Maddie and Sue: Homecoming

[x-invisiblegirl.livejournal.com]

At the homecoming bonfire Sue uncover's Maddie's dark secret.

The Homecoming Bonfire was a long-standing tradition. The night before the football game students, alumni, teachers would all gather at the school to celebrate and build excitement for the next day's main event. And the task of the latter fell mostly on the cheerleaders, whipping everyone into a frenzy and teaching people the cheers, chants, and traditions they would be using during the game. What to do to ensure a good kickoff, punt, or field goal, how to celebrate a touchdown (in the unlikely event that one would occur), and general rallying cries to help push the football team to a victory. Everyone was having a great time, but Maddie definitely wished she was wearing her sweatpants under her cheerleading skirt.

Sure the warmth of the fire and the jumping around helped some, but the night air was chilly, leaving no doubt that fall was slowly leading into winter. She had goosebumps and wished for nothing more than to curl up under a thick comforter with a mug of hot cocoa. But even the cold could not dampen her spirits as she continued cheering with her teammates and the gathered crowd.

It was cold. The thought was the foremost thing on Sue's mind as she pushed her way through the crowd towards the heat of the bonfire. The blonde could understand people wanting to come out and show their support for their team, even if that team was still doing abysmally at the moment, but did they really have to do it at night in the cold. Pulling her jacket around herself Sue edged closer to the heat. While staying in the press of the crowd was a pretty good way to keep warm Sue had already been elbowed and jostled enough for a night thank you very much. Sue knew Maddie would probably be somewhere around the party but as hard as she'd looked Sue just couldn't spot near head nor tail of the her girlfriend. So here she stood staring forlornly into the fire watching the cheerleaders preforming on the other side.

The squad of girls opposite her lived as the center of attention at the school, all the girls wanted to be them and all the guys wanted to date them. Well that wasn't entirely true Sue thought wryly, she was pretty sure none of the kids she'd met at Science club, or any of the kids from Xavier's would be interested either. Sue rubbed her hands together and hugged herself a little tighter, if Maddie didn't show up soon Sue was just going to head back to the mansion, the teenager decided as a freckled red-haired teenager danced past her vision. A freckled readhaired teenager....Sue's jaw almost hit the ground, "Maddie?"

Hearing her name, the teenager quickly began to search the crowd for the source, a voice she had recognized instantly. Maddie had purposefully avoided returning to the mansion after the pep rally, opting instead to go home with another squad member to pass the time until the bonfire. She had been avoiding this confrontation, anticipating it as soon as she had shown up at her last class already dressed for the pep rally (the commute to the high school meant she would not have had time to change) with sweatpants under her uniform and a sweatshirt over. But the hope had been that Maddie would have been able to delay the inevitable if she could just stay out late enough and sneak back in when everyone was asleep.

No such luck though.

The cheers ending for some while, Maddie lay down her pom-poms and quickly assured the captain that she would be back in a minute. Finding those blue eyes in the crowd once more, the redhead jerked her head in the direction of the school building then headed towards it.

The cold forgotten Sue pushed her way through the crowd back in the direction she had just come. She was glad that Maddie had asked to meet there, it gave the girl a chance to focus her thoughts again. If someone had asked her to say anything after she had recognized her girlfriend the best they'd have gotten was a unintelligible burbling. Sue didn't think there was much that could surprise her at a homecoming party, but obviously she had been mistaken. All that Sue knew was that Maddie had a lot of explaining to do.

"So," she demanded as she slammed the school door behind her and gestured at Maddie and her outfit, "Is this where you've been sneaking off to? Why you keep vanishing from sight? Why you stood me up on Movie night?" the blonde knew her voice was a little loud but frankly she didn't care. For weeks Maddie had been distant and now this, Sue didn't really know what to think anymore.

Hearing the anger in her girlfriend's voice made Maddie flinch, but she knew that Sue had every right to be angry. And Maddie felt ashamed. Ashamed at the sneaking and the lies (by omission) she had told and ashamed at the fact that was a cheerleader. The redhead nodded. "I'm sorry, Sue," she said. She couldn't bring herself to look at the blonde, afraid for what she might see, instead choosing to focus on a scuff in the floor.

"Sorry isn't really good enough Maddie," Sue replied in a softer tone of voice. She was still somewhere between shocked and angry but she couldn't keep yelling at Maddie when she was standing there looking so downcast and contrite. "I want to know why you'd sneak around like this. You didn't just hide this from me, you hid it from everyone, all your friends. I'm not the only one who noticed you were...distracted recently. Why not come out and tell us? Why try to hide it?"

That floor scuff was the most interesting thing in the entire world and Maddie couldn't tear her eyes away. She poked and prodded it with her sneaker as Sue spoke, each word adding to her guilt. "Because," said the redhead. It wasn't as if she hadn't thought about telling anyone about this, at least her friends, she had, the truth was she was embarrassed. "Because I'm a cheerleader."

