Title: Lightning Over Elk River

Author: Minisinoo (minisinoo@yahoo.com)

URL: http://www.themedicinewheel.net/

Summary:  Storm and Cyclops are sent by Professor X to 
recover a potential new recruit: Dani Elk River.  Action & 
character development, oodles of pathos, S/O, c. 40,000 words 

Warnings: This story is ADULT and contains discussion of adult 
topics, including sex and drugs in later sections. Drugs are not 
glorified. 

Notes: This one's for Dee, because she loves Ulty Scott, and 
because she loves Storm (and because she beta read it). 
Ultimate Storm is a different girl from her traditional goddess self. 
I liked the old Storm, but like the new one, too. The biggest 
difference is Ultimate Storm's sass. Ultimate Scott can be a 
wise-cracker, as well, but I'm maintaining his canon shyness. 
Incidentally, and while I write movie-Scott's eyes as blue 
because Marsden's are, comics-Scott's eyes are brown. Ororo's 
are supposed to be blue, but in Ultimate, they're gold-tan. As for 
Scott's vocabulary and would he really know a word like 
'oxymoron'  consider, folks. This is a guy who, in the midst of a 
heated argument with Xavier, pulled out 'monosyllabic.' He's 
shown, too, in a couple other places, that he has a good 
vocabulary. If you think Storm wouldn't comment on Jean's skin 
color, remember she does just that in issue #4 regarding the 
president's daughter. The John Mellencamp lyrics are from "You 
Gotta Stand for Something" off Scarecrow, and the "Authority 
Song," off Uh-Huh. 

Disclaimer: They all belong to Marvel, Stan Lee, Mark Millar and 
Adam Kubert. 

******************
Part I: Road Trip

I'm still trying to figure out who's getting punished here: me or 
Cyclops. Maybe both of us. Xavier does like to kill two birds with 
one stone. So ol' Fearless Leader is on probation after haring off 
to the Savage Land to join Magneto for a while. (I gotta admire 
him for filching the Blackbird right out from under the prof's nose, 
though.) And I'm in the doghouse for sneaking out two nights 
ago to go clubbing alone - but it was worth it, to dance until the 
sun came up, feel the music undulate through my body in time to 
the strobe lights on the floor. I still don't get why Xavier threw a 
hissy fit when I came back. I hadn't been drunk or stoned, and 
it's safe to be out now, isn't it? In a club, who looks twice at the 
black girl with white hair? 

But Xavier has his damn rules, and I broke them, and earlier, 
Scott had defied him to run off to his arch-enemy. So what if he 
came back and apologized, and Xavier pretended everything 
was peachy-keen? We all knew Cyclops was on probation. So 
here we were, stuck with each other in the same vehicle all the 
way to Nashville, Tennessee. 

Like who the hell wants to go to Nashville? 

"I need to take a bathroom break," I said. Cyclops was driving. 
"And no stupid wise-cracks about bladders the size of a pea." 

"I wasn't going to say anything." But his lips had quirked up. "I'll 
keep an eye out for the next rest area. I need coffee anyway." 

"I could drive for a while, y'know, if you're getting tired." 

"I'm not getting tired. I just need some coffee." 

Right. He didn't want to give up the wheel, was the truth. Friggin' 
control freak. 

Hating the heavy traffic of coastal Interstate 95, Scott had taken 
I-87 west to I-81, since we'd have to be on that road eventually 
anyway. The interstate had run south through pretty green 
Pennsylvania hills to the capitol of Harrisburg, busy with traffic 
from families who, here on the crest of spring, were out for their 
first holiday of the season:  a plague of vans and SUVs and 
squealing children in fast food restaurants. Once at a distance 
down an access road, I'd seen an Amish family in an old-
fashioned horse-drawn buggy, and Pennsylvania Dutch hex 
signs had adorned some barns. A little before noon, we'd 
crossed a finger of Maryland just west of Hagerstown, and less 
than an hour later, had leapt eastern West Virginia, into Virginia 
itself. 

Scott had passed the Virginia welcome station without a second 
glance, and now, when a quick consult of the map revealed that 
the next rest stop wasn't for another forty miles down the road, I 
made him take a regular exit before my bladder exploded. It 
looked ready to rain, the sky heavy grey over the growing hill line 
to our west. There were four gas stations here, and a choice 
between McDonalds or Hardees; he chose the orange and blue 
without even asking if I'd rather go to the arches. Not that I really 
cared which restaurant, but it pissed me off that he hadn't at 
least consulted me. "Maybe I wanted a Happy Meal," I said as he 
turned off the engine. 

He just glanced over. "Looking for a toy to distract you from my 
company?" 

I laughed because I hadn't expected that. He can be funny 
sometimes. We both got out and stretched. God, I hate riding. 
Driving is okay, but riding is a pain in the ass. Nothing to do but 
stare at miles and miles of concrete and hardwood forests and 
shiny little metal boxes that ate fossil fuel and spat back carbon 
monoxide. Ol' Cyclops isn't exactly a charming conversation 
partner. At least he has decent taste in music. There haven't 
been many wars over the CD player. 

I made a dash for the little girl's room, but had to wait in line 
behind a family any of whom could have modeled for Wal-Mart 
Big Woman clothing. There was a grandmother, her two 
daughters and their kids in fabric-painted t-shirts of faded lilac or 
yellow. The grandmother had permed hair that looked as if she'd 
rolled it, slept on it, took out the curlers, and then hadn't bothered 
to brush it. It was dyed a shade somewhere between burnt 
orange and maple-leaf pink. She turned to stare at my navel-
bare midriff with dim-witted envy, while her daughters gossiped 
about the trouble of toilet training their snot-nosed brats - the 
same ones crawling unchecked in and out under bathroom stall 
doors. By all that's holy, give me a hysterectomy right now. 

When they were finally done, I had my turn, and from inside the 
stall, could hear the last of them: a mother washing her 
preschool-aged son's hands at the sink. "Why's that nigger 
woman got white hair, Mama?" the kid asked. His accent was 
from the deeper South than Virginia. 

"Shhh, Rory," the mother said, then in a whisper which didn't 
conceal a damn thing, "I think she's a mutie, honey. You stay 
away from them people, y'hear?" The water shut off and there 
was the whoosh of a door opening and closing. 

Great. Racism and anti-mutant sentiment all rolled up in one fat 
package. So much for anything we'd accomplished in 
Washington last week. The public still hates us. 

By the time I emerged, Cyclops was looking edgy, standing by 
the door up against the window with a cup of coffee and a small 
bag in one hand, and the other hand shoved deep in the pocket 
of his black jeans. With the exception of a few khakis, I don't 
think the man owns a stitch that isn't some shade of black or 
grey. He glared indiscriminately at everyone for no good reason. 
"Hey, Jolly Charlie," I said as I approached. 

"Man, what took you so long?" 

"Little girls can't just unzip, point, and shoot. I had to wait on the 
Polyester Convention," and I jerked my chin towards the family 
with whom I'd shared the bathroom. 

"Ah," he mouthed without a sound, biting back a grin as he 
opened the door for me. Always the gentleman. 

We paced side by side to the car. "They still hate us, Scott. 
Whatever Xavier wants to think, they hate us." 

He pondered that as he unlocked the Mercedes' door on the 
driver's side. "It'll take time," he replied as he clicked the lock 
release so I could get in. 

"And Rome wasn't conquered in a day," I said as I slid into my 
seat. "I know." 

"It's 'Rome wasn't built in a day.'" He grinned and started the car. 

"Shit! Do you have to correct every little mistake, all the friggin' 
time?" I hadn't meant to say that, but I still felt raw from the 
'nigger mutie' crack, and I confess, his perfectionism drives me 
crazy. "I'd think being Poster Child for the Mutant Polly Anna 
Society would get old." 

He didn't reply for some minutes, just turned over the engine with 
a vengeance, and squealed the tires leaving the parking lot. 
When we were back on the road, he opened his bag and fished 
out a hamburger, then said simply, "Fuck you," before taking a 
bite. 

"Well, will wonders never cease? There's actually a guy to piss 
off inside the Fearless Leader." 

More silence. One hand was gripping the wheel while he ate in 
silence, a whole burger in a just a few bites, but then I've seen 
him put away three Big Macs without trying. And I was beginning 
to rethink the wisdom of opening this can of worms anyway. We 
had two days alone together in a car before we got to Nashville, 
and if the Mystery Mutant wouldn't come back with us, we'd have 
to face the return trip with just each other for company, too. 
"Y'know," he said finally, "my job is not to make you like me. I 
don't give a shit one way or the other. My job is to keep you from 
getting killed in a combat situation. So think whatever the hell 
you want to about me, as long as you do what I say when it 
comes to crunch time." 

That sounded so tough, so controlled, so hard-assed leader-ish. 
His glasses made it impossible for me to read his eyes, but his 
knuckles were still clenched on the steering wheel and his lips 
were thin. Whatever he said, I think he might like to have a 
friend, especially now that Little Miss Perky had hopped into bed 
with the Wolverine. He's out of confidants, unless you count the 
professor. He and Jean Grey have barely spoken ten words to 
each other since he came back. 

And God, is she an idiot, or what? I know the stink of a wild 
animal when I smell it, and Logan is a wild animal. I have a hard 
time feeling sorry that he screwed her over and then took off into 
the sunset. I might feel sorrier for Cyclops at being passed over, 
if he wasn't so damn determined to make himself annoying. 

He reached across to turn up the CD player, so we didn't have to 
talk. It's my CD. Under the Pink:  old Tori Amos before her lyrics 
turned completely surreal. 

"Baker, Baker baking a cake, make me a day, make me whole 
again and I wonder what's in a day what's in your cake this time / 
I guess you heard he's gone to LA; he says that behind my eyes 
I'm hiding and he tells me I pushed him away, that my heart's 
been hard to find / here, there must be something here, there 
must be something here, here . . . ."
Outside, it had started to rain finally, and I didn't think it was me, 
but I was suddenly feeling as sad as the weather. The windshield 
wipers slapped out a blues beat. 
"Do you know why the professor sent us?" I asked Cyclops, 
because I really didn't want to go the rest of the trip with this 
electric tension between us like the atmosphere before lightning 
strikes. 

I think he understood my question for an apology because he 
answered levelly - no trace of bitterness - "How much did he 
brief you?" 

"There was supposed to be a brief? It was more like, 'Storm, 
pack your gear, you're going to Nashville with Cyclops.'" 

Almost against his will, Scott smiled. It was terse, tense, but still 
a smile. Does smiling really hurt so much, Cyclops Leader Man? 

"All right," he said, "the scoop is this:  Cerebro picked up a very 
powerful mutant signature somewhere around Nashville. The 
girl's been on the move south from Chicago for the past week or 
so." 

"Will she still be in Nashville by the time we get there?" 

"I don't know. The professor will contact us if she isn't. Her 
movements haven't been rapid, but they have been consistent 
over the past few weeks, south down I-65." 

"So what else do we know about her besides that she's a girl?" 

"Her powers are psionic. She manifests people's fears and 
hopes - so strongly that they can kill. She literally scares people 
to death." 

"So tell me, why did the professor send us instead of Jean-Ms-
Recruitment-Officer, who also happens to be the telepath?" 

He seemed suddenly uncomfortable, but whether at my question 
or my mention of Jean, I wasn't sure. "I think it has to do with 
things the professor sensed about her. She might talk to us more 
readily than to Jean." 

"Oh, really? And why's that?" 

He clearly didn't want to answer. "Wait," I said, "don't tell me. I'm 
here because she's black, right? I'm your token minority." 

He sighed. "You're a token nothing. And she's not black. But 
she's not white, either." 

"Like I said, I'm the token minority. But what's your excuse?" 

"Ororo, drop it." 

So I did. Yet I still couldn't figure his inclusion on this mission if it 
wasn't for punishment. I was here because we were going to talk 
to a woman of color, and much as I hated to admit it, it did make 
sense to send me instead of Jean, the white, middle-class 
darling daughter of privilege. 

But why Cyclops? I was sure he'd been sent along as more than 
chauffeur. And although I might like to chalk it up to an elaborate 
punishment from Xavier, there had to be more to it than that. 
Xavier could have found something better if he didn't have an 
ulterior motive for sending Cyclops to Tennessee. 

We drove for two hours without saying much of anything. I dozed 
at some point and woke to find the rain over and the surrounding 
country gone from high hills to real mountains raising backs into 
the clouds like great, green humpback whales breaking foam. 

"We're just north of Roanoke," he told me, when he saw me stir. 

"I love the Blue Ridge," I murmured, more to say something than 
because I really felt compelled to share that information with him. 

But unexpectedly, he replied, "So do I. Or really, I like any 
mountains. Have you ever seen the Rockies? They're amazing." 

Wow. A talkative Cyclops. About something that wasn't 
business. "I've seen the Rockies, but I still like these better. 
They're greener." 

He tilted his head and thought about that. "You like green 
things." It wasn't really a question. He's watched me garden. Not 
long after I'd first arrived at the mansion, I'd taken over care of 
the arboreum, even started a few plots outside. It had been the 
first time in a long while that I'd stayed in one place long enough 
to get my hands in the dirt. When I was working outside, Scott 
would sometimes watch from his spot in the hammock under a 
pair of small maples. He'd take a newspaper out there, or the 
current issue of The Nation, and read, or nap. He never said 
much, but sometimes I'd felt his eyes on me. I think he liked 
being outside as much as I did, enjoyed the sound of bird and 
cricket, the wind in the trees, so unlike the hot noise of summer 
mean streets with their honking traffic, loud radios, and angry 
mothers screaming at children. It was peaceful here, and if there 
was any reason I'd stayed at Xavier's, it was for that peace. I 
was learning what a woodpecker sounded like, and the hoot of a 
whippoorwill; I was learning how to catch fireflies in the early 
evening, how a mist rose up off fields after a hard rain if the 
evening was cool enough, and how the water of a brook felt over 
my bare toes as I balanced my way over the rocks of a creek 
bed. Xavier's was heaven to Bobby because he wasn't running 
anymore and had as much PB&J as he wanted to eat; it was 
heaven to Peter because he didn't have to hide - either his 
mutant ability or his artistic streak; and it was heaven to Hank 
because he had free rein to poke around with state-of-the-art 
technology. But it was heaven to me because I could play in the 
dirt, court the mansion cats, and put a hummingbird feeder 
outside my attic window over a box of enticing flowers - and 
actually hope to see a hummingbird. 

I wondered sometimes why Xavier's was heaven to Scott. He's a 
hard man to figure out, but you don't have to be Sigmund Freud 
to see he's not comfortable in social situations, even 'social 
situations' that are just a handful of peers and teammates. A bit 
schizoid, that. When he's in uniform, he orders us all around as if 
he were Patton reincarnated, but take him out of uniform and he 
slinks off into the background and never says much - or hides 
out in the hammock under the maples. The hammock is his 
personal retreat, and the rest of us steer clear. In fact, the only 
time I've seen Scott act aggressively outside training was over 
that hammock. Bobby found it on his second day at Xavier's and 
made himself right at home. When Scott had discovered him in 
it, he'd politely asked Bobby to give it over. Bobby's reply had 
been a smart aleck, "Squatter's rights. I got here first. Go find 
somewhere else to sleep." 

