Disclaimer:
Marvel owns the X-men.

Author's note: This time around I'll not make you any promises about updates. Every time I made one I ended up breaking it. I swear it seems a curse.

Now, about the story. I have edited it, rewritten parts of it, added to it and even changed the timeline a little bit (the scene from chapter 1 for example before happened later in the story).

I hope you like it better, let me know if you do.



Layers and Reflections.


Chapter 1: A Lucky Night.


Xavier's Institute.

It just wasn't a good night for Emma.

For instance she was still awake at almost four in the morning when she had a class at nine. So, after a couple of hours of fruitless attempts to gain sleep, she had finally decided to make a trip to the kitchen, the nearest place with an alcohol supply.

Emma was surprised, pleasantly so, to find out that for once the Mansion was soundless, and that even to a light mind scan nobody seemed to be awake, thus giving her a clear way to the alcohol supply. "Good…" There would be no one around to pry on the reasons of her late nigh drink, or better yet, drinks. The blonde's shoulders relaxed slightly in an unconscious response to the lessening of the tension she was feeling. No one to deal with, and in the mood Emma was in, she didn't know if it was better for her or the others. She had enough to worry about without putting the X-men in the mix. It was then she made the mistake to think that the luck had turned in her favor.

Mistake that became glaringly obvious when Emma reached the kitchen and saw someone else in the room. The room that should have been empty. The blonde halted on the door, unable to prevent an instinctive grimace.

Sage was seated at the table, and that, other than being a very unpleasant surprise, was all the proof Emma needed to know the luck had completely shunned her tonight. To be truthful those last months seemed to be luck's cruel revenge for every time Emma had beaten the odds in her life. "It sure would explain many things…" The blonde thought cynically even while schooling her mind to not think about them.

Silently cursing herself for not being paranoid enough to make a deep mind scan before making her way in a room, and blaming Charles influence for not feeling the need to do it anymore, Emma forced herself to enter. It was bad enough that Tessa had seen her hesitate at the door, she wouldn't give the other woman the satisfaction to see her run away.

"I thought you never ate." Emma said snidely seeing Sage biting a sandwich with something resembling gusto. Seeing Tessa awoke many unpleasant memories: of betrayals, deaths, long standing hurts and deep, soul wrenching, aches. In Emma's current state of mind, it could lead only to aggressiveness and hostility. "After all computers' don't." The blond added sneering.

Emma was angry at herself for not having picked up the other presence even if it wasn't strange to fail to notice Sage on a light scan. After all Tessa was one of the few in the mansion able to appear to light mind scans as a background noise, if you weren't searching for her specifically. And Emma hadn't, for two different motives. First, rarely Sage was seen in the mansion, she preferred to stay away from the principal building and most often than not, people. Second, in the last few weeks Storm's team had spent more time in mission than around the mansion.

From what Emma had heard they had found out that behind the recent string of robberies across the west coast, there was a single criminal organization. One that, if needed for particular jobs, hired mutant mercenary without a second thought. That had been the reason why the X.S.E. had been involved in the case. So Sage and the others had spent the last few weeks trying to shut it down.

"Obviously you were wrong." Sage informed her, her tone even, after having swallowed. The brunette could easily read the anger and frustration coming from the White Queen, almost begging to have a single reason, or not even that, to be let out. Emma's mind wasn't in a good place tonight. After years spent dealing with her, Sage knew the only way to avoid a full scale outburst was not rising up to her insults. And tonight Tessa really didn't want to deal with a White Queen's temper tantrum.

Annoyed at the lack of reaction, Emma changed topic. "So why here? I thought that you and your little friends had your own house… am I wrong again?" The White Queen said while searching the cupboards for a bottle of whiskey. "Damn, I have to domesticate the X-men. I don't understand how they have survived until now without a wine cellar and a stash of good liquors… probably the only one that has any is Logan... and I really don't want to think about what he could consider good stuff."

"So it seems." Sage replied laconically, taking another bit from her sandwich observing the White Queen move around the kitchen. The other woman was tense, almost edgy in her gestures, when usually Emma was elegant and poised. Apparently she wasn't the only one to be bothered by something tonight.

Emma ignored Tessa and her silent study, continuing to rustle around the kitchen's cupboards. "Ah, ah, I found it... I knew that they only pretended to be saints." Emma pulled the bottle out of the cabinet studying it for a moment before nodding to herself. "Vodka, good enough for tonight..." She put it on the table, then searched for a glass before seating in the chair in front of Sage.

"Well, now that we have found each other in this splendid night, what we will ever do?" Emma began, knowing it would bother Sage. If the brunette was here, in a place nobody would search for her, at this time of the night, when nobody was around, and purposefully not rising to her slurs, there could be only one reason. She didn't want to be bothered. And if Emma couldn't have what she wanted, to be left alone with her problems, than neither Tessa would have it.

