trouble.  "I figured I'd yell at her when she was hung-over."

        He nodded.  "Sounds like a plan.  Do you know what it's like to get a e-mail over breakfast that my Goddaughter was arrested?"  He was trying to open the door of communication between the two of them, but was only succeeding in nailing it shut.

        "A little better than a late night call from Frost Security?"  Celeste hadn't stopped moving since Tony called to let her know that Ariel was being arrested and that the cops had "lost" a bag containing cocaine and marijuana.  Part of her was happy that it was mild drugs, the other was on the verge of an emotional breakdown.  She couldn't handle her sister anymore and didn't know what to do.

        That statement made Jamison start to snort.  He had never had daughters, so he tended to think of the Dubois sisters as his stepchildren from a former marriage, children he rarely saw but cared deeply about.  Since Celeste had walked into his office a couple of months ago, he had made it his business to know just about everything that had happened to his Goddaughters.  A thick stack of reports showed him what he had always known, his eldest could pull herself up by the bootstraps when needed and that his youngest was a lot like her mother, spoiled, self-centered and troubled.

        Celeste controlled by a woman who had access to the most secret working of one of the most silent of clubs but she allowed herself to be controlled.  It was rumored that the Hellfire Club had access to people, places, and power that the average person simply couldn't imagine.  By aligning herself with Emma Frost, Celeste had tethered herself to a life that she couldn't even dream of yet.  If she could walk though the fire without getting burned, soon, she would be one of the people the Hellfire Club would invite to join.   Not bad for a girl who once thought that the
world ended at the end of the mall parking lot.

        "You can't trust Frost Security to keep an eye on her," he advised her.

        Celeste had more trust in Tony's ability to keep track of her sister than she did in almost anything else.  She slumped against the wall and sighed.  Sliding down to sitting position, she reflected that maybe, just maybe, her problem with her sister was that she had more trust in other people's abilities to raise her sister than her own.  She had Matt to keep Ariel in line, she had Tony and Forrest to keep her out of trouble, but she had no one to give her the guidance that a mother should give.  What she could offer was more of a sisterly support than anything
else.  "What would you suggest?"

        J. Jonah Jamison smiled at that question.  He remembered a ten-year-old Celeste who had no interest in school staying with him for three months while working in an off-Broadway musical.  He had managed to latch onto her interest in photography and used his paper and his reporters to nurture that into an interest in current events.  Before she left, she had a deep understanding of world culture, politics, and geography.  She followed closely each and every article written by her friends and improved her reading ability.  It had taken just a couple of weeks to straighten her out.  "Why don't you let me take Ariel for a couple of months?"

        Celeste sighed.  Somehow, throwing a match and a can  of gasoline together didn't seem like the best of ideas.  "I don't know."

        "Look how well–"
 
        "I know how well your son turned out."  Celeste shook her head, hearing him brag about Jason before he opened his mouth.

        "I was going to say you," Jonah corrected her as he fussed with his cigar.  "The offer's on the table."

        She smiled slightly at his compliment.  "I'll consider it."  It didn't seem like the best of solutions, but it was better than nothing.

***

        "You want to know who that guy was?"  Ariel sat sedately at the table and looked coldly at her sister.  Celeste had spent the last half-hour yelling at her after a cop brought her home.  Shrugging, Ariel admitted, "He's my lover."  In exchange for sex, Eric would give her drugs.

        Celeste blanched and felt Emma's invited influence in her mind, calming her down.  Ariel was fifteen, and it wasn't unusual for fifteen-year- old girls to be having sex.  "Did you use protection?"  The words came out of Celeste's mouth, but she couldn't say where they came from.  She looked at her sister, feeling a wash of anger, bitterness, and fear come over her.  Her sister was playing a deadly game.

        Again, Ariel shrugged.  "I didn't with my first, why should I with him?" It might be a good idea but it detracted from the fun.

        "How could you be so dumb?"  The words spilled out as Emma quickly made a note to have the girl tested for STDs.  "Don't you know what could happen?"

        "At least I deliver what I promise!"  Ariel looked her sister straight in the eyes and watched as the woman crumbled inside.  Celeste had been a tease as a teenager.

        The day had tested every reserve source of strength Celeste had. The not-too-veiled reference to her rape threw her beyond her limits.  It took a second for Emma to rein in Celeste as she lashed out, this time not with the words that had proven to be ineffective.
 

***

        Rahne sighed, crumbled up the piece of paper that she had been working on, frustrated in her attempt to capture the story in her head on paper.  Silently she cursed Samuel Guthrie.  If he hadn't of dusted off her old stories and loved the Alyastra stories she wrote and a young teenager, she wouldn't have rewrote them. Sam then sent them off to an agent, who then pitched them to a publisher, who wanted a series of stories aimed at first-to-third grade girls.  So it was Sam's fault that she had been sitting up half the night trying to work on the next story, which meant getting around a nasty case of writer's blah.  Tossing the
piece of paper into the trash, she started again.

