Chapter 6
**Come in, Warren**
Warren had forgotten the trick of Xavier's that had most impressed him when he first came to the school: the ability to know when someone was approaching his office and who it was. He knocked anyway, and entered.
"I was wondering when you would find time to come see me," Xavier said, closing a book and motoring his wheelchair around the desk.
"Sorry
about the delay, I've been spending time with Scott, as you suggested."
"How is he?"
Warren drew a breath, "As well
as could be expected, so, terrible. I hope that his dedication to the school,
the X-Men and frankly, you, will keep him from doing anything stupid to
himself."
"Do you think that is likely?"
"Maybe. He said as much to me. He's such a control freak; it's not outside the realm of possibility." Warren looked down, aware of the hypocrisy making that statement, but barreling on nonetheless, "On the other hand, he has such a strong sense of duty he may find that if it comes down to actually acting on his impulse that he is incapable of doing anything about it. That's what I'm hoping for at any rate."
Xavier spoke carefully, "I wish there was some way for him to understand that life will always find a way."
"With respect, sir. I don't think he is ready to hear such a…platitude right now."
"I know he's not," Xavier smiled gently.
Warren changed the subject, "I know that you wanted to talk to me, but I need to get on the road. I spent some time this morning with your new houseguest."
"Ah yes, Mina," his eyes twinkled
"Hank thinks that she may be immobile for several weeks, so I have offered to go to her house and pick up a few of her things."
Xavier turned that over in his head for a moment, "They could be waiting for her. We don't yet know what Mystique or Magneto wanted her for. She is still very much in danger."
"That's why I thought I would take Scott with me. Get him out of the house for a while." Xavier nodded. Warren continued, "A discreet observation of her own living space may also shed some light on the reasons why she is a target."
Xavier frowned, "Go gently here. She is slow to trust, and I suspect that she may never forgive a breech of that trust."
"I will sir, but she asked someone to go and get her plants. I don't know that we will get a better opportunity than this."
"Her plants?"
Warren described briefly what Mina had said about her mutation. The Professor looked intrigued, but declined to comment when Warren asked him for his thoughts on the matter.
"Before you go," Xavier said, "I wanted to tell you that you seem more animated since you have been here than you have been during the teleconference calls and the board meetings I have seen you at in the last two years."
Warren froze.
Xavier continued placidly, "Loosing Jean has been a terrible time for the School and for the X-Men. I appreciate you being here and supporting Scott through all this. And me as well."
"You are welcome. It has been my pleasure," he answered, lips stiff.
"It's almost as if you have come alive in the last two days." Xavier regarded him calmly, "Have you been unhappy?"
Warren sat down in one of the hard chairs with a thump, pinching the ends of his wings. The immediate pain was good. It helped him pull back a little from the precipice that Xavier had led him towards. He closed his eyes, searching for something truthful to say, "I've been tired," he temporized, "The economy has made it difficult. The business is doing well, all things considered, but every time I turn around there is another crisis. And the marketing campaign I am funding to lobby against the Mutant Registration Act is not going well. The agency we hired has gone through a management change and now they are refusing to do the work."
Xavier cut through to the heart of his fear, "Since Candy's death your passion for your work has faded."
Warren looked down at his hands; "I don't feel qualified to help Scott figure out why he should try to put his life back together. I never figured it out. I just got used to what life was like without her." He spread his hands apart, as if to emphasize their emptiness, "How can I help him? I couldn't ever help myself."
"And yet you are still here," Xavier said.
"In some fashion, I suppose. It's more like habit though. And duty. You need me. The board of the school needs me. The business needs me."
"A man's
life is worth more than the sum of his responsibilities, Warren."
"I know. In my head I know
that is true. But living that way has been difficult."
"I think
you need a new challenge."
Warren laughed, "You mean
running a multi billion dollar corporation while hiding the fact that you are a
mutant is not challenge enough?"
"How about running a multi billion dollar corporation and go public with your mutation. Why not rejoin the team?"
Warren caught his breath, "I…"
"The X-Men meant more to you than anything. I know what it cost you to leave us. There is no reason why you need to stay away. Why not come back?"
"The business world would never stand to have a mutant as a CEO."
"A business' true motive is profit. You have said that a hundred times before. A mutant can make money as easily as a human."
"Scott would never allow me back on the X-Men."
"I think you underestimate your friend."
