Willa pulled the hood of her sweatshirt over her bald, spiky head, and tightened the strings as much as she could without hindering her vision. Then, turning to her sister, her life, and her responsibility, she said, "C'mon, Cora, let's go for a walk."
Cora smiled as she always did and nodded enthusiastically. "Okay, Willa! Let me grab my umbrella." The small, pale pink umbrella with ruffles was Cora's prized possession because it had come from their mother.
Looking at it made Willa sick, but she had promised herself when that same woman Cora still loved had kicked them to the curb, that she would never deny her sister anything. "Alright, just hurry up." She always sounded bitter, and a tad too harsh. She would have to work on that, even if Cora never noticed.
Out into the cold, with long fur coats provided by Marjorie, Willa walked slightly faster than her dawdling sister, who spent time skipping and dripping, as usual, twirling the closed umbrella as if she were in a Broadway production. Willa turned and walked backwards for a second, watching to make sure Cora was safe. She had no intention of doing what Marjorie expected of them tonight, or ever, and more importantly, she had no intention of letting anyone touch her sister, either. She would do what she always did, and hit up a local bar and pickpocket whoever was the drunkest.
Marjorie's was just a stop; after all, someday Willa would figure out where she and Cora could go that would be safer for both of them. But she might as well take advantage of the scholastic lessons Marjorie had all her 'girls' learn. Marjorie really was a good person, but she, too, had to live the way she knew best. Coming to the doors of an unsightly dive, one no different than any, she turned to her sister, and handed her a packet of watercolors. "Stay over here, by this bench, okay? And paint the people of New York City something nice while I'm gone."
Cora looked up at her sister and smiled again, "Okay," she said. "I'm going to paint spring."
"Winter has hardly started, Cora. But I'm sure plenty of people will be happy to see some flowers right about now."
By the time Remy pulled into his garage hours later, he was exhausted and not feeling very well.
The lamps were on in the living room and he could hear the thumping of the stereo even before he shut off his car. He imagined it was synchronous with the thumping in his head. He had given Ororo a key probably a year ago now, and slowly his house was changing from the mostly masculine pieces left over after his divorce to a compilation of what Ororo thought spoke to her. He didn't have much use for the elephant shaped teapot, the bamboo partitioning separating his upstairs study into two halves or the rock collection she had put in a metal bowl that somehow represented energy on the kitchen table, but at least it was different than the life he had had before her.
He still wouldn't listen to When I Said I Do, though he wasn't a fan of the song before Belle chose it as 'their song', didn't use the blanket she used to and had thrown out all the Christmas decorations they used for their first and only Christmas together. They were all reminders of the biggest failure he had ever had. The slap in the face that said, 'you're not the man your brother is' and worse, 'you're exactly like your father'.
Henri LeBeau, seven years older, had come through life relatively unscathed and unaffected by the world around him. Growing up older, he had been shadowed in height, brains, popularity, athleticism, and – by most standards – attractiveness, ever since Remy was born, and yet, it had really never bothered him. Despite all that, Henri had his younger brother's ever-loving affection and respect, and that had always been enough to ward off the jealousy that would accompany a lesser man. He had gone on to take over half of daddy's business, didn't even need a college degree, had married his high school sweetheart – and kept her – and had two children that respected him and adored him just as much as Remy always had.
Jean-Luc LeBeau, their father, on the other hand, was a train wreck in comparison. And the one thing Remy had never wanted to emulate. He had married Henri's mother after he got her pregnant and then cheated on her with Remy's mother, only to lose both of them, and getting left with the children. It might have said something favorable about him that he was granted custody, but Remy had always interpreted it as he had better assets and also terrible taste in women. And despite his heartbreak, Jean-Luc continued on with women of the same type, diving headfirst in relationships that were an inevitable failure from the beginning.
In Remy's somewhat biased opinion, his father had spent more time trying to keep a woman than his sons' respect. Henri, however; would always give the old man the respect he had earned by just being their dad, but Remy had been more than ready to leave forever the day he turned eighteen. The only barrier was Mattie – the woman who had been hired to watch the boys, and Jean-Luc, was the closest thing to a mother he ever had. If it wasn't for her, Remy figured, his father would be long dead by now. But then, if not for Mattie, Remy also knew he wouldn't be here either. But, despite his hurt that his father hadn't seemed to care about his needs, he would always come home at least once a year and try to keep the peace. It was one of the many things Mattie expected of him.
When he had proposed to Belle, when he was only twenty and still at LSU, he thought they would lead the life Henri had. He would prove to a father who had never asked him to that he could make a marriage work in spite of everything he had learned. He could do it if Henri could, right? After five off-and-on years, starting when they were fifteen, he thought their marriage would have been cake. But he turned out to be very wrong. It was the worst two and a half years of his life so far.
And so, he concluded, there was no way in hell he would ever get down on one knee again. No matter how much he was in love with Ororo. Because he had felt the same way about Belle, too. He had learned not to trust his heart; learned that he was susceptible for falling fast and hard – just like his father. His alternative was to keep up the free-and-easy fuck-buddies façade. Perhaps, she would never fully move in. Perhaps, she would never need more from him than he gave her now.
When he walked into the house and saw her though, he couldn't think of her as his part-time roommate that he had sex with. If he was honest with himself, she was nearly everything to him. She looked like she was dressed for yoga class – white, calf-length leggings and camisole covered with a baggy gray shirt that drooped down on one shoulder. Her silver white hair was in box braids and pulled up on top of her head, as always contrasted beautifully with her café au lait skin. Barefoot, she danced around the living room to Beyoncé. He smiled as she didn't even notice his entrance and hung up his coat and scarf. Just seeing her made him feel slightly better.