Setting down the book he'd brought, Scott had gripped the edge 
of the hammock and yanked - tumbling Bobby out in the grass. 
"Squatter's rights bow to right of conquest," he'd replied, 
snatched up his book, and plopped himself down. "The 
hammock is mine, Drake. Stay out of it." 

He's territorial like that. And he clings. I figure he must have lost 
something desperately important to him once, to cling like he 
does now. When you lose everything, you go one of two ways: 
you stop caring about things, or you care about them too much. 
I'm the former, he's the latter. 

Funny thing for a thief to admit, not caring about things. Or 
maybe that's why I am a thief. I don't steal because I'm greedy, 
or even out of need. I steal because it's a thrill. So sue me. But 
I've never stolen from anyone genuinely poor, and not just 
because they have nothing worth stealing. I do have ethics. 

In any case, I realized now that I needed to go pee again, and I 
was getting hungry, too. "When are we going to stop for the 
night?" I asked him. "We won't make Nashville today." 

"Not unless we get there after midnight, and the professor 
doesn't consider it that critical - or he'd have sent us in the 
blackbird. We'll stop for the night somewhere just over the border 
into Tennessee, I think." 

"So how about stopping for dinner now, then?" 

"It's a little early for dinner." 

I rolled my eyes. "Well, we seem to have forgotten lunch." 

"No, you forgot lunch. I got a hamburger. Besides, I don't eat 
much when I'm on the road." 

"Fine, but I'm hungry! So find the next decent fast-food 
restaurant, okay?" 

He smiled faintly. "I thought decent fast-food was an oxymoron." 

"Oh, and tell me you don't eat enough of it, Mr. I-can-eat-a-
whole-pizza-myself?" 

"I didn't say I didn't eat it. I said 'decent fast-food' was an 
oxymoron. Not the same thing." 

I laughed. He catches you unexpectedly. And while he may drive 
me nuts with his anal-retentive boot camp routine, I confess that 
I admire his wit. "Well," I told him, "if 'decent' is out, I'll settle for 
something with less grease rather than more grease." 

So we started looking for a place to eat, wound up at Arby's. At 
three in the afternoon, it was almost dead, the counter help 
hanging out and cracking jokes when we entered. They made 
our roast beef sandwiches fresh. I discovered that Scott likes hot 
sauce; he put way too much on his and still complained. "Baby 
hot sauce," he said, "like baby cheese." 

"Baby cheese?" I asked, putting normal bar-b-que on mine. 

"Soft white cheese with no taste. Baby cheese." 

I followed him to a small table near a window. It was sunny out 
now, nice, with high fluffy cirrus clouds hazing the blue above 
green mountains. I took the seat across from his. "Scott, you 
have so much hot sauce on that, you can't taste the food." 

"Ah, but you assume I want to taste the food." And he took a 
bite. 

I spit Mountain Dew through my nose, which made my eyes 
water at the sting. The man is lethal to tender membranes. He 
grinned around a mouthful of beef, as if he'd scored a battle 
victory. 

It suddenly occurred to me that he was making an effort. Despite 
what I'd said to him earlier, or maybe because of it, he was 
making an effort to be friendly. The least I could do was meet 
him halfway. "If you like hot so much, when we get back to the 
mansion, I'll make you siga wat - beef in berbere sauce - and 
some spicy lentil pot. If you can eat all that and still have a 
tongue left, you deserve a medal." 

"What's berbere sauce?" 

"Ethiopian red-pepper sauce. My mother used to make it." 

"Sounds good." 

"I'll see if you still say so after you taste it. It has a teaspoon of 
ginger and three tablespoons - that's tablespoons - of red 
pepper." 

He just grinned. "Try me." 

"You're on. But," I added, "I have a price." 

Both his eyebrows shot up over the rim of his glasses. "Which 
is?" 

"Teach me to fly." 

He set down his sandwich and then sat back in his seat, studied 
me a minute. When he spoke, his voice was soft so that it 
wouldn't carry - not that there was anyone around us to hear. 
"You have to know how to read first, Ororo." 

Twice with Mountain Dew out the nose. This time, not from 
amusement. 

He went on inexorably, "When you let me teach you to read, 
then I'll teach you to fly." 

I slammed down my cup and leaned across the little two-person 
table, spat, "What in hell makes you think I can't read?" 

"Careful observation." 

I glared down at my half-eaten sandwich. "I can read! If I couldn't 
read, why buy magazines? Or didn't you notice that I read 
them?" 

"You buy fashion magazines and car magazines to look at the 
pictures. And I've seen you make your way through short things. 
You can sign your name. That's not reading. You're functionally 
illiterate." 

"I'm not stupid!" 

"I never said you were. In fact, I'd say you're pretty damn smart, 
have a good vocabulary and an excellent memory, which is how 
you've managed to fake it this long. It wouldn't take much for you 
to learn to read if you put your mind to it." He glanced out the 
glass wall beside our table, at a big mustard-tan RV pulling into 
the parking lot. "I think the 'put your mind to it' is the key." 

I glared at the side of his face. "Did Xavier tell you I can't read?" 

He shook his head, still without looking at me - as if he was 
giving my pride space. "No.  As I said:  observation.  Little things 
added up.  So I gave you a test.  Do you remember, not long 
after Wolverine arrived, a practice when I handed each of you 
some brief written instructions along with verbal orders?" 

"And I did exactly what you told me to do!" 

He smiled. "Yes. You did exactly what I told you to do. You 
barely looked at the paper. On it, I'd written, 'Ignore everything I 
just said and bring me a cup of coffee from the kitchen.'" 

"You sneaky son of a bitch! And I could have read that!" 

"Probably." He looked back at me. "But you would've had to work 
at it. So you just glanced at the paper like the rest did, then put it 
in your pocket because you'd have had to sound it out aloud and 
you didn't want anyone else to know that. You never looked at it 
again. Learning to read is a matter of practice, Ororo. But I won't 
teach you to fly until you can read the manual. It's not safe." 

I turned away to glance out across the restaurant. A dozen signs 
stared back at me, inscribed with their cryptic messages. I could 
read parts of most, but not all of any. "I wasn't in school 
anywhere long enough to learn," I told him now. 

He hovered at the edge of asking more, then reconsidered and 
went back to his sandwich. I was grateful. He already knew 
things about me that I'd worked hard to keep secret, and I stared 
at my own sandwich. I'd lost my appetite. Folding the silver 
wrapper around it, I pushed it off to a corner of the tray. He eyed 
it as he downed the last of his own. "You want it?" I asked. 

I could see him consider. Scott rarely turns down food, but then 
he shook his head. "No, thanks. We should be going." 

So we gathered our trash, dumped it in a bin, and headed out. It 
struck me only as we were leaving that no one had looked at us 
twice. How very strange. For half an hour, we'd been regarded 
as normal. 

We drove another couple hours, then stopped at a Knights' Inn in 
Bristol, Tennessee, took side-by-side rooms. He disappeared 
into his after we'd unloaded our bags and I didn't expect to see 
him again until morning. I got a Coke out of a machine and some 
peanuts, changed into sweats and a tank top, then flopped on 
the horrid, cheap floral bedspread to flip TV channels. The 
remote was fixed to the night stand to keep anyone from walking 
off with it, but at least the room was clean and it had one of those 
little complementary coffee machines to make a cup for those of 
us who need caffeine in the morning before we can get our eyes 
to stay open. About an hour or two later, there came a knock on 
my door. Surprised, I rolled off the bed to peer out the peephole. 
Scott, on the other side. He was looking off down the walkway 
and shifting from foot to foot. He almost jumped when I opened 
the door. "Hey," I said. 

"Hey." 

Standing aside, I made a wordless gesture of invitation and he 
stopped three steps inside the door. He was wearing black sport 
shorts - the first time I'd ever seen him in anything that casual - 
and a New York Knicks sweatshirt with the sleeves ripped out. I 
hadn't known he was a Knicks fan. He seemed unaccountably 
nervous. "Is there some emergency?" I asked. 

"What? Oh, no. No emergency." 

I started to say, "Then what're you doing here?" but bit it back. 
Maybe he'd just been bored, like me. Or maybe this was more of 
his awkward effort to be friendly. It was kind of charming, in a 
stiff Scott-way. "You want some peanuts?" I asked instead. 

My question seemed to throw him for a loop, as if common 
hospitality was as unexpected as sighting a bald eagle. 
"Peanuts?" 

"Yeah. You know, those little tan oval things they make Bobby's 
peanut butter out of?" 

Abruptly, he grinned and his shoulders relaxed a little. "No, but 
thanks. I'm not hungry. I, um, walked over to get something to 
eat at the Village Inn." 

"And you didn't invite me?" 

There was a momentary pause, and I was sure that if I could've 
seen his eyes, he'd be blinking in surprise. "I, uh, didn't figure 
you'd want to go." 

"Why?" 

"I -   Um -   I just - " Completely at a loss. Once again, we 
hovered on the edge of something, but this time, he took the step 
over. "I didn't think you wanted to spend time with me." 

Now, I had two choices:  be honest or be polite.  But Politeness 
and Ororo have never been more than nodding acquaintances, 
so I said, "If you'd asked me yesterday, I wouldn't have." 

His eyebrows shot up. "And today?" 

I smiled. "You're not so bad, Cyclops. At least not when you 
lighten up a little." 

He actually grinned at that. "Gee, thanks. And, um, you can call 
me Scott." 

"Yes, sir, Mr. Scott, sir." 

"Cut it out, Ororo!" But he was still smiling. 

"It's Ro." 

"Huh?" 

"Ororo is a mouthful. I'll call you Scott if you call me Ro." 

"Deal." He held out a hand and we shook on it. His grip was firm. 
"You want to go to the Village Inn?" 

"I thought you ate?" 

"I can always eat twice." 

"Or three times, more like." 

"Or three times. I didn't get any pie last time." 

"Then let's go get pie." 

So we left my room and crossed the parking lot, jaywalked the 
street to enter the restaurant. If anyone noticed that he was back 
again, they didn't comment. Here at the height of summer, the 
sun was only now going down in a backdrop of wine velvet as a 
waitress showed us to a table near a window, gave us cheap 
plastic laminated menus, and disappeared to fetch a Mountain 
Dew for me and an iced tea for Scott. With lemon. Hot sauce on 
his roast beef and lemon in his tea. He doesn't like bland food. I 
discarded the real menu and went right for the pie menu. "Hey!" 
Scott said as my fingers closed on it before his did. 

"The early bird gets the worm," I told him. 

He started to fetch a second menu from one of the tables 
nearby, but then got up and joined me on my side of the table. 
Sitting as we were in chairs, it wasn't quite as forward as it might 
have been in a booth, but it was unexpected from him. It turned 
out that he had an ulterior motive. Covering the pictures with his 
palm, he pointed to a description and said, "Read it." 

I glared at him. "Is this my first lesson?" 

"I guess. I figured you'd have incentive, if pie was your reward." 

I glanced around at other tables. We were mostly isolated, 
whether by chance or by deliberation because the waitress had 
guessed we were mutants, I couldn't say. No one was paying us 
any attention. So slowly, laboriously, I worked through the 
description. 

I have to read out loud, and if a sentence is too long, I can't 
remember the whole of it by the time I get to the end. Likewise, if 
the word isn't spelled like it sounds, I'm clueless. At one point, he 
said, "Enough," and I replied, "Thank god!" to which he 
responded, "No, I meant that word is 'enough.'" 

"But there's no F in it," I said. 

"The 'o-u-g-h' is pronounced as an '-uf.'" 

"Why not spell it that way?" 

"Because English is crazy? I don't know." 

"At least you're not defending it." 

The wry smile. "No, I'm not defending it. That doesn't mean you 
don't have to learn it." 

"Unh!" 

"Look, Ro, nobody will say that English is easy to learn. But you 
can do this. And I bet the next time you see 'enough,' you'll 
recognize it." 

He was right; I probably would. And so my first lesson continued. 
I might hate this, but I wanted to fly, and I knew Cyclops too well 
to assume that I could get him to back down on his stipulation. 
The waitress came three times to take our order and he sent her 
away with a "We haven't decided yet" each time. On the last, she 
rolled her eyes where even we could see. 

"You'd better tip her well," I warned him. 

"As long as she doesn't spit in my tea, we're cool." 

I laughed. "And how would you know if she did?" 

He shrugged and pointed to the last pie description. "We're 
almost done. One more." Intent on what he was doing, he'd 
braced his right arm on the back of my chair and leaned in to 
point with his left. Very close. He smelled good in that clean-man 
way, Irish Spring and new sweat, and I was suddenly hyper-
conscious of his body heat, the quiet murmur of our voices. His 
is low in level rather than pitch, a surprisingly pure, high baritone. 
He was a patient teacher, too, unlike his drill sergeant approach 
to battle. That, more than anything, surprised me. But he 
wouldn't quit. If I got frustrated, he let me rant a moment, then 
made me repeat whatever had me stumped. 

Finally, we were done and he crossed his arms on the tabletop, 
leaned in to look at my face. "So? What kind of pie do you 
want?" 

I thwacked him on the head. "After that, I want a whole dinner!" 

He just laughed and it struck me that, in the last hour or so since 
he'd shown up at my door, the dynamics of our relationship had 
altered fundamentally, and completely. He was no longer shy, or 
slightly hostile - seemed to have decided that I wasn't going to 
bite him. I'm not sure what I'd decided, but his proximity was 
making me jittery. 

Now, he rose up a little to look around. "I think I'll have to go find 
the waitress; she gave up on us." 

And so we had our pie. After reading the whole menu, and 
despite what I'd said to him, I wasn't about to go for something 
else. I needed chocolate. Lots of chocolate. He ordered simple 
apple cobbler, which surprised me, given his fetish for chocolate 
milk. But I suppose it was a matter of baseball, hotdogs, apple 
pie and Chevrolet. Or maybe Ford. Black mustang. A 1969 R-
Code Mustang Fastback. That was Scott to a T. 

"What are you thinking?" he asked when he caught me grinning 
for no reason. 

"Trying to imagine what kind of car you'd choose, if you could 
have any car you wanted." 

"Any car?" 

"Any car." 

"What kind did you guess?" 

"Mustang Fastback. You seem like a classics kind of guy. John 
Mellencamp, Indiana, and Ford." 

That got a very strange reaction, not quite a laugh, not quite a 
look of disgust. "Not even close," he said. 

"No?" 

"No." 

"So what would you choose?" 

"I didn't mean the car. I meant the description of me. I like the 
car. A lot, actually. I like John Mellencamp, too. 'You gotta stand 
right up for something, or you're gonna fall for anything.'" 

He actually sang it, didn't just quote it. His pitch was true even a 
capella. I'd had no idea he could sing, would never have 
guessed it in a hundred years. I hid my surprise under a 
Mellencamp line of my own, "I fight authority, authority always 
wins . . . ." 

