Chapter 4: Direct vs Indirect Interference

Disclaimer: So far I only own Moneda

(AN: If you only knew how long it took me to write this chapter!)

It was almost midnight when the limo pulled into the drive way of Sabertooth's manor. The lights in the front hall were on and Moneda greeted her at the door.

"Senor Creed, had some 'business' in the Netherlands. He should be home shortly. I'll show you to his room." said Moneda as she took Storm's bag and began up the stairs.

"His room?!" asked Storm, "What about the room I was in last time?"

"He said that you would be staying his room." Moneda explained, "Would you care for anything before you retire?"

"No, that won't be necessary," said Storm.

Moneda left Ororo's bag at the foot of the bed on top of a bench at the foot of the bed and left Storm to settle in.

Of course once the door closed, Ororo went about snooping through Creed's bureau, but to no avail. All she discovered was that Sabertooth was boxers man.

After she finished with a bureau, Storm decided to turn in. But one thing was for damn sure, there was no way she was going to sleep in his room. Ro picked up her duffle bag and marched herself across the hall and into Birdy's old room.

She figured if she fell asleep before Sabertooth came home she could avoid a confrontation on the first night. She was right. She climbed into Birdy's bed, which was considerably narrower than Sabertooth's king-sized one, and before she knew what happened she was asleep.

Ororo didn't realize how tired she was. She didn't regain consciousness until 1 o'clock in the afternoon, the next day. When she did come to, however, she realized she was on her side- pinned! There was something huge and warm against her back and something that felt like a paw was on her lower abdomen. Then she felt her back starting to vibrate slightly and she heard a low rumble, which she would have sworn to be a purr.

Storm made a good attempt to stay calm and rationally go about the situation. She was doing quite well until her hand found its' way to the end of the paw, more commonly referred to as adimantium claws-then she started to panic.

Ororo started to squirm in an attempt to get away.

"Easy," said Victor rolling onto his back, "little early for a C-section don't you think?"

Storm just stared at him incredulously.

"What?" asked Vic.

THUD!-Storm shoved Sabertooth off the bed.

"Hey, what's yer problem?!" said Vic getting to his feet.

"What's my problem? What's your problem?!" asked Ro getting out of bed and standing to face him, "You have your own room-Sleep in it!"

Victor looked blankly at Storm.

"Why are you in here?!" she said rather exasperated.

"Because we need to talk," said Sabertooth as though it was blatantly obvious.

"About what?" asked Ororo.

"Permanent living arrangements," said Sabertooth simply.

"P-Permanent?!" Storm stuttered, "I can't stay here. I'm an X-Men!"

"You can't go on missions anymore," Sabertooth pointed out.

"So? The Institute is still my home."

"They won't have time to take care of you. They've still gotta train."

"I can take care of myself!" insisted Storm indignantly, "I have been for the past month."

"Ya, the first month, that's always the easiest." Sabertooth snorted, "It gets a lot worse from here on in."

"That may be true, but in the end you don't have time either with your line of work!"

"I'll take some time off-and just what's that s'posed ta mean, my line of work?!" said Victor more than just a little offended.

"You know what it means!" Storm was yelling now.

Sabertooth started to growl.

Storm's eyes started to glow.

The fight would have progressed to four letter words, but Moneda happened to walk in, "Senior, there's a call on line one waiting in your office."

Sabertooth got in one last growl before brushing past Moneda and heading down the hall to his office.

"UR!-That man is infuriating," Storm was fuming.

Moneda chuckled a little, "You'll have to be patient, Chica, Senior Creed is used to getting his own way."

"Well, that is about to change!" vowed Storm crossing her arms, eyes still glowing.

Thunder could be heard as dark clouds began to move in over the horizon.

"That's odd. I didn't think we were due for a storm," said Moneda looking out the window.

"On the contrary, we're overdue for one," Storm assured her.

"C'mon, chica," Moneda took Ororo by the hand, "I'll make you breakfast."

---

"-and I appreciate you offered it to me first, but I can't right now-you could say that-I know it's like being in the eye of a storm.-Great we'll do business later." Victor hung up the phone and began to walk out of his office when...

CRAK-BOOM!

"Shit," thought Victor.

On his way downstairs Victor passed Toad's room, the door was open (Toad was there every once in a while, pretty much when ever he needed a break from Magneto.) It was a barter system. Toad got room and board for free as long as took care of all the electrical alarm systems and the cars. For the most part it was an even trade.

They pretty much gave each other their space, but today Toad just couldn't resist.

"Sounds like a storm's comin'," commented Toad, not looking up from his video game.

"Grrr, and just what would you know about weather patterns?" asked Sabertooth stooping at the threshold.

