Summary: A reckoning.
Every spring in the country ceased to throb and bubble, dying away like the pulse of a dying man. The next day there was no sound of falling water to be heard along the borders of the lake. The very courses were dry; and the mountains showed no silvery streaks down their dark sides. And not alone had the fountains of mother Earth ceased to flow; for all the babies throughout the country were crying dreadfully-only without tears. “ The Light Princess
“Tell me more about the year that he changed.”
“Not much else to tell, Charley luv,” Moira mused behind the rim of her teacup. They sat and made short work of a generous fried breakfast and watched the first spatters of rain pelt the kitchen windows. It was a typical day in Kinross, weather fit only for ducks and fish, but Eilish lit the wood-burning stoves, filling the lower level of Moira’s home with delicious warmth. Moira bundled Charles into a thick gray Aran sweater and draped a heavy woolen blanket over his lap. She’d pampered him from the moment he settled in, something she’d long missed. He’d been gone for far too long.
“How old was he?”
“Twelve.”
“What happened?”
“He lashed out in self-defense when Joe came after me. Poor lad. He still hates me for it. He thinks his mummy’s weak. And he was right. It was wrong of me to stay with that man for so long.” Charles hated the flash of guilt he felt on the surface of her mind and the shadows of remembered sorrow and helplessness. “He entered his father’s mind. He was as shocked as I was when it happened. Then he…” Moira’s voice faltered. “It was horrific. It was like seeing a human being…turned inside-out. It’s part of his mutation. He can bend anything. The environment around him. His own psychic essence. He can’t hold his body together. It’s slowly breaking down and fizzling away, because he can’t control that aspect of his power. And there’s more, Charley.”
“Tell me.”
“He can possess people. He can leap into their bodies and manipulate them, in effect replacing them. The process destroys their minds. And in the process, he burns them out. He’s unstable, and his control over his host body’s cohesion slowly breaks down. Sometimes it takes a day or two. At worst, fewer than a couple of hours.”
“Good heavens,” Charles murmured.
“That’s why he had to be contained.”
“His molecules are unstable. Hmmmmm.”
“I hate it when ye hum like that, Charley.”
“Just…pondering.” Charles idly stirred his Earl Grey, staring into its murky surface. “The host’s mind is destroyed? So even if Kevin’s mind is driven out, the victim has no chance of survival?”
“Not that I can tell. The deaths were certainly physical, and they were brain-dead when I brought the bodies back to me lab for scans.”
“Deaths? More than one?”
“Aye. It took me a while to get the containment room built. He was young, and his need to obey me was ancillary, with the power he possessed. He ‘experimented.’” Moira shivered. “When I deprived him of a new host body, he nearly died. That was the beginning of this mockery of a relationship we have now, luv. I was hoping that meeting his real father might spark something in him. He has little to no regard or affection for anyone, Charley. He dwells inside a shell of hatred, as surely as he does in that chamber. We’re stifling him.”
“We’re protecting him,” Charles corrected her. “And everyone around him.”
“He’s intelligent.”
“I can see that.” Charles had made several visits to the lab in an attempt to get to know his son. He’d been gently, then more brusquely rebuffed for his efforts. But he sensed a curiosity in his mind, even though Kevin wouldn’t allow him all the way inside. His psychic defenses were strong.
“At least when Ororo closes herself off from us, the lass does it with considerably less profanity,” Moira said mirthlessly.
*
Ororo let herself into the lab quietly, using Moira’s access codes, and she breathed in the steam from the cup of hot cocoa and warm sugar cookies she carried on the small tray.
“What’re ye about, then? What’re ye doin’ down here?” Kevin’s voice was surly and slightly disembodied. Ororo wondered if she’d interrupted him from anything, and then she noticed that the television in the chamber was tuned to Doctor Who. She was curious about the plastic housing around the set and what purpose it served. The containment cell was hemmed in with plexiglass and surrounded by a waist-high gate of steel mesh.
