Storm and Night

"Divide and rule, a sound motto; unite and lead, a better one"

– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

"You wouldn't think thunder would bother me…"

Ororo wrapped her arms around her knees and scrubbed her face against the soft cotton of her pajamas, inhaling deeply of the new laundered scent. The clean smell of detergent had a calming effect; it brought back memories of the safe haven of a warm laundromat on a cold, windy night.

"But az you said," Kurt's voice, as thick with it's German accent as the darkness that concealed him, brought her back to the confines of the small attic space. "Az you said, it iz only that you cannot control this noise. This . . . how to say . . . unnerves you?"

At that moment a flash of brilliant, electric light chased away every shard of darkness only to allow it to come rushing back blacker than ever. There was a simultaneous CRACK so deafening it stole all feeling from Ororo's limbs, leaving them tingling tense a moment later.

"I think it's because it's so unexpected," she said through clenched teeth after the chorus of thunder had rolled away. "I always know when my thunder is coming…and how loud it will be."

The dull, rhythmic flashes of lightening were bright enough that once she opened her eyes, Ororo was just able to pick out Kurt's form from the other shadowy objects in the tight space. His long figure was laid comfortably between two beams tucked into the tight angle of the slanting roof. The garret was too small for any practical use except as extra storage for boxes of textbooks shoved through the spring latched door. There was not even enough room for a person to properly stand up straight among the clutter and spider webs. One tiny, gabled window was the only source of light, but that was fine for the Nightcrawler as Kurt could see better in the dark than most people on the clearest of days.

It was the highest point actually within the house and his acrobatic nature called for such. Kurt had sought it out as a refuge for his private and meditative ways and when other members of the house would have benevolently protested, Logan uncannily came to his defense saying: "Unless you want the elf sleeping on the grounds in a tree, let him be."

A sudden pounding of rain on the low ceiling caused Ororo to move suddenly from where she was sitting. Her weight shifted off the trap door and it closed with a sing of its springs and a gentle click. Another alarming barrage of thunder brought the room in tight around Ororo again and filled it with sharp angles that grabbed for her – driving her to her feet in the small space. The profound darkness that followed a brilliant flash of lightening gave her a momentary blindness that confounded all her senses and, though Kurt was only a few steps away, left her groping in a wide abyss. She felt an uncontrollable urge to escape while the darkness seemed just as hungry to throw her on a jarring and painful journey to the floor. She grabbed out wildly for anything stable in the chaotic dark and found Kurt. With his double-quick reflexes, he had sprung from his supine position and caught her flailing hands, saving her from what would have been a very bruising fall in the confined space.

"My knight in shining . . . spangled trench coat," she intoned, intending to sound cool and teasing and wishing a moment later to be able to bite the words back in the sudden silence. The angst boiling in her associated with the tempest both within and without made her sound much more deriding than she meant.

"It iz an affectation, yes," Kurt agreed mildly, releasing her hands when she was sure of her balance. "But zen, so iz such lovely hair with such dark skin."

Ororo sat down abruptly on a nearby beam, raising her hand in a defensive gesture to the long tail of silver hair draped over her shoulder. She'd always let everyone assume that it was natural, that an inherited gene had so completely bleached it of color - as apposed to the accidentally permanent fashion experiment by a mutant friend. She was ready to inform him that she didn't need advice on style from someone who was blue and lived in a crawlspace, but was just able to quail the urge. As mean as any southern mamma when provoked, Ororo prided herself on her control and decided not to rain any more of her verbal rhetoric on his gentle nature.

"I don't know how anyone sleeps through this stuff," she said, changing the subject as he folded himself lithely in the space near her. "A gentle rain is fine, but this kind sounds like it's trying to claw its way in"

"And you? With everysing that you do," Kurt's lamp-like eyes glowed dimly as he regarded her, "You cannot make zis . . . ah . . . beleuchtung . . . zis bang and boom go avay?"

The very thought made Ororo shift uncomfortably. "I can't control a natural storm – not really. The energy is too wild. I've tried several times before and found that if you screw around with Mother Nature too much, she grows sharp teeth and bites you back."

As if desiring to give assertion to her statement, another thunderous appeal made itself known and the rain beat down even harder.