So, finally with a clear aim for the night, Emma proceeded to annoy the hell out of Sage. "What do you say, we tell each other our innermost secrets?" The blonde proposed sarcastically, pouring a glass of vodka. "I hear it's a common trait between the X-men. They seem to enjoy annoying the hell out of each others with their problems. Or maybe, considering the alarmingly frequency with which they do it, is more a compulsion…"

Sage simply took another bite from her sandwich, hiding a smirk. The White Queen wasn't the only one to find that particular habit of their team mates unreasonable and slightly absurd. Sure, both of them could be defined secretive paranoids by the standards of the majority of the population, and the X-men were all friends, more or less, but they still couldn't really understand the necessity of pouring one's heart out to someone, often more than one. Your problems were your own. And you never quite knew when that someone would betray you. So, letting someone know all yours secrets wasn't only dangerous, it was downright stupid.

But maybe this too was just another left over of their past. After all one of them was, or had been, a spy on a deep cover for years, and the other a self made entrepreneur who had lead at least two whole different lives throughout most of her lifetime.

What neither of them quite realized on a conscious level, was that the presence of the other was reassuringly in its familiarity, more so when both their minds were in turmoil. So without effort they fell right back in the old way they had developed to deal with each other bad moods, silently studying each other in a old game they began playing years ago.

Sage could still see the White Queen's too tense shoulders, a sure indication of worry, the ever so slight downturn of her mouth with lips that were pressed together just a bit too forcefully that necessary, that screamed rage and anger at whoever happened to really know the blonde. Emma had recognized Sage's too-perfect-to-be-real mask of disinterest, the one she wore when she didn't want to have an expression rather than the one she had when she really didn't care, that strange stillness Tessa had when she was uncertain about something, the same Emma suspected to be a sign of fear.

The game had begun when all was about power and they had been among the best of players. It was just another way to show the other how much powerful one was, be it trough an astute observations based only on the other body language to hurt or embarrass them or trough a personal attack based on costly, often, and painfully, sometimes, information obtained to undermine their position or their currents plans. After all it wasn't by chance than one got in the Hellfire inner circle.

Still, the one between them was a comfortable silence. This scene was a familiar one and both of them could have said that they had missed it. And, considering the nature of their game it probably meant they had a sadomasochist side a mile wide.

"I thought you avoided the mansion." Emma said opening the game, the rules of which sounded more or less like "anything goes but mutant powers and fist fights" and "any topic is up to grab". The winner was the first who made back down the other. "Our little sadistic game… I wonder who will leave this table more hurt in the end…"

"Should I?"

Sage asked apparently uninterested. Emma was right, she really tried to avoid the mansion or at least she did try to avoid the X-men. She didn't care about their general attitude and she simply didn't have a strong enough reason to try to change it. So often she waited for the night to wander about the mansion. She liked it better, less people around and many less problems. If they didn't want her around she hadn't any intention to search them out or impose herself on them. She liked to be unobserved. And she knew that this attitude puzzled and enraged Emma. The White Queen was her exact opposite. She did try to impose her presence, she responded to distrust with arrogance, and often Sage had seen her hunting down those who didn't want her around.

"They are still nervous around you." Emma observed with a slightly amused tone. Sometimes the X-men's utter stupidity was entertaining. They all went around with tons of misplaced guilt about petty things, and with their "Holier than thou" attitude were always ready to place the blame in all the wrong places. "They don't trust you." Emma had seen in Sage's eyes the need to finally be able to trust someone completely and to be trusted by them was the first step. Still they didn't seem to be able to see past the label "spy". "Their loss…"

"They still despise you." Sage replied not correcting the previous statement. It was the truth after all. "You are not good enough for them." She added knowing it was a sore point for Emma. It had always been.

"True, they seem to not have any taste whatsoever." Emma sighed theatrically. "One all…." The thing disturbed her much more that she let on. So she had resorted to her old tricks. Someone hurts you, you hurt them more. Sometimes it was even funny to make their lives hard. "And they seem to be particularly dense." The tone sounded like a blend between resentment, exasperation and amusement. "They behave as if it's your fault that Charles sent you to spy in the Hellfire club."

"Not all of them." She didn't. She trusted Sage and Sage was beginning to learn to trust back more and more.

"No, not all." Emma conceded. "Point to Sage…" The first name that came to Emma's mind was that of Storm. The woman continued to demonstrate herself to be brighter than most of the X-men.

