Continued from yesterday:
Henry paced when he was on the phone. It was a very simple displacement activity, but it beat the heck out of getting into an interesting equation and missing the actual call through inattention.
“I’m sorry,” said the secretary, “but no-one at this office is willing to take the case.”
Hank crossed off the number on his little list. “Do you know of anyone who might?” he enquired.
“We’re sorry,” she said. “but we are not able to give any referrals at this time. Thankyou for calling Hangem, Sicem and Mawl. Have a nice day.”
The fifth pen in as many phone calls shattered in his hand. “…but I have promises to keep,” he muttered to himself, wiping the ink off and gathering the shards, “and miles to go before I sleep.”
“You should like, *so* not hold pens when getting fobbed off,” said Kitty. “That one almost wrecked the carpet.”
“Company,” said young Albert. He was peeking between the curtains, and had been since he woke.
“It’s Ms Munroe,” said Avery, flipping between morning toons.
“It *is* Ms Munroe,” Albert grinned. “How–?”
“She feels different.”
Hank opened the door. “Cavalry at last,” he cheered. Then he noticed she was wearing black. Ororo never wore black. Unless… “Who–?”
“Jean.”
Cold sorrow washed over him. Not *Jean*… Of all of them, he’d have thought her indestructible[1]. “Why?” he asked.
“She felt it was the only way.”
News circulated as it did, replete with tearful denials and the full compliment of mournful embraces. In a time of loss, companionship was sorely craved. Everyone took it a little differently. All gathered what belongings they had and shuffled into vehicles in a silent gloom.
Back to their former sanctuary.
Hank followed Ororo’s licence plate in a numb blur. Everything he'd been told by the kids skittered about in his head. Everything he knew danced about with those jumbled facts in a bizarre gavotte.
And when he got there… the school he knew and loved as a young mutant was a wreck.
The soldiers had left the ruins as quickly as they’d arrived. Water from Bobby’s ice shield still pooled on the floor, mixed with the blood of dead soldiers.
All gone stale in their absence.
Someone upstairs was vacuuming.
Of such domestic details is aftermath made.
Avery listlessly pulled darts out of the wall, careful not to let them prick him.
Kitty air-walked over the stagnant puddle, searching for towels and mops.
Another began opening windows, letting the air in.
Little by little, each one of them began the chore of restoring their sanctuary to its former welcoming feel. Re-enforcing their home.
And it *would* be home again.
[1] Side-fling to the many, *many* times Jean Grey has come back from the ‘dead’.
~
As Jubilee was fond of saying, there were priorities, and there were *priorities*. Since most of the mess in the foyer had been swept up - or swept up to the point where she started getting in the way - Kitty raced to her room, air-walking through ceilings that became floors, racing along corridors and cutting corners in a way no-one else *could*.
And that was when she ran into the demon.
Only in retrospect would Kitty question the little details in her first impression. Okay. Retrospect and heavily sarcastic questioning from Jubilee, much, *much* later in the day.
He was clinging to the wall as she ran out of it, so she got a really *good* look at the blue face, yellow eyes, sharp, *sharp* teeth, and the multitude of scars.
An unholy roaring noise only amplified things.
She started screaming before she’d even fully emerged.
The demon leaped away from her, crying out, “Heilige sch¸tzen mich!" and incidentally collided with some unexpected statuary.
It was then that Kitty’s eyes picked up the tridactyl hands, the spaded tail, and the cloven feet.
She screamed again.
The apparition before her rolled backwards, regaining his feet and reaching for something inside the folds of his coat. "Unreiner Geist! Wer ¸berhaupt Sie und alle Ihre Begleiter sind, die diesen Bediensteten des Gottes besitzen–[1]”
“What is going *ON* up here?” Ororo emerged from a different pathway.
Kitty shrieked and ran behind her.
The thing that the demon thrust out at her was a rosary.
Ororo stepped forward and turned the vacuum cleaner off, ending the 'unholy roaring’. “Kurt, are you okay?”
“Is *HE* okay?” Kitty yawped.
“Kitty, you can phase. He couldn’t hurt you even if he wanted to.”
“Was?” said the demon. His arm began to slacken. “She is… one of us?”
