Disclaimer: Don't own the X-Men and never will!
A/N: This story is set at no particular time in the X-universe, but certain incidences that have happened in Uncanny and New may be referred to over the course, but they won't make to much difference to the main narrative of my two main characters. Those main characters being Ororo Munroe and Remy LeBeau. This is an action adventure story and a romance along the way too. The pair will become romantically linked as the story moves on so if you have a deep, DEEP aversion to their involvement, I'd avoid it; if not just have some fun! (And no, just in case you go looking, there will be no R/R flames.) But for the few who chose to read beyond this author's note, I sincerely hope you enjoy the story, M'ikosan7, xx
Rating: R
She rings like a bell through the night
And wouldn't you love to love her
Takes to the sky like a bird in flight
And who will be her lover?
All your life you've never seen
A woman taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win?
#
She is like a cat in the darkAnd then she is the darkness
She is alive like a fine skylark
And when the sky is starless
All your life you've never seen
A woman taken by the wind
Would you stay if she promised you heaven?
Will you ever win?
Will you ever win?
#
'Rhiannon' by Fleetwood MacThe mid-day sun beat blisteringly outside, but in the cool shelter of indoors, the atmosphere was fairly mild and pleasant. The whole of Westchester baked in the haze of a Thursday afternoon as people went about their daily lives in the little pocket of the county known as Salem Centre. For once, the families, the workers, the visiting shoppers and children in their lessons at the local high school could put to the back of their minds the mansion on the hill and all the usual strange activity that went with it. The last month had been pleasingly quiet for the X-Men; no evil Warlords, intergalactic invasions, crazed Mutant Supremacists intent on world domination, or Human Supremacists for that matter. And thankfully, the students at the school had calmed down greatly after all the insurrection and disturbances. Yes, life was as close to normal as the X- Men's lives get at present but there was only one question on the lips of all those that resided at Graymalkin Lane and one thought always floating at the edges of the mind; how long would it last?
These days, with the various teams, side lines and projects, the first team of the X-Men tended to change from day to day, never mind from week to week. There were seven of them at the mansion presently; Jean and Scott, obviously, being the most senior of staff before Xavier himself, Hank McCoy was labouring about in his laboratory all hours of the day and night, Kurt Wagner was around somewhere, although after the painful revelations surrounding the validity of his Priesthood, he tended to spend much time by himself and Bobby Drake, also dealing with problems of his own. Logan was off, who knows where and as for Warren; he'd taken it upon himself to go on an extended vacation with his latest sweetheart, Paige Guthrie.
The further two had not been at the mansion for any length of time for over a year now and on their fairly recent return, they had discovered that much had changed. Ororo Munroe's decision to dissolve her breakaway team had not been taken lightly, but at the time, she felt she had little option left. Their job appeared to be done after the acquisition of Destiny's diaries and although her growing differences with her great friend and mentor Charles Xavier were still a cause of friction, above all else, she was just glad to be home. But what she hadn't expected when she came back here was to find a certain Cajun waiting in her attic room. Though, even two months later, she had still to prize out of him the exact reason why...
"Do you have to do that?" Ororo asked with that calm and measured yet equally stern tone that she had perfected down to an art form. So much so, that when one heard it, you tended to obey without thinking. Remy's hand stopped mid way through the action that was annoying the Weather witch so; his long fingers keeping a steady but light grip on the King of Hearts that was placed between his middle and index. He looked up at Storm, who was sat at the table behind him, from over the shallow back of the cushy sofa he was languidly lounging on, whilst his thumb flicked idly on the corner of the playing card in the way it usually did on the edge of a cigarette. A hint of the petulance that was always beneath the surface with the man flittered across his face as he flicked the wrist of the hand that was holding the card and released the slim, patterned object so that it sailed deftly through the air and joined the previous twenty in the waste paper basket across the room from the settee. Ororo pursed her lips to stop from smiling, but failed miserably. With a good humoured shake of her head, she took her attention back down to the Time magazine she was reading, concentrating on an article detailing plans for a proposed Mutant Rights agenda.
