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"Loyalty is still the same,
Whether it win or lose the game;
True as a dial to the sun,
Although it be not shined upon."
-Samuel Butler, 1663
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Chapter Forty-Seven: True as the Dial
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Warnings. They were so easy when words would come, but so inconceivably difficult without the words to put shape to the thought, and awareness to the knowledge of how to express them. Each day, his students came to see him, his friends visited with a quiet utterance of comfort into a deaf man's ears, and he struggled against this terrible inability to warn them. Such an overwhelming feeling of exposure and horrible infancy of the mind!
Guilt, too, played heavily on his heart. Had he only known about his young charge's potential, immutable trauma could have been easily side-stepped. Still, his ignorance had paired with a desire to believe that she was nothing more than a helpless, frightened runaway, someone that he could shelter and guide and motivate, leaving him as oblivious as the girl herself of her own potential. If he could warn her, and his other students, then perhaps some of the damage could be undone.
But what if he wasn't the only one who knew? Somehow, the thought plagued him more than any other, and it wouldn't stop and rest.
Now, he struggled to bring his body under the same control that he usually had over his mind. Even that seemed pointless and didn't seem to make much difference. Not a single psychic message, not a thought or a feeling, had passed through the damaged filters of his brain. He could dialogue only with his internal voices, and hope that Jean had not entirely abandoned her hopes of deciphering his apparently unexplainable situation.
The respirator had been taken away, and his chest rose and fell without the aid of machines. From time to time, a hand or eye would twitch, while the legs lay as flaccid and helpless as ever, and the hope of those watching over him would be renewed.
It hadn't been long. A week perhaps, maybe a little more or less.
God only knew what could happen during a week in the developing mind of the newest pyrotelepath on earth.
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There was not a student at Bayville that didn't dread the required completion of at least one course under Mrs. O'Creary, and not just because of the impossible exams and the teacher's affinity for weekend projects and pop quizzes. The fearsome old creature was probably the most ancient and tartly acidic individual ever to grace the hallowed halls of learning, and one who enjoyed the look of terror on a person's face during an episode of public humiliation. She trained her eyes on one black-haired boy in the far corner.
There really was something odd about that one.
"Now, can anyone tell me why or how the derivative of a function is given by its instantaneous speed?"
Kurt yawned widely, trying half-heartedly to block his face with his hand, and stared blank-faced up at the front of the classroom. His calculus book was propped up in front of him like a makeshift wall between himself and the teacher, and a spiral notebook was open with a pencil sharpened and ready for jotting down the teacher's notes, but nothing of educational value was scratched across the surface of the paper. Instead, he had drawn a small, messy sketch of a girl with dark hair, sitting with flames spouted from the ground all around her. Encircling the drawing were a series of disjointed German words in small lettering that reflected his rather fragmented state of mind. Now and then, he would gaze out the window to his side and watch the groundskeeper rumble past on the lawnmower, and stare at the symmetrical lines of wood and cement that made up the stadium in the distance.
"Mr. Wagner!"
Kurt jumped at the sudden bellow, which seemed considerably louder when he noticed it because he hadn't originally been listening very closely. He jumped in his seat, flailing slightly and knocking his calculus book onto the floor with a loud bang, startling laughter out of the nearby students. Beside him, Doug Ramsey chuckled softly to himself, pretending to scratch his chin so he could stifle the sound.
"Well?"
Kurt looked up. He blinked. The sour, triangular face of the eighty-year-old mathematician glowered across the room at him, and he felt himself shrug apologetically. The woman's yellowed teeth disappeared between wrinkled, pursed lips, and he tried not to think about how much she looked like a raisin. He blinked again and tried not to smile. "Uh…seventeen?"
The raisin seemed to color slightly in the cheeks, the heat of annoyance rising in the papery skin there. Squeezing her hands into fists, she looked formidable. Standing no more than five feet tall, she somehow seemed to carry all the authority of intimidation that might have been held if Magneto had entered the room. Kurt smiled nervously, waiting for a response, and got nothing more than a brusque shake of the woman's tiny head.
