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11. Growing Queries

Summary: “They grow up so soon.”


The cool breeze blowing in through the open balcony doors wasn’t the first thing that the slowly rousing Ororo noticed. It wasn’t even the second, or the third…or the fourth.

The first thing she noticed or rather felt was the warmth on her side, the warmth of a human body, the small, nestled in the crook of her arm and shoulder, body of a small child….her child. James. Sometime during the course of the night, young James had woken up and half asleep trudged from his room to that of his mother, laid down next to her, drawn her arm around him and fallen asleep again…this time in the safety of his mother’s embrace. Ororo, even though she did not know when this happened, had instinctively adjusted her position to accommodate him. This was nothing new for her, for even before James, and at a much happier….simpler time, her first born, Kendall used to do the same, and at that time….as much with her mother as with her father. In fact, it was a subconscious imitation of his older sibling that caused James to adopt the same habit and posture.

Just as she was got past this, and with her eyes still closed, Ororo, or rather her body reminded…revealed another thing that she did not know or even realize…or remember. The hard surface underneath her, and the slight ache she felt in her neck told her that she was not on her bed but on the ground next to it. The only thing that even remotely came close to being on the bed was her left foot, which was awkwardly pressed ‘under’ the bed than on it.

‘Goddess!’ She almost exclaimed out aloud, her sudden movement eliciting a counter move and muted whimper from the asleep James.

Any hope that Ororo held for not disturbing the child was smashed as she opened her eyes and tried to move her arm….slowly. One small movement and a shard of pain shot through her side, upper back and neck.

“Uhnn…mamm…” Rolling away from his mother, the sudden hardness under his head waking him, James moaned lightly and with one, two…three reluctant tries finally opened his eyes. “Gu’d Mornin’,” still rising from the sleep ‘swimming pool’ he muttered his greeting, and even as he worded it, he drew in closer to the warmth.
“Good morning baby,” pushing her pain and the numbness in her ‘cushioning’ arm down, Ororo let James curl up next to her, kissing him lightly on his forehead, just below his snowy locks.

With one arm still curved around the child, Ororo moved slowly and laid out straight on her back, and it was then that she noticed the next thing. Draped over them, well, more on her than on James was a small cool-blue blanket….James’ ‘blanky’. It was Logan’s gift for him…from his last birthday, the one which he missed attending. The kid never let it go, and it was just another thing to remind Ororo of what she had lost….and that brought back the even more painful memories of the previous night. It was then that she remembered as to why she was on the ground and not on the bed. She lost consciousness and it was due to that that she did not sense anything that happened after that….until the time she woke up a few minutes ago.

---

Even though she had broken any relations and links with Logan, or at least tried to, Ororo knew one thing, one simple fact that sounded true from the depth of her heart, true as the day as when she first realized it. She and Logan would forever be joined in one way or the other, and not just because of Kendall and James…and it was that truth that pained her even more, because of what she had done….was still doing.

‘Its for the best.’ Silently muttering the mantra she had been taken up to give herself some sort of relief for the recent events. ‘Its…for…the…best.’


Still lost in her thoughts, and feeling the incoming breeze going even cooler, Ororo momentarily tilted her head towards the balcony….and what she saw shocked her into seated position, James being pulled up along with her.

“Uhn…Oh…” one look at what his mother was staring at and James too shot up straight as an arrow. “Snow! No…rain…no… Mommy?” Confused by the erratic weather conditions he turned towards Ororo, just in time for a blinding flash of lightening streak across the grey skies, a resounding boom of thunder accompanying it.

“Mommy?”

If there had been any confusion in Oruro's mind about the freak snowstorm in late summer weather, the accompanying and ever shifting rain and hail shower washed it all away.

“Kendall!”

Even as the word left her lips, Ororo felt a familiar tickle at the back of her mind, followed by a smooth, cultured by at the moment worried voice of Charles Xavier.

**Ororo. Is something the….**

**I’ll look into it Professor.** Ororo cut him off midway, and forgetting her aches and pains, she took off towards her daughter’s room.


Reaching her destination, the one where Kendall currently was, the bathroom, Ororo’s breath hitched at the sight before her.

“Kendall!”

---

Sometime later,

“There, that should take care of it.” Henry’s McCoy’s calm, friendly voice had no effect on the numb and still unnerved Kendall, who, over the span of a few hours had undergone a startling change….one which just changed her life forever.

