[Reviews - 147]
-
Table of Contents [Report This]
Microsoft Word Chapter or Story |
Printer Chapter or Story |
ePub eBook Chapter or Story |

Has been viewed 4694 times

- Text Size +




18. Mending Hearts

Summary: "Hindsight is Twenty-Twenty."

-CLICK-

The abrupt bright light in the room causing her to flinch, Ororo turned away, pulling the sheet up along with her, not up to her face but to hold out for the person who she thought had intruded upon her slumber. James.

Staying like that for a few seconds, she frowned a little as no one came forward, her hand flopped down, the cotton fluttered along with.

Ready to loll off, she stopped short. Even through her haze she sensed it…felt it, felt a pair of eyes boring into her.

Turning around, moving to sit up, her heart hitched a beat at the sight before her.

“You heartless bitch.”

The words, hurtful as they were and spoken with anger, affected her, just not as they usually would have. What took away from the pain they would have afflicted, what caused her throat to choke up, was the blood shot eyes, the tear stained cheeks of the person who had spoken them.

Not able to say anything immediately, she gulped, hesitating and not knowing that if she opened her arms whether her visitor would fall into them or just as well strike them…slap her.

“Jubilee….” Barely did the name leave her lips, did the sobbing form of the teenager fall onto her, holding on as if for dear life…for her life.

“Ororo….”

--

//Flashback//

Thud Thud ThudThuddThud

“Coming, coming,” the muffled hail from the other side of the door had almost no affect on the person on this side, the continuing knocks threatening to tear the wooden partition down.

“Are you fuckin’ outta your mi…Rogue?” Ready to read whoever it was the riot act, Jubilation Lee, current resident of what was until recently Logan’s apartment, trailed off, more than a little taken aback at the ‘middle of the night’ showing up of one of her best friends, a haggard look on her face. She grew even more worried at the tears flowing down the southerner’s cheeks. “Rogue? Is everything….”

“Jubes.” Rogue threw her arms around her friend, her body sagging as fresh sobs wracked it.


Moving back, her movement obstructed by the slightly larger frame of her friend, Jubilee kicked the door shut behind them. “Rogue? Roguey. Hey. Everything okay?” She asked softly, her own heart thumping hard against her chest. “Did something happen to Remy? Did he do something?”

“It ain’t Remy.”

‘Oh no. Logan.’ The second name piping up, Jubilee all but collapsed herself. Had something happened to him. He had been in a bad state when he left, and who knew where he had disappeared to. “Logan? Is it…”

“It-Its….Ororo…” Rogue managed between sniffles.
“Ororo?” Two opposing reactions battled at that revelation. While one, that which arose from anger and a sense of betrayal, said ‘who cares, she already has someone she found to care for her.’ The other, that of the daughter’s, hit the panic button at even a hint of anything wrong with her mother.

“What happened to Ororo?” Ever since she left the mansion, Jubilee hadn’t set step back there even once, and knew nothing at all of the X-Men’s missions. Had there been a mission. A dangerous one? Did something happened during…?

“Sh-She…she’s…oh god….Jubes,” Rogue crumbled to the ground, still able to believe the news let alone voice it herself. ‘Dyin’.’ She whispered, not loud enough for Jubilee…and not clearly.

“What did you say?” Jubilee kneeled down next to her, a frown marring her features at what she thought her ears had heard. It was wrong. It couldn’t be. “What happened to Ororo? Answer me. What?”

“She’s dyin’ Jubes.” There, it finally came out, the words spat out as if poison. “She’s dyin’.”

//End Flashback//

---

“Who told you?” Ororo was surprised how calm she sounded, detached…almost as if she was in class and not talking about the brevity of her life.

“Rogue,” whispered Jubilee, her head nuzzled at the shoulder of the older woman.

‘Remy.’ Ororo instinctively knew who had told Rogue. It was after all, just a matter of confirming it. She should have known that he would do it, if not other times, this time he would. After all it was Rogue who had made the call, the one that brought him back almost blowing through the front door, right into his and Rogue’s suite and not even ten minutes later, into hers.

