Thanks to hippiechick2112, Foreststar of Wind Clan, ellie, Houdini, and ladygris for reviewing! Regarding what Scott thinks about leaving, he overheard a conversation which led him to believe he's being sent back to the orphanage. Whether or not he is... answers next chapter. Scout's honor.

Once upon a time, there was a farmer and his wife who had one daughter, and she was courted by a gentleman. Every evening he used to come and see her, and stop to supper at the farmhouse, and the daughter used to be sent down into the cellar to draw the beer for supper. So one—

"Wait, wait, wait. So he stops at the house and they give him beer, just 'cause he likes their daughter? Is that like her dowry?"

"Well, no, it's simple hospitality."

"Do they really like him a lot?"

Charles suppressed the urge to sigh. It had not been the easiest of days. Granted, there had been baklava. He knew of that from his trip to Egypt several years ago. Aware that travel brought new and sometimes unique experiences, he had been genuinely sorry to think he would never again eat baklava. Luckily, he had been wrong!

And the kids' fort was… unexpected. Adorable. It was left up because no one had the heart to take it down.

Still, after several frustrating telephone calls with a lawyer, Charles was more than ready to just call it a night. He was surprised when he heard in Ororo's thoughts that she had really enjoyed the previous night's story. So here he was once more, reading an old folktale to a now-14-year-old girl who refused to come out from beneath the covers.

"Beer," he explained, "was quite common at that time. It was safe to drink, while much water was not. May I continue?"

"Yes, please."

So one evening she had gone down to draw the beer, and she happened to look up at the ceiling while she was drawing, and she saw a mallet stuck in one of the beams.

Charles made it through the rest of the paragraph: the girl became upset at the thought that she might one day have a son, who might be drawing the beer as she was, and the mallet might fall and kill him. So she started crying. Then her mother came down, heard about the hypothetical son, and started crying too. And the father.

"Are they fu—"

"Ororo Munroe, you will watch your language."

She had heard the same warning issued a dozen times (only Scott Matthew Summers in place of Ororo Munroe). For the first time, she wished she had a middle name.

"But that's stupid," she objected.

"This story is called 'The Three Sillies'," he reminded her. He kept his finger on the page to mark his place. Although she remained under the covers, he looked in her general direction as he spoke. To do otherwise felt strange.

"Is that the real name?"

"It is. May I continue?"

"Yes." Then, after a pause, "Please."

Charles read on. The gentleman came down into the cellar to see what was happening, but rather than cry, he laughed. He pulled down the mallet and said he would go off and travel and return when he had met three sillier people.

Well, wouldn't you know it, but he happened upon a woman who found grass growing on her roof, and so guided her cow up the ladder. But for safety's sake, the woman tied a string to the cow's neck, ran the string down the chimney, and tied the other end to her wrist. Of course the cow fell, strangling itself and yanking the woman up the chimney. She got stuck halfway through and suffocated.

Later, he met a man who tried to put his trousers on by hanging them open from the dresser and jumping into them...

Charles had to stop for a moment. Ororo was halfway hysterical with laughter. Even he had to admit that the thought of someone trying to jump into their trousers was pretty funny and it was good to hear her laugh.

The story was nearly over now. The gentleman finally encountered a village full of people one night, with rakes and nets, trying to rescue the moon from a pond. Although he showed them the moon still in the sky, they refused to believe in it.

He had encountered three people even sillier than the farmers—so he went back and married the young woman. "…and if they didn't live happy for ever after, that's nothing to do with you or me."

Ororo pushed back the covers and sat up. "It doesn't say that, does it?" she asked. "Really?"

"It does." Charles offered the book, but she shook her head. Reading was not her favorite subject. "Have you had a nice birthday?" he asked.

She nodded. "The best. Thank you. Does it really count, though?"

"Of course it counts."

"But we don't know my real birthday."

Charles was inclined to point out that a birthday was as much about celebrating a mother as a child, but he kept the thought to himself. Mentioning Ororo's birth mother was probably only going to cause her pain.

Instead, he reasoned, "Perhaps the day itself is only ceremonial. It's the day on which we agree to celebrate the fact that you're here."

Ororo thought about that, then looked down at her hands. It wasn't often she found herself at a loss for words. Finally she said, "So I had a lot of births. One of the reasons I'm here is 'cause someone found me once and taught me how to be strong. Another is the day I first used my powers… the day I came to this country or the day you and Ruth brought me home."

"Yours has been an eventful life," Charles agreed. "I suppose it's both simplest and most consistent to mark things by the age of your physical body." She didn't have a response for that, so after a while he said, "Did you know I've been to Egypt?"

Her eyebrows raised in surprise. She shook her head.

"Yes, I was there as a tourist during the summer holiday—terribly hot place, I burned horribly." He said this in such a way that she understood it was appropriate to laugh. At the time, it was awful. Sunburns can be. This one blistered and oozed. For goodness' sake, the tops of his ears flaked dead skin!

But it was all in the past now.

"As I recall, I had my pocket picked by a young girl with blue eyes and white hair…"

Now he really had her attention. Ororo shook her head. Granted, she had a distinctive appearance, but, "I'd remember picking the pocket of an Englishman in a wheelchair."

"I wasn't in a wheelchair then."

"Did I really…?"

He nodded. "Well, a girl with blue eyes and white hair."

"There aren't many of us. Not Egyptian, anyway."

Ororo had met other mixed race kids in Cairo, Maasai kids when she lived with them, and in the orphanage she met girls from all over. They had all been various shades of brown—blond girls weren't so tough to place—but none looked anything like her.

Charles looked at the girl. No—not 'girl', not really. Ororo wasn't an adult yet, but she was more woman than girl. He did not have as clear a memory as he'd like of the child who picked his pocket that day in Cairo, but he was quite certain it had been Ororo.

"You took my money and punched me in the kidney," he recalled.

Her eyes lit up. "You caught my wrist!"

He nodded. "Yes."

"No one caught me," she said.

"Telepathy helps."

Ororo laughed. "Good! I feel better knowing that. I had been at it for years and no one caught me when you did. I was so afraid!" It was funny in retrospect. "You held my wrist and I thought, Achmed will be so mad."

"Achmed?"

"He took care of us." Ororo did not talk much of her life before. When she did, it was in broad strokes and always she made the stories hilarious. "Before the Maasai, I lived in… it was a factory before. Me and other beggars and thieves lived there. Achmed was a grown-up. Sort of like a dad, I guess. Not like you are, but it was different. We only had what we took."

"You miss him," Charles observed.

She nodded. "After the factory burned down, I left. I know one boy survived. T'Challa. I was so mad. I wish now…"

After a long moment's silence, he asked, "What do you wish, Ororo?"

"I, um... Professor... since what happened..."

He waited for her to find the words.

Instead she abruptly laid down and pulled the covers over her head. The way her form shook and the sniffling sounds told Charles she was crying. He came as close as he could. It was still an awkward lean to rest a hand on her head.

She tugged at the covers. He took that as a cue and moved back.

When Charles was young, no one was especially affectionate with him. His mother was reserved, his stepfather was an asshole. He was twelve years old when he met Raven and, at twelve, knew to greet another child with a handshake.

So knowing when and how to physically comfort children was something of a learning curve. Charles understood that Scott now trusted him enough to accept contact most of the time, although he did not always know how to react to it. Ororo was more difficult. She was younger physically but older in maturity, not to mention, she was a girl.

And girls were different.

Like aliens.

He was surprised when she reached out, took his hand, and placed it on her head.