Paige Guthrie was in her room, sprawled across the bed, reading a textbook on feminist politics. She was trying to concentrate, but it was hard today.

The other X-students were all over the place.

Jono was in a psi-lesson with Ms Frost, along with Claudette and Nicole St Croix, Nina Manite, Mary Reno, and a boy of about fourteen by the name of Tyson Bedexen, codenamed Brainlock for his ability to match his mind and think like anyone who didn’t have shields up.

Monet was charming the rich parents of some prospective students, showing them the honour lists that the school had produced over the last few years since it had reopened to the public. After a few months in Europe with her father, she and her sisters had been returned to the Massachusetts Academy, preferring it to the European school their father had placed them in.

Jubilee was off flirting with one of the older teenagers - a pretty hip Asian dude who’d shown a more-than-passing interest in her since he arrived at the school - ‘too cool for cool’ as some of the other students had told Paige with a mixture of envy and scorn. He’d promptly shown an interest in the ‘tude adjuster of the "Originals" as the somewhat piqued student body called the original X-students. And Jubes had been just as interested ‘back atcha’ as she would say. She’d given up on hoping Ev would finally notice her three months ago.

It was ironic that a month ago, Ev had suddenly realised that his ‘best pal Jubes’ wasn’t standing by his side anymore. That realisation had frozen him for the best part of two weeks, and since then he’d been struggling to deal with it.

He and Angelo had taken some of the ‘human kids’ and gone to town for a ‘good afternoon’.

Paige stared off into the space before and beyond her poster of the Appalachian mountains and sighed. Ange had his own stone to grind against women right now. He’d made tentative overtures to one of the human kids - a pretty Middle Eastern girl - and been turned down cold. A phone call from his ‘not-girlfriend’ Tores had ended in a sniping match, and the cold was getting on his nerves as it always did. "Chica, I’m already grey," he’d said to Paige once when she commented on his bad mood matching the weather, "I don’t need no more grey around me."

The pair of them - Ev and Ange - had dropped by before they left, asking Paige if she wanted to come down to the town. And she’d been tempted. The winter was exacerbating a natural depression, and one of the things she’d been contemplating was her relationship with Jono.

There were faint shouts and giggles outside - Artie and Leech and some other of the students were having a snow fight in the gardens. Paige grimaced. If they trampled any more of the new flowerbeds, she thought irrationally, there would be absolute hell to pay.

She was depressed. She and Jono had been going out for almost a year and had become incredibly emotionally close. But where most couples would echo that in the level of physical intimacy that they shared, she and Jono had a slight problem. His chest and face - or more correctly - the lack of them.

Their first kiss had not been forgettable - how young had they been then? It seemed ages ago! But the destruction of the girls’ dorms was hardly a thing that one forgot. They hadn’t tried it again for a couple of years - at least until once they’d settled into a steady relationship and were a long way from anywhere.

After a couple of kisses where every psi in the county ended up with a raging headache at the mental backlash of Jono holding his power back too tight, he’d got the hang of it. But it wasn’t quite the same as kissing a guy who had all his face, although Paige supposed she’d have done with much worse just to be with him.

She rolled over, staring up at the ceiling and the moulded cornices of the ceiling. How long does this go, then? The relationship doesn’t have a future - not really. I told him once, long ago, that I didn’t want to ‘settle down’ and ‘raise little Starsmores’. But that was so long ago, when family and future didn’t seem very close. Now, if I could, I’d want to have Jono’s children. But I can’t dump him - I’m too emotionally involved for that. Even if I could, I wouldn’t. And it’s not my style, either. I don’t go through guys like a hot knife through butter - that’s Monet’s thing. Her lips twisted into an expression of something like contempt. And she does it well...

Since she had returned from Europe, more than one young man had been left heartbroken over being dumped by Monet. The son of a French billionaire had been so distraught after the Algerian beauty had tired of his company that he had been removed from the school. Frosty had taken Monet into her office for a loooong talk after the boy left.

Paige wasn’t Monet. And she didn’t want to be like Monet.

What she wanted was Jonothon Starsmore.

And she couldn’t have him.

Not in the way that she wanted.

So her thoughts were decidedly depressing, and she had shut herself up in her room and hung a "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door that she had borrowed from Jubilee.

