Disclaimer: AU to X3! Not making any money from this. Corrinth owns Stifle and Vixen, Blaze and Shockwave are mine, Marvel retains all rights to all other characters.

Shades of Heroes Series Epilogue- A Conversation with Professor X

"Professor?" Blaze peered around the door, hesitantly, hugging the wood. He still hadn't asked to see her, and Blaze didn't like feeling so insecure. She had things to say to him, things she couldn't bring herself to talk openly about in the X-Men's debriefing. She'd thought the Professor would sense this, know that she was holding something back, would be a leader enough to allow her to confide in him. So far he had not lived up to her expectations.

"Blaze." Charles beckoned her in with a sad smile. "I'm sorry my dear, I didn't mean to take so long to speak to you."

Blaze frowned at this, closing the door gently. Echoes of an older conversation rang in her skull. Butterflies writhed and fluttered in her stomach, and her palms itched with her apprehension. Something in the way the Professor regarded her with those kind sad eyes made her deeply uncomfortable. She took the seat that was offered and crossed her long legs in front of her. In blue jeans, black blouse and boots, she wore her hair up in a ponytail and sported minimal make-up for a change. The emotional and physical exhaustion that lingered over the mansion like a thick swathe of rain clouds was mirrored in Blaze's posture and the dark rings under her eyes. The Professor looked no more lucid than she did.

Dreading silence like she dreaded the grave, Blaze squirmed in her seat and looked at Xavier pleadingly with her big liquid eyes. Before he could form a question that would probe deeper than she was ready to go, she took a breath and started to speak in a rapid and anxious tone.

"Professor I need to explain. I haven't had the best judgement recently and I… Well I got involved with one of the gang you sent me to help Stifle with. By the time Gambit and Logan turned up, I'd lost track of what was really going on. No, that's not right. I never forgot you, I just forgot myself. Indigo helped me to forget, and I let him coerce me into using unnecessary force in an urban area. It was dangerous and started a riot. I never should have listened to Indigo, I never should have let him touch me or use his empathy on me. Yet I can't thank Gambit for breaking the hold Indie had over me either, he just doesn't understand that the way he manipulated me cut me even deeper than Indigo could ever manage… "

"Blaze, it's all right," Xavier raised a hand and brought her wagging tongue to a standstill. Moving his wheelchair, he took one of Blaze's warm hands between his soft, withered ones. He looked her straight in the eye and spoke gently in his most soothing tone. "I think we have to work this back to the very start."

"What do you mean?" Blaze asked cautiously.

"I have to accept my own responsibility for this sequence of events. I asked you to turn your charms on Pyro. I saw him as a weak link in the Brotherhood chain of command that we could exploit to get close to Magneto. I was so narrow-minded with regards to that goal, I did not consider the eventual effects on yourself."

"I can handle Pyro," Blaze argued, then realised that she was wrong. She fell silent, and Xavier let her be as she worked events through again in her own mind, and in her own time. He was right; it had all started with Pyro. She had felt wrong, unclean and unsure about herself all the while she was perpetuating that mission. But why, when she had exploited men plenty of times during her career as a thief? The question was echoed by the confusion in her voice as she next spoke, "At least, I thought I could handle Pyro."

"There was a tendency for both of us to see your sexuality as a potent weapon Laura," Xavier counselled. "Neither of us paused to consider the effect it would have on your self-esteem. I believe this has led to you attempt to seek solace with Indigo, and later with Gambit," he squeezed her hand tightly, as Blaze hung her head and bit her lip. "This is not your fault Laura. You have been through so much in the last few years, not least giving birth to and then giving up your daughter for adoption. These are deep-seated and poignant psychological traumas, no matter the circumstances. You cannot be expected to react to emotional situations now the same as you did when you were eighteen or nineteen."

"I should have been able to handle it," sobbed Blaze, slumping her shoulders and trying not to break down into tears. "I should have stayed in control."

"Blaze," Xavier enveloped his X-Man in his arms, hugging her like one of the smallest of his pupils at the school. There was no easy way to say this, even as he knew she was crying long-overdue tears. "I would very much like to take you off active duty for a while. I think it would be best all round if you took some time to yourself, and rediscovered that bright spark you have inside of you." Lifting her chin with a gentle hand he smiled at her tearstained expression of hurt and confusion. "I'm not rejecting you Blaze, don't think that even for a second. I only want what is best for you.

"Unfortunately," Xavier continued as tears ran down Blaze's face even faster, "With so many of the X-Men in various states of incapacitation with regards to active duty, it's not an option that is open to us. I'm going to need you to carry on, to maintain all semblance of normality for the children and be ready to respond to any backlash either political or terrorist from recent events. I promise I will work with you every chance we have to repair that fractured control of your emotions, if that is what you would like?"

Blaze didn't respond, she was too mentally exhausted, too emotional, to damn worn out to do anything now but accept Xavier's fatherly hug and cry out all her heartache and frustrations. If there was a lesson to be learned in these recent events, she couldn't see it. She couldn't see anything but her own weaknesses, her own failings. She could see nothing beyond her own humanity, and she hated every ounce of her that was human and weak. Blaze sobbed again, tears staining her face in the crisp morning light that streamed in through the Professor's office window, and wished that it would all just stop.

#The End#

A/N: At the end of posting what has been about two years worth of writing, and redrafting as X3 came along a stole a handful of my ideas (great minds and all that!), this four parter has exhausted both me and Blaze alike. I've no more movieverse fics waiting in the wings to be posted at the moment, though as soon as I get time I will be redrafting L'Ange De Morte. In the meantime, for some light relief Blaze and I would like to point anyone who is interested to my X-Men Evolution fics, which are ongoing. I'd love to hear what people have to say about my fics- as always reviews are very much welcomed. Thanks, Lamby

PS. - Sorry Blaze...