Disclaimer: I don't own XME, which makes me sad but oh well.

Title: The Girl With Kaleidoscope Eyes

Author's Notes: This chapter isn't great as it's mostly background info, but the fic will get better so bear with me.

Chapter Dedication: Romy fans the world over.

Picture yourself on a boat in a river

With tangerine trees and marmalade skies

Somebody calls you, you answer quite slowly

A girl with kaleidoscope eyes

-The Beatles

Miss Munroe's American studies class was definitely not the highlight of anyone's day. While she was nice enough the class was far from exciting in the way that Mr. McCoy's science class, which was full of big explosions and stink bombs, was. All three of her classes were huge as American studies was a class that everyone was required to take at point in their high school career. But there was no indication as to when. So the classes ranged from over achieving freshmen, like Rahne Sinclair, straight up to procrastinating seniors like Betsy Braddock.

Rogue Darkholme occupied the farthest desk to left, in the last row. She'd chosen this particular seat because she wanted to be the back so that the teacher wouldn't notice her, and because it was directly behind Scott Summers.

She had hoped that somehow sitting behind Scott would cause him to notice her, fall madly in love with her, ask her to marry him, and then they would live happily ever after. Or something like that.

Unfortunately she hadn't count on the redhead who sat next to Scott. His perfect, beautiful, athletic, popular, girlfriend Jean Gray, Jean was everything that Rogue would never, ever, not in one million years even come close to being. And she was also apparently everything Scott (and the rest male population of Bayville High) wanted in a girl.

And that was yet another good example of why Rogue's life sucked.

She tried to focus on Miss Munroe's lecture until she noticed that Scott and Jean had started holding hands. Yuck, yuck, yuck. Rogue wished that someone would just shoot her now and put her out of her misery.

She glanced around the room hoping to distract herself. Rogue finally paused on Pietro who was kicking the back of Evan's chair. Puhlease, grow up already she moaned inwardly. But she continued watching. It was sort of funny. Pietro, or Pie-Pie as his flavor of the week Tabitha liked to call him, was grinning madly as the desk tipped forward and back. Evan was clearly trying to fight the urge to punch white-haired jerk in the nose. Rogue was intent on this display of immature boy rivalry, when she heard a squeal coming from next to her.

She turned to see a far more nauseating sight then even Scotty and Jeannie hold hands. Remy Lebeau and his girlfriend Belle, who was conveniently located in the desk right next Rogue, were molesting each other, in the middle of class. Rogue looked away to avoid throwing up.

Remy and Belle were to of her least favorite people in the whole world (or what she'd seen of it). Both came from New Orleans or France or something like that. Belle didn't really have an accent but Remy had this odd off and on one. One day he would talk like everyone with a else just a small accent, and the next (particularly when he was trying to be charming) he would have an all out "Remy tink dat dere is nobody hotter den 'im" Cajun drawl.

Of course Rogue's great dislike for him had little to do with his accent. She was also not big on his egomania and assumption that every girl the world over was madly in love with him. When Rogue had first moved to Bayville Remy had even tried to hit on her. That was of course before she managed to prove that she was a total freak.

She also wasn't really wild about the fact that he made out with Belle right next to her. Really who wants to look at two people groping each other every single school day? Rogue had to wonder what he saw in Belle. Sure she was drop-dead gorgeous and sure she was one of the most popular girls in the whole school but Rogue sincerely doubted that she had two brain cells to rub together.

"Oh Rem, I just love your eyes," Belle giggled. Gag me with a spoon, now was Rogue's reaction to this. Although come to think of it "Rem" didn't have bad eyes. They were an odd color of brown, maybe walnut, when the light was right they almost looked red. But still, it was a sickening display.

"You're always tellin' Remy dat, chere," he said. Oh, hell it was a third person day. That meant every time she saw him today he would have that god-awful, sex god accent.

"But I do they're so..." Bell paused think of the right word, "hot!" Wow! That was meaningful!

"You tink so?"

"I know so."

If Miss Munroe hadn't said something at that moment Rogue probably would have been forced to beat to beat the lovebirds' brains out with the stapler.

"Alright everyone I have the partners for your reports." At this everyone began to listen, Belle and Remy even moved back into they're own personal space bubbles. "Let's see here, Evan and Pietro," this was met by shrieks of laughter.

"They'll kill each other!" somebody shouted.

"Not likely they'll probably fall in love and fu-"

"That will be enough of that," Miss Munroe said firmly but the giggling continued. So she just ignored it and kept reading, "Um...Jean and Belle, Carol and Theresa..."

Upon hearing that she was with Belle, Jean collapsed forward on to her desk

"Shoot me now," she begged Scott. Belle on the other hand pouted for a few seconds because she wasn't with her boyfriend but by the time that Miss Munroe had announced "Lance and Rahne" she got over.

"Jean, we're gonna have so much fun, working together," she said leaning forward to address the redhead.

"Yeah, I bet we will," Jean said offhandedly.

"Amanda and Kurt, Scott and..." Rogue, Rogue, Rogue, please say Rogue "Kitty."

"Lucky bitch," Rogue muttered under her breath.

Miss Munroe continued reading from her list, "Remy and Rogue, Betsy and..." No, no, no. This was not happening. How was it possible that she had ended up her absolute least favorite person? There were so many people that she didn't like why did it have to be him? She was sure that Remy couldn't have been very happy either. After all Rogue was the biggest freak in the whole school.

Finally the bell rang. Everyone rushed out of the room either gushing or whining about their assigned partner.

"Daniels! Can you believe I have to work with Daniels?"

"Kurt, we should meet tomorrow at lunch to work on the project."

"Who the hell is Rahne anyway?"

"Please Scott just put me out of my misery now."

Rogue walked out of the room several feet behind everyone else. She couldn't see how they could stand being all bunched up like that. She stopped at her locker to pick up her math book. She was turning the combination when somebody tapped her on the shoulder. Rogue spun around ready to punch whoever was behind her. It was none other than Remy Lebeau.

"What the hell do want?"

"When do you want to work on our project?" he asked leaning up against the locker next to hers.

"What happened to your accent? It was pretty strong about ten minutes ago," Rogue pointed out.

Remy ignored her and continued on. "When do you want to work on the project?"

"I don't care."

"Who do you want to do it on?"

"Your mom."

"Well she's not exactly a great American author of the twentieth century," Remy said irritably. He wanted to end this conversation as quickly as possible so that less people would see him with Rogue and he wouldn't have to spend as much time answering "why were you talking to the freaky Goth girl?"

"Look, I couldn't care less about this project. You want it done, you do it yourself."

"Um...no."

"What'll you do about?" Rogue asked opening up her locker and taking out her book. Remy didn't answer so she slammed the locker shut and turned to face him. "You know what?"

"What?"

"Kiss my ass," she said and walked off without bothering to look back.

Remy smiled.

"Well chere, we'll see if you still feel the same way tomorrow."

XXXX

As I said at the beginning of the chapter this will get better. But if nobody reviews there won't be anymore so please, please, please, drop me a line and let me know what you think.