        Sam smiled as he watched his girlfriend.  It was so wonderful to see her going after her dream of being a writer, even if it meant a lot of hard work. Experience had taught him that there wasn't much that his Rahney gal couldn't do when she set her heart after something.  It also gave her a break from her Legacy research so it didn't become the central part of her life.  And it was nice to know that he had encouraged her to follow her childhood dream.  Rahne finally looked up and noticed him in the doorway.  She stuck her tongue out at him before returning to work.

        Sam laughed as he went to the kitchen to get her a cup of herbal tea.  She had been writing for over eight hours and, judging from the full trash can, hadn't had much luck.  Growing up, he hadn't had that much time to be creative so he admired those who were.  Taking the time to get the wildflower honey that she liked so well, he smiled.  He couldn't understand men who were jealous of their woman's success, like Matt was of Celeste's.  To him, the best thing in the world was helping Rahne be happy and writing did that.  Loving Rahne was like listening to a good love song— very sweet, somewhat sappy, and totally additive.

        And his feelings weren't a one way street.  Rahne had spent hours doing little stuff with him, stuff that she wasn't partially interested in but that he loved.  Last weekend, they had gone to the annual meeting of the J. R. R. Tolkien Fan Club and she had even gone as far as missing the first lecture on Tolkien's influence on C. S. Lewis's writing to look around the trade floor with him.  She allowed him to share his love of Bradbury with her and had learned to like country music.  Whenever he let on that he had an outside interest in something that wasn't X related, she nurtured that with all her might, like she had done with the set of Ray Bradbury books she had given him 'just because'.

        Somehow, they were just happy to be with each other and their love for each other was as right and natural as breathing.  In a world so filled with angst, they were the bright spots of each other's life.  Sam laughed to himself as he got a handful of the cookies he had baked and froze for Rahne's visits to the mansion.  She loved them, but would only allow herself a couple a visit because they were too fatting.

        He had gotten mushy in his young age.  But, he  admitted with a sappy grin, mush earned him one of Rahne's smiles.  He understood why Pete had taught himself Unix to talk to Kitty about her lifeblood and why Warren had learned the difference between an A-line dress and empire waist dress

        After warming the cookies up in the microwave, he set them on the tray with Rahne's tea.  Someday he hoped Celeste would find a guy who could love her like he loved Rahne.  And then he paused, reflectively.  That was the second time he had thought of one of his close friends in as many minutes.  He had good instincts, and something told him he needed to pray for his friend.

        He picked up the tray as he said a quick prayer. Then, he stared to walk back into the den hoping to get Rahne to relax enough to go to sleep.  Her writer's block would be lessened after a nap.  If that didn't help, he had a surprise up his sleeve that was sure to get Rahne's creative juices flowing.  He sat down the tray for a brief second and went outside to Storm's garden and carefully cut a rose off one of the bushes.  Storm always complained with a cheerful smile when someone did that to one of her plants.  Given the current state of bliss inhabiting the mansion, she had expanded her rose garden, planting a rainbow of colors.  She operated on the honor system, so that who ever took a rose would later work in her garden.  It had turned out to be a win-win situation, no matter how much the guys had grumbled at first.

        After finding a vase, Sam arranged the treat on a tray.  Life was so good when people where in love.  He walked into the den and set the tray down in front of Rahne, who was on the phone.  Seeing the troubled look in her eyes, he mouthed "What's wrong?"

        Rahne quickly wrote something down on a sheet of paper, "Ariel arrested" and then underlined, "Celeste hit her" as she continued to try to soothe her friend, her accent thickened by the sudden stress.  "It's okay," Rahne promised.  "Ariel's nae in jail now and A'm sure Hank or Mummy will look her over to make sure she donnea have anything."  Sam looked questioning at the last remark but Rahne shook her head.  "Sam's here, do ye want me tae fill him in or just tae put ye on speaker phone or tell him tae go away?"

        Celeste gave her permission to turn on the speakerphone and continued, "What if she's pregnant?"  Sam quickly summarized the situation as she talked.  "I know it's hard to be a teen mom, and I can't raise the kid!"
 
        Rahne blanched at the reference to Nina, Celeste's daughter whom she had sold.  "Things can be different, ye know..." Sam shook his head no, he knew from Elizabeth's experience that being a teenage mom was a dead-end street.  "Any ways ye puttin' the cart before the horse."

        "I can't believe I hit her!"  Celeste sobbed again.  "All I could think about was what a mess she's making of her life and I-I lost it."   Her voice had a wild sound to it, as if she was losing control.

        Rahne's keen sense of hearing detected the roar of a motorcycle pulling up outside Celeste's house.  "Tony's there.  Can he come in or do you need to unlock the door?"  Gently prodding, she anchored her friend to reality.  As Celeste went to open the door, Rahne turned to Sam and explained.  "Celeste sent Ariel to the school while she calmed down."