“I wanted to see if you were up for a visit,” she murmured as she set the treats down on the dumbwaiter. She slid them into the compartment and pressed the button, allowing them to be pulled into the chute. Kevin grunted, unimpressed with her offerings.
“Fat lot of good that’ll do. Nice try. Can’t even taste it anymore.”
“Neither can Japh,” Ororo reminded him.
“That freak with the parasites for innards? Don’t throw me in with his lot. I ain’t like him. I’m not a walking leech,” he sneered. His face flickered, almost like watching a television screen grow snowy with static. He retained enough control of his features to scowl at her, even though she intrigued him.
“You might feel differently about him if you got to know him. We grew up together.”
“Lucky bint. Rub it in me face.”
“You’re awfully hostile. Moira loves you.”
“Sure, she does. I feel the love from down in this hellhole. She doesn’t love me like she does her other little darlings, now, does she? I’m her blood,” Kevin spat. “But she chose all of ye freaks. Mum can’t do anything right, can she?” He laughed and approached the cookies. He picked one up and snorted. “Ye remembered the sprinkles. I’m impressed.”
“They looked pretty.” Concentrating on it, Kevin absorbed its energy, warping it, seemingly draining it of color, form and substance. It disincorporated and disappeared, leaving behind a little heap of gray dust.
“Yuir too kind,” he muttered, but a little of the malice left his voice. “Why d’ye look like that, lass?” He eyed her unique coloring with a mixture of envy and disdain.
“Ask Mum why,” Ororo suggested blandly. “I haven’t a clue.”
The lab always made a faint shiver run down Ororo’s spine, both for the odd antiseptic smells and the darkness of the chamber. It evoked an emotion inside her that she couldn’t name, that she wasn’t sure she truly owned. She felt hemmed in, and she disliked that. She could only imagine how Kevin felt.
She noticed a small potted fern that was on its last legs on Moira’s desk. “Poor little thing,” she murmured, distracted from their chat. Her eyes glowed and her cerulean irises disappeared behind swirls of white. Kevin blanched.
“What the bluidy hell are ye doin’?”
“Giving this little thing a drink. She’s thirsty,” Ororo told him as she waved her hand over the fern. With a thought, she generated a fluffy gray rain cloud and guided it over the drooping fronds, giving it a gentle, much-needed drink.
“She?” Kevin snorted. “It’s a bluidy plant.”
“She hates it when you argue with Mum,” Ororo informed him matter-of-factly. “I have a kinship with growing things and I’m connected to the earth and its atmosphere. When you and Mum shout at each other, it makes her nervous.”
“Mum? Nervous? Bollocks!”
“No. Genevieve, here.” He realized she was still talking about the plant.
“Ye’ve named the bluidy thing?”
“She named herself.” Kevin was entranced by the tiny rain cloud. Unbidden, an almost identical miniature cloud materialized inside his chamber. Ororo smiled, letting her own dissipate.
“Good job.”
“Anyone can make a cloud,” he argued, but her praise pleased him. Ororo eyed it and made a thoughtful sound.
The cloud’s substance was artificial. There was no moisture, no charged particles or energy emitting from it. Kevin saw realization dawn in her eyes, which had changed back to blue, and he banished the phantom cloud.
“Get out,” Kevin snapped.
“All right. Enjoy the cookies.”
Kevin waited for her to reach the door to the lab before he gave the platter a sound kick, sending it crashing to pieces against the wall of his cell. The broken crockery mingled with crumbled cookies and sprinkles. Damn you. Damn you all.
*
Farouk felt the resonance of Kevin’s energy and relished it, breathing it in deeply. The boy’s existence was an epiphany to him. He realized that it never would have occurred to pry the boy’s whereabouts from Charles’ mind, when the fool didn’t know about him, himself. Farouk cursed Moira’s protective motherly instincts. Think of all the years he’d wasted, living as a phantom, when the chance to walk once more in the world of the living was at his fingertips.
