Fic: Thelma & Louise Ficathon Entry (X-Men, G, "Plain Song")
Title: Plain Song
Author: hossgal
Fandom: X-Men Comics
Spoilers: Emm. Assumes one has read through Uncanny 220 or so. Set about Uncanny Annual # 11. (Yes, I know, that was 1987. Get over it. Some of us are, like, old.)
Recipient: Alara
Request: "Any group of women from the main X-Team kicking ass together, and former New Mutants"- I got the group, but not the kicking ass.
Summary: Strange the things we miss, so far from home.
The taxi sped smoothly through the wooded hills, up from Salem Center and the lights of the town. Betsy Braddock leaned against the window and gazed out, searching for glimpses of the moon beyond the overhanging trees. Here, away from the streetlights and the neon signs, the night sky was clear, and under the trees, darker still. She had left the glow of the Anglican chapel down in the valley, too, as well as the fast food establishments and the all-night chemists. Part of her regretted that.
But the echoes of the evening choir still stirred in her mind. Amusing, because her family had never been particularly observant. Herself even less so, after winters in Paris and Milan. Strange the things we miss, so far from home. The choir had been tiny, and only possessed of a single pair of bells, but the hymns they sang had been those of her childhood, and Betsy had sung along with a glad heart.
At Greymalkin Lane, Betsy quit the taxi and let herself inside, hand fumbling at the lock. No-one had yet managed to reset the palmprint locks to include her hand - two previous attempts had resulted in the entire computer system crashing. After the second, with one of the younger students nearly in tears over the mainframe, Alex Summers had shrugged and gone down to the village himself to have a set of keys made.
Not that she minded. Really.
The lock snicked closed behind her, and the smells of the house enveloped her - the mingling of personal perfumes and wood oils, old dust in the curtains and fresh food in the kitchen. One did not have to claim Logan's enhanced senses to appreciate the variety. Betsy hung up her coat and followed her nose - and ears - to the dining room. Raised voices, with Rogue's bell-clear laugh rising over it all. They might have started without her, but there should be plenty enough for all.
She opened the door, not into the teasing jibes about tardiness and leftovers, but into frosty silence. Of the six people about the room, only Logan and Ororo so much as glanced her way.
Of all the nights to walk about blind. These people had lived with psychics in their midst all the year, it would be acceptable here, to let her shields drop. But old habits died hard. When she let them down now, to read the situation, the combined fury slammed into her like a fist. She retreated, swiftly, but not before identifying the main participants.
Allison, their 'lighting-gale.' And Rogue, still clinging to her cover-name in the mansion, when all the rest of them had shared their given names.
Odd, she thought, watching the two girls glare daggers at each other, that I should focus on that, and not on the fact that either one could seriously damage the mansion with a few seconds effort. Rogue, in particular, but in that moment, the redhead was more likely to crumble the fork in her hand into a lead weight.
Longshot was glancing from face to face, as if confused about the argument. Logan, unlit cigar in his fist, was doing the same, but the calculating eye of a gambler. No need for a psychic to know he is willing to place a bet. Or on who. Summers was as tense as the girls, nearly vibrating with the strain. Just as he drew breath to speak, Ororo stood up.
“Please excuse me. I find that I am not hungry."
Rogue's face twisted. The fork bent."Well, in that case, I guess I ain't either. Least not for this rabbit-food crap." When she shoved back from the table, only the chair went over. She brushed past Betsy and was gone. Ororo at least paused to put a hand on Betsy's shoulder in passing.
Food. Betsy finally realized what the argument was about - a main course without beef or pork.
Allison was still defiant. "Well, I like eggplant! A lot! I think this new recipe is just delish!" Pulling the center dish towards her, she loaded the spoon with a heap of something grey, with vague hints of green and black. "What about you, Longshot? Want some?"
The thin-boned alien nodded and held out his plate, but Betsy noticed how his eyes went to the door again.
Logan stuck his plate out as well."Yeah, gimme some of that. No, one more. That's it." Cigar clamped in his teeth, Logan stood, plate in one hand, fork and beer mug in the other. "Gonna catch the game in the tv room. You with me, Summers?"
“In a minute." His eyes looked Betsy up and down. "You're out late, Bets. Hungry?"
She wanted to refuse. But she had not come all this way for casual rudeness. "Yes, please. But only a little." She took the plate offered and sat, sipping cold water, and chatting quietly with Longshot, until Summers rose and left, and she could excuse herself.
Allison never spoke a word to her.
