Memories

Interruptions

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She stood tapping her foot, waiting for Logan to enter the building.

"What is wrong with you?"

"It's just…well, Etana. This is where she pretty much looked after me."

"I know. That's one of the reason's I brought you here. So you could properly remember her."

"The other reasons?"

"One, you're killing yourself and I wanted you to have twenty-four hours out of the loop. Two, I really wanted to have you alone for a while. Sue's looking after Jamie and Eva, and I don't even want to know where Curt is."

Logan shrugged then stepped into the old stone building. Etana's Eyrie had been pretty empty for a while, because it was too small for more than five students and a teacher to be sent to at any one time and it was isolated to a ridiculous degree. Logan touched the heavy oak kitchen table and smiled.

"This is the same. Look, you can see where I slammed down a pan that had just come off the fire."

The circular black ring had faded with age.

"She made me polish that table for three hours as punishment."

Tora smiled.

"What else?"

"Er… I spilled soup all over that corner and she made me pry up the stone flags and mop it all up to stop it smelling?"

Tora couldn't help it but started snorting with laughter.

"She actually made you clean?"

"Yes, okay. Etana was able to terrify me into obeying."

"You were a clumsy teenager, weren't you?"

"Tell me about it. She made me walk around the kitchen with a pot of water on my head and a bucket in each hand. Then she'd swipe at my legs with a staff."

"And the point was?"

"She said it was to improve my posture and balance, but I think she just liked being sadistic."

There was a moment's silence then Tora burst out laughing. Logan rolled his eyes.

"You loved her really!"

"Of course. She showed me what a real mother should have been. My mother threw me out when she found out I was a mutant and she was so distant before. Etana joked with me, taught me how you should behave, let me cry on her shoulder, when I had nightmares, she'd come and rock me back to sleep, singing that ridiculous lullaby."

"The 'Blow, the wind blow' one?"

"No. That was Miss Douglas. She was the mint scent I told you about."

"Who was Miss Douglas?"

"She was my governess-cum-nanny. I made her life hell, but she never got mad at me. Beautiful woman, so of course my mother hated her. She had these dark hazel eyes, like I've never seen before. Red hair, but not really dark red like Jean's…or Rose's for that matter. She was going to be married to a teacher back east and took the job to help pay for their married life."

"What happened?"

"Her man died. Never found out how. She just pretended nothing had ever happened and stayed on to look after me."

"And?"

"She was so kind, all the time. I never heard her say an angry word to any of us. When I almost drowned, she didn't yell like my grandfather. She just hugged me and made me promise never to scare her like that again."

They'd reached a door with 'James' burnt into it. Logan smiled oddly.

"She said this would be my room for as long as I lived. Charles said he kept the students out. It's just like I left it."

"Show me."

The door opened and Tora almost burst out laughing. The room was small, cluttered and very, very messy.

"I'd say it is exactly as you left it."

He blushed but grinned.

"That was a present from Etana. I made that bone whistle out of a deer leg. Oh, I'd forgotten about that! What?"

For Tora was shaking with silent, uncontrollable laughter.

"WHAT!"

She pointed wordlessly at the open wardrobe and then doubled over. Logan glanced in and went pale.

"I never knew why she got me those!"

They were a series of suits, fashionable at the turn of the last century, and a child's suit, sombre in black but offset by the lace collar. Tora was giggling and Logan cursed at whatever had made Etana keep those clothes in such good condition for so long. The whole wardrobe stank of mothballs and the clothes were probably the most sans-moth items in the world. Tora finally stopped her laughing and started looking over the rather messy desk. Logan instead was staring at the other piece of furniture in the room, a huge piece of looming carpentry that must have been teleported in because there was no way that had been manoeuvred through the door and he knew from experience the bed was made of one solid piece of carved oak. Tora turned.

"What?"

"There was a story behind that. I can't remember what, but… nah…"

She smiled softly.

"We have twenty-four hours Logan. And it's your call."

He tilted his head in an almost child-like manner, offset by the less than innocent gleam in his eyes.

