With thanks to hippiechick2112, Foreststar of WindClan, ellie, and ladygris for reviewing!
The previous chapter happens in the middle of this one, timeline-wise. Because one is Ororo's chapter and one is Scott's, I decided to post them separately.
When she woke up, the first thing Ororo knew the day would be warm. Pleasant. She always knew that when she woke up, before she opened her eyes.
That, and she had acclimated.
She was feeling so distant lately, far from herself. It was the first time she questioned her powers and being away from her powers was like not knowing who she was. So she had camped out on the floor like in the old factory back in Cairo.
All she could think about was how alone she had felt then. She forgot before how alone she felt in Cairo, like everyone else had someone. The other girls were close. Two of the boys were brothers, the others friends—and there was Ororo, trying to prove herself one of the boys but never truly one.
She had gone to Scott's bedroom, but he wasn't there and she was set to Goldilocks him, but she didn't like his bed any more than hers. So she went back and laid down on the floor like she used to when she was a little girl.
It was just the way things were when she was young. Now she woke up sore.
Ororo sighed. She pushed herself off the floor, dropped the covers back on the bed, and pulled something out of her drawer. Why were clothes so confusing here? She had more than enough of them, and there were skirts and pants and she had no real preference for either since everyone had seen that she could still hold her own against Scott or Alex in krav maga.
Finally she pulled a pair of plaid shorts on under Doug's band t-shirt. Doug was probably three times Ororo's size and the shorts were small enough that only a few centimeters were visible under the baggy t-shirt. She looked like she was wearing her pajamas—which, she supposed, she was. Plus shorts.
She found Ruth outside, perched on the steps, and settled beside her.
Ruth wrapped an arm around Ororo's shoulders. Ororo leaned into her.
"Ready to talk about it?" Ruth asked. She was the only person in this country who spoke to Ororo in Arabic and although they usually used English, Ororo appreciated it.
Still, she shook her head. "What were you like when you were fourteen?"
Ruth thought about that for a moment. "I was… impossible," she said, making both of them laugh. "I was a little wild. On the kibbutz, we did not have, it is not as a family. I lived with the other children."
"Like I do?"
"No, you have a blended family. You have me and Professor Xavier and Scott. Parents and brother. Very normal."
"I don't look like you."
Ororo meant that about all of them. Sure, the three of them had different shades of fair skin, different sorts of brown hair, but if you saw them together you could think they were real family.
"True, but you sound like me."
"Scott could've come out of you."
"So could you," Ruth retorted.
Ororo couldn't argue with that. With her mixed heritage, even though it had been her biological father who was white, she could plausibly have been Ruth's daughter. She just wouldn't have looked like it.
"How come you and Laurie don't have hair on your legs?" Ororo asked instead. "Is that—women in Africa have hair." As did she, in fact, and having a faint sprinkling of white was not making her questions of identity any easier solved.
"All women have this," Ruth replied. "Some shave. For me, I have strong hair, so not so often. Laurie probably more."
"Strong hair?"
"Mhm. It is part of my power, I am less destructible, so my hairbrush breaks easily, my razors wear out. It would be different for you if you if this is what you want to do."
Ororo didn't answer at first. She looked up at the sky, then out, and realized she couldn't see the wall. She knew it was there, marking the perimeter of where Charles Xavier's word was law. That was preferable, his word being law. Otherwise it was someone else's, and why should she trust them?
The world felt good. Rainstorms were intense but a light rain felt strange, like the restrained activity in no way natural to a fourteen-year-old girl. Today the weather felt quiet and calm, settled.
"Why?" she wondered. "I didn't like when my body got…" She waved her hands in the air, vaguely indicating the shape of a much more curvaceous woman than herself. "But it was like when I tried to stop the rain. When I came here, to New York, I tried for a month and I didn't let the rain come, but I felt sick. Like the whole world was sick. I had to let it rain. Like I had to move a little differently and my body worked fine, even with the," and again she made the shape of a very curvy woman. "Nature is nature. Me, you, the air… the clouds…"
She brushed her fingers across the hair on her leg. It didn't feel wrong.
"Being a woman is very difficult, Ororo."
Ororo nodded. She had figured that out.
"You'll be great."
She wanted to say something to that, something that told her that the praise made her feel warm all over, but before she could think of what to say, her stomach growled. It was the morning. Pre-breakfast.
"Go have something to eat," Ruth suggested. "Want to work with me later? I am starting a garden. It will be boring today, but-"
"I want to," Ororo interrupted.
"Good. Now go eat."
She nodded and headed inside.
It was the sort of day on which none of the lights had been switched on. Why would they? There was plenty streaming through the windows, not like those drab, short winter days she had not even dreamed could exist before coming to New York.
How could you have a whole season with barely any sunshine?