"I think you underestimate his grief. He would see my presence as a sign that you have lost faith in his ability to lead."
"I'm a telepath. I don't think its possible for me to underestimate anyone's grief."
Xavier simple statement punctured Warren's multiple excuses, "I'm sorry sir. Everyone has spent so much time worrying about Scott; my guess is no one has spent anytime worrying about you. Has it been difficult for you? So many minds so close and filled with so much grief."
Xavier seemed surprised, "Me? Oh I'm fine. Thank you. The hardest part has been shielding out the immediacy of others feelings while still trying to offer guidance and help."
"The two of you had a close friendship."
His face softened, "I miss her. I miss her physical presence here at the school. But there are times when I can still almost feel her, hovering around the edges of my mind," he smiled to himself. Warren thought he looked impish, as if he knew something he was not quite willing to share.
"I have felt that way about my Father before. After he and Mother died there were times that I felt he was watching me and judging how I was handling his business in his absence. I don't want to come off sounding mystical, but there are times that I feel that the dead are not so far away."
Xavier flashed him a smile, "Appropriate musings for an angel."
"My business competition would scoff to hear you describe me that way."
"Yes, I've heard all sorts of stories about your ruthlessness."
"I am my father's son. I have a certain reputation I have to maintain."
But the quip fell flat when Xavier responded with only a thoughtful, "Indeed."
**********
After a hot breakfast, a rather messy bath, and dressed in another set of borrowed clothes Mina felt almost human, or at least as close to human as a mutant ever felt. She felt awkward about Hank and Ororo fussing over her so much, but felt powerless to stop them. Her mother had taught her that the role of a guest was to allow the host the courtesy of presenting their best side and so did not protest the way that she wanted to.
She hated feeling helpless though.
While Hank was rewrapping the bandages on her feet she heard a rumble and a scraping sound coming from outside her open window. Alarmed she sat up straight and jerked her feet away, ready to fling herself out of the bed and into the bathroom if necessary. Hank half turned towards the sound, and then reached out and reclaimed her feet, continuing to wind the bandages loosely.
"What the hell is that," she demanded, alarmed.
"Sounds like Scott and Warren have decided to take the blackbird to pick up your things." He shook his head sorrowfully, "The Professor is likely to have their hides though. He hates disturbing the neighbors."
The scraping sound stopped to be replaced with the roar of a jet engine. It built to an ear throbbing crescendo before the sound began to fade out. She looked incredulously at the blue giant with the gentle hands, "You have your own airport?"
"Landing pad, actually, the Blackbird is a vertical take off and landing type aircraft."
She absorbed that piece of information, demanded suspiciously, "Are you sure you are not funded by the government?"
He smiled, all fanged teeth, and then sobered abruptly, "I find the possibility dubious in the extreme. We've seen recent evidence to indicate that the government was funding a secret project that experiments on mutants. Exploring their potential for military applications."
"Ah. That
explains what Ororo was talking about. Doesn't surprise me in the slightest."
"Well then, a judicious
application of critical thinking will recognize that funding a school to teach
young mutants to be good citizens and funding a mutant experimentation project
are incompatible activities."
She grinned. For a moment it was like being back at the coffee shop, talking politics with Yurtle, Alexx and the others. She leapt to the attack, "Except your analysis of the situation assumes two things that are not necessarily true. First, that the government has a unified vision of how it plans on dealing with mutants. In practice the feds usually don't know what the right and left hands are doing. Second, you are also assuming that the government's vision is both intelligent and sane. Neither of these are qualities that I would ascribe to this administration or to the un-elected bureaucrats who actually run the show. I see no reason why the government could not be hedging its bets, trying to see which is the most effective strategy for dealing with the mutant 'problem'." She brought her fingers up and made quotation marks in the air to frame the last word.
"Oh my stars and garters!" Hank rolled his eyes in what Mina assumed to be rapture, "You're an intellectual!"
"Watch your language," She warned, darkly, while fighting to keep from breaking into a smile "I might get insulted. Intellectuals only talk about the problem but don't do anything about fixing it. I am not an intellectual."
He chortled, "As plausible as your theory is, I am almost positive that this school and the X-Men are entirely privately funded."
"You have some rich backers then."
"One or two."
There was a knock at the door. Ororo had returned with a wheelchair, "This is the professor's spare," she explained, "He thought that this would help you get around on your own."