Out of the corner of her eye she saw Remy hop over the back of the couch in his customary acrobatic style, but she kept them focused on the magazine as he made his way over to her and peered over her shoulder at what she was reading. The subtle scent of his cologne wavered about him as he stood close at her back but it was tinged with the after tones of tobacco smoke. "What's dis chere?" he asked as he fiddled in the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a sadly bent cigarette; straightening it out he popped it in his mouth, but for now, left it unlit.
"Nothing probably," she replied with a note of cynicism as she thumbed the edge of the glossy print page, so that Remy, who hadn't a clue what she'd read in the first place, was a little lost. He craned his neck further, leaning his hands on the table at the side of Ororo, his chest pressing lightly to her back. As he read swiftly over the headline he gave a small not-too-amused huff; he could see her point exactly. It wasn't the first time the Whitehouse, Downing Street, the Kremlin or any other bastion of power one cared to mention had made noises of this kind in the past year or so, but nothing concrete ever came of it. Remy pulled away from the table as he took out his lighter and sprung it into life. Chuffing happily on the smoking white stick, he pulled out a chair and sat on it, straddling it the wrong way with arms hanging over the back, next to Ororo.
They sat without speaking for a while; content in the ease of each others company. Storm flicked away at the uninteresting glossy pages of quasi- politico ramblings, not stopping to really concentrate on any one story, just glancing quickly at each to garner the subject, whilst Remy smoked away, gazing out of the French doors to his left. Then through the minutes of comfortable silence, Ororo asked, almost casually, "How are you holding up Remy?" She didn't look up at him until she'd closed the last page of the magazine; turning her face to the side, her features set in that almost perpetual calm and control that had become a given.
Gambit didn't show it on his face; his outward appearance betrayed not a flinch but on the inside, he winced. Not pitifully, it was more a carefully contained irritability. At times, he felt being back here in Westchester was stultifying and any little question like that would just gnaw at him for no reason, no matter how genuinely expressed. He was finding it increasingly hard to abide inquiries that required him to be earnest in reply. Exhaling the stream of cloudy blue he seemed to sigh, so lightly that it was almost inaudible. "You know me chere," he gave a small shrug and took another toke, his lips smacking as he breathed in. "I'm nuhddin' if not resilient."
Ororo smiled, "That you are my friend, that you are." Standing, she tucked her chair back under the table. As she passed him she took hold of his free hand, squeezing it gently. He didn't look up at her as he held her warm hand within his but he appreciated the gesture so much, suddenly feeling like a bit of a jerk for being pissed. She only did it because she cared. "Any time you need to talk Remy, you know where to find me."
"Yah," he replied quietly as he released her hand. Then he reached over and picked up the discarded magazine, flicking through its already curled and dog-eared leaves with the same speed and absence as Storm.
Ororo stood there for a few moments longer, in the kind of proximity that to good friends comes as second nature and doesn't feel like an intrusion or invasion of personal space. Then she went over to the coffee table on the other side of the sofa and picked something up from it. Going back over to the table she dropped the object just underneath Remy's cigarette, in the nick of time as it turned out; the ever growing column of white and grey ash fell into the cut-glass ashtray as soon as it hit wood.
"Cheers Stormy." He didn't look up then either, simply taking another long draw on his cigarette instead.
"Don't mention it," she replied in a clipped tone, just about managed to hold her tongue at the use of that eternally irritating nickname and went to leave as she had an appointment with Professor Xavier.
But just as she was by the door, Remy called over, "An' by de way."
"Yes Remy?"
"Nice 'do!" His eyes flicked up to her briefly and his lips were turned up at the edges into an unreadable type of grin; the creases and dimples that ran down the side of his mouth through the action looking like dark pits, there was that much unshaven growth to fill them.
