It was late in the afternoon, and well after lunch (she still didn’t get anything to eat) when things had calmed down amongst the school that Ororo had actually managed to get some work done.
She was half way through a pile of marking she was putting off when the phone rang. “Xavier institute for gifted youngsters, Ororo Munroe speaking, how may I help you?” She rolled her eye and grabbed a pink flower post-it note; part of a gift from Jubilee note: shorten phone speech and she stuck the post-it to her computer monitor.
“Hello, may I please speak to Mr. Charles Xavier?”
Ororo squeezed her eyes shut and she took a deep breath; “I’m sorry Charles is no longer with us.”
“Oh.” Was the only response from the female on the other line.
Ororo tried to remember if she in fact called everyone from his rolodex in regards of his death; perhaps she had missed someone? The girl still talking brought the former Goddess out of her thoughts
“Did he leave the school,” she was asking “is it possible to get a forwarding address?”
Ororo sighed, she hated giving bad news: “who am I speaking to?”
The woman caught herself and chuckled “oh sorry! My name is Laurel Johansen I am the new manager at the: First National Bank in New York City.”
“Oh! I see.” She sighed “I, hmm...Charles Xavier passed away, quite recently. I am the executrix of his estate though; Is there something I can help you with?”
Laurel hummed to herself quietly and then answered “I am quite sorry to hear about your loss.”
“Thank you.” The response was professional and automatic.
“Would you be able to point in the direction of an: Aurora Montrose?”
Ororo looked at the phone receiver as if she did not hear right at first “I am sorry did you say: Aurora Montrose?” Xavier’s writing had been known to be worse then chicken scratch on his best day and Ororo questioning the same gave the woman a chance on the other end to reread it.
Sure enough Ororo heard a sigh “Oh! I’m so embarrassed the writing in the folder is-”
“Hard to read?” Ororo finished.
Both woman shared a chuckle.
Laurel picked up from where she left off “it looks like Ororo Munroe? Is that it?” she sounded hopeful.
Ororo smiled through the phone “It is and you are speaking with her, may I help you?” Ororo’s patience was wearing thin.
“Oh! Such a pretty name; I mean. I am new here at First National so I was familiarizing myself with some of the older files, and I found that Mr. Xavier had a safety deposit box here at the bank with us, and I was wondering what he wanted to do with it.”
Ororo tried to think about Charles’ personal estate and everything was drawing a blank “this is a long shot, Laurel, but, you wouldn’t be able to tell me what is in the safety deposit box would you?”
“Sorry, not without permission from Charles or the Executor of the estate.”
Ororo groaned “I am the executrix of the estate.”
“So you say-would you be able to prove this?”
“Depends?”
“On?”
“What do you need?”
“Oh thats easy, two forms of government ID, proof that you live in the state, a copy of his death certificate and an original copy of his last will and testament where it states that you are indeed the executrix.”
Ororo wrote all this down on a legal pad, suddenly glad that she paid Hank to write up a fake death certificate and reason of death, considering they never actually had a body.
“Okay, so I fax you all these things into you and then what?”
“Oh no; Miss Montrose-”
“Munroe-” Ororo corrected.
“What?”
“Never mind”
“Oh, okay. Well, I think I think you misunderstood me. I need the originals of these documents and if you fax them in-”
“They are no longer the originals.” Ororo finished; “would you at least be able to tell me if the safety deposit box is in trust to anyone? We run a school here, perhaps if it is in trust to one of the students I could take the student with me and they could make the decision on what to do with the box.”
Laurel nodded despite being on the phone and not being able to be seen by the Weather Goddess: “sure, I can do that.”
Ororo smiled finally we are getting somewhere she thought: “great!”
Silence.
Ororo thought for a brief second they got disconnected “hello?”
“Hi.”
“Laurel?”
“Yes?”
“You were going to tell me who the box was in trust to.”
Laurel nodded again: “oh, yes! As soon as I get those documents.”
Ororo fought the urge to beat herself unconscious; “I will get back to you when I set up the travel arrangements and the documents, Laurel, thank you.” She wrote down the girl’s contact information and hung up before the girl could wish her a ‘nice day.’
It was 2:00 and already she had a second migraine coming on; she sighed and massaged her temples, their was a knock at the door “Enter at your own risk.” She called out, as she booted up her barely used computer.