That made him laugh outright. "That's you, Ro." 

I stuck my fork in my mouth and licked off the last bit of 
chocolate. "So tell me, if you like the car and you like ol' John, 
why was that a bad description?" 

The smile fell off his mouth. "It just was." 

I started to push but changed my mind. There was more than 
one way to skin a cat. Or open a locked door. 

When we were done, we walked back to the motel. On the way, 
he asked me about the places I'd been to while hoofing it around 
the country. "All forty-eight continental states," I told him. I asked 
him about his eyes. "What color are they?" 

"Red, now." 

"Unh!" And I hit his shoulder. "Originally, dingbat!" 

"Hey! I'm going to have bruises, woman!" 

"Then answer my question and quit hedging." 

"I wasn't hedging! They're red! They were brown." 

"Brown? What color of brown?" 

"Man, I don't know! Brown!" 

"Scott, my eyes are brown and Denzel Washington's eyes are 
brown, but they're not the same brown. I mean, are yours light 
brown, medium brown, or cow eyes?" 

"Cow eyes?" 

"Yeah, you know - so dark you can't see the pupil." 

He just shook his head.  "Cow eyes, I guess. They were pretty 
dark."  He was quiet a moment, then asked, "Why do girls 
always want to know what color my eyes were?" 

"Watch it with the gender generalizations, buster." 

"Well, Jean asked a long time ago. And then Wanda, too - it was 
about the third thing out of her mouth to me. 'What color are your 
eyes?' Christ! Hank's never asked!" 

"It's the mystery," I told him, grinning. "And I just bet Wanda 
Maximoff wanted to know what color your eyes were." 

"Lay off it, Ro. Wanda drove me crazy the whole time I was 
there." 

"Awww. There was no smoochy-smoochy for Little Miss 
Magneto, huh?"and then I dashed off, laughing. He chased me 
all the way back. At least he played fair and didn't just blast me. 

We might have parted company at my door, but completely on 
the spur, I asked him if he could play jacks. He must have gaped 
at me for ten whole seconds, then said, "Jacks? As in a rubber 
ball and little spiky things?" 

"Yeah. Jacks." 

"Once upon a time, I could play jacks.  I think.  Man, I don't even 
remember that far back." 

"You don't?" 

"No."  Almost absently, he touched the back of his head.  "I don't 
remember a lot from before I was about eight or nine.  I was in 
an accident, had some brain damage." 

"Oh."  I mean, what do you say to 'I had some brain damage'?  
"I'm sorry."  It sounded lame. 

"I'm all right now.  Except for these."  He tapped his glasses. 

"That's why you have to wear the glasses?"  I hadn't known there 
was a reason, beyond his power itself. 

He shrugged.  "The part of my brain that should control the 
blasts doesn't work any more." 

"Can they fix it?"  It was an intrusive question, but I was curious. 

"'They' who?  It's not something I can take to a hospital.  How 
many samples of what constitutes 'normal' for my mutation has 
anybody seen?  But in any case, no, the professor doesn't think 
it can be fixed, even if someone knew enough to try.  He lives in 
a wheelchair.  I live with these."  He touched the glasses again. 

And that, I thought, might explain Xavier's attachment to Scott. 
On probation Scott might be, but we all knew that if any of the 
rest of us had pulled that stunt with Magneto - Jean possibly 
excepted - we'd have been kicked out on our cans. I've seen 
Xavier chew Scott up one side and down the other for no 
apparent reason, but I still think he could forgive Scott anything, 
if push came to shove. Not that he'd tell Scott as much; he'd die 
and go to hell first. 

"So - you wanna play jacks?" 

He shook his head, but said, "Sure. Did you bring jacks?" 

"I always bring jacks. Stupid childhood addiction, but it's good 
practice for finger agility." And I wriggled mine in his face. 

"Once a thief, always a thief." 

"I hear the pot calling the kettle black, mister. Which of us stole 
the Blackbird?" 

"I brought it back." 

"Yeah. But you still stole it in the first place." I keyed open my 
door and glanced sidewise at him. "Very slick that, I have to 
say." 

His smile was lopsided. "You would be impressed, wouldn't 
you?" 

"It's a compliment." I switched on the lights in my room and 
dropped the keycard on the dresser by the TV. He followed me 
in. "I'm a hard girl to impress." 

"I'll keep that in mind." He grinned. 



******************
Part II: Music City 

Warnings: Discussion of ADULT topics, including sex and drugs. 
Drugs are not glorified. 

Notes: Regarding Storm's history . . . Millar confided in an 
interview that he's simplifying her conflicting comics background 
by dumping the goddess aspect to make her only a car thief, 
referencing her old comics history as a thief in Cairo. In issue #7, 
Colossus' quip suggests she's from Morocco. Millar further said 
that he hated the way her dialogue felt stilted in the classic 
comics, so he's assuming that she's been in the States at least 
since puberty to have acquired fluency with American slang. 
Issue #7 suggests that she might have been older when she 
came here than I indicate, but Peter was teasing her, so it's hard 
to tell. Scott's background is the same as the one I created in 
"Chocolate Milk." As always in comic canon, he's an orphan. His 
first name has never been given; I just kept the one I made up in 
"Micky Blue Eyes." "Miss Gredenko" belongs to The Police, 
found on Synchronicity, and "As Time Goes By" by Herman 
Hupfeld was, of course, used in Casablanca. Storm's singing 
voice was remarked on as notably good in the original comics, 
and I've kept that.  Yes, Dani Elk River is the same person as 
Dani Moonstar; please see my notes at the beginning of Part III 
to understand my reasons for the change. 



******************

"We're going to stay here?" Storm asked. 
"Yes, we are." 

"Xavier's gonna kill us. It'll cost a fortune." 

"Xavier made us reservations," I said. 

"Here" was The Hermitage Hotel, a Beaux arts building right 
across from the Tennessee State Capitol. It had a red awning 
over the door, and large, beautiful arched windows - one of those 
five-star Grand Hotels that Xavier prefers, quite a step up from 
the Knights Inn of the evening before. I'd never get used to this, 
no matter how long I was an X-Man. I felt like a goddamn 
imposter even walking through the front door. Cheap white trash 
dumped on the wrong sidewalk. For that matter, it still felt odd to 
drive a Mercedes, like I should be watching my rear-view mirror 
for flashing blue. Grand Theft Auto. But that's Ororo's 
department. 

Why the fuck had she thought I was from Indiana, epitome of 
Midwestern Americana, anyway? And did that offend me - or 
relieve me? 

"There are reasons for it, Ro," I said as I pulled into the drive 
circle. "The niceties of upper-class social convention can hide a 
multitude of eccentric sins." Opening the door, I tossed the keys 
to a valet and let the bellhop get our bags as I walked around to 
assist Ro, but she was already getting out with the help of 
another valet, and showing lots of leg in process. She wore a 
lycra knit mini-dress that fit like a body glove, and the valet 
looked ready to pee himself. She has that effect on men. Maybe 
I should've put her in that dress and sent her into the 
Brotherhood headquarters in Croatia, instead of Beast. She'd 
have incapacitated Toad, Blob and Quicksilver at a single 
glance. 

Not a very egalitarian thought, Summers, I told myself. But it had 
made me grin. 

She threw the valet a little dimpled smile like a dog biscuit, then 
flicked open her sunglasses to perch them on her nose. Moving 
up beside her, I offered my arm and we headed for the lobby. 
Two of the bell hops practically leapt to open the doors for us, 
and I confess, it pumped my ego to know that they thought she 
was with me. Fat chance of that, if Peter, Peter the pumpkin 
eater had been around. 

Which thought gave me mental pause. Since when had I cared 
whom Storm was mooning after? I put it out of my head and 
turned my attention to business. 

The lobby was . . . overwhelming, and I've been in some 
overwhelming hotels. Red and gold everywhere - rug, draperies, 
chairs, even the fucking wallpaper - indoor palms, mottled 
marble pillars arcing up to a spectacular Italian stained-glass 
skylight, plush furniture. Fucking obscene. The cost of decorating 
the lobby alone would have fed an entire Somalian village for a 
year. 

"This is sick," Ororo muttered beside me, and surprised, I 
glanced down at her. She was still wearing her sunglasses like a 
movie star gone incognito, and I wondered, idly, if she was doing 
so because I had to wear them, or if she was just feeling blinded 
by the opulence. "There were days I'd have sold my soul to eat 
out of this place's trash cans." 

It wasn't the reaction I'd expected. Jean basked in places like 
this, and Xavier took them in stride. "Yeah, I know," I said now. 
She glanced over at me sharply, and it dawned on me that she'd 
have no idea how I could know any such thing. "I ate out of trash 
cans a few times, too." 

"Oh, really?" 

"Yeah, really." I felt defensive. 

She studied my face a minute, then turned away, patted my arm. 
"Sorry. Let's go get our rooms. We may as well enjoy it." 

"I have a hard time 'enjoying' ostentatious wealth." 

"What about the mansion? You seem to enjoy living there." 

"It's a school, among other things. The professor spends his 
fortune helping others." 

"True. But he also likes his Perrier instead of tap water. There's 
no sense in going through life on a guilt trip, Scott." 

"You were the one who said it was sick. I was just agreeing with 
you." 

She sighed and I could see that her eyes had gone white behind 
her glasses, like they do when she's upset or anxious, even if it 
doesn't spoil the weather. She doesn't have complete control of 
her powers yet, and it occurred to me that she might have her 
own reasons for wearing sunglasses indoors. "So I'm 
occasionally a hypocrite," she said. "It's not going to stop me 
from finding the Jacuzzi." 

I checked us in, and checked with the concierge for any 
messages - not that I expected any, but I like to cover all bases. 
Then we went up to our room. Suite, actually. Living area, 
kitchenette, two bedrooms. Tasteful decor in reds and some 
other jewel-tone color I thought might be blue. Or maybe green. 
In any case, the suite had a fucking baby grand piano. Ororo 
saw the piano and forgot anything else. Charmed, she sat down, 
tore her sunglasses off and ran fingers over the keys. "You 
play?" I asked, dumbfounded, as I tipped the bellhop. He left us 
alone after depositing our luggage - hers and mine both - in the 
larger of the two bedrooms. I didn't bother to correct his mistake; 
I'd move mine later. 

"Not really," she was saying, a little smile fixed on her face. "But 
my father played and I used to fiddle around on his, when I was 
small. It wasn't so fine as this, but I loved it." Her smile faded into 
a frown and I watched her plunk keys unhappily. I didn't know a 
lot about Ro's background - the professor isn't in the habit of 
divulging a student's history to another student - but I did know 
that she'd been on the street because she was an orphan. Like 
me. 

I leaned up against the jamb of the bedroom door. "What kind of 
music did he play?" 

"Anything. He could play anything. Couldn't read a note, but if he 
heard it, he could play it. We used to sing together." 

"You loved him." 

"He was my father. I thought him second only to the Prophet." 

"You're Muslim?" I'd had no idea. 

"My parents were." She glanced over and smiled slyly at me. 
"Most Moroccans are, Scott." 

"I thought your mother was Ethiopian?" 

She left off messing with the piano and turned on the bench to 
face me. "I said she could make berbere sauce. I never said she 
was Ethiopian. Actually, she was from Senegal, but moved to 
Rabat, where she met my father. They emigrated to the States 
when I was nine, opened a little restaurant in Atlanta called . . . " 
she drew it out for drama "Café Americain." 

I laughed. "Of course. Were there lots of pictures of Bogart and 
Bergman on the walls?" 

She nodded, smiling. "And a piano, of course. Which my father 
used to play. He even let people call him Sam," and she ghosted 
out the familiar melody, sang, "You must remember this, a kiss is 
still a kiss, a sigh is just a sigh. The fundamental things apply, as 
time goes by." She had an amazing voice, rich like espresso, or 
German chocolate. 

"So you speak Moroccan?" 

She said something - God knew what - then in English, added, 
"That's Arabic, Scott. The official language of Morocco is Arabic. 
But I also speak Berber and a little French, besides English." 

"Man, you're quadlingual? I'm officially impressed. But 'Ororo' 
isn't Arabic." 

"No. My mother named me that." 

"And Munroe isn't Arabic either." 

She smiled. "'Munroe' wasn't the name I was born with." 

I felt my eyebrow go up. "So what was?" 

But she didn't answer me, just turned back to the piano. I didn't 
want to pry, understanding the desire to keep one's secrets, but I 
didn't want to let this go so easily, either. "Do you have an Arabic 
name, in addition to Ororo? Not a last name, I mean." 

"Jamilah." 

"It's pretty." It was. Like water over rocks. 

"My father called me Jilah." She plunked some more, almost idly. 
The notes tumbled over each other in an abstract tune. "al-
Maliji," she said after a minute. 

"What?" 

"My birth name. Jamilah Ororo al-Maliji. Munroe was just easier 
for people to remember, on the street." 

It was an offer of trust. I needed to give her something back. "My 
first name is Michael. Michael Scott Summers." 

She glanced around at me and smiled. "Why change it to Scott?" 

"I didn't. I've been Scott as long as I can remember." True 
enough. I just didn't explain that I couldn't remember what I'd 
been called before the brain damage that had fucked up my life. 

Abruptly, I stood. "I should contact the professor, let him know 
we've arrived and find out if he has a firmer location on the girl." 

Which he did. This could get complicated, Cyclops, he told me 
inside my head. I had a special device in my visor that was an 
extension of Cerebro. Of course, the professor could contact us 
without Cerebro, but it put more of a strain on him. I'd ripped the 
device out before going to the Savage Land, so we'd had to 
reinstall it before I came here. Now, I lay on one of the beds in 
the smaller bedroom, hands folded on my chest, eyes closed. It 
was easier this way. As I briefed you before you left, the 
professor went on, this girl has been fading in and out of 
Cerebro's monitor for weeks, and I'm not at all certain of the 
cause. This has never before happened with a mutant signature. 

Could it be that she's just not fully come into her powers yet? 

Possible, but given the strength of her signature at other times, I 
find that unlikely. I fear it is what we discussed previously:  the 
interference of drug use on a psionic mutation. 

I should warn Ororo about that. It was half a statement, half a 
request for permission. I didn't like keeping aspects of a mission 
from my teammates, and there were things about this one that 
troubled me. I worried that Ororo was being used, and wondered 
how much I was, as well. She should know what we might be up 
against. 

There was a pause, then the professor agreed. Do so. 
Remember that I have assigned both of you to this for specific 
reasons. You have experiences which the others do not. And 
Cyclops, Storm can be an excellent actress. Follow her lead 
when you go undercover. 

Yes, sir. I wrote down the information the professor related as to 
where we were likely to find the girl, then switched the visor for 
my glasses and went out to make plans with Ro. 
  
  
  
  

"Your ID," I handed her one of the two fake driver's licenses that 
the professor had prepared for us, before we'd left. Of course, 
my real license was just as fake. Legal photo IDs required that 
the eyes be visible - an impossibility in my case. The picture on 
my license was an extremely fine image manipulation. "Don't 
abuse it," I told her. "It's for the mission, not to buy jello shots." 