"Vell, I am not much one for speaking," Kurt said over the tumult while fumbling for something in the shuddering light of the storm. He produced a very small flashlight and clicked it on for her benefit, illuminating his singular features. He hung it from a nail as an improvised lamp. "But zere is plenty to read!"

The small area was cluttered with boxes of de-commissioned textbooks. She opened a nearby carton that was filled with the usual suspects: biology, English lit, calculus. Amongst the standard texts, there were some out-of-the-ordinary yet mostly unremarkable titles. Truth be told, Xavior liked the pretense of normality as a whole and, therefore, didn't lie so much as make the truth easy to misinterpret. That way, lunch wouldn't be ruined if Mutiny in History fell out of your bag in a busy café.

It was apparent that during this period of upheaval within the mansion and the team, Kurt had been diligently trying to smooth over his culture shock by reading social studies and U.S. history textbooks. Ororo felt empathy for him; it had taken her years to blend into American society and she still often felt like an outsider. She could hardly imagine how difficult it would be for him as a bi-fingered individual with a pre-ensile tail.

But then, he had a strong foundation to stand on; his faith.

A much battered German bible lay nearby - his constant companion.

"May I see your book," Ororo asked impulsively.

His smile of surprise was very becoming as he handed the bible across to her. Kurt had used his rosary beads as a marker and the book fell open easily to pages filled with indecipherable German. Even the margins were cramped with scrawled notes and those same archaic symbols he had tattooed all over his body. The numbers of the books were readable enough if not the script itself and she turned to a well known page as the storm began to snarl anew all around them.

"…ich senden einen Engel vor Ihnen…" She read a familiar passage, knowing the English translation. The laughter in his lamp-like amber eyes attested to her non-existent grasp of his language. All the tension flowed out of her at the touch of humor.

"I would say I learned a little from a kid I knew on the street, but apparently I've lost the inflection."

"No, no, is very good," said Kurt, trying to smother the laugh in his throat. "You are, ah, yes . . . a Goethe of zis day."

"Well," she said, handing him his book back. "At least I know a land where the lemons bloom."

Kurt's eyes sparked with excitement. "You know his vork! The Römische Elegien. . . you have studied it when in school, yes!"

"The only studying I ever did in those days was in the school of hard knocks," she said bleakly, the memory of her adolescence and the fate of many of her friends mingling all too readily with new pain. The rain pounding down suddenly sounded different; like a roaring wall of water crashing in from all sides; a terrific force that broke all in its path to matchsticks…

Kurt's gentle touch, his warm fingers on her wrist dissolved the sudden vision. "You vould like to hear something besides zis noise." More than a question, it was a sympathetic statement. "I vish I had Goethe here. It would have been a pleasant vay to ignore zis weather."

"The Professor has an extensive library," Ororo said distractedly, rocking slightly and watching the crazy shadow of branches thrashing in the lightening on the window pane. "I'm sure he wouldn't mind if you . . ."

There was a sudden BAMF of displaced air.

". . . borrowed something."

Kurt had teleported, leaving only and empty space and a few blue tendrils of sulfur smelling residual energy. His unexpected disappearances always amazed Ororo. At this moment though, she would rather he had not demonstrated that extraordinary skill. Now she had been left caged in the dark with this too near storm and a tiny circle of golden light. She was too much filled with nervous energy to even think of moving to find the trap door and could only hope desperately for his return to be as quick as his disappearance.

Ororo wrapped her arms around her head to block out the noise of the wind and stared at the pattern of the few blankets and quilts that were Kurt's makeshift bed. He had assured his new friends that he was so used to sleeping on bare boards while traveling with the circus that with one of the school's down comforters, he would be more than well provided for. Near at hand on makeshift shelves were the few possessions that had traveled with him from his previous abode in a drafty Boston Cathedral. He had a few postcards of American cities tacked to the wall, a tiny porcelain Madonna, German coins, and an intricately carved pocket knife. Most likely all of it was the refuse of his pockets, testament to the hasty retreat they had forced him to make from his temporary sanctuary.

Amongst the coins there was a button. A button with a familiar pearl green pattern that matched the blouse it was missing from. Ororo smiled for a moment at that shy little memento he had in his possession. She recalled how Jean had helped her pick that shirt on one of their shopping trips, saying the only thing that would look better on her would be bare skin.

