Chapter Two: Going Under
Don't want your hand this time I'll save myself
Maybe I'll wake up for once
Not tormented daily defeated by you
Just when I thought I'd reached the bottom
I'm dying again
~Evanescence
It was the shatter of glass that brought Logan from his lounging stance against the window. His ears prickled, homing in on the direction the sound was coming from. Body poised for immediate action, he stilled completely, the cigar pinched between thumb and forefinger.
Sobbing. Soft, heartbreaking weeps accompanied the thrash of wood and tinkle of broken glass. Concentrating, he realized with a clench in his gut that the noise was coming from Storm’s bedroom just down the hall.
Without pausing to think about it, he turned and scooped up his discarded jeans. Sweat still slicked over his body, he yanked the denim onto his legs, hoisting the waist to his hips and zipping the fly. He didn’t bother with the button as he strode purposefully toward the bedroom door. His companion was still peacefully unaware in her drunken stupor. Hopefully she would remain that way while he checked on the crying goddess down the hall.
Suddenly clammy hands opened the bedroom door, one scowl sending curious Artie and Jimmy scurrying back into their bedroom. The breaking glass was drawing a crowd, but Logan was big and mean enough to frighten away any audience. When their shared bedroom door clicked closed, Logan turned his gaze to the dimly lit hallway. A sliver of moonlight landed almost eerily on the polished wood of Storm’s bedroom door.
He paused, contemplating as the crying increased, the delicate clinking of glass raining on the hardwood floor never ceasing. He could hear a dull thud now, as though wood were striking wood, as though someone were beating their demons out in the dead of night. Logan didn’t know if he should take those scant steps toward her bedroom. What did he know of losing his family? Who was he to drag her out of whatever funk she’d found herself in?
Why should he want to chase her demons away with a flash of adamantium?
But he moved anyway. Slowly, almost reluctantly, Logan padded on bare, silent feet to the woman haunted behind closed doors. He didn’t ask, didn’t knock as he twisted the knob to open the bedroom door. Whatever possessed him to check on her, to respond to what she likely thought was private mourning, made him slip quietly into the dark room.
Sharp eyes caught movement immediately. Storm was at the foot of her bed, glass and blood littering her floor. Outside, the wind shook trees and forced clouds to scatter. Through the illumination of her open window, he saw before him a woman enraged.
She clutched what looked to be a picture frame in her hands, beating it without recourse or mercy against the bedpost. The glass shattered and fell, the frame creaking with the might of her grip. Tears ran unchecked down dark cheeks, her hair a wild tangle of white and gray.
For reasons he would never stop to fathom, Logan’s heart twisted in his chest. The tang of blood told him she was cut, likely from the glass forgotten on the floor. Several fragments of wood were discarded, their photos shredded and frames bent. Storm had been at this with the zeal of a fanatic and the fury of a woman scorned. Logan couldn’t so much as breathe, moved by the simple knowledge that someone could miss another human being to the point of mindless, encompassing rage.
She did not notice him as she tossed the frame in her hands. Logan’s brow arched as she snatched up another, beating it without mercy against the battered bedpost. She was whimpering, crying, speaking in broken, weeping tones that could destroy a man. He would never know what she said, only that he could feel the ache, see it in every flex of muscle as her arms brought frame against wood with immeasurable pain.
Only when he noticed the bright streak of blood on her arm, the scent of it tickling his nostrils, did he move. Not bothering to feel shame at intruding, he stepped through the glass and wood, reaching up to take the frame from her hands.
Ororo startled, whirling on him as though she would destroy him next. Logan tossed the frame over his shoulder, wrapping his hands around her wrists in a gesture to dominate, to force her immediate submission. Dark eyes, swimming with the tears unshed, flashed momentary anger, which was directed at his interruption.
He did not speak, unsure if he could even form a coherent sentence. Whatever made him come to her was as unwelcome as the flash of love Jean gifted him with all those months ago. It hit just as acutely, just as strongly; a sleeper he hadn’t known was inside him. He was powerless against it, much as Jean’s smile weakened him.
The anger faded slowly as seconds ticked by unnoticed. Two sets of dark eyes locked together in the sudden silence, their breath barely shifting the heavy air around them. The pain returned; he saw it as clearly as the tears streaking her face. She was trying to battle it back, to replace it with anger he couldn’t possibly understand.
She collapsed. Logan shifted his hold from wrist to elbow, letting her fall to the floor gently. She did not move to embrace him, but folded slowly, quietly to the destroyed bedroom floor. Logan knelt in front of her, watching as her head tilted downward, her eyes closing as though to block it all out, to lock everything back inside where it belonged.
