And now as moonlight hid from her behind clouds darker than the midnight sky, as she sat with her knees to her chest and only her tears for comfort she believed she had never felt more truly alone.
One week it had been. One week since she sat on that plane, forced to the spot as she watched the woman who had acted as her surrogate sister for nearly ten years of her harsh life drown to save them. One week had felt like double a lifetime. One week of dreams that played on her mind until she was no longer able to sleep. One week of food that never settled in her taut stomach. One week of hell and she had no idea how she was going to handle the rest of her life like this.
She could only imagine what Scott was going through.
She hadn’t seen him or anyone else since the funeral a couple of days ago. That had been the hardest day of either of their lives. They had stood together, held in each other’s arms as she wept and he stood silent. Logan and Kurt had been there but to her, at the time, both had just been another one of the students standing awkward and unsure, watching as she, Scott and Charles said their final goodbyes.
Since then she had seen no one, not Scott, not Rogue, not Kurt, not Logan, not even Charles. She was falling into a state of agonising grief and utter loneliness.
So he had to come to her.
It had taken him a week to figure out where she went at night. Once outside her scent, a scent that was once sweet and natural but was now overlapped by sickness and despair, would wash away with her winds to lock her in an unseen veil away from the small world around her.
He hauled himself out of the skylight ungracefully, finally making it onto the roof unbalanced. She was not but twenty or so feet away, still and hunched over with short white hair hiding a face that once glowed with the essence of life but now was empty and shallow.
“Storm?”
She didn’t even flinch.
He was trying to remember her real name. He had only heard it once and soon taunted her for her codename after. Munroe, something Munroe” “Ororo?”
This made her turn. Few people called her by that name. Her face made him worry, not something he did very often for other people.
“That’s your name, right?”
She nodded slowly as if trying to remember herself what her name was.
He was unsure of what to say or do next. He hardly knew this woman, but then no one else seemed to be making moves to help her, or at least they weren’t getting anywhere with her. And he wasn’t about to let her waste away like this, no matter how little he knew her.
“Unusual name.”
She turned away, looking down at the rough black tiles on the roof and then down to the hard ground below. He steadied himself and found a centre of balance that allowed him to sit those twenty so feet away from her without risking his own neck, although he should heal pretty quickly if he did fall.
“My mother gave me the name.”
Logan looked a little surprised. It was the first time he had heard her talk since the funeral. Eager to keep her going he carried on the conversation.
“So where’s your mum now?”
There was a beat of silence.
“Dead.”
He swore at himself.
“I saw her die just as I saw Jean die.”
He brought his shadowy narrow eyes to the tiles where hers rested. Maybe if she would talk about Jean…
“So you two were close then? You and Jean I mean.”
Logan saw shapeless tears peel down her dark face as she nodded.
“Yes. I came to Xavier’s when I was about fourteen, Scott and Jean where already here. They were the first people to ever accept me as a friend and not lay social prejudice on me. Jean became like a sister to me and we fought together side by side for all those years after, always coming through whatever life threw at us in the end. But now…”
Her head fell into her knees as if the effort to talk was too much for her. He guest it probably was.
“When’s the last time you ate darlin’, or even slept?”
She didn’t move for a minute. Then she shrugged.
“That’s not good.”
Again she shrugged, raising her head back out from her knees. It began to rain. For a few brief seconds it was nothing more than a light shower, then it became a downpour. The two were drenched in a heartbeat. He lowered his head, pointlessly shaking rain from his thick dark brown hair in an attempt to dry off.
Finally after sitting for a few minutes in the rain he gathered his body and found the balance he needed to walk across the slanted roof over nearer to her side.
“This your doin’ then?”
She shook her head. “I only knew it was coming.”
“Storm?”
“Please, call me Ororo, I liked that. What?”
“Okay, Ororo then. Don’t suppose you could turn it off?”
On his word the rain was gone.
“Why?”
He managed a small smile. “Well I don’t really like being on a soaking wet roof this far up when the grounds like concrete below.”
She didn’t respond to this and things became eerily quiet in the night. The only noise Logan could pick up was the light shallow breathing of the woman next to him.
“You okay ‘Ro?”
She turned her eyes on him. “’Ro?”
He shrugged. “Name fits. Are you feeling okay?”
Truthfully she shook her head.
“I suppose when you do not sleep for three days and only eat to throw it back up again the body could begin to suffer. But not as much as the mind does when you loose someone so close to you.”
Logan wasn’t sure of what to say to that.
“You really miss her?”
“I thought that much was obvious.”
“Is it worth getting sick over?”
“She was worth the world to me.”
It was funny. He had hardly ever spoken to her before, the last words he remembers her ever saying to him directly where over an intercom. But now they were sitting on a roof of all places having the most heart felt conversation he could ever remember having with someone. Yet, it felt so natural and easy to do so with her.