Sure enough the big wooden doors to her office opened and Logan was carrying a black lacquered tray hand pained with cherry blossoms and Japanese Kanji symbols on it; “hey,” he sat down the tray and handed her the lass of ice water and two Advil and watched her smile.
“How did you know?” she whispered after downing some of the water.
“How did I know what? that you’d be needing the Advil?”
She nodded.
“Cause eve’y day at ‘bout 2:00 ya complain of a headache or a migraine dependin’ on the chaos of the day and eve’y day at 2:00 yer on the verge of tears and ready to stop everythin’ ‘til ya fix yerself a green tea,” he pointed at the second mug on the tray, “and ya take two Advil and we give ya half an hour ta crash at yer desk.”
He situated himself behind her and started to massage her shoulders, she leaned into his strong hands and closed her eyes.
The sound that escaped her mouth was a half chuckle and half moan “have I really become that predictable Logan?”
“Only since you’ve-”
“Become headmistress.” She teased, finishing his sentence for him.
It was his turn to raise an eyebrow; “Guess it’s my turn to ask if I become predictable or what not, eh?”
She opened up a group of files on the hard drive of the PC and she shook her head as she clicked, double clicked and re-clicked random files “only since I’ve become headmistress.”
It was his turn to chuckle; “cute.”
“I try.”
“You succeed.”
Beat.
He cleared his throat; “what are ya looking fer?”
She told him about the conversation with Laurel.
“So...yer tryin’ ta figure out if ya can find somethin’ ‘bout it that ya may have over looked before?
Ororo nodded and bent her head to smile at him “you catch on quick, my little Canadian friend.”
He shrugged “I have my moments.” He smiled as he rolled his thumbs a long her neck “any luck?”
“Squat. To put it bluntly.”
“Shitty.”
“My thoughts exactly.” She leaned back in her leather chair and thought about it, taking a sip from her green tea “It doesn’t make any sense; being the executrix of his will along with Scott. We know about every safe, every combination and every piece of paper with a dollar sign on it. I do not recall anything involving a personal safety deposit box with First National.”
Logan stopped rubbing her shoulders and sat on the edge of the desk facing her, his back towards the monitor; “maybe it ain’t got money in it.”
“What do you mean?” she shook her head.
“Maybe its got sentimental value. Like old love letters and the like, that he didn’t want ta get damaged, or a bronzed pair of his son’s baby shoes or somethin’ sentimental like.”
“He doesn’t have kids. The love letters could be an idea. But, still I’ll know if their was a deposit box; he’s been over everything with us...and, I can’t exactly ask Scott.”
“I knew he’d come in handy for somethin’ eventually,” he teased.
She slapped his knee “laugh if you must, but Scott and Jean were my first friends here in America, and loosing them was like loosing a brother and sister.”
He frowned and took her hand “I know, I’m sorry. Its just..He got on my nerves.”
“Oh, he got on mine too. I’m just saying him dying was like loosing a brother.” She winked, “You know what this means right?” referring again to the conversation with Laurel and the mystery of the safety deposit box.
“What?”
“I got to go to New York; which means you got to babysit.”
“Oh joy.” He paused “are ya sure ya wantin’ ta be goin’ to find this stuff out for yerself?”
“It is not going to be anything illegal, Logan.”
“I know but what if its emotionally traumatizin’? Like a paternity test to a kid that might’ve been his? And, the results were locked away in an envelope sealed away forever in the safety deposit box. Because, he never wanted to know if the child was his. So, now with this information you have to scour the country lookin’ for Xavier’s flesh and blood to tell the child that his biological father that he never knew is now dead.”
Ororo laughed, It was like the first warm day after a January cold snap: “two things, Logan, a) he is the most powerful psychic in the world, he would know if he had a child. and b) you are not allowed to watch those made for TV Sunday movies on the Woman’s network anymore. No matter how many times Rogue bug you.”
He shook his head; “it was Kitty. ‘N don’t say I didn’t warn you. Okay! What if it was weapon’s grade plutonium?”
“In a safety deposit box? In a bank?”
He shrugged.
She laughed, “Your babysitting as soon as I can leave for a day, and your nuts.”
“You loooove me.” God he loved bugging this woman, anything to hear her laugh.
“Get out! You nut case!” She was still laughing.
It wasn’t until he left that she admitted to herself that she did. It was just unfortunate that nothing could change between them.
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