        "She's really upset."  Sam stated redundantly.  Even when he had walked in on one of Celeste's rape flashbacks, she had never sounded so upset, so close to losing it.  Rahne grimly nodded.

        "A'm glad Tony's there." Rahne said with a slight smile.  "He looks out for Celeste."  In as much as she and Celeste were like sisters, Tony and Celeste were best friends.

        Sam absentmindedly nodded his head.  "Matt not there?"  Matt could control Ariel, but at a deep price to Celeste.

        Rahne shook her head no.  "He's in Canada this week."  Privately, she hoped he would freeze to death.  To think of how he treated her friend made her mad.

        "Cripes," Sam muttered as he wrapped his arms around her.  "Part of me wants to say Ariel didn't deserve ta be hit.  The other part says she should have been a long time ago."  He rested his head on the top of his girlfriend's head. Rahne nodded as Sam added, "Ah can't imagine havin' ta raise muh family."

        It had almost been a real possibility, Rahne knew.  Sam had offered to leave the New Mutants to help straighten his younger brother out.  "A'm glad ye didn't."

           "Ah'm glad too, furtop."  He might be an excellent big brother but, he knew that at this point in his life, he didn't have the strength to raise a family. It took a lot to deal with the things teenagers went though.   Josh was still working towards going to Nashville.  Oliver didn't socialize well with his peers.  Joelle didn't fit in with her classmates at
college.  Lizzy, had a baby and was married.  The twins were just now becoming preteens.

        "A had an idea," Rahne started carefully.  She and Sam had had a hard time celebrating their anniversary.  For some strange reason, Sinister would attack on that day, or she would have to leave for Shi'ar space.   "We've got an anniversary comin' up and Celeste did get us the tickets tae the show.  Mebbe we should get her away from the school for a night."

        "Do ya think we'd be helpful?"  Sam asked carefully.

        "Aye," Rahne responded.

        "Jist seems ta me that we've been goin' in this circle with her so a long time."  Sam sat down next to Rahne and ran his hand through his hair, subconsciously letting her know that he was torn.  "Her sister gets inta trouble --jist after Celeste manages to put some space between herself and Matt– Celeste calls one of us for moral support and we comfort her.  She tries ta reach out to Ariel, she does something worse, ya get a call and comfort her, and Celeste calls Matt ta help and he comes arunnin' and Celeste keeps him around for a couple of weeks.
Then she puts some space between them and the cycle continues."

        Rahne closed her eyes and nodded, seeing the cycle.  "Ye know, for a smart lass, she makes some foolish mistakes."  Picking up her pencil, she started to tap it on the table.  "Think if we butt out, the cycle might be broken?  That Celeste might choose another way tae handle her sister?"

        "She might if we do nothin' but that our style..." Sam took a sip out of Rahne's soft drink as he thought carefully.  "We might be able to help her more if we're with her for a couple of weeks, jist long enough for one of these cycles play out."

        Rahne grabbed her can of Jolt away from Sam and drank it in one gulp.  "But why do we go over tae the school?"  She shot him an accusing glance as she picked her plate up and set it away from him.

        "We visit Bit while she's guest lecturing for Emma."   Li'l Bit Walton was a rising country music artist as well as Sam's and Paige's friend.  She had agreed to take a break from her tour to help improve Paige and her classmates' music appreciation.  "And Ah still take you ta muh surprise this weekend..."

        Momentarily distracted from her friend's problems, Rahne took Sam's bait.  "What surprise?"

        "It wouldn't be a surprise if ya knew it, now would it?"  Sam snagged a cookie off of Rahne's plate, which earned him a slap.  "Besides, Ah've planned long and hard for this and Ah'm not goin' ta ruin it, like Ah've done the last four times."

        "Five but who's countin'?"  Rahne reminded him.  He had a way of telegraphing his romantic plans that was so endearing.  "And why am Ah comin' along with ye?"  Celeste wouldn't take pity from anybody.

        Sam thought about that for a second.  "Don't think Celeste would buy that ya jist didn't want ta be away from your Pooh bear for one second, would she?"  Rahne rolled her eyes at the nickname.

        Rahne debated it for a second before coming to a reasonable solution.  "She'll think A'm there for her, and she'll be right.  And she'll think that A'm there because of ye, and she'll be right.  But A'll be so busy tryin' ta push her and Tony together, she won't really think of anything else."  Rahne knew how to play her friend just like one sister knew another sister's buttons.

        "Still on that kick 'bout her and Tony meant ta be?"  Sam snorted in disbelieve.  Tony had started out as scum in his book, and only after helping safe Paige had he been promoted to the same level as the annoying person at the movies that talked during the whole film.

        Rahne giggled as she pulled out a couple of sheets of paper.  "Even wrote them inta muh stories.  Princess Jasmine and Pirate Dylan."  She showed Sam her story outline.

        "Rahney, has anybody ever told ya that ya were too romantic for yer own good?"  Sam asked as he pulled her into his lap.

