'So far so good.' Marie carried the baby seat to the table she and Jubes and co. usually occupied. Her eyes were trained on their target, ignoring the whispers around her. Nonetheless she caught from the corner of her eyes a few smiles and waves some students – mostly girls – flashed Becca.

Finally arrived at her destination the brunette placed the seat on the tabletop and stroked her daughter's belly. Becca was eyeing her surroundings calm and content with her huge blue eyes.

A few minutes later the others joined her with their full plates and Kitty and Jubilee sank down on the chairs framing hers. "You can now go and fetch your food, chica."

Marie flashed her friends unsure gazes and Pete smiled softly. "We'll watch her."

John furrowed his brows at the young mother, thinking her worries exaggerated. "You're on the other end of the room! You can see your baby!"

"Umm, yeah." With a last caress of Becca's downy head Rogue stood up and walked over to the food counter. The entire time she shoveled the pasta on her plate she glanced over to her baby and her talking classmates.

X X X X X

Pyro waited long enough to be sure Rogue couldn't hear them, before he began to spread his newest hypothesis. "Maybe she doesn't know who the father is."

"Whaddya mean, John?" Kitty was making funny faces for Becca, who was just content that someone was in her field of vision.

"She must have gotten pregnant at the time she learned how to control her skin."

Jubilee chewed on her lunch and threw the boy a probing gaze. "Yeah, you're right. And?"

"Don't you remember?! She was away the following Saturday."

"Yeah, in the mall shopping sleeveless shirts and skirts." Kitty was now facing John.

"Maybe she did even more there than just shopping."

"You mean celebrate her newfound control with some needy guy?" Jubilee concluded with doubt written all over her face.

John smirked. "She got knocked up from some stranger… would make sense that she didn't want to talk about it."

"Or it didn't stay at one guy." Bobby mused aloud. This earned him an extremely startled look from Kitty.

"Maybe you interpret too much into her words." Pete tried to stop their train of thinking before the rumors got out of hand and would eventually come to Rogue's ears and hurt the girl.

"Pete is right. Rogue never seemed to be the one to sleep around." Kitty shared a small smile with the Russian. "Shh. She's coming back."

X X X X X

Rogue had the weird feeling the conversation of her classmates that stopped immediately when she approached the table, had been about her. She was still angry with Bobby for his audacity this morning and was glad he was as far away as possible from her and her daughter, sitting at the diagonal end of the table.

She placed her plate and her glass of soda down next to the baby seat – Kitty and Jubilee had slid their chairs a little further to the sides so Rogue had enough room for her plate and her baby on the table before her. While sinking down on her stool the brunette flashed a wary smile towards the girls. "Thanks for watching her." She quickly stroked her daughter's cheek.

"Umm, that was nothing…" Jubilee saw how earnest the brunette meant that and added with a smile. "Really it was nothing. Becca didn't even blink." Now she was met with a very good imitation of Wolverine's trademark eyebrow. "Of course she did blink… you get what I mean, chica."

"Yeah. She behaved." Marie chuckled and began to eat.

A few minutes of silence and a conversation about the test from the day before, later and the intense stare John gave her daughter was finally too much for Rogue to bear. "What is it, John?"

The boy's eyes darted away from the newborn and over to her mother. "What's with the father?" He hitched his eyebrows. "You do know who the father is, right?"

Marie 's hand went slack as did her jaw, her fork falling down on the plate clanging. The shock changed quickly and her features were highly insulted and angry when she shouted into the boy's face. "What a whore do ya think Ah am?!"

The whole room went silent and all eyes were cast to their table and John suddenly felt uncomfortable and guilty. "Sorry, I didn't mean to… Does he know then?" He couldn't keep his tongue under control.

Rogue narrowed her eyes and hissed. "He does."

"And?" Pyro saw the are-you-nuts and stop-it-jerk-gazes from his friends, but his common sense had already surrendered to his curiosity.

"Ah don't wanna talk 'bout him!" She spat out and was about to leap to her feet and flee from the room with Becca when she saw an angry man storm over to their table.