“Tell me it isn’t true,” Jubilee croaked breaking her embrace to draw back. “Tell me that you aren’t…please.”

“Jubilee…” Just one look and Jubilee knew the futility of her hopes.

Almost as a flash she was up. “I should leave.” She bent down to reset and fluff the pillows, straightening up to help Ororo to lay back down. “Lie down. You should rest.” She spoke robotically, not willing to match eyes with her estranged mother. “Sorry about…”

“Child, sit.” Ororo reached forward to grab thee young woman’s hands, thankful that at least this time her own limbs weren’t shaking. It was the first clear (and easiest to observe) sign of her affliction, the increasingly not so subtle shaking of her hands and legs, and the growing sensitivity of the nerve ending there. It was only set to increase to uncontrollable levels, her body growing more and more sensitive, until a time when she would not even be able to bear any touch, not even that of simply air…of her winds. Nothing.

And then, if she was lucky enough, the day might come when she would not feel anything, ever again. It was either that or the other thing, a fate that she never wanted…for those near her, a fate worse than death.

---

Settling down on the bed, sitting half sideway and half facing Ororo, Jubilee could not bring herself to meet her eyes, both because of it would be staring at a truth that she did not want to confront right now, if ever and because her own guilt forced her gaze to lower, shame at how in her anger the treatment she had meted out to this woman.

“I’m sorry ‘Ro.” The words were barely audible but Ororo knew what they signified. Crooking a finger under the younger woman’s chin, she lifted it, and true enough those dark eyes conveyed far more than her words or her subdued body language did.


Using her free hand to wipe away the saline rivulets, Ororo raised it further to run through the lush growth of hair that had grown to replace the ‘gelled’ spikes of her mid-teen years.

“I am sorry too.” She apologized.

For all they had done to each other, both she and Logan had caused pain to their children too, all three of them…even sweet innocent James. He was such an honest innocent soul that now, having analyzed her actions, Ororo could not help but think if by their vengeful actions, they (Logan and her) had doomed him to the same fate as his sister…if they had ripped his innocence away.

Even though she still did not agree with Logan’s actions, even though she would never be one to condone taking another’s life, Ororo also realized that maybe her own actions had been more than a little harsh. After all, hindsight was almost always twenty-twenty.

‘If only he…we had talked it over. Maybe none of this would have happened.’

And it was that thought that caused her to pause and then stop completely…even now as with every previous time. Logan was not here, not anymore, and even though she would have wanted him to be the last person she saw, she did not want to be the one who cause yet more pain to his tortured soul. She had already more done her part towards that.

He would move on, find someone else…to love, someone who loved him back, maybe even as much as her. He wound find happiness, happiness that he had once found with her.

That was all she had wanted when she had started this whole charade with Scott. Yet once again, just like before, she had failed…failed him (Logan) and their children. For never in her wildest, darkest dreams…nightmares, had she envisioned him leaving.

Leaving, not her but their children.

Those thoughts assailed her over and over again, both her waking moments and asleep.

And it was thoughts of him that were still on her mind, as she laid back on her back, her elder daughter, still unable to stop her tears, slipping in beside her.

----

Once again,

-CLICK-

It happened again and as with the first time, it was pretty much a similar situation, if not the setting. However unlike before, this time around, even before her conscious mind roused enough to realize it, she knew who it was, her nostrils flaring, her other senses also reacting…as did the rest of her body, instinctively knowing who it was.

She did not even need to open her eyes to see who it was, her entire being literally sang out the name.

Yet she did, nearly getting bowled over at the ragged, unshaven, gaunt form that met her gaze, all of it fading away at the fire in those deep probing eyes…

…and the tears shining in them.

“Logan…”

Note: Am just about done with this....and am trying to update it fast before I lose steam once again.

Please Review!!





You must login () to review.