Two hours ago, she had met Kurt at lunchtime. He came in to grab one of Bobby and Rogue's sandwiches from the piles on the kitchen island, before all was devoured by the horde of incoming students seconds behind him. As usual, he grabbed his meal with his tail. That tail came in so useful at times like this, especially if he was unfortunate enough to arrive late. It was long and thin enough to reach anywhere, flexible enough to grab anything, and startling enough to be given its own space. Some of the kids would still jump when they saw it, reaching like an alien's long, blue tentacle, snaking between them and darting back again. It ensured no interference.
That day, for some reason, Bobby went into a hysterical giggle fit when he saw Kurt pull that maneuver.
"What's so funny?" Kurt asked.
"Um...nothing...," Bobby lied unconvincingly.
"You are not one to laugh at 'nothing', Bobby. You always laugh at 'something'."
Kurt held the sandwich, securely wrapped in his tail, about level with his head as he leaned against the refrigerator, his eyebrow raised suspiciously. This broke Bobby up again. Rogue looked at Bobby as if he was crazy.
Bobby pointed to Kurt's tail. "Remember B5 last night?"
Rogue gasped, her mouth and eyes wide, and then blushed vividly. She, too, was laughing, but she was also hitting Bobby on his arm. Bobby ducked and tried to protect himself, but he wasn't doing so well.
"You creep!" she giggled. "Ain't no way I can get that picture outa my head, now!"
Ororo stared at the two youngest X-men, trying to figure out just what was so funny. Kurt had the same confused look on his face.
"As you have told me so much, 'spill it'," he demanded, advancing on Bobby.
Bobby made a show of hiding behind Rogue, who wanted no part of it.
"Oh, no you don't!" she cried. "I ain't the one who thought of it. YOU explain, coward! Pervert!"
"But he's gonna kill me!" Bobby objected.
Kurt stood and crossed his arms, tail and sandwich swishing back and forth. "Pervert?"
Bobby watched Kurt's tail, put a hand over his mouth, turned around, and collapsed in hysterics, pounding on the counter behind him. Rogue looked skywards and gave a frustrated growl.
"I swear, I have to do everything around here," she snarled. "All right, Bobby, but don't you go complainin' to me when he beats you black and blue!"
Kurt tapped his fingers on his elbow, waiting for someone to explain. The rest of the students had arrived, but they were holding off on the lunch grab, bewildered as to the turn of events. Rogue tried very hard to keep a straight face as she spoke.
"All right, there's this kind of old TV show called Babylon 5... and there's this guy on it? He's an alien, and he has six... tentacles...." She tried to smother her giggles. Bobby laughed harder. "And, they're not quite as long as yours--" Bobby fell to the floor, screaming and rolling with laughter. She kicked Bobby, shouting, "That wasn't no compliment, dammit!"
"Yes, yes, six tentacles, go on?" Kurt said impatiently, making a rolling motion with his hands.
Rogue's words came out in a rush, as if she was afraid she'd never get them out any other way. "He's a Centauri, and they got six tentacles, and they can pick stuff up sometimes, and he used them once to cheat at cards, but they're not really hands, they're something else, all right?"
"Something... else?"
Kurt looked back at Ororo, realization slowly dawning on their faces at the same time. The older students were snickering, and the younger ones were still utterly confused.
"Only the guy Centauris got them, O.K.?" Rogue blurted before she dissolved into peals of helpless laughter.
The room erupted in laughter. Kurt just stared at the two, a stunned look on his face. "That. Is. Sick."
Rogue stood aside and made a sweeping gesture to Bobby, giving Kurt plenty of room to kick, should he so desire.
"I just lost my appetite, thank you," Kurt said as he turned to leave.
Curiously, he no longer had the sandwich, and no one could remember where he set it down. Then someone looked at the stacks of sandwiches arrayed on the counter.
"Mister Wagner, did you put your sandwich back?" someone asked.
"Yes," he replied. "No sense in wasting food."
"But which one is it?" one of the boys shouted, a hint of fear in his voice.
Only Ororo could see Kurt's smug smile as he went by her to exit the kitchen. "I don't remember."
"Eeewwwww!"
Ororo walked out with him, just as unable to contain her grin as Rogue had been. "That was a beautiful reversal, but it cost you your lunch."
