A/N: the final chapter! I hope you have enjoyed reading this as much as I enjoyed writing this version of Nora and Peter's story :)
13teen: Thank you for your kind thoughts! :D
anonymouscsifan: Nora's lie to Magneto will have some consequences—paranoia being one of them, though perhaps not on Nora's part. I love your insight and curiosity with every new chapter. Thank you once more, and hopefully this will be a satisfying conclusion :)
Possible trigger warning: attempted suicide.
There were no guards outright. Peter disabled the front desk manager in less than a second. (The young man appeared miles away from Las Vegas and would wander the desert for a day before hitch-hiking a ride home.)
Wanda and two more of Magneto's associates (one they called 'Chameleon' and another telekinetic) joined him at the elevator.
"This is the one?" Wanda directed the question at Peter. When he nodded she cracked her knuckles, sending red sparks across the door.
She and the younger telekinetic pulled the elevator to their level. Magneto had conveniently arranged to stay behind with Nora.
"Which floor?" Wanda asked casually.
Peter gestured to the emergency call button. "It's a separate segment of the twenty-first."
Wanda pushed the button. Instead of starting an alarm, it asked her for a password. Into the comm, she recited the line of poetry Nora had had her memorize. All the floors above them were simultaneously being swept clean. Patrons were to be locked in their rooms and employees (both mutant and non-mutant) were being dealt with in other ways.
Peter's first opponent appeared when the elevator doors opened. In an instant, he was chasing after the puff of red smoke.
The man was jumpy, he'd give him that. But no one escaped Peter once he had his sights on them.
The teleporter was knocked unconscious and deposited in a closet. They weren't to kill anyone on this floor, Nora had explicitly instructed. Peter was almost thankful for that. He wasn't sure if he still had the stomach for killing.
Just as Nora had told them, there was only the one guard.
Wanda turned on the light in room 21-D, the signal for the others to enter.
The wait grew frustrating.
Unfortunately, their boredom did not last.
Hello there. "What on earth are you doing in my hotel?"
Once they were inside the elevator, Magneto handed over the helmet.
Nora's hands shook as she placed the comically-large piece over her head.
The mirror reflected their contrasting appearances. One tall and looming, the other short and diminutive. One wearing a ridiculous cape and the other a bulletproof vest and jeans.
Nora's eyes flicked up to his in the mirror. She whispered, "you know what she can do?" -As if he would have agreed to help her otherwise, she chided herself.
He nodded curtly. It had been a while since Erik had encountered the White Queen (whether on friendly terms or not). It hadn't been long enough for him to have forgotten her.
This time it was Nora who pressed the button, clearly uttering the tenth line from Shakespeare's ninety-fourth sonnet: "For sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds."
Erik had not expected a phrase so capricious—and from the Bard, no less. He wondered if Frost had changed at all since their last meeting.
Not unlike a microwave, the elevator dinged to signal the ride's end. The doors opened, and Magneto saw that he was so very, very wrong.
The secret floor was torn apart. Lights flickered, still touched by Wanda's signature red glow. End tables were dashed to pieces as if run through by a train. Doors torn off their hinges, a broken pipe erratically spewing water, and smashed plant pots: all evidence of a battle already fought—a battle already lost.
Or, in one case, won.
"You knew they would fail," Nora managed to say. Magneto glanced at her, his eyes cold and emotionless.
"I knew—agh!" He cried out and fell to his knees.
From the shadows Nora heard a tsk tsk all too familiar to her ears.
"Too slow, Erik." One high heel stepped out, followed by another, and then Nora had to face her.
Her: Frost
"I am so disappointed in you, pet." Emma gestured around them. "Did you really think that this, these- these pawns would work?"
She lifted one of the unconscious bodies by their jacket collar. As he let out a groan, Nora pressed her lips together, wanting to scream at her to let. Him. Go.
"I must say, you have decent taste," Frost clicked her tongue. "Though I am curious as to how you managed to get that helmet. He has always been so protective of it." She paused and laughed airily. "And I'll bet the fact that you've been screwing his son has nothing to do with it."