"So?" Sue asked confused, "What does that have to do with anything?" Sue was genuinely confused, Maddie seemed embarrassed if her interest in scuffing at the floor was any judge but the blonde just couldn't understand why. "Did you think I'd care if you wanted to be a cheerleader, and actor or join the mathletes?"

"Because you and Clint do all these things with science and robots, and Tandy worked on a movie set, and Billy and Hope and Topaz are all smart and studious and everything and here I am just some ditzy cheerleader." Maddie's sad green eyes met Sue's as she said, "And I like it. But I shouldn't. I want to be out on the field pushing people into the mud, not shouting 'Go Team Go!' And it's embarrassing that I like cheering. And compared to the rest of you I feel like that stereotypical airheaded bimbo."

Sue seemed to deflate as all her anger drained out of her with a sigh, "One, you are not 'ditzy' or an 'airhead bimbo'" she told her girlfriend seriously, "and no-one who really knows you is going to think that. Ever. They know you better than that." The blonde shrugged, "So I'm good at science and Tandy was in a movie, there are things you do that none of us can. I mean you were amazing in 'Bye Bye Birdie', I could never do anything like that. Besides, you did go out and shove people into the dirt all last year during soccer." she pointed out. "But why shouldn't you like cheerleading? I don't get it Maddie why are you so ashamed of something that you obviously enjoy?"

"Because it's cheerleading!" Maddie felt ready to burst at the seams as she began to pace. "Because I'm wearing this uniform and dancing around and yelling. I can do a few tumbling moves, but this isn't all that super athletic flying through the air stuff. It's supposed to be for girls who have bigger boobs than brains who only care about boys and their hair and makeup and being popular. It'd be like you running off to join a cult who thought the world was flat and the Bible is the holder of all scientific truth. And, okay, not everyone is like that but there are some who are and next to you guys I feel like one of them!"

Sue crossed her arms and leaned back against the nearest wall as she watched Maddie pace, "But you're nothing like that," she objected, "You're not some airhead who only cares about being popular and gossip. There's so much more to you than that." Sue's confusion was evident in her voice, "You're smarter than almost anyone at this school," she told her girlfriend her hands spreading out to encompass the entire school around them, "You're orders of magnitude better than any of those girls. And it's nothing like me running of to join a cult," she told Maddie as she pushed of a wall to stand right in front of Maddie, "I would never have signed up for it in the first place. If cheerleading was that contrary to your view of the world then why did you go sign up in the first place?" Sue glanced down at the floor and sighed, "If we're being honest then I wish I could be more like you," she admitted, "I mean I saw you up on stage or dancing in front of that crowd and I wish I had the guts to do that."

With a long, exasperated sigh, Maddie slid down against the wall until she was sitting on the floor. "Because it was the only way I could be a varsity athlete." She said nothing about Sue's other comment about her being smarter than most anyone at the high school, it was simply not true and there was no sense pretending otherwise. True, the high school had a larger, more diverse population than Xavier's, but there were plenty of smart, driven kids to put her to shame. "Cheerleading isn't a sport, it's an activity. So it doesn't have the restrictions other sports have about allowing mutants to participate. And we're not competing, so no issue there either."

"I always wanted to letter in high school. I knew I was never going to be valedictorian or class president, and I just wanted something to show for my time. Something to show that I did something special."

Stepping over to the wall Sue slid down to sit next to Maddie, "I can understand that," the blonde said in a quiet voice, "Wanting to leave your mark, show that you managed to make something of your time here. I'm sorry you aren't allowed to play varsity sports at school Mads, but if you enjoy cheering then that's awesome. It'll be nice to see you get excited about it," Sue loved her chess club and if cheerleading was something that Maddie loved as much then how could Sue do less than support her 110%. "I'll be there at every game cheering for the cheerleaders... is that something people do?"

"I'm just so embarrassed." The redhead lay her head on her girlfriend's shoulder. "I'm doing something I used to roll my eyes at. And just think to myself that I'd never do that in a million years. And now I am. And it's fun."

Sue slipped an arm around Maddie's shoulder and leaned her head against the redhead's. "Did you used to think you'd be dating a girl either?" she asked softly, "It just shows you that you're growing up and your tastes are expanding. That's not a bad thing you know Mads, and if you're having fun then that's definitely not something to be embarrassed about."

The sounds from the bonfire outside permeated the silent hallway, muffled by distance and the heavy doors but still loud enough to tell that everyone was cheering over something. Maddie didn't care that she should have been out there too instead of sitting on the cold, hard floor and leaning into her girlfriend's comforting embrace. "You're right," she said. The redhead had never imagined being in a relationship with another girl, but she had never really thought about being in a relationship with anyone for any substantial amount of time.