Mina knew she could not hide the relief in her expression, "Thank you, again. You all seem to be able to think of everything that would make me feel comfortable."
Ororo's eyes twinkled as Hank easily picked Mina up and placed her in the chair, "Would you like a tour?" Mina nodded.
"Ladies," Hank began to apologize, "Although I would like to do nothing more than to spend a day meandering through my alma mater with such delightful and Tempean company as yourselves, I am afraid I promised the professor that I would get some work done for my debut as 'Professor' Henry McCoy tomorrow. Perhaps we shall catch up at dinner tonight?" He bowed, kissed Mina's hand, and then Ororo's hand for good measure and left them.
"Hank has agreed to teach Jean's science classes for the rest of the semester," Ororo explained as she wheeled Mina down the hall. "Hopefully things will get back to something resembling normal."
"What's normal for a mutant school?"
Ororo sighed, "Good question."
*********
Ororo showed her the empty classrooms, the library, the living room, the dining room and the kitchen. She took her down to see the garage filled with the school's cars and out to the stable and around the basketball court. Almost everywhere were the signs of the recent invasion that Ororo and Warren had told her about. Boarded up windows, bullet holes in the woodwork, scrapes and water damage in the hall. As they passed over the Oriental rug in the entryway, Mina stopped Ororo and pointed to it.
"Is that a bloodstain?"
Ororo looked alarmed, "Where?"
"It's hard to spot because the field is dark red, but I don't think that outline there is part of the design of the rug." Mina pointed with her hand the irregular blotch marring the central medallion.
She got down and gingerly touched the part Mina had pointed out, "It's stiff."
"Then it is a bloodstain."
Her new friend looked at the rug with a mixture of horror and revulsion, "I can't believe we missed that. I'll make sure we get rid of it."
It was Mina's turn to look horrified, "This is an antique Isfahan! You can't just get rid of it." She reached down, touched the wool, flipped up a corner of the rug and did some hasty mental calculations, "This is probably a twenty thousand dollar rug."
Ororo looked ill, "One of Striker's men died on it."
Mina waved that away, "A little ammonia, a little salt, a little detergent and you will never be able to tell. If there one thing an Afghan woman knows about cleaning, it's how to get the blood of your enemies out of your heirloom carpets."
Ororo looked up through the strands of her white hair, "Is that where you are from?"
Mina cursed herself. A morning of kindness and she was becoming incapable of holding her tongue. On the other hand, it suddenly occurred to her, Ororo's question revealed that some members of the X-Men did not know as much about her as she thought they did, "Yes,"
"You don't have an accent." Ororo observed, "How do you know so much about rugs?"
Mina hesitated again, weighing how much to reveal before giving in, "My father was a dealer."
"In the
States or in Afghanistan?"
She needed to change the
subject. Now. "Both. Will you and Professor Xavier allow me to
repay your hospitality by cleaning your rug?
It would be a shame to have it ruined.
It's a lovely piece."
Ororo brightened, "Sounds good to me, though I had something more immediate and hopefully more rewarding in mind," she stood up, brushed off her knees and got behind the wheelchair. "Final destination on our whirlwind tour is my favorite place on campus."
Ororo pushed the chair through the center of the school. She introduced Mina to everyone they passed, but the names blurred together for her until by the time they reached the quieter end of the building she did not know if she could have matched up one name to any of the faces.
"Here we go," Ororo stopped the wheelchair in front of a set of glass double doors fogged over with condensation, and pushed a blue button set into the wall. The doors slid back, a wave of humidity rolled out of the room.
Mina sat up in the chair, "A green house!"
"Better," said Ororo, wheeling her inside, "A conservatory."
The white iron fretwork holding the glass panes in place soared above Mina two stories high, then folded across the ceiling at an impossible angle to make the roof look almost like an onion dome. Wrought iron cresting ran the length of the peak. The light from the midday sun angled off the panes of glass, letting her see though to the garden outside in some places, while flinging the reflection of her own eyes back to her in others. A gravel path wound towards the rear of the long room, overhung all the way with tropical plants of every shape and description. Vines scrambled up the support cables, the wide fat leaves of banana plants fluttered gently in front of one of the fresh air vents. A plumeria wound it's ridged trunk up through the leaves in search of the sun. The heady fragrance of its yellow flowers seemed to tug Mina further into the room. She rolled the wheels of her chair forward, hearing them crunch on the gravel, releasing the scent of the soil and the mold that flourished in the humid space. It was earthy, familiar, and reassuring.