Amongst all this, Nora hadn't once said a word. The one time she was privy to her own thoughts—her own free will—and she was too petrified to do anything.
"This really is a one-sided conversation with you wearing that… abomination. Pet, why don't you just take it off?"
Nora shook her head; a robotic movement that made Frost frown.
She clicked her tongue, "that's a shame. Really, Nora, a true shame." Peter's body was dropped back to the ground. "After all, I was going to let you and your beau walk out of here." Frost reached out and opened the room on her left. A winning look on her face, she drew something out into the flickering lights. "Perhaps someone a little more… relative?"
Nora didn't recognize her. The woman Frost held up was healthy-looking, with clean hair and a shining complexion. Her identical brown hair was cropped short—almost exactly like Dani's had been.
It was the exact opposite Nora had imagined. She looked good.
"Danielle-" The name escaped her lips, and Nora's voice grew groggy with tears.
"What do you say, Pet?" Frost set Dani's body down between them. Nora was so close; almost within arms' reach. "Just take off the helmet and I'll let you have her back."
Any remnant of sense had fled Nora's mind. Pause time? Nah. Rewind? Why bother! Dani was here. So close, so very close. -And all she had to do was take off this uncomfortable helmet.
Noticing the presence of someone else, Frost relinquished her control over the other mutants and allowed her diamond form to take over.
It wasn't possible. Why- how? There was no way he would be here.
Nora knew (she had for weeks) what she was going to do. Danielle came first: her importance rose above everyone else's.
As if sleepwalking, her hands slowly moved up to take off the helmet. Her hair fell about her shoulders as she pulled it from her head.
In an instant, her mind became a battleground.
A thunderous voice entered her head, yelling for her to put the helmet back on.
She didn't like that voice. It was loud—too loud.
What came next was worse.
An icy stabbing pushed the voice away. -Not out entirely, just to the side.
The others began to rise, just in time to see Nora crumple to the floor.
Hands pressed to her ears, Nora's jaw stretched agape in a silent scream.
"No!" Peter reached out, wanting to help her, but was thrown back. He and his sister were pulled away, tugged from the fight by the metal on their belts and jackets.
Magneto go to his feet using the elevator door as support. A voice was also in his head—one he hadn't heard in a long time.
Erik, you must subdue Frost. She's going to destroy-
"I know," he grumbled.
Moving towards them despite Frost's psychic attacks, he noted how worse his other two charges had fared. Gone, like so many others.
Frost was kneeling in front of Nora. The sister's body was discarded off to the side; she had yet to wake up.
One delicate hand was cradling Nora's head. This wry time-traveler had turned out to be more trouble than she was worth. Frost intended to end that, already thinking of the alternate agreements her sister might be able to be coerced into.
"Emma," Magneto growled and reached forward. One of the exposed pipes wrapped around her diamond form and yanked her away from Nora. "Stop this."
Splayed across the wall, she gave him an acrimonious glare. "You have no business here, Lensherr." His family name was spat out in a spray of malice. He knew that neither of them did. This 'good-guy' business was no where near their usual.
Still, he chided her. "We made a deal—something you used to know a thing or two about."
While they were trading remarks, Nora used the small leeway off opportunity to retrieve Magneto's helmet… and something else she had brought along.
"Stop it!" The screech drew their attention.
Helmet in place, gun in hand, Nora leveled her mind in Frost's direction. "Stop. Now."
Magneto backed away from his former associate. Peter and Wanda joined him cautiously, taking in the turn of events.
Emma Frost, for once, was stuck. Her situation was at a standstill. Azazel had gone. And the sister—her one source of leverage—was spent beyond repair.
She did not expect the next words Nora said.
"Wake her up." Nora gestured towards the unconscious form lying on the floor. "Wake her up, now."
And in that was Frost's salvation.
"I can't," she lied, plucking at the girl's already-deteriorating mentality. "And even if I could, you wouldn't want me to."