After depositing her plate in the kitchen, Betsy ascended the stairs quietly, leaving behind both the clamor of the tv room and the silence of the dining hall. Now that it was too late, she let her outer walls drop. Thoughts hummed through the mansion, skittering past her and then away again, like jeweled dragonflies in the garden.
A night sky, full of glittering stars, - those had been the words Professor Xavier had used. A sphere of lights, with Xavier as its center, observing it all.
For Betsy, it had always been different. The minds around her were always in motion, brushing against her and then away again. Some large and loud, some soft and small, all of them unique, shimmering in their own glorious spectrum. Beautiful, exquisite. And here, in this house, terrifying in their potential and anger.
There were old tensions under the surface, here, things she had never been a part of and - mind-reader or no - would never understand.
Two flights up, then a third. She stopped on the landing and put a hand on the wall to ground herself as she opened her inner walls and called softly.
Ororo?
No answer, but Betsy felt something like a shrug, a shifting of mental weight. Not an acknowledgment, but not a rejection, either. Betsy hesitated, then climbed the flight of stairs.
The glass of the attic's skylights were glazed with moisture, and admitted no starlight. Waiting while her eyes adjusted to the darkness after the lamp-lit stairwell, Betsy breathed in deeply the smell of green things, of moss and orchid and jasmine. Or earth warm out of season, of plants blooming out of time.
“They are not so lost as that, Betsy." Until she spoke, Ororo had been just another piece of the darkness, pale hair gone to grey ash, brilliant eyes lidded. Even then, her voice slipped out alone, without bringing motion to the speaker. "They are still on Earth, on the motherworld." She was sitting cross legged on one of the benches, open hands gathered in her lap.
Crossing the attic floor, mindful of the tables and stands hemming in the aisles, and even more wary of the vines trailing across the walkways, Betsy said,"And more loved by some of us than others. At least as main dishes for a meal."
The gusty sigh made the other woman's shoulders shift. "Is it so much to ask, that we afford each other the respect we beg from non-mutants? That we not turn on each other?"
From another woman, the question might have been rhetorical. Betsy found an empty stool and sat, considering.
“I think...I think that both Rogue and Allison would say that they were affirming their individuality. That such a right is theirs, as much as any person's."
A snort. "I think they are arguing over Longshot, poor boy. As if he were theirs to divide."
“Perhaps." Betsy folded her hands about her knees - there was a window open, someplace, and the draft made her shiver."I think it goes deeper than that. I think that they are clinging to heritages that are much their birthrights as are their mutant gifts. Perhaps more so."
Another sigh, a mutter in another language that Betsy could not understand, but caught the gist of - a shadow sweeping overhead and then gone again.
She meant Rogue and her love of grits and greasy chicken and the pink-fleshed melon that left sticky stains everywhere. And Allison, with a taste for sushi and delicate salads and green teas.
But she was thinking of clotted cream and toast, of tea made proper, and thick puddings, served in her parent's house. She allowed herself a moment more - the rolling hills, seen from the drover's pathway. The hustle of London's nightlife - the lights and darting taxis and dazzling people. The call of the foghorns, through the mist over the Thames. Her brother, who was as dear and dazzling and mysterious as the whole island wrapt together.
Ororo's next words caught her entirely unguarded.
“Perhaps some heritages should be left behind."
***
She had been considering the windows far above, not wholly attending to the Englishwoman. Wide windows, closed now, but not locked. Not that locks would stand against her. Ororo flexed her hands.
Why should those skills concern me, when I once could shatter those same windows as easily as dropping a handful of lock picks across the table?
Once. But that was gone. The other - the pickpocket's light fingers, the hunter's grip on a knife hilt, the brawler's instinct for weakness and the jugular - that remained. More a part of me than the wind, she thought.
“Perhaps some heritages should be left behind." If she could shuck the thief's practiced touch, or the knife-fighter's crouch, perhaps other things could be left behind, as well.
The gasp was as much mental as it was verbal, and it dragged Ororo back from the stone walls and yellow dust of Cairo. Belatedly, she remembered that she was not the only stranger here.
“I am sorry. I did not - I do not mean..." Words failed her. She let them go, held out her hands to Betsy. They sat like that for a time, fingers lightly touching. Ororo thought of Jean, and the ready shoulder the other woman had offered. No. This is not Jean. Then Betsy drew her arms back, sat straighter.
“I know what you mean, I think. And it is simple for me to say - be considerate, forgive, give way. But when I turn these eyes - my eyes - on myself, I find myself...reluctant, to do the same."
