A/N: This fic was requested of me by Bevin on LiveJournal, and I figured that, hey, since I haven't uploaded anything to in a while (and my One True Pairing is rather underrepresented at the moment), I may as well post it here. So. A short little piece, the result of my Kitty-muse having been particularly talkative at the crucial time.

Disclaimer: Marvel and Kids' WB own'em, I just borrow'em from time to time.

Rogue called the day before Christmas, to wish me a happy Hannukah and to say, Man, you're not gonna believe what happened in the city. But it's okay, it can wait. Maybe when I first got back to Northbrook, I would've demanded to know the news right away, but now? Not so much. I'm curious, sure, but I'm glad she realizes that I'd rather deal with it when we're all back in Bayville. I hope that I don't regret thinking that. If it was something that was, maybe, threatening civilization as we know it, then the call would've been from Professor Xavier. Or from Scott.

There are some things about vacation that I think I'll get used to just as it comes time to get back on the train. Strange that the life that demands my being on my toes for the better part of every day is the one where I've gotten to feel almost comfortable. It snuck up on me, right along with those little things I mentioned before, the ones I always took for granted in my old life. Sleeping late, being able to turn up the radio as loud as I want and dance around like a maniac. No responsibilities more strenuous than being polite to Aunt Alice and helping to get ready for the parties they throw every year.

By now, the temperature in the living room must have gone up at least ten degrees, and I've talked to all the people I know I ought to talk to, and everyone's gotten a little sloppy and daring enough to search the crowd of their own making for someone to kiss when the ball drops in -- I check the clock -- seventeen minutes.

I used to write all my New Year's resolutions in a little pink plastic diary with a padlock and a key, and when I remembered, I'd rate my progress. Stupid things. Take out the trash without being asked, try and sit with other people at lunch instead of burying my nose in a book, not buy a new CD or pair of earrings every time I felt kind of depressed. But not this time, not even if I did carry that little book around instead of writing everything down on my laptop (which is back at the Institute along with Lockheed and six of my favorite posters). The events of the past three months, let alone twelve, have proven that you just. Never. Know.

In a matter of minutes, this year will be over, and in a couple of days so will winter vacation, and I still haven't told my parents everything that I haven't put down in my letters. Maybe that's a good resolution, maybe it's not, but if what I just said about things changing fast is true, what they don't know won't hurt them won't apply forever. Even now, what they don't know would fill... well, maybe not a book -- I hope it never gets that bad -- but probably a few chapters.

Right now, things are at their best between the three of us. I guess they think that the professor and Jean kind of rescued me from an eternal repeat of that first horrible day, and even though I don't see it that way, at least not compared to some of the others, I'm glad that they -- the parents, I mean -- didn't try to keep me away or... damn. Or ask too many nosy questions.

You probably saw this coming, didn't you? They don't know that three days after I called them to tell them I'd aced my science and English finals, I was jaunting to the asteroid headquarters of a metal-controlling fanatic to rescue my friends. They don't know about the Danger Room or Ms. Darkholme (wherever she is) or the soccer game incident. They know that the cave-in was not the last time I saw Lance, but they don't know about... about any of what's happened between us since then.

I never imagined -- even as I listened to and understood other girls jabbering about such elaborate plans to sneak out of the house to their boyfriends' cars that I wondered if maybe they hadn't had some secret-agent training -- that when I finally met someone, I'd have to keep quiet about him around the house. Either of the houses. That I'd wonder whether he's trying to trick me (I hate thinking that, but sometimes -- especially in the middle of the night -- I can't turn it off), or whether I'm just fooling myself.

Which I'm not. I know that much. I enjoy walking to classes with his arm around my shoulders, sitting with him at lunch... I even enjoyed meeting him at the mall a couple of days before school let out, although I don't think he was as thrilled with the idea in practice as he was in theory. Or maybe just didn't see the point of it.

I like hearing him laugh. I like the way he sings along with the radio without even realizing it, even though I wish he wouldn't stare back, guiltily and wild-eyed, when he realizes I can hear him. I like learning a teensy bit more about him every time he lets down his guard a little. It's all very basic stuff: favorites and pet peeves, baby-step revelations that would be part of the territory with any other guy but that I've started to catch and save when I hear them, like butterflies in a net. He steers clear of anything dating back before eighteen months ago, but a seeing the grin on his face match mine is worth a little mystery.

I like staying up late talking on the phone while Rogue pretends to be disgusted with us. But she's shared a house and (for a while) a mind with him, and I know that if there's anybody at the Institute who doesn't just see Avalanche in disguise when they pass by him in the halls, she'd be the one.

And the others? It's not like I'm exactly afraid of Jean and Scott trying to talk us out of it, or Logan threatening to impale Lance on his claws, or the professor fiddling with my thoughts so that I stay loyal to the team. Still, I'm not crazy about the idea of putting Lance on the spot while they question his motives. I'm not crazy about my loyalty to them, or his to Pietro and the others, even being an issue. I'm not crazy about it being any of their business.

Even though, of course, it is. Or will be. Sooner or later.

It's New Year's Eve, and I'm not sitting downstairs wondering if anyone will want to kiss me, because I know that there's an a couple of hundred miles away who already does. And if he were here, or if I was there, I'd kiss him back.

Is that love? Maybe. Is it a good idea? He wasn't thinking about whether it was a good idea the night that he shoved me out of the path of the chaos which he'd helped to cause. He just did it, and that's something that I admire and can't stand about him, sometimes without blinking between one opinion and the other. People can change, just like life. Or lives.

I can't pretend that I'm never going to have to be up front with the other people who were caught in the office the day he tried to bring it down on our heads, and it doesn't take a genius, much less a mere geek like me, to know that the longer I wait, the more likely that someone is going to get hurt. And I'll have to think of ways to make sure that as little harm as possible comes to those who don't deserve it.

It's what I've been trained to do, after all.

So here we are, Lance. I miss you, I say softly, as the countdown resounds through the ceiling, and I whisper, Happy New Year, a nose ahead of the crowd.