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“Jean…Jean.”

Scott Summers frowned at the far away look in his girlfriend’s eyes. “HEY Grey!”

“Uh….huh,” shook out of her musings, Jean Grey looked up at the ruby quartz glasses wearing Scoot standing over her with his arms crossed at his chest, his leader pose on in full force. “Yes Scott.”
“Are you alright?” Scott settled down at her side. With the Professor in conversation with the new Ororo, the two of them and the Ororo from their world were waiting for that meeting to be over, although not in the same place. While she and Scott were in the foyer, Ororo had returned to her room….detouring through the usual places she would find Logan, only to realize that he was still MIA from the mansion. “Where were you?”
“Oh, nothing,” barely containing her flinch at reading Scott’s mind, she tried to move the conversation to a different direction. Scott’s thought about her thinking about Logan were a little too much ‘on the nose’ for comfort. “Is the Professor…?”
“No, not yet,” Cyclops shook his head. “Wouldn’t you know if he were?”
“No,” the redheaded telepath shook her head. “The Professor’s office seems to be in a sort of telepathic lockdown. He is shielding both his and Ms. Monroe’s thoughts.”

“Don’t you mean Ororo Sr.?” Scott tried for a moment of levity. Jean’s asking him to be spontaneous in their relationship had got him thinking of a plan of how to exactly that….except that planned spontaneity was as good as no spontaneity. It just defeated the whole purpose of the thinking by the seat of your pants things and the sudden bursts of impulsiveness that such a behavior called for. “Or the future Mrs. Logan?”
“Very funny Scott, ha ha,” even before he said it, Jean knew what Scott was talking about. That, by itself, cut out quite a bit out of the surprise factor. “You should try at the comedy impov next. You’ll make a killing with that wit of yours.”
“Yeah, well, it’s better than just sitting around brooding about…” Scott trailed off, knowing that Jean would get the rest from his thoughts. Physically she was here…but her mind, their psychic link although not giving him telepathy, did allow him a window into her mind….and what that ‘look’ into her was telling him was something he wasn’t quite ready to face, let alone talk about. The new Ororo’s entry and her subsequent revelations about her life and the people around her, had not only made Jean think about a future between the two of them but also her past and the future as far as Logan was concerned….and that line of thought didn’t impress Scott…at all.

Mentally flinching at being caught and somewhat put off at Scott’s denial to bring it out in public, Jean settled for a, “it’s not what you think,” and resume her self-conversations. While a part of her was relieved at Scott’s silence, another, a larger part was peeved at it. ‘Come on Scott, let some emotions…some anger through. You are as stiff as an ironing board.’


‘He is right you know,’ a voice called from within her. ‘You made your choice….’ It was true, wasn’t it? Whatever happened between her and Logan was a thing of a past, an itch that they both needed to scratch….and scratched quite well they did. Maybe things could have been different had she given him a chance after he saved the Professor from Magneto, or maybe it would have ended soon enough. Even though she despised Logan for what he did to Scott, even if it was just from a teammate’s point of view, she couldn’t deny that a small part of her…..a previously seemingly non-existent part of her, liked the feeling of being so….wanted….and try as she might, she could not bring herself to hate that part.

-

“…I need you here. We all do.”

“Maybe it’s time we stop running. Today isn’t so bad Logan….”

“…and tomorrow can only be better.”

-

Ororo’s words still rang in his mind.

Spoken to Logan, she has caught them with her telepathy, and it was those words that struck her the deepest, not just because the sincerity that she sensed from the snow haired Storm, but the affect they seemed to have on Logan…..they stilled him, almost as if providing him an anchor to stay on at the mansion.

‘Something you couldn’t do,’ realization dawned from within her.

It was true. Even when they were together, even before she started getting those flashes into Logan’s psyche, she more often than not detected a feeling of restlessness, of being tied down…emanating from the Wolverine. Right from the first day on, to the day he left, that feeling of not fitting in, and maybe not wanting to fit in, was always there in him.....maybe not so now.

“Maybe it’s time we stop running.” Almost as if the words had come like a soothing rain shower to quench that smoldering blaze within him.

And try as she might, just as she couldn’t suppress the feeling of being wanted, she also couldn’t deny that it hadn’t been her who gave him that pause he was almost subconsciously crying out for….it was Ororo.

---

Inside Xavier’s office,

Even though it was progressing quite smoothly, the start of the conversation between the Professor and the trans-located Ororo had been anything but. Right of the start, Ororo made it clear that she’d grateful if the Professor laid off on the telepathy.

It started with just a simple comment that Xavier made in front of Jean and Scott, and although she retained her silence in front of his students, the Professor sensed her clamping down on him, and in deference to her wishes, withdrew from her mind. Even as he had first entered it, he sensed an unease building up in her. Interested in its cause, he wanted to know the reason for that and the possible risks it posed for him or his students.

