Letonia - 8/10

Letonia
8/10

Scully munched contentedly on her chocolate chip waffles. Much to her relief, chocolate tasted just the same as it always did. Ororo and Remy were picking at their scrambled eggs and hash browns. Logan seemed to have his appetite though. Since entering the kitchen, he’d been through three eggs, and was now working his way through a package of beer sausage.

“Rogue’s funeral is this afternoon,” Ororo said quietly, directing it at Scully. The others already obviously knew. Scully was slightly surprised that it had come together this quickly. These people obviously had deep resources. Nodding her head, she continued to eat. She really didn’t know what to say.

Scully finished and rinsed her plate off in the sink.

“Ro, I was thinking of taking the girl to the Danger Room this morning,” Logan said between bites. Ororo raised an eyebrow at him. “If that’s all right with you, that is.” Scully glanced at him questioningly, wondering if he was talking about her.

“Did you by any chance ask her if she was interested?” Ororo asked him, reading Scully’s face.

Turning to Scully as she dried her hands on a tea towel, he said “You want to go see the Danger Room?”

As tempting as that sounded, she’d been planning on hanging out around the Mansion, keeping an eye on Gambit. Gambit saw her indecision and caught her eye, then inclined his head towards the door and smiled at her. Still hesitating, he said, “Don’t hurt him too bad, chere.”

Logan grumbled under his breath, then snarled at Remy. “Just be glad that she’s not fighting you. I’d think that it would be pretty embarrassing to get your ass kicked by a girl that badly.”

“I’m not the one she gonna be beating though.”

“Stuff it Gumbo. We’ll just have to see.”

Feeling giggles build up inside of her, she grabbed Logan’s hand and dragged him out of the room.

He led her through the twists and turns that composed the basement of the Mansion. As big as the place looked from the outside, it was larger inside. She’d imagine that it would be pretty easy for a person to get lost, yet she felt completely oriented. They finally stopped at a huge pair of steel doors. She started towards them, but Logan stopped her. “We have to set the scenario first.” They headed up a flight of stairs that Scully had missed seeing at first. Three or so stories up, the stopped at another pair of similar doors. Scully couldn’t see any handles. Logan simply walked towards them, and they slid open at his approach.

She didn’t know what she’d expected, but this certainly wasn’t it. Computer consoles lined the sides of a room larger enough for several people to stand in comfortably. One wall was made entirely of glass, though, and she walked over to see what they were overlooking. Below her a cavernous room plated in silver stood empty. The floor was level with the doors that they’d stopped at before, and the ceiling rose above them for a time. It was easily the depth of a football field and the width of a gym. She found herself wondering why it was so tall.

Maybe Ororo wasn’t the only one who could fly.

“What’s your favourite place Miss Scully?”

“I actually don’t mind the desert. And just call me Scully.”

Muttering to himself, Logan plopped down at a chair in front of one of the consoles. He called up a list and scrolled through, using a touch screen. Finding what he was looking for, he selected an item. “You might want to watch the room while I do this, Scully.”

Mystified, she turned to the Danger Room and waited. A beep behind her signalled the start of some program or another, and before her eyes, the silver room winked out of existence. Taking its place was an expanse of white sand, broken by hills in the distance and what appeared to be an oasis.

“I feel like I just stepped into a Star Trek rerun.”

“Naw, we just use this for training. Most of the time, we set it to attack us, or program in people to do that, but sometimes we spar among ourselves. If you want, I’ll work with you a bit.”

Scully glanced down at herself. She wasn’t really dressed to work out.

“Why don’t you go change, and I’ll meet you back downstairs in fifteen minutes.”

“All right.”

He was waiting for her when she got back, dressed in something spandex and yellow. She fought to keep a strait face. It was probably very practical and comfortable.

But it was also very yellow.

Scully had been surprised to find in her bags things perfect for working out. She’d bought so much that she didn’t remember half of her purchases. She’d pulled on lightweight wind pants which gave her room to move, not liking the idea of her skin being peeled off of her by the sand if she happened to fall. She couldn’t bring herself to wear anything heavier than an oversized t-shirt though. It would be hot in there, she’d thought as she pulled her hair back.

Ororo and Betsy had made sure that she’d gotten something suitable, though she hadn’t realized it at the time.

So maybe Logan’s asking her to come hadn’t been so spontaneous after all.

The thought that they could be manipulating her put her on edge. She had to remember that these weren’t people that she knew that she could trust. The though that it was so easy to relax into this place came back to her as she was standing outside the Danger Room. Giving herself a good shake, she tried to grin at Logan. “Before we go, I have one question.”

“Shoot.”

“What exactly is it that you do?”

“When I get pissed off, big old claws come springing out of the backs of my hands.”

Her curiosity once again getting the better of her, she reached out and grabbed one of his hands. She saw him tense as she did so, and realized that maybe it hadn’t been such a good idea.

*Too late now anyway. *

Looking closely at his large fist, she though that she could just barely make out three darker lines cutting the back of his hand.

“Could you show me?” she asked. Logan shrugged, and Scully watched as three metal spikes popped out just above his knuckles. “That looks like it hurts,” She paused, not sure if she should ask the next question. Giving a mental shrug, she continued. “How long does it take for the holes to heal after you retract them?”

“I heal fast.”

Pause.

“Fast like me?”

“Kinda.”

Pause. He didn’t elaborate, so Scully just let it go.

“Is the metal attached to the bones in your hands?”

“The metal is bonded throughout my entire skeleton.”

“You must have been heavy to carry to term.

“I wasn’t born like this.”

