With thanks to kristelalugo and lychee loving for reviewing!
December 16, 1963 (Part I)
"Ororo!"
Another time, the urgency in that voice would have spurred her out of bed: low, whispered, insistent. Someone needed her.
"Ororo!"
But it was freezing, literally freezing, and she was tired. She snuggled deeper under the covers. Whatever was happening couldn't be urgent and she would take her revenge later on the red-eyed moron who woke her up at—what obscene hour of the morning was this?
Then Scott muttered six words that changed her tune entirely:
"Do you wanna build a snowman?"
Ororo's eyes opened. She sat up, pushing back the covers. Scott must have turned on the lamp by the bed and she still wanted, a little bit, to kick him. Instead she offered a nod and a huge grin.
"C'mon. Dress warm."
The floor sent needles of cold into her feet, but Ororo didn't care. She yanked off the shirt she had slept in, causing Scott to spin away and stare at the wall. She swallowed a giggle: she always forgot how modest he could be. You would think no one so much as unbuttoned their collar in America.
She wriggled into her tights. She didn't care for the things, really—they bunched at the knees and toes and were a massive hassle when she needed to pee—but they kept her warm. Over that she wore her sweatpants (usually reserved for gym class), an ill-fitting paisley dress, and two sweaters. The entire ensemble looked foolish, but it would keep her as warm as possible.
Finally she tied on her shoes and bounced to her feet.
"Come on!" she urged, like she had been wide awake the whole time and Scott was holding her up.
"Shh."
It was after sunrise but early yet. The mansion felt empty, even though only Doug and Laurie had gone home for the holidays. Somewhere, Hank was probably awake, tinkering with intricacies of science neither of them began to understand. Everyone else was likely asleep.
Ororo would have liked to race to the front door, but somehow the secrecy made everything more delightful.
She had never been so confined in Africa. Yes, she had struggled to find enough food to eat and never taken a hot shower, but no one restricted her much. Now there were rules. There were things like class and curfew and chores. So she enjoyed doing something secret, just because.
"Ah!"
Outside was a familiar burst of cold. Inside had been cold, but out here… she shivered. Had the ground not been coated in a pristine white blanket more enticing than water in the desert—and she would know—she might have fled back to her warm bed, huddled under the covers, and convinced Scott to bring her hot chocolate.
The only thing that stopped her playing the boy like a kazoo was knowing Laurie would do the same thing.
At the moment, he was watching her and grinning.
"Well?"
She bolted forward and leapt into the snow. It gave way a little, enough that she heard tiny crunches, but even though it looked like a blanket it was much harder than one. It had jagged edges. And—
"It's wet!"
"Of course," Scott replied.
Naturally, Ororo thought. He must have seen snow every winter, being an American.
She climbed to her feet, looked around… and paused. What did one do next? She knew a little of this strange, this magical stuff. But what was a snowman besides a picture in a primer like three stacked cotton balls? Was it really fun to make and if so how was it made? Now that she had seen snow, could she make it?
Something crashed into her shoulder and shattered. It hurt a little, not much, and touched her neck in insistent coldness. When she brushed off her shoulder, she realized what had happened.
Scott stood a few meters away, waiting for her to notice. Now that she had, Ororo scooped up a handful of snow and chucked it at him. The snow fell from her hand, none of it reaching anywhere near Scott. Ororo frowned and tried again.
"Here, I'll show you."
He came near enough for her falling-tossed snow to almost reach him.
"I'll figure it out," she snapped. Just because he was older and bigger and American and had been at the Xavier Institute longer, just because he read better and ran faster, did not mean she needed his help with everything!
He shrugged.
She tried throwing harder, which also did not work.
Bam! Another snowball hit her, on the chest this time.
If she had been watching, she would have seen how Scott did it and known how to make a snowball properly. She hadn't.
She scowled at him.
Scott stuck out his tongue.
Oh, that was enough. That was more than enough!
Ororo grinned. The way she shifted her weight gave him a split second's warning, all Scott really needed. She tried to bolt after him. 'Bolting' in this snow proved less successful: it shifted under her feet. Her first few steps were uneven, slipping and compensating for the uneven ground.
She chased him around the side of the mansion. He should have been long gone by then. If Scott wanted to be alone, only Hank or Ruth could catch him, and that only because their powers gave them enhanced speed. Ororo should not have been able to.
Well, he was asking for it, wasn't he?
She chased him, caught him, and tackled him. The snow cushioned Scott's fall and Scott cushioned Ororo's. He was already reacting by the time he hit the ground, grasping her and rolling to pin her to the ground. She wrenched her shoulders to throw him off.
Gym class at the Xavier Institute for Gifted Youngsters (which, as Ororo knew, was a mouthful of words that meant "mutant place") was slightly unusual. They had the running and stretching exercises to which every other school subjected its students, but the bulk of class went to martial arts training. So the two young mutants scuffling in the snow were more than making things up.
Scott usually worked with one of the other boys. He was stronger than Doug, although smaller, and generally able to best Sean in the space of a breath. It was his brother to whom he was best matched, which suited them both since, as brothers, they naturally preferred beating the hell out of each other. It was like saying 'I love you' only something boys did.
