Smile Back: Far From Home

by Minisinoo

Summary: This is a coda piece to my Ultimate X-Men novella, Lightning Over Elk River. Alternating first person, Ororo and Scott, regarding the complication of Henry, among other things

Warning: There are several sexual references, and discussion of controversial topics. But this is a story, not a political soapbox. Stories are meant to make people think by grounding abstract discussion in the context of personal histories. People's decisions never take place in a theoretical world.

This story may lose you if you haven't read LOER. Likewise, reading Ult-X issues #7-8 is recommended, if not required. Action here begins with the close of issue #7, and runs to the end of issue #8. (Having seen the film "Gladiator" would be a bonus, too. Section titles in "Smile Back" are scene titles from Gladiator.)

Due to length (it's 13,000 words, or about 50 pages, double-spaced), I've divided the story in half. Both halves can be reached here, as well as all five parts of the previous novella, LIGHTNING OVER ELK RIVER:

http://www.geocities.com/minisinoo/comicverse.html

Tomorrow I'll post the story in its seven sections. Normally, I'd post it in fewer (longer) sections, but since it's already divided
into scenes, I'll just still with the ones I have. Some will be notably shorter than others. Don't assume you're missing part of a
scene if it's only 14K. It may only BE 14K (2-3 pages).

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Smile Back: Far From Home

by Minisinoo

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Storm's POV

"Are you sure you're okay, man?" Scott is speaking to Peter as we take our seats on the Blackbird and prepare to leave Tokyo behind. "You still look peaked." Peter has transformed back into his fleshly form, and his pallid complexion is even more noticeable than it was a minute ago.

"I told you, I'm fine." Peter's frowning, whether from irritation at being babied, or for some other reason.

"Whatever you say," Scott replies. "Strap in, people." And almost before we have a chance to do so, he's sent the plane up at a forty-five degree swoop. Flashy, Cyclops. I clench my jaw to keep my stomach where it belongs and watch him pilot, instead.

I've never been a woman who believed much in the romantic drivel of uncontrollable passion, or had patience for girlfriends who did stupid things in the name of love. I've done plenty of stupid things, to be sure, but not because of men.

Now, I stare at the back of Scott's neck, hypnotized by a fine line of hairs running down his nape, shaved close. I want to bend forward in my seat, reach across the back of his pilot's chair and slide a finger down that line of hairs. I want to watch his muscles bunch and his body shiver. I think that if even my fingertip came into contact with his skin, maybe I could alchemize enough of his essence to sustain me for a while. Erotic osmosis. I breathe his strength like air, and cut off from him, I would suffocate. I can't bear this physical madness, and haven't slept much since the banquet. Couldn't. The thoughts in my mind tumble over one another like a scattery of jacks, but I can find no order by which to pick them up. All I can think about is touching Scott again.

I grip my hands together in my lap.

I really, really need to see Henry.

I shouldn't feel like this, I shouldn't feel like this. It's a hundred times worse than in Nashville. Then, it was just a white, shocked cloud of new infatuation, blown away by an abrupt explosion of doubt -- a puff of dandelion-seed sentiment scattered by Xavier's manipulations. I'm so used to distrusting what I feel. Feelings are dangerous. Caring is dangerous. Flippant Ororo had learned to insulate herself so well, to hide away in a private tower of studied sarcasm and scathing disinterest. Until Scott.

A demon's day in madness kissed
I swear I never had it like this
Forbidden yet I cannot resist . . . .

The last few days in Japan have destroyed all my careful illusions. I'm wholly, catastrophically seduced -- and Scott wasn't even trying. I just respond to his presence without sense or volition, out of some primitive, bone-deep drive that I'm not foolish enough to call love, but which is far more than lust. Lust would be easy to handle. But this? It's beyond me. I've never felt like this before and the inexorable tide of it has sucked me out into an emotional sea.

I'm obsessed with Cyclops.

Yet I'm dating Henry McCoy. And I do care for Hank. God help me, I've come to love him for his gentleness. He's a good man and deserves better than to be the victim of this mad, magnetic drag between Scott and myself. It's wrong, wrong, wrong. Yet I find it impossible to be indifferent to Scott Summers.

Shocked in silent trances, our eyes search just to know
What makes flesh and body hunger for another burning soul?
Conscience quiet pleading in the corner of my eyes
But seeing is believing, all consequences fly . . . .

I grip my fingers tighter and grind my teeth, pretending that there is no prickle of pain in my chest and no flash of heat between my legs as I stare at those hairs on the nape of Scott's neck.

He glances over his shoulder, briefly, as if he'd felt my eyes. For an instant, our gazes lock, even with the visor in the way.

Then he turns back. His hand fumbles a little on the throttle.

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Part II

YOU WILL NOT BE EMPEROR

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Cyclops's POV

I don't want to go home. I'm going to lose her again. Not that I really had her, in Tokyo, but I could pretend. I'm the king of
pretending, and what is my fucking problem, that I shackle myself to these impossible relationships? First Jean, now Ororo . . . .

Xavier would tell me it's because they're safe. He likes to psychoanalyze me; I'm his pet psychology project, but he's not always right. When all this started, Ororo was not 'safe.' She was *mine*. I got screwed. Literally and then figuratively, and it's mostly Xavier's fault. But I'm too far gone to pull back now, so all I can do is wait. I can be a very stubborn man.

But stubbornness doesn't shield one from pain. When we land at the mansion, Hank is waiting in the hangar and Ororo hurries off the plane to throw herself into his arms. He swings her around, and it goes through me like the proverbial knife.

She's fleeing me; I know it. But why? Because she loves me and it scares her? Or because she doesn't love me and I pushed too hard in Japan? The reason makes or breaks my world.

Peter deplanes after Ro, and they all go off with the professor, to fill him in. I stay to cool down the engines. Jean, who was also there waiting, comes in to help me. She's dressed in a crop-top with a silk-screened Chinese character on the front, black on red. No bra. The cool of the hangar has hardened her nipples under the thin cloth. Once, that would have made my throat go dry. Now, we just exchange meaningless banter as we shut down the plane, but I can feel her watching me and I know she can sense that I'm upset even if she won't go traipsing through my brain without an invitation.

I get out of there before she starts asking questions, tell her that I need to unpack. It's even true, and gives me something to do for a while. Then I tackle the laundry, which has gotten backed up in my absence. We all have our little chores around the mansion, since the professor doesn't have a formal staff. *We* are the staff, and he divides chores evenly and without regard to gender lines. So I mow the lawn, but I also do the laundry. My fellow students may handle their own clothes, but there are lots of other things to be washed: towels, dishrags, table cloths, bed sheets and assorted miscellany. Plus, I do the professor's clothes in addition to my own. He can certainly run a washing machine, but it's easier for me to bend over the basin.

"You wanna talk, Slim?"

I jump and twist around to look. "Hey, cat-feet, give a guy a break. How about a little noise next time?"

Smiling, Jean comes over to help me sort the dirty things in the cramped, old, basement laundry room -- using a camouflage of the mundane to approach the significant. We can discuss my jinxed love life as we sort colors, whites, and brights. I may not be able to tell green from blue, but I can tell pastels from jewel tones. It's the difference between 'shade' and 'tint.' I don't see shade. I do see tint, although light pink and true white are the same color to me. So far, though, I've never ruined the wash, and I know why the professor assigned me this task -- to teach me to work around my handicap, or to ask for help when I need it. "Is there any pink in with the white?"

"No," Jean says. "You're getting better." It's an observation, not a condescension, so I don't snap at her for it. "You want to talk to me?" she asks again after a moment. Push, push. I could tell her to fuck off, I could tell her that there's nothing to talk about, but lying to a telepath is an exercise in stupidity. I'm not sure how objective she can be, though. "I'll just listen," she adds. "No judgments."