Ororo's brow creased slightly as she self-consciously ran her left hand down the back of her new severe crop. He did this sometimes; said something to her that she didn't quite know how to take, no matter how well they knew each other. Was he being sarcastic? She couldn't tell. So she gave a cautious but polite, "Thank-you." Then left the room to go see Charles for the talk he'd requested. A talk she wasn't at all looking forward to, as it would be the first time they'd spoken in complete privacy and solitude since the rather ill-fated discussion on how to deal with the young teleporter, Jeffrey Garrett. There had arisen a major division in their respective beliefs on that day; the point where the pupil was now well enough equipped with her own thoughts to challenge the instructor. Both where too strong minded to back down and it had become clear that ever since her return that their positions had not fundamentally changed on the subject and much worse, a number of other things as regards to the running of the school were to be reconciled between them also. It was only a matter of time before these things came to a (potentially) explosive head.
As Ororo made her way swiftly along the corridor towards Xavier's office, Bobby Drake came around the corner from the other end, sporting his X- uniform, a fact which Storm only noted because the usual not-to-scared-to- bare-more-than-a-bit-of-flesh Iceman, had his leather jacket zipped practically right up to his chin. For someone who thrived on cold temperatures, the man looked strangely like he was wrapping up warm for the winter.
"Bobby." She nodded her head cordially at her fellow X-Man as he went past.
"Storm." He returned the sentiment in a similar fashion, but then stopped. Holding his hand half aloft in the manner of someone trying to remember a question they wanted to ask but it had just slipped from the tip of their tongue. Then he suddenly had a flash of inspiration and remembered it. "Oh yeah, have you seen Gambit anywhere?"
"I just left him in the rec room."
"Thanks 'Ro." With that he carried on in the direction of the room that he'd been heading for anyway, absently starting to whistle an abstracted tune that surely only he was aware of the origin. Ororo smiled in a slightly baffled way as she watched him go; his 'tune', if one could call it that, still sailing down the hallway long after he'd disappeared around the corner. Feeling her mood just a touch lighter than it had been a moment ago, she went on her way also; walking steadily, but not in too much of a rush to get where she was going.
The Rec Room...
"Hey," Bobby called casually as he entered the room.
"Hey, mon ami." By now, Remy had retrieved his cards from the waste paper basket and had just started a game of solitaire, his number one pursuit these days since he'd kindly declined Charles's offer of a teaching post at the school. Trying to instruct a bunch of hormonally charged little time- bombs didn't really attract him funnily enough. Storm had joked that it was because he knew he was still as much of a kid as the pupils; he hadn't found it all that funny. But then again, smartarses never do find jokes funny when the jest is at their expense.
Bobby stood at the other side of the table from Remy, watching the game unfolding, which irritated him to no end. "You want somet'in' homme or you jus' gonna stand dere all day?" he drawled as he continued placing the cards in quick succession in their correct sequence as dictated by the rules of the game; rules which incidentally were lost on an utterly befuddled Bobby Drake.
"Yeah," he said slowly, still trying to work out the way the game was played, a task made all the more difficult as he was observing it upside down. "I was just wondering if you were up for a tussle in the Danger Room?"
Remy's hand stopped just as he was about to place the four of spades down on the previous card. "Mebbe later mon ami," he mumbled as he carried on with his game.
"Come on G, I know your minus powers these days but I thought you'd been fine-tuning your moves now that your an ordinary 'baseline'?!" he taunted as he leant forwards on the table.
"Come on now Bobby," he looked up at Iceman, his eyebrow raised slightly, the corner of his lip curled, "You know Remy'd whoop yaw ass wit' both han's tied behin' 'is back, non? Wit' powers or sans, you know what I'm sayin' mon ami?" He placed his pack of cards down, banging their bottom edge to straighten them up like an experienced card dealer before laying them flat at the foot of the five various sized vertical lines already laid down.
"Woo-Hoo! Them's fightin' words homme!" Bobby laughed, affecting, extremely poorly, a Cajun accent.
"Lookie here Bobby-boy, you wanna get yaw snow-cone butt handed to you on a silver platter, den lets do it!" Remy got up from his chair, picking up the deck of cards as he went and stashing them into his back pocket.
"What'd you need those for farm-boy?" he jested as he watched Remy pass and then followed him out of the room.