He tasted the boy’s rage, nearly salivating. He was even more delectable than Victor, with none of the man’s bloodlust, granted, but he was stubborn and prideful, resenting his mother for imprisoning him in the guise of “helping” him. Farouk smiled as Kevin regenerated the tiny cloud, musing over its absence of energy. He chose this as his moment, and his voice in the young boy’s mind was silky and rich.
I can show you how to make it rain.
“Bluidy hell,” Kevin muttered, startled. His eyes darted about the chamber, seeing no one at the door to Moira’s lab. “Who’s there?”
A friend. I love meeting new people. I know your father. Farouk chuckled to himself.
“That old man’s not my father,” Kevin spat. “So that makes ye no friend of mine. Bugger off.”
I never said your father was a friend. Kevin shivered.
“Then what’re ye doin’ here?”
I’ve come to make you an offer.
“If it’s more snacks, then I’m full.”
Ridiculous. I’d never patronize you like that. And you’ll have to forgive my niece.
“Niece? Ororo? Yuir related to her?”
It’s complicated. Let’s just say… she owns a part of me.
“Right. That makes it sound so much better. If yuir family, then why didn’t ye take her in, instead of lettin’ me mum adopt her?”
It was out of my hands.
“So yuir wantin’ t’make up for lost time?”
Yes.
“Then don’t let me get in yuir way. Bugger off,” Kevin repeated.
Not until you hear me out.
“Being Human is on.” Kevin reached for the remote.
Would you like to be?
“Pardon?”
Human. Would you like to leave this cell and be a normal person?
“Right,” Kevin scoffed. “Is this Jamie, then? Are ye playin’ with the intercom again?”
I won’t play with you, unless you ask me to, darling Kevin.
“I’m not yuir darling. Leave me be.”
Would you like to remember what fresh air smells like, Kevin? How it feels to eat with your mouth? The feel of sheets against your skin when you lie in bed? A kiss. A handshake. The scent of your mother’s hair when she hugs you…
“I don’t need it. Any of it,” Kevin told him stiffly. But his hand shook as he set down the remote.
You’re dying, Kevin. Your spirit has a tenuous, flickering hold on this plane. Your body is about to burn out. Surely you know this? You need host bodies to sustain you. And I need you to sustain me.
“Lies,” Kevin whispered. “Yuir lying!”
I have no reason to lie. You doubt my motives. I’m sorry. It’s true. Your spirit’s hold on this world is weakening. Your glow is dim. Your mother’s efforts were for naught. This miserable little cell is just delaying the inevitable.
“How d’ye propose tae show me how tae truly live, when I kinna see ye? Show yuirself,” Kevin demanded.
Suit yourself. Farouk’s visage materialized first, right above Kevin’s eye level, and he was surprised by the man’s foreign features. His expression was serene.
“Ye look like the friggin’ All-Powerful Oz.” Farouk chuckled.
Smart aleck.
Farouk rendered his appearance to be considerably more fit than his true physical form before Charles ended his life. His astral body smiled at Kevin and shrugged, holding his hands out innocently, showing he meant no harm. Does this please you?
“It’ll do. Whatever.” Kevin picked up the remote control again and changed the channel, deciding to ignore his visitor and his inability to ply him. Farouk sighed and shook his head.
“The confidence of youth is only outmatched by its ignorance. You have untapped, untempered power. Gods claim power such as yours.”
“Goodie for me. Makes me feel special. Don’t let the door hit ye on yuir astral ass on the way out.”
Don’t knock it til you’ve tried it. Have you ever traveled the astral plane?
“I dinna believe in that hogwash.”
What’s not to believe? It exists. I exist on this plane, now, outside of the mortal one. Nothing’s impossible.
“I don’t see ye kissin’ anyone. Or eating with yuir mouth. Or even wiping yuir own bum. Doesn’t make ye much of a teacher.” Farouk fumed, but his disembodied face held its serene smile. Kevin was annoyed that their conversation had taken him past the first few scenes of his program.