“You miss your homelands." She did - they all must, except perhaps Logan, the eternal traveler. "And...your family."
“Yes. I miss my brother...very much."
“And I, the wide plains of Kenya." The horizons standing far off, beyond the place the clouds were made. The calls of the wading birds, flying in pairs. The wind that bent the grasses low. "But this - this house, these people - this is my home now. And we are done enough damage by our enemies," she faltered, thinking of Kitty, then went on. "So much, that we have no need to add further injury by arguments at the dinner table."
Betsy reached for her hands again. "Shh. Yes. Yes. But they are young. And Allison is in love - or fancies herself so. Now, oh leader, you may be so solid and staid -" and Ororo had to laugh at that -"that you have never been quite so foolish in love, but I have. I will talk to Allison." She squeezed Ororo's fingers, and Ororo braced herself. "Can you speak to Rogue?"
****
Orroro was very still. Betsy held her breath, held Ororo's hands. There is too much here. I do not know enough. She let her shields drop, and reached out to the other woman.
flying, rush of wind, burn on her face, the hammer in her ears, the startling lurch in her belly as the curve of the world opened up beneath her.
Betsy could feel the mirage-twist in her gut, but she held on, riding it out. The burn of the wind went on, as she, as Storm flew over houses, trees, mountains.
Over a river.
And then she was no longer flying, but falling.
Storm-bringer. Tempest-lord. Wind-rider.
Once.
Now the windrider walked. Like ordinary people.
“I am so, so sorry."
Ororo squeezed her hands gently in return. "It was a long time ago. We have spoken of it, and it is finished."
“But Ororo - you fell! You were flying, and fell! I -I can talk to Rogue - or, or, perhaps Logan? He seems to work well with her. And surely she would not be able to damage him. Not permanently." But Ororo was already shaking her head, smiling.
“So new to us, yet so ready to defend us all, even from ourselves. Despite all your pain, surely the hand of the Goddess was in your coming to us." One hand slipped free from Betsy's grasp, laid a cool palm against her cheek. "It is my place. I will speak to her, tomorrow, and to Logan. Perhaps Rogue's extra aggression could be put to better use learning new fighting skills."
And that was the end of that. Having made her decision, there was no turning Storm away from it. Betsy sat with her for a little longer, then rose, abruptly, shivering. "There is a draft here, can you not feel it?"
“A loose frame, nothing more. It is not enough to damage the plants. Go. I have kept you long enough."
Dismissal. But her bed was calling to her, and the echo of the eveningsong. Betsy made her way to the door, and looked back, once, before opening it to the light in the hallway beyond. Ororo still sat where she had, another wild beauty amongst the blossoms around her.
***
After Betsy left, and the sound of the stairs creaking under her footsteps faded away, Ororo went to the window and pushed it open. The glass was cool to the touch, slick with moisture.
“How long," she asked of the darkness,"have you been here?"
The voice sounded pained - the drawl drug from a reluctant voice. "Long enough."
“That is some feat, to remain hidden from a psychic."
“Everybody's got talents. Wolvie heals, I hurt."
Had the girl been in arm's reach, Ororo would have shaken her. As it was, she could only sigh."I will speak with you, tomorrow."
Silence then, until she thought perhaps the girl had slipped away - her talent silence now, as well as listening at windows.
“Boss?"
“Here, Rogue."
“I, um. I wondered if you wanted to fly. Tonight."
It took her a moment to understand what was being offered, and when she did, she had no words. In the stillness, Rogue went on.
“I mean, I can't make you fly, fly, but I could carry you, and I'd carry you safe, don't you fret, and bring you back, and we wouldn't have to go far, or fast, just a little ways, or all night if you wanted, up to you, but what I mean is, yeah, you gotta yell at me tomorrow, but tonight, maybe..."
Yes, I would like that very much. She shook the words away.
She was team leader. She must remain impartial, unbiased.
She could not remain unbiased towards a woman who took her up amongst the stars.
“Not tonight. Perhaps..." It should be, perhaps you should not offer this again. She could not make the words form in her throat. "Perhaps some other time."
“Sure. No problem, any time you need - you want to, you just ask. I'd be glad to help." A scuffle of booted feet on the slate, then silence again. "Boss? Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Ororo smiled, wondering if Rogue could see it. "No, child. We will talk tomorrow." She closed the window and turned the latch. On the other side of the glass, there was a flicker of motion, as though something had flung itself from the mansion roof, and up towards the moon.