        Rahne disagreed as she positioned herself in his arms.  "A'm verry, verry practical...  A ken the moment A saw ye that ye were the one for me and A ken the moment that A saw Kitty and Pete together that they were meant tae be, and A just ken that Tony and Celeste are a perfect match...."  The rest of what she was going to say was lost as Sam pressed his lips to hers.
 

***

        Rahne sighed, crumbled up the piece of paper that she had been working on, frustrated in her attempt to capture the story in her head on paper.  Silently she cursed Samuel Guthrie.  If he hadn't of dusted off her old stories and loved the Alyastra stories she wrote and a young teenager, she wouldn't have rewrote them. Sam then sent them off to an agent, who then pitched them to a publisher, who wanted a series of stories aimed at first-to-third grade girls.  So it was Sam's fault that she had been sitting up half the night trying to work on the next story, which meant getting around a nasty case of writer's blah.  Tossing the
piece of paper into the trash, she started again.

        Sam smiled as he watched his girlfriend.  It was so wonderful to see her going after her dream of being a writer, even if it meant a lot of hard work. Experience had taught him that there wasn't much that his Rahney gal couldn't do when she set her heart after something.  It also gave her a break from her Legacy research so it didn't become the central part of her life.  And it was nice to know that he had encouraged her to follow her childhood dream.  Rahne finally looked up and noticed him in the doorway.  She stuck her tongue out at him before returning to work.

        Sam laughed as he went to the kitchen to get her a cup of herbal tea.  She had been writing for over eight hours and, judging from the full trash can, hadn't had much luck.  Growing up, he hadn't had that much time to be creative so he admired those who were.  Taking the time to get the wildflower honey that she liked so well, he smiled.  He couldn't understand men who were jealous of their woman's success, like Matt was of Celeste's.  To him, the best thing in the world was helping Rahne be happy and writing did that.  Loving Rahne was like listening to a good love song— very sweet, somewhat sappy, and totally additive.

        And his feelings weren't a one way street.  Rahne had spent hours doing little stuff with him, stuff that she wasn't partially interested in but that he loved.  Last weekend, they had gone to the annual meeting of the J. R. R. Tolkien Fan Club and she had even gone as far as missing the first lecture on Tolkien's influence on C. S. Lewis's writing to look around the trade floor with him.  She allowed him to share his love of Bradbury with her and had learned to like country music.  Whenever he let on that he had an outside interest in something that wasn't X related, she nurtured that with all her might, like she had done with the set of Ray Bradbury books she had given him 'just because'.

        Somehow, they were just happy to be with each other and their love for each other was as right and natural as breathing.  In a world so filled with angst, they were the bright spots of each other's life.  Sam laughed to himself as he got a handful of the cookies he had baked and froze for Rahne's visits to the mansion.  She loved them, but would only allow herself a couple a visit because they were too fatting.

        He had gotten mushy in his young age.  But, he  admitted with a sappy grin, mush earned him one of Rahne's smiles.  He understood why Pete had taught himself Unix to talk to Kitty about her lifeblood and why Warren had learned the difference between an A-line dress and empire waist dress

        After warming the cookies up in the microwave, he set them on the tray with Rahne's tea.  Someday he hoped Celeste would find a guy who could love her like he loved Rahne.  And then he paused, reflectively.  That was the second time he had thought of one of his close friends in as many minutes.  He had good instincts, and something told him he needed to pray for his friend.

        He picked up the tray as he said a quick prayer. Then, he stared to walk back into the den hoping to get Rahne to relax enough to go to sleep.  Her writer's block would be lessened after a nap.  If that didn't help, he had a surprise up his sleeve that was sure to get Rahne's creative juices flowing.  He sat down the tray for a brief second and went outside to Storm's garden and carefully cut a rose off one of the bushes.  Storm always complained with a cheerful smile when someone did that to one of her plants.  Given the current state of bliss inhabiting the mansion, she had expanded her rose garden, planting a rainbow of colors.  She operated on the honor system, so that who ever took a rose would later work in her garden.  It had turned out to be a win-win situation, no matter how much the guys had grumbled at first.

        After finding a vase, Sam arranged the treat on a tray.  Life was so good when people where in love.  He walked into the den and set the tray down in front of Rahne, who was on the phone.  Seeing the troubled look in her eyes, he mouthed "What's wrong?"

        Rahne quickly wrote something down on a sheet of paper, "Ariel arrested" and then underlined, "Celeste hit her" as she continued to try to soothe her friend, her accent thickened by the sudden stress.  "It's okay," Rahne promised.  "Ariel's nae in jail now and A'm sure Hank or Mummy will look her over to make sure she donnea have anything."  Sam looked questioning at the last remark but Rahne shook her head.  "Sam's here, do ye want me tae fill him in or just tae put ye on speaker phone or tell him tae go away?"

