A/N:
Thanks for the reviews.
Glad everyone is enjoying the story. I have been working on this the past week and hope it is up to par with the last two installments.
Although it is officially the last chapter, I do have an epilogue planned. I still feel the need for a little more closure with Ororo and friends.
Again, everyone enjoy... and comments are more then welcomed, always!
Quick Glossary
There's not much foreign language mentioned in this chapter, only a few French phrases.
- C'est Quoi - Basically a term asking What, or what do you mean?
And then there is Remy's infamous words in circulation:
-Merde - meaning Shit, or crap
-Homme - Man
-Femme - Female
(Arabic)
-El Qahira - Cairo
-Aywa -yes
-Shurbra and El Gezira are places in Cairo, nothing more.
(Hebrew)
-Adonai - God, Lord Almighty.
As for some questions posed, Happy, I left the meaning of Les Deux Pierrots open since it will be explained in this chapter.
And for Babyblue - wanting to know if I am I am Arab - no. (I'm mixed- African American, Native American, Roma Gypsy, and Bohemian - now Czech - if your curious) but do speak a little Arabic for religious and work related reasons. Needless to say, I find it neat there are others who have taken an interest in learning such a gorgeous language! All the best with it! Ororo's past in Cairo gave me a reason to use the little skills of Arabic I have on a literary front and I'm glad it opened up some new ideas for you too. :)
Disclaimer: Heads up, the "F" bomb is dropped a few times.... other then that.... were good. Also, Ash and Lee are original characters, but Marvel still owns the mother-load...
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Remy took in the knots of frustration crunching on his sister's face.
"I killed them. Death-the opposite of life. Death - a void to living. Death - the finality of which is proven to end the existence we know....."
Ororo took in each reaffirmation punishing herself forty strokes less one.
"They might have had a chance at life, elusive life......."She trailed dangerously low.
Remy sighed. He hated when she succumbed to torment over matters that were set in stone; buried then forced a resurrection. But even worse, he knew a haunting; the fragments and nightmares that tapered on fringes of ones existence. In the wake, all penance once served is rebuked, the veil of understanding- torn away. God knows he had his fair share of that darkness. But he was a delinquent, and in turn kept pressing the fates that made his demons. Ororo didn't. Her situation was being cornered into a chaos she had no choice over.
"I'm a murderer..." God he hated when she got like this.
"Den' strike me dead."
"Not before I fry myself..." Really didn't like it.
"Da order is murder den suicide. For a killer, you sure got it all backwards, chere."
"You wouldn't be saying that if I wiped papa Jean off the map because I was having a bad day. I'm a walking weapon for fuck sake Remy...."
She smothered her face into her palms. Disconcerting thoughts spreading. "I should be put down..."
"Dats' it Chere."
"Whats 'it'?" her voice echoed in detachment as fingers wracked through white locks.
" Puttin' ya down. Wit you gone da' world is now guaranteed ta be destroyed by Apocalypse rada' then anada ice age. Ad least someone will stick around to admire their handy-work."
She looked up a turn, sighing inwardly.
"Passion or none - it doesn't change the fact I'm a walking weapon----"
"Da Wolverine and Omega Red are walkin' weapons, chere. You just a femme born wit' amazing attributes. So dun be scarin' a homme wit dis commando kamikaze rant. You be one of the most noble souls Remy has ever known, loyal an' upright - hell, dis world is lucky you grace much less try an' save it on a daily basis. Fuck it -if I gotta pull you back from talkin' like dis den someones gonna pay. It just tears in me somet'in fierce to see you like dis."
Ororo found herself refusing to make eye contact with the sense he uttered as she rose from the bench, and started pacing the street corner boring holes into the concrete. Her head pulsed; the sheer layer of semblance being ripped away and replenished with a big fat migraine; the same type that used to trash her room in the middle of the night or send a random tree thrashing into the boathouse.
The kind Xavier had used psychic inhibitors to block.
From the time she asked Allah for his mercy, she knew the inhibitor had been shredded. Instead of the floating driftwood of memories, she was being battered with the raw power of truth; screams pounding at her skull, bloodied knuckles, pressure and fire at her skin, debris slicing her legs, and choking on the smoke that assaulted her to a black out.
She started to spin, faintly hearing a caveat coming from Remy as she slammed into something solid.
A hand brushed past her arm, settling there. Ororo felt a shock rib her body that send the strangers fingertips retreating. It was at the beginning of a gelid drizzle that her migraine downgraded to headache status so she could take in the source of the collision.
"I'm sorry," Ororo responded weakly. "I didnt mean to mow you over."
