Tea Time in Genosha
(1/1)
Relativity at quarter of three.
An old idea sparked by JoyDrop. Fueled by Tim Tams, courtesy of the wonderful Bounce. Beta'd and edited by Timey and Andraste. Written by Cherry Ice. May be archived by anyone who has prior permission, anyone who asks, and at my site. (http://cherryice.topcities.com) I do not own the X-Men, a school, a Sentinel, or an island. Feedback is welcome and adored.
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Time is a funny thing.
Take relativity. An hour with a pretty girl or a fetching boy felt like a minute, while placing a hand on a burner...
No one saw it coming. The end. The end of the burner, of course. You can see the end of time with someone you're attracted to, because it flies by so fast.
Take nightmares. Nora Roberts had recurring dreams that everyone was going to die. A minute in them felt like an hour, and they left her feeling as if she'd been wide awake for much longer than she'd actually been sleeping.
But they passed by quickly in comparison to what was going on right now.
They were drinking tea.
she asked.
Emma shook her head. I prefer it straight, she said. She raised the cup and saucer to her lips, looking at her student over top of the crackled glaze on the china cup.
Some do, Nora replied. Some of them wish that they didn't. And some of them are just too stubborn to back down.
The tea was strong and bitter, so Emma drained it. Set down her saucer and cup daintily, without a noise, on the scarred wooden table.
Nora dropped a couple of lumps of sugar into her cup, stirring it with her spoon. It scraped loudly against the sides. The liquid swirled and sloshed. Emma watched the small droplets of liquid sail into the air, landing on the saucer, the table, Nora's white, white skin. There may have been some on her sleeves, but it was impossible to tell, as she was clothed from head to heel in her customary black.
She looked at the clock. Quarter of three. She took a cookie from the platter, nibbled the edges. Crossed one elegant white leg over the other.
Nora gave her tea one last stir, shook liquid from her spoon. she said, observing Emma over the edge of her tea cup.
She was copying her. The tea cup stare. Emma fought the impulse to bare teeth.
I like it with sugar, myself, she said. But if you like it straight...
Emma remarked, are the most peculiar student.
She inclined her head. Sipped her tea and nodded.
We can play this game, Nora. If you want to. Do you think you're ready to play with the big girls?
Raised eyebrow. I'd like to, Miss Frost. But you're my teacher. I don't want to fail telepathy class.
Fine. That's suspended for now. Nothing said at this table impacts anything else.
If it doesn't impact anything else, then we're not doing a very good job, are we?
Nothing said at this table affects out personal dealings in class. I am capable of separating.
Then I want to play with the big girls. Nora stopped, drank the last of her tea. She held her cup on her knee, looked down into it as if searching for some sort of guidance. Making love, she said blankly. Let's start where you actually are one of the big girls.
Another raised eyebrow. Going the other way this time. Where I am actually one of the big girls?
You could read my mind.
I choose not to. It's more fun this way. She paused. Explain it to me.
Nora twisted the trailing edges of her shirt, the black stark against her white fingers. You have more experience than I ever will. With sex, I mean. Maybe not all of it's good.
It's just... Maybe, because of that, you'll never really play with the big girls.
Silence.
You have issues. You have pain. And I don't expect to understand that. I never will be able to. No one will. It's your past, isn't it? The institution. You use sex as a tool, because then it's something that you control. You can control it. But because of that control, you've never really had to deal. Accept and move on, I mean. She stopped talking then, still working the edge of her shirt with her fingers. She stilled them, held them quiet against her lap and looked up at Emma.
Emma smiled. Slowly. Not pleasantly. Continue. Please. I find it fascinating how you seem to know me so well.
Look, I've said too much.
No, really. Please. Continue.
I've said too much.
You wanted to do this, Nora. Finish what you start.
Nora poured herself more tea, taking it straight this time. She drank it slowly, steadily, raising it to her lips again and again with the rise and fall of her chest. Looked up at the clock. Quarter of three. All those lights, she murmured, shaking her head. Going out. Just like you. Going out. No one sees. Miss Frost, I'm younger than you. I'll always be younger than you are now. But I've lived more, because it's been *me* living. I've let people in.