"You're reading my mind, Jean."

She grins. "So, sue me. You're not exactly keeping your thoughts to yourself."

"Sorry."

"Don't be. You project when you're upset; most people do. Usually, I ignore it." She glances up, a towel clenched in one hand. Her face is gentle. "But I can't ignore you. I never could."

I'm not sure what to make of that, so I just dump Tide With Bleach into the washer basin and start the water: warm/cold, extra-large load. Signals from Jean have been mixed since I came back from the Savage Land -- approach and re-fucking-pel. I wonder sometimes if our interaction will ever return to something easy. I wonder if I want it to.

I slam a handful of sticky kitchen towels into the washer.

"So -- talk," she says now.

"I don't even know where to begin," I say over the whoosh of water filling the machine, and I add more towels, making sure they're spread out so they don't ball up and knock the machine off-balance, sending it walking across the laundry room floor.

"What happened in Japan?"

I stop and look around at her. "What makes you think anything 'happened'?"

She hands me a paper clipping she'd had stuffed in her back pocket. A page out of some freakin gossip rag that shows scenes from our trip, including one of Ororo and I dancing. I look it over and hand it back. It's less incriminating than it might have been. "It was just a dance, Jean."

"*Just* a dance? Scott -- you don't dance!"

I close the washer lid and turn around to lean my back against it, cross my arms and ankles. I can look out the door this way, through the basement workroom to the stairwell. If anyone comes down, I'll see them. "She dragged me out there. It was that or argue with her and cause a scene."

Jean just shakes her head. She knows I'm not lying, but she also knows that nothing short of an earthquake would have gotten me onto a dance floor if I hadn't secretly wanted to go.

"We didn't do anything but dance," I reiterate. "Once."

"God! I didn't assume you did do anything else. I'd fall over in a dead faint if you'd done anything else! You don't betray people that way."

I'm sharply reminded of what Ororo told me in the hotel suite in Nashville: that Jean had defended me to the rest of the team when I'd taken off to the Savage Land -- had insisted I wouldn't betray them. But now, her defense seems misplaced. "Maybe not in deed," I say. "Thought is another matter."

"You can't control how you feel, Scott. I know how much you wish you could, how much you wish you could control how you feel about me, about her, about a lot of things. But you can't. It's not possible. Feelings aren't good or bad, they just are. It's what we do about them that matters and you have a knack for doing what's right. But I worry about you still. I wish you'd talk more. You need to talk about how you feel."

This just makes me laugh, and uncrossing my arms, I push away from the washer to pace across the linoleum floor, then pace back. Frustrated energy. Finally I throw up a hand. "Who the hell am I supposed to talk to? *You*?"

"Yes, me."

"Man, that makes a whole fucking lot of sense! Go talk to the girl I had a crush on about the crush I had on her! Jesus! I usually try my best *not* to look like an ass."

She sighs. "That's just it. You try too hard. I don't suppose it ever occurred to you that I might have gone out with you if you'd asked, instead of slinking around like a shy, kicked puppy?"

I lean back up against the washer. "And I told you before, you didn't need an ex-hustler alcoholic druggie for a boyfriend. You can do better than me."

Reaching down, she grabs a bath towel to fling at me. "Bastard! And I told you before that I don't want to be your porcelain Madonna! I don't care who you were, Scott Summers. I admire who you are."

I caught the towel, and now return it to the pile to cover my embarrassment, and my gratitude for her words. "Give it a rest,
Jean. We already had this fight. Let's just leave it in the past where it belongs. You don't want to date me anyway."

"How do you know?" She lifts an eyebrow and gives me that smirk she specializes in.

I stare at her a minute, not at all sure what to say to that. She's kidding. I think.

God, what if she's not kidding? I don't even want to consider that. I have my eye on a different woman these days. She senses that she's confused me and looks embarrassed -- a hard thing to do, embarrassing a telepath. It doesn't last long, returns to wry humor. "You really are fixated on Storm, aren't you?"

There are many ways I could answer that -- try to explain it, try to defend it, try to deny it. I opt for the simple. "I'm in love with her."

I don't think she expected that. "*Love?* Bullshit!"

"No -- I think maybe I am, Jean."

She exhales heavily. "I know I said I wouldn't judge, but Scott, that's ridiculous. You are not in love with her; you can't be in
love with her. She's as shallow as a baby wading pool. I don't think she's ever had a thought in her head that wasn't about clothes, cars, or boys. She's just jerking you around, jerking Henry around . . . . She's *hurting* people and I don't think she even cares!"

"Yes, she does care. She was trying not to hurt people."

"Oh, really? How is going out with Henry when she's not really interested in him, and leaving you high and dry, not hurting people?"

I just shake my head and pull off my visor, rubbing at my eyelids -- careful not to let them crack open under the pressure of my fingers. Then I put the visor back on. Jean just vocalized my own questions of a few weeks ago, but I understand better now. It doesn't hurt less, but I understand better. "It was bad timing," I say. "Hank asked her when she was vulnerable. He was trying to be nice, but he put her in a spot, and she was mad, and scared, and didn't know what to do. So she went out with him. Now, she's stuck. Blame the professor for that. Ro does care about Hank, Jean. It's just . . . not romantic. Or, it wasn't."

"And you think it's suddenly become romantic?"

I recall her running off the plane to leap into his arms. "I think she's trying to give him a chance."

She crosses her arms over her breasts, mouth drawn tight with a drawstring of disapproval. "By dancing with you in Japan? She's stringing you *both* along!"

"No, she's not, or that wasn't her intention. We shouldn't have danced together. That was my fault."

"Excuse me? How, exactly? She dragged *you* out to the dance floor and it's *your* fault? Is this some weird form of reverse coercion that I've never heard of before?"

Against my will, I smile, tap my temple, and say, "Look for yourself." Sometimes it's easier just to let her get it out of my
head. She accepts the invitation and ruffles through my memories of what happened in Japan. Ro's dress, the walk through the Tokyo streets holding hands, the coffee shop, the dance . . . . She doesn't reply for a while. Then she says, "It's not just *your* fault."

"No. But it's not just Ororo's fault, either. It takes two to tango."

Her shoulders have sagged like the fight's gone out of her. Maybe she's a little less certain now that Cyclops wouldn't betray a fellow team member. After all, what else would one call holding hands with a teammate's girl? "She should still break up with him," Jean says finally.

"No. Maybe she got into it for the wrong reasons, but she likes him, and she owes it to him to try. And I owe it to them both to keep my distance. I wasn't fair to her in Japan. I pushed her."

"She let you."

"Yeah, she did. Like I said, it's both our faults. It got out of hand."

That makes her laugh. "Only you would say a dance was out of hand, Scott."

"It's not the what, Jean. It's the intent."

"And I told you -- you can't control your feelings, just your actions. You controlled your actions."

"So did Ro."

She shrugs in reluctant agreement. "I still don't think it's right. She shouldn't have agreed to go out with him. She should've said no. Maybe it would've hurt him, but he expected her to turn him down. What she's doing now just builds him up to get his bubble burst. I never led you on."

"*What?*" I'm stunned. "*You* never led me on? You have *got* to be kidding!"

Her eyes go wide, and angry. "How did I lead you on?"

"Jean, you are the freakin' queen of flirtation! You say things sometimes and I don't know what the *hell* you mean. *I* can't read your mind."

"Like what? Give me one example!"

"Like less than five minutes ago! I said you didn't want to date me and you said, 'How do you know?' And how am I supposed to interpret that? Were you teasing, or were you serious?"