"Some things are worth the price," he replied. "I must admit, though. That was a new kind of schwanz joke."
" 'Schwanz'?"
"Tail."
"I thought that was schatz."
He shook his head. "No, no, schatz is a term of endearment, like liebling. It is something Bobby would say to Rogue." Their voices were already low, but he dropped his further. "Schwanz means 'tail', but it also means something else. I think you can imagine what that 'else' is."
She grinned and looked away. "A natural double-entendre? I can only imagine how many dirty jokes you got."
"Keep imagining, because I got more. Just don't let the children know about it." Kurt sighed and rubbed his temple, his smile fading. "Aside from you and I, only Herr Professor knows German well enough to be aware of the joke, and I can only stand so many schwanz remarks at one time."
She frowned. "You're really tired of those jokes, aren't you?"
"No, it's not that. I just have a headache, that's all."
"Is your ear acting up again?"
"No, it is just tension. I have a hour and a half before I work with Regis today. I'm going to my room to rest until then. I'll be fine."
-----------------------------------------------------------------
But it wasn't just a headache, was it Kurt? Ororo thought as she sat beside him in medlab. And you had no way of knowing. You never had any reason to think you could get worse.
Maybe this would have been easier for her to bear if he had been stupid, or macho, or immature. If he hadn't taken his antibiotics, or if he'd snuck in intensive exercise routines, or even gone swimming; anything she could point to and say, "See? Idiot? This is what happens when you disobey your doctor's orders!" But he had been a model patient. He did everything Hank wanted.
It just... happened.
Ororo had worked with Jean for so long that she was one step from a professional nurse, so she was released from all her teaching duties to be Hank's aid. She wrung out the sponge, then ran it along Kurt's right arm. Sometimes he mumbled in his delirium, always in German. A few times he opened his eyes, but never took notice of his surroundings. The hellish rash had stopped advancing, and Hank saw fit to take him off of the oxygen, but his temperature was still frighteningly high.
She lifted his arm and ran the cool sponge underneath.
The rest of the institute came down to see Kurt at one point or another. During the day, especially, he had lots of visitors. Xavier in particular spent several hours by his side in silent vigil, a hand on Kurt's forehead. Ororo didn't take too much notice of anyone else. She only had eyes and attention for Kurt.
The good news was that all of his internal organs were still functioning. The better news was that Kurt's oddly-shaped extremities had such unnaturally wide arteries and veins that they never completely lost circulation, rendering the horrific possibility of amputation moot. And that was all the good news they had. It had now been two days without further improvements in his condition. Ororo hadn't slept more than a few hours total. She felt like a wreck. She probably looked even worse.
She soaked and wrung out the sponge again. She touched it to his face, carefully following every lift and curve.
"I don't know if you can hear me," she said. "I've been talking to you for the past couple of days, and you didn't seem to hear me any of those times, either. But I have to talk to someone about you, Kurt, and you're the only one I trust, awake or not." He moaned softly as she ran the sponge over his forehead. "I know it hurts. And I know you'd never tell me that if you had a choice." She ran it down his neck. "You don't let people know when you're hurt, do you? When you're feeling sad, or helpless, or angry? When the words cut too close, or the jokes hurt too much? I suppose you only show those things to your God when you pray. You once said, 'the audience doesn't pay to see your troubles; they pay to forget theirs'. Is that how you see life, Kurt?"
She moved the sponge down to his chest.
"But I guess I'm not one to talk, am I? All this time, I've kept you behind glass, too. Do you know how many people have left me behind, Kurt? I lost my parents when I was four. I lost my childhood friends when I was twelve. I let Jean get close to me, and now she's gone as well. I'm tired of being left behind, Kurt." Her voice started to shake. "It's so much safer to put everyone behind glass. It won't hurt so much when they leave, then. When I felt myself getting close to you, I placed you behind glass with the rest, where I was safe from you. And you seemed so ready to wait there for me. I kept thinking about bypassing the glass, and it never seemed to be the right time, and still you waited. And now I'm so close to losing you forever."
She felt tears rolling down her cheeks.
"You can't do this to me, Kurt. You can't leave me behind like everyone else. You can't let me screw my life up by waiting too long. You've got to give me this second chance.