Logan released her deliberately. He wasn’t one to comfort and she knew that. She drew her arms around herself, as though to ward him off. Logan crouched more comfortably, draping his arms over his own knees while he studied the tortured face of the woman he only knew as Storm.
“Leave me alone.”
Her whisper was just as broken as her face, but there was steel beneath it as she fought to control herself.
“Ok.”
Assured that she would be all right, Logan stood. She did not move to stop him or make any attempt to speak. Turning his back on her, Logan strode to the bedroom door. She was a grown woman, able to make her own decisions. She did not want to be comforted. He would leave her be.
At the door, he looked back over his shoulder. Storm reminded him of an island, sitting in a tearful mess in the center of her destruction. Unreachable. She was completely unreachable. For some reason, part of him wanted her to stay that way.
“Clean those cuts.”
With that, he opened the door and stepped into the silent hall. The door closed with a soft, but resonating click. Shaking his head at her, at his stupid impulse to go in there in the first damn place, Logan went back to his own room.
That was how they liked it, he thought as he slid into bed beside his snoring companion. They liked space and doors between them.
It was better that way.
~**~
In the harsh light of morning, Ororo was well into her third cup of coffee, the cordless phone held to her ear. She tapped sculpted fingernails on the tile of the kitchen counter, listening to the comforting lift and lilt of Henry McCoy’s voice.
Her right hand bore a slender bandage, the only outward sign of her conniption from the night before. She cleaned up the glass herself, preserved the photographs and tossed the decimated frames. Her feet bore several tiny cuts, but she still slipped them into sassy black boots beneath tailored ebony trousers.
Composed as ever, she oversaw breakfast and shooed the children to their classes. Ororo never held one of her own classes before ten in the morning. She preferred to relax before the day geared up in earnest. Now, however, she used the hours between six and ten to take care of the administrative responsibilities dumped on her by the passing of Charles and Scott.
Two months of hard recruiting gave her a full staff, but she was still too raw to allow the others to encroach on her late mentor’s territory. There were times she regretted leaving the school open. She could have faded back into the wilds of Tanzania, returning to her mother’s tribe and the blissful simplicity that a village life afforded her. War and peace would be forgotten, lost in the tide of regaining the person she was before coming to Xavier.
The moment, however, would pass. She would catch sight of Angel laughing with Kitty or Rogue holding hands with Bobby and shame filtered through doubt. Charles would have never left her to the school unless he knew they would be cared for. Could she turn her back on the man she loved as a father? No. All she could do now was mush on, protect the dream, fight for peace.
Time would heal her wounds, she had to believe that. Someday, the nightmares would become distant memory, the pain dulling to a bearable twinge. Her love for Scott, she feared, might not ever leave. If she were honest with herself, she didn’t want it to. Loving Scott, no matter how unrequited, was simply part of who she was.
“How are Elizabeth and Sean working out, my dear?” Henry was asking through the telephone.
His duties occupied him Washington too often to be of much help to Ororo and the school, but the reconnection in the face of battle renewed their strong friendship. He called as often as he could, giving her details of how his diplomatic war was waging on Capitol Hill.
“Fine,” Ororo answered him somewhat cheerfully. The cheer was a lie, she knew it. She hoped he didn’t.
“They were highly recommended by Doctor Mac Taggert.” Her friend went on with his usual polish. “I do hope they are settling in.”
Thinking of Scott and Jean’s replacements was difficult enough, but Betsy and Sean were capable teachers. Kind, intelligent, and patient. The burden placed on Ororo’s unsteady shoulders lessened slightly with their coming to the school. Ororo liked them both well enough, Betsy’s easy, serious demeanor and Sean’s boisterous, jovial laugh, but they could not replace what she lost.
“The children seem to like them,” Ororo offered, wanting to halt this topic of conversation. Friendship, however, demanded more. “I’m very pleased with their progress. I hope they will stay on.”
This appeased her friend. “Good. I know your workload has been heavy.”
“I’m handling it, Hank.”
“Yes, I never knew a woman that could juggle so well as you, my friend.”
A smile, fleeting and unbidden, crossed her lips at this. “Charmer.”
“Minx,” he tossed back airily. “Will you have time for dinner when you come to Washington next week?”
“Washington?” Ororo frowned. She was forgetting something.
“The hearing, Ororo,” Hank paused, then spoke with humor in his voice. “Am I so easily forgotten?”
