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05. ‘Interesting’

“Oh, sorry.”

Storm apologized to the new Ororo. Arriving at her room, she thanked Piotr for keeping a lookout, opened the door and stepped through it. That and the others talking woke up the sleeping woman inside.

Her hair mussed from sleep; her doe like eyes bleary from the sudden and abrupt wake up call, the older Ororo sat up, instinctively pulling up the sheet to her chest. Even if they did not agree on her authenticity, everyone present in the room did agree on one thing…the woman, whoever she was, was a dead ringer for Ororo….a few years down the line. Heck, how many people were there with natural blue eyes, white hair and coffee colored skin?

---

“Huhn,” the bedside Ororo seemed lost for a moment. As she regained complete consciousness, she remembered that she was no longer in her world, in her and Logan’s room at the mansion or even at their cabin in the Canadian Rockies. She was in an alternate dimension where until a couple of hours ago, she had been a prisoner of sorts.

“We didn’t know you were asleep,” Scott offered as an apology. “Perhaps we should do this a later time and let you get your rest.”

“Its alright,” the new Ororo smiled languidly, her body still feeling the cumulative after affects of her battle, having slept out in the open, and the general tiredness that came with being pregnant. “I hope you don’t mind, I took some clothes of yours,” she looked up at her counterpart, who had noticed her changed attire. “Just wanted to get out of the leather uniform.”

“Nope. No problem at all.” Ororo smiled as she came forward into the room. “Need anything, just take it.”

“Thank you,” the older Storm returned the friendly smile.

----

Once the others, well, Jean and Scott had spouted off their little speech, the younger Ororo turned them out, closed and locked the door behind her.

“Tell me more about yourself and your….world,” she started as she opened her closet to take out a change of clothes for herself.
“What would you like to know?” Ororo looked up to her counterpart. Slipping out of her own costume, she was in the process of donning 'normal civilian clothes.

“Uh, Ororo,” she didn’t know what else to call her, they were, for all obvious purposes, the same person, except for the slight bulge at the midsection of the new Ororo…a bulge she had not noticed earlier, but couldn’t help but check out now “How far along are you?”
“Four and a half, almost five months,” she replied, tracing a loving hand over her silk covered belly. “Soon I won’t be able to wear the leather,” she gestured towards her costume. “It already chafes my nipples,” she stated with a grin.

Looking away from the mirror, she turned to the un-pregnant Ororo. “You want to feel them?”

“Me!” Ororo’s mind reeled at the offer. Even from where she was standing, the fact that one of her was with child was still overwhelming. “Can I?” she asked softly, hesitantly.

“Sure,” the pregnant Ororo seemed to glow with the warmth of motherhood. “Logan always likes to feel them. He does it every morning when he wakes up and at every chance he gets…he even talks to them sometimes. ”

“Oh,” Ororo did not know what to say to that either. It seemed that the Wolverine of the other dimension was much more emotionally open that the one here. More importantly, he was love with her, well, the other Ororo, and not with Jean-Jeannie-Red-Grey.

“He is the same there too,” her twin seemed to dip right into her thoughts. “Intensely closed off, private, highly emotional…..”
“And you still choose to be with him?” Ororo had to ask the question. From what her counterpart had just described, there wasn’t any difference between the two Wolverines.

“Those are the qualities that drew me to him. You know, the whole Bad-Boy thing,” the pregnant Ororo chuckled humorously. “No seriously, what drew me to him was his warrior spirit, his loyalty, his sense of honor…his hidden love. Although I must say, it is hidden quite well. I had to go through layers upon layers of emotional shielding to get to it. It took me a lot of time and effort to get to where we are now. And you know what; I’d do it again in a heartbeat.”

----

“What about you?” the new Ororo made her own inquiry, looking down at her twin as she caressed the gentle swell of midsection.
“What about me?” Asked Ororo, her temple creased in confusion. Being like this, sensing the growing life….made the thought of how it would feel to birth, to have her own family, grow stronger within her.