        Celeste gave her permission to turn on the speakerphone and continued, "What if she's pregnant?"  Sam quickly summarized the situation as she talked.  "I know it's hard to be a teen mom, and I can't raise the kid!"
 
        Rahne blanched at the reference to Nina, Celeste's daughter whom she had sold.  "Things can be different, ye know..." Sam shook his head no, he knew from Elizabeth's experience that being a teenage mom was a dead-end street.  "Any ways ye puttin' the cart before the horse."

        "I can't believe I hit her!"  Celeste sobbed again.  "All I could think about was what a mess she's making of her life and I-I lost it."   Her voice had a wild sound to it, as if she was losing control.

        Rahne's keen sense of hearing detected the roar of a motorcycle pulling up outside Celeste's house.  "Tony's there.  Can he come in or do you need to unlock the door?"  Gently prodding, she anchored her friend to reality.  As Celeste went to open the door, Rahne turned to Sam and explained.  "Celeste sent Ariel to the school while she calmed down."

        "She's really upset."  Sam stated redundantly.  Even when he had walked in on one of Celeste's rape flashbacks, she had never sounded so upset, so close to losing it.  Rahne grimly nodded.

        "A'm glad Tony's there." Rahne said with a slight smile.  "He looks out for Celeste."  In as much as she and Celeste were like sisters, Tony and Celeste were best friends.

        Sam absentmindedly nodded his head.  "Matt not there?"  Matt could control Ariel, but at a deep price to Celeste.

        Rahne shook her head no.  "He's in Canada this week."  Privately, she hoped he would freeze to death.  To think of how he treated her friend made her mad.

        "Cripes," Sam muttered as he wrapped his arms around her.  "Part of me wants to say Ariel didn't deserve ta be hit.  The other part says she should have been a long time ago."  He rested his head on the top of his girlfriend's head. Rahne nodded as Sam added, "Ah can't imagine havin' ta raise muh family."

        It had almost been a real possibility, Rahne knew.  Sam had offered to leave the New Mutants to help straighten his younger brother out.  "A'm glad ye didn't."

           "Ah'm glad too, furtop."  He might be an excellent big brother but, he knew that at this point in his life, he didn't have the strength to raise a family. It took a lot to deal with the things teenagers went though.   Josh was still working towards going to Nashville.  Oliver didn't socialize well with his peers.  Joelle didn't fit in with her classmates at
college.  Lizzy, had a baby and was married.  The twins were just now becoming preteens.

        "A had an idea," Rahne started carefully.  She and Sam had had a hard time celebrating their anniversary.  For some strange reason, Sinister would attack on that day, or she would have to leave for Shi'ar space.   "We've got an anniversary comin' up and Celeste did get us the tickets tae the show.  Mebbe we should get her away from the school for a night."

        "Do ya think we'd be helpful?"  Sam asked carefully.

        "Aye," Rahne responded.

        "Jist seems ta me that we've been goin' in this circle with her so a long time."  Sam sat down next to Rahne and ran his hand through his hair, subconsciously letting her know that he was torn.  "Her sister gets inta trouble --jist after Celeste manages to put some space between herself and Matt– Celeste calls one of us for moral support and we comfort her.  She tries ta reach out to Ariel, she does something worse, ya get a call and comfort her, and Celeste calls Matt ta help and he comes arunnin' and Celeste keeps him around for a couple of weeks.
Then she puts some space between them and the cycle continues."

        Rahne closed her eyes and nodded, seeing the cycle.  "Ye know, for a smart lass, she makes some foolish mistakes."  Picking up her pencil, she started to tap it on the table.  "Think if we butt out, the cycle might be broken?  That Celeste might choose another way tae handle her sister?"

        "She might if we do nothin' but that our style..." Sam took a sip out of Rahne's soft drink as he thought carefully.  "We might be able to help her more if we're with her for a couple of weeks, jist long enough for one of these cycles play out."

        Rahne grabbed her can of Jolt away from Sam and drank it in one gulp.  "But why do we go over tae the school?"  She shot him an accusing glance as she picked her plate up and set it away from him.

        "We visit Bit while she's guest lecturing for Emma."   Li'l Bit Walton was a rising country music artist as well as Sam's and Paige's friend.  She had agreed to take a break from her tour to help improve Paige and her classmates' music appreciation.  "And Ah still take you ta muh surprise this weekend..."

        Momentarily distracted from her friend's problems, Rahne took Sam's bait.  "What surprise?"

        "It wouldn't be a surprise if ya knew it, now would it?"  Sam snagged a cookie off of Rahne's plate, which earned him a slap.  "Besides, Ah've planned long and hard for this and Ah'm not goin' ta ruin it, like Ah've done the last four times."

        "Five but who's countin'?"  Rahne reminded him.  He had a way of telegraphing his romantic plans that was so endearing.  "And why am Ah comin' along with ye?"  Celeste wouldn't take pity from anybody.