She could not help herself, she laughed out loud.
"I am so glad you like it," Ororo said, dimpling, and relaxing for a moment from her perfect host role. "This place is my refuge. Almost no one comes here but me, but I thought that you would probably appreciate it."
Mina touched one of the vines as Ororo wheeled her past, craning her neck to see the articulated rainbow of flowers dotting its length, "Passiflora incarnata. " She breathed, "Hello, beautiful…."
"Oh you know the Latin! Yes, it's a passion flower," Ororo confirmed.
"I've never spoken to this variety before."
"When I first came to the school this room was a terrible mess. No one had really stepped foot in here since Professor Xavier's mother had died. She was the one who had the place built. I cleaned it up and started growing some exotics to pass the time. I grow a lot of the plants for the landscaping myself. But these, these have eluded me." Ororo stopped the wheelchair in front of a potting table, "My mutation gives me the interest in horticulture, but not always the skill, I'm afraid."
Like gears finally beginning to turn in a rusty old clock, Mina felt curiosity about another person stir within her. On the street it was rude to ask a suspected mutant about the nature of their affliction, like asking someone why they had gone to prison. It was a social line you did not normally cross. She got the sense that the rules didn't work that way here, "What…what is your mutation?"
"Weather control."
Mina absorbed that for a minute. She blinked, "The lightening. That was you!"
"Yes."
"Holy shi…that's incredible!"
She dimpled again, "Not as incredible as what I think you can do. Can you take a look at this?" Ororo pulled a plant down from the table and set it on the floor next to the wheelchair, "It just won't bloom for me." The plant was about three feet tall with dull olive foliage. The leaves were almost as long as Mina's palm and rustled against each other.
"Dahlia variabilis," she murmured and then reached out and caressed its leaves, focusing down into it the way that she had discovered when she was twelve.
Surprise, welcome, joy, the speaking of like to like, the sense that she was enfolded into its bark, its leaves, its roots became her feet, her fingers flattened and fluttered. A hollow feeling in her chest, her skin itched and the sense of drowning, drowning, drowning….
Mina pulled back and opened her eyes. The sense of being Mina again snapped back, like a rubber band. She focused on Ororo, trying to catch her balance. "Too wet," she said, "We need soil that does not hold so much water." Mina caught herself pulling at the neck of her t-shirt trying to get more air and stopped.
Ororo looked surprised, taking in the amalgam of Mina and the dahlia, "Should I repot it? Her? "
"Yes… the soil should be sandy…and the repotting should help the… I don't know what you call them… little bugs?"
"Thrips?" Ororo looked alarmed, "She has thrips?"
"Eggs only at the moment. I think she wants to be put outside. It will probably help disrupt the lifecycle of the little buggers."
Within minutes Ororo had gathered a trowel and was wheeling Mina clutching the dahlia out of the back door of the conservatory out into the garden. Ororo stopped in front of one of the beds where a bare spot of mulch waited for a new plant. "No," Mina said, "Not here. She wants to be over there, in the sun. The soil is right there."
Ororo hesitated, "This is where I planned on putting the dahlias."
"Yes, but you didn't ask her if that's what she wanted. It's not."
Mina got a blank look from the other woman, "Ask her?"
She reminded herself that other people did not know; reminded herself to be patient, "She won't be able to bloom here either." She could feel the plant's urgency. "Over there will be better."
Reluctantly Ororo pushed Mina's chair over to the spot she indicated, up close to the wall outside the library in full sun, "Its not even part of the landscaping."
Mina laughed, "When has a plant ever paid attention to where you want it to grow? This is why you spend so much time weeding. A plant grows where the seed lands because the conditions are right. If you are dealing with transplants you have an entirely different problem. You have to find a spot that would have been right had the plant been a seed and not an adult; otherwise you will either kill them or make them unhappy. Here, here she will be happy."
There was a little crease in Ororo's forehead as she mulled that over, "Sure, we can give it a try."
Since the soil had not been turned in this spot, Ororo fetched a shovel and dug a hole to Mina's specifications, then gently turned the dahlia out of it's pot, placed it in the hole, turning it to face the sun, and then crumbled up the dirt with her hands and placed it back in the hole. Mina sighed, contentment humming through her. She asked a question of the dahlia, and as Ororo pulled her hands away from the soil, it burst into bloom.