"Wrong again, Mr. Wagner." A tiny, twisted smile curved across her face, baring those small, discolored teeth again. "And here I thought the German schools taught their pupils respect and maturity for their educational processes. Then again, I suppose you've been with us here in the states too long to remember, haven't you?"
Kurt bit his tongue. Well, he bit it as much as his own nearly complete lack of self-control would allow, that is, and rolled his eyes as he responded, "No, ma'am, I think I may have just missed that day. I must have been too busy eating sausage and ironing my lederhosen for that lesson."
Laughter erupted again, beginning with Doug and filling the room in a domino effect in less than a second. Mrs. O'Creary did not look amused, and her glare brought silence back almost as quickly as it had fled. "I trust you're finished?"
He half-smiled. "Getting the answer wrong? Ja, I think so."
Her beetle-like eyes narrowed a fraction as they trained on him. "Completely, Mr. Wagner. Now, are you finished disrupting my classroom and ignoring your responsibilities as a student?"
Doug coughed, opening his eyes in a threatening glare in Kurt's direction, silently ordering to shut up while he was still somewhat ahead. Mrs. O'Creary's gaze didn't falter. Kurt felt trapped between the two and squirmed in his seat, painfully aware of all the eyes on him, but also aware that pushing the teacher further, despite its comedic benefits, would get him nothing but an extra week of detention. "Uh…ja…"
"Good. Now, can anyone else venture a guess? And it's not seventeen…"
Despite his good intentions, Kurt's concentration wandered again, and soon he and Doug were waging a frantic thumb-wrestling championship under the guise of passing one another pencils, Kurt's hand wrapped in the end of his sweatshirt sleeve so Doug couldn't feel his fur. No one seemed to notice, however, that the same pencil was being passed back and forth, no more blunted than it was the time before. Repeatedly, one or the other made a little sound of pain as the other pinned his thumb down with a tight little squeeze, but each was careful to smother the noise.
That is, until Kurt glanced out the nearby window, and made a startling discovery.
Doug's thumb crushed down on Kurt's as soon as the older boy was distracted from the game, and he yelped in startled pain. Doug looked surprised, and Mrs. O'Creary's attention was again regained, the stick of chalk in her hand snapping against the blackboard. Steam seemed to rise in her face, and Doug went pale, immediately dropping Kurt's limp fist. Kurt, on the other hand, remained transfixed on a small, solitary figure that was making its way across the grassy fields toward the stadium, a torrent of dark hair trailing behind her as she picked up speed.
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Nat sat quietly, hands in her pockets, scuffing the toes of her shoes as she kicked at the ground. High above the football field in the shady stadium, she could look out over most of the Bayville High campus, and considerably farther since it was on a hill. The heat of the day had not yet set in, but the air held that faint hum of stillness and warmth that promised a stiflingly hot afternoon. The sky was relatively cloudless and seemed heavy in its intensity of blue, hanging above the horizon as if on strings that might break at any second. The mist of early morning and the scent of the rain that had fallen not long before had almost entirely vanished.
If she squinted she could see as far as the edge of Salem Center, just beyond the Bayville town limits, and she knew that if she followed the highway through the larger neighboring city she would eventually end up in the metropolis of New York. Apart from the Interstate, there was a single long, thin ribbon of pale gray, like a cement creek streaming through the trees and the suburban arena, that sliced neatly through both towns. It trickled off into the wilderness to the north, where it filtered into a series of small dirt paths and eventually into nothingness.
Graymalkin Lane. She recognized it even from far away, but it seemed so different from here. It was still quiet and tree-lined, and moderately secluded, but the familiar curves and cracks looked like entirely separate entities from here. The only thing she knew for sure was that if one followed the road toward the northeastern edge of town, near the ocean, and veered right before it cut in a westerly direction toward Salem Center, one would find oneself facing a high wrought iron fence, with a brick-faced mansion just beyond.
She drew her heels up onto the edge of the bench and wrapped her arms around her legs, her chin propped on her knee. A sigh was dragged from her lungs, inhaling the warm, sweet air of the morning.
