The Ties That Bind

Well, here it is. Depending on who you are, the long awaited, long feared, or long forgotten sequel to ‘Letonia’, and the second installment in the Under the Dark of Night series.

We've all read 'Letonia,' correct? If so, the same disclaimers/warnings apply. If not, then you'll like be a tad confused.

There are a great many people to thank for this, for varying reasons, so please forgive me if I forget anyone. The usual suspects: Char, Pokey, Lindy, B, McGarry, Katie, Kari, LG, Jenny, and Smoria, who are, as always, wonderful and supportive. Craig, Aiofe Pooke, Jeremy, and Kerri who have all either done a beta, a partial beta, or told me that it doesn’t suck as badly as I think it does, so I shouldn’t just drop the entire thing. Mark for giving it a final once over. Drea, Stacy, and Indiana, just because. Alicia McKenzie, from whom I got that is was *Lucinda* Guthrie, and Persephone Kore, who got it from her for me. Anyone who’s ever feedbacked me for Letonia, or any other story. There are too many of you to name, but I appreciate you all a great deal.

In YahooGroups, which was how it ended up on newsgroups, and Gossamer, etc., the last few sentences of the last chapter of Letonia were cut off. It’s supposed to read:

‘ She knew that somewhere up ahead, there was warmth.

-- Fin ’

Archiving: Anyone who has blanket permission, and if anyone else would like it, I’d be honoured. I’d just appreciate it if you dropped me a line first.

~After the event of ‘Letonia’, Scully deals with the fallout. Not always so well.

The Ties That Bind
1/9
Series: Under the Dark or Night (or 'Angst, Changes, and Various Reasons No X-Man Should Be Allowed Up On a Roof')

She heard the pipe whistle past her ear as she threw herself to the side. The flying stone chips struck her skin as the pipe thudded hollowly against the brick. Her hair was in her eyes, and she tossed it back desperately, just trying to see. She saw a fist heading for her and she jumped up on the ledge, tottering as it followed her. Changing direction, she gathered as much of her strength as she could find and jumped straight up, trying to avoid the lead pipe that was following the fist.

She thought she had it. She thought she had him. She caught herself nimbly on her toes as she landed, grasped the edge of the ledge with a hand, and a foot came streaking towards her, catching her knees from behind, a hand shoving into her shoulder as she pin wheeled to keep her balance.

And the ground rushed up at her, air whipping at her hair and clothes. She caught a glimpse of brick road before her momentum spun her around again.

The clouds were flying away from her.

The ground had to be close by now.

She closed her eyes and braced for the impact, knowing even as she did so that it would do no good.

The pain never came. Dana Scully opened her eyes, and saw metallic tiles scant inches from her face. The breeze cradling her flipped her onto her back and set her down gently. She looked up at the control booth and smiled at Ororo. The woman didn’t return the expression. Her face was strangely troubled, considering that all that had happened was that she’d turned off the program and caught Dana with a breeze.

The outer doors flew open and Remy stomped in, his eyes glowing. “You tryin to get yourself killed dere, Chere? My grandmere coulda avoided dat hit that sent you off the building.”

“I don’t know if you’ve noticed this,” she said with a raised eyebrow. “But I’m *not* your grandmere.” She felt her voice flicker, the evenness destryed in her last sentence. “Maybe if you’d show me another way to counter the attack...”

“Oh no, we not moving on until you get dis down pat.”

“Maybe I just need a different set of programs.”

“Dana, you been doing the easiest set of combat training programs we have. Any of our others probably gonna kill you, safeties on or no.”

Up in the control booth, Ororo leaned into the console and put her head in her hands. “Will they never stop?”

A pair of hands dropped onto her shoulders. She didn’t start. She’d heard Logan enter the room just before the same argument had started. Again. She tilted her neck as he massaged her shoulders briefly. “Doubt it, darlin’, ” he said.