"She says thank you," Mina translated unnecessarily.
The flowers on the dahlia were orange at the tips and faded towards yellow at their center of the bloom. The petals curved back upon themselves, creating a riot of spikes, like fireworks caught in mid explosion.
Ororo's mouth curved into a delighted smile. She touched one of the blossoms gently, "You are welcome," she whispered.
*****
When Warren had asked Mina to write down directions to get to her house he thought at first that she must have been kidding. Who lived in the middle of a state forest?
"Me," she'd answered firmly.
Uncomprehendingly he'd asked the
first question that had occurred to him, "How do you survive the winter?"
She'd rolled her eyes
impatiently, "Good grief, you'd think that humans were incapable of living in
the wild. Our ancestors pulled it off,
why can't we?"
She'd drawn him a map that they had used as a starting point, which they'd then superimposed on top of a topographical map of Massachusetts to figure out the general area of where they had to go. They had flown the jet under military radar level and landed it in the middle of a field relatively close to the location Mina had indicated. It still involved a lot of tromping around in the middle of nowhere trying to triangulate based on her sketchy suggestions. Well, Warren mused to himself; it was a lot of tromping around for Scott.
Warren had un-strapped himself from his harness and flown in low lazy circles in on the excuse that he could help figure out where they were going from the air by communicating with Scott via handheld radio. Mostly though he was grateful for a chance to just fly.
He had spent so much of the last six years being Warren Worthington the III that he had almost forgotten what it was like to be the Angel. To fly for the sheer joy of feeling his wings beat at the air, of seeing the earth spread out underneath him like a patchwork blanket. He'd forgotten what it was like to play chase with the hawks, or how to dodge the sparrows when they'd decided that he'd come to close to their nests; to just be himself, free and graceful and fully alive.
The radio attached to the belt of his uniform crackled, "Angel, I repeat, do you see anything?"
Startled, Warren felt immediately guilty, and pulled up by stroking sharply downward, "Negative, I don't see a tall Douglas fir anywhere… oh!"
Warren could hear the tension in Scott's voice, "What? What do you see?"
"There is a clump of significantly
taller trees to the south." They rose
up in a mound as if they were a tree-covered hill, but according to their
topographical maps the land sloped gently away to the south here, an ancient
drained river basin. He checked the GPS
on his wrist, "It's within half a mile of where we thought we might find the
place."
"Check it out and report back
then, I'll start heading that way."
Warren flew over the clump, but found he could not set down in the middle of it. Vines covered the tops of the trees, shielding the ground from the air. He was forced to land northwest of the mound, dropping carefully down through a break in the trees. He was not like Storm who could just gently drop the air out from underneath her feet, alighting as if she were stepping off a Paris runway. He landed as silently as he could, which is to say not silently at all. He hoped he sounded like an eagle would, crashing through the trees to go after a rabbit on the ground. He held still for several minutes waiting to see if someone was going to break from the bushes or if he was going to get shot at. Nothing happened. He stood up.
The radio crackled again, making him jump, "Angel, report!"
Warren unclipped the radio from his belt and held it close to his lips to reply, "I am reporting that if there was anyone within a mile of this place, you just scared them off."
"Is it the place?"
"It matches her description. Can you get a fix on my location?"
There was a short silence, and then the radio crackled again, "Yes. I should be there in less than 20 minutes."
Viewing the impenetrable wall of vegetation before him, Warren elected to wait for Scott and the energy beams he could shoot from his eyes. Mina had hidden her home well. He didn't know if there was a break in the vines that wrapped around the trees, but he suspected if there was one it would not be large enough for him and his wings to crawl through. In the meantime he searched around the perimeter for signs that one of Magneto's people had been there before him.
Mina had said that her round house lay in a ring of trees that she had grown up around it. As Warren approached he could see the circle of pine, oak and maple trees that made up the border of her home in the woods, but the trunks were incredibly thick and gnarled, as if the trees had stood there for a hundred years. The maple trees were just beginning to turn and the tips of their branches were flecked with orange and red, like a fire beginning to catch. Vines, with luminous blue flowers danced between the tops of the trees. Lower down the vines were hung with scarlet blossoms, blocking entrance into the circle of their limbs. On the other side of the mass he was able to see a faintly trodden path on the ground that led to a break low in the vegetation. He crouched down and peered inside, too small for him to fit his six-foot frame and his sixteen foot wingspan through. Just the right size for a five foot four inch woman though. No sign that anyone other than Mina had ever been here.
