Flashback 17: A Bitter Sweet Goodbye-Hello

Where: Italy...Wild Moon Month

When: Flash back forward....between Flashback's 11 and 12

"Are you sure?" He asked.

"I'm positive." She replied.

"But you could-" he started, and she broke in.

"No. No, I couldn't. The Hellfire Mansion isn't home the way the Xavier's was, and the X-Men will always see our mother in me." Her lips formed a fretful expression that rarely graced her face, of confusion.

"Everyone loves you. They don't want you to...." the sentence stopped though as he looks ashamed to say a certain word because he knew she was about to do it again, and that thought alone was killing him. It would hurt more than ever to watch her go this time.

"Vanish?" Casse said softly against the breeze that stirred around them. She looked off to one side of him. "We knew this would to time at a point, Patric. I don't work well with the X-Men, and they can't see me for the shadows. We knew it would come down to if I could fit in with them again. If I felt like I fit in and could be at home there."

She reached out and took his hands, for a moment feeling the love and terror that coursed through him, without her powers even. She held this large man in sway the same way he would, if he threatened to leave her forever. Her eyes softened. "Oh, Patty-patch."

Raising his hands to her lips she kissed the center at the apex half on each side and pulled them close against right below her neck holding his hands just looking at him. The burning in her eyes was subsided by small clear jewel like drops that began to fall.

"I'll always love you. I just can't stay here anymore than I can't take you with me. Look at you, angel. You came all the way to Italy to make me happy. You abadonded your team, and -yes they understood- but eventually you'll have a yearning to go home to them. To continue in your fight for the better world. For mothers dream."

One of his hands fought free of hers and reached up to stroke a line down her cheek. "Your crying, Casse."

There was an attempt made to smile at his words and the soft gentle tone in his voice but she failed miserably. She blinked and more tears fell, but her eyes never left him. She used a small voice, even as her smallest threatened to crack. "Of course, I'm not. Remember? Casse hasn't cried since her mother left her that early morning."

His fingers of the one hand were still tracing her cheek gently, slowly growing wet in the gentle attempt. "If the moon could cry, she would cry for you."

Casse stilled for a second and looked down, though she didn't break away from his touch. The thunder in the sky seemed to herald her words, though they weren't connected. "That's.....what father said over mother's coffin at the viewing. Right before he left."

"Never forget she loves you, chiisai tsuki. You are our mothers daughter. Her only daughter. And if she were alive she would gather you in her arms, with tears of love, and hold you tight against all the world." He watched as more tears started to fall from her eyes. Their mother was many things, legend, hero, teacher, and friend.....but she was their mother, and that was what mattered most in their eyes.

She was more than anyone had or ever would be.

Not even stopping to correct him about Jennifer, she nodded slowly. She was the only daughter raised and grown in her eyes. The one she called her angel. Her head shook slowly, and her hair rose and fell with her, oddly for her normal, it was cut loose. No bands, no braids, no do dads. Just loose down her back, curling at it's ends about at mid thigh.

"If you want to come hom-" he broke up at how fast she looked up, and he shook his head sharp about to say something when she raised her fingers, from the free hand to cover his lips.

"My sweet angel. My patty patch." She leaned in and kissed his lips very softly, before looking down again, her entire form beginning to shake obviously before she looked up again. Small tears still traveling well worn path on her cheeks. "My home will never be a place. My home has been only one thing since I was born, since i was scarred or since i was free. You are my home, Patty. I will always come home to you."

"Promise me," Patric said suddenly, his lips across her hair on her hair as he pulled her close and she didn't resist or fight at all. He regretted his tone, the fear and pleading in it. He didn't want to let go of her. Not now, not ever. He wanted to wake up and find this all a dream.

A horn blared and she jumped, pulling from his arms to look over her shoulder. At the same time rain drops started to drop on her lightly. Casse looked back to him slowly and tried to offer a smile. "My ride..."

"You plan for everything," her brother whispered softly. His heart hurt inside his chest and he withheld a wish for it to stop beating should she walk away and never come back. Never return to his arms and his eyes. He didn't want to live with his twin. It was hard enough to live when she ran so far from where she came from. "Will you ever see him again?"

"Remy?" Casse questioned lightly and shook her head deftly. "No." She said the word as though it was a proclamation made by god and written in the tablets. "I know you want to tell me he doesn't think I betrayed him, but I have Patric. With every word I never spoke to him and every secret I with held. Especially the one i lost. I may not have betrayed him in his eyes....but I have in mine. No. No, I hope to never see Remy again a day in my life."

"You're a bad liar." He said as she began to straighten up and gain her courage to walk away. He could feel her carefully constructing the will power to walk away from him. It wasn't as easy for her as he wondered sometime. He knew it wasn't, but some how it made him feel better to know she didn't walk away with a completely eased conscience.

"Just one trying to make it true," Casse said softly and she tugged at her hand as the horn blared again. He didn't release her though and she looked at him a touch annoyed and confused. "Patric?"

"You didn't promise." But as he said the words he released her hand completely, and he, too, stood tall. Taller than her and dressed impeccably in the grey suite with the white rose in it's lapel this time.

She took steps backward looking a little surprised and when the horn blared again, she took more steps towards it. She felt the sinking sensation inside her, inside him. As she opened the door, she looks back over her shoulder and stared at her brother, their vaunted leader and mentor now, and the way the rain seemed to shine around him, as it must around her, but she didn't think about it.

'I promise.' Her lips mouthed silently, and Patric stared at her a moment longer before, his voice exploded inside her head. It surprised her to the point that a new wave of tears threatened to break. {I love you, akiko tsuki. Forever.}

Casse slipped into the car, told the man where to go, rolled the divider wall up, and placed her hand on the window. He still stood in the rain staring at her, becoming soaked. {Forever, Patric. Forever.} Then the car rolled away and tears rolled down her face, like the torrent that slapped the top of the Limo she stepped into. It probably wasn't the wisest thing to do, but once she was done crying, she pressed a button on the arm of her seat.

The moon roof opened completely and she stood up, through it and looked at the world around her, the rain soaking her the moment her body was outside cover. It didn't phase her thought. Tears bubbled down her cheeks, and her heart thundered with a terrified beat of rejoice. A clap of thunder and a strike of lightening brightened the sky for a few seconds, made Casse lips form a small mar of a smile and then she whispered against the torrents of wind and rain.

"Hello, life, you big beautiful, bitch. I've missed you, too."