"There's always a rainbow after a storm."

"Ya, but how much destruction is there overall?" asked Victor.

"Well that all depends," said Toad as he frantically pressed buttons on the game controller.

"How do you figure?" asked Sabertooth.

"You know what they say," said Toad.

"No, what?" asked Victor.

Toad put the game on pause, sighed and gave Victor a sly look, "It's not nice to mess with Mother Nature."

Victor smirked and walked away.

---

Meanwhile Storm had finished breakfast and was now watching the rain hitting the pool through French doors of the kitchen with her arms crossed. She was quite pleased with her handy work.

Then she saw Sabertooth's reflection in glass.

"What do you want?" asked Storm refusing to turn around. She felt her eyes narrow and her jaw set.

"Here," Victor put the phone in her hand, "call for your clothes or for them to pick you up, I don't care."

With that he walked away.

Needless to say she caught of guard, but there was no point to looking a gift horse in the mouth. Once she heard him go up stairs, she dialed the Institute- It rang.

Once.

Twice.

"Hello?" Hank picked up.

"Hank, it's Storm is Charles there?"

"No, Storm, I'm sorry, he's not. He went to a conference in London with Scott and Jean."

"What about Gambit or Rogue?" inquired Storm.

"They went out to Harry's for an late lunch," said Hank.

"What about Kurt?" asked Storm.

"Jubilation managed to drag him out to the mall and then to a movie."

"And Logan?" Storm asked beginning to get annoyed.

"Out on the open road somewhere, I imagine. Although I'm sure they'll all be back before long. We have a danger room session first thing tomorrow, a shower, breakfast, then a meeting in the war room, we have to get fitted for back up uniforms, take the X-Jet out for a trial run to see if Scott and Logan put the new systems properly, were taking lunch on the jet, coming back for another danger session, another shower and then I assume dinner. Why is something wrong?-Storm?-Hello, are you still there?"

"Wha-yes, I'm still here," said Strom quickly. She was a little shell shocked hearing all the activities for the next day and then it hit her that was norm pretty much every day. If she went back she would only be a burden on them. Although more importantly she realized, if she kept Victor at home, she would technically be saving lives.

She sighed and told herself it was for the greater good.

"Is something wrong?" Hank repeated.

"Oh, no, I was just wondering if you could FedEx my clothes up here. It seems I'll be staying for a while. Sabertooth and I still have a lot to discuss. We started earlier, but as you can imagine it could have gone better."

"I understand completely," said Hank, "just be careful."

"I will, bye."

"Bye."

Storm pushed the "end" button on the phone and returned it to the receiver in the main entrance hall.

---

Later that night...

Storm walked out of the bathroom and towards Birdy's dresser. The floor creaked under the Persian rug as she passed the foot of the bed. She didn't think much of the floor for the moment and continued on to remove a pair of sweats and a tank top from the top drawer.

Then she noticed photos shoved in the edge of the mirror. They were all pretty much the same with Birdy and Sabertooth standing side by side, not unlike the American Gothic Couple. She always had a huge grin on her face and her blonde hair up in a pony tale, while Sabertooth was either lighting a cigar or looking off into the distance.

The only thing that seemed to change in the photos was the background.

That's when she noticed the door was open. Not only was her door open, but so was Sabertooth's door. She could see him laying on the bed in black silk pajama pants going over what she assumed were contracts.

SLAM!-Storm blew the door shut with a gust of wind and dressed for bed.

Across the hall Sabertooth sighed and rolled his eyes. He, quite frankly, hated having the door open. It was just unnerving for him, being an assassin and all. But he did it to make sure Storm would wake him up if she got up in the middle of the night.

And sure enough around 2:30am Storm found herself in mid worship of the porcelain god.

Sabertooth managed to clean her up and carry her back to his room. She stared blankly at him as he placed her on the bed.

"You don't know who I am, do you?" Sabertooth asked as he carefully removed a strand of hair from Storm's face.

Storm blinked and closed her eyes momentarily. All of a sudden her vision was very blurry and it felt like she was in the middle of Death Valley during a dry spell!

Everything went black for Ororo when Sabertooth gently put one huge paw over her forehead, "Yer really warm."

The last thing Storm remembered was feeling something cold on her forehead.

---

The next afternoon Storm woke up in Sabertooth's bed draped over his chest with an ice pack on his head. Needless to say she was confused as to how she wound up in his room in the first place.

"Ugh, my head," she groaned as she tried to sit up, but soon fell back onto Victor's chest from on account of dizziness.

"How do you feel?" asked Victor gingerly removing a loose strand of white hair from Storm's face.

"In a word," said Storm flatly, "sick."

Storm felt something go into her ear and heard a click.

