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‘ ’ indicates thought
“ ” indicates spoken words

“Oh dearest one, how do I love thee, let me count the ways,” her sweet voice crooned for her lover.

“I love everything about you.”

“I love the way you feel in my hands. I love your skin, so smooth and glowing. I love the angles and curves of your heavenly body. I love….”

“Hey,” a voice interrupted her serenade.

“Hmmph,” she shrugged it off. “I love the way you….the way you….”

“HEY,” the other voice was louder, closer, the second time. “Stop tahking lahke thaht. Its freaking meh out.”

“Buzz off skunky,” she drew her yellow overcoat around her lover. “You talk about your Gumball of love….I’ll talk about mine. He is free and so am I. We are ready to cruise the mall to our hearts extent….or five hundred dollars, which ever comes first.”

----

“Logan is correct,” the southern belle tugged on her gloves and headed for the door. “Yer loony.”

“He’s one to talk,” she muttered under her breath, her mischievous eyes keeping track of her friend’s movements.

And, sure enough, “Whaht did ya say?” she took the bait.

“Psyche,” she chuckled at yet another successful riling of the usually demure Rogue. “You know I was just kidding. By the way, what’s with the whole kitchen-caboodle *do* – perfume, new gloves, new scarf. Where is her highness Roguie off to?”

“Uh,” pale cheeks blushed pink. “Remy asked me out foh dinner.”

“Wow,” she deliberately made an effort to sound sarcastic, internally happy for her friend. “Whose pocket did he pick to get the money….or are YOU footing the bill?”

Opening her mouth to shoot off at the accusation Rogue stopped herself in the nick of time. “Whaht are ya up to?” She narrowed her eyes. “First, Logan and now, Remy. What’s yoh gama Yel….HEY.”

Just then, the third of their triad entered through the door, her phased body sticking out from her roommate’s midsection.

----

“Hey half-pint,” Rogue growled, as she gestured to the odd setup. “Do yah mind? Yer in my personal space heah.”

“Sorry Rogue,” Kitty *Sprite-nee-Shadowcat* Pryde apologized as she stepped out of Rogue’s body and flung her shoulder-bag onto her bed, cursing mildly as it opened and the contents slid out of it, one of them going as far as her side-table and knocking her alarm clock off its perch and onto to the ground.

“You guys won’t believe what I just saw,” Kitty caught hold of Rogue’s gloved hand and pulled her away from the door.

“What did you see Kitty?” the yellow garbed, Jubilee Lee, inquired from her window-side perch. “Did you see Peter exercising in the gym in his underoos?”

“WHAT?” Kitty jumped off the bed. “Really? You mean right now?”

“Calm down Kit-Kat,” Rogue pushed her back onto the springy mattress. “She’s just yankin’ yer chain. She has a *date* coming up.”

“Oh, that,” Kitty slapped her forehead. “When will you improve Jubes? You DO know this kind of behavior borders on the clinically insane line. Don’t you?”

“You are one to talk,” she got a frown for her words. “At least I am not like the both of you. One mooning over a heavy perfumed-no bath-cigarette toking-Cajun. And the other, too shy to even say a proper sentence to her self-proclaimed *beloved*, let alone kiss him.”

“HEY,” she got a warning cry from both corners, along with some heavy duty glaring, which she shrugged off with an ease that would make Wolverine proud.

“Yeah, yeah. I know,” she swatted her hand at them. “No bad-mouthing your love bunnies. So what did you see O’ shadowed one.”

“Hmph,” Kitty crossed her arms. “Why should I even tell you?”

“Then don’t,” she replied easily, knowing by experience that it would get the trick done.

She knew it because if there is something Jubilee Lee did a lot and did well, was observe people and know their personal pinch points….and with Kitty it was a penchant for gossiping that rivaled her own, although frankly speaking, Kitty only gossiped with her and Rogue.

“Ok, if you are asking so nicely, I will tell,” Kitty construed her words to fit her own. “But no ragging on Peter, huh.”

“You got it Kitster,” she replied, her fingers crossed in her coat pocket.

-----

“I saw Logan and Ms. Monroe,” Kitty rattled off breathlessly.

“Saw?” Jubilee scratched her head. “I also saw them today. What’s new about that?”

“I SAW them…” Kitty repeated, stressing on the *saw*. “They were together.”

“Yeah, so?” Rogue cut in, trying to maintain her oblivious routine. Internally, she was ready to do cartwheels. If she had guessed Kitty’s expressions correctly, that would mean that something major was either happening or going to happen in the Logan-Ororo dynamic.

That single thought both excited as well as scared her.

“Together?” Jubilee asked again, narrowing her eyes at an excited Kitty. “Spill it short-stuff.”

“Short-stuff!!,” Kitty’s eyes widened in surprise. “You are the one who is just barely five feet and its *ME* who is the short stuff, you….you…you….”

“Forget it Kitty,” Rogue grinned at her roommate’s *glibness*. “Yah are nevah going tah be able tah talk down Jubilee, even if she is just a quarter compared tah yer half-pint. Tell us whaht yah saw.”

----

“Oh, that,” the gossip got preference over *original* name-calling, a pastime in which Jubilee always came out a winner. “They were together…..”