        Sam thought about that for a second.  "Don't think Celeste would buy that ya jist didn't want ta be away from your Pooh bear for one second, would she?"  Rahne rolled her eyes at the nickname.

        Rahne debated it for a second before coming to a reasonable solution.  "She'll think A'm there for her, and she'll be right.  And she'll think that A'm there because of ye, and she'll be right.  But A'll be so busy tryin' ta push her and Tony together, she won't really think of anything else."  Rahne knew how to play her friend just like one sister knew another sister's buttons.

        "Still on that kick 'bout her and Tony meant ta be?"  Sam snorted in disbelieve.  Tony had started out as scum in his book, and only after helping safe Paige had he been promoted to the same level as the annoying person at the movies that talked during the whole film.

        Rahne giggled as she pulled out a couple of sheets of paper.  "Even wrote them inta muh stories.  Princess Jasmine and Pirate Dylan."  She showed Sam her story outline.

        "Rahney, has anybody ever told ya that ya were too romantic for yer own good?"  Sam asked as he pulled her into his lap.

        Rahne disagreed as she positioned herself in his arms.  "A'm verry, verry practical...  A ken the moment A saw ye that ye were the one for me and A ken the moment that A saw Kitty and Pete together that they were meant tae be, and A just ken that Tony and Celeste are a perfect match...."  The rest of what she was going to say was lost as Sam pressed his lips to hers.
 

***

        "Why do people not see what's as plain as the nose on their face?"  Jubilee asked as she walked out of the breakfast room.  Ariel had been missing this morning, and Jubilee knew she had to have gotten into some more trouble.

        Ev wrapped a comforting arm around her as they walked down the hall.  "What now?" he asked as he guided her towards the study room.

        "I'm talking about the blindness that goes on around her these day," Jubilee started to explain herself.  "Sam's in and out of here lately but he doesn't see how much like Emma Paige has become.  Celeste is as blind as a bat– her sister is lush and she's managed to convince herself to stay with her emotionally and verbally abusive boyfriend.  Tony's just as much in love with Celeste as she is with him.  Emma loves Bobby, who loves her.  Sean loves Moira so much and knows he doesn't have much time but won't pop the question.  And on top of that..." she sat down as she continued, "Jono?  That's an accident waiting to happen."  She handed him the drawings she had done, which had prompted the insights.

        Every time that Jubilee showed him some of her artwork, Ev felt a little uneasy.  Not so much that he'd have to lie and say that they were good, but he couldn't comment anymore than that.  He didn't have an artist soul, finding art good for adding color to a room, but not the great source of enjoyment and frustration that Jubilee did.  "What are these?" he asked as he looked at the portfolio.

        "An assignment that Stuart gave me," Jubilee explained.  "How I really see my friends."  During a discussion about perception, her art teacher had had her draw her friends as she really saw act and behave.  Penny was hidden in a tree, watching over Artie, Leech, and Franklin as Sean told them a story.  Jono, covered in shadows, was lying on his bed turned away from the light in his door.  Monet was dressed in a Channel original and a baseball cap, engrossed in her science experiment.  Angelo, gun to one side, was busy working on the computer.  Emma was standing in a doorway, poised as if trying to decide which way to turn, a dark and painful garden to one side of her, a happier, more peaceful scene, with Bobby holding out his hand to her.  Paige was wearing a flannel top and blue jeans in another picture, a traditional farm girl if the traditional farm girl took clothing advice from Madonna.

        "Where are the other pictures?"  Ev asked, curious to see how Jubilee saw her boyfriend.

        "Those are more thumbnail than anything else," Jubilee explained as she pulled out the pieces of paper in her folder.  "I'm having a harder time getting the picture in my mind to go onto paper."  She thumbed though the papers to find a picture of an elephant sitting in the corner, drinking from a bottle while the everybody who lived on the campus had their back turned to it, going about their daily business.  Something in the eyes of the elephant made Everett think of Ariel.  It was a very powerful drawing.

        "You really see us like this with Ariel?"  Ev asked as he spotted himself in a game of spades with Jubilee, Angelo, and Paige.  Jono and Monet were in the corner playing pool, while their teachers were going over lesson plans.  Celeste was sitting with her back turned towards her sister, files and reports flung across the couch.  The only person who was even acknowledging the Elephant's presence was Tony, who saw her in the mirror as he looked at the computer screen in Celeste's lap.

        "I do," Jubilee agreed.  "No one wants to say that she has a problem or do anything about it because they don't want to be troubled with her or she's pushed them away."  Jubilee took the piece of paper and straightened a small wrinkle out of a corner.  "It's not what Stuart told me to do, but I kind of like it. I'm thinking of doing this for a painting, changing our faces and all and entering it in an art contest."

        "It might have a good chance of winning," Ev offered as he looked at the elephant.  It was a very thought-provoking picture.  "Or you could do that picture of Emma.  I like it too.  Makes me wonder which way she'll go, you know.  Back into the pain or towards Bobby."