Maddie lifted her head to catch Sue's gaze and offered up an apologetic smile and squeezed Sue's knee. "You are a genius, Sue." It was a statement, not an attempt at flattery. The blonde was, hands down, the smartest person Maddie had ever met.

"I'm sorry I didn't tell you. Will you forgive me?"

"I'm here aren't I?" Sue answered with a smile as she gave Maddie's shoulder a squeeze. "Of course I do, just next time don't try to hide something like this from me huh? It doesn't matter to me if you're wearing a cheerleader's uniform or a clown costume. You're still Maddie, and I still love you." As soon as the words left Sue's mouth she fell silent, she'd never said it, neither of them had but now it was out there and the blonde found she didn't regret saying it. "I do you know," she told Maddie in a quiet voice.

Her smile brightened, and the cheerleader pulled her girlfriend closer until their lips met. Maddie's heart was racing as they kissed, all of the tension and anxiety and fear she had kept bottled up inside her flowed out of her body, and only through sheer willpower did she resist the urge to straddle Sue and pin her against the wall. Saying "I love you" in a romantic relationship was a big deal, that there was some intangible quality of love that pushed it beyond the love for friends and family. And Maddie had always loved Sue just as she loved all of the people near and dear to her heart. But it felt different somehow from the love she had for Clint and Billy and Tandy and everyone. And Maddie didn't question it. Didn't question whether or not it was possible to "fall in love" at 16 or if she was in love with Sue. She couldn't describe it in words, but she knew that this love was there.

"I love you too, Sue." Maddie had broken the kiss but had not pulled away. When Sue had said those words, the redhead's heart skipped a beat, and now the kiss had left her breathless, such was the effect the blonde had over her, and she wanted that feeling to last as long as possible.

Sue let out the breadth she didn't know she'd been holding and felt the knot of ice which had been growing in her stomach melt away with Maddie's words. The rollercoaster of emotion she'd felt from embarrassment to worry too overwhelming joy had left the blonde struggling to string two words together. "I... ah... good," she managed to get out as a genuine smile of relief and happiness paste itself onto her face.


"I know this is short notice," she began, "but things have been weird recently and I didn't wanna just assume anything," there was color rising into Sue's cheeks now as she plunged on. "Madelyne Pryor, would you go with me to the dance tomorrow?"


Maddie blinked. "I thought we already were? I mean, I hope so. I already have a dress and stuff."

Now it was Sue's turn to stare at the scuff mark on the floor, "I hoped so, but you know we just haven't really talked for weeks and I didn't know what was going on or what you were thinking." The teenager looked up at her girlfriend, "I was afraid you wouldn't wanna come so I kept pushing off talking to you about it...well till the night before it seems," she said with a wry smile.

"Of course I want to go!" There was laughter in Maddie's voice as she tucked Sue's curls behind her ear. "An opportunity to get all dressed up and go out with my gorgeous girlfriend, who is also all dressed up and looks even more gorgeous than usual? I'm a ditzy cheerleader, not lacking in all brain cells."

"Besides. I already made plans to go out after with some friends. Which, um, I probably should have talked to you about before."

"We totally don't have to go out if you don't want to. We were just going to go out and grab some food and hang out. You know I can't say no to food.

Sue poked Maddie in her ribs gently, "No calling yourself ditzy, if I'm not gonna let anyone else do that what makes you think you'll get away with it?" she teased. "Dinner might be nice, parties like this only ever have finger food anyway. Although it might have been nice to know about it before now."  she told her girlfriend, a smile taking the sting out of her words, "where were you guys thinking about going?"

The redhead put a halt to the poking by entwining her fingers with Sue's. "It kinda just got decided," she said with another apologetic smile. "Like today. Probably hit up a diner or something. Talk about how much our football team sucks. Gossip. You know."

"A chance to spend a coupla hours doing ordinary things like normal highschool girls? How could I turn that down?" Sue asked with a grin.

"Thank you." Maddie squeezed her girlfriend's hand and kissed her cheek. "I mean it." Her voice was soft, serious as she stared into Sue's bright blue eyes. She was grateful for everything the blonde had done for her, not just for agreeing to dinner, and for being understanding about the cheerleading thing, but everything. "Thank you."

Sue smiled at her girlfriend and dropped her head onto the redhead's shoulder, "Of course," she murmured as she shifted closer to her girlfriend and closed her eyes. Sue could still hear the party going at full swing outside, but right here in this moment, sitting on the school hallway floor, it felt like they were the only two people in the world. and with a wry smile playing across her lips the blonde admitted to herself that after the uncertainty and confusion of the last few weeks she was perfectly happy to stay here and try to hold onto this moment just a little bit longer.