Nora's eyes flicked back and forth between Frost and her sister.
Lying—she had to be. She was a liar—Frost always lied. Dani was there—here, she was here. She would wake up and they would get out of here and live together like they always had.
'Always' being the key word.
But 'always' had been on hold for the past two years. And now it seemed like 'always' might not even be possible.
She couldn't do this. She couldn't deal with this. Not anymore.
In a decision so unexpected even Peter didn't have a fast enough reaction, Nora turned the gun and pointed it underneath her chin.
Someone screamed.
Nora felt the helmet lift from her scalp.
The loud voice returned, and she didn't see anything except for-
Danielle hadn't had a headache this bad since, well, ever. She knew it had something to do with her power. Nora didn't need to know that.
What she hadn't been expecting was someone to be blocking her ability. That, and for it to have such a painful effect on her.
She didn't remember exactly how she'd been taken, but Dani had a suspicion that it had to to with the teleporter. He was one freaky dude.
Her time in confinement had been hardly that.
She hadn't felt 'trapped' or held against her will. All Dani knew was that she hadn't been able to leave.
She hadn't liked that part.
"Sorry," she murmured, shaking her head. "I tend to get lost nowadays." What even was 'nowadays' for her?
"That's completely all right," the man assured her. "Considering what you—and your sister, I might add—have been through I think some 'gapping out', as the children say, is perfectly normal."
"Right… I guess." She laughed softly, "sorry, what do I call you? Professor…?"
"You aren't enrolled as one of my students, so please: call me Charles."
Dani and Charles' attention was drawn by the entrance of another. She wasn't sure what to make of him. He purposefully walked over and stood beside her. His foreboding presence seemed to dampen even Charles' friendly demeanor. Neither looked happy to be in the same room as the other.
Taking a deep breath, she attempted to placate her nerves. Talking to people was something she would have to readjust to.
"From what I've been told, I owe both of you my thanks." She raised her eyebrows. "You have it: undoubtedly. My sister and I- we owe you much more than that."
It was Charles' custom to accept her thanks, and insinuate nothing else. Magneto, on the other hand, had been made other promises.
"When she wakes up how long will it be before she is able to travel?" he questioned.
Dani frowned. "I'm not sure… It could be some time before she's in a healthy-enough headspace."
Charles made a questioning face. Then, using deductive reasoning, he came to the conclusion as to why Magneto had been so willing to help this girl. (One who seemingly had nothing to offer him, other than her abilities.)
"What deal did you make with her," he asked sternly.
Confused by his apparent internal conversation, Danielle looked to Magneto for an explanation. She knew that she held more trust towards him than Charles did. He had been there when she'd woken up. Him, and the others.
Magneto grumbled, "in return for my help, your sister promised to go back in time to change someone's fate." He paused before elaborating, "… to stop someone from dying, specifically. I am only asking how long it would be until she would be willing do so."
For a moment Dani's face was blank. Then it washed over into a sheet of paleness.
My god, Nora, what have you done?
Charles' face fell, noticing the change in her thoughts.
She held up her hand. "There's no need to read my mind. I'd rather tell you the truth myself."
Leering forward, Magneto growled, "what do you mean 'the truth'?"
The corners of Dani's eyes developed crinkles as she grimaced. "Nora can't control that part of her ability. The time-travelling just… happens. She can't go back and reverse whatever you want changed."
She was supposed to feel sorry for him. But Dani knew she would have done the same if her and Nora's roles had been switched.
Magneto clenched his fists. Charles held out a cautioning hand. Danielle began to rise from her seat.
-Peter burst into the office, practically buzzing with excitement. Breathless, he said, "she's awake!"
It felt like there were hundreds of insects whirling around her head. It stung quite a bit; maybe some of them were bees.
Nora wasn't sure where she was. The room was nice, clean, actually. In all truth, it was freaking her out a bit.
She was wearing the same clothes as before—minus the jacket. Her jeans and shirt were no less wrinkled, but they felt normal, at least.