“Ms. Monroe,” he brought soon after Scott and Jean left the room. After almost ten minutes of introductory ‘catching up’ conversation, he had to ask about it, because even with just talking to her, he was finding very difficult to ignore her involuntary projections. “I hope you don’t mind, but I sense that something troubling you….and it’s just not your being away from your home.”
“Did you…?” Even though she did not sense slight tickle of a telepathic probe, Ororo knew, from experience that Xavier, even if were the Xavier from her world, was a powerful enough telepath to do so without her knowing it.
“Let me assure you that I haven’t broken your telepathic privacy,” Xavier reiterated his position, mentally flinching at the sudden surge of distrust, fear and oddest of all, for Storm, anger, rise within her. Something had seriously gone wrong, because from what Jean had sensed in her first and only, ‘proper’ scan, this Ororo was very controlled with her emotions…almost exuding a sense of peace and calm that hung like an aura around her…and even seemed to affect those in her immediate vicinity.

“I-I…” For the first time since she had stumbled onto this world, Ororo felt a dread rising up within her, almost as if a pit was forming within her. “I am sorry Professor…I didn’t mean to…” she stumbled with her words, resting against the back of the chair as the energy just seeped out of her. ‘Goddess, what is happening….to….’

“Ms. Monroe…” Xavier drew nearer but stopped as Ororo flinched away from him. “Ms. Monroe…Ororo…” he offered her a glass of water, waiting for some sort of a reaction from her. Just about to let down the telepathic lock on the room to alert Jean, he halted at Ororo’s next words.
“I didn’t mean to….trouble….” Uttering a cry of pain, Ororo doubled over, the glass falling from her hand and she fell onto the floor, curling in to a fetal position her body starting to convulse uncontrollably.

----

**JEAN, SCOTT** Even as the telepathic hail rang out, not only the two people in question, but a third, the Ororo from their world were already on their way up the stairs, with Ororo adopting an aerial route to directly swoop into the Professor’s office through an open window.

Just having stepped out the shower, the younger Ororo, shuddered as a cold shiver ran down her spine. Not able to understand as to the reason behind it, she got a pretty good idea at the sudden change in the weather outside her window. In place of the clear sunny day from a few minutes ago, she now saw what could be termed as a ‘night causing cover’. So thick were the ominous grey clouds that not did they cut the sunlight out, they made it down right disappear….and that was without the snow, rain and golf ball sized hail that was pelting down not only on the mansion but also on the rest of Westchester County and its surrounding areas.

It was so intense that even as she tried to stop it, Ororo felt her own powers reach out and add to the already precarious situation. Even though both Storms shared the same powers, the older one was clearly more adept in her control...and the destruction she could cause with them.

It took everything she had for Ororo to rise up and leave her room for the Professor’s office. Prepared to give him a nice thunder-lightening lashing for whatever he had done to her older twin, she gasped at the sight before her….for even as she neared the window, she saw Xavier push himself off his wheelchair, reaching out for the other Ororo.

“What did you…?” She raised her crackling with electric energy hand, ready to strike at the Professor. “GET AWAY FROM HER.”

“Storm, help her…” the concern in Xavier’s voice gave her pause, her eyes and attention shifting to the by now barely conscious Ororo, tears of uncontrollable pain flowing down the side of her face.

---

“Professor!” Jean and Scott burst through the heavy wooden door, their hands raised to lash out at whoever was attacking their mentor. Seeing the spectacle before them, they drew back from the battle formation. “What happened…”
“Get her to the infirmary,” the panic in Xavier’s voice was something that they had never heard.
“Professor…” Scott reached forward to help him off the ground.
“Leave me you idiot,” Xavier bellowed at him. “Help her.”

*BAMPF*

“Vat…?” Appearing out of thin air, Kurt Wagner a.k.a. Nightcrawler had a look of utter astonishment on his face. Only a second ago he was in the recreation room, following up on his movie marathon. How did he land up here?

Unknown to him, Xavier had taken over his mind and made him come to their guest’s rescue.

“Kurt, get us to the infirmary. NOW.”

“Huh…Ja,” Even though he did not know what was going on, Kurt cradled the elder Ororo in his arms, with Charles latching onto this back.

*BAMPF*

…and they were gone.

----

Elsewhere,

Even as his twin tore through the ‘life threatening’ weather, on his way to the Xavier Mansion, a howl of dread and anger tore from the throat of the feral Wolverine.

“ORORO!!”

Note:

Next...You thought two trans-located mutants was bad….well, let’s just say…things get even more weirder from now on.

Spoiler: Ultimate X-Men #60

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