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17. Fated to lose

Summary: “I just wanted some time to talk, if only time was with me.”

Few months ago,

“Mommymommymommy.” Laying out her night clothes, ready to enter the bathroom, Ororo stopped short turning around just in time to soften the blow as a little bundle of energy tore in through the door, barreling into her.
“Yes dearest.” Falling onto his behind, James grinned up at his bemused mother, his happy giggles gurgling up his chest ringing free.

“Mmommywewentforsimmin’todaey.” He prattled on, his young tongue slipping on and rolling over the words
“Huh?” Even as she tried to keep track with, Ororo couldn’t quite understand what he had just said.
“Wewentsimmin’stodaey.” The child tried again. “Simmin’ today.” The third time around, it came out a frustrated plea.
“Oh. Swimming.” Realization dawned to Ororo.

“Yeah. Simmin’.” His innocent eyes once again lit with that happy twinkle. “Me, Kend’ll, papa. Simmin’. All of us.”
“Oh, really.” Ororo feigned ignorance. She knew about the schedule that Logan had set up for the children. Getting only two weekends a month, the Saturdays were reserved for movie watching and picnic, while every alternate Sunday was for swimming, a long drive and a picnic filling in the remaining one. “So what did you do at the swimming pool.”
“We sweem.” James answered making the swimming motions with his hands. “Papa teech me awso.”
“What?!” Ororo’s smile came to a screeching halt. He had done what? Didn’t he know that James was only… She stopped once again, her surprise and annoyance lasting all but a moment as she remembered a time years ago, when Logan had done the same for Kendall too, at about the same age, the memory only serving to remind her how much time had passed since then….and how much had changed since then.
“Yup.” Thankfully, James was too excited to notice the momentary change in his mother’s mood. “Ther was this tiye. White tiye. We put it here,” he pointed just above and below his shoulders where Logan had fixed the floatation tire.

“Good.” Ororo smiled, her smile faltering at hearing Kendall run down the corridor, rushing back downstairs after having placed both her and her brother’s bags in their respective rooms.

Returning to James, Ororo caught him letting out a wide yawn.

“Sleepy.” She noticed the sudden tired droopy look in his eyes, knowing that he was probably running on pure adrenaline, exhausted after the whole swimming exercise. He wanted to tell his mamma about it and as soon as he’d gotten the last word out, not to mention ensconced himself in her warmth of her embrace, the snow haired, mocha skinned toddler had promptly curled up, his soft breaths warming the rise of her chest.

“Umm-Hmm.” And just like that, he was out like the proverbial light.

Rising up to take him to his room, Ororo gave up a moment later, instead laying him out for the night on the empty half of her bed, the half that hadn’t been occupied for more than a year now.

The half that was his.

Even now, even after all had gone wrong with them, even after all relations, all ties, except two, Kendall and James, had been severed…..even now, she could still not get him out of her mind.

Just as she could not get him out of her heart.

---

It was lunch time the next day and still Ororo had just one thought on her mind, one topic, one name, the same that had kept her up the entire night, tossing and turning working without success to drive it away…to get some sleep.

And here she was, her mind heavy with swirling thoughts, thoughts so engulfing that she missed out someone call out to her, not once but twice, before a spoon reached from across the table tapping at her still pristine plate.

TingTingTing

“Ororo.” A voice called out to her. “Ororo?!”

“Huh. Wha-what?” her impromptu séance broken, Ororo’s eyes flashed as she grappled to comprehend where she was. She has been so deep in thought that she hadn’t even noticed that she still held in her hand the salad bowl that someone must have extended to her.

Flashing her a smile, and pointing at preciously ready to tip over bowl, the intruder, her friend, colleague and teammate, Scott Summers started in a deliberately lowered voice. “Haven’t seen you this flustered since your first teaching day. You were really out for a few seconds there. Busy day?”

“No. Uh-no, its nothing. Just normal school work. Nothing” Ororo fumbled, trying to come up with a plausible excuse. Finally giving up when she found none, she relented with a self-deprecating smile. “I guess, I have been a little preoccupied.”

“Want to talk about it?” Scott looked sideways over his shoulder, serving another helping of rice into the plastic ‘Kim Possible’ plate lying next to his, as well giving a ‘go ahead’ nod to the redhead seated on an elevated-chair.