Thunder shook overhead, sound waves bouncing off the roof, shaking the tiles. It made him jump but she didn’t move.
“There’s a storm approaching.”
He raised an eyebrow at her. “You knew?”
“I’ve been waiting for it.”
He froze, felt his blood chill over and his skin crawl. It was the way she said it more than what she said. Simply and decisively, so calmly that he now knew exactly why she was sitting out here in the open, when a storm was approaching.
No, he didn’t know this woman but if there was one thing he was more than sure of about her, killing herself in the middle of a torrent was not something she would do if she were in the right state of mind.
He took hold of her forearm gently with one firm hand.
“Come on ‘Ro, come back inside”“
She pulled her arm away from his hold.
“No.”
He issued a low growl in frustration. She was not an enemy, he could not deck her across the face just to get his way. He was going to have to be patient, even if that didn’t come easy to him.
“D’y’ really think Jean’d want you to do this?”
There was a flash of lighting and a roll of thunder as she let go of her hold on the rain so that it drenched them yet again. Her voice was low and threatening in response.
“How dare you. How dare you use her name like that, to tempt me.”
“Ororo, I didn’t mean it like that, you know”“
“Leave.”
The incoming storm was fast arriving.
“Storm don’t.”
“Why not? I’m through with life. Jean left us on her own accord, why can’t I?”
Again Logan growled. “You think you’re the only one that misses her? You think you’re the only one grieving? Me, Scott, the Professor, the students, we all mourned too y’know! Don’t add to the losses here.”
She shouted back over the now furious winds.
“My life has been nothing but loss! I’ve seen too many people die to really care much anymore. I have no faith, I don’t believe things will get better because so far they haven’t and they probably never will. This day was a long time coming, trust me.”
He was growing panicked; his stomach lurched as she spoke because he knew now there was no reasoning with her, she was beyond listening to anyone or caring for herself.
Just as he was bringing himself round to the only idea he had, as much as he didn’t like it, the storm was upon them and he was forced to cling to the roof as it battered them from every angle. He grabbed her forearm again.
“C’mon ‘Ro!”
But she pulled away and just as she did he punched her, hard, across the face. As it turned out it seemed he did have to deck her to get his own way.
He seized her before she could fall and in the longest five minutes of his life he managed to pull himself with her across the roof and over to the skylight, where with her held firmly in both hands he dropped back into the attic below, where her bedroom was.
She was already coming round and began squirming and kicking in his hold. He easily overpowered her though and made it over to her bed with her tightly pressed to his chest. There he gently laid her frozen sodden body down and then sitting beside her rubbed down her bare arms, trying to warm her up again. She had stopped struggling now, just fell limp in his arms, and he didn’t know whether to take that as a good sign or not.
When looking down at her, looking at her the closest he ever had, his breath caught in his chest.
She was stunning, pure and simple. He hadn’t seen it before and he had no idea how. He had never noticed the smooth flawless dark skin that covered her body with the perfectly shaped face that was lined by hair of the purest white streaked with silver. Of her slim well built body, both feminine and strong. And in the middle of it all he knew where a pair of dark blue eyes, the centre focus of her entire being.
Why hadn’t he noticed her before? Too busy pining over someone he could never of had, when here was a woman alone and free.
But he was forced to push this all to the back of his mind for now and focus on the present.
Sitting over her he gently slapped her cheeks, the left one already bruising down to the jaw line from a punch that had been backed by adamantium.
“Storm? Ororo? C’mon darlin’, wake up.”
There was the slightest hint of guilt and despair in his pleading.
It took a few minutes before she began to arouse reluctantly, moaning miserably. Her breathes where no longer shallow and light but now heavy and strained. Her eyes opened slowly and she took in her surroundings painfully.
“Logan?”
He sighed in relief. The hit couldn’t have been as hard as he had worried it had been.
“’S’okay Ororo, you’re in your room. I had to get you out of the storm, you gotta understand”“
She held up a hand to him, her voice rough as she spoke back.
“I know. It’s okay.”
She turned her head to the side shamefully then felt as his hand touched on her bruised cheek lightly.
“I’m sorry ‘bout the punch. I didn’t mean to hit you so hard, I just panicked I suppose.”
Then his hand pulled back hesitantly as she sat up, letting her eyes fall onto his and stare deep into them.
She shuddered in the cold and he moved over closer, taking off his brown leather jacket and handing it to her. If no one was going to be there for her then maybe he could step in.
“Thank you.”
He wasn’t sure what to say, again. He did want to help her, desperately, but he usually didn’t get so close to someone, that tended to lead the other to be killed. He didn’t want that to happen again, especially not to her.
“Eh, yeah sure. No problem.”
Suddenly he pulled away and she shied back from him.
“I’ll leave you alone now. See y’ round.”
She went to ask him to stay but he was gone before she could and she was left alone, again.
