Memories
Never Any Words
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Scott frowned. Tora had been crouched by the wall with the bucket and sponge but when she'd heard him coming, she'd leapt up and covered the wall with her arms.
"Tora?"
"Scott?"
"What are you hiding?"
She went slightly red, glanced at her feet, in the air, at his chest. Then looked him directly in the eyes.
"Hiding?"
"Behind you. On the wall."
Again, she seemed unable to look him in the eyes. Then she blushed.
"Just some graffiti. I was cleaning it off."
"Just some graffiti? Then why won't you show me?"
She mumbled something that sounded like 'students shouldn't…"
"Students shouldn't…?"
"Students shouldn't have to see it."
"What?"
She glanced around, scented the air and then stepped aside to allow Scott to see the tricolour letters, each a foot high, spelling 'MUTIES OUT!". And next to that, as if the message wasn't clear enough, a noose dripping blood. The noose had been partially scrubbed away.
Without a word, Scott moved over, picked up a sponge and began scrubbing at the letters. Tora flashed him a smile before renewing her attack on the noose. Soon they were joined by Kitty, Ororo and Kurt. No one spoke. Instead, they all worked quickly and quietly, cleaning the wall.
Jean smiled slightly.
"I never thought we could go public with the school."
"It was…fraught."
"You would know."
"Logan, who is Laura?"
He shifted uncomfortably as Emma and Scott sat opposite him.
"A daughter? A sister?"
"And more to the point Logan, why did she take one look at Tora, scream, and try to run away yet is now sitting, albeit edgily, with her and acting as if they are old friends."
"I don't know! She took one look at Tora, screamed that she should be dead then Tora called her '23' and Laura called her 'X-ii'. Then they just nodded at each other and Tora swept her off me."
In a room down the corridor, Tora sat opposite Laura Kinney, a girl she had heard of, as she had heard of her. Silence had reigned. Until now.
"X-23"
"Weapon X-ii. I have…heard a great deal about you."
"And I you. It is quite interesting to meet you at last."
"Until I was six, they were always comparing my progress with yours. And then I had Major-"
"Major 'Jones'?"
"Yes. He told me I would never have your natural flair for espionage."
"Odd. He never gave the impression that he liked me much. I meanwhile, was told, often, that I was a hopeless assassin and would never reach your standard."
"Then you just…dropped out of sight. I was still sometimes compared to you, especially on the language front, but… It was like they just dropped your project."
"They did. So Miss…Kinney, I'm impressed you escaped. I couldn't."
The girl looked down.
"My…mother…died to let me escape."
Tora placed a hand on the girls arm. A gesture of comfort."
"At least you escaped. My best and only friend was killed when I tried to escape. I still feel that I killed her."
The green eyes met gold.
"Tell me."
And quietly, gently, Tora told Laura about Eva. When she'd finished, the girl blinked.
"Why didn't you kill the man?"
"Because… I looked into that man's eyes and say Eva there in her last second. Afraid, alone and…accepting. He was so sure he would die. And I saw myself there as well. If you'd asked me a week before whether I could kill him, I'd answer he wouldn't have a chance to blink. But sometimes, what you think you can do and what you actually can do are completely different things."
"Can you kill?"
She sat silently for a second then nodded once.
"I have the gift…and curse to see into the minds of alternate reality counterparts. And the number of worlds I have killed in is impressive. But I assume you mean here. And yes I can and would kill if there was no alternative."
Laura frowned then blinked.
"You smell of him."
"Who?"
"Wolverine."
"Is that a problem?"
"Not…not really. X-"
"Tora. It's Tora now."
"You're not like I imagined. And you smell…different. Not entirely human."
Tora laughed. And allowed a little dragon made of water to curl from her hand, up her arm to her shoulder. The silver eyes of the dragon looked at X-23.
"I'm not."
"What the…"
"Dragon. I am Dragon."
And her eyes sparkled with a soft silver light.
"And I have placed the past behind me. I am the past."
"You are?"
"Complicated. Walk with me."
She stood and opened the door, hand stretched to show Laura to go first."
