a/n-Hey, I'm still alive! The last chapter was no fun, so here's some random fluff before the next angsty chapter.

***************Girls Chase Boys(The Homecoming Dance, Part 1)

"Mm. Stale coffee and cold pie. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time."

I rubbed my face and suppressed a groan. "Why is it that most of my days now start with you making a smart-ass comment?" I asked, directing a pointed look at the woman sitting across from me in the diner booth.

Emma pursed white lips together in a tight smile and leaned forwards, resting her folded arms on the suspiciously tacky surface of the aluminum table. "Whatever do you mean, darling? This is, of course, a lovely dining place for a woman used to five-star restaurants and napkins made out of cloth, not this absurd cardboard passing as paper."

"And silk sheets, and lace underwear," I muttered. "So I've heard. Endlessly."

"I suppose now would be a bad time to ask what crime I've committed to deserve such a punishment?" She stirred her cup of coffee with a spoon, and then tapped the silverware against the china mug with an irritating ping-ping-ping.

"No crime. I'm just trying to butter you up," I said innocently, taking a sip of my own drink.

Emma looked at me with greater suspicion. "I'm not going to promise to leave Logan alone. He's been insufferable ever since Jean left you for-" she clammed up, too late, and shut her eyes tightly. "God, I'm sorry, Scott. That was the epitome of insensitive." She sounded sincere, at least, which was an improvement on her barely-concealed barbs and oh-so-innocent mentions of how much of a bitch she thought Jean was.

"It's fine," I said automatically, fiddling with my spoon and wishing that we could have avoided that particular emotional road bump. "I wasn't even going to mention Logan, actually. This is regarding Homecoming."

"Well, I'm not sure my parents will be crazy about the idea, but I could always just say I was going with friends and meet you there," she joked.

I chuckled, her comment easily lifting my mood. "Actually, I am asking you to go-as a chaperone."

Emma groaned. "Hence the bribery." She looked as enthusiastic as I felt, her eyes drifting away from my face and to the silver napkin dispenser, where she checked her lipstick for smears.

"I'm shorthanded," I explained, a tad desperately.

"How many?" she asked. I studied the table for a moment before replying.

" . . . at the moment, just me."

Emma pressed her fingers to her temple, her pinky nail sneaking into her mouth for a nibble. "You poor man."
"I'm hoping that your sympathy is enough to buy me another chaperone?" I asked hopefully, meeting her eyes behind my sunglasses(retro eighties sheik, not Emma's favorite).
"What about the others?"

"Storm is visiting home for that entire week. Beast declined so politely that I couldn't beg him in good conscience. Logan and Jean have a . . . date . . . that night. And everyone else is a student." I sipped at my coffee and shrugged. "I called in Warren for a favor, but apparently even his loyalty doesn't stretch that far. To be perfectly honest, if I can't find at least one other person, we're going to have to suspend the dance."

"Oh, my," she murmured. "One less excuse for teenagers to get drunk, listen to awful music, and fornicate in dark corners and, if we're really lucky, my bathtub. Whatever will we do?"

"Em," I said warningly, "This is really important, and not just to the students. We need to give everyone a break from all of this chaos and just have a normal school function."

"Yes, and act like the impending apocalypse doesn't faze us at all." Emma sipped at her coffee, leaving a pale lipstick mark on the speckled dark mug. "It's only the end of the world, after all. We have time to elect a Prom Queen before we die in a blazing inferno."

"It's Homecoming, not prom," I corrected.

"Might I point out of lack of a football team? Or any sport at all, really? Why are we hosting a Homecoming dance to begin with?" She was extraordinarily good at poking holes in any idea that I had, and even better at bursting my bubble, raining on my parade, and generally making it her life's mission to give me a hard time. If I didn't love her so much, I might have had to kill her just for the peace and quiet it would bring.

"You weren't listening to me," I sighed. "We need this, all of us. We need some time to just . . . well, get drunk, listen to crappy music, and fornicate in your bathtub."

"Not all of us at once, I hope," she replied dryly. "I know that I had it custom-made from India, but it isn't that big."

"Your bathtub is custom-made from India?" I asked incredulously. "Where on earth did you get the money for that?"

She took a miniscule bite of pie. "I possibly diverted some funds from the AV club."

"Emma!" AV club was Forge's baby-and the only thing keeping the lights on at the school.

"What? It isn't as if they do anything," she defended herself. "They use the projectors to watch anime in the gym while Forge blows things up and plays Fruit Ninja to relieve his frustrations over Ororo leaving him for Warren. They're hardly going to notice a slight deficit in their budget."

"How slight?" Talking to her was, more often than not, like herding cats, or getting a wish from Aladdin's genie. One had to be very specific, and very persistent.

She shrugged delicately, glancing out the window to the parking lot. "Slightly over a thousand dollars."

"Slightly?"

". . . three thousand and eighty-five."

I let that sink in for a second before- "You spent three thousand and eighty-five dollars on a bathtub from India?!"

"Do keep your voice down," she implored. "People are staring. And no, darling, I did not spent three thousand and eighty five dollars on a bathtub from India."

I relaxed.

"I spent seven thousand, four hundred and eighty-eight dollars on it. I only took three thousand and eight-five from the AV club. The rest was from the Logan Just Broke Something and Now We're Being Sued budget." She cleared her throat and took another nibble of pie.

"What?!" I exploded.

"Calm down. He hasn't smashed anything in nearly a month, which has to be a new record. I'm sure it's going to be just fine-he's turned over a new leaf."

"I'm about to smash something," I growled, too upset to register my similarity to the Hulk. "You can't just rearrange funds however you want."

"Why not?" she shrugged and lifted her mug of coffee to her lips. "You won't give me any discretionary funds."

"That's because you always buy something ridiculous!"

"It's a genuine mother-of-pearl bath." She sounded affronted. "It isn't ridiculous at all. My mother used to have one just like it."

"That explains it," I muttered. "The insanity runs in the family."

"You call it insanity," Emma said primly, "I call it good breeding."

There was simply nothing to say to that.