“It developed as you aged? That must have been quite a shock to your system, to suddenly be carrying so much more weight.”

“The metal is courtesy of the Canadian government. Or so I think. There’s a lot I don’t remember.”

Scully let go of Logan’s hand. She watched as the claws slid back in. Bare seconds later, the only mark on him was the shadow of his claws. “Well. Are you ready to go?”

“Whenever you are.”

*

One thought pounded in Logan’s head for the rest of the day.

She was active.

The girl was good. She hadn’t had much training in hand to hand, he could tell that from the way that she moved, but she picked up quickly. She saw the exact movements of his body, read them without even knowing it. He doubted that she knew that when she concentrated, her eyes changed. Eagle eyes, not missing anything. She’d done it when examining his hand, she did it when they’d finished working on the moves and started to spar. That alone confirmed his fears. He’d be willing to bet that her hearing was off the scale, that she could smell things clearly.

She was active.

He didn’t need to pay much attention to the fact that she was getting strong, that her reflexes couldn’t have been this quick when she was with the Bureau, that they’d been exercising hard for more than hour and she hadn’t gotten winded. He could’ve passed these things off on her being in shape, except for the fact she was stronger and faster at the end of the workout than she’d been at the beginning. He could smell her scent as it slowly changed, became more indistinct.

She was active.

She didn’t know it, she had no way. You don’t tend to look in the mirror when you’re concentrating on something else, and while she might notice her improved shape, she had no way of knowing that it wasn’t directly related to the fact that she was now ten years younger.

He’d hoped for her sake that her trip to the fountain of youth would be the end of it, that she’d just stay like that, her body keeping her safe from injuries and disease.

But this was just the surface of the well, and none of them had anyway of knowing how deep it went.

*

Scully flipped her wet hair out her face as she searched through her bags for something to wear to the funeral.

*Probably something that I should’ve done before I got into the shower * she thought wryly. *You know, if I were to hang this stuff up, then I wouldn’t have to paw through all of these bags whenever I wanted to get dressed. * Part of her mind railed from that thought.

Hanging up her clothes would make this too permanent.

She found a black dress in one bag. It was a bit fancy, but if she put a cardigan over it, it would do well enough.

She stood at the back of the crowd of people in the private cemetery, feeling out of place. So many of these people she didn’t know. Bobby had told her that they were from various other teams sponsored by Xavier. Most of them looked relatively normal. The government had done a good job at rounding up physical mutations. There was one boy with loose grey skin though, who stood with a group of teenagers, an Irish looking man and a white-blonde haired woman. Save for the Irish man, they seemed a little removed from the proceedings, a little uncomfortable.

From what she’d picked up, Rogue, Sam, and Bishop had been out on a recruiting mission. The Professor had picked up a potential student, and the three had gone to check it out.

Only the boy had been a plant, and a Control team had caught them. They’d used Inhibitor collars, which from the sounds of it neutralized powers, to keep them under control. They’d been placed with other recent capturees. Rogue and Sam had lead a break out attempt among the prisoners, hoping that they could overwhelm their captors by sheer numbers.

The attempt had been an utter failure. The Controls had guns and weren’t afraid to use them on mutants.

They’d fingered Rogue as the instigator. She hadn’t even tried to deny it. Sam had tried to share the blame, but Rogue was a much better example to the other prisoners.

They’d knelt her by a wall, put a gun to her temple, and pulled the trigger.

Without the collar, the bullet would simply have bounced off of her skin.

She was just human with it on.

Sam had lost it.

He’d broken free of the guards holding him and attacked the unit’s commander. Trying to prevent the death of another friend, Bishop had waded into the fray.

Scully found it supremely ironic that that was when Sam and Bishop had managed to escape.

She watched as one of the teenagers broke away from the group and ran over to Sam, where he stood even farther from the ceremony than Scully. He blamed himself. The girl looked like she was his sister. She hugged him hard.

“Ashes to ashes,” the Minister’s voice drifted on the wind. Scully wasn’t sure if he was actually a Minister. He was blue, furry, had a tail, and held the bible in a three fingered hand. He’d come with one of the other groups.

They looked after their own.

“Dust to dust,” she whispered along with him. The group began to drift apart and together, forming scatter gatherings of friends.

Scully sat on a marble bench next to her blue man, watching as the Minister moved from group to group. “You don’t have much longer to wait,” she said.

“I’m going to be moving on soon.”

“She’s coming. It’s just a hard thing to leave behind, Hank,” she said sadly. She could finally remember his name. Henry. Henry McCoy. If she could just remember what he’d taught her..... A much more fitting legacy than finally recalling his name.

“You’ll know when you need to know, Dana. And anything that you don’t remember, you’ll figure out for yourself. You’re smart. That’s something you can’t teach. And don’t ever worry about my legacy. I’m proud of you in a way that I can’t remember ever being.

“Do you remember when I said that the floor was going to fall out from under you? You haven’t hit ground yet. Just don’t land on your head, and you’ll be fine. You’ll know how to right yourself when the time comes.”

She hugged him tightly, feeling tears creep down her face. He tightened his arms around her, and kissed her cheek. Rogue was winding her way through the people, bidding them good bye. They paused as she breezed by them, but didn’t seem to notice anything unusual. Dana and Hank stood as she neared them. Hank hugged Dana one last time, and pressed something cold into her palm. Rogue held her hand out to him, and he took it, stepping towards her. Rogue leaned in close to Dana, and whispered something in her ear.

Rogue and Henry walked slowly away from their friends. Rogue stopped once to look back, and then the sun swallowed them.

Dana pulled her sleeve over her hand, and used her palm to wipe the tears away.

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