“Stop it! You’ll kill him!”
“Vampires are already dead!”
Farouk’s words puzzled him once Kevin ran them back through his mind. Outside of the mortal plane.
“Ye said ye knew my father.”
Yes.
“And ye can invade people’s heads like he can?”
I wouldn’t go that far…
“Sure, ye would. Sounds like ye have a beef with the old man.”
It’s only fair. He was the one who killed me.
*
Scott’s spirit strained against the immaterial, yet unbreakable shackles that bound him. Farouk was versatile in his use of psychic possession. He could inhabit and manipulate more than one mind at a time, allowing him to make contact with Kevin, even while he held Scott captive inside his own body.
Jean! Charles! Help me! He mourned his predicament but gave up on panicking days ago. Farouk steered him and Jean clear of contact with Xavier ever since they disembarked from the luxurious private jet in Scotland. Outwardly, “Scott” appeared jovial, and perhaps a bit more smug than usual, but the occupants of Moira’s estate marked it up to the lovely redhead he had on his arm, and nothing seemed amiss.
Logan, however, bristled with unease every time that Slim walked into the room. He couldn’t name the strange tang that permeated the tall, easygoing brunet, but it was familiar. His manner was just… off. Even Jean didn’t seem like her ebullient self. She still smiled when Scott came to her door or met them at breakfast, but there were shadows beneath her green eyes, and her face seemed pale and drawn.
The day that Logan and Ororo announced that they planned to go riding in the woods surrounding Moira’s keep, Jean panicked.
“How long are you two going to be gone?”
“Why? Ya got some errands ya need us ta run, Red?”
“No! No. Just… I was wondering if you’d be back for dinner.” It was still mid-morning. Logan scowled. Ororo merely shrugged.
“We’ll be back in plenty of time. Why? Do you want to come along, Jean?” Logan huffed in irritation.
“Ain’t like we need a chaperone,” he muttered under his breath. Logan helped himself to a beer, chafing Jean in the process. His disregard of the social niceties annoyed her no end. Ororo was nonplussed, as usual.
“Jean’s afraid of the Big Bad Wolf,” Ororo joked, letting a faint smile curl her lips. Jean forced a laugh.
“Bitch. No. It’s… no big deal. Ororo, er… do you want to go shopping today?”
“Now?” Ororo cocked one snowy brow as she considered it. She turned to Logan as he gulped down his brew and wiped his mouth on the back of his hand. “Would you be heartbroken if we had some girl time, Logan?”
“Beats me why ya’ve gotta do it today,” Logan admitted, “but whaddever. Go ahead, ‘Ro. I’ve got Slim here ta keep me company. Got a nice pub right down the road, Summers. You in?” Scott smiled and held up his hands innocently.
“I can tell when I’m being deserted,” he told Jean as he stood and pulled her in for a kiss. Jean yielded, but her palms pressed against his chest slightly when Scott took liberties, snaking his tongue into her mouth in polite company. Logan looked irritated; Ororo was slightly puzzled, but she simply smiled.
“Let her up for air, Scott. Here’s your purse, Jean. Let’s take the Jeep.”
“You drive.” Jean was weak-kneed and felt drained, but relief washed over her as they exited the kitchen.
“What the fuck was that all about?” Logan chucked his bottle into Moira’s recycling bin beside the rubbish can.
“Women,” Scott shrugged. “Beer?”
“Lead on.” Logan put his misgivings aside briefly as he reached for his Stetson. “Yer buyin’.”
Scott smirked behind his back, but his expression smoothed itself into his usual smile as Logan peered back around with a slight scowl. He saw Ororo and Jean pulling out of the garage and careening down the road, hair whipping out behind them thanks to the Jeep’s open roof. Logan watched them longingly. He wanted another swim with Ororo, despite the cooler clime that made a sweater necessary.