A few minutes later Scott jogged up, breathing lightly. No matter what kind of aspersions Warren may throw on Scott for being an anal-retentive control freak, he was in damn good physical shape, "Do you need a second to catch your breath?"
Scott missed the sarcasm, "No." He surveyed the sheltering trees and vines. Warren wondered if Scott was capable with his red vision of seeing the wild beauty of the place, "Is this the only way in?"
"Looks like it."
"Stand back then."
Scott dialed the energy level of his visor low and let loose the power of his eyes. Red beams shot from his visor, snapping branches and ripping apart vines, widening the entrance so they could both crawl through. The beams stopped.
A shower of blue and red petals fluttered down from the structure, shaken loose from the force of Scott's vision. They fell all around the two of them like tears.
"Oh dear," said Warren, "I don't think Mina's going to like what you did to her front door."
Scott wasn't listening. He had frozen, looking at the petals coming to rest on the brown, leaf strewn forest floor. Warren watched him warily, wondering what was going through his mind, what memory of Jean he was chasing down dark paths. Scott knelt and picked up a handful of luminous blue and red. He touched them gently with his fingers, though Warren knew he could not feel their smoothness through his uniform's gloves.
"Scott…"
Scott stood up and put the petals in a pouch on his uniform belt, "I'm okay," though his voice was choked, "Let's go."
Warren led the way on hands and knees through the opening that Scott had widened for them. His wings brushed the top of the vines and snagged on their broken ends. He winced as a couple of the softer (??) feathers were torn away.
At the end of the dense vine tunnel he stood up. It was lighter than he would have thought in the protected clearing; the sun's rays were filtered by the leaves and the flowers and cast a soft green glow. In the center of the circle of trees stood a round structure covered with canvas no more than sixteen feet around. There was a door, a proper door built into the frame of the little house, and windows made of clear pvc panels sewn into the walls.
Behind him, Scott began abruptly to crack up.
Warren stared at the structure dumbly, "It's a yurt!"
It was indeed a yurt, a modernized version of an ancient Mongolian traveling house and the unwitting subject of a group of teen-aged mutants drunken fascination.
Two of those mutants were standing here now, two were back at the mansion and one was gone. It shouldn't have been funny, and yet it was. The two of them laughed until their ribs ached, until neither could breathe or stand, and as one of them gained control of himself he would take one look at the other and loose it again. Warren could not remember when he had laughed for so long. It felt so good to feel the waves of laughter catch him and fling him up and then drop him down into a lull so he could catch his breath. It was like flying on wind made of joy. It took him a minute to realize that Scott's gasping was no longer laughter but grief.
Professor Xavier had said once that tears into laughter was one of his favorite emotions. Warren thought laughter into tears was going to smash his heart.
Scott had curled up into a ball on his knees on the ground, covering his face with his hands and rocking back and forth. Warren crawled over to him, trailing the tips of his wings in the dirt and wrapped his arms around Scott's back, holding him as he sobbed. Warren was weeping himself, thinking of Jean's red hair flashing in the light, lips pressed together in annoyance when she scolded a drunken young Scott and Warren, and throwing her hands up in despair at their hopelessness. He had felt himself falling in love with her at that moment, even though he knew that a creature that glorious was not meant for him and acknowledging the bitterness of that thought. He had been sincerely glad for them, no matter what Scott had jealously thought, when they had found happiness in each other, though it meant that he was left alone, outside the bright circle of their love.
It was hopeless. Hopeless to think that Warren would be able to help him put his life back together without her.
A long time later Scott stirred underneath Warren's arms. Warren pulled away. Scott averted his face from Warren and pulled his visor off. Behind the lenses his eyes were screwed up tightly, and he knuckled them free of tears. Without his visor Scott looked naked, vulnerable. Like a man grieving the death of his wife, not the leader of a strike force of mutants, desperately trying to hold it together. As if sensing Warren's perception of his humanity, he hastily put the visor back on. His shield.
"I'm sorry," Scott apologized, "I shouldn't have lost control. It seems like I can't get a handle on it. I'm always on the edge of loosing it. I shouldn't have burdened you."