The End.
Author: hossgal
Fandom: X-Men Comics
Spoilers: Emm. Assumes one has read through Uncanny 220 or so. Set about Uncanny Annual # 11. (Yes, I know, that was 1987. Get over it. Some of us are, like, old.)
Recipient: Alara
Request: "Any group of women from the main X-Team kicking ass together, and former New Mutants"- I got the group, but not the kicking ass.
Summary: Strange the things we miss, so far from home.
The taxi sped smoothly through the wooded hills, up from Salem Center and the lights of the town. Betsy Braddock leaned against the window and gazed out, searching for glimpses of the moon beyond the overhanging trees. Here, away from the streetlights and the neon signs, the night sky was clear, and under the trees, darker still. She had left the glow of the Anglican chapel down in the valley, too, as well as the fast food establishments and the all-night chemists. Part of her regretted that.
But the echoes of the evening choir still stirred in her mind. Amusing, because her family had never been particularly observant. Herself even less so, after winters in Paris and Milan. Strange the things we miss, so far from home. The choir had been tiny, and only possessed of a single pair of bells, but the hymns they sang had been those of her childhood, and Betsy had sung along with a glad heart.
At Greymalkin Lane, Betsy quit the taxi and let herself inside, hand fumbling at the lock. No-one had yet managed to reset the palmprint locks to include her hand - two previous attempts had resulted in the entire computer system crashing. After the second, with one of the younger students nearly in tears over the mainframe, Alex Summers had shrugged and gone down to the village himself to have a set of keys made.
Not that she minded. Really.
The lock snicked closed behind her, and the smells of the house enveloped her - the mingling of personal perfumes and wood oils, old dust in the curtains and fresh food in the kitchen. One did not have to claim Logan's enhanced senses to appreciate the variety. Betsy hung up her coat and followed her nose - and ears - to the dining room. Raised voices, with Rogue's bell-clear laugh rising over it all. They might have started without her, but there should be plenty enough for all.
She opened the door, not into the teasing jibes about tardiness and leftovers, but into frosty silence. Of the six people about the room, only Logan and Ororo so much as glanced her way.
Of all the nights to walk about blind. These people had lived with psychics in their midst all the year, it would be acceptable here, to let her shields drop. But old habits died hard. When she let them down now, to read the situation, the combined fury slammed into her like a fist. She retreated, swiftly, but not before identifying the main participants.
Allison, their 'lighting-gale.' And Rogue, still clinging to her cover-name in the mansion, when all the rest of them had shared their given names.
Odd, she thought, watching the two girls glare daggers at each other, that I should focus on that, and not on the fact that either one could seriously damage the mansion with a few seconds effort. Rogue, in particular, but in that moment, the redhead was more likely to crumble the fork in her hand into a lead weight.
Longshot was glancing from face to face, as if confused about the argument. Logan, unlit cigar in his fist, was doing the same, but the calculating eye of a gambler. No need for a psychic to know he is willing to place a bet. Or on who. Summers was as tense as the girls, nearly vibrating with the strain. Just as he drew breath to speak, Ororo stood up.
“Please excuse me. I find that I am not hungry."
Rogue's face twisted. The fork bent."Well, in that case, I guess I ain't either. Least not for this rabbit-food crap." When she shoved back from the table, only the chair went over. She brushed past Betsy and was gone. Ororo at least paused to put a hand on Betsy's shoulder in passing.
Food. Betsy finally realized what the argument was about - a main course without beef or pork.
Allison was still defiant. "Well, I like eggplant! A lot! I think this new recipe is just delish!" Pulling the center dish towards her, she loaded the spoon with a heap of something grey, with vague hints of green and black. "What about you, Longshot? Want some?"
The thin-boned alien nodded and held out his plate, but Betsy noticed how his eyes went to the door again.
Logan stuck his plate out as well."Yeah, gimme some of that. No, one more. That's it." Cigar clamped in his teeth, Logan stood, plate in one hand, fork and beer mug in the other. "Gonna catch the game in the tv room. You with me, Summers?"
“In a minute." His eyes looked Betsy up and down. "You're out late, Bets. Hungry?"
She wanted to refuse. But she had not come all this way for casual rudeness. "Yes, please. But only a little." She took the plate offered and sat, sipping cold water, and chatting quietly with Longshot, until Summers rose and left, and she could excuse herself.
Allison never spoke a word to her.