The door to her room opened. Nora's immediate reaction was to freeze up, but once she saw the person who entered she her fear dissipated.
Nora was still on edge by how healthy Danielle looked. She didn't appear to be malnourished in the slightest, and her weight seemed not to have changed.
Dani glanced back, smiling at someone Nora couldn't see, then closed the door behind her.
A silence was expected. Neither of them knew what to say.
Nora's voice cracked at first. "How- how is your headache?"
Dani barely remembered that. The headache that had lasted for a week was the last thing she'd thought to have on her mind.
She made a small grin, sitting down on the end of Nora's bed.
"It's, uh, better, I guess."
With a sob crawling up her throat, Nora cracked a smile.
They both burst into tears.
No one needed to tell him: Peter knew this was goodbye.
Nora and her sister had spent a week at the Xavier Institute. To say the least, it had been a tension-filled seven days for everyone else. Usually, the X-Men and the Brotherhood were fighting—not sharing a mansion together.
They were leaving now. Or, as Danielle put it, "getting back to our life."
The sisters had shared an awkward chuckle at that.
Spending all that time together, Peter had let himself believe that things would stay the same once Nora and Danielle had been reunited. (That they would stay the same.)
He was currently holed up in one of the guest rooms waiting out their departure. Seeing Nora leave was the last thing he wanted to do right now.
That made it all the worse when she knocked on his door.
"Hey." She looked happy—leagues different from the washed-up brainiac he'd first seen at Wanda's bar.
Slowly, Nora shifted one toe over the threshold to his room. "Can I come in?" she asked hesitantly.
He nodded, trying to capture the finer details of her face.
For some, it was about memorizing the individual planes of their cheek bones, the constellations their freckles made up, or the way their eyes sparkled whenever they laughed—really laughed. For Peter, it was just about remembering what she looked like; how she smiled at odd moments; the way her eyes glinted when—ah, shit.
He had gone and done it now, hadn't he?
"Why aren't you saying anything?" Nora put a hand on his shoulder. Her brow was furrowed, showing every ounce of concern she felt.
Peter averted his gaze. "What do you want me to say?"
She moved closer—close enough to kiss him. "I don't know… Goodbye? See you later? I know we haven't talked much since I woke up-"
"-Yeah, and why is that?" His voice held a frightening amount of indignation.
Though she was tempted to, Nora did not step away. "I know you can't be happy with me and Dani leaving..."
Not Danielle. Just her.
"… we just have a lot of catching up; she thought it was best that we continued our..." she tried to think of the right phrase, "lifetime road trip?"
"And what do you think?" He dropped his voice into a low baritone. Peter's fingertips had somehow found their way onto her waist.
Nora exhaled, "I just want to be with my sister, Peter." And you too.
"Then this is your shitty goodbye?" He wasn't entirely angry—or was, at least, hiding it very well.
Nora shrugged. "Like I said: see you later?"
Hiding what was to become a shattered mess of a heart, he put on his charismatic grin.
"Then this'll be one to remember," he said suggestively.
Colour bloomed across Nora's cheeks. She was especially susceptible to that grin of his.
"Oh, you." She snapped her fingers.
"You're smiling an awful lot."
Letting her eyes waver from the road, Nora glanced in Dani's direction. "Oh? Is that such a bad thing?"
Dani smiled. Her's was similar to Nora's. "Not at all."
Happiness is an emotion most sought out by humans. They seek enjoyment through out their lives, sometimes resorting to less than savory methods in achieving it.
Humans (and mutants, alike) work to achieve their personally-desired forms of happiness. And their efforts, if deemed worthy enough by whatever universal forces hold control over the world, are sometimes rewarded.
However, more often than not, a human's struggle for achievement ends in a finale that was less than desired or anticipated. Even sometimes—if they are so unlucky—the top is turned in the opposite direction, spiraling their lives into a rotten mess of tragedy and regret.
This was one of those.
Danielle was frightened of her sister.