Remembering, she blinks and is embarrassed all over again. Colossally annoyed, I take three steps forward, grab her by her upper arms, and pull her off balance into me. And I kiss her; it's not platonic. I've taken her by complete surprise, yet she kisses back, half out of sheer curiosity. After a moment, I let her go and she leans away, her eyes huge. "What was that about, Scott?"

"Did you like it?"

She considers. "I don't know. Maybe." She inches forward a little, rises up on tip-toe to study my face, and looks as if she might like to try kissing me again. Against my will, that excites me. "Maybe I could learn to," she admits.

"Ah." I lean back enough to get some personal space, and emotional distance. "Maybe you could learn to. Maybe, if I asked you out and you said 'yes,' you could learn to love me instead of the Wolverine? Maybe Ororo can learn to, as well."

For some reason, it takes her a minute to follow the object lesson, then she says, "Oh," and asks, "And you're *okay* with this? Ororo dating Hank?"

"No. But I'm going to keep my nose out of it and stay away from her better than I did in Japan."

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Part III

I SHALL CHEER FOR YOU

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Storm's POV

The box came three days after we got home from Japan. Peter passes out mail, but the only ones who ever get any besides the professor, are himself, Jean, and Bobby. This day, however, there is a small box wrapped in grocery-bag brown and taped within an inch of its life, addressed to Scott Summers. Amazed and slightly suspicious, he takes it, but his expression alters as soon as he sees the postmark. "It's from Montana," he says, grinning. "Dani Girl." It's the first time I've seen him really smile since we returned from Japan. Curious, I edge closer. We're in the kitchen, Hank and I, Scott and Peter, and all of us watch Scott try to open the box.

Finally, he gives up on tearing through all the tape and raises a hand to his visor, cutting a small line along one edge of the paper. It startles us . . . partly for his precision -- though by now, we ought to know just how good he is with the eye beams -- but mostly for his casual use of such a deadly power. Even after months of living here, I'm not used to that.

He suddenly seems to notice that he's the focus of all our attention. "What are you three stooges looking at? Don't you have anything better to do than watch me open my mail?"

"Nope," Henry replies with a grin from where he's crouching on one of the bar stools.

Scott flips him off but sits down, pulling out the little white box that had been inside the paper, and opening the lid. There's a brief note, lying on top. Four words that I can read now, even at a distance. "Happy birthday. Love, Dani."

"It's your birthday?" Peter asks, shocked, even as we hear footsteps behind us and all glance around. Wolverine enters the kitchen to head for the fridge, and the level of tension in the room kicks up a notch. We're never entirely comfortable around Logan.

"Two days ago," Scott answers Peter now.

"Why didn't you tell us?"

"Because I didn't want you to know?" Scott asks, dryly.

"So you turned, what, nineteen?"

Scott nods as he raises white cotton fuzz to reveal the box's contents -- a silver bracelet, Indian-made. Lifting it out, he looks
it over. It seems like a strange gift. I've never seen Cyclops wear jewelry of any kind. At most, he wears a watch. This bracelet isn't heavy or gaudy, but still -- it's a bracelet. There's a flat spot along the top and Scott turns it to see what's there. We all lean in to see, too. Resting sideways, wings out, is a little stylized bird done in silver on a square, turquoise background. Abruptly, he laughs. "A Thunderbird."

"And this is funny . . . why, exactly?" Henry asks, eyebrows up.

"Because when the Thunderbirds open their eyes, lightning shoots out."

It's not said by any of us. We look around, towards the fridge. Wolverine is leaning back against the door, sipping juice. "How'd you know that?" Scott asks, but with curiosity, not animosity.

Wolverine shrugs. "I know a lot of things." He takes the juice with him when he leaves.

No one says anything for a few minutes, then Scott admits, "He's right. It's was Dani's little joke. She kept telling me I had the
wrong code-name."

"There's something on the back of the note," Henry says, gesturing. Scott turns it over and reads, but doesn't share it with us.
Instead, he puts on the bracelet.

Later, I ask Hank if he'd been able to read the note, and what had it said? Hesitating, he tells me, "I couldn't see it all, but the part I did see said the bracelet is special 'medicine' -- her word. She bought it for him because she saw it in a vision. As long as he's wearing it, bullets can't touch him in battle -- like Crazy Horse." He shrugged. "Hoodoo, if you ask me."

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Part IV

TERRIBLY VEXED

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Scott's POV

Monday Morning Meeting is supposed to be a blow-out valve on the pressure cooker of seven young adults living and working in close proximity under one roof, most of whom have different ideas of what constitutes "clean up the den" or "don't hog the computer room." Not to mention the eternal war over the toilet seat.

Hey, I'm polite. I put it back down when I'm done.

When it had been only Jean and I living here with the professor, life had been uncomplicated. The most serious quarrel we'd ever had was over Jean's tendency to drink the last Coke and not put any more in the fridge to get cold. That had really pissed me off. If I can put down the toilet seat for her, she can put more Coke in the fridge for me. But aside from that, we hadn't quarreled.

Add four more people, from four very different backgrounds, and uncomplicated goes to hell in a handcart.

It took a month of steadily building complaints and a few verbal sparring matches before the professor finally instituted Monday
Morning Meeting. Or The Grievance Hour, as Hank dubbed it almost immediately. Crumb Cake, Coffee, and Complaints, was Jean's version.

The first few meetings had involved a lot of Scream and Leap, with me stuck in the middle trying to mediate -- until they all ganged up on me, and The Grievance Hour turned into the Bash Cyclops Hour. Now that we're all getting used to each other's idiosyncrasies, however, meetings have calmed down. That doesn't mean a fight never erupts.

"He takes too damn long in the shower, and then all the hot water is used up!"

Henry McCoy, complaining about Peter.

"I do not!" Peter replies. "A shower's a shower! Maybe if you *got up* sooner, you wouldn't be the last one in!"

"Maybe if you'd take yours *at night*, you could take as long as you want. You're worse than the girls!"

"Hey!" Jean snaps. "Watch it."

And I say, "Define 'a long time.'"

"He's in there twenty minutes!"

"Yeah, well, maybe I shampoo my hair and scrub under my arms, unlike you Beastie Boy."

"Sounds to me," says Wolverine from a corner of the kitchen, "like Petie's having a shower and a little morning jack-off. Easier to clean up the mess that way."

Dead silence greets that observation, and I'm not sure who's more embarrassed -- Peter, me, Hank, or the girls. At least Bobby's still home with his parents. The professor says nothing -- which is par for the course -- and Wolverine continues to clean his goddamn nails with one of his fist-knives. Of course, Wolverine is probably *right*, but . . . . "'Why' isn't the issue, Logan. The length of time is the issue." I catch the professor suppress a smile. Score one for Cyclops.

"Maybe Petie just needs a little action."

Peter twists to look at Logan. "Are you volunteering, Wolverine?"

It takes real will-power not to laugh at Logan's expression. I and the professor are the only ones who manage. But the Wolverine rallies and grins slyly. "You're not my type, Ruskie."

Peter affects a grand sigh. "Too bad. All the good ones are straight."

Composure is out the window now. Even I can't not laugh at that. When things calm down again, I say, "Peter, don't make me put a timer in the bathroom, okay, man?"

"I hear the pot calling the kettle black. I'm not the only guy who takes a long time in the shower, eh, *Cyclops*?"

"He has a point," Hank adds.

"I'm in there and out before most of you are even *awake*," I reply, starting to get annoyed.

"Well," says Hank, "I think we ought to put a time limit on everybody. Ten minutes. That's it."

"I shower at night," Ororo pipes up. "My hair has to dry."

"You don't count," Hank tells her.