Jean…

On a night like this, that red-haired nymph would have stolen up to Ororo's room and camped out as their shared sense of inquietude during a storm brought them closer to sisterhood than mere friendship ever could. Lightening storms especially rained hell on Jean's telekinesis while the accompanying thunder turned the ever-confident Ororo into a nervous wreck. Jean would build a sound barrier around the room while the best that Ororo could do was black-out curtains. They would watch mind-numbing late-night television for hours, talking and eating whatever junk they could scrounge up until the small hours of the morning when the energy of the weather would draw off enough for them to sleep.

It was a ritual that no one else had been allowed in on and that, most of all, had cemented Jean's loss on Ororo more than anything in the past few weeks.

She had tried to wait out the storm on her own, determined not to ask anyone else for help or comfort, alone on what seemed like her own island of misery. But soon the burden had gotten to be too much and she went roaming the mansion seeking whatever distraction she might find. She didn't go near the dormitory wing, knowing she was not in the right costume to be a steady force or a leader to those kids at the moment.

Light glowed beneath Professor Xavior's door even at this late hour and she thought briefly of visiting him, but the drone of voices behind the door staved her off. With all that had been happening, the last thing he needed was the appearance of a member of his extraordinary team quaking in her slippers.

Delving deeper into the living quarters, she came across as unlikely and startling a scene as she had witnessed on many a mission. Logan and Scott sitting across from each other at the oak dining table, the curtains of the massive window behind them open to the full affect of the storm. As she made her way quickly by, Ororo noted that Logan was introducing Scott to his personal brand of coping – a method that involved grain alcohol and small glass tumblers.

Finally, she had found herself at the trap door to the attic, seeking some form of solace from the mansion's newest nocturnal resident.

The storm continued to rumble around her, making his absence seem longer and the darkness more distinct. Not only that, but at the thought of Jean, a deep ache that had been throbbing in the middle of her chest suddenly bloomed to wrap itself around her heart. The fury of the storm pulled her, inviting her to contribute the energies of her anger and grief and fear to its wild cacophony. A deep sob was wrenched from her huddled form and hail began to pound the roof.

In the next moment, the same odd BAMF marked Kurt's return and she flung herself at him with an abandon that she would have released to the elements a moment later. She fought hard for control, knotting her hands in his shirt to ground herself, concentrating on the solidness of his presence and pressing her face against the cool, silky material. He was wearing that wildly colored wonderful silk shirt under which the warmth of his body prevailed like the bright sun on a snowy day. And like a strange shroud, his coat enclosed her and seemed to drive off a force that hungered for her vitality.

"Yes, iz alright." His voice came to her from a distance, comforting and sympathetic as his light touch. The answer to a question she hadn't asked.

The moment she felt in control of herself again, Ororo pulled back. It was as sudden a movement as the first had been and being released on several fronts gave her a momentary sense of vertigo. There again was Kurt's steady grip to keep her from falling. The hail stopped suddenly, filling the room with an odd silence embroidered by rolling thunder. She wiped the trace of tears from her cheeks and asked if he had found Goethe's book. Kurt looked quietly concerned, but answered only the question at hand and inquired if she still wished to look at it.

"Very much."

Ororo made to sit down again, but he stopped her. "There iz only one way to hear good German poetry and that iz to see the vords as they are spoken."

Handing the leather-bound volume to her, he propped several pillows against the wall and helped her down to the make-shift futon. After adjusting the tiny light, he joined her in the intimate space saying: "I vill translate as best I can but. . . "

"No, don't translate. I'm sure the meaning will transcend language." She was so close to him, she could follow the intricate swirl of the patterns tattooed along his cheekbones when he turned to fix his gaze on her.

"This man, Goethe, he vas many times deeply shaken by . . . gefühl . . . sorrow, joy, love." Kurt raised a hand to brush away a line of wetness from her cheek. "His vords have been said to help heal." Both his touch and his tone reminded her of when, in a different world, he had called her beautiful.

He began to read in articulate, flowing German and it truly seemed there was a balm in Gilead.

The hail came again and the storm regained fury as the night wore on, but began to grumble away like a disgruntled old man around dawn. The only thing that Ororo heard, though, were the words of a poet speaking the universal language of the beauty in nature, the gentleness of touch, and the splendor of dawn after the night.