Younger as she was, Nora was a different person. She had changed—nearly beyond recognition.
The overweight motel clerk moved dazedly as the two attractive women returned to their car. He didn't know their names; they hadn't given them to him. All the taller one had asked for was directions to the nearest town.
"Exit thirty-one, about three miles south," he'd told them, completely forgetting to offer the Sunrise's pricey deal on single-bed rooms. His manager wasn't here, fortunately. She'd be yelling at him if she was.
The shorter of the two hadn't paid him much attention; he wished she had.
She would be in his thoughts tonight.
"I don't see why we couldn't have stayed there for the night," whined Nora, hooking one ankle out the open window.
Dani glanced warily in her direction. "Are you serious? That 'continental breakfast' looked like nothing more than some muffins and coffee."
Nora shrugged. "We could've asked that clerk to get us something else."
You mean you could've, Dani mused to herself.
"The next town will have something more than that glorified pit stop," Dani said aloud, assuring herself more than Nora.
"Whatever you say, sis." Nora settled back into the passenger seat, pulling her sunglasses down over her nose.
Danielle was frightened of her sister.
At first, she'd thought it a simple side effect of their separation and Nora's manipulation. Now she knew it was a side effect: one that hadn't worn off, even in the years after their reunion.
Nora was different, and Dani didn't want to be the one to bring it up.
In '88, she finally addressed what was bothering her.
"How do you know about that?" Nora asked incredulously. 'Asked' was the debatable term. 'Asked' insinuated that she was wanting a civilized conversation.
"How do I know that you made a pact with the equivalent of a mutant mob boss?" Dani threw up her hands, "I talked to the man, Nora! It happened to come up that you promised to bring back his dead wife!"
"So what? You're mad at me for lying to get you out of whatever prison Frost had you in?!"
Dani paced to the door of their hotel room. "No! I'm just trying to explain why we need to keep moving!"
Nora stayed on the bed. She was comfortable where she was. "Keep moving? So you think he's going to track us down 'cause I lied to the guy?"
Dani pressed a hand to her eyes, the other placed on her hip. "What else am I supposed to think?"
"Nothing of it!" Nora exclaimed. "He's not going to come after us."
"Because you had sex with his son."
Nora froze.
"You know about that too?" She asked quietly.
"I may have had my head messed with for two years, but I didn't completely lose all of my brain cells," Dani snapped. "Of course I know you slept with him!"
Nora's anger reared back up. "So what if I did! Did ya' think I was just going to wallow in loneliness forever?" Nora breathed sharply, "to be honest: I thought you were dead. I thought we were never going to see each other again."
Dani opened her mouth.
Nora turned away sharply. There was nothing left to say.
"It was supposed to be just you and me, Nora. The two of us: just us."
Nora sniffed. Well maybe two isn't enough anymore.
Danielle had seen this argument months ago. Everything came with a price—knowing the future and not being able to do anything to change it was hers.
In their youth, she had moved simply on well-guided instincts; more than often, she had been right.
She was the first one to leave. Storming to their car, Danielle drove, angry, to the nearest drugstore.
They were almost out of tampons anyways.
She hadn't predicted the next turn.
Danielle thought nothing of the man who walked through the sliding glass doors—even if his vest looked a bit overstuffed.
Peter stared in horror at the television screen. What he was seeing couldn't be true.
"… outside the local Wal-Mart..."
"… suicide bomber confirmed… "
"… mutant…"
"… survivors?…"
Past the activists and idealists, the reporters and protestors, Nora stumbled her way through the chaos.
She stepped around one cameraman, his gaze locked on capturing what would come to be known as the 'primary source'.
The primary source: for hatred of mutants.
None of that mattered to Nora as she pushed past a news reporter. He too was engrossed in the horror that had befallen the Cincinnati Wal-Mart.
Near the ambulances—pointless as they were—she found the bags.
They were black, as to not reveal the blood. White sheets wouldn't have worked quite as well.
Nora unzipped each one. Some took more inspection; they were just that disassembled.