Ororo paused, glanced sideways herself, looking for a second as if she was going to take him up on his offer. Given that both of them usually sat at the end of the table, their location allowing them free space to seat either or both of their children, they had the prerequisite distance to allow them privacy away from any snooping ears.

“No.” She finally answered, her tone closing any further discussion on the topic.

Not pushing too much, after all it was her private business, Scott easily turned the conversation towards easier, less heavier topics, namely Rachel’s losing yet another tooth…a point which the child supported, both by flashing a wide grin to show the expanded space between the top front teeth and also by showing the precious tooth, the one she was going to place under her pillow for the tooth fairy, which in her case would be her own father.


Breaking finally about twenty minutes later, helping Rachel down, Scott was ready to take leave himself, when Ororo’s hesitant words caused him to pause.

“Scott.”
“Yes Ororo.”
“Do you have some spare time.” ‘Maybe she wants to talk after all,’ thought Scott.
“Right now?” He had a class half an hour later and had to get Rachel to take her afternoon nap before that.
“Y-Ye…No. Sometime later.”

“I have a two more classes left for the day and a danger room session to supervise after that. We can talk then or if you want later.”
“When is the Danger Room session?” Her tone clearly gave away her desperation.

“Six. Six to Seven-Twenty.”


“Ororo is something wrong?” Being a Monday Scott would bet that whatever it was that had Ororo so flustered, it would most probably be something related to either Kendall or Logan. Even though their divorce was more than five months old, Ororo was still having time moving on, Kendall’s worsening behavior towards her not helping things at all. The child had gone through so much in the last year and half, being kidnapped and experimented upon, having her emotional innocence torn away, having her father leave for a mission of vengeance, her mother closing in on herself after that, the legal separation of her parent and finally their divorce. It would be too much for an adult, let alone an impressionable child of Kendall’s age. Luckily for him, little James, was still too young to comprehend completely the goings on around him.

As lonely as he was without Jean, Scott couldn’t help but feel a little thankful for Rachel that she hadn’t been old enough to understand when…why her mother left her and her father…forever. For Scott himself, the only thing that had kept him going for so long was the little baby with soft red curls (just like her mother) that Jean had left in his arms. He knew he couldn’t give up now…he could not give up ever.

His own life had ended with Jean, what remained now was the father of Rachel Summers.


Silent, checking her own schedule, Ororo nodded in affirmation a few seconds later. “I’ll be there. I just have to visit Henry first.”

“Anything wrong?” Scott inquired, thinking that maybe something was wrong with her health.
“No, nothing.” Ororo shook her head, not want to worry him further by telling that she had been feeling a little tired lately. “Just feeling a bit under the weather.”
“Under the weather? Is that supposed to be a joke?” Scott arched an eyebrow behind his ruby-colored glasses.
“Wha-oh,” even she broke a smile at the inadvertent jape at her powers.

“Daddy.” Any further conversation ended at Rachel’s pulling at her father’s cotton trouser leg. “Sleeppiee.”

“I better go,” Scott chuckled as he hefted the little girl into his arms, her head immediately resting against his shoulder. “See you later.”

“Yes…” Ororo trailed away, once again returning to try to analyze the thoughts occupying her mind.

----

A few hours later,

“I am thinking of talking to Logan.”
“Good.”

“Scott.” Seated on the one of the spare chairs, Ororo hardly paid any attention to the veritable war-zone a hundred or so feet below. “I am thinking of talking to Logan,” she repeated again, deliberately stressing on the word ‘talking’.
“Good.” Scott’s answer was once again of the one word kind, his nimble fingers tweaking and fine tuning the program parameters of the scenario currently running. It was a personal favorite of his, so much so that he had even a special name for it. The Brood. An outcome of watching one too many Aliens and Star Trek marathons, Scott had spent hours imagining and reading it. He had taken the characteristics of both the aliens in the Aliens movies and the Borg in Star Trek, combining them by reworking the aliens’ body and giving the cunning hive behavior of the Borg. He had even got Henry to help, putting in the finishing touches and anatomical details until voila, the Brood came alive.

Though a favorite, it was also one of the most hardest of all practice programs and required a special clearance and presence of at least one of the senior X-Men to run it. Even then it was limited to only those students who sported a special X, that is only those who were either X-Men in training or members of the junior team.

“I think I should leave,” Ororo was already half way up. “You are busy and….”