"Unfair!" Peter yelps. "No grace for the girlfriend, Beastie Boy. If it's a time limit, it's a time limit for *everybody*."

"Guys," I say, "No time limits. Just . . . think about the next person, okay?"

"What's wrong with ten minutes?" Hank asks. "I can shower in five."

"Well, I can't! I have to shave!" Jean snaps.

"Shave some time other than in the morning, then."

"Fuck you, Henry."

**Language, Jean,** the professor says mildly.

I just shake my head. "No. We're not doing time limits."

"Ten minutes too short for you, pretty boy?" Henry's teasing me, but it has an edge. He may not know what went on between Ororo and I in Nashville, or Japan, but he's not completely oblivious to the fact that I stutter more when Ro's in a room. Henry's anything but stupid.

I glance helplessly at the professor, who, understanding, sits forward to intervene. Ororo beats him to it. "Give Scott a break,
guys. None of you has to shower blind. Try it some time; it's not easy."

That stops the argument cold, but what she'd said surprised me more. Later, I find a minute to approach her. "What did you mean 'try it some time; it's not easy'?"

We're in the upper hallway on the mezzanine overlooking the main entry. Anyone can see us talking, but that doesn't matter. I try not to be alone with her. We haven't had a reading lesson since we got back, but she doesn't really need me any longer. She can read. Not fast, but she can read. And she practices; that, I make sure of. Now, arms crossed, she looks away, down to the entry below. "I wanted to see what you have to go through, so I tried showering and getting dressed once with my eyes closed. I didn't expect it to be that hard. I knocked the bathroom cup in the sink and almost broke it."

"You get used to doing it after a while," I say, mostly because I can't think of anything else. She gives a little shrug and moves
past me. I call after, "Ro!" and she looks back. "Thanks." She shrugs again, but smiles at me. It sends a weak-water flash through my bones.

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Part V

THE LAST WISH OF A DYING MAN

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Storm's POV

The cold water hits me harder than the shallow lake bottom, and breathless but laughing, I roll over to lean back on my arms, face to the sky, eyes closed. I can hear Hank's footsteps on the wooden steps of the pier. "Oh my *God*! I can't believe I was too scared to experiment with these powers before I met the professor. Riding air currents is better than riding a Harley Fatboy. You have *got* to try this!"

"Thanks for the offer, but I think I'll pass until you perfect that landing technique -- if you don't mind."

His humor -- so like Scott's sometimes -- makes me smile and I push myself up, wade through the calf-deep water to the edge of the lake and let Henry pull me out, wrapping his black jacket around me. He's warm and he's solid, and his hands are very gentle. I'm always amazed by his hands. They look clumsy but his fine motor control is better than my own. Better than any of ours. A gentle man and a gentleman. "Besides," he goes on now, 'I thought I was supposed to be helping you review for this algebra exam you were so worried about last night."

But that's Henry's fixation, not mine. I was worried about the test, true, but mostly because it's the first written exam I've ever taken in my life. Hank doesn't know that, and I don't want him to know. It's still my little secret; one Scott has kept faithfully from everyone -- except the professor, of course. Xavier knew from the outset about my inability to read; it wasn't something I could hide from a telepath. But I'd thought him more interested in making me a super-hero than a student. Then a week ago, he called me into his office and said it was time to put my new literary skills to the test. He was giving me an exam on the simple algebra that Scott had been showing me before we'd gone to Tokyo. Scott picks math and science material because he likes it, and I'd just read whatever he put in front of me. "How'd you know what he makes me read?" I'd asked the professor.

Xavier had given me that *look*, and it had caused me to wonder all over again just how much he'd set up Scott and me: my field leader, my teacher, my lover? He'd planned for Cyclops to become all those things to me. But I hadn't run to Scott to review for the test he didn't know Xavier was giving me. I'd asked Henry to help me instead.

This afternoon, though, with a blue sky and perfect weather and the prospect of a picnic, studying for a math test isn't high on my list. "Who can tell a cosine from a hypotenuse when coming down off an adrenaline rush?" I ask Hank now, but it's mostly a smoke screen. And it's not just the lake water that's given me cold feet. If I let Henry tutor me, he'll figure out how badly I read. I can, however, come up with a way to get his mind off of it, I think. I've spent half my life perfecting the distraction of men. "Can't we just cuddle and make out for a while?" I ask, grinning and snaking an arm around his back. He's so wide, I can't even reach the other side of his waist -- so different from slender Scott, who carries his breadth across chest and shoulders.

Don't think of Scott.

Hank's speaking in any case. "Are you sure you're really comfortable with this, Ororo?"

Perplexed, I just blink at him. Comfortable with what? Not being able to reach around his waist? Seeing my confusion, he continues, "I mean, this whole dating-the-fat-guy-thing isn't just some elaborate prank the others put you up to for a laugh, is it?"

The question is so unexpected, and so wrong -- and yet so close to my guilt, if not to the reason for it -- that all I can say is, "Come again?"

"I'm sorry." Flushing, he looks away. "It's just that the only other time a girl was interested in me, the rest of the class had
begged her to ask me out. When I showed up for our first date, all the other kids in the school were waiting outside the theater to hit me with eggs, telling me how ugly I was and how I looked like a gorilla."

This . . . . I don't need to hear this. It makes me feel all the worse, and my heart spasms for that young boy outside a movie
theater. "Are you serious?" I ask him softly, though I don't really doubt it. People are cruel.

We've reached our picnic blanket, spread out with food. He did all this while I was playing in the sky. And he ate a little, too, I see, but I don't mind. His mutation requires more calories in his system than the rest of us need. He keeps making jokes about being the fat kid, but he's not fat. Most of it is muscle. He's just so big and thick, and round, it's easy to mistake. Now, I settle down on the pink picnic blanket and turn to face him, my legs tucked under me. He sits cross-legged beside me.

"The fact that someone who looks like you would even want to kiss me just absolutely blows my mind," he says. He still isn't looking at me.

And how do I reply to that? 'I'm sorry, Henry, but yeah, I sorta, kinda went out with you because I didn't know how to say 'no' and now I'm stuck, but it's not your body I dream about at night when I touch myself'?

And that bothers me. It bothers me a lot. But what bothers me almost as much is his . . . fixation . . . on my looks. I wonder
sometimes if I'm a person to him, or just a trophy? I'm flattered that he thinks I'm pretty, but -- "I break wind and forget to floss some days just like everyone else, y'know? Chill out."

I wouldn't have needed to tell Scott that, and the difference strikes me sharply. But I'm still a bit traumatized by the thought of
gentle, funny, clever Henry being the butt of a school-wide joke. It infuriates me, and if he wanted to take me back to his school to show me off, I'd be happy to play his little trophy girl for an afternoon, just to see the look on that bitch's face.

"I've done a lot of stupid things over the years," I tell him now, "insane things like you wouldn't believe." I pick up the math books and fling them aside with the force of my indignation. "But going out with you has been the most fun I've ever had without getting myself arrested, Henry McCoy." And I kiss him.

Maybe I'm just digging myself in deeper, but Hank's a good kisser. And I think that I could learn to like this. If I could just forget Scott.

*********************

Part VI

SHADOWS AND DUST

*********************

Cyclops' POV

It began with a debate about Jack Kevorkian, his suicide machine, and the right-to-die movement. From there, discussion raced through Living Wills and organ donors, skidded around the curve of fetal tissue used in Alzheimers research, and is headed now into a backstretch of bitterness on the ethics of abortion.

I have the questionable luck of overhearing it all, even if I'm not involved in it. The argument rages in the kitchen while I try to
watch my new GLADIATOR DVD -- Jean's birthday present to me -- in the den. But their bickering is drowning out even the augmented shouts of a Colosseum crowd, ripping me from the world of ancient Rome.