“Thank you Dr. McCoy,” the subdued voice and the fact that she called him Dr. McCoy instead of Uncle Hank or Big Blue, was signal enough for both Henry and for her mother, Ororo, standing behind her.
“Why don’t you go and see if young James has left anything unturned,” Henry directed his patient towards the door. Once she was out the door, he turned to the older weather manipulator.

“I know what you are going to ask Henry,” Ororo cut him off even before he could get a word out. “And my answer is going to be the same as any other time. You are the doctor, and I know that you remember my….all our reports by heart.”
“Ororo, I just….”
“I know Henry,” Ororo lifted a resting hand to his shoulder, and nodded slowly at his unspoken words. “But right now, my daughter needs me, and I want to be there for her as much as I can….as long as I can.”

---

Unable to say anything to contest that reasoning, Henry acceded and watched Ororo make her way through the door. As he watched, she was stopped by Scott, a rueful smile forming on his lips. He guessed….knew what Scott was talking to her about, and from the nod of Scott’s head, he ascertained that just like him, Scott too stepped away down from his argument.

“You…” Scott started as he pushed through the double hinged doors, one fisted thumb gesturing towards where Ororo had stood seconds ago.
“Yes I did, and fared the same as you.”

“What happened?” Scott’s worry was clear in his voice. At first he had thought that the freak weather had something to do with Ororo, most probably whatever went down between Logan and her, but now….now he wasn’t so sure, especially with the reaction she got from Kendall, lowering of her head and scuttling away as fast as she could.
“Scott,” Henry hesitated for a second. “It was nothing major.”
“Nothing major,” echoing his words, Scott pointed upwards. “Did you see the weather outside. At first I thought that something happened to Ororo. That she….”

Even though he sensed that something other than the ‘freaky’ weather was on Scott’s mind, Henry did not push further.

Coming back to the matter at hand…

“Well, as far as the weather is concerned, lets just say that had Kendall’s mutation been dormant….it would have just gone active this morning.”

---

Elsewhere in the mansion,

“I’m sorry.”

“Huh,” confused and thinking that she probably misheard, Ororo turned away from the kitchen counter and towards the central island where Kendall and James were seated for breakfast. “Did you say something?”

“I said… (clearing throat) ..I’m sorry.” Kendall repeated herself, her eyes still not quite meeting her mother’s.
“Sorry? For what?”
“For…” Once again the young girl’s gaze turned towards her plate, tears forming in her eyes. “For what…what I did. I didn’t mean….”

Hurrying to her side, Ororo engulfed Kendall in her arms, catching her just in time for her to start sobbing again. Even James, his cereal forgotten, got down from his chair and slowly joined his mother and sister, his own eyes growing damp.


“When do I go?” This question really threw Ororo for a loop. Of all the possible queries and/or comments this was the one that she least expected.
“Go? Go where?”
“You’ll send me away now,” deep hazel eyes looked up at her. “I did a bad thing…made you angry…”
“Kendall, listen to me,” Ororo cradled the young girl’s jaw. “You did nothing wrong. No one is angry with you….least of all me. No one is sending you anywhere.”

Instead of lighting up at her mother’s words, Kendall seemed to grow even sadder.
“Oh. Then you are not going to send me away like you did to Daddy?”

Numbed into silence, Ororo did not know how or what to say in response. Even though the words hurt her, this was the first time Kendall had asked about her and Logan’s separation. It was an opening…possibly the only one she would get…and she did not want to lose it.

“You…” she gathered herself. “You want to leave?”
“I want to stay with Daddy,” came the simple innocent answer.
“Oh…and me.”
“Huhn?”
“You don’t want to stay with me….with mommy?”

The look that flashed across Kendall's face told Ororo that this question was something that the girl had never quite thought about….the question or possibility that living with her father would mean that she would have to leave her mother….and maybe even her brother.

“We could all stay together,” she finally offered as a seemingly plausible solution. “Like before.”
“Kendall…” not knowing how to respond to that, at least not without possibly sounding ‘unfeeling’, “Lo…” she stopped again, this time to word the relation that she had denied only a few days ago, “…your father…he does not…I don’t think he will live here.”

“But we could live with him….” Kendall was quick in response, getting a supportive nod from James.

“….he wouldn’t make you leave.”

Note: This is my first update in almost a month. I moved a few weeks ago, and with moving and then setting up in the new place, and then real life (not to mention reworking my site) ….writing just took a back seat. Hope to rectify that now.

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