He knew his tenure with Xavier was doubtful. So far, the professor hadn’t made any breakthroughs with Ororo’s condition, making Logan’s position at the school tenuous, and even unnecessary. Moira approached him with the prospect of teaching the school’s younger students in physical education, or even in foreign languages, once she dragged it out of him that he was fluent in several. Charles saw a future where he would expand the school as a resource and shelter for unwanted children with uncontrolled or unwelcome mutant gifts. He wanted a strong, determined man like Logan to help him make that vision a reality.
The previous day:
They’d laid it on Logan’s plate over tea in Moira’s library. Logan grunted at them both after they finished explaining their offer.
“I’m a mercenary and a shylock, Chuck. Been a soldier for longer than I can remember. Ain’t never been a babysitter.”
“There’s nothing wrong with branching out and expanding your horizons. You’ve still a long life ahead of you.”
“Got a long one behind me,” Logan shrugged. He swished the last of his tea around in the absurdly delicate china cup.
“Logan, I need to discuss something with you that might seem… awkward.” Charles steeled himself as Logan’s dark, shaggy brows drew together. “What are your intentions toward my daughter?”
“Shit.” Logan wiped his palm over his face and set down the cup. “Guess this was inevitable.”
“She’s fond of you. I’ve gathered that.”
“In her own way,” Logan admitted.
“The lass wore you down, is that it?” Moira jabbed. “This is why I had me own misgivings about ye bein’ near her. She’s not like the loose women ye’ve no doubt run around with in yuir travels.” Logan grunted indignantly.
“I know she ain’t. Gimme some credit. That ain’t how I feel about her!”
“For a man whose thoughts I can’t read, your feelings are rather transparent, my friend.”
“Ya think so. Then why’re we even talkin’ about this shit?”
“Because we dinna want ye playin’ games with our daughter. It might not see like she can be hurt, or like much affects her. But we won’t have ye tramplin’ on her feelings or using her and throwing her away. Yuir a drifter. I ken that about ye now, much as I did from the moment ye came into Charley’s house.”
“Then why even bring me in?” He turned to Charles, fuming. “Why even get me involved?”
“I had high hopes. I still do, Moira,” he told him, directing his attention to his lover. He took her hand and laced his fingers through it. “I feel Logan is reaching her. She seems less detached from us, emotionally. Less untouchable. There are moments where I see the girl she would have been if we hadn’t reached her too late.”
“That’s yer biggest problem in a nutshell. Stop actin’ like that woman’s damaged goods. She ain’t.” Logan was pissed off at their nerve and their seeming lack of faith. “She’s strong. Don’t gimme that ‘untouchable’ shit. If it seems like ya can’t reach her, maybe it’s ‘cuz ya keep backin’ away.”
“Yuir a fine one tae talk, man.”
“How much of an open book do ya want me ta be? Made my livin’ over the years keepin’ it on the down-low. That’s the other reason I’ve lived this long, sweetheart.”
“Ain’t yuir sweetheart.”
“That’s enough.” Charles’ baritone was clipped. He sighed. “Logan? What are you thinking? Will you stay? Will you keep trying to help her?”
“It ain’t gonna make much of a difference unless she feels I’m helpin’ her, Chuck.” He omitted that he’d tried to leave once, already, and that Ororo was the one who stopped him. It also still rankled with him that Ororo herself was giving him so little clue as to what she needed from him.
Or whether she even needed him at all.
*
Ororo and Jean reached a conservative looking women’s store and made some attempt to outfit themselves in the local fashion.
“This isn’t bad,” Ororo told Jean, holding up a soft, moss-green wool dress.
“It’s not me,” Jean sighed. “Ororo, I need to talk to someone about this. Scott’s acting weird.”
“How weird are we talking here?” Ororo’s blue eyes almost looked sympathetic as she peered at Jean over the hangers she rifled through.
“He scares me.” Ororo lost interest in the clothes.
“What’s wrong, Jean?” she murmured.
“He’s changed.”