        Jubilee nodded as she pulled that picture out.  "Stuart liked that one too."  She quickly thumbed past the picture of the school nurse, groundskeeper, and housekeeper.  "But he told me not to work on these so that the could stay safe and all."  The three were in the Government Witness Protection Program, and worked at the school because of the high level of security.

        "Are there anymore pictures?"  Everett asked, curious to see how his girlfriend saw him.  Jubilee handed him another sketch, this one of Celeste in robe getting ready to get clothed.  Her choices were a Donna Reed type dress, a business suit, or a elegant evening gown.  "Everything she does is an act, huh?" he asked as he saw the star reflected in the mirror.

        "Not quite," Jubilee explained.  "Everything she does is part of her, as if she changed clothes constantly."  She slipped the thumbnail back into folder.

        "No picture of Tony?"  Everett hinted.

        Jubilee shook her head.  "He's not my friend."

        "Where's my picture?" he pried carefully.

        "Yours was hard," Jubilee explained, holding the last picture back.  "I thought about you so much while doing this one and...." Nervously, she handed him the last one.

        "Ohh...."  It was a fantastic drawing, he thought.  He was knelt down on eye level with a small child, petting a kitten the child was holding.  Something about the child suggested that she was scared, and he was trying to comfort her.  "That's what you see me like?"
 
        Jubilee nodded.  "I really think you should be a teacher.  You have a gift for loving children."

        They walked into their first class talking about their future.  Taking their usual seats, they again noticed that Ariel was missing.  "What's going on?"  Angelo asked.  Between the missing student and the
missing teacher, something was up.

**

        What was up was the emergency meeting between the headmasters in Sean's office.  Emma groaned as she looked around the room, a cross between a masculine den and pool hall.  Sean had hung a fish over his desk, sports posters around the room, set up his computer to play Dixie land jazz at all times.  A neon shamrock and a basketball hoop over the trash can completed the look.

        Mentally, Emma started to list how she would change it.  First of all, she would make him find out the color of veneer under the paperwork on his desk.  While he was at it, the whole place could use cleaning.  Secondly, she would add a few plants, change the music, add more lighting, and install a ventilation system to hide his nasty pipe smell.  Finally, she would add more pictures of his daughter  and his friends.  Actually, with his birthday coming up, she and Bobby could make a few of the less intrusive changes quite easily.
 
        Sean sipped his coffee while listening to Emma talk about the damage to her beloved classic Mustang convertible, Cleo.  "Plus the 600 for the windshield.  Ariel managed to run up a five thousand dollar repair bill last night."

        "It's going to take her a long time to work off what she owes you," he agreed.   "We better start assigning her work."

        "I'm not so sure that she should work it off here," Emma disagreed as she sipped her hot chocolate.  "If it were any of the other students, I'd say give them distasteful tasks until they learned their lesson, but Ariel's done all of them—dishes, composting, cleaning the gutters, maintaining the biosphere.  I don't think giving her work is the right thing to do."

        "But the lass owes you th' money," Sean protested.

        "Insurance will cover all but a hundred dollars," Emma reminded him.  "The real question is what is the appropriate punishment for Ariel."

        "Paul and I talked about it this morning at O'Leary's—"

        "It reopened?  I've been pining for a chocolate crème donut for weeks now."  The donut shop/coffee shop was where the police hung out after hours.  The owner, who had learned to cook from his chocoholic girlfriend, offered the finest in comfort foods, ranging from cookies, fudge and cheesecake to the only hot chocolate Emma would drink that wasn't her secret recipe.

        "Monday, and my friends are tryin' to convince him to cut back on the chocolate so we can have a place to hang out."   Sean continued with what he was trying to say, "He feels that Ariel needs more help than we can give her here."

        Considering that this was the man who had arrested Ariel last night and found her when she ran away a couple of weeks ago, Emma knew Sean gave the man's opinion some credit.  "I honestly don't think that this is the right environment for her," she concurred with the officer.  "Not that Celeste hasn't tried her hardest to reach her sister, or that we haven't spent time with her, but, she's not showing signs of improving."

        Sean sighed and looked at the picture of his daughter.  "I hate to give up on a kid," he admitted.  "She runs with a bad crowd, has no self respect and...."  He paused, hating how he would finish the sentence. Somewhere, deeply buried under trashy clothes, too much make-up and rotten attitude, was the same sweet, smart and strong teenager he had met last year.

        "Reminds you of the kids you used to arrest when you walked the beat?"  Emma prompted.

        "Aye, she does."  Sean took a sip of his coffee and sighed.  "And the sad thing is it's her choice but Celeste will hold herself so responsible....  Maybe we should keep Ariel here to save her sister some grief."

        Emma shook her head.  "Celeste is Ariel's enabler.  She lets her get away with everything and tries to shield her from the most serious ramifications.  Not that I blame her, but its time to open her eyes."

        "But Ariel's not influencing the other students." Sean took up for the girl.