"Don't trust me?" 

"Should I?" 

Making a mou of cherry-red lips, she said, "You wound me." 

"No, I don't." 

That just got a dimpled grin. "I won't abuse it, don't worry." And 
she slipped the ID and some money into the bustline of that 
body-glove dress which she still wore for our foray on the town. 
Watching the card disappear beside café latte skin was . . . 
distracting, which I'm sure she'd intended. Ro isn't above 
yanking even my chain. 

"Aren't you going to put that in your purse instead?" 

"What purse?" 

"You're not taking your purse?" 

She turned to look at me. "Why would I take my purse into a 
club? I can't dance with it." 

"We're not here to dance. We're here to look for a mutant." 

"No kidding. But I thought we were undercover?" She reached 
out to run a thumb over my lips, playfully. "I plan to dance, 
boyfriend." 

I jerked away. "This isn't a game." 

She grew serious. "No, it's not. But we have to look convincing, 
okay? If you're supposed to be my date, you can't act like my 
touch gives you the heebie jeebies." 

"It's not that." 

"Then what it is?" 

"It's just - " And what was I supposed to say? 'It's not the heebie 
jeebies, Ro, it's a hard-on?' That would go over fucking 
splendidly. Of course, I'm sure she already knew exactly what it 
was. She was teasing me, didn't mean to be cruel. But it was 
cruel. Having control over my body was my personal religion, for 
a lot of reasons. 

I opened my own car door. "Never mind. Stay there; I'll come 
around to help you out, if you're so worried about playing this 
right." She did as I said, and I handed her from the car, tried not 
to notice how the sleeveless top strained over ample cleavage. 

Christ.  I was on a mission, dammit, and it didn't include 
speculating on the cup size of my female teammates. Not for the 
first time, I wished we could do this in uniform. In uniform, I didn't 
have these problems. In uniform, I could detach my mind from 
my rebellious body, see her as someone under my command, 
my protection. Not a gorgeous woman in lethal lycra. 

She hooked her hand under my elbow and we crossed the street 
from the chintzy dirt parking lot where I'd had to leave the 
Mercedes (thank God for alarm systems and The Club), to the 
door of the 'Film Noir.' Fucking pretentious name. This was 
hardly upscale Nashville. The windows of the stores had bars on 
them and all the buildings were faded, crumbling a bit at the 
edges. Several had been boarded up. An abandoned grocery 
cart listed half into a gutter. "Charming." 

A bouncer sat outside the club door and watched us with a bored 
expression as we approached. The music was loud enough to be 
heard even outside. Retro '80s New Wave at odds with the club 
name. 

Your uniform doesn't seem to fit. 
You're much too alive in it. 
You've been letting your feelings show, 
Are you safe, Miss Gredenko . . . ?
He took my money for the cover but despite our preparations, 
didn't ask either of us for an ID. I wasn't surprised, and not 
because I look older than I am. I found myself wishing for my 
visor. It was folded up in an interior pocket of my leather jacket if 
I needed it, but would require precious seconds to get onto my 
face. I put more trust in the switchblade up my sleeve. Ro had a 
knife of her own strapped under the hem of the dress, and I was 
sure she knew how to use it. 
Inside, it was impossible to hear myself think, much less speak 
over the music. I wouldn't have minded the decibel level if I 
hadn't been on a mission. I could feel the bass line in my molars 
and my solar plexus and the balls of my feet. 

Is anybody alive in here? 
Is anybody alive in here? 
Is anybody alive in here? 
Nobody but us . . . .
The clientele was . . . interesting. Most were high or drunk, or 
both, and between the tattoos and piercings, studded leather and 
purple lip-stick, they would have made Wolverine look like a Boy 
Scout. Strobe lights left over from the '80s and a kaleidoscope 
dance floor, along with dry ice, gave everything a surreal effect, 
like hell on speed. "Where's the brimstone?" I shouted. "And I 
thought punk was out?" 
"Nothing ever goes out, Scott," Storm yelled back. "Besides, this 
is goth, not punk." 

"If it's not punk, what do you call that guy with the green mohawk 
and a ring through his nose?" 

"A pig with bad taste?" 

I burst out laughing and she smirked, plastered herself to my 
side like the brainless trophy girl she was dressed to be, and 
pulled me through the crowd, bobbing her head to the beat. I 
remembered what Xavier had said:  follow her lead, but I couldn't 
begin to conform. "Relax," she whisper-shouted in my ear. 
"They'll think you're a vice cop, and we won't find out a damn 
thing." 

She had a point, but I'm a lousy actor. Still, I tried to relax, and 
slipped an arm around her shoulders. "Better," she mouthed at 
me. 

Miraculously, we found an empty table on the upper mezzanine. 
Or maybe the skinny kid who'd occupied it was intimidated by my 
height and my leather. He gave it over when he saw us, and Ro 
sat me down in a chair. Then instead of seating herself opposite, 
she plopped down right in my lap. But she wasn't watching me at 
all, just using the added height and the vantage of our place near 
the rail to survey the room below. "Do we know what this girl 
looks like?" she bent to ask. "Aside from not being white?" 

Her bending had put her cleavage right at my eye level. "She's, 
um, Native American," I said. "Average height. I assume black 
hair. Ro, would you mind moving? I can't see anything." Well, I 
could see plenty, but it wasn't what I ought to be looking at. 

She moved. "You can't assume black hair. I knew a girl once, 
half Menominee and half German with curly pumpkin-red hair 
and freckles. And where's that mini-cerebro that you have?" 

"In my visor, unfortunately." 

"Given the way some of these people are dressed, Cyclops, I 
don't think the visor would get a second glance." 

"Yes, it would. Trust me. I could come in here wrapped around in 
chains and no one would look twice, but If I put on the visor, I 
may as well hang a sign around my neck that read 'mutie.'" 

"So we're on our own?" 

"Powers of observation only. And the professor." 

"He can speak to us this far away?" 

Indeed. It was said into both of our heads. I've been monitoring 
your progress since you left the hotel. 

Great, I thought privately. I'd known he was there - he's always 
with us on missions - but I tend to forget it until he reminds me, 
or until I remind myself. I wondered what he thought of my less 
than gentlemanly observations regarding Storm's cleavage? 

Do you have any idea where she is?, Storm was sending to the 
professor. Even at this distance, Xavier could link us to each 
other, not just to himself. Trouble was, utilizing telepathy when 
my eyes were open always made me slightly motion sick, as if 
the room were spinning. I had to swallow back nausea. 

I am afraid, the professor was saying, that I am as handicapped 
in this as you. Due to the peculiar nature of this mutant's mental 
signature, I cannot tell you any more than that she was at your 
present location earlier. I am not reading her at all, currently. 

So she might not even be here now?, Storm asked. 

Unfortunately, yes.  Storm, why don't you go down and canvas 
the room, and Cyclops, remain on guard at the upper level, to 
keep an eye out for potential trouble. 

In what I hoped was a private thought, I sent, Should we be 
expecting any? 

I do not know.  Previously, her periodic disappearances from 
Cerebro's monitor have always been followed by explosive 
reaffirmations - the kind that one would expect from an extremely 
strong psion exercising her talent with little or no control. 

Similar to what you felt when Storm called the lightning in Texas 
that nearly killed those kids? 

Yes, exactly.  And considering Storm's mental state immediately 
after that event, this girl may be traumatized by the time you 
reach her. 

I nodded. He couldn't see it, but I knew he could feel my 
agreement. Most of us were a little traumatized when our powers 
manifested. Or a lot traumatized. 

Oh, and Scott? 

Yes, sir? 

Regarding Storm's cleavage . . . 

I felt myself flush from the roots of my hair all the way to my toes. 

. . . I would be far more worried about you, if you had not 
expressed the thoughts that you did.  I could just hear the humor 
in that. You are almost nineteen, male, and perfectly healthy - 
and thus, normal, although I know how little you feel so.  Enjoy 
the dress.  I think she means you to. 

And with that enigmatic last quip, he faded in my head - still 
there, but not active. He'd turned his conscious attention to 
Ororo, no doubt, and I watched her make her way through the 
crowd below, loose white hair a glossy beacon. She really was 
stunning. Hardly a new observation - a man would have to be 
blind not to appreciate her looks - but it suddenly hit me at a 
different level, one not so intellectual. She was beautiful, and 
classy despite her background in a way that Jean wasn't. Odd. 
Jean had been steeped in that upper-class debutante 
atmosphere, but it was Ororo who had the poise. Ro could be a 
smart ass, occasionally insubordinate, and too clever by half, but 
she was also fundamentally grounded. The street did that to you 
- grew you up or took you apart. And sometimes it did both at 
once by killing your optimism. I understood Ro, and for all her 
quirkiness, respected her. If I hadn't been Cyclops, I'd have been 
Storm. She'd follow me because she chose to, not because 
she'd been told to. I could trust that, because I knew she'd object 
if she thought I was wrong. In all fairness, so would Jean, but 
Jean was too sympathetic. She trusted people too readily 
because she believed that people were fundamentally good, and 
I wasn't sure some days if she was attracted to people like me, 
and Wolverine, because of our dark side, or because she wanted 
to save us from it. Maybe both. 

And what, in the end, did I believe? The professor's dream, or 
Magneto's paranoia? Maybe a little of both. Despite what people 
thought, I hadn't run to Magneto because of Jean and the 
Wolverine. Or because Hank had nearly been killed. Those had 
only been straws that had broken the camel's back. I'd gone 
because what Magneto had said to me in Croatia had made 
more sense, given my past experiences, than what Xavier 
preached. I wanted to believe Xavier, but in my heart, I believed 
Magneto. It was the man's methods that gave me the creeps. 
The more I'd seen, the more I'd realized that I couldn't ally myself 
with that. So I'd gone home. And I was pleased that the 
professor's actions on behalf of the president had met with public 
appreciation finally in Washington. But I kept waiting for the other 
shoe to drop. As I'd told Jean at one point, gratitude was a tricky 
thing to trust in because people are fickle, and have short 
memories. I gave it half a year before fear once more replaced 
gratitude in the public awareness. We'd be living for a long time 
at the edges of public acceptance, constantly needing to prove 
ourselves, but the choice I'd made in the Savage Land 
(unconsciously more than consciously) was that - as depressing 
as that prospect might be - it was better than a war. The road to 
hell was wide and easy, and if I didn't believe a lot of what the 
Bible said, I did believe that. Sometimes hard was best; I'd 
walked a hard road before, just to be standing where I was now. 
I could survive hard. 

Meanwhile, on the floor below, Ro had made a complete circuit 
without finding anything, and now, made her way onto the dance 
floor. I'd assumed that she planned to search there, and for a 
few minutes, that's what she appeared to be doing. Before long, 
however she was just dancing, not searching. What the fuck?  I'd 
told her we weren't here to dance!  But soon, I stopped worrying 
about it and just watched, entranced. 

It wasn't sexual.  Despite the dress, despite a figure like that, 
despite her own eyes-closed, head-back abandon, it wasn't 
sexual.  Instead, she became the music, her white hair swinging 
and her body incarnating the rhythm in a way I could never 
manage, body-paranoid as I was.  I loved music, it calmed me, 
and singing was a private joy.  It opened up part of my soul.  But 
I couldn't dance.  For Ro, her body was her voice; she sang on 
the floor.  Hypnotic.  She didn't give a damn if anyone else was 
watching, and for that reason, people did.  She entered the 
music, let it move her limbs by driving her heart.  I had to tear my 
eyes away to scan the crowd but found my gaze kept drifting 
back.  People had moved away to give her room - a strange act 
of respect in a place like this.  But she was creating sacred 
space with her body and her feet. 

That's when I noticed the other girl.  She hadn't been there just a 
few minutes before, but seeing Ro dance must have lured her 
out of some hidden pocket in the crush of crowd.  Like Ro, she 
danced for the music, not the watchers, moving in a sway like 
long prairie grass, black hair sweeping her shoulders and her 
face lifted up to an invisible sky. 

She was Native American. 

I was moving almost before I thought about it, table abandoned 
to head for the stairs to the lower level. Professor! 

Yes, Cyclops.  I am aware; Storm spotted her.  But be careful.  
There may be more than one Indian in Nashville, you know.  
More of that bubble mental laughter. 

Agreed.  Storm - we converge on the target. 

Woah! - Ro's mental voice - She's a girl, not an 'objective.'  Chill, 
Cyclops.  Let me handle this. 

Professor? 

But he didn't reply.  He was going to let me call this one.  All 
right. I had to trust my team at some point. She's yours, I sent to 
Ro. I'll be on the sideline if you need me. 

The music was ending, and I could see the inevitable shift and 
shuffle as dancers left the floor to let others squeeze on. People 
jostled me and I ground my teeth together. Man, I hate crowds 
like this - and not just out of fear that my glasses might slip. I 
couldn't see where Ro had gotten to. Six feet is on the tall side, 
but I'm not Peter. Even craning my neck, I caught no glimpse of 
white hair. It was too late to return to my table above; that was 
long gone. Fuck, I'd been too impulsive again. If I could just see 
where Ro was, and whether or not she'd managed to contact the 
girl. Professor? But he didn't answer. He must be concentrating 
on Ro and I shouldn't distract him. Instead, I raised a hand to pat 
the lump my visor made inside my jacket - just to reassure 
myself that it was still there. 

"Hey!" It was shouted at what seemed like my elbow. I glanced 
around, and down. Black pixie hair, pale skin, some dark shade 
of eyeshadow over eyes that might be green or might be blue - I 
could never tell - and lots of black lace, including a fine net over 
her face from a pillbox hat. Silver and amethyst exotic jewelry, 
but it matched instead of clashed. She looked like a gothic 
version of Jackie O, and I couldn't decide if I found that 
attractive, or just weird. "Dance?" she shouted at me, though she 
seemed to be dancing already right where she was, beer bottle 
in one hand, cigarette in the other. Her bow-curved lips were 
very red. 

I shook my head and turned away. 

"Why not?" she yelled at me, tugging on my sleeve again. 

"I don't dance," I replied, not looking at her and hoping she'd get 
the message. 

"Watcha doing next to the dance floor then, staring at it like you 
lost your best friend?" 

"I'm waiting for someone." 

"Oh!" She smirked. "Girl gone off with somebody else?" 

"No." I still wasn't looking at her. Where the hell was Ororo? 

"You a vice cop or something?" 

The question made me jump and glance around. "Huh?" I 
remembered what Ororo had warned me of. And it was true. 
Three years ago, I'd have nailed me as a vice cop, too. Or 
actually, not vice. Vice was too good at their jobs. More generic 
government type. "I'm not a cop at all," I told her now. 

"Of course not." She studied me with wise eyes. "Don't worry, 
Mister. I'm legal." And she wove away through the crowd. 

Shit. That was all we needed, a rumor running rampant that I 
was law enforcement. Reaching out, I grabbed a piece of lace 
and hauled her about. "I'm not a cop," I said, annoyed. 

Her expression hovered between confusion at my action, and 
faint alarm. "Okay. Fine. You're not a cop. Let me go." 