Warren took a deep breath, fighting anger, "Yes, you should have," he said with more emphasis than he had intended, "This is what friends do for each other. It's not all just getting drunk, partying and saving the world together, you know. Friendship is give and take. Stop being the leader for once, and take."
Scott regarded him levelly though his chin quivered. He nodded once, stiffly, "Then for God's sake, help me get up." Warren clamored to his feet and then leaned a hand down. Scott took it and pulled himself up with a groan.
"Don't tell me you are getting old Summers?"
Scott snorted, "Is this how it's
going to work? I take your hand, you
give me shit?"
Warren shrugged and grinned,
"Hey, that's what friends are for."
Scott looked up at the sky, as if to ask for patience, "Okay, enough screwing around. Lets get the stupid plants and get going."
He led the way to the door in the yurt and tried the door handle. It was unlocked, and Scott opened it without knocking. The windows and a Plexiglas dome in the roof of the structure made the inside seem light and airy. There was one room, about sixteen feet around, with a pallet on the ground heaped high with sheepskins and blankets. A small woodstove vented to the outside through a hole in the canvas looked to serve both as a heat source and as the occupant's sole way of cooking. In a plastic tub next to it was a small collection of cooking equipment including a kettle and a skillet of made of cast-iron. There was a set of plastic shelves that held an assortment of clothing up off the dirt floor, and another set of shelves was stuffed with books. The only thing that kept the room from feeling grim and desolate were the hundreds of jewel-like orchids. Underneath every window and hung from the rafters wherever light fell were pots of orchid plants. Warren noted without surprise that every one of them was blooming. Scott gave a low whistle. Yellow and fuchsia, orange and spotted brown, pale green and white, the orchids hung on delicate stalks in sprays of astounding color.
"I can see why she wasn't willing to leave them," Scott said grudgingly.
Warren had to duck to get his wings to clear the doorway, but once inside the yurt he could stand up without stooping, "I don't know how we are going to get them to the jet without destroying them," he observed
"Does she live here, year round?" asked Scott incredulously
"I think so, "Warren ambled over to
read the spines on the books. Few had
author's names he recognized. From the
titles it looked like her taste ran to politics, environmentalism and social
commentary. He picked an enormous
paperback titled The Culture of Make Believe by Derrick Jensen and
flipped through it, the words seemed to blur together for him and he put it
back. He picked up another volume, "Julia Butterfly Hill," He noted. Scott made a sound like a hum. "Who's that?"
"She sat in a redwood tree for
two years to keep it from being cut down by a logging company. She's anti corporate. I felt sure you would have heard of her."
Warren shrugged, "Worthington Industries doesn't own any lumber companies."
"Interesting," Scott said, but it was not in response to Warren's comment. He was kneeling down in front of another plastic tub, shifting through a series of envelopes.
"What do you have there?"
"Seed packets. Hundreds of them."
Warren put the books down, "Like what?"
"Corn, beans, raspberries,
cucumbers, zucchini, several different varieties, pumpkins, you name it. She must grow her own food. It makes sense, given her mutation."
Warren frowned, "Except she
would not eat the oatmeal this morning because she said she could not eat
plants."
"Hello, what's this?" Scott pulled several plain envelopes out of the box. He flipped open the flaps and peered inside. "More seeds. No labels on these though."
"Perhaps its something she's collected from the wild."
"Maybe," Scott said. He poured a couple of seeds out into his palm and then put them into his pouch.
Warren surveyed the entirety of the yurt and its contents. Though he could visualize Mina in the space it seemed like a very lonely and isolated existence. He wondered what it was like to not have a proper house of your own, to live in the woods like a refugee. He wondered how many other mutants lived that way, cut off from family, homeless and alone. He shivered, though the air was warm in the yurt. His own life was far from perfect, but he had a home, people who would miss him if he were gone, a sense of security. Mina had none of these things. Warren touched an orchid's delicate purple petals, nothing but her plants.
Scott had moved outside and was calling to him. Warren ducked low through the door and walked around the back of the yurt. He saw a setup for a solar shower with a rainwater collection system and an outhouse. Scott was beyond them, looking at a small section of overgrown grass.
"What is that, weeds?"
Scott turned his visored face towards the angel, his expression was grim, "No, but it is weed."
Warren looked blank.
"What, did you only do designer drugs in college?"
Warren's jaw dropped, "No way."
"Way. It looks like the Professor's pretty, new houseguest is a drug dealer."