She remembered with a pained twist in the heart. The Senate was meeting to discuss the events of Alcatraz Island, the ill-fated cure, and the fate of Xavier’s School. Though Charles protected the school’s reputation in his life, the long-arm he’d carried was gone now. Exposed, the school was topic of discussion during many of the lawmakers’ meetings.
Several insisted the school be put under governmental control, others fought back that it was a private institution. Right-wing conservatives wanted it dismantled. Ororo and Henry were fighting, tooth and nail, to keep the school open, as a haven for mutants. Reporters were turned away easily after the mansion’s security measures were brought up to scratch.
Electric fences were essential in keeping snooping to a minimum and a court order restricted anyone from coming within five hundred feet of the grounds. The children were safe, for now. Ororo did not want to think about what would happen if the school were to close, the students left to twist in the changing winds.
Ororo hoped she could find the strength to put the millions Charles left to her to good use. If she had to start all over in Albania, then by God, she would.
“I’m sorry,” she apologized quickly. “I’ve had a lot on my mind, but I’d love to have dinner with you.”
“Excellent.” Hank’s infectious grin was audible. “Perhaps Trish will tag along, is that agreeable?”
“As I haven’t seen her in close to a year, of course.” Ororo felt herself grin at the thought of Hank’s plucky, unpredictable girlfriend. “We’ll make an evening of it.”
“Try to not worry about the hearing, my dear,” Hank continued. “It will all work out.”
“I know.” She nodded, sighing a little. “Somehow, it always does.”
At that exact moment, Logan sauntered into the kitchen. Ororo felt her stomach clench and resolutely stared at him. His brow hitched at the phone in her hand. She mouthed “Hank” to which he gave her a rare, true grin.
“Tell Furball I said hey.”
“Logan says hey,” Ororo repeated faithfully. “Hank says hello.”
“How is he doing?” Hank asked her as Logan skirted the counter, slid past Ororo and made for the coffee pot.
Aware that Logan was likely listening in, she deflected. “Fine. Will you pick me up at the airport on Tuesday?”
“Of course,” Hank answered easily. “Do you know when your flight gets in?”
“I will have to check…” she trailed off as Logan moved around her again.
A buxom brunette had just entered the kitchen, her features unfamiliar and clothing rumpled. Ororo felt her hand tighten on the phone, her eyes narrowing as the woman greeted Logan with a casual smile that betrayed intimacy.
“Hank, I have to call you back.”
Alarm immediately covered his trademark cheer. “Is everything all right?”
“No.” She answered shortly as Logan allowed the woman to kiss his lips. “I’ll call you back.”
“Oror--”
Cutting her dear friend off, she ended the call with her thumb, staring in something akin to shock as Logan sat easily at the table. His “friend” was opposite him now, yawning as though Ororo was not even in the room. The space between table and counter allowed Ororo to spot a bare, feminine foot sneaking under the cuff of Logan’s jeans.
It was obvious to any astute human being that this woman had spent the night in the mansion, likely under Logan’s invitation. From the casual, intimate way she was playing footsie it wasn’t a long leap to think they’d slept together.
But he’d come to her last night, she thought angrily. Unwelcome, unwanted, he’d stopped her self-destructive tirade. She did not want his comfort, or his damned presence most days. She was perfectly fine pretending he didn’t exist when they were holed up in their separate corners. They were solitary creatures, Storm and Wolverine, with volatile tempers. Staying out of one another’s way kept the peace in their little family.
Angry that he’d seen her break, that he’d parade his personal life in front of her when Jean was barely cold, Ororo took several deep breaths.
“And you are?”
The question was simple, but positively dripped with everything good manners prevented her from saying.
“Chloe,” the girl said, looking up as though she’d just seen Ororo. “I’m a friend of Logan’s.”
Chloe. How ridiculously trite. “Ororo Munroe,” she said, reigning in her sarcastic inner voice. “I run this school.”
“Weird name,” the girl said flippantly. “Did your parents not like you?”
“My mother was born in Africa,” Ororo shot back, her hackles rising. “It is an ancestral name. She died when I was five.”
“Oh,” Chloe said without a hint of remorse. “Sorry.”
“Think nothing of it.”
Something in her tone or stance made Logan look up from his perusal of the daily paper. Amber eyes raked over her in one calculating glance. She avoided his stare, boring holes into the woman sitting at the kitchen table.