Ororo turned on Kitty. “I *warned* you about phasing through the halls, didn’t I?”
“But–” Kitty protested. “But– But–” She held a shaking finger in the demon’s direction.
The demon sighed, sagged and turned. “It’s all right. I’ll go.”
Ororo reached out without looking and trapped him by his wrist.
“*No*… you’re staying here until at *least* after the introductions. Besides, I need to look at that cut.”
“Cut?” The demon reached up and touched where he and the statue had met. Red blood against skin blue like the night. “Ach… This has not been my week.”
“What *are* you?” Kitty blurted.
“…three hundred and seventy-four…” he muttered. Louder, he said, "Would you believe - mostly harmless?“
[1] Part of the exorcism ritual
~
Kitty had gone white and Kurt was instants from balking and running on her. Ororo let her grip on his wrist slide into his hand. His unusual fingers gripped firmly as if to say, _Thanks._
"Kitty Pryde, this is Kurt Wagner. He was instrumental in helping us.”
Kurt was relaxing in her grasp. “Hallo,” he said. “I’m sorry for startling you.”
Kitty’s eyes, gone wide, were following the tail.
“Kitty…” Ororo warned.
Kurt squeezed her hand and let go, threading his rosary into his vest. Pocket-watch style. “It’s all right, Frau. I get this a lot.” A mischievous smirk, and the spade rose in front of Kitty’s startled face. "Hallo,“ he squeaked, manipulating the spade like some kind of puppet. "I am Kurt’s tail. Would you like to say 'hello’ to Kurt? He’s back here…” The spade made a pointing motion back at its owner.
Kitty made a tiny 'eeep’ noise and fell through the floor.
Ororo groaned and massaged the bridge of her nose. “I’m halfway tempted to introduce you in assembly… Get it over with all at once.”
“It takes weeks to 'get it over with’,” counselled the demonic teleporter. His tail helped gather the vacuum cleaner. “At least I took care of the glass.”
“And now I get to take care of you. Again. I’m *sure* you know the way to the infirmary[1]…”
*
There was minor pandemonium amongst the returning students. Kitty's story was getting increasingly fantastic and both Bobby and Rogue were arguing over salient points at maximum possible volume.
This was highly unnecessary.
“That is *ENOUGH*!” Scott separated the combattants. “Mr Wagner can't help his appearance and we - *especially* - should not judge him based solely on that.” Even though he had a hell of a problem with it, at the moment. He was sure the guy was a decent fellow, *but*…
So much was going on that he didn’t want to deal with and the blue man was just another reminder of who was missing.
“But–” said Kitty.
“No 'but’s,” said Scott. “He was essential in retrieving the Professor and he needs somewhere safe to stay.”
“He’s nice,” said Rogue. “When ya can get 'im talkin’, he spins quite a tale.”
“He already *has* a tail,” Kitty argued. “You know? Sticking out of his butt?”
“It’s part of his spine,” said Bobby, rolling his eyes. “Everyone makes that mistake. Geez…”
“He has a *tail*?” said Avery.
“I thought I like, *mentioned* that,” Kitty huffed.
“I wonder if he’s blue all over,” said Jubes.
“*Euw*!”
Scott sighed and tried to find some small corner of peace. He couldn't deal with this. Not now.
*
The snow had melted and heat settled into the bitumen by the time lunch rolled around. Some of the crowd around the fence had thinned. Apart from a bristle of cameras filming the fence in progress or the muties, of course. The camera crews never really left.
Sara was getting worse.
Nervous tics invaded her usually graceful movements, as a slight stammer invaded her speech. Her fingers played in the air, seemingly independent of each other.
“Why hasn’t anyone come to take any statements? When’s our trial? It's not as if we’re a flight risk. I haven’t seen any lawyers,” Sara babbled. “We should have lawyers. Even some just-past-the-bar lawyerette. Something. We have rights. Don’t we?”
Mort kept her walking. It was all he could do. Short of finding Sara a new hobby in this place completely barren of hobby-eque materials.
“What do you want of me, Mort?” she asked.
“Wha'ever you’ll le’ me… 'ave, luv,” he said. “F'r as long as… you want t’ give… it.”