Thus, when it came, the knock on her door was unexpected and unwelcome. "Please go away," she said as loudly as she could manage. "I’m not feeling sociable."

<Sunshine, I got something to show you,> came the familiar tones of Jono’s mental voice. There was a barely-suppressed elation in his ‘voice’, and Paige turned her head to regard the door with mixed feelings.

On one hand there was the instinctive reply hovering on her lips, ‘Come in’. On the other, there was the fact that she really didn’t need to see him right now - no matter how happy he sounded. <C’mon, Sunshine,> he said, coaxingly, <I promise you’ll love it...> And without further ado, he opened the door and came in.

Unable to see the door from her position, Paige rolled over to look at him as he came in.

Jono walked in with sheer jubilation in his eyes and a smile on his lips.

Her first thought was: There’s something wrong with this picture. As she stared at him, her mind suddenly kicked into gear: His lips! Abruptly, she sat up to look at him in stunned surprise.

He stood there, looking back at her, with laughter written all over his face. Not the cynical amusement that he too-often derived from life, but real - real - laughter.

She’d launched herself off the bed to within a foot of him, her mouth hanging wide open as she reached up to touch his cheek in a caress that he’d given her how many times?

The skin was warm and soft beneath her palm and fingertips - flesh, not the usual fiery furnace power that her fingers encountered. It was the sweetest thing to be able to touch him - skin to skin - and she met his eyes with wonder as she did so.

Without half his face, he’d still been one of the best-looking guys that she knew. Girls all over the school simpered and smiled at him and tried to catch his eye. Now, they wouldn’t just be simpering, they’d be throwing themselves at him – ambushing him at every opportunity.

He turned his face towards her hand, kissing the palm softly and tenderly. <I still can’t actually speak,> he said into her mind. <The reconstruction of my face and chest is only skin-deep - but to have even just that faintest of feeling there again...> He kissed her palm again. <I understand just a little of how Rogue must feel.>

"How long...? Is it...? Will it...?" Paige asked breathlessly. Somehow she couldn’t finish her sentences, a sense of breathlessness was overwhelming her. There was a humming in her ears and she was getting dizzy. "Ah gotta sit down," she gasped, and put words to action, sitting down on the bed, but keeping her eyes on him. "You look...amazing," she told him, not noticing that she had dropped into her hometown drawl.

He sat down beside her and took her hand, smiling almost smugly, <Amazing?>

"Drop dead gorgeous," Paige told him, regaining control of her accent and smiling back at him. "How did you...?"

<It was Nicole’s idea,> Jono said, and she watched his mouth move, shaping the words, although she was hearing him with her mind, not her ears. <But Nina was the only one who could show me how to do it. My usual bio-kinetic energy field has a variable strength to it - it fluctuates from moment to moment. Nicole suggested that if I could even out the fluctuations I’d be able to reform my chin and chest as flesh.> He frowned, dark eyes half-closing in annoyance as he searched for the words to explain. <It took a lot of concentration – we’ve been working on it for the last couple of hours…but…> he spread his hands wide, and the sensuous mouth broadened and curved, <…I finally managed it…>

"And promptly raced over here to show it off?" she asked, teasingly.

The smile deepened, <Of course!> He took her hand and brushed his mouth across the palm, <Who else would I show it off to?> His gaze looked down at her hand, and he seemed to hesitate. <I’ll never be anything less than ‘mute’ to people,> he said simply at last, <But at least I won’t be a monster...>

Paige hit him on the chest without thinking what she was doing, "You’re not a monster and you never have been!"

Jono looked at her with wondering eyes, <You really believe that.>

She felt a brief shaft of irritation at his denseness, but she gentled her voice a little. "All of us do. You know that!"

He shrugged, <Somehow, I never quite believed it.>

"Well, believe it now," she said reaching out to touch his cheek and chin again. Wondering at the slight roughness of the flesh under her fingers – the faintest beginning of a goatee. "Is it permanent?"

<No,> he replied, regretfully, <I still need to practise it to make it last. But I wanted you to see me with a face before I let it go again.> He hesitated, for a moment, unsure of himself again as he had been in the old days before he leaned forward again. <And I wanted to do this...>

‘This’ was a kiss, full on the lips.

Soft and warm and tender and poignant. A second kiss to seal their fate, as the first one had bound their destinies together for good or for ill.

It felt good.