“How are things between you and the Logan here?”
“What makes you think there is something between me and him?” The words sounded hollow to Ororo herself. She mentally cursed herself for trying to lie to…well, to herself.

“Just the way you talk about him.” Ororo arched her eyebrow as if saying, go on. “Your questions, their singled approach towards Logan and my relation and the affect it has had on both of us. That, and the way you looked at him when you came to know about my relation with my Logan. Although I must say, there are some things about you that are intriguing to me too.”

“What do you want to know about me?” Ororo sighed and sat down on a chair, facing her counterpart.
“Well,” the new Ororo seemed to think it over for a moment. “I guess everything. After all, we are from two different worlds…not to mention ages.”

“I…” Starting to speak, Ororo stopped short at the knock from the other side. Excusing herself, she walked to the door, unlocked and opened it….to face Scott and Jean, no doubt on their fact-finding mission. Both of her teammates were not quite looking at her but at her doppelganger inside the room…as if to check whether she was still there or not.

“Yes,” the Nubian beauty arched a snowy brow in query.

“Uh-we…” Jean faltered as if she had been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. One of the main reasons the new arrival unnerved her, well, apart from the already stated ones, was that Jean wasn’t properly able to get a good read from her….her mental shields were just too strong, and moreover, their where built up from her subconscious up. She had had training; the redhead inferred….training in locking out telepaths. “We just came to invite you …I mean both of you…you and Ms. Monroe to dinner.”

“Okay, give us ten minutes,” and with that, Ororo bear about slammed the door on their faces.

----

As she turned to her twin, she saw a mysterious smirk on her face.

“That was….interesting.” The older Ororo commented, her smirk growing knowing.
“What was?”

“You,” she gestured towards the door. “Scott and Jean. Your friendship….”
“Please…” her (ultimate) twin interrupted at the friendship comment. “They might be my teammates, but they are most definitely not my friends…well, not among the ones I feel closer to. They are entirely too anal and stuck up for my liking.”

“That’s why I said interesting,” her doppelganger repeated her comment, letting the ‘anal’ comment slide. This version of her…this younger version of her, was a feisty one and did not hesitate to voice her opinion, even sprinkling it with rather colorful language. “See, on my world, the Scott and Jean there…they are two of my closest friends.”
“Huhn…” Ororo’s mouth fell open, disbelief clearly plastered on her features.

“Yes. We were among the first students to join the Professor and have been friends for years. Seeing the three of you like this….”

“Yeah I know…” the younger Storm completed the older one’s sentence, her face scrunched up in thinly disguised dislike.

“…Interesting”

-----

Elsewhere,

“Anything Professor?” Even as the doors to the mutant detecting machine, Cerebro, opened, the gathered X-Men stepped up to their mentor.

“No Scott,” Xavier shook his head, fatigue clear on his face. Of the thirty-six hours since Ororo and Logan vanished, he had spent almost twenty-three of those in Cerebro, trying to get a reading of their cerebral signatures. However, no matter how long and how hard he tried, all his efforts had been in vain. With Beast, Colossus and Iceman returning to the scene of the battle, the only viable hope was to salvage whatever they could of their teammates….that was the thought that he was getting from more than few of his students.

“Professor, do you think…?” Kitty started, only to be silenced by an outburst from an increasingly agitated Rogue.

“They ain’t dead,” the southerner snapped at her ex-roommate. One time close friends, the relationship and camaraderie between the two girls had cooled over time…especially due to Kitty’s affair with Bobby…at a time when Rogue and Bobby were dating, and were still very much a couple. Even though she came to know about it sooner, Rogue let it slide for a short period of time, mostly due to a hope that Bobby might come back….and also due to her own insecurities. Unable to touch anyone, even for a few seconds, it felt nice to have someone care about and be willing to touch you…even if it were with the use of gloves, scarves and other partitions.