“What are we going to do about her? If I didn’t know better, I’d say that her skills were not only not progressing, but going downhill.”

He paused to squeeze her shoulder gently. “It’s not just you, Ro. The Cajun notices it, Bishop notices it, I notice it.”

“We’re just going to have to give her more time, I suppose.”

“It’s been three months. She’s had plenty of time. She’s capable of a lot, I can tell you that from the training session I had with her before she chose to stay. Her head’s just not in it.”

The numbers didn’t lie. Her abilities were decreasing almost in tandem with the amount of time she spent training.

And the worse she got, the more she was training.

“Can you really blame her?”

“After a point, yes, I can. It was her choice.”

“Merde!” Gambit’s muffled shout reached the pair through the window, and they looked down into the Danger Room just in time to see Scully storm out. There was silence for a space, then Gambit muttered something incomprehensible under his breath and stalked out himself.

Ororo sighed, kissed Logan briefly, and headed outside.

Sam found her working in her garden a few hours later, face creased in concentration in the fading light. He cleared his throat and waited. When she didn’t notice him, he did it again. When he still got no response, he coughed politely. Storm snapped her head towards him, surprise evident on her face.

“Hello Samuel,” she said with a slightly strained smile. “What’s wrong?”

“Well, Ro, I just got ah call from Emma,” he said, glancing at his toes as he scuffed the dirt with the tip of his sneakers. “It’s Paige. She just got back from one ah those doctor’s appointments.”

“Oh no.”

“This guy, he says that her cancer’s been progressing, an she doesn’t have much longer. An Momma and me, we’d like it if she could be at home, with us. Emma and Sean already excused her from classes and everything, so ah was wondering if maybe ah could go back to Kentucky for a bit.”

“Of course, Sam. Take as long as you need.”

“She’s going home tomorrow, and ah kinda wanted to meet her at the airport, so....”

“We can make travel arrangements for you if you’d like. I’m sure that the Professor won’t mind.”

“Thanks, Ro. Ah really do appreciate it,” he said, finally raising his eyes to meet her gaze. They bored into her, blue and almost as sad as she’d ever seen. He started to walk back to the mansion, but her voice stopped him.

“Are you all right?”

“What do you think?” he asked, still facing the house. “Mah little sister is dying of a disease that we can’t cure, and ah can’t do anything to help her.”

“I’m sorry Sam, that was thoughtless of me. I didn’t mean. . .I just wanted. . .”

“Look, it’s ok. Ah know what you mean.”

“Samuel, you know that if there’s anything you need. . .”

“I know,” he said again, turning to look at her. “And ah thank you for that.” He started walking again, and this time Ororo didn’t stop him. She went back to her plants.

She viciously pulled out the weeds trying to choke her amber roses.

*

“Bobby, do you happen to know why Sam’s packing?” Scully asked as she walked into the darkened rec room. Light from the TV flickered against the wall. She thought she could smell Robert sitting on the couch hidden behind the pool table. Her heightened sense of smell still unnerved her, but it could be useful at times. Logan had tried to help her learn to track by it, but had so far been largely unsuccessful.

Letting her eyes adjust, she walked farther into the room. She dropped down on the other side of him on the faded white and green plaid couch. They sat in silence for a bit while he flicked aimlessly through the channels. She looked at him expectantly while his frown deepened.

“His sister is dying of pancreatic cancer.”

“Oh. With the Shi’ar equipment, there wasn’t anything. . .”

“Nope. Hank tried just about everything.”

There was something in Bobby’s expression that she didn’t like. “Is there anything else?”

“Paige is dying, isn’t that enough?”

“There just seemed to be something that you wanted to say.”

He paused. “Nothing.”

“Ok then.” She rose from the couch. “I’m just going to wish Sam and Paige the best of luck.”

She was almost at the door when he spoke.

“He told you, you know.”

“Told me what?”

“About his sister. Before you went back to DC.”