“Take this. Come with me.” Ororo handed Jean the dress she wasn’t interested in, as well as three other random items from the rack. She pulled Jean over to the dressing room and ordered the attendant, “Let us have the biggest changing room you have. Quick.” The woman stared at them, baffled, and handed them a plastic tab with the number of items they were going to try on. She led them to the back and opened up a changing booth big enough to boast a bench and guest chair in the corner.
“Thanks,” Jean told her, embarrassed by Ororo’s brusque manner.
“That will be all,” Ororo added as she shut the door on the women’s astonished face. Jean’s cheeks flushed at the woman’s retreating thoughts as she headed back to the shop floor. “Talk,” Ororo ordered. “And try that on while we’re here. It will bring out your eyes, which look like you haven’t slept.”
“Don’t mince words, Ororo, tell me what you really think,” Jean sniped as she began to undress. She winced as she pulled her sweater down her arms, and Ororo tugged her around by the elbow, turning her so that her bruises showed up in sharper light for her to inspect. Dark purple marks marred her shoulders and biceps, looking as though she’d been gripped too hard.
“Jean…” She gently probed one, and Jean hissed, jerking away.
“It doesn’t tickle when you do that.”
“Tell me Scott didn’t do this.”
“He didn’t.” Jean’s lip quivered. “Scott’s not himself,” she clarified. “There’s something wrong with him, Ororo.”
“I’m going to be something wrong with him when I see him,” Ororo said quietly. “No one hurts my sister.” Ororo’s eyes flashed an ominous white, and Jean heard the low rumble of thunder outside. It wasn’t unusual for it to storm on that side of the pond, but it had been sunny with only sparse clouds when they first arrived at the boutique. Jean’s eyes widened, and she took Ororo’s shoulders firmly.
“Don’t. It’s okay. I’m okay. I promise. I just need to tell someone about this.” She released her and turned her back on Ororo to continue undressing. Ororo was relieved that she had no more bruises, but Jean’s body looked slightly gaunt. “He’s not himself,” she repeated. “He’s more possessive. Not jealous, but he hardly ever lets me out of his sight. He just invades my space. It’s not like before. You know,” she urged.
“I know,” Ororo agreed. When Jean and Scott began dating, they were almost saccharine. They shared gentle little touches or held hands or stole kisses when they left a room, together or whenever they parted. They spoke to each other using the psychic connection Jean forged between them, something Ororo could always tell by watching them; Moira and Charles often did the same thing.
But Scott was more aggressive, occasionally too bold to be proper. He groped her, sometimes swatting her bottom in passing, even when Douglas was in the kitchen, setting the young teen a horrible example. Jean sometimes appeared at breakfast with poorly disguised hickeys, or with her hair rumpled from its careful grooming. Scott occasionally knocked her down onto the bed when she was trying to get dressed, making her regret that they shared a suite from time to time.
The worst part was how drained she felt, as though all of her energy was ebbing away. Stress was taking away her appetite; food had little flavor or appeal to her. She had troubling dreams, and she heard a frightened voice calling out to her in her sleep. It unsettled her. The images were dark and troubling, full of blood and pain, and she heard the rumble of smug, deep laughter in her mind. She woke up many nights sweating and shivering, with Scott’s arm locked snugly around her waist.
The most recent one puzzled her. Victor had come back.
With a warning.
She’d hoped that the assassin’s death dealt by the final stroke of Logan’s blades would be the last she would hear from him, but he appeared in her nightmares. His face was stony and hard, and he was bigger than life, clad in the same rough fatigues and shabby cotton tank. His hair was clubbed back in a ponytail, barely tamed, and it brought out the hard, sharp planes of his face and his steely blue eyes.
He rose from the ground, shaking loose mounds of soil as they fell from his body. Woody tendrils and roots pushed him up above the surface, tangling around him as though they wanted to pull him back under. They snaked out and slithered over Jean’s feet. She tried to scream, but her voice was gone. Like tentacles, they snapped around her ankles and began to wind their way around her legs. She struggled and attempted to run, but her muscles burned with the effort as they pulled her ever closer to the blond giant.