        "And if she were to influence Angelo or Jubilee to return to their more wild days, then what?"  Emma picked her cup and held it in the careful, pinkies up way she had been taught to do as a child.  "Need I remind you how they lived?"
 
        Jubilee had a juvenile record and was a run away.  Angelo was a former, and hopefully reformed gangbanger.  Sean sighed, and tried to think about them as he nodded.  In Ariel's defense, he added, "She hadn't influenced them yet."

        Emma sat down her empty mug and coolly revealed what she had discovered last week.  "Jono is stimulating the pleasure centers in Ariel's mind... in effect giving her orgasms."  By her definition, it was the safest kind of sex so she didn't say a word to the teenagers.   Sean had been by Moira's bedside because she had taken a turn for the worse.  Rather than bother him, Emma had decided to wait.

        The news caught Sean at just the right time, mid sip.  The combination of shock, horror and humor caused the hot liquid to dribble down his front as his mouth was hanging open.  The burning liquid hit his chest and distracted him, causing him to drop his cup into his lap.  Standing and cursing, Sean realized that the woman that had sued McDonald's had a case after all.  "That's a new way to use his powers... It could be argued that she's helping him out of his depression,"
he offered when he was able to speak English instead of the Gaelic he used to cuss in.

        "More likely dragging him deeper—need I remind you of his recent batch of grades?"  Emma had been so worried about his grades that when Li'l Bit Walton, a country music singer, had offered to teach a class on music appreciation, she had gladly accepted the offer.  Emma, a devoted Barbara Streisand fan, saw country music as hick, hill-billy music.

        "True."  Sean sighed but offered Emma another choice.  "How about we keep her here until we find a better place for her to go?"

        Emma sighed and agreed to his plan, knowing this was in the best interest of both Ariel and Celeste.  However, there was one favor she needed to ask of her co-headmaster, "Can you tell Celeste when the time is right?"

        Sean nodded, knowing that she was trying to save her friendship with the other woman.  "I'll do that as soon as you find the right school."  A bargain was struck and sealed with a handshake.

**

        Jubilee waited for her teacher for twenty minutes and then, deciding that Ms. Frost had wasted enough of her time, decided to search for Ariel. It wasn't that hard to do, really.  Jubilee found her locked in her room, as was the case when Ariel had gotten in enough trouble to really be punished.

       The lock was complicated, thanks to Emma's head of security. However, it wasn't O'Leary triple chocolate cheesecake proof. After Tony dared Gambit to break out of the containment room, Jubilee waited until the right time of the month to offer to mail Gambit a cheesecake. And Gambit, knowing that Rogue was going to tear off his heads, agreed. Tapping in the combination, she managed to open the door.

        Ariel looked up from where she was sprawled on the bed "Coming to gloat about how you remained out of trouble?" she smirked, remembering the fun time she and Brad had had the night before. "Or to hear the details?"

        Every time Jubilee looked at her former friend lately, she felt like crying inside. How did someone just decide to turn out like Ariel had? The first feeling fled like it always did and Jubilee wanted to slap her friend. How could anybody do what Ariel was doing to herself? Then, as always, Jubilee remembered that she couldn't live anybody's life but her own, and the mistakes Ariel was making would haunt her some time in her life. The only thing she could do was be a friend to the girl who once was her friend. "I want to hear your side of it."

        Ariel laughed, and Jubilee saw a red mark about the shape of a hand on her cheek. "Who hit you?"

        Again, Ariel laughed. "Celeste. you know she thinks she so hot but." Ariel sat up and motioned for Jubilee to lean in closer. "I've slept with Matt before, you know that? He was my first."

        Jubilee was instantly riled because of the fifteen-year age difference between the two. But, remembering that Ariel would say anything to get a reaction, Jubilee calmed herself down "When did this happen?"

        "A couple of months ago," Ariel started to tell her tale of being drunk and staying over at Matt's apartment while claiming to be a friend's house. Halfway through the night, she had kissed him. To her it was meaningless but he had taken beyond the friendly peck. Intrigued, she started with light petting, which had graduated into heavier petting. What had happened after that seemed to Jubilee to be less than rape but more than Ariel had wanted. Still, the teenager was bragging about it. "And Celeste hasn't done anything like that with him!" Ariel gloated.

        There was a reason things like that were called statuary rape. Mentally, Jubilee counted back and realized that the time period was about the time that Ariel had really started to self-distract. A few puffs revealed Jubilee's anger and she dearly wished that the man was in front of her so she could do a castration by fireworks.

        Knowing that she would have to tell someone she trusted this piece of information, Jubilee tried to drag more out of the other girl. "So have you two done it again?"

        Ariel shook her head, "He said he let things get out of control and that he wasn't going to let things happen like that again. But it was good sex, you know?" After a pause, she added cattily, "No you don't, do you?"

        Filing the piece of info away, Jubilee offered the girl the meal she had smuggled in and left.