When she's mad, Jean's pitch goes strident, and Peter's voice carries anyway. Henry tries to pontificate over the top of them both with a vocabulary that sounds like a dictionary crossbred with a thesaurus. "Would you guys keep it *down*?" I call.

There's a pause. Then Jean calls back, "What do you care? It's not like you've never seen that movie before! *How* many times did you watch it in the theater alone?"

"He told me seven!" Bobby's voice. His parents returned him to us about half an hour ago.

"Yeah, he thinks he's Russell Crowe!" Peter adds, laughing.

"I do not!" I yell back, which just gets more laughter and whistles. "And you're still too loud," I add. "I can't hear the dialogue."

"Cyclops," Jean replies, "you can recite the *whole damn script* with the actors! Deal, boy-o."

Crossing my arms, I sink down into the couch and turn up the volume with the remote. I don't want to be Russell Crowe; he's an egotistical jerk. It's the character of Maximus with whom I identify. Even after eighteen viewings, I still have to fast-forward
through the scene where he loses his family and his home. It makes my chest hurt. I remember what that feels like. I remember a plane in flames.

But they don't pipe down in the kitchen, and finally, I mutter "Shit," and shut off the TV, get up to wander in and lean against the
kitchen door-jamb. If you can't beat them, join them. The most amusing thing about the whole debate -- from my perspective -- is that *none* of them qualifies as a right-wing conservative. It's just a matter of degree as to where they fit on the radical left, with Jean at one end and, perhaps oddly, Peter at the other.

To say that Jean's a bleeding-heart liberal doesn't begin to cover it. Jean's a bleeding-heart liberal with bells on, Green Party
bumper stickers, red AIDS ribbons, a subscription to MOTHER JONES, and a collection of faded ERA buttons from the 1970s. That doesn't bother me. I'm more often than not inclined to agree with her -- I *am* the guy who reads THE NATION cover-to-cover. But Jean in full Righteous Mode can be a bit much, even for me. I just agree with her and keep my nose down until she runs out of steam and relaxes, then we can have a conversation instead of Pronouncements from the Soapbox . . . whatever soapbox she's currently favoring. Right now, it's a woman's right to choose.

But I think it comes as a surprise to everyone (me, not least) when Ororo -- who's been almost completely silent up to this point -- speaks into one of Jean's rare pauses. "It's not a simple matter of choice, Jean. It's a life."

"Since when did you join the side of the clinic bombers, Miss The-Morning-After-Pill-is-the-best-thing-since-sliced-bread?"

Ororo's mouth thins. "Don't assume you know what I think. And babies don't suddenly become people the day they're born."

"Look" -- Jean jabs a finger at the bar counter -- "I'm not advocating third trimester abortions here, but the choice *has* to
stay with the woman. If it doesn't, then we start down a slippery slope -- like censorship. If you start drawing lines, who decides where the lines are? The Moral so-called Majority?"

"In principle, I agree. But these are children, not banned books."

"Oh, please!" Jean throws up her hands. "Don't start tossing out bumper sticker sound bites. *'It's a child, not a choice.'*" Her voice is sarcastic and disrespectful. I know that tone and she's about to start snapping at ankles. Jean at her best is a savvy, sympathetic advocate, and I can't think of anyone I'd rather have at my back. But Jean at her worst is an angry terrier.

"At six weeks," Jean's saying, "It is *not* a child, it's a collection of cell tissue called an embryo. It barely has a spinal
cord, much less a brain, and looks more like a salamander than a human being." She and Ororo have faced off across the bar counter. "Do you want a bunch of Fundamentalist preachers and old guys in Washington telling you what to do with your body, Storm? If men could get pregnant, abortion would be a sacrament."

Ororo presses her palms to either side of her temples. Her eyes are white, and I can see that she's struggling fiercely for control. Outside, the rain comes down harder and lightning flashes. "Have you ever been inside an abortion clinic? Walked through the picket lines and had garbage thrown at you? Sat in the office and waited to hear if you were pregnant while you tried to think how you could afford either an abortion or a baby? I've done all those things with friends. And never were my friends spouting political slogans or asking if the baby had a brain yet, or if old men in Washington owned their uteruses. *Those are not the questions they ask!*" She bites it off harsh, and her accent has become more pronounced than usual. "The questions are, Can I kill a life inside me? Is that murder? But if I don't, who will help me? *How will I survive?*"

A little subdued, Jean sits back down, as if she realizes at last that her theoretical debate has become personal for Ororo. She loves to argue, but she's not callous. Usually. "Storm, I -- "

"*Shut up and listen!* I knew girls who meant to give up their children, then changed their minds in the hospital delivery room.
One was fifteen years old, with a baby she couldn't afford and didn't have the patience to handle. One night, she shook her baby to death because the baby had colic and had been screaming for hours, every day for a month, and Carley couldn't take it any more, and didn't have anyone to call to help her. She lost her temper and broke her baby's neck. They arrested her for manslaughter but nothing they did to her, *nothing* -- " Ro stops, takes a drink of tea. Tears streak her face and Henry lays a hand on her back. I wish it could be my hand. "Nothing they did to Carley was worse than holding the baby she'd killed. Her baby. So she killed herself before she ever went to trial."

"Ororo," Jean says, voice gentle, "that's a bit different from what we're talking about here . . . . "

"No, it's not! It's killing. Abortion is killing. Sometimes you have to. Sometimes you don't have a choice because the alternatives are worse. Maybe it's better for a baby never to be born than to be shaken to death by its own mother. But to choose . . . ." She wipes her eyes. "You're killing something. You're killing something alive inside you." And saying that, she gets up and stalks out right past me, still standing in the doorway.

"Wow," Peter says when she's gone. "Think we touched a nerve?"

"Just a little," Jean agrees, but neither of them is laughing, and Bobby just looks stunned. Jean glances at Hank. "Aren't you going to follow her?"

"Right now? No way; she'll zap me. I'll let her cool down first." He looks up at me, still leaning into the doorjamb, watching him. "*What?*"

"Nothing." And I push away, leave them there to head up to Ororo's haven in the attic and knock on the door.

"Go away, Henry!"

"Ro, it's me." No answer to that. "*Jilah.* Open the freakin' door."

It takes a minute, but then the door is jerked open. I get nothing more than a brief glance at her puffy face before she turns away again, back to the French windows that open out on the widow's walk. Rain drums on square panes of lead glass. Old and gravity warped, they distort the reflection of her face. She stands with her back to me, arms crossed in front of her. "What do you want?"

"Um -- a set of seat covers for my car, the new Barenaked Ladies CD, and someone to mow the lawn next Saturday so I can sleep in?"

That earns a few seconds of startled silence, then she starts laughing, helplessly, one hand hiding her face. I shut the door and
approach her. I shouldn't be here. But when she's hurting like this, I can't ignore her, not any more than Jean says she can ignore me. Reaching out, I grip her bare upper arms, chafe the skin. She feels cold. "What was that about, in the kitchen?"

"Nothing."

"Nothing my ass."

"Hey -- can't a girl get pissed at theoretical posturing?"

"Ororo -- "

"What do you want? You've been avoiding me for two weeks, but then I get in a fight with your lady love and you're up here to reprimand me under cover of being 'concerned.'"

I turn her to face me; she's a mess from crying. I wipe hair off her face. "You're trying to yank my chain, hoping I'll go away. Don't play that game with me, Jilah. I play it too well myself. And I think we both know who my lady love is."

She stares at me a long minute. "There are things about me you don't know, Scott. You might find out that the woman you think you're in love with isn't who you thought she was."