“Hey,” Scott whirled around in his chair, “Sit sit.” He gestured with one hand. “I am almost done here. Just wanted to make it a few changes for this batch of students. Just a few more seconds and then we can talk, and by that I mean I’ll actually talk instead of just nodding and giving single syllable answers.”

At the hesitation on Ororo’s face, a clear indication of the battle going on inside her, he pushed further, a little more sternly but with equal humor.

“Sit. That’s an order.”

“Order!” Ororo’s gasp and the ensuing smirk told him that his ploy had worked, as did her slow return to her seat.

--

“So.” True to his words, not even a minute later Scott lifted his fingers off the control panel. Not wanting to be disturbed an yet not wanting the students to accidentally get hurt, he activated the highest safety protocols and dialed down the skills levels a couple of notches, all without declaring it over the intercom. After all, let them deal with it as if it was still on a maximum setting.

“You want to talk to Logan.” He stressed on just the right word. “Get together again.”
“No!” Ororo lashed out before she realized it. “I did not say that.”
“No you did not.” Scott’s statement carried a subtle question. “You did not need to.”

“I-It…its complicated.”
“Hmm. I guess so. And…”
“I am not even sure if I should do it….that I even want to…”
“You don’t?” Disbelief was clear in Scott’s voice and on his face.
“Okay, that much I am sure of…” Ororo relented, kind of. “But…”
“But what?” Scott knew he would have to do some probing himself. “You think that you don’t have the right anymore?”
“I don’t have the right,” once again Ororo denied it…in spite of her heart saying otherwise. “Do I?”

“Ororo. You actually need to ask that?” Scott returned with a dry chuckle. “I take you haven’t been seeing Logan whenever he comes to pick up or drop off the children.” He asked, knowing very well that the answer was otherwise.
“I have.” Ororo’s whisper was subdued, the last word spoken just to herself. ‘Every time.’

“And still you have to ask if you have a right to go to him? To talk to him?” Spoken like that it sounded even more non-consequential than it had seemed in her head.

“Scott, I…” Ororo kneaded her forehead, not knowing what to say.
“Ororo.” Reaching forward to hold her hands, Scott was more than a little surprised to find them clammy. Ororo’s hands were never clammy, nor did they ever shake as they were right now. Not even imagining anything else to be wrong, he took it as a sign of her worry, her hesitation about mending her relationship with Logan…..or at least trying to salvage it. “Ororo?”
“I-Its just that…” Ororo was fighting hard to contain her tears. She was so tired, so alone, so lonely….so lonely without him. She knew that both of them had wronged, crossed a line that they shouldn’t have even stepped up to. But still, even now, even after all this, still… “I…I miss him.”

There, it was finally out, the truth, lifting and taking away an invisible load with it.

“In spite of everything that happened between us, everything he…I…everything both of us did, I still miss him.”

“And you want him back,” Scott supplied the words that she still hadn’t been able to vocalize
“And I want him back,” all of her tension energy seemed to flow out with those five words.

“Good.” Scott patted her hands. “Now that you got that in order, go talk to him. And this time, actually talk.”
“What if he…” Ororo hesitated, remembering the last time she and Logan had attempted to talk, and the fallout from that.

“He’ll talk.” Scott hoped his words would help assuage her doubts, and that they would turn out to be true, especially because he realized that he was the first and probably the only person Ororo was going to talk to about this. It was either him, the Professor or Hank, because they were the only people who were ‘neutral’. All others had chosen one side or the other, even going through their own clashes over this sensitive topic, like Rogue and Remy did during and immediately after the divorce, with Rogue on Logan’s side and Remy staunchly Ororo’s.

“You think?” She asked again, as if to dispel that last bit of fear away and draw up hope.

Instead of verbally answering this time, Scott gave a single nod of affirmation.

“Th-Thank you Scott.” Ororo returned the hand squeeze, her eyes brimming with tears of hope. “Thank you very much.”

“Hey. No sweat.” He grinned an easy grin. “What else are best friends for.”

---

Not even a week later,

“You want me to what?!” Scott Summers couldn’t believe his ears. How had things gone from ‘I want Logan back in my life, with me once again’ to this? And that too just in a span of five days.

“I want you to help me to get Logan to give up on me and move on with his life.” Ororo’s calm voice was in no way supported by the darkening skyline outside or her hands, which oddly enough were shaking once again.

“I want you to make a show of marrying me.”

Note: Just about done with this fic. Still haven’t written or even visualize the ending.

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