After depositing her plate in the kitchen, Betsy ascended the stairs quietly, leaving behind both the clamor of the tv room and the silence of the dining hall. Now that it was too late, she let her outer walls drop. Thoughts hummed through the mansion, skittering past her and then away again, like jeweled dragonflies in the garden.
A night sky, full of glittering stars, - those had been the words Professor Xavier had used. A sphere of lights, with Xavier as its center, observing it all.
For Betsy, it had always been different. The minds around her were always in motion, brushing against her and then away again. Some large and loud, some soft and small, all of them unique, shimmering in their own glorious spectrum. Beautiful, exquisite. And here, in this house, terrifying in their potential and anger.
There were old tensions under the surface, here, things she had never been a part of and - mind-reader or no - would never understand.
Two flights up, then a third. She stopped on the landing and put a hand on the wall to ground herself as she opened her inner walls and called softly.
Ororo?
No answer, but Betsy felt something like a shrug, a shifting of mental weight. Not an acknowledgment, but not a rejection, either. Betsy hesitated, then climbed the flight of stairs.
The glass of the attic's skylights were glazed with moisture, and admitted no starlight. Waiting while her eyes adjusted to the darkness after the lamp-lit stairwell, Betsy breathed in deeply the smell of green things, of moss and orchid and jasmine. Or earth warm out of season, of plants blooming out of time.
“They are not so lost as that, Betsy." Until she spoke, Ororo had been just another piece of the darkness, pale hair gone to grey ash, brilliant eyes lidded. Even then, her voice slipped out alone, without bringing motion to the speaker. "They are still on Earth, on the motherworld." She was sitting cross legged on one of the benches, open hands gathered in her lap.
Crossing the attic floor, mindful of the tables and stands hemming in the aisles, and even more wary of the vines trailing across the walkways, Betsy said,"And more loved by some of us than others. At least as main dishes for a meal."
The gusty sigh made the other woman's shoulders shift. "Is it so much to ask, that we afford each other the respect we beg from non-mutants? That we not turn on each other?"
From another woman, the question might have been rhetorical. Betsy found an empty stool and sat, considering.
“I think...I think that both Rogue and Allison would say that they were affirming their individuality. That such a right is theirs, as much as any person's."
A snort. "I think they are arguing over Longshot, poor boy. As if he were theirs to divide."
“Perhaps." Betsy folded her hands about her knees - there was a window open, someplace, and the draft made her shiver."I think it goes deeper than that. I think that they are clinging to heritages that are much their birthrights as are their mutant gifts. Perhaps more so."
Another sigh, a mutter in another language that Betsy could not understand, but caught the gist of - a shadow sweeping overhead and then gone again.
She meant Rogue and her love of grits and greasy chicken and the pink-fleshed melon that left sticky stains everywhere. And Allison, with a taste for sushi and delicate salads and green teas.
But she was thinking of clotted cream and toast, of tea made proper, and thick puddings, served in her parent's house. She allowed herself a moment more - the rolling hills, seen from the drover's pathway. The hustle of London's nightlife - the lights and darting taxis and dazzling people. The call of the foghorns, through the mist over the Thames. Her brother, who was as dear and dazzling and mysterious as the whole island wrapt together.
Ororo's next words caught her entirely unguarded.
“Perhaps some heritages should be left behind."
***
She had been considering the windows far above, not wholly attending to the Englishwoman. Wide windows, closed now, but not locked. Not that locks would stand against her. Ororo flexed her hands.
Why should those skills concern me, when I once could shatter those same windows as easily as dropping a handful of lock picks across the table?
Once. But that was gone. The other - the pickpocket's light fingers, the hunter's grip on a knife hilt, the brawler's instinct for weakness and the jugular - that remained. More a part of me than the wind, she thought.
“Perhaps some heritages should be left behind." If she could shuck the thief's practiced touch, or the knife-fighter's crouch, perhaps other things could be left behind, as well.
The gasp was as much mental as it was verbal, and it dragged Ororo back from the stone walls and yellow dust of Cairo. Belatedly, she remembered that she was not the only stranger here.
“I am sorry. I did not - I do not mean..." Words failed her. She let them go, held out her hands to Betsy. They sat like that for a time, fingers lightly touching. Ororo thought of Jean, and the ready shoulder the other woman had offered. No. This is not Jean. Then Betsy drew her arms back, sat straighter.
“I know what you mean, I think. And it is simple for me to say - be considerate, forgive, give way. But when I turn these eyes - my eyes - on myself, I find myself...reluctant, to do the same."