To be honest the White Queen had been surprised when she had learned that Ororo had left the institute. More surprising had been the cause of that action. Storm didn't believe anymore that Charles' way was the only way. "That day I was almost ready to congratulate sincerely her. The key word there is "almost"." She thought with a mental smirk. "Storm seems to be one of the few X-men able to believe that Charles isn't a saint." While reflecting about the African's choices, Emma began to put together something that she had unconsciously noticed from some time. "Ororo is attracted to you." She said almost to herself, realizing it just now.

"I know." Sage replied simply, not bothering to deny it. It was the truth, they both knew it, and she didn't want to hide it. At the contrary, she cherished it. And in a way it was the reason she was here tonight.

"That somehow doesn't surprise me." Emma had a grin on her face. There wasn't much that escaped Sage's attention. "And my guess is that nobody else has yet noticed anything." Then she added after a snort. "The X-men are simply too dense to notice something like it."

Sage almost smiled at Emma's need to always bad mouth the X-men. Sooner or later she would point out to the White Queen that she too was one of them now. Not that she didn't agree wholeheartedly with the blonde's observation this time. But for a few of them, the X-men didn't shine for their understanding of subtle interactions. And Emma was right, nobody had noticed what was happening between them. And to be honest Sage liked the lack of insight. The cyberpath hated the idea that everybody around her would know what was going on. Especially when she still didn't know what would come from it.

"I wouldn't never pegged you as Storm's type." Emma commented after taking a sip of her vodka. "But I have to admit that she has good taste. And she is patient enough to catch someone like Tessa. If Sage ever decides to get caught..." The White Queen fell silent for long minutes studying carefully the cyberpath, who was eating ever so calmly her sandwich, as if it was normal for the two of them to talk about attraction and love. "…maybe the X-men are really infecting us with their compulsions… soon we'll start to make small talk…" It wasn't something she cared to think about so she disregarded it.

Still, something was nagging her about the topic. "Love…" There was something else there, she was sure. As if Ororo's attraction to Sage didn't explain all she had seen. Emma recalled all the interactions she had witnessed between the two. There were been hardly any. As always Sage tended to avoid all people, and Storm avoided her specifically. It made observing someone… difficult…

She recalled these instances and examined carefully what she remembered about the brunette's eyes, her body language, her words, her tone. In months there had been just a clue or two. Little things that probably would have escaped anyone else. Then, with a wolfish grin, Emma added. "Hell, I didn't pegged her as your type." Before now she hadn't even know that there was a type Sage could be attracted to. "Always the surprising one, eh?" She updated the score to two all.

Emma had always regarded the cyberpath as a strictly one night stand woman or at most one for short relationships without any real emotional attachment. "Like myself. And yet…" "And yet you two aren't together…" Knowing that she had hit a sensitive topic Emma started taunting Sage. "What could be the problem? Maybe your projections give this relationships as doomed."

"There are too many variables to be certain one way or another."

Came the smooth reply. Too smooth, thus confirming to the White Queen that to Sage the eventual success of the relationship mattered enough to think at length about it. Emma smirked at the discovery, knowing she had found a flaw in the other's defenses. "Three to two…"

"Or maybe you are afraid of the closeness…" Emma provoked further. "After all you spent how many years hiding your true self?" It was a all but subtle reference to Sage's years spent as a deep cover spy. The brunette's complete stillness was all the confirmation the White Queen needed to know she had scored again. "Four to two…" "…having to keep everybody at arm's length…" The blonde was right, maybe more than she knew, certainly more Tessa would ever admit to her. Her job, her mission, had kept her from allowing herself the comfort of letting anybody get close enough to know her.

After all the White Queen thought that the hellfire years had been the only ones during which she had been forced to be another person. To do things she didn't want to, associating whit people she would rather shoot than talk to, or to ignore her own feelings and hopes for the success of her mission. That hadn't been the first, or only, time Tessa had been forced to act that way, not by a long shot. All that years spent being someone else had changed her more that she really liked to evaluate and in ways she wasn't at all happy with.

Trying to press her advantage Emma followed that line of thought. "Maybe the simple idea to let anyone near is enough to terrorize you…"

Sage answered calmly but with the ghost of a smile, letting the blonde know she had made a mistake, the words just confirmed it. "That's your hang up, Emma. Not mine." The White Queen almost flinched at the accurate retort. "Four to three." Sage updated the score. "After years you still don't understand me." Oh, Emma was one of the few persons in the world who could actually predict with a certain amount of certain her actions or reaction, but the blonde had never quite figured out what made her thick, so to speak. "You still think the motives behind my actions are the same as yours… you always have…" They both knew that was the reason why the White Queen had never suspected Sage to be a spy in the Hellfire club. Sage actions always were perfectly appropriated for the situation they were in, the only thing Emma had never realized until it was too late, was that they were the decisions a power hungry person would have made, but Sage had never been after power, only information. "Four all…"

That was also why was not surprising that Emma was the first to pick up what was happening between Storm and the cyberpath. The White Queen had always be quite the observer, especially regarding the human emotions. "But I know you." Emma grinned, knowing that the fact pissed off the cyberpath. It was the truth and they both knew it.