It was a long and lazy walk to wakefulness for Ororo, so lulled was she by a feeling of warmth and intimacy. There was the gentle patter of receding rain very close and the mixed scent of sulfur and spicy earth beneath her cheek. Opening her eyes slowly, she found herself pillowed against Kurt's shoulder, the light drum of his heart soft in her ear. His arm cradled her back so that they might be close enough to both share the warmth of a heavy quilt against the damp cool that seeped in with the morning.

"The veather has passed . . ." Kurt's voice was drowsy soft, his breath on her forehead and the brush of his fingers on her skin as he tucked a silvery strand behind her ear natural and companionable.

Ororo snuggled closer, her eyes misting over for a moment. The gentle patter on the roof solidified and steadied. "I think," she said innocently, "it's going to rain all day." She drifted off again a moment later as the warmth of his body incubated a blooming sense of peace within her. The languid, welcome feeling was so consuming and restful that she barely roused when he teleported them both back to her room, a thing she would not have thought possible. What did bring her out of the tranquil serenity though was his move to leave.

"Wohler Sturm des Schlafes," he whispered softly.

"Kurt . . ."

"Yes frauline."

"Don't go."

She slipped into his arms and the kiss he bent toward her like a flower that grows between the cracks in the pavement, starving for the sun. In the next few moments she would have cast aside all responsible and strong traits that made her the woman she was – most trusted by the professor, most admired by the students, calm, tactful, intelligent. The warmth of his body, of his nature made her long to let go of all those reserves and just be in the moment. But it was all these same things that made her calm the fury of the storm and bring him back to earth with her.

"Kurt . . . wait . . . "

He drew back slowly, respectfully. "Vat is it?"

"I don't know . . . I just . . . I wouldn't want to do anything . . . I wouldn't want to come between you and . . . "

His lamp-like eyes suddenly filled with an understanding of her mixed misgivings and then a gentle mirth.

"Ach, yes. I have studied enough theology, mein liebes, to know zat most doctorine of ze church and of moral behavior comes from man and not God." He kissed her again with a long and thrilling warmth that attested to the fact he was not unfamiliar with the act. "And no man vill tell me zis is wrong."

He did nothing to push her toward the moment, held back for her decision and would have left her then with no ambivalence between them had it been her desire.

But her desire was altogether different.

" . . . and this one?" Ororo chased a long spiral tattoo down his chest to where it disappeared between their bodies.

"Jophial," Kurt responded his fingers tracing the same pattern lightly down her spine as they lay side by side. "He has much visdom and reigns in realms of sunshine."

. . . marked on a man who is forced to live in shadows, she thought to herself. Ororo tucked herself close to his chest in wonderful intimacy, the almost imperceptible blue fur covering his skin wondrously soft against her own bare skin. Her wondering fingers found yet another design on the roundness of his shoulder, but this one had the rough edges of scar tissue instead of the clean etch of a tattoo. She drew breath to ask him about it when the blaring of her alarm clock interrupted. It was designed to wake the dead as she was usually a heavy sleeper and she scrambled across the bed to silence the clamber – resentful of the small device for intruding on the moment. She turned to slip back into the cocoon of warmth that she and Kurt had created when an even more alarming sound came to her ears.

The hum of the professor's wheelchair stopped just outside her door.

"I take it you are awake Ororo?" The physical manifestation of his voice was muffled behind the heavy door. He rarely intruded into their thoughts when they were in the confines of their own rooms unless an emergency arose, yet Ororo felt an unwelcome rush of guilt she was sure colored her voice.

"Yes Professor, I'm just getting up."

"Very good. Would your please gather the rest of the team for a meeting over luncheon? It is imperative that we come back together and get on the same footing."

"Of course Professor . . . lunch . . . not a problem," she responded, wincing at the anxious squeak in her voice and trying not to envision what state Scott and Logan would be in. She trusted the professor, but some thoughts were hard for him not to pick up on.

"Very good," he said again, the hum of his wheelchair beginning to move past the door. Ororo let out the breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding.

"And, Ororo?" The Professors voice suddenly came to her again.

"Yes Professor?" She heard a definite squeak that time.