“He’s watching ya, darlin’. He wants ya.”
“No,” Jean whimpered. “Leave me alone. Please, please, don’t hurt me…”
“Beg all ya want. Farouk always wins. He wants yer glow.” Victor’s breath washed hotly over her face as tears stung her cheeks. The woody tendrils scratched Jean’s flesh, drawing blood, and Victor tipped her face up to meet his when she tried to turn away from his leer. “Ain’t no escape, darlin’.”
“You’re dead! This can’t be happening!”
“Don’t matter, Jeannie.”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Don’t matter ta me. I’m dead. I ain’t worried ‘bout rufflin’ anyone’s feathers. I can call ya whatever I want. Ya still taste sweet.” His tongue slithered reptilian and hot from between his fanged teeth and slicked over her cheek. Jean shuddered and recoiled. She smelled a miasma of blood and steam on his breath, and it sickened her. The air around them was thick and swirling with black, noxious fog.
“Only one who can fight ‘im is the runt. Thinks he’s hot shit because he wouldn’t let Farouk dig his claws in.” Victor gripped her, tangling his fingers in Jean’s lush, long red hair, tugging it back to make her meet his eyes. “Yer like candy ta that bloat. He wants ta eat ya up in one bite. Can’t blame him, darlin’. Yer damn sweet.”
“He can’t have me.”
“He already does.”
“NO!”
She woke up screaming. When Moira and Stevie ran to her room, she tried to convince them that it was nothing.
“You scratched yourself,” Stevie tsked. She eyed long, shallow scrapes down Jean’s arm. Jean’s blood ran cold.
Jean was shivering even after she dutifully donned the green dress, and Ororo drew her into a comforting embrace. “It’s all right, Jean. It’ll be all right.”
“I thought he was gone, Ororo.”
“Maybe he’s just been waiting.”
“For what?”
“For us to slip up,” Ororo suggested ruefully. “But he didn’t kill Daddy. If anyone can keep him away, it’s him. He won’t win.”
“He’s trying to take me down, Ororo. I don’t know why, but I can feel it. I don’t feel safe.” Ororo shushed her and stroked her hair, rocking her.
They finished trying on the clothes, and neither of them regretted walking out of the shop empty-handed.
“You’re sleeping in my room tonight. Tell him it’s a girl’s night slumber party. Tell him whatever you have to, Jean.”
“Logan won’t mind?”
“Of course he will,” Ororo shrugged. They turned the Jeep back onto the road and headed for a small café for a scone and strong, bitter cups of espresso.
*
Logan began to play darts without inviting Scott to join him. Scott sat idly by, enjoying a glass of scotch on the rocks. Easily, Logan made perfect scores with each throw, earning dares from the patrons around him that he couldn’t do it again after downing a pint. Then, three pints. Then four. Then six. Scott looked on in amusement.
“Gonna sit there like a pussy, Summers?”
“Show me how it’s done,” he offered. “Unless you think I can kick your tail. I could just sit here.”
“Get your ass up.” Logan motioned him forward with a smirk and handed him red-shuttled darts. Scott took them and sized up the small round disk hanging ahead of them on the wall. He made an almost perfect shot, just left of center by mere millimeters.
“Not bad.”
“I’m full of surprises.”
“I’m scared.”
“Smart man.” Logan’s eyes narrowed as they bore into Scott’s back. He was more flip than usual. Scott waved to the waitress to bring him another, something that also struck Logan as odd. Kid was thirstier than he gave him credit for, and he was barely wavering after three still belts of Dewars.
“Haven’t seen much of you and Jeannie lately. Been keepin’ yerselves scarce?”
“She won’t let me up for air,” Scott boasted with a chuckle. “She’s a little hellcat.”
“This ain’t a locker room, bub. That ain’t what I asked. Two of ya just keep disappearin’.”