"Wake up, Kurt. The glass isn't helping this time. I can't live behind it anymore."
:
Hours later, things were still the same. What did she expect, anyway? That his eyes would open now that she'd poured her heart out to him? That he would turn to her, magically healed, and talk about this strange dream he had about her? A perfect movie ending to a swashbuckler romance. She was starting to remember why she hated swashbucklers.
Hank had been there and gone, checking the latest tests on Kurt's condition. He tried to get her to rest. It didn't work. Kurt simply laid immobile, as always.
Fifty-odd hours. Upstairs, the institute was sitting down to dinner. Hank brought their food down, then noted that Ororo had nodded off in her seat. He silently laid her meal on a nearby counter, then retired behind a partition to check the latest lab results as he ate.
Kurt started mumbling again. Ororo's head snapped up as Kurt's muttering grew more distinct. Still German, but identifiably so. Then he started to move, specifically turning his head from side to side. Ororo moved forwards in her seat. His neck had been so inflamed before that turning his head had been impossible.
"Hank?" she called. "Hank, he's moving his head."
Kurt's heart rate suddenly jumped. His eyes flew open, his breathing labored. He appeared to be looking around, but what did he see? His eyes passed over Ororo as if she wasn't there. Still in delirium.
Kurt's voice grew louder, and Ororo found she had to restrain him from getting up. Hank was suddenly there on the other side of his bed, holding onto one of his arms to keep him from ripping out the IV. Restraint seemed to terrify Kurt. He started shouting, struggling even harder, though he had no hope of breaking free. She recognized the word "no", but that was the extent of her knowledge. Maybe he was aware enough to hear her?
"English, Kurt!" she shouted back. "Talk to us in English!"
"Get him away from me!" Kurt screamed. "I can't...! Get it off of me! Get it off my neck! Don't let him put the chain on me again!"
Hank looked at Ororo and mouthed the question, "Stryker?"
She nodded quickly. "Kurt, I have taken the chain from him! Do you trust me? Look at me! I won't let Stryker use you again! I have the chain! Look at me!"
It could be a lost cause. He could be too delirious to hear her on any level, but she had to keep trying. He screamed the same things over and over, and she repeated her same words. After a minute he stopped screaming or struggling, silently looking around in his panic.
"Storm?" he asked weakly.
"I'm here," she answered.
He still didn't see her, but he did seem to hear her. "Don't leave?"
She gripped his hands in hers. "I'm not going anywhere."
:
Sixty hours. Ororo woke with a start in the dimly lit medlab. She had been laying on one of the unused beds, though she couldn't remember how she got there or when she went to sleep. Kurt's voice had awakened her. She raised herself on one elbow and looked over at him, ready to roll off the bed and spring to his side at a moment's notice. He groaned, lifted the hand without the IV to his face, then lifted his head just a little before laying it back down.
"Kurt?" she asked, swinging her feet to the floor.
He looked over at her, a bit bleary, but lucid. "Ororo?" He blinked. "You do not look well."
"I look better than you."
Kurt's gaze went to the IV, then awkwardly down to his chest. "What happened to me?"
"You almost died, that's what happened. How do you feel?"
He paused, looking straight ahead, brow furrowed with concentration. "You want a six year old child?"
"You remember me saying that?" she asked back.
"You did say that? I had such nightmares.... I do not know what was real... and what I heard."
She pulled up a seat next to his bed and held his hand. "Do you remember anything else?"
His tail reached out from under the sheet, then started tapping on something in that special way it always did when he was thinking. She never thought that simple motion could be so welcome.
"I think... I remember you crying," he whispered softly. He looked up into her eyes. "You did not want me to leave you alone." His hand squeezed hers feebly. "I remember thinking that I did not want to die alone, and I did not want to leave you."
Days of sleepless anxiety and dread finally caught up with her in this one moment of relief. She started to cry, and found she had no way to stop. Kurt managed to scoot aside, then pulled her toward him.
"There is room enough for you," he whispered, his voice soothing. "There will always be room for you."
She crawled onto the bed and curled up alongside him, her entire body trembling with fatigue. He put her head to his chest and stroked his thick fingers through her silken, white hair.
"Shhh.... It's all right, liebling.... It's all right.... Glass is for pictures... not for you."
Finis