Twenty-five at most, the girl was lovely in a classic way. Her heart-shaped face showed off almond-shaped eyes of deep, true blue. Her wide, supple mouth curved easily into a smile beneath a long, slender nose. Apple cheeks and a slight cleft in her chin. Ororo wanted to roll her eyes as she glanced over the curvy, hourglass frame. Of course Logan would choose her from the selection available to him.
She reminded Ororo painfully of Jean. It wasn’t in her looks so much as the mannerisms, the simple, glowing look in her eyes.
Ororo suddenly wanted to be sick.
“Logan, when you have a moment “ after you’ve seen your friend out “ I need to speak with you.”
“Something wrong, Storm?”
“Yes.”
She snatched up her coffee cup and swept from the room, a migraine building in her temples.
~**~
Justin Timberlake was crooning about summer love to an easy dance beat through ridiculously loud speakers as Kitty took her fists to a vinyl bag. Her long chestnut ponytail was tangled and clumpy with the sweat that poured down her face and back.
No matter what was happening in the mansion, Kitty could find solace alone. Though her open, friendly personality told most she was an extrovert, Kitty liked to keep things locked inside. She mused that she had more in common with Storm and Wolverine than they thought. All three of them were horrible about emotional purgation.
Bringing her right leg up, she swiftly kicked out at the knee, catching the imaginary opponent in the ribcage. One thing Kitty did well was fight. She reveled in her mutation, in the freedom of being different, no matter what it cost her.
After the incident at Alcatraz Island, Kitty’s parents pulled the biggest bonehead move in the history of stubborn people. They offered her an ultimatum. Leave the school and hide her mutation, or don’t come home.
Obviously, Kitty opted for the latter.
Though it hurt, the loss of her parents on top of the three dead X-Men, she was determined to keep her place on the team. She’d earned it, damn it. While she entered her first year of college “ largely through correspondence courses offered online “ she was training to stay in top form with the X-Men.
She begged her parents to understand what this place meant to her. She loved the mansion with it’s wide corridors, polished antiques and technologically advanced lower levels. Kitty could think of nowhere else she ever wanted to be. One day, years from now, she hoped to take on the mantle of a teacher as well as X-Woman.
Why couldn’t they understand that?
Justin was bringing sexy back now, making Kitty’s fists slam against the bag with more speed. She liked music, loved to let it sink in until it drowned out all thought but bass and beat. Perhaps it was more real to her than anything. Someone who could walk through walls tended to favor something less than tangible. Music was the perfect outlet.
She grunted with the tune, her mouth curving into a sinister smile. Her fists and feet hit the bag on beat, driving the pain from her heart for a moment, at least.
Kitty missed the Professor. He was her rock, the fixture that would never leave. Since the first time he’d wheeled into her parent’s living room, Kitty was his dedicated disciple. Knowing that he was fighting for peace, for equality, warmed a part of Kitty that she wasn’t sure would return since the onset of her mutation.
The Professor changed her life. He brought her somewhat out of her shell, nudging her toward his dream. When she came to the school, he handed her over to Mr. Summers, somehow knowing their personalities were similar.
She ached for Cyclops. Having him so callously taken away was akin to physical injury. She would gladly go twelve rounds with that dickhead, Juggernaut, than face the mansion without Cyclops.
“Stressed?”
Kitty smiled without turning her head, knowing Angel’s voice as well as her own. She continued her abuse of the innocent punching bag for several seconds. The music changed again, Justin now joined by Timbaland telling her to not make a fool of him.
“Kitty?”
She turned to him, breathing hard and sticky with sweat. She couldn’t know what a picture she made to the winged angel in the doorway. His eyes swept over her once before meeting her eyes almost stubbornly.
In a move worthy of her mentor, Storm had placed Warren in her care, much as Kitty was placed in Cyclops' five years ago. She was careful with this blonde mutant, knowing his heart was bruised, his faith shaken. Kitty was trying, every day, to make up for the mistakes of his father. Sometimes, she thought, it almost worked.
He leaned against the doorframe casually, dressed in crisp jeans and a red Polo. He was a dang cutie, with that tidy flaxen hair and warm blue eye. Sometimes, if she wasn’t careful, she almost forgot the crush on Piotr she harbored. She almost forgot that she and Angel were just friends.
No Doubt, the tempo fast and the rhythm pulsing, replaced Justin’s signature whine. Kitty wanted to turn, to get lost in it. Instead, she jogged to the stereo and turned the volume down. When Gwen was down to a low whisper, urging anyone listening to keep on dancing, Kitty faced Warren again.
“Its ok to hurt,” he said quietly. “But you don’t have to hurt alone.”