She was out of tears.
A limpness remained, and the formless impression that she should be feeling a lot more. Her grief, her tears, and even that continuing guilt marriaged with self-pity, lingered only in the vaguest of senses. Too many tears had been shed from her eyes, and the exhaustion that they brought along was becoming more than a tad demanding.
She sighed and fingered the cigarette again, raising it to her mouth and letting it sit between her lips, unlit. It seemed so much easier to let it burn, but somehow, something stopped her. Maybe, if she could keep it unlit…
"That habit…ungesund, you know." Nat whirled around, nearly falling off of her seat and into the recessed space behind it. A familiar face greeted her, smiling faintly and shaking his head. He was silent for a moment, and kept his hands deep in his pockets, bobbing customarily up on the balls of his feet. "You'll get sick."
Nat's vision wavered. She stood a few yards away from her visitor and several rows of seats up, and she could see past him easily. Her brain supplied her with terrible messages that gripped at her throat and told her to bolt, reminding her of her confrontation with Rogue and Kitty and of Kurt's previous fury before she had left the mansion. Her heart fluttered slightly, but her feet were leaden, and she felt that she couldn't move an inch.
"Yeah…" she whispered, slipping the cigarette into her pocket with trembling hands. A small breeze had picked up and danced between them, as if to mock their silence. Kurt didn't come closer, but he lowered himself slowly onto one of the seats not far away, settling down on the edge of the seat's back, facing Nat. He cocked his head to one side and watched her as she watched back, neither quite sure what to say.
"So…"
"Are you coming back?"
Nat blinked, surprised at his sudden bluntness and afraid to answer too quickly. "Huh?"
"Back. Are you coming back to school?" He watched her intently, hardly blinking, and she felt somewhat heady.
"Oh, uh, right. School." She coughed nervously, and glanced away. "Yeah, I suppose so. How…how'd you get out of class, anyway?"
Kurt grinned, holding up a bright orange slip of paper. A detention slip. "I'm supposed to be in the office." He shrugged and laughed a little to himself.
The hush descended again, blanketing the two anxious teens in a layer of lethargy bonded somehow with jumpiness, that oddly heavy feeling of disquieting urgency, as if something burning needed to be said but first had to break through a brick wall. Nat gazed out at the empty sports fields so that Kurt's face was just outside her peripheral vision. She didn't see him vanish, but felt the sudden emptiness where his figure had previously sat, and the warmth of his body when he reappeared beside her. Wisps of smoke trailed off into the air and dissipated quickly, smelling faintly of brimstone and flame, and making her jump. She turned, finally, and faced him, this time only separated by a few thin inches of air.
"I vas hoping you'd come back," was all he said, and he reached forward to gently take her hand, which still quivered like a leaf under a strong wind, and almost pulled back. Tears stood out in her eyes, but refused to fall. "I never thought you really vould."
"I…I never thought you'd want me to," she said, almost below a whisper, staring down at their intertwined hands.
He smiled faintly, and tilted her head upward with a tap to her chin. "It vas a communication breakdown, then."
"But…after…I mean…you know, what I…" She broke off, wiping her eyes hastily with the back of her hand.
Still smiling, but a little more falsely and sadly this time, Kurt shrugged. "I vas mad. At first—" he laughed slightly, quietly "—and maybe a little now, still. But…I don't know, I guess that's not the most important thing, altogether."
A sense of relief flooding through her, Nat sighed, her shoulders going rather limp, and she pulled her hands away from his again, rubbing them together habitually. Neither of them was willing to state just exactly what the most important thing really was. Kurt smiled, but his eyes lingered on her hands as she rubbed them, and she noticed the action, choking slightly and forcing herself to stop. He sighed distantly and went on.
"Are you…you're staying vith Pietro, right?"
Nat found herself stammering, unable to gain full control over her tongue and her trembling lips, but eager to put any of his fears to rest. "Not just with Pietro, Kurt. With the Brotherhood." A small voice in the back of her mind reprimanded her for her choice of words of comfort, and she shook her head as if to dislodge the proper sentence from the recesses there. She stared at him, unable to tear her eyes away, and desperate to defend herself lest he think her callous and cruel. "I had nowhere else to go. I was alone, and this country is still pretty unfamiliar..."
