"He left his friend!" she gasped.

Sabretooth turned to see the last man, the mutant, lying abandoned in the grass. "Shit," he muttered under his breath. Turning back to her, he said, "Forget him. When he wakes up, he'll take off just like the others."

Ororo stared at him in disbelief. "I can't...relax knowing there's an unconscious man lying outside the cabin!"

"Look." Sabretooth paused gritting his teeth. "I'll just carry him down to one of the trails. Someone will find him."

Ororo wriggled until he set her down. "No, if that man hasn't woken up yet, it probably means he has a severe concussion, or worse. I'll take him to the visitor's center where someone can help him immediately." As she gathered gentle winds to lift the man from the ground carefully, she felt Sabretooth's hand grip her arm.

"You're not going."

"Excuse me?"

"I didn't wait...I didn't... do all this just so you could babysit some little punk." Sabretooth's voice lowered. "Is this your excuse to try to escape?"

Why did he use the word 'escape?' Ororo steeled herself. She could feel the energy shift between them. He had regained his typical menacing stance and his face had fixed in an icy mask. Why are we suddenly ready to fight each other? She forced herself to take a few deep breaths."Victor," she said softly. "I will come right back. I just want to be completely sure that someone finds him. I want to see it with my own eyes. I don't even have to be seen by anyone. I'll lower him before the entrance of the building and I'll return." She reached up to touch his face. "I want to come back."

Sabretooth's grip did not waver in the slightest, and he wore a look of cynicism and contempt so deep it appeared to have been carved into his face. It was almost painful to look at. How did you become like this?

Ororo looked at the man lying in a crumpled heap in the grass and wondered who he was. Maybe he was some fool who had made terrible choices. Maybe was brutal monster. Maybe he had been taken advantage of because of his special talent. It didn't really matter. She did not want this man to die slowly on the wet ground while she lay a few yards away with his killer. But if Sabretooth failed to understand the perversion of what he was expecting of her, how could she possibly explain it?

"Victor," she said firmly but gently. "You can believe me or not, but I will come back here as soon as I am sure someone has found this man and is getting him help. I'm sorry you don't understand why I have to do this, but it is part of who I am, and you cannot stop me."

His brows bent into a deep scowl, and after a minute of tense silence, he flung her arm away. "Fine. Go." He walked to the end of the porch and stared into the woods, ignoring her gentle good-byes as she carried the injured man up and just over the tops of the trees.

*

It was harder than she thought it would be floating an unconscious man. On the infrequent occasions that she carried another person on the wind, the person was able to control his muscles and reactions to the ever changing eddies of air beneath them, rather like a sky diver. But this man could do none of that and flopped and bounced on the currents she was trying so hard to keep delicate.

As the depression in trees that marked the large clearing for visitor parking emerged, she heard a groaning to her right. Apparently bouncing over the forest's surface had jarred the man awake. She sped up the pace and was just approaching the edge of the lot when she heard the man gasp slightly and throw up. I hope there wasn't anyone down there. Wanting to remain hidden, she latched herself to the upper branches of one of the pines and proceeded to lower the man into the visitor lot. Then, she listened hoping to hear a rallying cry of help, but heard nothing. She needed to be closer.

Lowering herself to the ground, she circled the clearing and entered from the opposite side of the lot. There she remained, watching and waiting. After a few minutes passed, a couple who were unloading mountain bikes from their car heard the groaning from the edge of the lot and walked over to investigate. Ororo breathed a sigh of relief to see them bend down to attend to the man who was now trying to sit up. Another round of vomiting dropped him back onto his side, and she saw the woman running into the visitor center for help.

Having seen the smuggler taken care of, she felt rushing weakness of her knees, a limberness of her muscles, and leaned against a tree for support. Unexpectedly, she found herself giggling weakly. All of wildness and insanity of the afternoon was at least temporarily at bay and the moment of quiet left her giddy. She needed to release some of the nervous energy that had built up, and so she allowed herself to laugh, her weak chuckles building to hearty guffaws. The whole afternoon had been so absurd, so crazy and unbelievable. Wondering if the cyclist couple could hear her from the other side of the parking lot for some reason made her laugh harder. Her laughs rose to off-kilter hysterics before gradually tapering off to silence. She leaned back against the tree with her hand against her forehead. What am I going to do?

The thought of Sabretooth waiting, possibly, back at the cabin sent a wave of desire over her. Yet at the same time, having the distance from him made it easier to think clearly. What she was doing was ridiculous. It was crazy. Truly. Her stomach felt heavy as she wondered what must be wrong with her that she could want something like this. Was she one of those people who because of some trauma in her life ended up making reckless, stupid decisions? She thought about her dead parents, but shook her head, refusing to believe that was the cause. What is wrong with me? Regardless of her confusion, though, she had given her word that she would return. Now that she had had time to reconsider, she knew she couldn't go through with...well...it. But she wanted to tell him to his face. Maybe it was just to prove him wrong, but she wanted him to know she was a woman of her word.