"I do think the rose garden is becoming a bit sodden, don't you?"

The quiet hum of his wheelchair proceeded down the hallway. Ororo sheepishly turned off the rain and tried to slow her rapid pulse at the same time. She turned back to Kurt, expecting some kind of accusation in his looks or, perhaps, an empty spot where he had been and only rumpled sheets left behind.

But he was still there and with no angst in his features, no misunderstanding of her involuntary reaction the professor's voice at her door. In fact, he looked very peaceful and unconcerned . . . because he was deeply asleep. His shadowy, blue, well-muscled form was sunk heavily in the soft mattress.

In the few moments she had turned away, his nocturnal nature and weeks of constant unrest had fully caught up. The Nightcrawler had succumbed to the only comfort he had allowed himself in so long that it would have taken Ororo's mightiest tempest to wake him now. She touched his dark, curling hair wanting nothing more than to fold herself around him and shelter in his warmth – to share a little of that boundless peace of the darkest sleep. But she, as the strongest remaining member of the team, had a group to lead out of confusion and grief.

"A team meeting, Ms. Munro, usually consists of several persons."

The Professor's tone was pleasant enough, but a vertical line deepened between his brows as he regarded the semicircle of empty chairs. Ororo felt the oppressive physical emptiness of the room punctuated by the extra chair that markedly lacked occupation. She didn't offer excuses even if they were valid. "All I can ask for is more time for us to re-group Professor," she said instead

"Time is not a luxury we have Ororo," he said, dropping the former title in favor of familiarity. "Things are quickly escalating to a breaking point. Erik, Magneto, will want recompense for his injured pride and dignity -"

"I understand our position Charles," she said, interrupting him boldly now that they were on less formal grounds. "But this is the first casualty the team has taken, and for a group that has thus far been seemingly impervious to harm, it's a frightening and deeply unsettling consequence."

Xavior was contemplative for moment and she could see him working the best way to respond to this obvious point that had somehow evaded him. He too had lost a first among pupils, a personality as close to his own as a daughter's, and a very powerful mutant with knowledge that could not be regained. Evan with this threefold loss and his ordeal at the hands of Stryker, he was ready to rebuild, to honor Jean's sacrifice and to move forward with the ideals she and they all had believed in. Sadly enough, the last few weeks and this unheeded symposium in particular drove home the all to human nature of his mutant X-Men.

"I have to admit you have somewhat humbled me Ororo," he said finally, meeting her gaze with his deceptively quiet eyes. "The current state of affairs, not only within the mansion but without as well, troubles me more than I care to admit even to myself and it has caused me to be inconsiderate. It is obvious that I have withdrawn when my presence to you, my friends, has been most needed. How are they – Logan, Marie, Scott…?"

Ororo took a moment to think how best to respond. His use of their regular names showed the depth of his concern and with all the weight of the world already on his shoulders, she did not want to add to the mass. "As well as can be expected, sir," she said, switching back to formalities and quailing the uneasy images that came (loudly to him, she was sure) to the forefront of her mind – a motorcycle roaring out of the drive as the Wolverine went to some secluded spot to lick his wounds – a still young Summers boy so drunk on Logan's influence and his own grief he couldn't be persuaded from bed – a quiet man in the dark with only candles for company going over the rosary for hours on end.

The Professor studied the desk in front of him quite profoundly for a moment. Ororo could see that he was weighing the load pushing down on him and speculating as to whether it would be wise to shift the burden and make a little room for more. She, as unofficial second-in-command, answered the query for him. "I'm sure you have many other concerns this afternoon, Professor. I'll have the team together in a few days, ready to continue this discussion and be briefed on the current state of affairs."

She was rewarded by a certain humor that flickered across his features for a moment before he settled into business-like formality with her once more. "Very good, Ms. Munro. Keep me informed if you will until we have a more organized meeting."

"Professor," she said by way of excusing herself. Ororo went to the door, a feeling of real hope beginning to bloom in her that had the Professor's respect for her abilities and a night of much needed and true affection as groundwork.

"One more thing Ms. Munro," Xavior stopped her almost as she was into the hall and walking on air. "Our friend and guest Mr. Wagner has decided not to remain with us here and will be leaving tonight for Germany. Please see he has everything he needs for his journey. Good Morning."