“It shouldn’t matter to you, one way or another, the plans we make while we’re enjoying our trip.” Scott’s mouth quirked as he took his next shot. The dart thudded loudly as it stuck in the cork. “Unless you had plans for her, yourself.” His voice was dark with lewd suggestion. Logan growled.
“Not on yer life. Red’s cute, but she ain’t my type. Two of ya are peas in a pod.”
“That’s an understatement, James. We’re inseparable.” Logan’s beer paused halfway up to his lips.
“What’d ya just call me?”
“Charles said it was your birth name.”
“Nah. He didn’t.” It wasn’t a detail the old man would have felt the need to share with anyone, knowing how private Logan was. Scott shrugged.
“He mentioned it for a moment, in passing.”
“Stick with Logan.”
Oh, but I will… “Whatever floats your boat,” Scott piped up. He downed his next scotch, enjoying its mellow burn.
“Pool,” Logan challenged.
“Lead on.”
*
While Logan wrestled with his memories in the dark in the solitude of his guest room, Jean and Ororo slept off the indulgences of Rice Crispy treats, cocoa and indecent amounts of buttered popcorn, huddled together in the soft, four-poster bed and thick blankets. Ororo sensed Jean’s fears and felt bereft, having no idea how it felt to be wrapped in an emotion that strong. She lay spooned against her best friend, feeling her rapid heartbeat through her back as she rubbed it in smooth circles, willing her to go to sleep.
“I’m scared, Ororo. He’s watching us. He’s waiting for me.”
“Not while I’m here.”
“He won’t leave me alone.”
“Farouk?”
“Scott.”
Ororo felt a frisson of unease. She was unused to it, and she didn’t like it. She adjusted her breathing, pulling long, deep drafts of air into her lungs and blowing them out slowly, willing Jean to do the same. Jean’s eyes drifted shut and she felt Ororo’s emotions wrap around her, calm and tranquil, even though she couldn’t read her thoughts. It was enough. She felt sheltered, safer than she had in weeks, and she dropped off into an exhausted, black sleep.
It took Ororo longer. She thought about Logan, not for the first time that day. She missed him, even if she’d never admit it to him. There was no sense in letting him get too sure of himself, was there? Silly man. Still…
He touched something inside her. He made her feel safe, even if she had nothing to fear. Bit by bit, memories of him, just snippets, began to resurface. She couldn’t make sense of them, and she wanted to, more than anything.
He’d fought for her. She knew it, not just because Charles had told her a carefully edited account. But there was something blazing in Logan’s dark eyes, intense and powerful whenever he looked at her. When he touched her, she felt something sizzle between them, even when she wanted to rebuff him. She’d grown used to his presence, and she felt strangely bereft when he left the room, or when she felt his eyes retreat from her, wanting his gaze to stroke her, not merely his hands.
She feigned annoyance. Do I have something on my face?
Nah. Yer fine, darlin’
Why do you keep staring at me?
Can’t help it. Sorry.
He wasn’t sorry. Not in the least.
It was flattering, even if she wanted to smack him for his nerve. It was like trying to push away a friendly dog that kept rubbing against your legs when you were trying to hurry off, where you tried to pacify it one last time, with one last scratch behind the ears even as you scolded it.
He held secrets that she wanted to unlock, and she wanted him to fill in the blank spots in her memory. He offered her mere tidbits, and Ororo decided it was probably her own fault for not being more insistent. What made it worse, was that she was fine with blocking out how she first came to live with Charles if it was unpleasant business that brought here there. If she was blocking it out, it was for good reason, right?
But she felt a gaping hole inside of her soul. She’d lost something significant, and it created a wrongness in her life. She couldn’t feel things fully.
The closest she came was when she was with Logan.
Don’t make me feel. She’d lied that night, to him and to herself. She longed to feel.
She slept dreamlessly and as deeply as Jean, but she felt lonely.
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Author's Chapter Notes:
Author’s Note: See the previous two chapters for a more detailed summary. Picking up from my last update, the Xavier family is back at Kinross Keep, Moira's childhood home.
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