Once she found what remained of Danielle, Nora let herself collapse into a fit of tears.
Stupid and foolish, Nora had waited two days before going to look for her. As much as she wanted to, she couldn't go back and change it.
The laws were becoming more frequent these days.
Restrictions on the usage of powers. Referendums on the identification of 'enhanced individuals'. The dubbing of 'mutant' or 'mutie' as a slur, and, in more classy establishments: a brand.
Peter and Wanda had long-since left their father behind. When he'd re-enlisted the support of Mystique (thus rendering a lesser need for their powerful abilities) they'd seen their out and taken it without question.
As the number of conflicts between the X-Men and the Brotherhood grew, they drew further apart.
The last time they'd spoke Wanda had told him she was getting married. Peter was happy that she'd found a woman strong enough to handle her… strange habits.
Wanda hadn't invited him; he wouldn't have accepted if she had. They weren't that close anymore.
Today was the anniversary of the first-known Freeloader bombing. For most, it meant an extra article in the newspaper, or an additional and unwanted lecture from teachers and parents.
"Fear the mutant, for it is a menace."
When the Cold War sputtered to an end, Peter though that some semblance of trust would be re-established amongst the American people. To his disappointment, a new kind of fear had arisen. Communists were no longer the prosecuted class: a new scapegoat had been found.
Peter spent most of his time traveling around the world. From Nepal to Manchester, Vancouver to Sydney, he carried her description in mind and picture in hand.
Short, brown-haired, and with pale skin; it was an average description. That made it difficult. Many people said they recognized her face—or, as he eventually found out: knew someone with her features.
As Peter searched and searched, his hope began to dwindle. Every false tip, every wayward lead only seemed to take him further from her.
And one cold April morning he was hit with a sudden thought.
What if she isn't in this century?
That revelation drove him to the television, and it was there that he found her.
"I am here at the memorial site of the first Freeloader hit, where a woman appeared late last night. Our eyewitness, Kadin Jonas, is here with me now."
The reporter held out his microphone to the greasy man in the chef's uniform.
"Like I said, Mister, I was just takin' out the garbages when there was this, uh, glowin' over at the site… I went n' checked it out 'cus I thought it might be another one of them 'muties back to blow up more of my city."
Peter sat up straighter in the armchair. In a motion as fast as lightning he grabbed the remote and dialed up the volume.
"… anything unusual about the woman you found, Kadin?"
The chef shook his head, laughing. "Nothing—besides that she was without her clothing, I mean! That and the light… I knew she had to be one of them so I-"
Peter turned off the TV. He ran out of the hotel, leaving the soda can spinning on the table.
Someone (or maybe she) had cut her hair. Peter couldn't help but smile. She looked a little crazy with it short like that.
From what he heard through the nurses, she hadn't spoken since being brought in.
Peter had also heard that the 'higher-ups' had been contacted.
That never meant anything good.
He had a minute with her. His hair had changed too, but it was still the same silver-grey as before.
She barely registered his entering the room. She thought he was just another doctor.
"… Nora?"
Her brow furrowed. What did he say?
"Nora, is that you? It's me, er, I mean, it's Peter."
Peter and Nora. Those were names she recognized. Was she Nora?
She didn't mind when he touched her hand; it didn't hurt like when the doctors did.
"I'm gonna get you out of here, okay?"
She seemed to consider his words, then nodded.
Peter positioned one arm around her back, carefully sliding the other under her knees. The hospital gown slid up her thigh, exposing the sallow flesh underneath.
When Peter held her against his chest, her shaking hands clutched at him. They found purchase on his jacket and stilled—if only a little.
"I've got you… I got you…" he murmured. She didn't seem to hear him.
As the door to the room opened Peter ran out of the hospital, far away to an isolated place.
"Nora. That's my name?"
Peter looked up from the stove, moving the pan from the open element.
She was seated at the kitchen table, hand poised over a half-filled sheet of paper. Preparing to write it down again, she looked to him for confirmation.
