AN: As usual, I own nothing and no one portrayed here.

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Sometimes I think someone up there doesn't like me. Or at the very least doesn't like me being in the kitchen.

It's been about a month since the "Cooking With Clarice" incident and people around here have like FINALLY stopped making chicken noises around me whenever I pass by. I'm still avoiding Rogue though; she hasn't forgiven me for supposedly allowing "that damned swamp rat" (her words) to make off with her after she had the unfortunate luck to get knocked out by an undercooked potato. Well it's not like I let her go on purpose; I had my own airborne vegetables to deal with at the time. And it's not like I could put up much of a fight against a 6' mutant thief with the ability to blow up objects anyway. Besides, she really doesn't have anything to complain about, he didn't hurt her. I just think she's mad because she woke up to find herself thrown over his shoulder and got all embarrassed. So she's still got a sneaky Cajun after her and I've got a pissed off Goth after me.

Which brings me to my current situation. Rogue had been promising divine retribution for like a month now but I'd managed to stay alive, which means whatever she's got planned, it's downright unholy. I thought I'd try to sweeten her up a little and bake her some cookies. School picture day was this week and I didn't want whatever revenge she was planning to possibly wreck my pictures. I had been planning to frame one of them as a birthday gift for Kurt. We'd been going out for a couple of months now and I didn't think it was right that he had pictures of almost everyone else at the mansion but none of me.

As anti-social as my roommate can be sometimes, nothing gets her in a good mood better than chocolate chip cookies. So secure in the knowledge that I could get back in her good graces again, I started mixing the ingredients for those little morsels of delight. I had been doing well so far and was happily humming a little tune when I discovered I was out of vanilla. This was so definitely not good. Chocolate chip cookies just don't taste the same without a little vanilla extract. The oven was already heated and I was standing in the kitchen bemoaning my situation when Dr. McCoy walked in. He asked me what was wrong and I told him that we were out of vanilla and that I needed it badly for my cookies. He then totally made my day by remembering that he had left the vanilla down in his lab when he had borrowed it for his homemade Twinkie project. He made off for his lab and came back shortly after with the unmarked little brown bottle. I thanked him profusely and happily finished making my cookies. I was totally pleased when I managed to not burn a single one. And they tasted great too!

I took my peace offering to my scheming roommate and after a brief argument and several skeptical looks I managed to get her to try one. The look on her face after she took a bite told me I was more than halfway to my goal of getting her forgiveness. I got everyone else to try one too and was soon basking in the praises of my teammates. I had like finally managed to do something right in the kitchen. I went to bed that night one happy Shadowcat. The day after next was Picture Day and all was right with the world.

I woke up the next morning to various screams throughout the mansion. I jumped out of bed, trying to find out like who was attacking us. Passing my mirror I stopped. MY SKIN HAD TURNED GREEN!!!! And apparently so had everyone else's. There was a pounding on the door. "HALF-PINT!!!"

Rogue turned over, mumbling as she slowly woke up. I looked over at her, turning pale at her new green complexion. "Rogue, it's okay, just don't look in a mirror. Whatever you do, don't look in a mirror." "Whaa....?"

Damn. Too late.

I phased through the floor to make my escape and ran to the kitchen, passing a teal-colored Kurt and a rather lime-complexioned Jean. Heh heh, well she always did say that green looked good on her.

Those cookies. It had to have been those cookies. I picked up one of the few that were left after everyone had scarfed them down yesterday and sniffed. I smelled chocolate, I smelled butter, I smelled everything that should be in a cookie except one thing. Vanilla. There was no vanilla in these cookies. What the hell did I put in them then? "BEAST!!!!!!" I shouted as I raced for the lab. I was met with a teal-colored Dr. McCoy who had figured out that the cookies were to blame for his and everyone else's condition and sheepishly admitted to me that he must have given me his new experiment food coloring instead of the vanilla by mistake (he had given up the mutant cosmetic project until he could resolve the problem of Chemical X reacting to yeast).

Going back upstairs, we faced everyone and explained what had happened. The resulting dialogue cannot be repeated in polite society. Or not so polite society, for that matter. Beast announced that it would take at least two to three days for the food coloring to wear off and beat a hasty retreat back to his lab. The growls as the now green inhabitants of the mansion turned to face me made me wish I could teleport instead of phase.

Picture Day was tomorrow.

I'm no longer allowed anywhere near the kitchen except for eating purposes. I don't know why they're taking it out on me. If you think about it, it's really Beast that should be banned from those premises. It's his inventions that keep getting me in trouble. Well, these last two times anyway.

I've got a dilemma now though. Unless everyone is turned back to normal for pictures tomorrow, I'm one dead mutant. Short of image inducers though, I don't know how to do it. I wonder if Forge could come up with that many image inducers on such short notice. Maybe if I bribed him with some cookies.................................