Without a word, a pair of honey coloured eyes framed in olive skin met her. As the rain began to roll down in thick drops, some collected at the rim of the hood she wore. Silence emitted, followed by an intense staring session. After a few strides, Ororo smacked her ignorance realizing the woman probably spoke French and didn't understand a word. Even still, it was no reason to gawk like she had grown two heads or something.
"Je suis desole." She managed.
A serene expression surfaced. She pointed down the road as she muttered.
"Les Deux Pierrots."
Ororo raised an eyebrow as the woman repeated her admonition.
"Les Deux Pierrots."
"C'est Quoi?"
She just pointed wiping the rain from her hood before trudging down the street. Ororo stared at her retreating form for a few minutes before facing Remy. He had taken in the exchange with downcast eyes and a look of light annoyance.
"The Two Sparrows?"
"It's a pub down St. Paul Est," he admonished. Nothing else was said as Ororo started her immediate decent down the foot-way, each step ridden with determination.
"Damn it...." he mumbled under his breath before bolting up to meet her pace, "Wait up...."
He splashed through puddles letting out a few more curses.
"Merde, my boots. Can't you ad-least turn off da' rain, Chere?"
If looks spoke volumes.....
"Okay. Okay. Remy deal wit da' rain....But 'Roro, you even know what your walkin' into? I don' t'ink dis a good idea... " he retorted without effect as she kept her brisk speed.
" I'm walking into hell, Remy. The inhibitors are gone."
Her tone was mater of fact; a little too under-passionate for the announcement she just uttered and Remy felt a chill go through his body. Frigid and slushy rain had nothing to do with it. Inhibitors gone? Oh shit.
He intercepted, hands restraining her shoulders giving a nudge for emphasis.
"Woah, Chere. Dis ain't a good idea."
"Probably not, but too late for that. I've gotta find out...." Her eyes were lining over white as electrical currents radiating from her skin made him jolt back. Remy smacked his hand against the other from the shock he received.
"Jesus, chere. Who is da femme?"
It was only then she stopped of her own accord, eyes downcast and unreadable. The rain rolled off her braided hair, catching on her eyelashes as she ignored it.
"I remember my daddy taking me into his arms as I asked to see the pyramids and him saying to me 'we'll see.' Then he put me down, handed the hotel key to my mother and said he would be up shortly...." At that her eyes met his before continuing, "Next, I lay suffocating under a pile of rubble with my mother wheezing at my side. I couldn't recall anything else - the trip up the elevator, the point when the lobby was bombed, or how the hell I got out alive.... Until a few minutes ago..."
Silence.
"I remembered her, Remy. Those eyes....she was different. Like me.... We were coming out of the elevator, she was going down. I never recalled that before... It must have been hidden under my panic, my mind blocking out the memory.. or maybe the inhibitors... maybe a mix of everything for the sake of survival and sanity.....I struggled with both ever since.... but she reminded me..... brought it back. I remembered her... I remembered those eyes....."
Remy stood in silence, his expression etched with concern.
"It was nearly five minutes after a massive piece of glass flew in and severed my mother's hand. I had no time to react for I was already being buried under debris. But as smoke from the flames scorched the little breathing air had, I could hear screams and whimpers, coughing and wheezing. N'Dare calling my name, my dad's name... chanting prayers in Swahili....."
A tear escaped mingling with the steady drops.
"I called to the Goddess for rain, for release.....anything.....and before I could remember, I felt this throbbing pain in my head...then thunder rumbled, the ground shook....." her breathing was heavy, "While the rain had sated the flames, it wasn't until later I found the winds were what leveled the hotel disturbing any relief efforts that could have been organized...it was a storm like none El Qahira had witnessed... even reports of a rare 4.5 earthquake struck that day... The hand of God tread down.
The smell of Death. Fear. Destruction. Confusion.
Hell was a walk in the park upon comparison. A day I forgot all about until minutes ago. So walking into a bar with the woman who reminded me and the last to see my father alive is a bad idea, yes, but also one instantly decided."
Her eyes were set, lines rimming white again. Remy understood. She knew he did. He always did.
"Den I be der' for you, 'Roro. I need you. Need you ta be well. We'll get through this, or be damned if we don't."
She reached for his hand squeezing it lightly then dropping it surveying the road as she spoke.
"If it were any else here right now, I would have sent them packin' . Since it's you, I expect the support. Now which way to St. Paul from here?"
104 Rue St.-Paul Est.
Five Minutes Prior.