However, things finally ended between them, when during one Danger Room session, Bobby, propelled by a telekinetic blast (courtesy of Jean), came into contact with the only exposed surface on Rogue’s body, her face. Even though it wasn’t long enough to knock him unconscious, it did allow for Rogue to sense the extent of the thing between Kitty and Bobby. Bobby had no plans of ending it…in fact; he seemed to be looking for a way to call it off with Rogue. Beating him to the punch, Rogue visited him the next day in the infirmary, and in front of Kitty, not to mention Jean and Henry in the adjoining room, revealed that she knew about them…and had known for quite sometime.

“If he cheated with meh,” she turned to the girl who was ‘supposed to be’ one of her closest friends. “How long do yah think will it take foh him to do the same with you?”

Not waiting for an answer, she stormed out of the room, spending the rest of the day alone in her room. Jubilee, her other former roommate, wisely or out of guilt, stayed away for the same duration. She too knew about the Bobby and Kitty, and even though she had previously warned Kitty against it, she still felt at fault for not telling it to Rogue. ‘Its none of your business,’ she would repeat to herself, every time she saw the two of them together.

Finally, it had been Logan and Piotr who got her out and about. Logan, who had dropped hints, not blatant ones, but ones like, ‘You can do better,’ ‘He’s a dickwad,’ ‘If you ever want, just say…I’ll gut him…and feed him his entrails.’ He refrained from saying anything to Kitty, but had tracked down Bobby, more than once and had warned him.

Even though, during his time at the institute, he had grown to care about the people there, Rogue would always hold a special place in his heart….just like Jean, and most importantly Ororo. Therefore, when things finally ended, his put all his support behind Marie…something that even Kitty, who was among the top five people in Logan’s list, knew.

As for Piotr, ever since returning from Alkali Lake and with John’s departure, not to mention his selection for the team, he and Rogue had grown closer together to become very good friends. As a rule, he never commented or pointed a finger at anyone else’s private life…that just wasn’t him. Nor did he want to come between anyone else…That quality of his stopped him from step in or try to get Rogue for himself…even when he developed a crush over her.

Things had improved down since that event almost seven months ago, and even though the four of them did not get back to the level where they had been before, Rogue, Kitty, Bobby and Piotr had ‘sort of’ settled down around each other. While Kitty and Bobby were still together as a couple, Rogue and Piotr had been slower in their progress. It was only about a month now that they had finally gone out on an actual ‘proper’ date.

---

“I am not saying that they are dead?” Kitty defended herself, knowing that that was exactly what she was about to say.

“Then what were yah saying?” Rogue demanded, feeling at her wits end at Logan and Ororo’s disappearance. The truth was, she was barely holding herself from thinking the same thoughts….and having others around her speak it aloud didn’t help matters.

“Rogue,” Jean intervened. She could sense the pain and anger, and a fast fading hope, just rolling off the younger woman. Having lost her ‘birth’ family, Rogue had found a second one in the X-Men and more importantly in Logan and Ororo. The possibility that she might have lost them too, was playing on her, even at normal times, tumultuous psyche.

Even though, she did not say it aloud…ever, whether it was due to her own nature or the various personalities she had absorbed, Rogue had an acute need for an emotional and mental anchor. Although the Professor and to some extent, Jean, were able to fulfill the latter, no one, except for Logan, then Ororo and now, somewhat, Piotr had been able to do so with the former.

“We have to wait until we reach any conclusion,” the redhead kept her voice even and soothing, while forcing herself not to fall back onto the usual clinical tone. “…at least until we have exhausted all avenues.”

‘Then what?’ Was a question that not only Rogue, but also the others, including Jean herself, wanted an answer for.

‘Then what?’

Note: I hope the differences between the two worlds are clear enough to set them apart….and that the ‘Ororo’ talk isn’t confusing!!

In addition, the Kitty-Bobby-Rogue-Piotr thing is from the various spoiler posts and the first teaser trailer. I just carried it a bit forward in time and development. A Rogue-Piotr couple is something that I haven’t done….or as far as I can remember, even read about. Lets see how it turns out.

As Ororo’s eye color, I will be keeping it blue….and not brown/hazel, as it has been drawn in some Ultimate-X issues. Same goes for the movieverse Ororo.

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