Later, after talking to Scott in a blanket fort they could barely fit into together, Ororo headed outside again to find Ruth. She was kneeling on the ground, pulling weeds with what looked like a very delicate touch.
"Couldn't you yank them out?" Ororo asked, thinking about Ruth's strength.
Ruth nodded. "I could. Sometimes it will work, but mostly they will break. They are more delicate above the ground."
Ororo knelt nearby and gripped a weed. She pulled as hard as she could. Part of the weed tore free… of the ground. A little bit of stem remained aboveground and she knew there would be plenty of roots, too. She huffed.
"Try like this," Ruth said. She reached for another weed and gripped the stem close to the ground. She tugged at the stem, wriggling rather than straight up, and out came an entire weed and root system.
Ororo tried. She had to admit—but not out loud—that it was easier to get the weeds out that way.
"It's messy today," she observed. This was not a complaint, simply an observation. Mud, Ororo had to admit, was fun.
"You should see when it is dry!" Ruth said. "This is worse, the ground holds on tighter. No, wait—"
Too late. Ororo had gripped another weed. This one sent sharp prickles through her hand. She flinched back, but too late. The nettle had done its work. Ororo gritted her teeth and breathed, trying to focus on the air.
"Here."
Ruth scooped up a handful of mud and dropped it into Ororo's palm, then spread the mud over her fingers. It was cool and surprisingly calming.
"And there is that."
Ororo giggled.
She didn't know why she loved the mud. She just did. It was squishy and messy and somehow absolutely delightful.
They pulled weeds for what felt like a long time. It was certainly long enough for the task to become less fun and more competitive, which made it messier… which made it more fun again. After a time, Ororo did begin to feel sore, though. She was glad when Ruth called a halt.
"I think we have enough space now," she said. "I am going to wash up and go to the nursery. You are welcome to come."
Ororo hesitated. She did not leave the grounds often and a large part of that was the way other people reacted to her. Ruth could say all she wanted that Ororo could have been her biological daughter, no one would see that and they would stare.
A series of obscenities flashed through Ororo's mind.
"I'll go."
She tried to be rebellious about it by only washing the mud off her hands and legs, leaving her mud-spattered t-shirt, and was a little disappointed when she saw that Ruth had done the same thing. They were only going to buy plants, after all.
Growing up in Egypt, Ororo had heard plenty of jokes about Israeli drivers. She didn't know if it was true of all Israelis, only that Ruth's driving actually made her appreciate seat belts.
The town was new to her in some ways. When they paused at red lights, Ororo looked around. She spotted the drug store where Alex worked, although not the library—that was down the road a ways. Most of it would have been boring to some people, but this was Ororo's first experience living in an American town. She was starting to wish she spent more time actually in it.
"Mom?"
"Yes?"
"Do we live in the town? Technically in it?"
"Not technically," Ruth said.
"Hey, that looks like Alex's car!"
Ruth looked. "It is."
"Oh—oh!" Ororo realized where they were. "Isn't it early to be drinking?" The car was parked in a bar parking lot.
"Alex is at home. Maybe he was here yesterday or the day before."
The nursery was a surprising place, between a pizza place and a dry cleaner's. Both of those seemed a bit ill-matched to plants, Ororo thought, but she recognized the name of the pizza place. Maybe that was why their basil was so fresh.
Ororo did not want to admit how much she enjoyed wandering around the nursery, looking at the plants and touching flowers' waxy petals. They were… beautiful. There were bursts of color she had never seen growing in this country, purple so deep it was nearly black and orange so sudden it demanded attention.
There was a stack of herb shelves, too. She sniffed those, inhaling the strong central scent of a specific herb along with the hints of earth and nearby plants.
"Looking for anything in particular?"
She looked up from deep green mint leaves. The fellow working in the nursery looked very fond of today's fashions. His tie-dyed t-shirt, fraying jeans, and long hair spoke to that.
"Um…"
"'Cause if it's parsley, that's around the other side. Curly and flat."
"Oh."
There were two sorts of parsley?
"I was just browsing," Ororo said.
The man nodded. "Right on," he said, and headed off to shift a stack of pots.
Ororo headed off the find Ruth. "Did you find what you needed?" she asked.
"I did. Did you find anything you would like to grow?"
She hadn't realized that was an option. "Can I have just one minute?"
Ruth nodded. "Take your time."
Ororo darted back to the herbs. Ruth, meanwhile, paid for the plants she had chosen. She had just finished settling them in the trunk of the car when Ororo ran up, carrying basil in a plastic pot. "Can I have this one?"
Ruth took a look. "Good choice. If we plant it outside, it will grow for a year. We can keep this in the kitchen, by the window, possibly it will live longer. What do you want to do?"
"In the kitchen."
So five minutes later Ororo was sitting in the front seat, a potted plant cradled in her lap.