I'm amused by this. "Secrets? You? Remember who you're talking to. You know quite a few of mine. Now tell me what in hell that was about in the kitchen."

I can feel her relax in my grip, and she drops her eyes. "I don't like it when people get up on some high horse about something they've never been through."

"The idea of Ororo the Pro-Lifer strikes me as odd."

"Really? Then what about Jamilah al-Maliji, the Muslim girl? Islam doesn't condone abortion, you know. Well, the conservative elements don't. It's illegal in Morocco. 'Kill not your children for fear of want: We shall provide sustenance for them as well as for you, truly the killing of them is a great sin.' It's right there in the Qur`an."

"You've told me yourself you're not Muslim any more."

"But it's still part of me." Pulling out of my grip, she goes to sit down on the edge of her futon bed. Her posture is closed again,
shoulders slumped in, arms re-crossed under her breasts and knees tightly together. "I'm not a pro-lifer. But it's . . .
complicated."

I have a feeling that I know what's coming.

"I had an abortion, Scott. I was fourteen." She looks up at me. "It was the most horrible thing I've ever had to do. There was a baby alive in me, and I went to a doctor and paid money and then it wasn't alive any more. It's . . . . I can't explain what that feels like. It'd be one thing if it had just died. But *I* did it. *I* made that decision. *I* killed it. Allah forgive me." She
turns her eyes from my face to the French doors behind me. She's crying again. "Don't tell me you're surprised."

"I'd thought it might be something like that," I admit, but keep my distance. I'm not sure she's ready to let me approach. "Tell me what happened."

"I was young, stupid, and unlucky. I got pregnant. It happens all the time."

"Who was the father?"

"A guy I was living with. He gave me a place to sleep, if I slept with him. He didn't want to wear a condom, didn't like the feel, and we were in a state where I couldn't get birth control pills easily without parental consent. I tried counting instead, found out how reliable *that* is. He gave me half the money for an abortion, and then kicked me out -- told me I could come back when it was taken care of. At least he gave me some money."

There weren't sufficient words for what I felt at that moment. Outrage, mostly, at the thought of a fourteen-year-old girl dumped on the street pregnant, with half the cash she needed and no-where to go. I was embarrassed, as well, to share the same gender with the jackass who'd done it -- and maybe a little proud of what I'd told her after Nashville: that I wouldn't leave her hanging, if she had a bun in the oven. I wasn't above counting my Brownie points. I couldn't help it; I loved her. "What'd you do?"

"Oh, there are crisis hotlines for pregnant women." She wipes her eyes, sniffs, and shakes her hair back. "I called one, went in to talk. They told me about all the options I had, laid them out in excruciating detail -- what an abortion involved, and what it might do to my body if something went wrong. Or, if I didn't want or couldn't afford an abortion, they told me about programs, government and private, to pay for OB check-ups, help me do the paperwork for adoption, even foot my hospital bill when I gave birth. Lots of nice programs. But then we run into problems." She raises three fingers and ticks them off. "First, under my real identity, I'm an illegal alien with an expired Visa, and second, I was an underage orphan. Third, if I'd used my fake ID, I had a few outstanding warrants for my arrest. The minute I tried to register for any programs, I'd either be thrown in jail, or expatriated back to Morocco. Neither was high on my list, so I said, 'Thanks but no thanks,' and left."

Details, details. Funny, how it's the details that trip us up. "So then what?"

She wiggles her fingers. "A little light theft, a visit to a pawn shop, and I had the rest of the cash. And a few questions to a few
friends gave me the name of a doctor who'd do it after hours and not ask my mommy to sign on the dotted line." She shakes her head. "She wasn't a bad woman. It sounds that way, but she wasn't. She helped out girls in a jam - like me. The price, besides the cash, was a long lecture about the virtues of birth control and a year's prescription for the pill. She did it because the alternative would have been a wire coat-hanger in a back room. She offered an office with sterilized equipment instead."

She wraps her arms under her breasts once more -- over her womb, I realize belatedly. "I went three times before I could do it. The doctor was very patient, didn't force me or anything. I slept on the street for a week and thought about ways to raise my baby. I was so scared. I was just fourteen, and it was only a few months after my friend had committed suicide."

"The one who killed her baby?"

"Yes. I went round and round and round with it. I talked to people, but everywhere I looked, there was a money hurdle or a legal hurdle. How could I have cared for a baby and gotten a job? So I asked around for a sitter, even checked out daycare centers." I felt my eyebrows go up at that. It seemed unusually farsighted for a fourteen year old girl. But Ororo was always the pragmatic one. "I asked them about prices and found out that most had a waiting list like you wouldn't believe for infants. And they had application fees, registration fees, and a monthly rate that would've taken half a minimum-wage income. The only ones I could afford -- those subsidized by WIC or similar -- had paperwork I couldn't do. I faced the same problem with food stamps and Medicaid."

"You couldn't read."

"Well, that, yes, but I couldn't apply because all those support programs require qualification ID checks and I couldn't let anyone look into my history that closely. I was completely on my own."

I shift and lean into the French doors, ask the question I hope she won't resent me for. "What about going home? I mean, did you ever think about it? Going back to your family in Morocco?"

She just blinks at me for several minutes. "You're kidding, right?"

"No. Is it that bad in Morocco? That's an honest question -- I don't know."

"It's bad if you're an unmarried pregnant girl, Scott. It's a Muslim country. I'd been in America too long. I couldn't have gone back there and been happy. Someday, yeah, I wouldn't mind going back to see my family -- but just to visit. And if I'd been sent back then, it would've been a disaster for me."

"Okay, fair enough."

She sighs and runs a hand through her white hair. "It was just too big. After a week, I realized that it was all just too big for one person to do alone with no resources or support programs. It seemed impossible at the time, and I realize now that I didn't even know the *half* of it -- how much it would really have cost.

"There are diapers, baby clothes, baby supplies, a crib, formula -- all that stuff to buy. If you don't have easy access to a washing machine, you need disposable diapers and they're *expensive*. For such a little thing, babies take a lot of stuff. I couldn't have breastfed if I was working all day, so I'd have had to use formula -- and *it's* expensive. Plus, daycare centers have only daytime hours, so I would've been limited in jobs. And that doesn't even begin to cover what actually *having* the baby in a hospital would've cost, or doctor appointments before the baby was born. Later, I'd have needed insurance for my baby, and well-baby check-ups and inoculations. And we won't even talk about 'extras' like, say, *toys*."

I listen to this litany in a kind of dim shock. I hadn't had any idea just how much was involved in caring for an infant. And the
fact that she must have kept thinking about it even after, worrying at it like a sore tooth, strikes me hard. "What about giving it up for adoption?" I ask.

"Oh, I considered that. Forego any kind of medical checkups while pregnant, then just show up at a hospital as an indigent when I went into labor, drop the kid, and sneak out when the nurses weren't looking. It's been done before." She shook her head. "So yeah, I considered it. Maybe, if I'd known the baby would be adopted by good parents, I might have. But how could I decide to give a baby life -- a half-African, half-Hispanic baby - and then just abandon it to Fate? I wasn't exactly leaving some blond-haired, blue-eyed kid on a doorstep. Some kids are hard to place. Bi-racial kids, kids with medical problems . . . . "

I felt my breath go out. She had no idea how well I knew that.

"No," she was saying, "I decided that I was either going to be that baby's mother, or I wasn't going to have it. It was my
responsibility. So the third time I went to the doctor's office, I had the abortion. It took me three hours of crying in the waiting
room, but I went in and had it done. I killed my baby because I couldn't be the mother it needed. I'm no better than Carley. I
killed my baby."