Her head began tic'ing to the side. “Theoretically… mmm-mathematically… logically… im-mmm-possible. Divide by zero error. I think my universe is crashing.”
Quick. He had to distract her from the potential public fit. “Did you run that… pro-mutie site before ya… found out?”
“Hmn? Yes. Of course I did. Intolerance is something of a bug-bear of mine. Especially after I looked up a few *anti*-mmm-mutant sites. KKK meets neo-nazis meets all the worst mythos from our hideously racist past. Up to and including ritual cannibalism. Mutant or not, there had to be a positive voice.” A twitch of a smirk. “Crying because it's alone[2].”
Another one of her obscure jokes. He laughed anyway. “You get trouble with hackers?”
“Oh, not after I wrote the whole thing in assembler,” she said. "Anyone willing to go to that much trouble deserves the vainglory.“ She stopped.
Part of her clothing had caught on the wire. It was some effort to get it loose.
Sara sighed. "That’s me. Always snagging some loose thread on something. If I had a… sewing… kit…”
Her eyes had gone distant, but not inside. They were focussed far into the distance.
“Sara?”
“I recall, mister Toynbee, that you mentioned you can create a self-hardening ooze.”
“Yeh?”
“So it’s theoretically possible to turn a scrap of thread into a needle… and if I have a needle…” she grinned like a maniac. “We can make *alterations*.”
So it was a manic idea borne of pure desperation. Mort didn’t care. Sara desperately needed something to *do*.
This would help her.
He hoped.
[1] A little dig at all those Kurt-gets-hurt Movie!Fics out there
[2] Terry Pratchett’s description of the vitamin content in a particular fast-food joint.
~
“…so, in order to free the incarcerated, they need legal representation - which few, if any, are willing to provide. In essence, they’re stuck in legal limbo.” Hank paced, fooling with a rubber band as he did so.
Xavier could feel the frustration steaming off him. “Perhaps the right to one phone call?”
“Sources have been phenominally close-mouthed about that,” said Hank. He gestured at the enclosure on the news. “They’re sealing them off from the outside world.”
“Good *lord*,” whispered Xavier. He spotted a familliar face on the television. “The Toad.”
“Yes. We spotted him earlier. Sorry to leave you out of the loop, Charles… it’s all been–” he broke off, sighing.
“I know.” Xavier knew implicitly what everyone felt. The general mood hung like a pall over the entire mansion. “The problem is… he doesn't seem to be doing anything.”
“This is a problem?” said Hank. “We know where he is, we know he’s… isolated. Without anyone to give him orders, he’s essentially neutralised.”
Xavier considered the situation, and what they knew about the Toad. "I’ll have to investigate. Later. When things here have been stabilised.“ A distant shrieking indicated that, once again, someone had come across Kurt, unawares. "Assuming that could *happen* in the near future…”
*
Sara had thrown herself into things. Currently, she wore a sheet in a sort of toga arrangement while she laboriously picked her former unitard into pieces. “I’ll need something to cut with, eventually,” she said. “A few second-hand sporks will suffice for impromptu thread spools.”
“Callisto ought t’ ask… around,” said Mort.
“Hey. Why am I volunteered?”
“Everyone knows ya. I disturb people.”
“You’re rounding up sporks,” she said. “And washing them.”
Mort tossed her a salute. “Righ’ oh.”
Sara was almost beatific with something to occupy her hands and mind. He knew she was safe, here and now. Knowing she was safe from further attacks gave him the strength to leave her orbit and go looking for things.
Odd that he didn’t feel so servile with her. He did things because he wanted to help. Not because he felt indebted. Sure, he knew he owed her, but… something about her made it known that such a debt was forgiven.
The sporks he gathered made an ungainly bundle. It was only when he caught himself rearranging them to be 'prettier’ that he realised he was making a bouquet.
She deserved flowers. Not cutlery.
Pity nothing would grow here.
A generous handful should have been enough. He trudged back to the shelter and Sara’s work.
He put the pile of sporks beside her just as she finished pulling a thread out of her work. “One for you,” she said.
Mort was left no other alternative but to wind thread for her. He sat and happily did so. Just for the divine look of peace on her face.
~