The rain echoed in refrain as a woman heaved the large wooden door and entered the pub teeming with loud French vocals. Pulling off the hood and removing her jacket, she shook it out letting water spray; tossing damp strands behind her ear before hanging it on a rack. An unusual tall femme standing nearly six two and accostumed to towering over many of her peers, she automatically ducked from a low arch for safe measure after paying her cover and then surveying the crowd.
Les Deux Pierrots was a good sized pub, publicly acclaimed as one of the top ten features for nightlife in Montreal with a stage highlighting Quebec's finest. It was also a social hub for the locals; a place to dispute philosophy over a glass of penaniore, or a casual first date chugging Guinness. Of course some preferred their staples of Gin and Tonic, White Russians or straight up Jack who wandered from his Tennesseeroots to cross the border. Blue, white and red lights crisscrossed the corners of the wall around bringing it into a lowlit setting.
As the onslaught of rain brought the patio dwellers inward, it took another moment to locate the woman who sat off to the side of the stage, legs crossed and nursing a glass of ale. It was seconds later after the vocals of Mon Ami La Rose were belted that she saw the distraught lines in her face.
"You see her?"
"Oui. She's coming. You sure you want to go through with this?"
She took a seat next to her, eyes cross-examining her body language.
"It's not everyday a chance like this surfaces, Lee. She deserves to know."
Lee sighed.
"Then I hope the best for you. Her mind is a mess of a train wreck, Ash. God awful ozone shocking Adonai out of me..."
Ash diverted her gaze, toying with the glass, taking a small sip. Sensing a change in the air, she looked up again.
"They're outside."
Fear engulfed her friend's face. Out of all the years Lee knew Ash, right under twenty, it was only a handful of times that look crossed her.
"You sure you want to do this?"
Her eyes met eye level. "That was never a question."
Soon eyes were roving to the two that just graced the establishment. Lee took in the man who stood near the white haired woman, dark and wet, glancing over the bar with a sense of familiarity on his face. He was a hidden track, impenetrable. Something about his presence unnerved yet hypnotized her all the same for it was a rare thing to run into someone who could dodge her so solidly. A glance, hint, twitch, morsel... nothing. Nothing was budging about him and that somehow infuriated her....
And then there was Ororo, projecting like a hurricane. Appropriate analogy, she tugged. Her thoughts clubbed over like a two by four, increasing the pain in her head... screams....pain....smoke...death...... or was that Ash? Ever since returning to the kiosk, she felt the shift in her friend's thoughts; no longer lingering or faint, but deafening tremors of unease. Outright fear.
Without another thought, the white-haired femme had clearly defined their existence and was marching over.
It was a few more seconds until she came abruptly on their table, and looked down with a staunch unease. Lee knew she was holding onto sanity by bare minimal threads. Without an invitation, Ororo took the opposite seat, meeting her fellow long lost childhood acquaintance of four seconds in stride.
Ash and Ororo just stood looking at each other for a second, a myriad of thoughts crossing. Ororo had barely made a glance toward Lee, although it wasn't a matter of debate... she knew she was there and didn't care for the fact she was. Yeah, Lee could take a hint. It was then she spoke to the man that had blind-sighed her.
"Je peux vous offrir un verre?"
Damn. Remy took in the tall, long haired brunette that just offered to buy him a drink. Of all her fine pleasantries and even finer looking curves, he recanted turning to Ororo. He wasn't going to go anywhere.
"Why don't you Remy."
He was surprised at her admonition. "Non, Remy said he'd be here for you."
"And you are here, I appreciate that."
It didn't take rocket science to see that was a dismissal, but he respected as much. "I won't be far, chere."
With that, he left trailing the auburn haired femme still glancing back towards Ororo. It was another few seconds of staring charades almost as if both were unsure how to break the ice. Ororo eventually did.
"Your friend always that forward with men she doesn't know?"
The woman to her opposite arched an eyebrow.
"Never. Must be special."
"Remy's that and more." Pause. "What's your name?"
"Ayesha."
The next question. "How do you know me?"
The woman known as Ayesha sat back in her seat, sighing lightly.
"Media. Your part of the X-Men right?"
"Alias as Storm.... not Ororo," she corrected. "Care to try again?"
"Storm..." her eyes glanced at the emptied patio as the rain sloshed over the seats. She took a sip of her ale before looking back up.
"I guess it works. My friends do call me Ash.... I guess that works too."
"Look, I don't know if this is a hobby of yours - eluding, hinting and refusing to get to the point- but it's getting old. There's things I need to know. Things that have haunted me a lifetime. Things you should know....understand... things children should never have to remember. You were there in the lobby... minutes before my father was killed....I..." she trailed. Where where the damn words? "I need to know...." know what? "How did it really go down? Why did it?"