“You miss your homelands." She did - they all must, except perhaps Logan, the eternal traveler. "And...your family."
“Yes. I miss my brother...very much."
“And I, the wide plains of Kenya." The horizons standing far off, beyond the place the clouds were made. The calls of the wading birds, flying in pairs. The wind that bent the grasses low. "But this - this house, these people - this is my home now. And we are done enough damage by our enemies," she faltered, thinking of Kitty, then went on. "So much, that we have no need to add further injury by arguments at the dinner table."
Betsy reached for her hands again. "Shh. Yes. Yes. But they are young. And Allison is in love - or fancies herself so. Now, oh leader, you may be so solid and staid -" and Ororo had to laugh at that -"that you have never been quite so foolish in love, but I have. I will talk to Allison." She squeezed Ororo's fingers, and Ororo braced herself. "Can you speak to Rogue?"
****
Orroro was very still. Betsy held her breath, held Ororo's hands. There is too much here. I do not know enough. She let her shields drop, and reached out to the other woman.
flying, rush of wind, burn on her face, the hammer in her ears, the startling lurch in her belly as the curve of the world opened up beneath her.
Betsy could feel the mirage-twist in her gut, but she held on, riding it out. The burn of the wind went on, as she, as Storm flew over houses, trees, mountains.
Over a river.
And then she was no longer flying, but falling.
Storm-bringer. Tempest-lord. Wind-rider.
Once.
Now the windrider walked. Like ordinary people.
“I am so, so sorry."
Ororo squeezed her hands gently in return. "It was a long time ago. We have spoken of it, and it is finished."
“But Ororo - you fell! You were flying, and fell! I -I can talk to Rogue - or, or, perhaps Logan? He seems to work well with her. And surely she would not be able to damage him. Not permanently." But Ororo was already shaking her head, smiling.
“So new to us, yet so ready to defend us all, even from ourselves. Despite all your pain, surely the hand of the Goddess was in your coming to us." One hand slipped free from Betsy's grasp, laid a cool palm against her cheek. "It is my place. I will speak to her, tomorrow, and to Logan. Perhaps Rogue's extra aggression could be put to better use learning new fighting skills."
And that was the end of that. Having made her decision, there was no turning Storm away from it. Betsy sat with her for a little longer, then rose, abruptly, shivering. "There is a draft here, can you not feel it?"
“A loose frame, nothing more. It is not enough to damage the plants. Go. I have kept you long enough."
Dismissal. But her bed was calling to her, and the echo of the eveningsong. Betsy made her way to the door, and looked back, once, before opening it to the light in the hallway beyond. Ororo still sat where she had, another wild beauty amongst the blossoms around her.
***
After Betsy left, and the sound of the stairs creaking under her footsteps faded away, Ororo went to the window and pushed it open. The glass was cool to the touch, slick with moisture.
“How long," she asked of the darkness,"have you been here?"
The voice sounded pained - the drawl drug from a reluctant voice. "Long enough."
“That is some feat, to remain hidden from a psychic."
“Everybody's got talents. Wolvie heals, I hurt."
Had the girl been in arm's reach, Ororo would have shaken her. As it was, she could only sigh."I will speak with you, tomorrow."
Silence then, until she thought perhaps the girl had slipped away - her talent silence now, as well as listening at windows.
“Boss?"
“Here, Rogue."
“I, um. I wondered if you wanted to fly. Tonight."
It took her a moment to understand what was being offered, and when she did, she had no words. In the stillness, Rogue went on.
“I mean, I can't make you fly, fly, but I could carry you, and I'd carry you safe, don't you fret, and bring you back, and we wouldn't have to go far, or fast, just a little ways, or all night if you wanted, up to you, but what I mean is, yeah, you gotta yell at me tomorrow, but tonight, maybe..."
Yes, I would like that very much. She shook the words away.
She was team leader. She must remain impartial, unbiased.
She could not remain unbiased towards a woman who took her up amongst the stars.
“Not tonight. Perhaps..." It should be, perhaps you should not offer this again. She could not make the words form in her throat. "Perhaps some other time."
“Sure. No problem, any time you need - you want to, you just ask. I'd be glad to help." A scuffle of booted feet on the slate, then silence again. "Boss? Is there anything else I can do for you?"
Ororo smiled, wondering if Rogue could see it. "No, child. We will talk tomorrow." She closed the window and turned the latch. On the other side of the glass, there was a flicker of motion, as though something had flung itself from the mansion roof, and up towards the moon.
The End.