Kurt nodded slowly. "Alright." He swallowed hard, but the set of his expression was honest. "I understand."
"While we're at it, I…I'm sorry about Kitty and Rogue."
A look of surprise flashed over his face, followed by a tiny glower of annoyance. "Was? Did something else happen?"
"I…uh, we got in a fight. This morning when I first got to school." She shivered, despite the warmth of the morning and the faint sheen of sweat that threatened to appear on her hot brow. "I didn't mean to, Kurt. I swear. I just…I couldn't listen to them talk about what happened to the professor without…" her voice seemed to die, and she raised her hands and turned to him, pleading in her eyes. "Without thinking about how you must blame me, too."
The folded his arms over his chest, his hands slightly cold now that Nat had pulled her own away. He eyed her tentatively out of the corner of his vision, his heart thudding painfully behind his ribs. He wondered if she could hear it, and swallowed the question to ask another instead. "Should I?"
Green eyes wide, Nat stared at him, her expression bland but slightly sorrowful. "I…I don't think so." She bit her lip. "I mean, I know I could have done it, and I know that I even might have done it, if I'd lost control. But, Kurt, I swear, I don't know how the house caught fire, or why the Professor hasn't woken up! It was nothing that I meant to do, whatever my role might have been, and I'm quiet sure that I didn't start the fire itself."
She seemed to shrivel in her seat, clasping her palms together tightly and staring down at her feet. Kurt sat silently for a moment, trying to absorb her words, inwardly joyful and terrified at the same time, proud that his feelings of doubt had been warranted but fearful of what she might have been done inadvertently.
But blame couldn't fall solely on the shoulders of those that had no intension to do wrong…could it?
He reached out slowly, placing an arm around her shoulders and letting her gradually loosen and tilt herself until she leaned against his side. Her forehead rested on his collarbone, and he could feel the heat radiating from her body, just slightly above that of a normal human. She smelled like jasmine-scented soap, and a strange and fluttering nostalgia invaded his being. She went on quietly, filling in the empty spaces where his unspoken words might have been.
"Something's happening to me, Kurt."
He pulled back suddenly, fear etched in his eyes and twisting across his face. His heart had begun to hammer unnaturally again, and he was beginning to distantly wonder if this much stress could be healthy, even in one as young and vigorous as himself. "Was, Liebchen? Is something wrong?"
She wiped at her cheeks again, but found her fingers dry. "I…don't know. All I know is that the…the fire…it's different, somehow. It's changed. I can control it better now, but, for some reason…I don't always want to." She felt him go slightly rigid against her, making her voice waver, but she coughed and went on, steadier this time. "And even when it's not there, I can feel it, as if it's always in my body somewhere. And in my head." She lightly touched a single fingertip to her temple, looking up at him, hoping he would say something comforting, but waiting to be violently rebuked.
Instead, he placed his hand atop the one against her temple and lowered it slowly, clasping it in her lap and brushing his lips gently across the place where the finger had touched. She shivered and her eyes closed as she leaned in against him, feeling the fine, dense fuzz on his face despite its holographic shielding. Something melted away inside her, then, and she knew instinctively that no matter what happened, this felt right. Kurt was her trusted one, her dial always facing the sun.
The peaceful quiet and the gentle, companionable comfort were shattered in a moment. Neither of them had seen the lithe figure of a woman approaching, dressed in conservative gray with her glasses glinting in the sunlight, obscuring her eyes but highlighting the sharp angles of her face. She folded her arms and watched for a moment, irritation boiling up within her that she couldn't entirely explain, and quelled the urge to growl. She gritted her teeth and planted her feet firmly on the pavement at the base of the stadium, raising her voice to be heard in an echoing shout.
"Fairbanks! Get yourself to my office, now!" She was greeted by two pairs of shocked, then angry eyes, and smirked to herself. "Don't you dare give me that look, young lady. You've got a visitor."