“Oh.” She stopped for a second, evaluating. “Are you sure?”

Bobby killed the tv, tossed the remote into a chair across from him. He stood, facing her. He probably couldn’t make out much of her face, but she could see near every nuance of his expression. He leaned against the pool table, posture falsely relaxed. “I’m sure.” His teeth glittered, dully bright, as he spoke.

At a loss for words, she started to turn to walk out again when his voice restrained her once more.

“I guess there is something I have to say.

“Ro’s not going to happy when she finds out I did this, but it needs to be done. She wants us to give you more time. But he told you.”

“I really am sorry.”

“He’s losing his sister. He’s not just never going to see her again, no one is. We all know that. Some of us knew before he said anything.”

“Are you implying that...”

He continued to talk right over her, moving closer. “You have no conception of the ties that bind us. We’re all the defence the others have, we’re their rocks in a world that wants to sweep them into the undertow. And if we move when they need us, they’re gonna drown.

“You’re still stuck in your past life. You left your son and friends and family because you thought that they would be safer without you. You left. There are people here that didn't get to make that choice, and I personally think that they’re a lot worse off than you are. You’re going to have to get your head into this if you want to survive, because you’re leaning on us rocks pretty hard right now, and sometimes, if you hang on too hard for too long, the rocks just disappear.”

Scully looked at him in shock.

“I’m willing to bet that when I told you about Paige again, you didn’t even wonder to yourself if you could heal her. Your first thought wasn’t to get her in here and see if you could do anything for her, it was ‘I hope that that doesn’t happen to Evan.’ ” He paused. “You know what? I’ll give you your first thought for Evan. I mean, he is your *son*. I bet it just didn’t occur to you at all.”

The look on her face was almost the sound of an arrow striking the target. He winced a bit, wondered for a second if he’d been too harsh, but it seemed as if she needed a great big bucket of ice water dropped on her head before she’d really wake up.

He’d almost gotten all the way through to her. She could figure this out by herself if he managed to get his point across.

Then he made one of the biggest mistakes of his life.

“You’re going to have to take a look at this from our perspective,” he said, grabbing her arms right above the wrists, bringing her hands up to the height of the middle of her rib cage.

Her face registered shock at first, then began to cloud over, her gaze darkening. She squeezed her lids closed.

This was not happening.

Then it twisted, deepened, and she felt her face harden.

“Grow up,” he snapped, continuing, finishing. Her eyes flew open with the force of her outrage, and she saw the pain hit him.

Scully jerked away as the (her) anger and ice flowed out of her hands and down Bobby’s arms. She hit her hip on the side of the pool table and bounced into the back of another couch. Off balance, she caught herself on her hands as she fell. Her gaze never left Bobby as he dropped to the floor. He twitched a bit, and his eyes were closed, his breathing deep and ragged.

“Oh shit,” she whispered. Rising, she threw herself over to him. “Bobby, I didn’t mean to,” she said desperately as she checked him over. Best as she could tell, she’d accidentally lashed his nervous system with some sort of bolt. The same sort of thing that could heal if something was stuck. “I didn’t mean it.” He remained unconscious.

She tried to drag the healing energy out of the same channels, but the flow felt blocked somehow. Reaching deep, she found the centre and tried to push it into the man lying on the floor.

It swept back up at her.

Damn it. It was healing energy, she could feel it. She’d twisted it somehow.

It felt as if he were full up. Trying a different approach, she felt for the ice. It actually felt more like glacier water, almost frozen, full of jagged bubbles. She marked a spot above his heart, and pulled out the ice. As it left his body she could sense his breathing even out, his heart rate slow.

She looked around for the omnipresent computer console found in every room in the mansion. Finding it by the east window, she rose and ran to it. Her fingers flew over the correct keys, her throat curiously dry.

“Ororo, you’d better get up to the rec room right now. There’s been a bit of a situation. . .”

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