Ororo, meanwhile, worked with Ruth in gym class. She was a thirteen-year-old girl in a class with older boys, men, and Laurie (who refused to fight so what was the point). None of them felt comfortable hitting or throwing Ororo, so Ruth did it.
As a result, Ororo was completely undermatched with Scott. He was hesitant. She was enthusiastic.
"Wait, wait—my glasses!"
Ororo paused. Should she wait? Yes, Scott hated losing his glasses, and she knew perfectly well the reason… but he threw snowballs at her!
He ended up with snow rubbed into his hair.
Then she picked up his glasses, which had fallen into the snow, and handed them back.
They did build a snowman after she let him up. "It's like this," he explained, packing together what she guessed would have been a snowball if he had thrown it at her. Instead he pushed it along the ground. Ororo watched with a default skeptical impression until she saw that the snowball really did grow large enough to be the base of the snowman.
"I wanna try!" she announced, grabbing a handful of snow for the second section. It wasn't quite as easy to roll as Scott made it look and her bare hands stung. She kept at it, though.
This was supposed to be fun. Right? And in spite of the stinging cold and general pointlessness, it was fun.
They were breathless, cold-stung and laughing by the time they returned indoors. They paused to take off their shoes. Ororo found that snow had soaked into the canvas, which explained her aching toes, and the laces, which made them difficult to pick apart.
The others were awake now, the—what had the Professor called it?—the foyer was bright. Voices carried in a way that would have been eerie, had Ororo and Scott not recognized the speakers. Instead they were pleasant, making the house feel like home.
"Ugh, these layers!"
"Ororo!" Scott sounded utterly scandalized.
"What?"
He sighed and didn't answer. She knew anyway: she had hiked up her skirt to peel off her wet sweatpants. Since she was in the area, she peeled off her tights, too. They were damp in some places and soaked in others and uncomfortable all over.
"Hey, you have some snow…" Scott brushed at Ororo's head, then, "No, wait. Just your hair."
She grinned wickedly.
That was all the warning Scott needed: he took off running.
Charles Xavier was having a very different morning, though Ororo and Scott were the first thing he felt aware of. He heard them laughing outside. Partly, they reminded him of himself and Raven, how surprised he had felt to enjoy playing when he suddenly had a friend. More than that, the intense cliché of children's laughter was nevertheless a delightful sound.
It didn't change the fact that he was, at thirty, sitting in a wheelchair with a blanket tucked around his legs. The blanket was a necessity—although useless, his legs were quite capable of becoming infected and he wouldn't feel it.
He brewed a pot of tea and settled in the sitting room before searching for the others telepathically. Alex, Sean, and Hank were asleep. Ororo and Scott were outside, happily building a snowman. And Ruth…
"Good morning, Ruth."
She nodded. "Good morning."
"Join me?"
He offered a cup of tea.
"Thank you."
Ruth settled in an armchair and sipped her tea. She held the cup delicately, between her fingertips. She regarded him over the rim of the cup and raised her eyebrows.
He had no idea what she meant, but it made him laugh.
And ache.
A few years ago, Ruth would not have been his type. It was strange, because he had no trouble imagining her going to bed with some man she met at the pub—which had been precisely his type—but those had been young women, university students like himself. When he read their minds, he listened not for thoughts but for tones. He identified the ones who wanted to meet someone.
He identified the ones, like himself, who wanted to fuck.
They weren't like Ruth. They didn't make him laugh because they were funny; he laughed because it put them in the right mood.
Wouldn't it be nice, though? Lovely, if she would look at him that way, but of course she wouldn't. Not with him like this, not that way and him half a man. For all she knew, he couldn't—and he wanted so much more, to be so much more to her, but she would not see it.
"Charles?"
He shook himself. "I'm sorry, what were you saying?"
"Plans for the holidays," Ruth clarified.
He laughed. "I'll be here."
"As will I," she replied, "but I am not a reader. Well, not so much." She majored in history. That rarely changed.
"Do they have Christmas where you're from?"
"You mean in Israel?" she asked. She laughed. "Yes, Charles, there are Christians in Bethlehem and Jerusalem. This where their messiah walked, these places matter to them."
"But not to you?" he wondered, trying to ignore the warm pink feeling that accompanied blushing. It had been a while since someone so firmly knew better than he did.
Ruth shrugged. "I do not believe in Jesus Christ. I do believe in keeping these places safe."
"Really?"
The question came not from Charles but Scott, standing in the doorway. He was an odd mix of reality and illustration, as happy as a kid ought to be after playing in the snow, coupled with red glasses, shabby clothes, and overgrown hair.
Again.
"I mean," Scott amended, looking at his shoes. He hadn't intended to interrupt. "Just—because you're religious—and stuff—or I thought…"
"I am observant," Ruth confirmed, "I am an observant Jew."
"So—"
He didn't ask. A blur tackled him.