"I didn't think I was supposed to leave the room…"
"What gave you that idea?"
"Well, the guy with the shades told me I was not under any circumstances to leave the room and the blond woman in her underwear said she would leave me a vegetable if I left the room."
"Who cares what they say. Rules are there to be broken."
"But…"
"I will be with you. They trust me. And they know how…unpredictable I am. I have a reputation for breaking rules."
"Such as…?"
"Attacking Magneto head-on, going to the Moon after stealing Xixy's ship in a vague hope of saving Earth, committing suicide by chucking myself into a black hole…"
"Suicide? You looks healthy for a dead person."
"I came back. It happens…not all the time, but far more often than for normal people. Lucky them."
"Lucky?"
"Why can't I stay dead? It gets confusing. The other time though I wasn't actually dead, just faking it."
Laura stepped out into the corridor.
"Where will we go?"
"Where our feet take us."
"Huh?"
"Have you never just walked to see where you end up? I find it helps me deal with life."
"How?"
"Well, we pretty much walk through life and end up somewhere we didn't expect to be."
"Huh?"
"I thought I'd be a weapon, a spy, a prisoner all my life. Instead I'm a wife, mother, teacher, X-Man and Dragon"
"Mother? I can smell you're pregnant but…"
"Then let me introduce you to Jamie. Would he be your nephew or your stepbrother? Or to put it simpler, are your X chromosomes both Logan's?"
"What difference would that make?"
"I'm not sure. Hank's our resident brainbox. A sweetie but so unsure. He thinks he's devolving, see. For a genius, he can be stupid sometimes."
They walked up the stairs to the staff quarters and Tora entered the code to gain access to Jamie's room. You could never be too careful. The door hissed as the hydraulic lock opened and she was able to push it open. Jamie was sitting in his cot, looking at one of the picture books. Hank's by the look of it. For some reason, Jamie preferred looking at pictures of DNA, chromosomes and genotypes to dogs, cats and fish. Laura frowned.
"Smells."
"Typical. Have you ever stayed in the same house as a one year old?"
"No."
"Too bad. This one is okay I suppose. That means I get at least an hours sleep between him screaming and he isn't all clingy. He loves Hank though. I think it was love at first sight. With the lab."
"The lab?"
"Look at the book. Dr McCoy, how sweet of you to get my son a book on genetics for his first birthday. Not."
Jamie turned at the sound of his mother's voice and grinned.
"Maman! Dada?"
"Dada!"
"You must smell the same as Logan."
Carefully picking up Jamie she sighed.
"I can't wait until he's toilet trained."
Laura leant backwards, wrinkling her nose. Then the speaker crackled to life overhead.
"TORA!"
"Oops. I think they've found out about our little promenade."
"GET DOWN HERE AT ONCE!"
"Scott, darling, don't you think you're taking this a little far?"
"Tora's doing this to annoy me Em. She-"
Whatever Scott was saying was cut off as the tannoy was turned off.
"Aren't you worried?"
"Scott? Nah. He's easy to work. I just have to guilt trip him with what Jean would have done. You look him in the eye and say 'Jean would have done that' and he goes all red and shuts up. I'm the only one who plays that card though."
"Why?"
"We were the same. I suppose, in a way, I knew her the longest. Or rather, Dragon has known Phoenix since the universe began. And there isn't really a difference between us anymore. Me and Dragon, not me and Jean."
"TORA GET DOWN NOW!"
She sighed and pressed the button.
"Fine. After Jamie's been changed."
Silence. Then Laura started snickering. Tora soon joined in. Then pressed her hand to Laura's arm.
"Welcome to our dysfunctional little family… Laura?"
She turned her arms up to reveal the criss-crossing cuts. X-23 immediately tugged her sleeves down. Tora pulled her sleeve up then moved Laura's fingers over the dips and bumps on her arms, her golden gaze never leaving Laura's green eyes. A flash of understanding, and that was it.
Phoenix smiled sadly.
"No words. Never any words. But understanding all the same."
"Of course. Laura was closer to Tora than Logan. And for good reason."