"I have an idea or two…"

Jean started snickering but shut up at the glare the ice eye gave her.

"What?"

"You, that's what."

"I didn't say anything!"

"You thought it. I saw that sneaky little daydream about what happened next!"

"Well, you can't blame a girl for having a- mmmphh"

"Thank you Death, I was incredibly close to hitting her."

They lay together, her head resting on his chest, his fingers playing through her hair. There had been no sense of urgency, no fear that in a second Curt might start hammering on the door wanting some random social eccentricity explaining or the alarm might sound. There had just been him and her and all the time in the world. Like when they had been in the mountains of Shikoku in the three weeks after their marriage and there had been no interruptions, no complications. Before she had faked her death. Before he had got his memories back. Before she had become Dragon. Before he joined every super-hero team going, as well as disappearing for long periods of time, leaving her to juggle family, teaching duties, responsibilities as a senior X-Man and cross-referencing reality. Before knowledge of past loves and the knowledge that the other's 'greatest wish' had been to gain their memories and have a close friend back respectively, instead of being together. Even Scott and Emma had managed to be together. Tora shifted then tilted her head in the way Logan had learnt meant she was listening to Dragon.

"We thought –assumed really –that we'd always be together. Why wish for something that's sure to happen?"

She'd done it again, read his mind without being a telepath. He looked down at her face, resting gently on his chest, rising and falling as he breathed. Her eyes were closed and there was a look of peace about her. Even when she was asleep there was always the slight furrow of the brow that meant she was filing away every second of the day, memories being sorted out and conversations filed. As soon as that was done the nightmares would start. And all he could do was hold her close and whisper encouragement to her. She'd once told him she could hear every word he uttered when she dreamed and he clung to that in the vague hope it helped her. But now she was relaxed and her guard was down. There had only been three other occasions when she had ever been this relaxed. And none of them had been at the mansion. There she was always reserved and calm, the responsible mother, teacher, X-Man and wife. But when they were alone and safe she'd allow the smooth veneer to slide gracefully away to reveal the wild and uninhibited side of her that was the true heart of her personality. The part of her both Weapon X and Sabretooth had tried to crush and simply been met with steel. The part that breathed freedom and brought out the good part of his feral nature. The part that was Tora, not Dragon. His hands moved from her hair to her back, brushing the X shaped scar that marred the otherwise smooth skin.

"Suppose you're right. I've already got you. What more could I want than an unattainable thing? Tell Dragon thanks."

She smiled, opened her eyes and made as if to get up. As her body rose, he tightened him arms, pulling her back down towards him. She smiled again, began to lean in so their lips were almost touching. Then a fierce beeping made her stiffen up, her eyes widening with fear. Frowning, Logan released her and rooted around in the bag they had brought, pulling out a small pager with A on it and tilted his head to one side.

"I didn't pack this."

He turned to look at her, expecting to see her frowning. Instead she was deathly white and shaking.

"No… I…I didn't think…not now…"

"What?"

"It's started… We shall be torn… no…"

An insistent buzzing came next. The pager with an X. This was big. He dove for the small radio they'd brought and started tuning it in as Tora dived for the bag. News about the Stamford accident caused by the New Warriors had barely penetrated his brain when she threw him his uniform.

"Why did you…?"

"Just in case. I've been having the warning buzz for a while now."

She was changed by now.

"Grab my hand."

"We can't get Connecticut from here."

"I nicked one of Fury's teleporters."

"When?"

"Ages ago. He was annoying me so I pocketed it."

He wanted to laugh but the look on her face was one of pure terror.

"Grab. My. Hand."

And then there was the familiar feeling of being crushed and burning light that came with teleporting through Etana's dimension.

"She always had to be first on the scene."

"What I want to now is how she knew to pack that stuff."

"Haven't you felt it Jean. The feeling something terrible is going to happen. It comes part and parcel with being Phoenix or Dragon. Temporal sensitivity. Of course, you had a habit of being dead when all the really important stuff happened."

"No need to rub it in."