"Huh?" she looked up to see Toad holding an ear thermometer.

"100," said a relieved Toad looking at the thermometer.

"Isn't that a little high?" asked Storm.

"It dropped from 103 around 1 am." Toad informed her.

"1 am?" asked Ro rather confused.

"You passed out," said Sabertooth.

"Wait...when did you get here?" Ro asked Toad, "Second thought never mind, I'm going back to my room." She shifted to get off the bed.

"No, stay in bed until your temperature goes back to normal," said Toad sternly.

"I feel a lot better," Storm unconvincingly attempted to assure him as she tried to get up once more only to fall back onto Victor's chest again.

"Why don't you guys try to get some sleep?" said Toad heading for the door.

"Alright," consented Ororo, "but on one condition."

"And what's that?" asked Victor sarcastically.

A clap of thunder could be heard not too far off.

Storm's eyes glowed as she looked Vic dead in the eye, "Get your hand off my ass."

Toad snickered to himself on the way out. There was no doubt in his mind the next couple of months would be interesting. And right now it was anyone's game.

---

At the Institute Storm's absence had not gone unnoticed . They all missed her, but they weren't sure how to go about the situation. It was, by far, a sore topic that everyone refused to talk about until one morning Jubilation couldn't take it anymore-

"Why are you all just sitting around?!-We've got to go get Storm and bring her home!" Jubilee burst into the kitchen.

"Kid, we've been through this," Wolverine sighed as he turned to the sports section of the news paper, "Ro's a big girl. She knows what's best for her and it's not our place to second guess her decision."

"Not our place?!" Jubilee was dumbfounded Wolverine could ever say such a thing, "We're her family!"

"You don't think this hasn't been hard for us either?" Scott looked up from the font page, "Storm was one of our most powerful team members. It's going to be impossible to replace her."

"R-replace her?!" Jubilee started to tear up.

"Now look what you've done, Scott!" Jean scolded him.

"Cher, don' get us wrong we all love Stormy, but it's jus' she can be stubborn sometimes and it's betta to let her work tings out on her own. 'Specially in dis situation wid Creed." Remy explained.

Wolverine started to growl just at the mention of Sabertooth's name.

That's when Jubilee made an important observation: everyone was on edge. Scott, Remy and Logan refused to look at her but had death grips on their papers, Jean was lost in thought blowing on a cup of coffee she had poured 20 minutes ago, Rogue was getting antsy over by the toaster as she waited for toast she had never put in, in the first place and Nightcrawler was staring out the window.

"He told you all not to do anything, didn't he? The Prof., I mean, he told you not to interfere," it all became blatantly obvious once she just looked around the room.

"Well of course he told us not to do anything!" Scott yelled, "Don't you think we would have been up there the next day in full uniform with the X- Jet?!"

"I did wonder," said Jubilee.

"And vhat? You think you are the only one whose noticed its been raining for three veeks straight, from ze night after Storm left?" asked Kurt.

"Our hands are tied, kid. We can't do anything," said Logan somberly.

"B'leve us, Chere, if dere was sometin' we coulda done, we woulda done it," Remy assured her.

Jubilee paused for a moment then a wicked smiled passed over her face and she began to laugh manically.

"Merde, Remy, tink she snapped."

Jubilee looked over at Rogue, "When the Prof. said not to interfere, he meant not to interfere directly, right?"

"Ah guess." said Rogue "What are you gettin' at?"

"What if we interfere indirectly by sending in a third party, who we cold trust to regulate the situation?" asked Jubes grinning like a mad man.

"And who would this third party be?" asked Scott, rather in the dark.

"Another assassin," said Jubilee with a wicked gleam in her eye as she looked at Rogue.

"Nien!-Mein Gott!" exclaimed Kurt, "Ve must have anozer option!"

"Oh, Ah liahke this option just fiahne," said Rogue grinning from ear to ear as she took off for her room.

Once she got there she began tearing everything apart looking for a number.

---

Meanwhile somewhere at a mansion in Germany...

All the rooms stood silent. The owners, an elderly couple, never made it out of the dining room. The servants fled.

Upstairs the looting had already begun.

ring-ring a cell phone went off.

"Mystique, here-Oh, Rogue, it's nice to hear from you, dear-What's wrong? Why are you crying?-Did Gambit do something?-Not Gambit-Storm?-Darling, you need to calm down, I can't understand you, take a deep breath. Good, not what happened?-HE DID WHAT?! WITH HER?!-AND NOW SHE'S WHAT?!-Don't worry, I'm going to handle this!" said Mystique fuming as she hung up the phone.

---

Rogue smiled as she hung up the phone. Being able to cry on cue sure came in handy through the years, but this was by far her crowning achievement.