The late afternoon sun casting long shadows in the parking lot reminded her of the time she would normally be returning to the mansion. She spotted a pay phone and in an impulsive burst of responsibility, decided to call home. Miraculously, she had some change in her wallet.

Dialing the numbers, she wondered what she would say to Jean or Professor Xavier if they answered. Would they be able to sense something wrong from her voice?

"Hello, School for Gifted Youngsters," a sweet twang greeted from the other line.

"Anna Marie?"

"Ororo, where are you calling from? I don't recognize this number." Because of her drawl, Anna Marie pronounced Ororo's name as 'Aurora,' but Ororo didn't mind. Coming from Anna Marie, it charming.

"I'm calling from a pay phone in the park."

"You're still there? You sure like to hike a lot. You know, if you ever get lonely, I'd be happy to go with you." Hearing Anna Marie's youthful innocence was a welcome respite to the events of the afternoon and Ororo felt a little tightening in her chest. Perhaps, she would have to bring Anna Marie with her sometime. She might even enjoy a little birds-eye view. But then the thought of running into Sabretooth suddenly emerged in her mind, and she began to feel uneasy. Her own interaction with him was one thing, but she didn't need to expose Anna Marie to it.

Anna Marie took the brooding silence to mean disinterest. "Well, I guess that's silly," Anna Marie said quickly. "You wouldn't want me hiking with you."

Snapping out of her contemplation, Ororo regained her footing. "No, of course we should go hiking together sometime! I was just considering if this is the best place to take you. Maybe we could go to the Adirondacks. What do you think? Or we could even go farther north and do a fly-by of Niagara Falls."

"Really?" Anna Marie asked excitedly, and Ororo knew she'd have to make it happen.

"Sure."

"Hey, do you think Logan could come?"

Ororo laughed, imagining his response to the suggestion that they go floating around above the Niagara river. "Why don't you ask Logan first? I'm not sure he'd be interested."

"Hey, he's right here. Do you want to talk to him?" Before Ororo could respond, she heard Logan's gruff 'hello' from the other end.

Ororo hadn't planned exactly what she was going to say, only that she knew she was going to have to lie. Not that lying to any of them was easy, but she felt especially bad lying to Logan, especially about this. "Hello Logan."

"Well, hello there. You gonna grace us with your presence anytime soon? You know, if you're on your way back, I wouldn't mind a 6-pack of Schlitz."

She couldn't help but smile. "First of all, I would never buy Schlitz. Second, I will not be back soon. I ran into a friend..."

"While hiking?" Logan asked surprised.

"Well, yes. And I think we're going to go find somewhere to...talk and relax for a while."

"Talk and relax, huh? Who is this guy?"

"Who said it was a 'guy'?" Ororo asked innocently. Logan cleared his throat impatiently. "All right. You're right. It is a man...so don't wait up."

Logan was silent on his end.

"Logan?"

"Sorry 'Ro. You just...surprised me. I didn't realized that you ever played that way."

He sounded vaguely accusatory, but she let it slide. "Remember our talk a few months ago? About men being intimidated by me?"

"Yeah," Logan said slowly.

"Well, this one is not."

Logan was silent for a moment and when he spoke again his voice was quiet. "I didn't realize that was all you were looking for."

"Logan," Ororo said sternly.

"No offense." He fell silent again after that.

Ororo regretted not putting more thought into her story before calling but realized it was too late to reconsider. "Okay, well..." she began, motioning that the end the call was near.

"It's just," Logan said interrupting, "I don't want anything bad happenin' to you. Where are you going with this guy?"

"Logan, thank you for your concern, but I'm a big girl." Her words were more curt than she had intended, but she didn't apologize. Being short was the only way she could think of to handle the situation. She didn't want to go into details because that would just mean more detailed lying, but she also didn't want him to feel she was shutting him out.

"It's been a long time for me, Logan." She heard him sigh on the other end of the line, and immediately wished she could tell him everything. She wanted to tell Logan that she didn't think she was going to go through with it, that she had decided it didn't make any sense, that she was just going to talk to Sabretooth and make him understand that surely there were other women more suited to him. But of course, she held her tongue.

She could almost sense him nodding his head on the other end of the line. "Be careful."

"I will," she lied.

"'Ro, before I forget, the Professor put the word out that classes may be disrupted this week. We may have to go out on a mission."

"Yes?"

"It seems the Brotherhood, or possibly a more radical off-shoot of the Brotherhood, may be planning something. We just learned of a pattern of attacks along the East Coast."

"What kind of attacks?"

"Seemingly random killings. All humans. The police haven't connected them, but the Professor says he has some intelligence that they're related. I don't know the details, but I'm sure we'll have a brief on it soon."

"Well, why couldn't it be a serial killer? Why does he think it's the Brotherhood?"

"He does think it's a serial killer. Most of the early victims had their throats slashed...by claws. It's the Brotherhood's #1 serial killer, darlin'. It's Sabretooth."