Ayesha drew an inward breath, a flood of emotion over washing her.
"My mom was waiting outside for me when I came down - in a hurry to get to the church you know, she was a devout Coptic Christian. So I glanced back saying goodbye to Amir who had descended from the elevator. He was walking toward the reception desk where a tall American stood but my mom was still yelling at me something fierce. No. There wasn't even time for a proper goodbye. So I retreated from the lobby into the car parked at the curb, and as we drove away, remembered seeing a boy in a bulky jacket heading towards the hotel...."
Ororo could see a cold tear begging for an exit on the right side of her eye but knew it wasn't going to be shed it until she had finished.
"Next thing I remember our car was launched into the air, my mom was impaled through the stomach, our driver was bleeding to death, and I couldn't move my legs. There was flames, smoke, screams, shouts on the outside - Allah is great, Allah is merciful, Allah be with us....."
The tear found a release. Ororo felt one of her own forming. " I didn't believe in a god for a long time after that."
Ayesha continued in a nonchalant sting.
" My legs were crushed you know..." she let out an inappropriate chuckle, all nerves, "But I managed myself out, crawling onto the streets.....I screamed louder then I could ever remember, trudging my way back to the hotel, pounding my fists against the earth.... " She paused again.
"Then I remembered the ground shook... the earth trembling under my fingertips..... and rain. Man did it rain - It rained and thundered something fierce. Lightning riped across the sky. Winds.....God. That day, fear was born in my bones."
" It's funny. Life. Fates. Wrong place-wrong time, whatever have you; how quick it changes. One minute things are normal, the next... I had no mother, no brother...and no father....."
Ororo wracked hands through her hair, pain etching her features all over.
"Amir was your brother, the receptionist... your father?"
"Aywa. His name was Kameel Ad'Badan, my mother Nadya."
She was speechless for a time; the realization dawning both their fathers were conversing seconds before they perished into pieces on a bombers whim. The tears flowed, and Ororo felt the crowd constricting on her, the music; reaching a octave too high for comfort. She needed to breath, needed air. Although it rained harder then before, she bolted toward the patio, in need of the downpour to mask the raw emotions that had been resurrected. Without a thought, Ayesha followed her.
As the cold water and wind assaulted her flesh, she took refuge under the umbrella from one of the tables.
She continued like they hadn't moved.
"None survived... No one."
"It was years later I saw you in El Gezira pick-pocketing that rich man in the midaan. I didn't believe it at first but no one else had white hair and blue eyes.....so I followed you back to Shubra....and overheard a conversation with someone named Farouk.... Ororo......" she pleaded..."He called you Ororo. Everyone with sense in El Qahira knew Farouk was bad company. It wasn't until after he died that I found out the boy that bombed my father's hotel worked for him. "
At that, Ororo felt her pulse drop. She struggled for air as the cold gripped her lungs.
"Farouk killed them?"
" Some beef with my father. Farouk owned the El Qahira underworld. Blackmailed everyone, rumoured to have a way with suggestion. When he tried to invest in one of my father's hotels -he owned a chain- possibly for a new base of operations, my father denied him. He didn't like it. I heard little things transpired, Amir would tell me, he was ten years my senior. He'd get threats of possible attack... but this went on for months. Then the situation with Israel surfaced and he found a prime example to get even."
Ororo looked on bewildered.
"But Farouk took Orphans and trained then to pick-pocket his bidding...."
"Aywa, that he did. He also had a secret branch of misplaced children, orphans, fatherless boys, and others that he trained into suicide bombers. The boy's name was Ahamad, a cousin of mine, disappeared from my uncle years before I was born. I never knew him. And as things would have it, I never would."
Ororo grew sick. For all the years she spent battling the Shadow King, it seemed her problems just dwindled. This woman should have more angst then anyone. Her whole family was manipulated and killed over his evil.
"The man who killed him - Mutant activist behind your X-Men, right?"
She nodded, unsure how of how she knew that. When authorities found Farouk's body, they determined the cause of death to be a massive stroke followed by heart failure. Nothing more. Ayesha still knew more then she had already shared.
"Farouk was a bested telepath wasn't he?"
" They fought, yes. Xavier won...."
Ayesha's eyes glazed over in hatred. "Good."
With that admonition, Ororo didn't feel the need to express Farouk's resurrection; the thought of him still roaming somewhere on the astral plane making her more sick then she already was.
" So now that you know what I know.... tell me how you survived...no one survived..."
Ororo struggled for words.
"I.....I don't know. I remember calling the Goddess for rain to stop the flames, my mother screaming... dying next to me... and then a white light before I passed out..... when I awoke, I was being pulled from under the rubble. I remember a hospital, white, white...." She trailed remembering streaming white hair, the vision of a Goddess talking her through...