Ahe's crying all over again -- silent tears, tracking out of red-rimmed white eyes -- and I can see how she trembles all over, as
if she's holding back an explosion of all the grief and pain and self-hatred inside her. "It's not the same as for your friend, Ro.
You couldn't have been that far along. You said it was only a week or so after you found out. Terminating a two- or three-month pregnancy isn't the same as shaking to death a two- or three-month-old infant."

"It's not the length of time, Scott. It's how real the baby is, how many dreams you build, or hopes. And when you spend day after day thinking about how you can raise it and what names you could give it, you have plenty of time to build dreams. My baby made me tired, made me throw up my dinner, and changed my body. You *feel* it. It was real to me, real inside me." She touches her abdomen for emphasis. "A life. I don't care if it looked like a salamander or not. The baby was real to me, and I killed it, and then I cried and cried and cried for months after."

I don't know what to do or say. I'm all out of words, and can't begin to guess what it feels like. Parenthood isn't something I've considered much, mostly tried not to consider. I can't think of much worse than to inflict myself as a parent on an infant. I realize that I have my arms crossed over my chest in an echo of her own, and deliberately uncross them, take a few steps towards her. When she doesn't react, I decide that maybe she'll let me approach finally, and I come over to sit beside her, put an arm around her, all awkward with my confusion. I don't know what she needs, but this must be okay because she turns and buries her face against my neck. I relax a little and hold her more easily, just let her cry. I could tell her that there will be plenty of time for her to be a mother, but the thought seems cruel, just now.

She cries until she's hiccuping, then asks, "You won't tell anyone?"

"Of course not. You didn't tell anyone about me."

She smiles against my skin and her arms have tightened around me. It's incredibly pleasant, sends a shudder through me, and I feel guilt for taking delight when she's hurting. "We have some serious blackmail material on each other, don't we?" she asks.

"Ro, nobody here would condemn your choice. You were *fourteen* Jean'd be the first in the mansion to back you up."

She pushes away to look me in the eyes. "Real life is a little different from the theoretical, Scott. I'm sure everyone here would
agree on the evils of childhood prostitution and how awful it is for the kids stuck in it. But I don't see you rushing off to tell them that would include you." She had a point; I swallowed. "People might support the right to choose in theory, but when you stand up and say, 'I chose,' they get uncomfortable."

"It's not always because they disapprove, Ro. Sometimes . . . we just don't know what the fuck to say." My exasperation with myself finally leaks out, and she cups my cheek, rubs her thumb up and down - gentle. But her hands aren't pampered penthouse soft. They have calluses. Like mine.

"You didn't need to say anything," she tells me. "You listened and you hugged me. Caring isn't rocket science. You're better at it than you think, Scott Summers."

Despite everything, that makes me smile and blush. "With you, I don't have to try very hard to care." Then, I make myself add, "You could tell Peter, you know. Or Jean, or Henry."

Standing abruptly, she walks away. Her arms are crossed again. "God, no. Please don't tell them, Scott. Please don't tell them --"

"I said I wouldn't. I won't." Rising, I come up behind her to wrap my arms around her shoulders. "Calm down. I keep my word. I just think you should."

"I *can't* tell them. Well, maybe I could tell Peter. But not Jean, and definitely not Hank. He *idolizes* me. The other day, at the park, he just . . . You know what he told me? He thought my going out with him was some kind of sick joke that the rest of you put me up to."

Involuntarily, my arms tighten around her.

"Another girl did that to him once," she adds. "Asked him out and took him to the movies where there were other students waiting to laugh at him. I felt so badly for him, and so guilty. I can't break up with him now - not immediately." She leans her head back against my shoulder. "I keep thinking that maybe I can learn to love him, but then you walk in a room and all I want is to stand with you like this. This is where I belong. It sounds really corny, I know, but I *fit* you. And not just physically. You understand me. You're the only one I could tell about my baby. I knew you'd understand. You don't drool on me or worship the ground I walk on, or wonder why I might want to kiss you -- "

I laugh at that, interrupting her. "Well, yeah, actually, sometimes I do. *I* wouldn't want to kiss me."

I've made her smile, and she swings a hand behind her, smacks my shoulder lightly. "Don't be a dope. You know what I mean. I'm real to you. Not a fashion mannequin."

Leaning in, I push my face into the back of her hair. God, I've wanted to do this again for weeks. I'm like a cat with catnip; the
smell of her intoxicates me. "Yes, I know what you mean."

She turns in my arms and she's almost my height. I like that. Our faces are so close, I can feel her breath, the brush of her chin and nose, and her body is pressed -- breast, hip, and knee -- to mine, her arms around my shoulders. Her eyes are solid white. We don't kiss so much as press open mouth to open mouth in a kind of languid distraction. Her breath smells like mint tea, and salt from tears. Reaching out with her tongue, she licks my upper lip. I lick her back, then touch the tip of my tongue to hers. It's strangely erotic, and all the blood in my body has gone south, deserting my brain. I can feel her fingers light on the hair at the nape of my neck. "I think that maybe I love you," she whispers after a minute, breath puffing against my lips. "I wasn't sure. I'm still not sure. But I think that maybe I do."

My eyes close behind my visor. I know I'm shaking and I know she can feel it. "I've loved you since Nashville." Her fingers still rest light on the back of my neck, and my skin is on fire everywhere. "Tell me," I whisper, "how you can say you love me but stay with Hank? How is that right -- to him, or to me?"

"Because I love him, too." My eyes open at that, and I stare at her. She's watching me. Like Jean, like the professor, she's learned how to look me in the eye despite the ruby quartz, and it means a great deal. "I don't love him the same way as you," she adds. "But I do love him, and if I break up with him right now, he will think it was a joke. He'll think I was using him, or making fun of him, and it'll be a hundred times worse if I turn around and hop right into your bed."

"We wouldn't have to -- "

"Right! Tell me just how long you think we could stay away from each other? We can't even do it now! We wouldn't last twenty-four hours before we were fucking like bunnies."

The crudity startles me, and I pull away a bit -- not because I've never heard her use obscenity, but it cheapens what I feel. "I'm not a bunny."

"Neither am I, but I have less self-control than one when you're this close. I can't even *think* straight, dammit." She slides a hand from my shoulder down my body until she finds the bulge in my pants, presses hard and firm enough to make me breathe out and close my eyes, bucking instinctively. Blood roars in my ears and it feels fiercely good -- a hot, sweet pain. I think I might come right there, standing up. I can barely concentrate on her words. "Be honest, Scott. Which head are you thinking with right now? The cool one of Cyclops, or the hard one under my hand?"

"Well, you're not exactly helping," I manage to get out.

She lets me go completely and takes three steps back. Her chin is up and her eyes have gone back to their normal gold. The abrupt lack of her touch makes me bend forward a little, stunned. She was caressing me less than a minute, and through two layers of cloth, yet I ache as if from a blow to my groin. "Get out of here before I throw you on my bed, rip your clothes off and hide them so you can't run away until I'm through with you," she says.

I take her advice. Otherwise, I think I might get down on my knees and beg. The sound of the attic door shutting behind me is a little too final. I can see out the window at the hall end that the clouds have finally started to clear. Stars twinkle. When I get back downstairs to the kitchen, I find Jean setting Chinese take-out on the table. She glances up at me. "How is she?"

I stiffen. "What makes you think -- "

"Oh, Slim, please. I know you. Hank may be too shy of her to beard the lioness in her den, but you are the Fearless Leader." She grins at the nickname they've all hung on me.

"She's fine," I lie, going to the fridge to get out the tea and then fetching down some glasses.

"Charles is coming down, too," she says when she sees I have only two glasses. I get a third. Then she adds, "You're not going to tell me why she was upset, are you?"