She didn't let the sudden despair hit her until she was well out of the Professor's vicinity.

It wasn't just the adult members of the team who had been hit hard by a friend's sudden departure. The students had been dealt a double blow by Jean's death and the exodus of their peer John, Pyro, to join Magneto's side of the fight against humanity. Marie and Bobby, having been his closest confidants and present at the time of his defection, were besieged with questions they didn't know how to answer. Ororo spent most of the rest of the afternoon in conference with the students doing her best to put their fears to rest and keeping the academics as organized as she could. She made sure Iceman and Rouge had some time to themselves and left them sitting close together in the gardens after a long talk. After her own much needed fulfillment, she sympathized with their need to be together and lamented inwardly the circumstances that kept them apart.

Cyclops was another matter.

He had been nearly incommunicative since the incident that had ripped Jean from him and she knew no way to break through that wall of grief. She'd found the young man passed out on a sofa where Logan had deposited him. All she'd seen or heard of the Wolverine was a muddy track down the driveway and the cough of a motorcycle engine fading into the distance. She'd helped Scott to bed, guiltily glad for the moment that he would probably sleep for the next twenty hours. Without Jean around, she realized she would probably be the only one to take care of him when he woke with an incapacitating hangover. The fact that he would have to sleep most of it off first left her thankfully free for a few hours.

Free to contemplate yet another impending departure.

She returned to her rooms just as the sun was setting, walking through the familiar apartment in the dark so as not to wake the nearly invisible form laid out sinuous as a cat in the bed. She put his clothes on a chair and hung his newly cleaned coat on the handles of the wardrobe, smiling to herself as she removed the dry-cleaners plastic from it. The looks that wonderful, spangled monstrosity had gotten from the proprietors! They'd handled it as if, like its owner, it would demonstrate some strange, extraneous power. The smile swiftly faded as she remembered the Professor's notification that Kurt would be leaving them.

The sun was at an angle to slant through the blinds in bright rays which crept toward the sleeping Nightcrawler. Ororo sat on the far edge of the bed, calling up a few clouds to hide the last of the sunlight behind a false horizon. As the light faded, Kurt sighed deeply in his sleep and seemed to dissolve further into the darkened room. Ororo couldn't resist reaching out to make sure he was still there and felt his large hand wrap around her fingers.

"… gutenabend wenig wolke…" he said drowsily. She wasn't sure if what he'd said was a greeting or a whispered fragment of dream. What she did know was that he was leaving - tonight. For this reason, she drew close and wrapped herself around him, unable to let him sleep while she felt their time so quickly dwindling.

"Was ist mein liebes falsch?" he asked, coming fully awake at the urgency in her touch. He wrapped arms, legs and tail around her, determined to shelter her from whatever new assault was upon her.

"Speak English, Kurt," she said, her words muffled in his shoulder. "You didn't tell me you were leaving."

"Nicht, kleines…" he began, then caught himself and said instead: "I vould explain, Ororo. You need not fear I vould leave without a vord of gratitude or farwell." He tilted her face up to his. "Not before, not now. Zere iz nothing I run from."

"Everyone is so far away Kurt," she whispered. "Mentally, physically, emotionally…it doesn't matter. They're gone and I feel so alone!"

"No, no kleines," he said, kissing her again and again. "I vould put you with the stars zat I might always reach you, zat I could see you surrounded by heaven's light and show you vere God lives with you and in you."

Then he showed her what worship was.

"I do not think I vould like to end up with Logan's…verrückt…" Kurt looked for the right word, his hands making the form of the Wolverines unique hairstyle above his head. Ororo knocked him playfully on the shoulder before resuming her attention to his damp hair with a pair of scissors.

"Sit still or I just might find a way to make it a startling shade of red," she said, giving his reflection in the mirror a teasing wink. "How would that look with blue skin?"

"Ich gebe innen! Fahren ängstliches fort," he said, giving up to her ministrations in mock defeat. He closed his eyes and leaned back against her as she finished trimming his hair. She gave the dark curls a few swipes with her fingers, studying their combined reflection in the mirror, her own silver hair still damp from the shower falling around his shoulders as she leaned over him. Years later, that image would still be the one that came to her. A dark, lithe figure, untroubled and at peace holding the hand she had dropped to his shoulder.