Ororo heard him cough; a sound she had been hearing for a week, maybe a week and a half now. But, she had learned by now there was no telling him what to do. He thought her homeopathic remedies were ridiculous and pointless and he didn't take regular medicine either for some reason she found ridiculous. So, she was left to assume he quite enjoyed feeling and sounding miserable. But, she wasn't going to let past arguments mar the time they could have together. With the remote, she turned down the stereo. "Hey, white boy," she said, with a smile, coming over to him and taking over with the removal of his tie.
"How were the kids today?" Remy asked referring to Ororo's group of Academy students. As per Xavier's instructions, most of his 'X-Men', he still used the term, had a group of Academy students assigned to them, and some of them, like Ororo, had the full time job of training them. Remy's group was thankfully mostly led by someone else, Greer Grant-Nelson, though he did have to make himself available to them if they ever needed him. Even Scott Summers was not deemed too important to have a group of his own, though he also had an assistant that did most of the work.
"I've been taking this dance break for probably an hour already," she said.
"That bad, huh?" he answered.
"I'm about to age myself, but it was different when we were in the Academy, that's for sure. For one thing, we had to respect our teachers." She led him to the couch after he had removed his shoes.
"That Storm kid?" he asked, guessing correctly who had made her day Hell.
"Yeah, karma must be. My namesake. You don't know how bad I wanted to drown him in a monsoon, show him what a real storm is."
Remy smiled slightly, showing off the dimple on his left side. Ororo scooted a little closer and took one of his long fingered hands, perfect when he was a wide receiver in high school, in both of hers. "So, a little wolverine told me the two of you stumbled upon a dead Morlock today. Also, he left those dill pickles for us on the counter."
Remy raised an eyebrow, and though his face did not betray him, he wasn't pleased with Logan telling Ororo things like that. Not because she couldn't handle it, but because Remy didn't want to have this conversation. "What else did Logan have to say?"
Those crystal blue eyes never wavered from his face; she knew she would never have the perceptive, people-reading skills Remy had, but she knew him well enough. "Honey, you know as well as I do that Logan tells me these things because he cares but doesn't know how to say so."
"Maybe next time he should just tell you everything so we don't have to get into it."
"Get into it?" Ororo said, and a smile touched her lips. Releasing his hand, she put one hand on each side of his face and before he could pull away she kissed him full on the mouth. And, quickly, before he could say what was on his mind, she said, "One, if I was meant to get sick, I would have got it already. Two, Logan did tell me everything. Three, none of it was your fault. Four, I love you, you stubborn, martyred fool. And five, take your medicine." She got up from the couch then and went to make some tea with honey and lemon.
Willa made a killing; if she gave Marjorie half, it would look like they didn't yet know what they were doing, leaving them enough to perhaps buy two bus tickets. To where, she didn't know yet, but she would figure it out soon. She exited the bar, feeling pretty good about herself, because hardly anyone noticed how she looked either, only to find that Cora was not where she left her.
She panicked for half a second, and then got angry. "Cora?" she whispered fiercely, "Where are you?" She walked over to the bench and noticed the pictures of daisies and tulips. Completed, so maybe her sister had gotten bored. Still, it was no excuse to leave, when Willa had specifically told her to stay there. She could kill her. But that would have been too close to what her mom would have said, or done, even. No, her mother was a coward. A selfish coward, who couldn't deal with the fact that her children were mutants. Taking a deep breath, leaving her mother in the past where she belonged, she began to check the ground for any telltale drips of what direction her sister might have gone.
A few to the right, more to the left, so she went that way, keenly aware of the fact that her little sister was beautiful and innocent and had no radar when it came to stranger-danger or anything of the sort. Her heart beat faster when she thought of it; Cora following some strange man or woman into those white vans with no windows. She stopped and put her hand to her stomach, feeling ill. Cora was her life, her responsibility. Nothing would happen to her, ever.
Just before her sense of responsibility could propel her into further motivation, she heard her sister's laugh. She spun around and ran head on to the source of it. There was Cora sitting next to a girl about Willa's age with pink hair and interesting green eyes. "Who the hell are you?" Willa asked in a voice that clearly meant business.
"What's it to you?" the pink haired sister-stealer said.
"Your smashed in face, that's what," Willa replied. "Cora, get over here, now."
Cora stood up and came over obediently, but said, "Willa, Sara's nice. And she's like us, too."
Willa eyed Sara from top to bottom. Backpack stuffed full and many layers of clothing – clothing that did not look all that worn. Sara was a recent runaway, who had not yet found a permanent place to reside. The wheels in her mind were turning as she asked, "You're a mutant?"
"Yeah, I'm a mutant." Sara said, harshly and angrily, as if trying to force herself to be comfortable with the term.
Willa figured that is what Cora had meant, but continued with, "You got a place you're staying?"
"Maybe I do, maybe I don't," Sara replied, but it was an obvious lie, and everyone, but Cora, knew it.
Willa ignored the obvious bluff, and figured out her plan. If she gave Marjorie only a quarter of what she had received tonight, but handed her a new 'girl', she'd look pretty good. And then she and Cora would have an even closer shot of getting to wherever paradise would be. "Yeah, okay," she said to Sara. "How about you come with us? It's not perfect, but it's the life you'll get used to pretty soon." It was Willa's way of saying she knew Sara was new to the street-life.