It was, she remembered with a small smile, something she told him his first night at the mansion after Alcatraz.
“I know,” she replied, picking at her fingernails. “I know I’m not alone.”
“Then why are you doing this to yourself?” He asked, pushing off the doorjamb to stand straight.
She didn’t have an answer for him. Kitty cast her gaze to the floor, inhaling deeply before expelling the breath on a shaky sigh. Warren was so sweet to her. He’d never know the wonderful people that Jean, Scott, and the Professor were, but he understood them from Kitty’s frequent ramblings. Part of her was glad for that.
“I don’t know,” she answered her friend honestly, unable to raise her eyes to his.
He came across the room in a flutter of feathers and soft footfalls. Before she could hunch her shoulders or move away, kind hands were ghosting over bare arms. She gave in to the pull, not caring if she crossed that invisible line marked “friends” or not.
Warren folded her into his embrace with the care that reminded her of his codename. He shushed her gently, knowing before she did that she was going to cry. She gave herself up to the grief, holding his shoulders and wondering if he cared that she was covered in sweat.
If he did, he never showed it. Warren held her close, letting her useless tears soak his shirt until it was the color of blood. He smoothed his hand over her slick hair until he cupped her nape, giving her the feeling that he was the protector, salvation.
“I miss them,” Kitty whimpered against his chest.
“And that’s ok, too.” Warren whispered, kissing her temple.
When she was finished with her tears, Gwen was throatily whispering from the stereo, the song soft and slow and assuring her lover that he was lovely. Kitty looked up at Warren, at the achingly sweet understanding in his smile.
He kissed her forehead and her heart tripped.
~**~
Henry McCoy entered his outer office, buttoning the coat he wore over a pressed white dress shirt. He nodded to his assistant, whom handed him a stack of messages.
“Ms. Tilby is waiting in the lobby for you, Ambassador.”
Warmed at the thought of his raven-haired love, Hank nodded curtly. “Thank you, Gregory, have a nice evening.”
“Same to you, sir,” the eager young man gave him a smile in farewell.
As Hank left the office and entered the elevator, he pulled out a mobile phone and quickly punched in the number for Storm’s private office. He waited as it rang, letting the cool steel elevator take him down several floors.
It was unlike her to hang up on him in such a manner, and though he was sure the trouble was nothing life-threatening, he wanted to get to the bottom of it. He knew Ororo well, knew that she was holding on by the tips of her fingers. She was trying to send up smoke signals, to distract him from the fact that she was ripping apart at the seams.
He knew better. Ororo was once his best friend and they seemed on the road to rebuilding a once cherished friendship. He wanted to be there for her, through the good, bad, and ugly. Had she not insisted that he take this position as a United Nations Ambassador, he would be teaching ethics and biology at the school he loved.
On the sixth ring, Henry flipped the phone closed with a sigh. She would call to explain, of that he was sure. If she didn’t, for whatever reason, he would simply wait until she arrived next week. Then, at least, she couldn’t hang up on him.
When the elevator doors slipped open, Hank felt the tension knotting his shoulders relax more than a fraction. Standing in the open, airy lobby was the woman of his dreams.
Patricia Tilby worked for a news magazine “ In Depth “ for NCBC news, which won Emmy’s almost as often as it was nominated. Her reputation as a hard-hitting reporter with compassion served her well in the trenches, but it positively shone in the more controlled arena of news magazines.
Tonight, Hank was taking her out to celebrate her latest triumph. She was dressed to kill in inky black, the slinky material stopping at the knee. The sleeveless, strapless top modeled slender shoulders and creamy skin. Long, raven hair spilled down her back in delicate waves, making Henry ache to bury his hands in it.
Just looking at her made his mouth water.
“Hank,” she greeted, those sea-green eyes lighting up when she spotted him coming out of the elevator.
“You’re stunning,” he said by way of greeting. She flushed with pleasure, allowing him to kiss her cheek.
“I love it when you’re charming,” she answered, kissing his lips lightly. “Are you finished for the day?”
“I am wholly yours,” Hank answered, threading her arm with his. “Where would you like to eat?”
“Doesn’t matter,” Trish responded with a brilliant smile as they left the lobby. “As long as I have you…and some ridiculously expensive wine.”
“Your wish,” Hank bowed grandly as his driver opened the car door. “Is my command.”
Trish’s warm laughter promptly shoved aside thoughts of the school and Storm. He would talk to his friend tomorrow. Tonight was reserved for the woman he loved.
