Author: MoiraShipper
Summary: A week before En Sabah Nur awakes Moira is captured by Egyptian mercenaries who catch her investigating the mutant.
Cairo nights
Moira couldn't believe the course her life had taken in just 72 hours. She had been investigating a suspicious group that seemed to idolize an ancient mutant god En Sabah Nur and had already collected enough material, missing only to find the location of the tomb and so she had been following some members of the ancient group known as Akkaba.
She didn't know what had gone wrong and made her be discovered and captured. She had been covered with a black burkha from head to toe following discreetly one of the members of the group, who had the tattoo, on a street market in Cairo in a moment and then in the other she had been dragged into an alley by two of the men that she had also been investigating and passing the data to her agency shouting in Arabic with her, until one of them hit her on the head and everything went black.
With her head throbbing, Moira opened her eyes slowly, already putting her agent senses into action and supervising where she was. She was in a room full of rugs and small gold statues. Her black clothes remained the same, but on her finger was a giant butterfly ring of precious stones. One of the men who had captured her was near a piano that was there, while the other was by the window and the last one, that appeared to be one of the leaders of the Akkaba, was standing at the side of the bed.
"Sorry for the way my men treated you, my dear." He said and she stepped into the game as she got out of bed under the watchful eyes of the three of them.
"I'm fine, but what do you want from me?" She asked in Arabic.
"Why don't you get a little more comfortable? Do you want to eat something?" The man insisted, and Moira knew it was just a way to make her think she was safe, giving her jewelry and food, before finally being tortured for information.
Trying to buy time to think something, Moira walked to the piano, pausing beside the big man who had a heavy weapon which he repositioned upon seeing the woman beside him. She started playing some notes, remembering the song 'Ring of the butterfly' seeing the big ring in her finger. The man seemed to relax and Moira smirked behind the burkha that only revealed her eyes.
"My men seem to think you were following them..." The leader spoke slowly, watching her from where she was.
"I think they mistook me for somebody else, sir." She replied in false submission. "I was looking for rugs to buy."
"I don't think so... Who do you work for?"
"Like I said ... I'm just a Cairo citizen looking for rugs."
"Your Arabic may be perfect, but there is a slight American accent, and by the way you have tried to attack my men in defending yourself, you must be some spy."
Moira knew that her disguise was about to be revealed and soon began to draw a plan as she played and the man spoke.
"What do you know about the great En Subah Nur?"
And Moira kicked the man next the piano, knocking him down and picking up his gun, firing at the man at the window, before the leader stood facing her.
"Like I said, you must be a spy ..."
"And like I said, I'm just a woman looking for rugs." She responded, pointing the gun at him, but she felt something coming from the open window hit her in the neck, a sedative, and her eyes widened as the weapon fell from her hands.
She had been tied to a chair in an abandoned building for three days, being tortured by some En Subah Nur fanatics, who were trying to find out who she worked for. Trying to please her hadn't worked for the leader, who had been enchanted by the beauty woman in black burkha, but after seeing the woman in action, he had sedated and bound Moira to the chair, where he had been interrogating her with torture.
"How much more do you think you can handle?" The man asked sadistically, after lifting Moira's face from the cold water he had plunged into.
Though her face burned in cold as well as her lungs, the woman only stared defiantly at him, shaking her face to push away the wet burkha that still covered her face. She could handle it, she would. She was one of the best agents in the CIA.
"As much as it takes."
Professor Charles Xavier was in the Cerebro, concentrating on his special search. Nobody knew it, but every year, in that same day, he would search for Moira Mactaggert, to see her for only a second, but a very special second.
It was the day they had kissed for the first time on the couch 20 years ago, accompanied by champagne. His heart knew that no woman would replace Moira's presence in him and so he maintained this ritual, of seeing her in the Cerebro for only a second every year.
The way things had ended between them still gave him nightmares and brought tears to his eyes, but he knew his pain was worth it if it was to keep his great love safe.
Putting on the helmet and searching Moira, his eyes widened, not in happiness or surprise as usual, but in fear. He saw two Arab men plunging her covered face into a bucket of icy water.
"Moira..." The man murmured for the first time in decades the name aloud and in shock and removed his helmet at the end of the second, his mind racing as he felt his heart squeeze. They were torturing the woman for information about the case she had been investigating.
He always tried not to interfere with her life, but apparently the CIA didn't know what was going on with one of its agents and he was going to do something.
"Hank!"
Mahamed, one of the En Subah Nur's fanatic men, who had captured Moira 3 days ago, had now tied her right wrist to the chair and held a syringe with a potent drug and she stared at him without revealing anything but her mind was on her son Kevin, in the USA. No previous torture had made her speak, they had plucked one nail from finger and other from her toe, plunged her head into cold water, and now he was going to try a drug known as a 'serum of truth' but she would stand firm knowing it was important to her, for the mission and her son, who was a mutant.
Hank, with his super strength, had opened the door as Charles stepped in with his chair, putting all the men there to sleep with his mind along with Moira who seemed exhausted.
Seeing Moira, his heart started beating fast, as he tried to control the fury he felt for Mahamed.
Charles untied her, holding her face with one hand and with the other he adjusted her burkha, seeing the beautiful brown eyes closed and caressing her cheek covered with the black fabric, being flooded by the love he felt for her. His eyes focused on hers closed one remembering of their color and how they'd shone with the love she had begun to feel for him 20 years ago.
"I missed you so much, Moira..." His blue eyes sparkled with emotion at the reunion.
When they left with the woman, they located the hotel room where she was staying. Charles gently lifted her from his arms and laid her on the bed and with the help of Hank, who had brought medical supplies into the jet and they checked the agent's condition, seeing that she was fine, no mortal wound.
Hank treated both of her nails, doing the bandages as Charles continued to caress her face, keeping her asleep with his powers and then he took her freshly treated hand carefully and then took off the butterfly ring from her finger, knowing that Mahamed had put it on her. Charles put it on his pocket as a reminder of this brief encounter in Cairo with Moira, until the next second he'd see her in the Cerebro next year.
He looked at her one last time, tracing her image in his mind though he could only see her closed eyes and smiled with love. He was using his mind to awaken her in the moment they left.
"Professor, don't you want to return her memories?" Hank asked curiously, but the older man smiled, staring at the woman with longing.
"I still have many enemies Hank... Even with my school, I fear for the lives of our students... I don't want to involve Moira in this mess again."
"You still love her very much, don't you?"
"And I will always love her..." Charles replied and blushed, realizing that he had told the other his secret but Hank just smiled. "This farewell looks like last time, she'll wake up again, not remembering how she got here..."
Raising two fingers to his temple, Charles placed the location of the tomb in Moira's mind, after seeing it in Mahamed's, before turning his back to her, sliding his chair out of the room in another farewell and his lips tingled with the ghost of the farewell kiss from 20 years ago.