Continued from yesterday:
“No,” said Mort. “‘E’s righ’.” They were the most painful words he'd ever said. They sundered his heart for certain. No physical pain ever hurt like this.
Sara was incensed. “I *beg* your *pardon*?”
“You’re sixteen, luv,” he said. “I shouldn’t be doin’ 'alf the things I’m doin’ with ya.”
“Kissing? Holding *hands*?” she provided. “Dates?”
“All of it. Especially the kissin’.”
Her eyes filled with moisture. “But… I just got used to the concept,” she said, “that someone actually wanted t–” her voice cracked into inaudibility as her tears fell.
It took supreme effort to resist the impulse to embrace her. His arms twitched to hold her, and it took almost more than he had to draw them back to himself. “I’m sorry,” he said.
She’d been piecing parts together, almost absently, right up until that 'sorry’.
Words have power. That 'sorry’ took all the motive power out of her. Drew the life out of her by slow degrees.
“I *have* to step back,” he said. “You’re still too young. I… could 'urt you.”
Her skin, always an indicator of her emotion, drained of her usually bright colours. “Next week, I turn seventeen?” she offered. “Then it's only one year…”
*
_Congratulations,_ Xavier 'said’. _You’ve won. Do you yet comprehend what damage winning will do?_
He had to be annoyed to sound that way in a telepathic communication. _Their relationship is currently illegal. Unhealthy._
_You have no idea,_ 'said’ Xavier. _*Look* at her._
He saw a girl sagging through depression. She was young. She’d get over it.
_You’re so certain?_
_Yes._
_Then let them stay seperated for that week. I’m sure the damage will become obvious before then._
_Teenage histrionics,_ he dismissed. _A tantrum over what she can't have._
_And your intense focus on this, rather than coping with your loss is…?_
_My own business. Sir._
“One week,” said Xavier. “I think that’s worth your freedom from your current - accommodations…”
“*Sir*!” Scott objected.
“You mean the eight-by-five bunk-room with no windows?” said Mort. "I’m more or less used to it.“
"It’s up to you, Scott,” said Xavier. “The security risk of having Mr Toynbee treated as a normal resident of this establishment in return for his - restraint… in regards to Sara for one week. *Or*… you allow things to continue as they are with a chaperone of my choosing.”
“I’ll stay away from him for a week,” said Sara. “It’s worth it to let him have the sun.”
“Sara…” objected Mort.
“You shouldn’t be locked away like an animal,” she said. “I remember what that was like. One week? Chicken feed.” She wiped her face. “We can survive one week.”
Scott weighed the bargain in the balance. One week. “One week,” he said. “And then we renegotiate.”
~
December 5th.
Dawn crept slowly over the snow-covered landscape. Somewhere near her balcony, but not actually *on* it, Sara was singing.
News of that particular morning ritual had got around as fast as the men who were prepared to deliver bruises or worse to anyone trying to peek at it. After that, it became part of the routine, everyday business of a school that played host to many, *many* kids with varying idiosyncrasies.
His glasses turned the snow a bright pink as he crunched across the desolate expanse. In a handful of minutes, the early risers would awaken and manufacture snow sculptures, snow angels, forts, snowballs, and - in general - make chaos out of the naked white order that had fallen during the night.
But none would follow his tracks to disturb the snow into *this* grove. None would cavort and play in this secret little place.
The place where Jean’s memorial lay was sacrosanct.
He bought flowers there, no matter what the cost, and cleaned the snow off the stone. And deeply regretted that her body had never been found.
*
“…sing sing a song… sing a soo-oonnng…” Sara opened her eyes. "Sing.“
Dawn’s light always refreshed her. Made her feel better.
As she leaned over to grab her robe, she spotted a desolate figure trudging into the trees. He was carrying flowers.
Only the glint off his glasses identified him as Mr Summers.
Forget the robe. She was getting dressed for the snow.
~
Scott reverentially dusted the snow off the cold memorial, reading again the words etched into the stone.
In the memory of Dr Jean Grey
Dearly beloved
He picked the light dusting out of the dates, and swept the dead flowers aside in favour of the new.