“Yeah so? What’s the big deal with that?” Jubilee started. “They work together, are teammates….”

“….Holding hands.”

“Holding….hands,” Rogue balked as she repeated Kitty’s words.

“Where? When? How? Did you see it yourself?” Jubilee fired off her salvo of question. “Spill it Kits or so help me god, I will give you a wedgie you won’t forget for the rest of your life.”

“Ok, ok,” Kitty shrunk back in her bed. “They were in the danger room….in front of the changing rooms…..he had been waiting for her to change…..and *yes*, I saw it myself.”

“Was either of them saying anything?” Jubilee dug in further.

“I don’t know,” Kitty squeaked. “I was phasing through the roof when I saw it. I got out of there as soon as possible.”

“Good work,” Rogue commended her for her presence of mind.

“Good Work, GOOD WORK,” Jubilee asked incredulously, her voice rising in pitch and volume. “She didn’t get the whole information. He might as well have been checking her for injuries. We don’t know that, and thanks to Captain Fluffy here, we never might.”

“He was holding her hands like THIS,” Kitty jumped and snaked her arms around Rogue’s and clasped her hand tightly. “Now unless that is some new and here to undiscovered way of setting a popped shoulder or something, I can safely say they were being intimate.”

------

Both Jubilee and Rogue stared Rogue and Kitty’s hands, the room shrouded in shocked silence.

*KNOCK KNOCK*

“YYAAHHH,” all the three girls yelped out at the sudden heavy knock on the door. They knew that knock well.

“Logan,” Kitty squealed. “Do you think he heard us?”

“Marie,” the deep gravelly voice called from the other side of the wooden doors. “Open up kid. I know all of ya are in there.”

“Shit,” Jubilee cursed as she banged her head against her down pillow. “Open it Rogue. Him and his damned senses.”

“Coming sugah,” Rogue called out as Kitty leapt away from her and into the bathroom. Jubilee grabbed a book and pretended to be busy studying.

----

“I need tah talk to yah,” Rogue whispered under her breath so that only Logan could hear it.

Catching the urgency in her voice, Logan gave a silent nod and stepped away from the door, allowing her to step out of the room and close the door behind her.

“Kitty saw ya’ll today,” was all she said.

“I know,” Logan gave a lop sided grin. “Smelled her.”

“Oh,” Rogue sighed, and placed a hand on her heaving heart. “So whaht are yah goin’ tah do now?”

“Don’t worry,” Logan reached for the doorknob. “I got it all under control.”

----

“Come out half-pint,” he called to the bathroom. “And yella, leave the damn book alone. We all know how much ya like those things.”

“Oh, hey Logan,” Jubilee looked up from her *studying*. “When did you get here?”

“Just before you cried *shit*,” a dark eyebrow arched at her. “So lose it and take this, you too half-pint.”

“Wha…” Jubilee started as she let go of the book to catch the box tossed at her. “What’s this?”

“Its called a cell-phone sugar-fer-brains,” Logan scowled at her. “One each fer each one of ya. Ororo told me about Gumbo taking out Marie, so I was going to get one fer her, ‘cuz with the Cajun who knows when she might need help.”

“And you got us one for both of us also?” Kitty looked up in confused-gratitude.

“Na, I didn’t,” Logan growled at her. “Ororo did. I just paid fer them. Its some kindo time sharin’ shit. She tried explainin’ it to me, but I told her that you kids could do it fer yerself.”

At the gawking, Logan played his main card. “She got them yesterday and gave it to me today after the danger room class. I told her to give it, but she literally twisted my arm and shoved it into my hands.”

“Oh, so that was what you were….” Kitty started.

“Thanks Logan,” Rogue cut her off and Jubilee shot *glare* arrows at her.

“Yeah, whatever,” he turned and started for the door. “The institute, mine and Ororo’s number is first, second and third on the speed dial. Ya are not goin’ ta change that. Understood?”

“Sir, Yes sir,” Jubilee gave him a mock salute. “Understood sir.”

“Grrr, kids,” Logan gave a parting growl before he finally left the room.

----

“So there,” Rogue pocketed her phone and started for the door herself. “Thaht was what yah musta seen.”

“Hn,” Kitty looked lost as what she had thought would a prime piece of information, turned out to be a mini-wrestling match between the resident goddess and the resident badass. “I guess so.”

“See yah latah,” Rogue called over her shoulder. “Ah’m off tah my dinner date, with mah swamp-rat and mah new cell-phone.”

-----

Sighing dejectedly, Kitty also phased away to the rec. room, hoping for some *Russian* eye-candy to help raise her spirits.

“Hmm,” the lone person in the room scratched her chin as she wondered aloud. “What did just happen here? Rogue didn’t look too surprised….or did she look overtly surprised? And Kitty, who is the most sappiest and hopeless romantic I know, even she is not likely to confuse wrestling with intimacy. I need to tweak my surveillance radar to keep track of windy and fuzzy.”

“But before that,” she held up her new phone. “Ah, new love….Oh sorry,” she turned to her old *true* lover who she had been serenading to before she was rudely interrupted.

“You need family and friends for gossip,” her eyes lit up with the reflected light. “But for everything else….

…..there’s Master Card.”