You, you put on the sex kitten act, or the queen bitch act. Which ever lets you control the people around you more, because if you control them, they can't hurt you.
No one likes to be hurt, Nora, Emma said, standing.
Nora poured herself more tea. No. But if you don't have pain to compare it to, then pleasure is nothing. You're numb.
I'm surviving. Looked at the clock. Quarter of three. I'm surviving, she said as she leaned her head against the window. The glass should have been cold to the touch, cold against her skin, but it was warm.
She heard the sound of Nora's feet on the tiles, as she crossed the bare room to stand beside her.
I've lived, Miss Frost. You're only starting to. She rested a hand slowly, tentatively against her teacher's shoulder, staring out the window at the people frozen on the sidewalks below, the cars that had halted their rush, their head-long barrelling towards the next second.
The next second was coming for them soon enough, anyway.
Emma saw none of it. It could have been sunset frozen on the horizon, dust hanging in the air, bright against the orange of the setting sun. It could have been, except for that it was quarter of three, tea time in Genosha, and there was a Sentinel frozen in the sky.
Don't let this stop you, Nora murmured her voice coming from farther and farther away. You're only starting to live.
-All those lights-
Relativity. Snapping back to her body in time to catch the glass flying in through the windows, watch it take the face off of one of her students. See the desks fly against the wall. Ceiling and fire and smoke, blood in the air.
A burst of light and heat, and the ground's deserted her. She thinks she's been thrown through the air, then realizes that the floor is gone. Tiles part beneath her feet, desk slipps away from beneath her. All solidity is gone, and she's nothing more than a scream. One more mind joining the chorus.
All she is is another scream. Something ebbing and flowing in the minds reaching out, in the minds abandoned and terrified, silenced one by one by the fire and the smoke. She lives and dies a thousand, a million times, because she is each of them, she is in each mind, and when she feels the last one slipping away, she knows that this is it. There's only one time left.
And then it will end.
It will all end.
-Going out-
-No one saw-
Eyes. Open in the dark. There's no breath, no hot, no cold, just eyes in the dark and pressure around where she thinks she used to have a body.
She thinks that she's dead. Pressure of rubble around her. Weight of dark, dust on her... Skin. There's a hand, not hers, in front of her face.
A grinding thud, sudden noise, shuddering through her body.
A heart beat?
-All those lights-
There's a thought. Hanging around her head. Not hers, but she knows its owner.
She knows the owner of the hand, too. N... N' something. It starts with an N'. She knows this. She doesn't know how she knows it, but she does. White-white hand. Small strip of black around the wrist. Red on the palm, dripping slowly onto her face.
-Going out-
N'. Noella? Nina? N'Yung? She knows this. She *knows* it.
Nora. Nora Roberts.
She knew it. She knew it because between every heart beat, she discovers it again. Nora Roberts. Nora Roberts and the rubble and the screaming in her head and the sound that a school makes when it crushes a soft body beneath it.
She doesn't know how she's alive. She probably isn't. This is hell. Punishment for failing again. Nora's dream, always her dream, and she didn't listen. Now they're all dead.
All dead. Dead, done, deceased, departed, hit the dirt, bought the farm.
Maybe she should buy a farm. Raise chickens and mongeese. Oh, but the purple-ridged cockatheens will get them. That's no good.
A sudden stillness. Vibration again. A pulse, a thread, blood or something like it rushing through her veins.
Heartbeat.
A drop of blood rolls down a delicate white wrist. Black in the dark. Could be tar. Makes its way slowly down a palm, hangs for a second. Splashes onto a face. Her face.
Whose wrist?
-No one saw-
Living and dying in each heartbeat, she thinks suddenly, desperately. She doesn't understand it. Relativity.
Whose wrist? Whose hand? Maybe if she only knew...
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(No one saw it coming...
They were drinking tea...
Making love...
All those lights...
Going out...
No one saw.)
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