"Sorry." I did as she asked. "I'm . . . in the military. That's all. I 
don't fucking like cops." 

"Your girl in the military, too?" 

"What makes you think I have a girl?" 

"Well who else were you waiting for? Cinderella?" 

"Just a friend." 

That same knowing smile. "Yeah. Sure." She jerked her chin 
back towards the dance floor. "Go find your gir - " 

She never finished. The front door slammed open and a voice 
shouted, "Everyone freeze! This is the Nashville Police 
Department." Figures in black riot gear were sweeping into the 
room, carrying floodlights. 

"What the hell?" I muttered, along with about five hundred other 
people - though it was obvious enough what it was. Vice raid. 
This was too freaking weird. I started to reach for my visor but 
thought better of it. It might look like I was reaching for a 
concealed weapon. Which I was, after a fashion. 

"Not a vice cop, huh?" Jackie O Goth shouted beside me. 

"I'm not!" I yelled back. 

Others in the crowd were less circumspect than I'd been. Knives 
appeared in hands and all hell broke loose. A good dozen 
patrons leapt at the cops . . . only to pass right through and slam 
into the wall behind. 

"What the fuck!" someone shouted. "They're not friggin' real!" 

"Is this some kind of motherfucking VR show without the 
goddamn goggles?" another yelled. 

Bouncers and management were on the scene, but of course 
couldn't stop the manifestation. Mirage cops continued to shout, 
and now fired harmless bullets into the crowd. Had it not been so 
clearly a hallucination, it would have been terrifying. As it was, it 
frightened mostly because no one seemed to know what was 
causing it. 

But I had a damn good idea. 

Leaving Jackie O Goth behind, I wormed my way between 
people, looking for Storm and trying to contact the professor. But 
he was still shut down from me; he must be focused on trying to 
contain the psionic illusion. The mood in the room had turned 
rapidly ugly, aided by alcohol and other chemicals. Bottles were 
being thrown and knives hadn't gone back into sheathes. I pulled 
out my visor with my left hand and palmed my own knife in my 
right. 

"Where the hell did they go?" I heard behind me and glanced 
over my shoulder. The mirage cops had disappeared, but it 
wasn't calming the mood. If anything the crowd was getting 
worse. We had to get out of here, and quickly. If the rest caught 
wind of what was really going on, and who was causing it, Storm 
and I would have our hands full protecting the girl - if we could 
without a lot of people getting hurt, and a lot of property damage, 
too . . . which would undo everything accomplished in 
Washington a week ago. 

The professor was suddenly back in my head. To your left, 
Cyclops. They're in the women's restroom. Meet them there and 
get out through the window. 

Yes, sir. Did Cerebro read that . . . whatever it was? 

Indeed, it did. 

I looked for bathroom signs, spotted them past the dart boards 
near the bar, and headed in that direction. My body had 
slammed into battle high. When I pushed the door open on the 
women's room, I was nearly zapped by lightning.  "Don't blast 
me, dammit," I said. 

"Didn't your mommy ever teach you that the door with the skirt 
was for little girls?"  Adrenaline made Storm snappish. 

"Can it. There's a riot starting out there."  I glanced at the Indian 
girl, now hanging unconscious in Ro's arms.  "What happened to 
her?" 

"I slugged her." 

Well, that was one way to handle it. I scanned the little room. 
The only window was high and narrow. No way we were climbing 
through that. "Get back from the wall." And I switched my 
glasses for my visor. Considering what was going on in the main 
room, one more hole in a wall wouldn't matter. So I blasted a 
good chunk of concrete from around the window, then took the 
unconscious girl while Ro pulled off her heels and hoisted herself 
out with a boost on my knee. I passed up the girl and started to 
follow, gripping Ro's hand for leverage. 

At that moment, the door swung open in a blast of noise from the 
brawl outside. I jerked around. It was Jackie O Goth. She'd lost 
her pillbox hat. "What the hell?" she asked. "I thought I saw you 
come in here. And what happened to the fucking wall?" She was 
staring at my visor. 

"Don't ask hard questions if you don't want hard answers." 

"Are you responsible for what's going on out there? People are 
getting trampled, dammit!" 

"I'm not responsible, no. We're trying to get out the person who 
is - not to hide her," I added when I saw thunder start on the girl's 
face. "To help her." 

"She didn't do it on purpose," Ro added from above, her face 
appearing in the blasted-out hole. "We came to stop her from 
doing any more damage, accidentally." 

Jackie O Goth studied Ro, then glanced again at me. "What are 
you people? No, don't answer that." She held up a hand. She 
seemed to make some decision and came forward. "Just get me 
the fuck out of here." I exchanged a glance with Ororo, who 
nodded. So I hoisted up Jackie O through the blasted wall, then 
followed myself. God knew why I trusted the girl. Surely not just 
because she could get her Wiccan jewelry to match. 

The alley outside amounted to a crawlspace between buildings. 
It stank of beer vomit and piss, and someone had scrawled 
obscenities on brick. "What next?" Ro asked. 

"There'll be bouncers at the back and front, to catch trouble 
makers," Jackie O supplied. "If you go waltzing out there with an 
unconscious girl, and that" - she pointed to my visor - "they're 
gonna stop you." And she was right. 

"Too bad we can't go up," I said, eyeing the crack of night sky 
above. 

"Who says we can't?" Storm. 

I glanced sharply at her. I knew she'd been practicing the 
manipulation of air currents to lift herself, but - "I didn't know 
you'd mastered that yet." 

"I don't know that I have, but we haven't got many other options 
right now, do we?" 

"Mastered what?" Jackie O asked. 

"Watch and see," Storm said, and closed her eyes to 
concentrate, hands out a little and palms up. I felt the air move, 
rustling loose trash. When Storm opened her eyes again, they'd 
gone white. 

"Shit - " Jackie O whispered. 

The winds sped up, whirling around us, and we started to leave 
the ground. "Shit!" Jackie O said again, louder. I could see the 
strain on Ro's face, sweat glistening on forehead and lip. Christ, 
if she dropped us . . . . "You can do it, Storm," I said. 

It was slow going, both because she was being extremely 
careful, and because she was trying to lift four people, not just 
herself. But necessity is a stern taskmaster, so she raised us two 
stories to the roof, then collapsed in my arms, panting. "Fantastic 
job," I said, stroking her hair and holding her up while she got her 
strength back. Meanwhile I looked about, considering options. I 
wasn't sure that we were better off, but at least we were out of 
the way for the moment, and I could think about what to do next. 

"You're mutants, aren't you?" Jackie O said, after she'd quit 
shaking. 

"Duh," Ro replied, straightening up out of my grip, then asked, 
"What's your name?" to make up for the smart-ass answer. 

"Annie," the other girl said as I left them to pad around the wall 
edge. I could still hear their conversation clearly up here in the 
night air, out of the racket below. 

"I'm Storm. That's Cyclops." 

"Storm? Your parents actually named you that?" 

"Well, no. It's a nickname, sorta." 

"Who's the other one? The Indian girl." 

"I don't know." 

"I thought she was with you?" 

"Not exactly. Like we said, we came to find her." 

"What's wrong with her?" 

"She's unconscious." 

"Duh," Annie replied, and Ororo laughed. "I meant what's wrong 
with her that made you come after her?" 

"Her powers recently manifested and she doesn't know how to 
use them yet. Not safely. We came to help her learn, so she's 
not a danger to herself and others." 

"Oh.  Probably a good idea, after what happened in there." 

They were silent then while I finished my scouting. As the girl 
Annie had said, both back and front were well covered, but the 
crowd was trying to push out and the bouncers had their hands 
full. They weren't paying much attention to what lay outside their 
immediate vicinity.  I returned to the girls. "Okay," I said, "the 
plan is this:  we move east over the next three rooftops - they're 
all about the same in height - then drop down into the alley and 
get out to the car, pronto."  I glanced at our impromptu addition. 
"We can take you home if you like." 

"Just get me out of this neighborhood and I'm grateful.  This is 
nuts."  She was studying the unconscious girl.  "You know, I 
think she might be on wack." 

I followed her gaze.  I hadn't given the Indian girl more than a 
second glance.  Now, I did.  She was malnourished, and barely 
dressed.  Not barely dressed like Ro, whose top was supposed 
to look like it might fall down at any moment, not actually do so. 
This girl was barely dressed in a thin tank, leather miniskirt, and 
sandals despite the cool spring night air.  And she was sweating 
still, copper skin all flushed.  I reached for her wrist, took her 
pulse. Way too fast.  Pulling open her lids, I checked the pupils.  
Definitely dilated.  Even in the dark, I could see that.  "You're 
right.  Looks like Angel Dust." 

Ororo did a double-take. "Crap.  Major bummer drug." 

"Just what we need," I muttered.  "A psi on wack.  Talk about the 
mother of all bad trips. Well, as long as her blood pressure 
doesn't drop and she doesn't start convulsing, I'd like to keep her 
out of the hospital.  It's probably not the best choice, but under 
the circumstances, I think it's wiser."  Mentally, I sent, Professor?  
Now that I had my visor back on, he could hear me better.  I kept 
my eyes shut. 

I followed the conversation, Cyclops, but have no better advice 
to give at the moment.  You know more of this than I - it's why I 
sent you.  Get yourselves to safety where you can place the girl 
under observation, twenty-four/seven until she comes out.  I 
cannot tell how much she has taken, but if the dosage was high 
enough, it would explain why Cerebro is intermittently blinded to 
her.  As you said, given her mutation, it is probably best if we can 
keep her out of the hospital, but take her if you think it 
necessary.  I bow to your experience. 

My experience, whoopee. What I wouldn't give not to have my 
experience.  But even I'd never been stupid enough to take 
Angel Dust. What happened back there in the club . . . ?  I 
asked. One minute, I was talking to Annie about vice cops, and 
the next thing I knew, illusions of them had showed up at the 
door.  Seems a little too coincidental. 

I agree, but at this point, can only speculate.  Our new mutant 
was open to Storm's introduction until Storm mentioned mutant 
powers, then I felt her probe Storm's mind in self-defense.  I 
could feel her, but not stop her.  Right at that moment, Storm's 
main fear was of upsetting her further - not something from 
which she could form an effective hallucination.  So it may be 
that she somehow managed to follow the telepathic link out of 
Storm's mind, through me, and into yours, where she picked up 
on vice cops. 

So the illusion disappeared when Storm knocked her 
unconscious? 

No.  I collapsed it.  Once generated, her mirages appear almost 
to take on a life of their own, nor does she have to be conscious 
to create one.  Keep that in mind.  Her gift is very strong. 

Yes, sir.  And blinking my eyes open again, I returned to the 
present.  The girl Annie was staring at me like I'd grown two 
heads and I wondered if I'd been muttering my replies out loud 
again, like I did sometimes.  Storm had gone off to the roof's east 
edge to consider the distance to the next building.  I picked up 
our unconscious mutant and joined her, Annie following.  "Okay," 
I said.  "We need to get a move on, people."  It was six feet 
across to the other side.  I could make the leap but doubted 
Annie could.  She was much too small, and God knew what kind 
of physical shape she was in.  Not to mention that we had the 
other girl to carry.  "Storm, are you up to it?"  She just nodded 
and raised her arms to summon the winds, lift us across. No one 
below seemed to notice. And in this way, we covered three roofs 
and eventually got down into the alley beyond.  Storm was 
almost falling off her feet by that point, but we weren't out of the 
woods yet.  I handed her my keys.  "Take Annie, get the car, and 
bring it around to pick me up.  I'll stay with the girl."  Three 
buildings away, the club still milled like a kicked ant-hill, and real 
cops had arrived.  We'd better not try to cross the street with an 
unconscious body, and Storm couldn't pick up the girl and get 
her into the car; she could barely pick up herself.  Better if she 
drove.  I looked at Annie.  "Help her.  She's exhausted." 

"Check," Annie said. She got an arm around Ro's torso and off 
they went, Ro trying to slip back on heels as they walked. A few 
minutes later, the Mercedes stopped in front of the alley where I 
was waiting, and Annie had leaned across to swing open a rear 
door. I hurried to get in, half flinging the unconscious girl across 
the back seat. Ro was moving even before I could close the door 
and it almost slammed on my foot from the momentum of her 
acceleration. 

"Man, would you watch it?" I snapped. 

"What?  You want them to catch us?  Annie, where's home for 
you?" 

I kept an eye out the back window as Ororo followed Annie's 
directions to her apartment. So far, so good. No one was 
following. It turned out that Annie was a student at Vanderbilt 
University, and lived in what amounted to the student ghetto - if a 
private university like Vandy could be said to have such a thing. 
Ro stopped in front of Annie's building to let her out. "Thanks," 
Ro said. 

"Thanks to you," Annie replied, bending down to look in the 
window and give us both an impish grin. "That's the most freakin' 
scared I've been in a long while, but the most fun I've had, too. 
You guys be careful." 

"We'll try. And Annie," I said before she could get away. 
"Remember - not all mutants are out to hurt humans." 

She gave me a funny look. "Who said you were? Not everybody 
buys into that media shit, y'know. As near as I could tell, the 
Sentinels did more property damage than mutants ever did. 
Fucking waste of tax dollars, if you asked me. Good luck, guys." 
And turning, she dashed up the stairs to unlock the door to her 
building and slip inside. 

Well, I thought, people could surprise you. And maybe Magneto 
wasn't always right. Normal humans and mutants could work 
together when they needed to. 



******************
Part III: Dreams, Visions & Nightmares 

  
Warnings:  Disturbing images and discussion of ADULT topics in 
this section, including sadistic violence and child prostitution. Not 
glorified, but readers beware. 

Notes:  As noted in Part II, Dani Elk River is the same person as 
Dani Moonstar (Mirage, of X-Force). I realize the name change 
may cause some folks' canon demons to squeal, but Marvel is 
extremely uncreative in their last names for native people:  
Proudstar, Moonstar, Lonestar . . . .   As a native person myself, 
that's always bothered me.  A lot.  So I ditched Dani's comics 
name in favor of one that sounds more authentic. Roll with it. 
Storm's quip about Jean's 'real' mutant power comes from X-
Factor #10, but was originally put in the mouth of Candy 
Southern. (Thanks Ken and Lelia.) Storm's claustrophobia is 
legendary. And Jack O'Diamonds, to whom Scott refers, was a 
part of his street background in the original comics. Incidently, 
the /i/ in Jamilah / Jilah is a long /i/, pronounced as an /ee/: 
Jeelah. 

******************

"Storm, pull over, she's starting to wake up." Probably a good 
thing. It wouldn't be too keen to carry an unconscious girl into my 
hotel room. True, wealth could cover a multitude of sins, but I'd 
rather the hotel help didn't think I was abducting people. 
"Pull over where?" Ororo asked. 

"Find a nice big, quiet, dark parking lot." 

She glanced in the rearview mirror at me. "What are you going to 
do, Cyclops? Murder her and dump the body?" 

"Don't get smart, girl, or I'll murder you both, and put you in the 
same shallow grave." 

She laughed. "Just try, flyboy. I'll paddle your fanny with a 
lightning bolt." 