"I wish you were here to talk to,” he whispered. “I wish you’d let us help… if only…” He sighed. There was no point in talking to stone. It was a dead thing. Jean wasn’t here.
She wasn’t anywhere.
There were no goodbyes for him. No closure.
Just the stone… and the cold.
“You come here every morning for her,” said Sara.
Scott whirled, facing the chameleonic girl. She was wrapped up like a mummy against the cold. Mittens, coat, muffler… the whole works. “What are you doing here?” he challenged.
“I never knew her,” she said. “I saw her on the TV once, speaking out against the Mutant Registration Act. She started me on the path that lead to the support BBS, the tolerance site…” a quirk of a smile, “the death threats… The whole deal. Even before I found out I’m a mutant myself… she started me thinking about what it was like on the wrong side of prejudice.”
Scott stiffened at the words she chose. “This is not the place for another debate.”
“No. I know. I’m stating a fact, Mr Summers. Dr Grey touched my life, too.” She remained still, standing outside of the invisible barrier Scott had drawn around this place. A barrier everyone seemed to sense… and respect. “There’s a philosophy that every life touches at least one other. Whatever good there is that they do… lingers in those other lives. And so long as that good lasts - the spirit of that person lives on. I rather like that philosophy. Can you guess why?”
Mute, now, wondering what the hell she was up to, Scott shook his head.
“Because there are those who, once touched by good, choose to perpetuate it. I don’t think Dr Grey’s spirit will ever be allowed to perish under that system.”
Scott thought about that. About the lives she saved on a daily basis. About the lives she saved in her final moments… and how they moved on, helping others.
Even those who didn’t strictly deserve such help.
But then… Jean, too, had been plucked from the ashes of defeat by a very unique man. He remembered a strange, withdrawn girl who suffered from the voices in her head… Were it not for Xavier, she’d still be in some mental institution. Alive… but broken.
She salvaged people in Xavier’s name.
Could he do no less for her?
Unshed tears fell at last for her. The air went out of him and his knees cased him to fall.
And without much sound at all, Sara was nearby. Lending comfort.
“Remember with joy,” she said. “And keep her spirit with you through your actions.”
All he could do was sob.
~
Listening to her sing, in the room they’d given him, was a unique kind of torture. Summers had to be some kind of sadistic bastard to give him quarters within listening distance of Sara’s dawntime ritual. Just *knowing* that he was within feet of her… but shut away from the touch of her skin, the scent of her flesh, the very sight of her - naked or not - and knowing, also, that he was forbidden to go near any of her… that was worse torture for him than anything he knew.
Not even the little dark room had been as bad as this.
He closed his eyes, imagining a future one year and one week distant… with the two of them legally together as husband and wife. Watching in unadorned admiration as she danced in the new day.
Perhaps he would join her dance, revel in her very presence and–
_Stop it. We’re not there yet, boyo. Plenty of water to go under the bridge._
He couldn’t allow himself that much want. It was already plain and already potentially dangerous… even though he explained. Or tried to explain.
He didn’t want to possess Sara.
He wanted to give himself to her. Again and again, if necessary.
He wanted to save her from her own wounds, to help her grow out of self-loathing and rise in beauty to be everything she *could* be.
And he wanted to be with her, for as long as she wanted him.
Mort rose from his bed and prepared for the day’s work ahead. Basement stuff, most of it. Washing this or repairing that. Things that needed to be done every day so the world above the surface continued to chug merrily along.
He saved every cent of his wages for a future he could only dream about. A wish… encapsulated in a golden band with a diamond in it.
It was the only long-term goal he could afford to keep - and only then because he kept it deeply secret.
The bastards couldn’t take anything they didn’t know about.
Ororo was used to Sara being distracted. The price of genius combined with a near-idactic memory was that it took a lot to keep it occupied. Every now and again, she would entertain the girl with a complicated concept, but beyond that, the necessary attendance was usually used to observe how teaching was *done*.
Sara was more distracted than normal. Ororo could tell by the way her textbook was negligently open, no page yet turned, and her almost listless way of doodling.
“Sara?” she prompted.
Sara chewed on her pencil, looking down, but not *at* anything.