"And you respect me." Sage replied with a wolfish grin of her own, for the same reason. Emma acknowledged the tie with a slight nod and an half smile before changing the topic. Their sick, sadistic game had ended, at least for this night.

She had missed Sage. Talking to her was always a challenge, and the White Queen loved a good debate and a quick wit. Sage's was one of the sharpest around. "And, after all the ever polite X-men her directness is refreshing." Emma mused, smirking just a bit. "They can't even hate me without being polite."

"So, Ororo... someone quite dangerous and untamed. An odd choice." Emma said pouring another glass of vodka but not drinking it. Alcohol was a good way to relax, but a bad one to concentrate. To spar, or even to talk, with Sage she would need all her faculties. "If someone would have told me years, or even months ago, I'd laughed at the fool."

"If someone would have told me of you and Scott I'd laughed too." Came the swift reply. "Or at least smiled."

"Probably smiled." Emma conceded with a wry grin. In all the years she had known Sage, she had never seen her laugh.

"Strange choice yours too." The brunette commented after a bit. The pause had been long enough to let Emma know Tessa had weighed up whether to speak up or not. It made alarm bells sound in her mind. "He is so plain and predictable, the opposite of your type. But you are in love with him." Sage summarized.

"You too are in love." The White Queen shot back, suddenly feeling vulnerable and not liking it a bit. Sage had been right when she had said she was deeply afraid of being close to someone.

"Probably." The cyberpath conceded with a slight nod. Then added with an even tone. "With the situation as it is now, it will end badly between you two, Emma."

"Fuck you Tessa." The White Queen snarled raising from the chair and planting her hands on the table, pointlessly trying to intimidate Sage in retracting her words. It didn't work. It had never worked.

"It's only a opinion." Sage replied blandly, trying to not provoke further the White Queen. But her eyes hadn't left the blue ones, letting Emma know it was really what she thought, that she wasn't saying it only to bait the other woman. Efficiently reassuring the blonde that their game had really ended. It didn't make the blonde feel better.

"And how do you know that between you and the wind rider there will be an happy ending?" Emma asked sarcastically, trying to hurt Tessa back. It was wrong hurt someone back only because they had told the truth and it had hurt you. The White Queen knew it, even if almost everyone who had met her was certain she had just never quite understood that simple rule. Oh, she understood it, still that knowledge had never stopped the blonde from retorting back in the past, nor had it now.

"If there will be an us it will end well, or at least not badly, because she loves me." The brunette was certain that Ororo loved her to some degree, her actions told her that much, she just wasn't certain to which. "Probably she is in love with me." A pause. Sage added the rest with a soft tone, trying to not hurt Emma more than needed. "Can you say the same for Scott?"

There was several seconds of silence. "In lust? Sure. Maybe he even cares for me. In love? No… no matter what I try, no matter what I like to tell to myself the answer is no…" The blond sighed tiredly, knowing all too well the truth she spent so much time avoiding."Sometimes I hate you."Emma said in the end, seating again in her chair.

"And sometimes I respect you." Sage said shrugging her shoulders and finishing the last bite of her sandwich. "Be careful Emma. If I'm right, it will hurt." A warning. Not kind but honest. They weren't friends, there was too much history between them to be. Too many betrayals due to conflicting agendas. Too many lies told for their own sake and sanity. And even if they hadn't meet each other in the Hellfire club, where no one could afford to trust another, their lives had taught them long ago to simply not trust another.

Their relationship was a complex one. There were far much more gray areas that black and white. They didn't like each other but sometime they found themselves to look out for the other. Other times all they cared about was best the other, by any means. "And sometimes I go out of my way to hurt her. I wouldn't surprised to know that even she does it from time to time." The White Queen thought. "The day I will have a normal, healthy relationship with anyone will be the day Hell freeze over." So, she nodded her head at the warning. "It's too late to be careful." Emma said with a dry laugh, drinking the vodka and pouring another glass. "Way too late…" It remained maybe a third of the bottle, maybe less. After the talk they had had Emma knew the bottle would be empty before the end of the night. "Good luck with the wind rider, Sage." She wished honestly.

"I don't believe in luck." The cyberpath replied from over her shoulder leaving the kitchen.

"Neither do I." Emma said staring at the bottom of her glass for some time before refilling it.