It made me grin. Stupid adrenaline humor. No matter how many 
times your life gets interesting, there's still relief when 
'interesting' is over. More or less. I had yet to explain to a girl 
high on Angel Dust why she was in the backseat of a Mercedes 
with complete strangers, one of whom had given her a bruised 
jaw. 

Christ, Professor - tell me again why this is me and not Jean? 

Because you need the practice, Cyclops. 

The inner voice made me jump. It was an idle thought, sir, not a 
real question, I sent back. 

Mental bubble of amusement. Of course. But sometimes your 
idle thoughts are more honest. And he disappeared again. In any 
case, the girl was coming around. Her eyelids fluttered, then she 
was - abruptly - awake. 

"Wha'thehell!" And she slammed herself back against the rear 
door on the other side, hand flying to the handle to let herself 
out, but she missed her mark. Ro already had on the child 
protection system. She wasn't getting away that easily. 

"Calm down," I said, my voice deliberately soft. "We're not going 
to hurt you. You're safe. I promise. Just listen to me, please. 
Give me five minutes." 

She was shaking and still sweating. The headband around her 
brow was soaked, her hair damp, and her eyes completely 
dilated. Not good. Then again, she didn't have to be high to freak 
out at waking up in the backseat of a car with a man she'd never 
seen before. "I'm not going to hurt you," I said again, but before I 
could even finish, there was a knife out and shoved in my face. I 
dove sideways. 

"Lemme outta this leather submarine, white man!" But her 
speech was so slurred, I could barely understand her. 

"Hey, sister, listen to him, okay?" 

"Shut up, you black bitch!" And the knife swung towards Ororo. I 
saw my chance, grabbed the arm and shoved it down, her wrist 
banging my knee so that her grip loosened. She dropped the 
knife. PCP made a user strong, but killed coordination. I 
slammed my foot down on the knife so that she couldn't get hold 
of it again. "It's kind of hard to put my thoughts together with a 
switchblade in my face," I told her. "I'm not going to hurt you, 
dammit! Listen to me!" 

She glared back, but the effect was spoiled by her continued 
blinking as she tried to focus past the drug. "Just listen," I said 
again, softer, though I'd be damn lucky if she could concentrate 
long enough to understand what we were saying to her. "We 
honestly aren't trying to hurt you. We got you out of the riot." 

"What riot?" 

"The one you caused," Ro put in. "With that illusion of the vice 
cops." 

"What the hell you talking about!" the girl snapped and started to 
struggle at the door again. 

"Ro - " I warned, even as I reached forward to make her stop. 
"Shhh. Listen to me." Did the girl not understand what she'd 
done? Maybe not. Her illusions weren't directly related to her 
body - like my eyeblasts - and up in the stratosphere like she 
was, maybe she didn't realize those illusions were different from 
the ones inside her skull. But how did I explain? The professor 
had said she'd freaked out the first time Ro had even mentioned 
mutant powers. 

"There was a riot," I began, keeping my voice level, "at the club. 
People thought it was a vice raid, but it turned out to be an 
illusion, a mirage." 

"Yeah? Like VR?" She appeared interested, in a vague way. If I 
could keep her concentrating, maybe I could keep her from going 
off into another rage where she might construct more illusions 
out of her own hallucinations. I really had no idea what she was 
capable of. 

"Sort of like VR, except this wasn't a machine." I shifted and wet 
my lips. Here came the fun part. Feeling helpless, I glanced at 
Ro. She put a hand over mine where I'd been gripping the back 
of her headrest. "You've heard of mutants?" I asked, saw the 
girl's face turn immediately hard. Wrong approach. Dammit, 
where was Jean when I needed her? Maybe if I made it about 
us, instead of about her . . . ?  "Ororo and I are both mutants. We 
have certain powers - " 

But she seemed to have lost interest in what I was saying and 
leaned her head back on the glass of the window, patted her 
clothes absently. "Dammit, where's my jacket? I need my cigs." 

"The jacket must have been left at the club," Ro said. "We had to 
get you out in a hurry." 

The girl blinked. "Fuck it! That jacket had my good cigarettes!" 
Probably the laced ones. Superweed. "And my license. I need 
my fucking license!" She'd started to shake again and her hands 
moved about blindly, like she could make the jacket reappear out 
of thin air if she just wished hard enough. "Shit - what's wrong 
with my legs? They're a mile away, man." 

"Huh?" Ro seemed wholly thrown by these conversational left-
hand turns. 

"Your legs are right here," I said, laying a palm on her knee. 
"Can you feel my hand?" 

"No. Yeah." Absently, she ran a hand into her hair, mussing it 
badly around the headband. "I feel all spongy." 

"It'll pass. Just concentrate on my voice, okay?" Wack wasn't 
LSD; I couldn't talk her down from a bad trip, but if I could keep 
her concentrating, I could keep her from going off into her own 
mind and freaking out again. "Can we talk to you some more?" 

"Okay. Talk." 

"Like I said, Ro and I are mutants. We each have unique powers, 
special things we can do. Ro can control the weather, and I have 
these eye blasts. Mutants are born with a special gene that 
usually manifests itself at puberty - " 

I'd lost her again. She was clawing uselessly at the handle. 
"Heard enough about the freak show. Lemme outta here." Her 
agitation was increasing. "I said, lemme outta here! Now, 
dammit!" 

"Please - wait." I made calming motions but it did no good; she 
just clawed harder at the handle and started kicking me. "Man, 
just listen please!" I said. 

"No, you fuck off! Neve'nęhesheve!  I don't want no part of you, 
got that? Keep away from me, you and your chocolate bunny 
girlfriend." 

"Fine!" Ro said, eyes white. The 'chocolate bunny' line hadn't 
gone over well. "Just get out of the car and wander off down the 
street, high as a kite!" 

"Ro, don't yell at her." We didn't want to upset her. Her brain 
wasn't working normally, right now. Peace and dark was what 
she needed. "Keep your voice down." 

"Shut up, Cyclops. You had your turn, now it's mine." She lunged 
over the backseat to grab the girl by the wrist and yank her 
forward until they were almost eye-to-eye. "You'll be lucky if 
nobody mugs you, sister. Or rapes you. And the sad thing is, 
you're so out of it, you probably wouldn't even remember." 

"Ro!" 

She ignored me. "But then, you don't want to remember, do you? 
If you remember, then you'll have to admit you're as much a 
mutant as we are. You are the one who made the mirage at the 
club. And it's not the first time, I bet." The other girl was twisting, 
trying to get away, but Ororo is a strong woman. Even so, she 
couldn't do more than hang on. I weighed my options: leap in 
and hold down the girl, or stay out of it and hope Ro didn't push 
her into a real PCP rage. 

"How long have you been on the run?" Ro asked, voice quieter. 
"How many places have you trashed with your mirages? How 
many people did you scare out of their wits? Maybe you haven't 
killed anybody - yet - but if you don't learn to control your power, 
girlfriend, you're going to. I almost murdered a whole playground 
full of kids because I didn't know how to master what I could do. I 
almost killed them? You get that? We're dangerous, sister." 

"I don't mean to be!" the girl was yelling. "I don't wanna hurt 
nobody!" She still twisted like a cat and was trying to bite Ro. I 
was afraid she was going to hurt herself, or Ororo. I had to put a 
stop to this. 

Leaning forward, I grabbed her arms. "None of us mean to be 
dangerous," I said. 

"I'm not a witch!" the girl was screaming, trying wildly to slap me 
and bucking to get free. "I'm not a witch! I'm not cursing anyone! 
I'm not trying to hurt anyone!" 

"I know!" I said, getting hold of both her wrists finally in one of 
mine and pushing her back with my body against the seat. I put 
my free hand on her forehead, to hold her head still. Even so, I 
could barely contain her. PCP does that, pumps a person up to 
twice her normal strength. "You're not a witch. You're not a bad 
person. You're not a freak. You're just a mutant. Like us. I know 
you don't want to hurt anyone, but you're going to, if you don't 
get some help." 

We were playing this good cop, bad cop, but it was working. 
She'd quit fighting me, though she still sobbed a little. "I'm not a 
witch!" 

"No, you're not." I glanced around at Ororo, who nodded to me, a 
little smile on her face. We'd gotten past the denial phase, at 
least. "You're gifted. Special. We can help you learn to control 
that, so you don't hurt anyone by accident ever again. Will you 
trust us?" 

She shivered hard all over, but nodded, and I let her go. "I'm 
Scott Summers. That's Ororo Munroe. What's your name?" 

"Dani. Danielle Elk River." 

I smiled a little. "Welcome to the ranks of homo superior, Dani. 
Ro, take us back to the hotel." 

By the time we reached the Heritage, Dani had sunk back into 
the PCP zombie-zone. "God, I am so hot!" she kept saying and 
once tried to peel her little red tank right off. Holy Christ. I 
gripped her wrists and yanked the top back down before Ro 
could get the car into the Heritage drive. No free show for the 
valets tonight. 

"I know you're hot," I said, "but keep your shirt on! When you get 
up to our room, you can take a cold shower." 

Getting Dani upstairs was an adventure. I was glad I'd tipped 
these people well the first time. Nobody said anything about the 
obviously high girl whom Ororo and I were half carrying up to our 
suite. She was dressed like a hooker, and I could guess what the 
hotel help thought we were going to do with her. When we were 
in the room, I let Ro take her. "Get her into the shower and cool 
her down. Do you have some clothes that will fit her?" 

"I don't know," Ro said, studying Dani's figure. She's got bigger 
hips than me, and I'm taller, but I can probably find something. 

"Make sure it's cool, or she'll try to take it off again." 

She gave me a little, dimpled grin. "And you'd have a heart 
attack." 

"I'm not used to naked women running around my hotel room, 
okay?" 

"Ooooo, Scott. Where do you take your girlfriends, then?" 

I glared at her as she retreated into the smaller bedroom with 
Dani in tow, then I collapsed onto the couch. Man, I was tired. 
Mission accomplished, Professor, I sent in my head, but got no 
response. He must already have closed the link. Long term 
telepathic monitoring at this distance was a strain even for him. 
Removing my visor, I put back on my glasses. I needed 
something to drink, and food. Calling room service, I ordered 
cheese and fruit and lots of juice, and coffee for me. I'd eaten 
half the cheese before Ro re-emerged, alone. "I just put her to 
bed," she said. "She was asleep on her feet." 

"Asleep?" Going to the doorway, I glanced in. The girl was out 
cold. I wondered for how long. That wasn't the usual Angel Dust 
reaction, but a mutant mind was different from a normal one, and 
PCP acted a bit differently on everyone anyway. Turning back, I 
found Ro scarfing down strawberries. It made me smile. I'd 
ordered those because I know how she likes them. She'd ditched 
the black lycra dress for something simple and loose in a shade 
that might have been pale violet. She wears a lot of it. "You 
going to leave some for me?" I asked. 

"You can have the cheese. The strawberries are mine. Rrrroww!" 
And she flopped onto the couch, head back, arms and wet hair 
spread out on the cushions. She looked as tired as I felt. But 
really, she'd done more work. I took a seat across from her. "You 
did good tonight." 

Dropping her chin, she raised both eyebrows. "Oh, my! Praise 
from the fearless leader! I'm so flattered!" 

I frowned down at a square of Swiss cheese in my fingers. "Am I 
usually that bad?" 

"No. You aren't." I heard her get up and then she was kneeling 
down in front of me. She bit the cheese right out of my fingers 
and quirked her lips up. "You even complimented the Wolverine 
once. I heard you, so don't deny it." And she swallowed. 

"He earned it." 

She dropped back on the dun-dull carpet, hands behind her for 
support, and glanced off at the flowered curtains. Overhead track 
lights glowed on her pale hair. "Are you glad he's gone? I know 
he helped us, in the end, but I still don't trust the son of a bitch. 
He made my skin crawl." 

And how did I reply to that? As Scott, or as Cyclops? "I don't like 
him, either. But I'm not sure that I don't trust him. The professor 
trusts him. And Jean. They're the telepaths. I'm the idiot who ran 
off to Magneto. Maybe you should ask if you trust me?" 

Her eyes narrowed and she swung her face back to consider 
me. "Sometimes you piss me off, and sometimes you make 
stupid mistakes. But I trust you. I trust you more than I trust 
Professor X. And as for Magneto" - she overran my attempt to 
protest her distrust of the professor - "I was so mad at you at 
first, I couldn't see straight. I called you every rotten name I could 
think of, and then started over. We were all pissed, except for 
Jean. She asked if we really thought you could fire on us as 
enemies when you'd led and trained us as teammates? She said 
you'd rather die than betray someone who trusted you. So we 
talked about it afer she left, and decided that the day you really 
betrayed someone, was the day the universe would end." 

That touched me, on two accounts. First, that they did trust me 
that much. And second, that Jean had defended me. Given how 
she'd been acting towards me since my return, I'd never have 
guessed it.  "Jean defended me?" I asked, just to be sure.  "And 
she was right. The first thing I told Magneto was that I wasn't 
fighting the X-Men. I'd help him, but I'd never go into battle 
against you." 

She grinned. "It's nice when some things in life are predictable."  
Then she flopped back on the carpet, arms out to the side. "I'm 
bush-whacked." 

"Why don't you go to bed, then?" 

"Why don't you?" 

"Because one of us has to stay up and keep an eye on the new 
girl, and I had coffee. I'm too keyed up to sleep." I always was, 
after a mission. And I was still thinking about what she'd said a 
minute ago. "Jean defended me?" I asked again. 

She twisted on the floor and cracked an eye open. "Yeah, she 
did. Pretty vehemently, too." 

I could tell Ro was amused. "You think I'm a fool, don't you?" 

"No, Scott." 

"Yeah, right. So why are you laughing at me?" 

"I'm not. I'm amused, but I'm not laughing at you, and I don't 
think you're a fool. I do think you're barking up the wrong tree, 
though." 

"And that's not being a fool?" 

"No. We can't always control who we get crushes on." 

I stared off at the track lights over the window behind the couch, 
let it fuzz my vision as I thought about Jean - and Wolverine. 
Was that just a crush?  "Crushes are something you get over. I 
haven't gotten over Jean for a year and a half." 

"Some people are too stubborn to let go." 

"Why do you think I'm barking up the wrong tree? You're on the 
outside of this little triangle. What do you see?" 

"Honestly?" 

I didn't answer immediately. Did I want her honest opinion? 
Storm could be ruthless. But she was also perceptive. And 
maybe it was time I heard the truth. "Yeah, honestly." 

"All right then. Jean's mutant power isn't TK, it's getting the guys 
to fall at her feet." 

I dropped my gaze to look at her. "That sounds like jealousy to 
me, not honesty." 

"I'm not jealous." It was said with real seriousness, a slight frown 
on her face, which inclined me to believe her. In the bedroom, I 
could hear the other girl stirring in her bed. "I'd have to want what 
Jean has, to be jealous, and I don't. Sometimes I'm resentful, but 
not jealous. They're not the same thing. I want her to wake up 
and appreciate what she's got. She doesn't know what it feels 
like to be really hungry for days on end, or to run from the drug 
dealers, or to be spat on and called a nigger, or a thieving whore, 
or an Arab bitch - take your pick. It makes her cocky. She 
assumes everything's going to work out for the best, because - 
for her - it always has. And she strings people along on charm 
and the assumption that they'll love her. She's got that white girl 
sense of entitlement and it drives me fucking crazy." 