"Yeah," he repeated, "N-O-R-A."
She nodded, calculating the thought, then let the pen scribble across the paper. Even her cursive wasn't the same.
Nora. Nora. nORA. After the third time she cringed and put a hand to her ear.
Peter turned off the stove. "You all right?"
Her head shook back and forth. "… Hurts…" A low rumble began to grow in the house. The source: her.
Peter stopped making the quesadilla and appeared beside her.
"Am I-" She gasped and her pupils were suddenly lined with gold.
"It's okay, it's okay," Peter assured her.
Hand supporting her back, he helped her to the bed. Nora tried to keep his grip in hers, but he cautiously pried his fingers away.
"No, no… stay, please…" Despite being nearly forty-three, Nora hardly spoke in complete sentences anymore.
"I'll be here—I'll be right here when you return."
Tears streamed down her face as the light began to consume her. "Promise?"
Peter promised, turning away as the light got too bright to bare.
The travels were getting more frequent.
Dangerous too; he was afraid that the house would be ripped apart one of these days.
Peter could only think of one man with the capability—and kindness—to help her.
To Peter's joy—and Nora's perplexment—he welcomed them with open arms. And for a time, they were at peace. Nora was able to begin an unsteady recovery, helped onward by the Professor's vast mental abilities, and Peter was finally able to stop searching.
They were together; happy and safe, for once.
-And then the Sentinels were released.
Everything happened in what felt like a month: the attack on the school; the toppling of their reliable governments; so. Many. Mutants… All dead.
By chance, Wanda was found, in what they assumed had been her home, clutching a body they assumed to have been her wife. Neither of them were found alive.
On the brink of near-full recovery, Nora found herself plunged back by Peter's grief. His twin… Her sister: all they had were each other, now, truly alone.
It was a mistake to return to Westchester. Holed up in a place for too long made it easier for the Sentinels to find them.
Magneto never gave her the details of Peter's death—only that it had happened.
All at once, everything fell apart andinto place at the same time. Nora began her impromptu time-traveling (assisted by the most powerful telepath ever known), guiding her younger self on a better path.
To her surprise, Logan showed up, solidifying the better future.
And as she lay dying on a mountain a few hundred miles from that fateful monastery, Nora let her mind wander for the first time in years.
Danielle… Peter… Erik… Wanda… All broken relations; all lives too important to measure. Every single one of them: gone.
At least, in this timeline.
The door opened, pushed inward by a pale hand. A pair of shoes were deposited on the rack inside, soon followed by a coat on one of the three hooks.
A paper bag filled with groceries was placed on the kitchen countertop, with the dairy products immediately stowed in the fridge.
From the room adjacent to the kitchen, a voice called out, "Peter? Is that you?
A sigh. Followed by, "no, Mother. Just me."
There was no response. That was how their conversations went these days; mother asking for father, and then having to remind her that he… well, he was…
In the living room, the old woman sat comfortably in her armchair. She had first seen its make in a furniture store during the years of the second World War. Unfortunately, she had been whisked away before she'd been able to purchase one.
The woman had spent many months tracking down the company's successors.
It was difficult to find such a quality chair in the twenty-first century, and as her bones were so weak, she needed something sturdy, capable, and comfortable.
"Mother? Is everything all right?"
Her child stepped into the brightly-lit room. She looked up at them and smiled.
She'd had the most strange of dreams. It had been quite exciting, with daring chases, lust-filled romances, and losses too heavy to bare.
Somehow, it seemed familiar. 'Deja vu', as some might say.
She remembered having dreams like that more often when she was young. How she missed those days.
"Mum?"
She tilted her neck upwards with some difficulty, and smiled softly. Her dearest child; hair dark like hers, with eyes as blue as his.
"Yes, my dear, everything is fine. Would you mind closing those blinds? The sunlight is getting a little too bright for me."
Her child stared at her strangely for a moment, then did as she asked.
Everything is indeed fine, she thought. There was nothing to worry about, after all, it had just been a dream.
…Right?