“*Sara*?”
“Hmn?” At last, she focussed on the board. “Heisenburg.”
Ororo tried valiantly not to fume. Obviously, Sara was in economy mode, today. “Elaborate, please?”
“Heisenburg’s uncertainty principle. The act of observing changes the subject being observed. Therefore, there are no definitive answers… no absolutes. We have best-fit assumptions, but that’s all. There’s no real answers, anywhere, to anything.”
Ororo looked to the board. Heisenburg had very little to do with the problem at hand. In fact, the gentleman mostly responsible was Newton. Either Sara was being purposely evasive, or her mind was miles from the actual classroom. “Can you give us a best-fit answer to this problem, please?”
Again, she surfaced listlessly from whatever depths she was trying to return to. “Twenty-eight meters per second per second, plus or minus five meters per second per second, depending on the interference vectors.” She sank again, into the depths of her own thoughts.
Ororo briefly considered the fight necessary to drag her back up again for a demonstration of the math involved, but decided against it. Whatever thought-problem had engaged her, it wasn’t as interesting as real life, right now. She’d find out when Sara was bouncing off the walls in full-on enthusiasm mode, babbling at ninety words a second or even faster.
Ororo demonstrated the math, but made a mental note about consulting the Professor with regards to Sara’s on/off switches.
~
There was a numbness in work. Something to do in order to eliminate thought. He didn’t have to think about his current situation vis-a-vis his personal relationship and the current lack thereof.
_It’s only a week,_ he reminded himself. _Seven days._
Hell. He’d spent longer stretches of time in various forms of punishment and deprivation. Seven days was a lark.
But then… he’d never had anyone *else* to worry about, before.
He threw himself into peeling vegetables. He shouldn’t have to worry. She had the freedom of the morning sun and the labyrinthine depths of the libraries and an infinite opportunity to stretch.
She had everything she needed.
With enough busywork she might even forget–
His hand slipped and the peeler went into his thumb.
“Gah! Fucking *Norah*![1]” He quickly put down his work and rinsed the wound. Cold water numbed his hand enough to allow him to inspect it. Geez. That was going to need professional help.
The instant he found a paper towel to dry the wound, he was dripping all over the scenery. Fun.
Mort improvised as best he could and tried to keep the red splashes off the floors that he would certainly have to clean, later.
There was someone in the medical centre when he got there. There was always some minor mishap involving flying objects, mutant powers, or a combination of the two. All he could see of this day’s victim was a pair of shoes past both Dr McCoy’s and Wagner’s backs.
“…solutely not. I checked. She just - wasn’t paying attention." Wagner shrugged. "By the time I realized what was happening… beendet. It was already over.”
“There,” said Hank. “You can move, now.”
Wagner did, getting out of Hank’s way.
“Sara,” Mort blurted. She bore few indications of physical injuries, bar a couple of adhesive medical strips. There were some gauze wrappings on an arm. “Wot th’ *fuck*?”
Wagner was looking agitated. “She walked straight when the stairs went down,” he said. “There was no time…” His hands flexed helplessly. “If I was just a few paces further forward…”
“Tell me she’s gonna be all right?” Mort begged.
“I’ll make certain,” Hank soothed. “You’re bleeding, Mr Toynbee.”
“Mort,” he corrected. “I’m allowed t’ call you 'Hank’, you should call me Mort.” He allowed the house physician to take possession of his injured hand. Let himself be lead wherever he had to be. He didn’t feel a thing as Hank probed, cleaned, stitched, antiseptized and bound his wound.
He’d never known that fear for another was such a powerful anaesthetic.
Wagner, hovering over her, met his gaze. “I’ll watch over her,” he promised. “You should get back to what you were doing, ja?”
Mort held up his sore thumb. “Doubt if I’ll be good for peelin' stuff.”
“Stay away from blades,” Hank advised. “Any blades.”
“Righ’…” said Mort. At least it was his sinister hand that was injured. He could cope. Just. “Look after 'er?”
“Take it as given.” Hank escorted him out.
It was the hardest thing in the world to walk away.
[1] I have no idea why people say that, but they do.
~