"...then being contained in the American Embassy for time....they wanted to send me home.. but I didn't want to go. Couldn't go.... I had to find my father.... he was alive somewhere, I was convinced. So I fled. I lived off the streets, stole and squatted in numerous places before.....before Farouk found me..."
"You made it rain didn't you."
Ayesha's violet eyes were focused seemingly boring holes right through her very existence. Those words, prompting the haunt.
It was a question posed in statement form. Ororo's face drew in long shameful strides as she refused to meet her gaze.
"Made it rain.... made it thunder. No one could get through to help anyone....they were to die alone and without a chance, everyone....besides you , right?"
Her voice condescending and laced with venom.
"No....."
"The lower side of El Qahira was destroyed...."
"No..."
"65,000 people killed or wounded....."
"No.....
"It flooded... A fifteen foot storm surge off the Nile.... the Arab world had never heard of such a thing...."
"Goddamn it.....no....I didn't."
"Yes, you did...."
"No...."
" Your right.....we did."
Ororo sprung up at her revelation.
"What did you say?" Her voice, shakey.
Ayesha paced back and forth, the rain thoroughly drenching her.
"I said we did....for god's sake, Ororo......"
"Don't fuck with me, Ayesha. Don't PRESUME anything to me. For years, I've lived through nightmares and suicidal bouts of...misery... knowing.....I couldn't change any of it. Sleeping each night with the guilt of souls on my conscience.....it's not... pleasant... to know you murdered, to know you didn't even understand that you murdered... and then to wonder why you were cursed to live when you killed so many.... so..... So don't FUCK with this..."
"Don't what? Don't fuck with the idea you made the wind blow caused a few tenements to collapse? Try living with idea of causing a FAULT to break, and in turn a Tsunami to wipe out the other half of everything...try not fucking with that."
Silence and shock set over Ororo's face.
"You?"
Ayesha's eyes wrote the very meaning of shame at that moment and time and Ororo felt a connection beyond an earthly understanding.
"You....you caused that earthquake?"
There it was again, that nervous laugh.
"Actually, If you want to be frank, yes. Farouk incited it, you increased it and I caused it. So there you have it. Your not the only murderer on the block. And about me not PRESUMING to understand insomnia, bouts of depression, thoughts of suicide, misery or any other side affects of knowing you ended innocent civilian life, feel free to add the list. I'm all ears. Guilt fest here...."
Ororo felt a scowl in her throat. All these years she believed it was her doing, her actions that prompted the chaos, her abilities that killed souls before their time. And now here she stood in the bouts of a rainstorm, soaked to the bone being told she only caused half the problem. It sliced her open. She didn't think another soul roamed the earth that understood her shame....
"Oh my god...."
"God," She started to pace.
"I told you I didn't believe in God for a long time after that. No god would cause that. And then one day while in thought, it occurred to me. I was wrong and I was right. Wrong to think there wasn't a god, oh he's there. Regardless of the crap we go through, there's a benefactor of creation cowering the heavens..... But I was right to think no God would cause that; allowing it to transpire, maybe. But never the reason it happened. Still the thoughts irks if he did allow it, why? And I don't know. Maybe he's planning some great judgement in the future, to wipe out all problems in one stroke. But then again, there are small things he provides to get through anything.... and I believe he allowed me and you to survive so one day we'd find each other and know that there is always someone else who understands....."
Ororo felt the deep penetrating reason of the woman.
"Allah is merciful. Allah is forgiving. Allah Is compassionate. That's the adage right? Or maybe.... it's your Goddess..."
Ororo saw the flash of white cascade when she lay in the hospital bed. "Be well, my child.. be well..." Maybe the vision that did save her all these years... Ayesha continued.
"Who knows....but I do know that only you and I soley understand this....to be two little sparrows amongst a huge forest.....to build foundations with so little...and still manage to find a reason to continue when things feel so menial....We know what type of people we are....What type of people we've become...."
Even though Ororo had only talked to this woman less then a half hour, a lifetime of guilt slowly started to melt. She understood. Oh for someone to UNDERSTAND that. As the rain slowed it's descent to a drizzle and then completely stopped, Ayesha smiled.
"It's been a long time, Ororo."
Ororo felt tears of relief forming.
"Too long."
Ayesha glanced back from the patio inward towards the bar where both Remy and Lee looked engrossed in conversation, or maybe a spirited debate. She wrung out her soaked clothes, a half laugh on her lips.
"Some things don't change. And for the record..this is all your fault."
Ororo laughed.