Hi! Thank you very much to Mike N, Darlin and summers2004 for reviewing :)


3rd.


There were legs dangling from the skylight, slender legs, the right of which curled around the other, both handing lifelessly from somewhere unseen.

Sage stood at the door, not wanting to intrude yet seeing the necessity anyhow. She saw a small step ladder in the middle of the room. Ha, she gave a short breath with the hint of a smile, a flying lady with a step ladder.

Ororo lay on her roof, her right arm covering her chest and her hair as her blanket, gently sending wisps to curve around her in the sporadic breeze. She moved the fingers of her left hand slowly up and down her bare stomach, thinking about nothing in particular yet being flooded by goodness knows what. She hadn't moved for quite a while, not since yesterday afternoon. Who needs to move? It's a useless ability. Who needs to fly? It's equally pointless.

Ha. This was almost hilarious. To think having gone through this before would have already gotten her her entitlement to tranquillity by now. But by 'tranquil', one usually thinks of walking on clouds, but clouds don't come down near enough for you to just get on them and hitch a ride, you're supposed to go up to them. Can't without wings. Can't without wanting to.

She heard someone coming. Did she care? No.
"Hi."

Sage is pretty. She let her hair down, finally, and it was carelessly slung over her shoulder. Ororo had pulled her legs up out of the sky light, and now hung her head through it, looking down at Sage who was looking up at her.

She breathed deeply, hoping Sage would catch that was a hello, now if you please, go away.

"Miss you. Neal's missing you, but they're on a mission. Said to say hello."

Neal. Fine, of all the people in the world she could leave standing at her door, and shoving to get in, maybe Neal she could allow. She loved Neal, she really did. Or at least she thought she did. It was so hard to tell when you've been sitting naked on the roof for a day. She still remembered though, Neal kissing her that morning, pushing her hair behind her ear, and saying Love you as he moved in to her lips. She smiled, and left, and got shot down by a big pink robot.

"So, how have you been? Jean's worried about you and hating herself, saw her very morose at the patio."

Ororo continued to look down blinking and blinking at Sage, her eyes half-closed.

"Come on Storm, come down."

Sage walked over to her bed, reached for her blanket and held it up to her. Soon she carefully stepped down on to the step ladder, and held her white covers around her with her hand at her chest. It's train patiently and elegantly waited over the side of the sky light.

"Storm, come on, cheer up!"

Sage was looking at Ororo, dejected, rejected and kicked off her throne.

"Stop calling me that."

"Storm…"

"I said don't call me that!" She flung her hair around, looking from the corners of her eyes at Sage, glaring at her over her shoulder.

"Ororo. You have to stop this. Cheer up!"

"How can I, Tessa? How am I supposed to do that!" Sage could tell her voice was cracking.

"Or-"

"How many times have you died, Sage. How many times have you found that there's nothing, really, in dreams? That there's nothing in everything. How can I 'cheer up', do you even know what it's like? To lose a part of yourself? To lose what defines you, to lose what you are? What are we fighting for. What?? Tell me Sage!"

There were tears. The unfamiliar touch of tears flowing down her cheek, and the unfamiliar sight. Did she care? Not at all.

"Is it so much that it is worth our lives? Is it so much for me to live everyday with the bane of a curse and a world to myself and guilt, and shame, and incompetence, and hurt? A world to myself that nobody knows, a world that I can't tell you, living in a stupid mist that blinds everyone so they give you no comfort, no shelter, from the curse you drag around? Are you alone, Sage?

And I should be happy. Shouldn't I. That finally, I can tell you, I can cry, I can hurt, I can be angry, I can hate.

But I'm not. And things don't work that way."

Sage began to say something, but was cut short by Ororo as she turned full body to face her, screaming hoarsely into her face, Heck care the tears. Sage had never seen Ororo this way, not very sure she wanted to either. We're all human, it seems.

"--They don't!!"

"Please Ororo, your powers aren't a curse.. they're a gift, your gifts."

"Funny, that you should bring that up, Sage," Ororo spat the words like profanity, sarcasm ringing through her anger, resounding through the stifled tenderness of the room. She raised and eyebrow and cocked her head. "Remind me. Why in the world was I shouting."

"I'm sorry I.. I didn't mean it like that."

"Nothing is a gift, sage Nothing. Nothing is a gift because Nothing is forever. Everything is 'great' until you don't have it anymore. Then you find that it really was a curse after all, because it stopped. Because it became Nothing. And there's this Nothingness inside you that makes you finally realize that Nothing can be great because Everything goes away.

There is Nothing that you can keep, Nothing that you will have to yourself always, and in the end, nothing is ever more than a dream.

Dreams are intangible, Sage. Dreams are things you cannot touch. And that's how they're meant to be, Sage. Dreams can only be Dreams if we never touch them. If we never have them. Then they are still Dreams, still hopes, still Dreams that are worth living for. And as much as you want to keep them forever, Dreams shatter, and elude you. A dream isn't hope unless you can't feel it.

And when you think you've found a way to keep it, it falls from the sky.

But you'll never know.



Unless you've flown."



Sage turned to leave.


Suddenly, modified red-lensed shades on Ororo's side table decided to get off their inorganic bum and start yelling.