"It's none of your business, Jean." But it's not said with anger.

She shakes her head at me and grins. "You protect us in a lot of ways, don't you?"

"It's my job."

"No, I think it's your vocation." And she tosses chopsticks on the table.

*************************

Part VII

DEATH SMILES AT US ALL

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Storm's POV

I take a shower before I trust myself to come out again. My face was a mess from crying, and I'd needed to change clothes or Hank -- whose senses are almost as keen as Logan's -- would've smelled the arousal on me from being with Scott. I put on something pretty, that leather mini-skirt he likes so well, and find him hanging out in the den, watching Scott's movie and trying to appear unconcerned. But he jumps up as soon as I enter and comes over to put an arm around me, leading me to the couch. "You okay?"

"I'm fine."

I can tell he doesn't believe me, but he lets it slide for the moment as we settle down, his arm still around my shoulders. But I'm raw yet from what almost happened in my bedroom with Scott, and hold myself a bit stiff, try to concentrate on the movie. I'd never much considered why Scott is so fixated on this film, but thinking about what Peter had said earlier -- that Scott wants to be Russell Crowe -- it suddenly makes sense. Scott sees himself as the beleaguered but faithful general, prisoner of duty and fate, who really just wants to go home and be your average joe. But he doesn't have a *clue* how to be normal, not any more than I do. Like the character in the movie, he commands without trying. It's his nature.

When the power goes out suddenly, shutting down lights, TV and DVD player, Henry and I both sit up in confusion. From the kitchen, we can hear Scott scream, "Hit the floor!" But before I can even think to respond, the den windows blow out behind Henry and I, and I'm sailing through the air to land hard on what used to be the coffee table-top. It stuns me and my ears ring from the echo of the explosion, but I can't afford to let myself black out.

*What the hell is going on?*

I should probably be afraid. But mostly, I'm furious with that instinctive indignation of the assaulted and start to pick myself up.
Turning my head to the side, I see black boots approach. Black boots are going to pay. An electric tingle races through my body as my powers respond to my rage. "Well, well, well," says a voice above and to my side, a gravelly voice. "Look who's trying to show the world what a dangerous little girl she is."

I don't bother to reply, just let the lightning crackle from my eyes and race along my fingers. I start to lift a hand when I feel
something slam hard into my head. "Don't even think about it, honey."

I can't black out, I can't black out, I can't black out . . . . I say it over and over as the world tunnels, spins, and takes a
nose-dive. As if from a distance, I hear Henry bellow, "*Get away from her!*"

"What's the matter monkey-man?" says the same gravelly voice. "This lucky lady your girlfriend or something?" There's an awful sound, like meat slapped onto a cutting board, and then a grunt and the noise of a body collapsing.

I try to blink my eyes open to see what's happened, see who was hurt, and how badly, but I don't have the strength. It's all I can do to stay conscious. My head is pounding.

Above me, Gravel Voice says, "Well, she's our girlfriend now, fatso."

For the first time, I feel real fear, and then there are hands on me, rolling me over and feeling up my chest. I want to jerk away, but don't dare. I can't let them know I'm still awake. "Our girlfriend now," the voice repeats and the hand slides under my mini-skirt, between my legs. I clench as tight as I can while trying to pretend to be out, but rough fingers with sharp nails wiggle their way between my thighs and poke up into my vagina.

Oh, God, oh, God, oh, God. *It hurts.* This can't be happening to me. Shock, fury, and fear all mix together and hold me immobile.

"Leave her," says another voice. "You'll get your fun soon enough, Sabretooth. You know Wraith wants us to find Wolverine."

With a curse, the fingers retreat, and then so do several pairs of feet. My relief is overwhelming. If I can just crawl off somewhere, maybe I can get to Scott. I can hear him in the kitchen shouting obscenities at our attackers over the sound of rifle gunshot and his own optic blasts.

Jesus, Scott, don't get yourself hit.

But as long as I can hear him, I believe we have a chance. I lift myself up on my hands but get barely a foot before another pair of shiny black boots enters my field of vision, followed by a rifle barrel pointed at my nose. "Forget it, mutie bitch." The barrel
disappears for a second, then I feel it hit the side of my head.

I wake again as I'm being carried outside - thrown across someone's shoulder like a bag of rice. But I'm not really aware of much. Everything's fuzzy and my head pulses. I think I'm going to be sick. All I can see, from upside down, is two men in front of us, carrying a body.

Scott's body. There's blood on the side of his head.

*Oh, no. Oh, please, no.*

I pass out again.

The next time I wake, I'm in a vehicle and it's moving. I feel as if my head might explode at any minute, and don't dare move. Everything is dark and my hands and feet are taped. I can smell iron from blood, and the ripe acid scent of bodies too close together. I'm *surrounded* by bodies, flung on top of them in our small captivity. Almost, claustrophobia swamps me, but my head hurts too much for me to panic, and I practice breathing until I no longer feel ready to throw-up, or to scream. Someone is lying under me. A man. Against my cheek, I feel chest hair and warm skin through the rips in his shirt. His heartbeat sounds strong beneath my ear. A broad chest. Peter? Henry? But his body isn't big enough for Peter or Henry.

It's Scott. I'm lying on Scott. It has to be. Oh, praise Allah. Scott's alive.

"Scott?" I whisper. There's no reply, and I have to call his name twice more before I get any response. "Scott, wake up!"

Finally, he murmurs, "Ororo?"

"It's me," I reply, very softly -- in case any of our captors are listening in.

"How badly are you hurt?"

"Just whacked on the head, but I'm nauseous from it. How about you? They were shooting at you."

"They got the professor and Jean, but nothing hit me. Well, not bullets. Something stole my visor and then brained me."

I think of the rain of bullets all around him, and of Dani's bracelet. Maybe there was something to her visions. "Do you know
what happened?" I ask.

"You mean aside from the obvious -- that we were attacked? No."

"Do you know who's still alive? Beside you and I? I saw them knock out Hank; I don't think they killed him."

"Jean and the professor are alive, too -- the gunners weren't shooting to kill. And I can feel Peter on my other side; he's warm,
so he's alive. The rest, I can't say, but I don't think they were trying to kill any of us, Ororo. They want us alive."

"Who's 'they'?"

"That's what I'd like to know. Did anyone get away that you saw?"

"If Peter's beside you, everyone's accounted for except Bobby."

He thinks about that. "Wolverine is still free."

"Are you sure?"

"Not positive, but he'd already left the mansion. Even the professor wasn't sure where he was going. I'd bet he's still out there."

That knowledge should relieve me, but it doesn't. The fear rushes back on me instead. "What are we going to do?" I try not to let panic invade my voice, but I know he can hear it anyway. "What if they try to kill us?" Or do worse things, but I don't tell him what Gravel Voice said -- 'She's our girlfriend now' -- or what he did with his fingers.

I feel Scott shift just a little, then his lips are warm against my forehead. A kiss to reassure. "Don't be afraid. Death smiles at
every man," he says, "and every woman. You just smile back."

It takes me a minute to remember why that sounds familiar.

He's quoting his movie, the very one I'd been watching when our world had shattered, and the whole, awful reality of it crashes down on me like the rubble of the ruined mansion, burying hope. "They blew it all up," I say, sick with the knowledge. "They blew everything up."

"And they'll pay. We're going to kick their collective ass."

It should sound like so much impotent wind. Here we are, trussed up like chickens in the back of a van, being taken God knows where by people we barely saw, for purposes unrevealed. But it's Scott who's saying it. Cyclops. And I believe him. As long as Cyclops is alive, we'll get out of this.

I don't dare believe anything else.

"Whatever you say, General."

He kisses my forehead again. "That's my girl."

END