"I'm white, too, Ro," I said, and ground my teeth together. 

"Yeah, you're white. But you don't have it. You drive me crazy for 
different reasons." 

"Gee, thanks." 

I might have said more, except at that moment, Dani called out 
from the bedroom and we both jumped up to see what was 
wrong. Nothing, as it turned out. "She's dreaming," Ro said. 

"Or hallucinating," I added. 

"As long as she doesn't start hallucinating where we can see it, 
we're fine." 

"I just don't want her to leap out a window because she thinks 
she can fly like you." 

"Yeah, well, the only windows are out here." We returned to our 
seats, but Ro took a spot on the couch so that she could see 
through the doorway into the bedroom. "It's not the being white," 
she went on now. "I had plenty of white friends on the street. It's 
the entitlement crap that pisses me off. And that's why you're 
barking up the wrong tree, Scott. She's got you wrapped around 
her little finger and knows it. She doesn't have to do a damn 
thing but throw you an occasional bit of attention and you lap it 
up, follow her around like a lovesick puppy." 

"Oh? And you don't flirt with anything that has a dick hanging 
between his legs?" 

She blinked and I was immediately embarrassed for the crudity - 
I usually kept my less-than-polite thoughts to myself - but then 
she grinned. "Oh, I admit I flirt shamelessly. But I don't assume 
men owe me anything. If they open a door for me, great. If they 
don't, I can open it for myself. And I never lead them on. If a guy 
really likes me, but the feeling isn't mutual, I keep it casual. Like 
with Hank. I don't feel what he feels. Maybe that'll change, but 
maybe it won't. I keep a little distance so he doesn't get false 
hopes. I refuse to be cruel." 

"What about Colossus? Is what you do to him any different from 
Jean and I?" 

She burst out laughing. "Peter? Scott, open your eyes! Peter's 
the last guy at the mansion who'd be interested in me. You need 
to worry more about Peter than I do!" 

"Oh."  Now I felt stupid. From the bedroom, Dani cried out again 
and I sat up a little but Ro just glanced in the door and shook her 
head. Maybe Ro's laughter had disturbed her. "We need to keep 
it down," I said. "Bright lights, loud noises -   If she's already 
restless, it might set her off." 

She was studying my face. "How do you know so much about 
drugs, anyway?" 

"Because I was addicted to heroin before the professor found 
me." 

"Oh."  Her turn to be taken by surprise. Normally, I wouldn't have 
confessed that, but of all the students at the mansion, Ro was 
probably the one least likely to hold it against me. Even so, she 
didn't say anything for a full minute, then, "That's why Xavier 
sent you here, isn't it?" 

"Yes.  He had a feeling it might be a drug issue.  So now you 
know a secret about me, and I know one about you, with the 
reading." 

"Keeping tabs, Cyclops?" 

"Not really."  Well maybe I was a little, but not in the way she 
meant. 

But she'd nodded, accepting my reply, and returned her attention 
to our previous conversation. "If you want to get the attention of 
a girl like Jean, Scott, you have to play hard to get. Like 
Wolverine. Why do you think she fell into his bed? The big 
mystery? Because he's an older man? No way, José. It was 
because he didn't make it easy for her. He let her know he was 
interested, but kept her guessing how much. Real cool cat. You 
were too easy a catch." 

I snorted. "I thought she turned to him because he dared to tell 
her how he felt, and I didn't." 

"Maybe that's what she tells herself." 

"And me?" 

"Quit pandering to her. Be her friend if you want - I think she 
genuinely likes you, as a person - but quit bowing to her like she 
was your personal Mecca." 

I laced my hands together behind my head and leaned back 
against them, stared at the ceiling while I pondered what she'd 
said. Two weeks ago, I wouldn't have been interested in hearing. 
Now? I really wasn't sure what I felt for Jean any more. I'd loved 
her for so long, it had become another addiction. Which wasn't 
love, was it?  "I'll think about it," I said. 

"Good, you do that."  Ro got up off the couch.  "I'm going to take 
your advice and go to bed. Wake me in a few hours and I'll take 
my turn watching."  She paused beside the chair I was sitting in 
and ran the back of her hand up my scratchy cheek, a gesture 
more of familiarity and friendship than of flirting.  "Go grab a 
shower yourself. You earned it, Fearless Leader. It'll take me a 
few minutes to brush my teeth and get ready, anyway; I can 
keep an eye on her that long."  And she dropped a kiss on the 
top of my hair - for all the world like she was my mother - and 
went in to bed. 

Sighing, I let my hands fall and rose to do as she'd suggested, 
thought more about her advice as hot water beat over my head 
and shoulders. Maybe she was right. I had to quit pining after 
Jean; I was wasting my time. Jean didn't want me. Getting out, I 
dried off blind and fumbled for my glasses. The mirror was all 
steamed up. I took one of the towels and wiped it clear, stared at 
my naked reflection. How many times had I done this in the 
Savage Land, wondering what was wrong with me that Jean had 
chosen Logan? Worrying that my experiences on the street had 
marked me, like Cain. I wasn't man enough for her. What kind of 
game was I playing anyway, running around in black leather? 
Did I think it made me tough? Even a little twit like Toad knew 
better. I'd heard what he'd told me, in Croatia: "Whoever said 
that tight, little t-shirt doesn't make you look like the team pansy 
was lying." Not that he knew who I'd been, but he wouldn't have 
said that to Wolverine. Or even Peter. 

And man, wasn't that a joke? The 'team pansy' was the guy who 
turned into organic steel. But this wasn't about truth; it was about 
perceptions. I tried to be tough because I knew I wasn't. Peter 
didn't have to try. And maybe that's why he made me 
uncomfortable. Around him, I still felt like the skinny shrimp I'd 
been at fourteen when Jack had first found me hustling pool. 

Shit. Don't think about Jack. 

I leaned knuckles into the bathroom counter and turned my face 
away. Jack was dead. He was never going to fuck with my head, 
or anything else, again. I grabbed underwear and flannel sleep 
shorts, put them on and went out. I'd wound up in the main 
bedroom after all because it had the single bed. I shoved my 
dirty clothes into a plastic bag to keep the stink off my clean stuff. 
The shirt had been torn a little from climbing out through the hole 
in the bathroom wall at the club, and I wondered if I could fix it, or 
if I'd have to ditch it. I liked that shirt. 

"Neat as always, aren't you?" 

My heart spasmed in my chest and I swung around, reached for 
the trigger on the visor I wasn't wearing and almost knocked my 
glasses off.  Shutting my eyes reflexively for an instant, I fumbled 
with them as I stepped back against the far well. "What the hell 
are you doing here!" I shouted. "You're dead, dammit!" 

"Well, you certainly tried to make that so, but I assure you, 
rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated." 

I finally got my glasses straight and dared to open my eyes. I 
was hyperventilating but couldn't stop, couldn't think past the 
panic. My vision tunneled as my whole will focused on the figure 
occupying the hotel bed. Jack Winters. He sat perfectly at ease, 
filing his goddamn nails like he'd used to do when he wanted to 
appear bored. He was half-dressed, chest bared to reveal his 
knife scars and the skull-and-crossbones tattoo. Street pirate. My 
own personal Blackbeard. 

And Christ, that nailfile. I remembered only too well what he 
could do with that nailfile, and rubbed the underside of my arms 
where the scars were, only some of them from needle tracks. 
"Get the fuck out of here," I snarled, "Before I call hotel security 
and have you removed. Or maybe the police. There's probably a 
warrant for your arrest in Tennessee, too." 

"Call," he said, and reached out to lift the phone handle, offer it 
to me. Cool, cool, completely cool. He'd always been so fucking 
cool. "You can tell them all about the space-case girl in the other 
bedroom, and how she's not a hooker for the night. And why I'm 
in here with my shirt off and you're even less dressed. Hmmm. 
I'm sure that would sound convincing, eh?" 

He looked up at me finally and I just froze, the little rat caught in 
the stare of a cobra. It had been two years but he could still 
immobilize me with no more than a glance. My breathing grew 
even more irregular and I couldn't take in air fast enough. It felt 
as if metal bands were crushing my chest. "Get away from me, 
you son of a bitch. Get out of this room! Now!" 

"Oh really, Scott. You've got to learn to improve your threats. I'm 
just quaking in my boots." And he got up off the bed, came 
towards me. The nailfile was in his hand and he had that nasty 
smile that told me he was in a mood to see me bleed. I was 
already pressed up against the wall, couldn't go through it. I 
didn't have the strength to run, or the will. I never had. To this 
day, I couldn't believe that I'd found the strength to kill him. 

"Get away from me." But it sounded more like a plea than an 
order. "Get away from me!" My eyes dropped to the nailfile, 
which he was turning, almost idly, in his hands. 

"Where should we start? Behind the knees? Or inside the 
elbows? I owe you a great deal, boy. Weeks of recovery in a 
hospital. Over a year in jail and now a goddamn parole officer 
sniffing up my ass. Oh, yes. I owe you a lot." He raised the file 
right up to my eye level. 

But something he'd said clicked through my panic-fogged brain. 
Recovery. In a hospital. "I saw you die," I whispered. "I saw your 
fucking head explode." My voice was getting louder. "You can't 
recover from that! You couldn't have recovered. You can't be 
alive! You can't be! 

"What on earth is going on in here?" 

A new voice from the doorway. My eyes shot in that direction - 
Ro, in a robe drawn hastily over pale silk, her white hair mussed. 
"And who are you?" she asked Jack. 

"Jack O'Diamonds, ducky." And he glanced back at me "Pretty 
little piece of cunt, Scott. Does she fuck well, or just give good 
head? Or maybe you give it to her? You had a lot of practice, 
didn't you? Oh, but I guess it was all with the wrong gender. 
That's why you're sleeping alone." 

"Scott," Ro said in that soft voice that told me someone was 
about to get zapped, "who is this jackass? And what is he doing 
in our hotel suite?" 

"He's . . . dead," I whispered. My voice had faded almost to 
nothing, like my courage, like everything I'd built since I'd 
escaped Jack. All smashed into rubble. "He's dead." 

Ro blinked. "He looks pretty alive to me." 

"Oh, I assure you, I am." Turning, Jack headed for her, nailfile 
out. "I'll be happy to introduce myself at more length, after I get a 
little taste of what Scott's been keeping for himself since he got 
away from me. Come to papa, pretty, pretty girlie." 

I tried to move, but couldn't. I was still pressed back against the 
wall, my palms splayed out on rough wallpaper as I watched 
Jack Winters approach Ororo. Her expression was wary, but not 
worried, and her eyes had gone white. "I'm going to give you to 
the count of three," she said, "to stop what you're doing, put that 
nailfile away, and get the fuck out of this suite. One." 

"Oooo, I love a woman with fire." 

"Two." 

"Get away from her, Jack." It was my own voice, though how I'd 
found it again, I wasn't sure. I didn't sound very threatening. I 
sounded like a scared kid. "Get away from her, or so help me 
god, I'll spray your fucking brains all over the fucking wall again, 
you sick bastard." 

"Scott, what did you just say?" Ororo had been backing up to 
give herself more fighting room, lightning starting to flicker over 
her form, but now she paused to frown at me. "Did I hear you 
say you sprayed his brains on a wall? And before, you said he 
was dead." 

"I - " Jack had almost reached her. "Get away, Ro! Run!" I 
started to pull my glasses off. 

"Scott, don't! Focus on my voice! What happened?" 

"I killed him! Two years ago, I killed him!" 

"This is just an illusion! It's not really happening, like at the club! 
Scott, look!" 

I blinked rapidly, made myself focus on her. She stood, hands to 
the side, completely defenseless . . . and Jack Winters was 
passing right through her. 

A mirage. 

"It's an illusion from Dani. I heard you shouting; it woke me up. 
She was tossing around in the bed, but I figured I'd better come 
see what was making you shout." 

I stared - gawked really - as the much-faded image of Jack tried 
to stab Ro. "Make it go away, Scott," she said. 

"How? I don't know how." 

"Keep telling yourself the truth. You killed him. He's dead. He 
can't hurt you any more." 

I whispered it to myself. She kept her eyes on mine. No 
judgement in them, no disgust. "He's dead," I said a little louder. 
"He's dead." 

"He's dead," she repeated. 

"He's dead." 

And then he was gone, winked out of my life for a second time. 
But everything wasn't all better. I'd started to shake with bone-
deep chills. My teeth were chattering, and I still couldn't breathe 
well. My back skidded down the wall and I wrapped my arms 
around my knees. Ro hurried over to drop down beside me, grip 
my upper arms. "Scott, listen to me. You're okay. Just breathe. 
You're having an anxiety attack. Look at me and breathe with 
me. Now in, now out. Now in, now out." I did as she said and she 
kept up the litany until I finally had some kind of control again, 
but I was so shaky, I doubted I could stand up. 

Christ, this hadn't happened in almost two years. "Go check on 
the girl," I whispered. "If she's hallucinating, she might hurt 
herself while we're in here." Why she'd be hallucinating my 
personal demons, I didn't know, but it was the same as at the 
club. Maybe she'd tapped into me again because she had once 
before. Except this time, she hadn't lifted out a casual fear. She'd 
honed in on the one person, dead or alive, who could still take 
me apart at the seams. 

Ro started to protest, but then nodded and rose to do as I'd bid. 
She must have realized that I needed a few minutes to pull my 
shit together. I considered reaching out to the professor's mind, 
but didn't. He must be fast asleep, even more exhausted than Ro 
had been. I could deal with this myself. I was a big boy now. 

Yeah, right. I was sure acting like a big boy - all huddled up on 
the floor like a freakin' mouse. 

I made myself uncurl from a fetal position and leaned my back 
against the wall, eyes closed, to concentrate on breathing, 
contain the sick feeling in my stomach. I wasn't going to lose it 
again. I heard Ro when she came back, and opened my eyes. 
She was carrying a glass of milk. "Sorry, it's not chocolate," she 
said, and handed it to me. I would've laughed but didn't have the 
strength for that, either. "Drink it. You'll feel better." I did as she 
said and tried not to think about what she'd just witnessed, what 
she now knew about me. This was a lot more incriminating than 
an addiction to heroin. The leader of the X-Men was an ex-
prostitute and certified wimp. She'd never be able to take an 
order from me again with a straight face. 

But there was no laughter in her expression now. "Are you 
okay?" Then she whacked herself on the forehead. "Jesus! What 
a stupid question! Sorry." 

"I'll be okay," I said, answering what she'd meant. "And since 
when does a Muslim use the Christian God to swear by?" 

"I grew up speaking English, Scott. Why would I swear in 
Arabic? Besides, I'm not a Muslim. My parents were." She 
plopped down next to me. "Allah and I have some issues." 