She kissed the top of his head, breathing in his sulfurous scent. "Now you are presentable for a meeting with Heir Professor."

Ororo took the opportunity to look in on Scott while Kurt was with Xavior. She carefully picked her way through to his bed, alarmed as she had been before at the state of disarray in his rooms. Anyone who knew him would have bet money that Scott Summers could put a Victorian nanny to shame when it came to organization.

For obvious reasons now though, it was the last thing he cared about.

He had tangled the bed clothes into knots fighting who knew what images in his dreams. She pulled them back into order as best she could without disturbing him – almost hoping that with the amount of alcohol he'd consumed trying to keep up with Logan he'd find a few hours peace. When he murmured and turned over, she stood very still willing him not to wake. He settled again and she noticed that he still wore his visor – had been wearing if for so long in fact that she could see irritated red marks it was leaving on his face.

Ororo found his ruby quartz glasses after a lengthy search through the rooms, unnerved by the state the mess reflected in the character of her friend. She very carefully removed his visor, all too aware that if he suddenly woke now she would have a bigger problem than his mental state.

The dark circles around his eyes appalled her, his whole face looked sunken and thin on the pillows. "Oh Scott..." she said sadly, touching his bruised features softly, then cursed herself silently as he began to stir.

"Jean..?" he murmured, reaching out to where he thought she should be. Ororo, against her better judgment, took his questing hand as much in a gesture of compassion as one of precaution against him opening his eyes.

"...the worst...dream," he mumbled before being drawn back into a feverish stupor.

Quickly slipping the ruby lenses over his eyes, Ororo moved off the bed and out of his loose grasp. She felt the need to get out of the close rooms before his state pulled down all the fortifications she had built up over the past few hours. She slipped into the hall with a deep sigh of relief.

At that moment, the distinctive BAMF of displaced air, warm arms that slipped around her, and Kurt's hushed warning prepared her for a sudden journey. The Nightcrawler teleported and between one heartbeat and the next, the hall was replaced by a dim alcove that danced with muted light. Ororo felt her knees go and was thankful for the strong arms Kurt kept looped protectively around her. She could count the number of times she'd done that little trick with him on one hand and the unsettled sensation it gave her made each occurrence a distinct memory. Behind her, he breathed as if winded from a long run.

She was in the middle of drawing breath to tell him in no uncertain terms her feelings on the abrupt shift and voice her concern for his overexertion when the full scope of their new surroundings hit her.

They were perched high in the rafters of a vaulted ceiling, so high up that the light emanating from the room beneath them couldn't break into the lofty shadows. Below, hundreds of candles illuminated an expanse of pews as each member of the assembled congregation held a small, glowing taper.

"What is it?" she breathed, more in awe of the scene spread out beneath her than the height or their precarious perch.

"A night mass," he said, carefully tucking her close in his lap to sit on high with a few very tame and softly cueing pigeons. They watched the communion procession, the small points of candle light flowing from the pews into a river of light in the aisle to fade into darkness after acceptance of the substantiation. The soft tones of the choir, the dreamlike invocation of the priest – it all had an unreal and trancelike air. Ororo allowed herself to sink into Kurt's embrace and be in the moment. She never realized that the ceremony had ended and the church become silent and empty until he stirred, languidly pulling her to her feet.

"I know you do not enjoy ze …ah…method of travel…" he said, reaching his hands for hers in sympathetic yet determined acknowledgment as he invited her to descend.

"You forget," she said coyly, taking a step back into thin air. "I can fly."

With that, she brought the air into a tightly controlled thermal around her, floating delicately down from the height as if she were nothing but a soap bubble, her hair moving in a waving halo all around her body. Any pious penitent left in the church would have thought her descent a religious experience; a silver angel come to earth. So focused was she on her energies that she did not hear Kurt's whispered adoration.

"Bebaute meine Herzliebe jetzt? leugnen Sie sie, Anblick ab! Für I sah ne'er zutreffende Schönheit bis diese Nacht." The words of Shakespeare's Romeo had never had as much meaning for him as at that moment.

Touching down gently, she looked back toward the rafters expecting the muffled sound of Kurt teleporting to come to her. Instead, she saw a dark shape move soundlessly and almost too quickly to follow as it leapt down level by level in a display of impossible gymnastics. Kurt came to settle soundlessly, perched on the back of a pew. The wood didn't even so much as creak.