Charles looked to Ruth. He addressed plenty of behavior issues with the students. With arguments, injustices, doubts, and questions—if Scott wanted things settled with Alex, he went to Charles for mediation. If he wanted to settle things himself, he trusted Ruth to stop Alex from doing permanent damage.
This time Ruth watched for a while.
"Only play," she determined.
When the students finished scuffling and climbed to their feet, Charles asked, "Did you actually go outside dressed that way?"
"She had tights," Scott said.
"And sweats," Ororo added.
He nodded. That was slightly reassuring, though Scott's wet hoodie and the holes in his jeans were discouraging.
Scott must have understood, because he offered, "They're the ones with the least holes."
Charles glanced at Ruth. Despite his inability to understand most of her thoughts, he surmised they had the same idea. "Would you—"
"Oh yes," Ruth agreed.
"Is it too much to ask…"
"Today?"
He nodded. "If you wouldn't mind."
"Not at all."
Ororo looked at Scott.
He shrugged.
She inclined her head.
He shook his head.
She nodded.
He shook his head again, mouthing 'no'.
Ororo shrugged. "Fine," she hissed. "Ruth?" And then, for Scott's benefit, she asked a question in Arabic.
"We are going to go shopping," Ruth replied.
"What?" Scott asked.
Ororo grinned and asked another question. Her tone was excited, though Scott didn't understand a word of it.
"Yes, of course," Ruth replied.
"Um. Professor?" Scott asked. "I don't need to go shopping."
"You're going."
"But…"
A look from Charles silenced him. Many aspects of a normal—or at least less downtrodden—life were foreign to him and took some getting used to. Charles did not push him in most things, but the clothing situation had gone on long enough. There was no reason for Scott to look like he spent last night in a ditch. Anyone would think he wasn't being taken care of properly.
Ruth rested her hand on Charles's. He wished she wouldn't do that. It made him feel happy, warm, and calm, and close to her in ways he would never be.
"Oh! May I clear the driveway?"
Those words had never been spoken before in the mansion. (Of course, when Charles was growing up, he never had to shovel snow, but that was beside the point.)
He nodded. "Go ahead."
Scott grinned and bolted from the room.
Of course, he was not actually excited about shoveling snow, mostly because he did not intend to shovel. He ran back to his room and grabbed the visor off his dresser. The trouble with Scott's ability, besides the fact that it was beyond his control, was the danger. He could hurt people… kill people.
But the visor Hank designed, as dumb as it looked, had not broken in months. Scott never let his guard down, but he fiddled with the settings, growing more familiar every week. By now he probably was okay with it. So he might be able to clear the snow.
Failing that, he would shovel the traditional way.
He started light. Because his power generated force but not heat, he ran no risk of causing ice. He supposed he would want to clear a path down the center first and… zap!
Okay, that had been less than ideal. A small hole, no more than a couple of inches deep, appeared in the snow.
A little more power wouldn't hurt…
After ten minutes of tinkering with the controls, he had a decent routine and five feet of clear road. He smiled. Sometimes being a mutant wasn't so bad.
The door opened and out spilled Alex and Sean.
"Yo, twerp, groovy!" Alex called. When Scott turned, Alex gave him a thumbs-up.
Scott grinned.
Then Alex cracked up. "My little bro, the snowblower."
"Huh?" Scott asked.
It was hilarious to Sean, too.
Scott regarded them for a moment. He considered accusing them of being jealous of his excellent snowblowing, but had the distinct impression that would not help.
Instead, he said, "I'm not your little brother. You're my little brother. You know…" Scott hesitated. He kicked at a clump of snow nearby. "Um, d'you—a while ago, you mentioned—do you remember… Mom an—"
Alex threw his hands up in surrender. "Okay, okay, you're older!" he ceded.
Scott nodded. Something crossed his face, a wince of pain and then it was gone. "Yeah, well, as your big brother I think you're being rude."
"We're just teasing you," Alex said.
Scott jerked his head.
Alex and Sean both turned.
"Sorry, Ororo."
She was leaning against the wall, quietly staying out of the way. She could have helped, but preferred to perch nearby. Occasionally she sent a gust of wind to clear the snow Scott blasted off the road.
"Good morning, boys."
She peeled herself off the wall.
"Bet we clear more snow than you," she said.
Sean scoffed. "Yeah, right."
Ororo shrugged. "Me and Scott start at the end of the driveway…"
The three of them tossed insults and challenges back and forth. Ororo held her ground. It was something she needed to do sometimes and Alex and Sean meant well, but they were young. They could be pushed a little too far by a particularly aggravating thirteen-year-old. As for Ororo, she needed to be acknowledged once in a while instead of treated like "the kid".
Meanwhile, Scott blasted away snow by the foot. By the time the others finished swaggering, the driveway was clean and they headed inside.
"Scotty," Alex remarked all over again, "you are the best snowblower of all time."
"Alexander Summers!"
Alex's jaw dropped. He managed not to swear, but it was a near thing. If he knew Charles was going to hear, he would have kept from saying it in the first place.
"You used to be cool," he accused.
"That is unnecessary," Charles retorted. Then he lied: "And untrue. I was never cool."