Discussion of the incidental to avoid looking at the big white 
elephant in the room. 

"How's the girl?" I asked. 

"Sleeping now. I think she's really under this time." 

"That's too weird," I said, rubbing my forehead as I tried to piece 
together what this meant. "PCP shouldn't knock her out, but 
maybe that's why she took it. I should call the professor, have 
him send Hank and Jean down here in the Blackbird. We need 
another psi to contain her. She's stronger than anyone thought - 
more than we can handle." 

"Call them in the morning. She's out now, and you need to sleep, 
Scott. You're just - " 

" - a fucking mess, I know. Take a good look, Storm. This is the 
true face of your 'fearless leader.' I can't even get my legs under 
me and I think I pissed my pants." 

"You beat him," she said simply. 

"No, you did. You figured out what was going on. I didn't do a 
damn thing but cower against the wall like I was fourteen years 
old again." 

She didn't reply immediately, instead did the unexpected - 
reached out to pull me to her, hug me tight. "You didn't piss your 
pants," she said. "Or I'd smell it. And Scott, how old were you 
when he picked you up? Fourteen, I bet? Some things are just . . 
. past reason. You want to know another secret about me? I'm 
claustrophobic as all hell. Lock me in a closet and I just freak. 
Can't think, can't breathe, can't do anything but scream my lungs 
out. At least you beat him - two years ago, and again just now. 
That's brave." 

"Yeah, right." 

"Shut up, Cyclops. You're brave. I said so; it's a pronouncement. 
Now quit arguing with me." She pushed me back to glare, but not 
very seriously. There was a smile hiding behind it. 

"How can you smile at me?" I asked, dazed. "Don't you despise 
me?" Normally, I'd have been too proud to ask, but just now, I 
had no pride left. 

"Scott, you are such a dimwit sometimes. Why would I despise 
you? Just because for a minute there, you needed some help to 
get a reality check? I told you, lock me in a closet and I'm just as 
bad. I understand. Besides, I thought we were the X-Men? Not 
Cyclops and the X-men. Or do you think I'm just your cheap 
backup singer?" 

It made me smile. "You're definitely not that. You saved my ass 
tonight. Twice." 

"Yeah, I did. And I probably will again sometime, and you'll save 
mine. Keeping tabs, Cyclops?" 

"Not really." My smile widened, remembering our earlier 
exchange. 

"Good. I'd have to hurt you, if you were. Now, are you going to 
let me help you to bed?" 

"I guess." I handed her the empty glass of milk and she levered 
me to my feet. I was feeling better, but still extremely shaky. She 
got me to the bed and I collapsed on it. "What I asked, a minute 
ago, if you despised me - " I paused, then blurted it out. "I didn't 
mean for panicking. I meant . . . for what he said about me." 

Maybe I was just picking at scabs, but I had to know. 

Frowning, she sat down on the bed edge. The light was on and it 
made the slick fabric of her nightgown glisten. It was a pale 
color, probably more of the lavender she loved. I wished I could 
see it against her skin. I wished I could see anything that wasn't 
red. Even her hair - I knew it was white, I thought of it as white, 
but it would forever be pink to my sight. Almost absently, I 
reached out to touch it, ran a strand through my fingers, and she 
didn't start or pull back. "I'm not sure what you mean." she said 
instead. "He was trying to get my goat - and yours, too. Why 
would I despise you for his stupid insinuations?" 

She didn't know. She hadn't understood. I let go of the hair and 
rolled away onto my side. My glasses slipped a little and I 
pushed them back up. I needed to change into my night goggles. 
"Never mind," I said. 

"No. Tell me." 

"Never mind." 

"Dammit!" She grabbed my shoulder and yanked me back over 
where she could see my face. "You are such a pain in the ass 
sometimes, Cyclops! Talk to me! Why should I despise you for 
what he said?" 

I didn't know where to begin, so I stared at the ceiling instead of 
meeting her eyes. "The bit about having a lot of practice. At, um, 
sex." I swallowed, couldn't go on. 

"Yeah, so? I have a little practice, myself." 

"Not like mine!" I tried to make it light but it just fell flat. "I don't 
want to talk about this." 

But I'd said enough; I could see her mind whirring. She has a 
good memory, as I'd observed, and now she pulled up the words 
which she'd obviously dismissed at the time as meaningless 
taunting. "With the wrong gender," she said now. "He said you 
had practice with the wrong gender. So what? You're gay? So's 
Peter. He's my best friend. You think I care?" 

"I'm not gay." 

She frowned. "Then what?" But all of a sudden, I could see the 
truth hit her. "Oh. You, um . . . . You - ?" She looked like she 
couldn't quite believe it - the same expression as Jean's face had 
worn when I'd thrown the truth at her before I'd left. And Christ, 
could I blame Jean for not wanting to talk to me now? I was 
kidding myself if I thought she could ever love me. 

"I was a hustler, yeah," I told Ororo. "Among other things." 

Her expression didn't change, didn't transform into disgust. "I 
was a thief," she said. 

"It's a little different." 

"Oh, really? Some people wouldn't think so. What other things?" 

"Huh?" 

"You said, 'among other things.' What other things?" 

"I was a thief, too." 

Her lips tipped up. "That all?" 

"I hustled some pool. That's how Jack found me. I was good at it. 
Unnaturally good, due to my mutation - even before it 
manifested. Anyway, he and some friends caught me one night 
after I left a pool hall, took me back to his place to work me over 
for conning them." I stopped as my brain went white. I couldn't 
remember that night or I'd lose any shred of control I'd pulled 
about myself. I started to shiver and Ro slipped down next to me 
on the bed to wrap her arms around me. Finally, I calmed 
enough to say, "After that, he put me to work. I was in his stable 
for about a year and a half. He gave me heroin, to keep me 
happy. If I tried to run, he cut me." I raised an arm and turned it 
to show her the faint scars on the underside from that nailfile, 
and the needles. "When my powers manifested, he decided I 
might be good for more than giving head. He taped my eyes shut 
and locked me in a closet, then took me out like some freakin' 
tool when he wanted to crash a drug runner's hideout. He'd 
make me blast our way in, then kill them. With my eyes." I began 
shaking again. She was rubbing her hands up and down my 
arms and had dragged up the sheets over us both. "God knows 
how many people I wasted, Ro. Too many. I finally got up the 
nerve to kill the son of a bitch." I paused. Her hands felt good 
and blindly, like a pup, I turned towards her. She held me. "The 
professor found me the same night I did it. I was wandering 
around the streets, blind. He took me in and de-toxed me, taught 
me how to use my power for something besides killing things. I 
never want to kill again." 

"Why were you on the street? A run-away?" 

"Yeah, from an orphanage. My parents died when I was about 
eight. That accident I told you about, the one that damaged my 
brain? It was a plane crash. Everyone died but me. I barely 
remember anything before that - can't even recall my mother's 
face." I started crying and she ran her hands through my hair. 

"Shhh. I've got you; you're okay. I've got you." For a long time, 
she didn't say anything else, just stroked my hair. My eyes were 
closed against the tears, but also because my glasses wouldn't 
stay on my face. She took them away and I could hear the click 
as she set them on the bedside table. Then she started to speak. 
"I remember my mother's face. I remember holding her hand, 
where we were caught under a ton of cement rubble. I remember 
when her hand let mine go, too. I remember staring at her dead 
face for almost a day before the emergency workers dug us out." 

"I'm sorry," I whispered. I'd wound my hands in her hair, wrapped 
it all about my fingers. She had such beautiful hair. Why wouldn't 
Jean grow out her hair like this? 

"That's why I'm claustrophobic," Ro went on. 

"How old were you?" 

"Nine. It was six months after we immigrated - the night of the LA 
riots after the Rodney King trial. They spilled over to other cities. 
Our restaurant was trashed and they killed my father. I heard the 
gun go off; he screamed. My mother and I were hiding in the 
back, off the kitchen. Somebody ran a car into the rear wall - 
collapsed half of it on top of us. I was too small to move the 
blocks. She held my hand for a long time, but bled out before the 
rescue teams got in." 

Holy fucking Christ. What would it be like to watch your own 
mother die in front of you, and be unable to stop it? At least I'd 
been spared that. I pulled her a little closer, fitted her head on my 
shoulder and stroked her back. Two street kids who'd lived 
through hell. Kissing her forehead, I whispered, "I'll make sure no 
one ever locks you up." 

Her grip on me tightened. "And I won't tell anyone what Jack did 
to you. I still think you're brave." 

"So are you." 

She moved her head up, mouth seeking. I couldn't see, but I 
could feel it as her lips brushed my chin and I tilted my head 
down until my mouth touched hers. 

This - one part of my brain said - was a really bad idea. We were 
both vulnerable right now, both needing reassurance from touch, 
needing love of the unconditional kind. It was inevitable that we'd 
look to each other. That didn't make it a wise choice. It also didn't 
stop us. 

For a long time, we did nothing but kiss, tongue-tip to tongue-tip; 
it was a revelation to me. Only a month shy of nineteen, yet I'd 
never kissed a woman like this. I'd barely kissed a man, and that 
only because it had been forced on me, hard and rough. But 
now, she stroked the skin of my back and arms with butterfly 
fingers as her tongue pressed lightly against mine. Sometimes 
she pulled away to mouth me, or suck thoughtfully at my lower 
lip. Languid. She never used her teeth. Who would have thought 
that simple kissing could set my body was on fire this way? I 
wasn't thinking of Jean at all. Only Ororo. Jamilah. Jilah. I 
whispered it to her at one point, her Arabic name, and she made 
a little murmur of consent. I had her wrapped up in my arms, and 
she had me wrapped up in her hair. And we weren't doing 
anything but kissing. Amazing. 

I have no idea how long that went on, but she finally got 
impatient and found my arm, my wrist, pulled my hand up to her 
breast, all squishy under silk. I hadn't thought breasts squishy - 
the texture isn't self-evident - and it startled me. She'd moved her 
thigh between my legs to rock against me. Her breath was 
getting heavy; so was mine. I could die right now a happy man, 
with my hand full of breast and her thigh against my groin. I was 
so hot, and my clothes constricted. I wanted out of them, and to 
get her out of hers, so I dropped my hands to untie her robe by 
feel, blind without my glasses. Her fingers came around to help, 
but we just got in each other's way, which made her laugh a little. 
"Off, off, off," she said, and pulled the belt tie free, shimmied out 
of the sleeves and then wrapped her arms back around my neck 
to kiss me some more. I kept riding her thigh. "I need you," she 
was whispering. "I need you so much, Scott. Jean's an idiot." 

Jean's name pulled me up from the edge, and I disengaged. I 
couldn't see. I suddenly needed to see, so I could think. "Where 
are my goggles?" 

"What?" 

"My sleeping goggles. I left them on the bedside table." 

There was a pause and I could feel her twist in my arms, then 
her fingers on my face, my head, and the elastic and plastic of 
the goggles. I opened my eyes. Her face was flushed. Even 
behind rose quartz, I could tell, and her pupils were very dilated. 
Desire. For me. She wanted me, had said she needed me. I'd 
meant to stop this, but now seeing her face, couldn't. Here lay 
someone who wanted me. And I wanted her, too. I wanted white 
hair and brown skin and an arched Arabic nose. I wanted Jilah, 
not Jean. I wanted Ororo. I was free. No more addictions. This 
was my choice - a woman who understood my past and didn't 
turn away from me. 

"I want you," I said, soft against her mouth. I wasn't sure she 
understood the full significance of that, but maybe she did. She 
pushed my lips open with her tongue and I rolled her onto her 
back, moved my hand up to her breast again, my knee between 
her thighs. Her hands were all over me, a dragging tickle of nails, 
but she never scratched or dug in. She was so very gentle, like I 
was precious, like I might break. Maybe another time, I would 
want her to be rougher, but right now, I nearly cried to have 
someone be that gentle with me. 

I had no idea what to do next, beyond the theoretical, but she'd 
pulled my ass out of the fire twice already tonight. Maybe she 
could help me with this, too. I trusted her to help me with this, 
and not laugh that I didn't already know. "Show me what to do," I 
said, pulling away enough to speak. So she took my hand in hers 
and slipped it under the hem of her little nightgown, inside the 
elastic band of very damp underwear, through coarse pubic hair 
to the cleft and folds, the skin there so warm. And slick. She let 
my fingers explore, guided them a bit and drew in sharp breath 
when I found the magic spot. "Right there," she said. "Right 
there! Oh, God!" Her hips bucked against my hand as my fingers 
pressed on her nub of engorged flesh. Women got erections, 
too. How funny. But it also turned me on enormously and I 
wasn't sure if I was in heaven or hell as I dry humped her thigh 
through plaid flannel night shorts in the same rhythm my hand 
was using on her clitoris. My mouth had moved down her swan 
neck, past her collarbone to her right breast under silk. I didn't 
want the cloth in the way, but didn't want to stop, either, to get it 
off. She was moving like the tide beneath me, rhythmic and 
strong but still not rough, and she whispered my name, over and 
over. I took my mouth away to whisper hers. "Jilah." It was my 
name for her now. "Jamilah." Love me, want me, fuck me - only 
me. Make me whole again. I'd love her forever, if she could 
make me whole. 

Suddenly she was pulling her underwear off, knees up, hands 
working quickly. "I want you inside me. Now." 

She didn't have to tell me twice. She helped me get out of my 
night clothes and undershorts and I peeled off her nightgown, 
fastened my mouth on her breast again - bitter dark chocolate 
nipple on mocha cream. I teased it hard with my tongue. Christ, 
she was so sweet. "Inside," she hissed, hands fumbling between 
my legs. She got hold of me and pumped hard with one hand as 
she drew light fingers with the other around the sensitive glans 
edge. I almost exploded right then. 

"Don't!" 

"What's wrong?" 

"Dammit, not yet!" I had to count to ten - backwards - to get hold 
of myself. "Don't touch me yet, unless you want me to come too 
soon." 

"Okay." 

I went back to sucking at her breasts, first one, then the other, 
flattened by gravity against her chest. Her legs were spread, 
knees bent, and she positioned me between them. Funny-
awkward as this was, it felt right. Her hand slid down over my 
abdomen again to get a hold of my erection and angle it until the 
head touched the folded, slick skin of her hidden entry. "Right 
there," she said. "That's where it has to go. Push forward." 
Mouth releasing her breast, I did as she said. 

Oh, Holy Christ. 

Maybe I said it aloud, I don't know, but she laughed a little even 
as she was panting. "Don't move! Hold still. It's been a while. I 
have to adjust to you." 

She wasn't the only one. I did multiplication tables in my head, 
just to keep from ejaculating on the instant. I was completely and 
totally enveloped. My hand could never be anything like this. 
Warm and wet and all around me. She was wiggling a little, to 
reposition herself and I gasped. "Sorry," she said. "You can 
move now." 

Move? Just her wiggling had almost set me off. But my body 
knew what to do and I rocked in and out. Sweet, sweet, wet 
friction. Three strokes and it was all over. I thought I was bursting 
apart like a star gone supernova. Everything in my head and 
belly and groin exploded outwa