Deftly taking one from his pocket, so swiftly Bobby didn't notice despite being right behind the tall Cajun. "Fo' luck, mon ami." With a quick flick, he threw the card behind him, hitting Bobby square in the forehead with its thin edge. "Fo' luck." He smiled.
"Ow!" Bobby yelped, rubbing his smarting forehead, on which a thin red line was beginning to appear. "That hurt!"
The office...
Ororo knocked gently on the door then immediately let herself into Professor Xavier's office. The fresh fragrance of several domestic house plants hit her, flowing over her like a soft veil and she instantly felt at home; the slight tension that had been building in her shoulders melting away on catching the scent. Closing the door quietly behind her, she went over to the large window behind Xavier's desk where he was standing; hands clasped together by the small of his back, with the round handle of his cane locked in the centre of them, looking out of the latticed glass onto the expansive back lawn of the mansion, his mansion. Ororo took her place at his side, joining him in silently surveying the landscape, with its mass of sprawling woodland and in the distance behind that, the far off mountains that looked bluish in the blistering haze of the sun. It was so quiet, both inside the office space and out, which was a rarity given the almost one hundred pupils that the school now housed. Crickets could be heard, ticking and leaping somewhere in the grass below and the gentle cries and songs of larks filled the minutes of blissful silence. When Ororo chanced a look to the side, she smiled slightly as she noticed that Charles had closed his eyes in contemplation.This was how it should be she thought to herself with a slight hint of regret, indeed, this was how it once was between the two old friends. But so much had changed since the days when the X-Men where nothing more than a small, secluded, tight-knit band of heroes and adventurers. When circumstances change, it is one of those painful life lessons that dictate that ideas, lifestyles and people must change likewise. It was a lesson both Charles and Ororo were having some difficulty adjusting to, though neither would admit it.
"So my dear Windrider, how are you settling back into mansion life?" He still had his eyes closed as he asked the question in his soft, well-spoken tone.
"You know me Charles," she replied, equally at ease, "I adapt quickly."
Charles gave a low quiet laugh and then turned to look at Ororo as he addressed her, "Truly, has so much changed?"
"It has indeed my friend. I find that the mansion is no longer..." At this point she paused, turning slowly, looking about the office, which in truth had changed very little, physically at least, "...no longer the home I once knew. But that is not to say that I do not wish to make it so once more."
Xavier unlinked his hands, taking one from behind him and placing it gently on Storm's back, ushering her over to the two lounging chairs that adorned the reading area of his office, on the way there, he professed his desire for her to feel at home here again also. "I know things have changed greatly, not just here but in the world at large and it is increasingly hard to keep up. But we move on and we keep abreast of things as best we can---that is why we, the X-Men, have always existed and I hope you feel you have a major part in that future, I sincerely do." The pair took their seats opposite each other, relaxing into their soft woven cushioning.
"I also Charles," she replied as she crossed her legs, running a hand over her flowing purple trousers to straighten the awkward creases out, "But I will not pretend that the concerns I expressed, when I came here to help Bishop and Sage, have disappeared."
Charles nodded his head as if conceding to the fact; leaning his elbows on either arm of his chair and clasping his hands together at his chest. This wasn't going to be easy, for either of them, he'd always known that. Out of all of his pupils, along with Scott, Ororo was the one who had constantly commanded the most respect from him, simply from her natural state; she was a woman that one couldn't help but feel humble in the presence of. It had never been a wonder to him that she had once been worshipped as a goddess, no wonder at all. But the division in their respective beliefs of late had been a strain on a once close relationship, there was absolutely no denying that fact and it pained him to admit it. He leant forwards in his chair a little, hitching himself up with his elbows as he moved. "I appreciate the concerns you raised on that day, but I still defend the position I took on the Jeffery Garrett matter."
"And I continue to contest it."
As soon as Ororo uttered those words, the situation felt instantly tense once more. Their borrowed likeness of peace shattered instantly and they could no longer pretend that things were as they once were; no matter how much those mere minutes had been pleasing to both.
"Then Ororo, it only begs the question; if you find my methods so undesirable in the current climate, why have you returned?"
-TBC-