Ororo climbed up to meet him, not even able to unbalance that lithe, strong frame as she leaned her weight against him in a long, sensuous kiss. Kurt drew her up and deepened it, moving the meaning beyond physical desire and into that realm of warmth that fills the soul. He came to sit in the pew with her curled in his lap, the deep quiet of the church unbroken, still and timeless. In this moment, with her head on his chest hypnotized by the dim beat of his heart, she could forget.

After a long time, she became aware of a dim, steady light that pooled in the darkened chapel. She realized that not all the candles that had accompanied the night communion had been extinguished. A small bank of three or four tiny pillars of flame beat on in a sacred corner.

"Eine Pennykerze," said Kurt in response to her soft question. "Ve light them to remember those gone before, and to pray for zere souls to be at peace." He wrapped his warm hands around hers and drew her to her feet. "Come."

The communion rail was cool under her fingers and the small candles danced shakily as the air disturbed them. Kurt drew a thin reed of wood from its place on the small alter and, borrowing a tiny flame from one of the candles, handed it to Ororo. She looked at the too few unlit wicks, thinking there would have to be dozens more to accommodate her memories, a veritable bonfire for the dead.

"What should I say?" she asked, the perishable light in her hand growing dim. The ach she felt for Jean was dull now, put away for the moment and though she cherished the memory of her friend, she did not want it to bloom and take over this fleeting time.

She could feel Kurt's gentle gaze on her, his eyes more brilliant than any of the lights before her. "There need not be vords, just remember..." he said softly as the flame slid down from the taper to hold onto a wick. She turned her thoughts to Jean Gray, but in a guilty fashion, they pulled back to encompass one who was not yet gone. Holding the tiny flame in her gaze, she tried now not to think of it burning on with the morning light when he would already be far away.

"Zere is something to say, if you vould like..." Kurt said, taking her hand again as he saw weariness come over her features. With his indigo skin, Ororo could only see the light of his eyes like the bright candles in the dark, felt rather than saw the soft brush of his fur against her face as he touched her. Ororo, unable to trust her voice, nodded her assent, knowing he could pick out her every feature in the shadowy dark.

There was a small bench before the rail on which they now knelt. Kurt drew Ororo close to his side and, taking out his rosary beads, laced them though her fingers then clasped her hand in both of his. He kissed her fingers and the beads, bowed his head to touch their clasped hands and commenced The Lord's Prayer in soft, articulate German. It was heartbreakingly beautiful and rather than sooth the storm of emotions whirling within her, it nearly broke her. She leaned her head against his shoulder and breathed her own prayer for strength.

The dense fog that shrouded the pre-dawn, sleeping world was so thick that, between the dim oases of the street lamps, they only knew of each others presence by touch. The hazy halos picked out the drops of moisture that clung to his hair and the fine fur on his skin. It picked out the spangles on his coat as each caught a small point of light. In her memory, he glowed ethereally and she often asked herself later what this gentle, pious creature with angelic symbols carved into his very skin actually was. Who knew what seraphs actually looked like? In this time when existence was defined in so many ways by so many shapes, it wouldn't have been hard for a divine messenger, even a blue one, to walk with mortals.

They passed beneath the last of the lights and entered the lush acreage of the mansion. Ororo could just see the glow of windows in the distance and she knew that when she gained those familiar, haunted walls that she would be alone. Even now she had to search the dark for Kurt's ever-glowing eyes, had to re-affirm her grasp on his hand.

Then suddenly, without ever being able to define when or where or how, Ororo realized he was gone.

She stopped just at the edge of the mansion grounds on the border between the deep shadow of night and the lights that lit the walls, knowing she could blow away the fog and call out his name and that he might come back to her.

But she didn't.

Standing for a long time on that boundary, Ororo let all the Nightcrawler had given her sink into the marrow of her soul, hoping she had been able to give him even a small percent of something in return. That last kiss they had shared in the deep fog, when she wasn't sure that the moisture that trickled onto her face had been the rain on his skin, was something of an assurance that it had all been more than the comfort of strangers in a storm.

With that, Ororo finally walked out of the fog.