Standard disclaimers apply.
Just Lucky, I Guess 34/?
Sitting beside her on the plush sofa, Nathan
listened intently as her cold dispassionate voice spoke
matter-of-factly of his son's depravity in the tests his
doctors had put her through, the violations she'd
suffered, the hopelessness and anger of knowing that she
had been completed replaced by an imposter and no one had
known the difference. He averted his eyes in shame at that
last, unbidden memories of Vanessa running through his
thoughts. As she described Tolliver's abuses in clinically
graphic detail, his fists involuntarily clenched so
tightly that the short blunt fingernails dug perfect red
crescents into his calloused palms. With every word she
spoke, his rage grew until the sorrow and pity he'd felt
for his lost son transformed itself into a burning hatred
that was so thick he could barely breathe.
He tried to close his eyes against the horror of her
quiet words but, every time he tried, the ghastly images
she described appeared again and again, so he just sat
there beside her, biting back the bile rising in his
throat, fixing his eyes blindly on her emotionless face.
Each cold word burned itself into his permanent memory
until his vision swam with fury and disgust at what her
association with him had cost her. He thought he would
vomit.
When she finally finished, she stared at him
grimly, artifically emerald eyes searching his face,
gauging his reaction. Finally discovering a hatred equal
to her own, the facade cracked and she smiled, a tired
curling of the lips that didn't quite reach her eyes. 'I
hated to tell you this, Nathan, but you need to know just
what kind of monster Aliya's son was.'
When it was clear that she had finally finished, he
looked bleakly away, thoughts churning with what he'd just
learned. He'd instinctively recognized her inflectionless
tone for what it was, a professional self-defense
mechanism for dealing with the atrocities that were
unfortunately all too commonplace in their trade. 'I ought
to know,' Cable thought bitterly, knowing that he too had
spent years blocking out all human emotion after the death
of Aliya and his Clan's defeat at the hands of his
'brother' Stryfe. He'd done a pretty good job of it, too-
until he formed X-Force and reunited with his family,
about the only thing that brought him any kind of pleasure
at all had been his association with the beautiful
smart-assed young woman mercenary who'd joined his
band and his life.
Comparing that young- though already jaded- girl to
the exhausted woman who sat beside him now, her face so
composed, he felt his heart lurch inside his chest. 'I
knew it was bad- we've been through too many break-down
sessions not to know that much- but *damn*, Domino...why
did you hide this for so long?' Closing his eyes again, he
broke the silence with a thickly whispered "I'm so damn
sorry, Dom. I...I wish you'd told me all this before."
She glared back at him and answered sharply "*I* wish
you had asked." He recoiled from her glacial tone, and
the hurt guilt in his eyes only partially assuaged anger
from the perceived presumption in his tone. Taking a deep
breath, she shrugged. "It's really no big deal, Nathan,"
She spoke casually, some semblance of emotion seeping back
into her voice now that the ordeal of telling Nathan was
over. "Shit like that happens- you know that as well
as I do. It's part of the life. I just wanted you to know
so that you'd know what we're getting into."
He reached out a hand and touched her face again,
the pain and guilt he felt at the situation making their
dampened psilink almost tingle with need. His gentle
fingers caressed her cheek, and she felt a dangerous
vulnerablity rise within her. Swallowing, she drew again
on her cold center of calm to turn her head away, hoping
he understood her reasons why. 'Can't afford this right
now, Nate...'
Nathan's face blanched. Jerking his hand back as if
burned, he rose awkwardly from his seat beside her on the
couch and walked stiffly across the room to the window, arms
clenched tightly to his sides. Turning to face her, his
voice was soft "So what do you want to do now?"
Domino raised a wry eyebrow. "Do? Right now? Find
Tolliver and roast him slowly on a barb-wire spit." She
glanced at her conservative wristwatch "But considering
the time, and the company we're keeping, I think we
probably need to make some decisions about how we're gonna
brief our little 'team'."
***
The team in question, still dressed in the garb they'd
worn shopping, had settled themselves in the lobby to
'wait' for Kitty and Pete. In the meantime, Psylocke had
called a trusted employee at Braddock Industries and had
their luggage brought from where they'd left them in her
London office to the lobby of the St. Martin's. Ororo had
been too preoccupied with looking for Kitty to even notice
when a young employee had dropped the bags off, taking the
opportunity to suck up to Ms. Braddock in the process.
After dismissing the young man, Betsy had caught Logan
wistfully eyeing his bag of comfortable clothing more than
once, and she herself had to admit that the prospect of
changing out of this conservative, constricting garb was
more than appealing. 'Not to mention these damn
contacts,' Betsy grimaced. Ever since Slaymaster blinded
her and Mojo replaced the eyes of her original body with
video prosthetics, she'd absolutely abhored the idea of
any kind of artifice near or around her eyes. She
recognized the necessity of the disguising contacts, and
didn't complain when she had to wear them, but she would
secretly delight when she could take the damn things out.
Ororo looked crossly at the antique grandfather clock
in the corner and sighed. "Are you *certain* it was
Kitty's mindpattern you sensed? We have been waiting quite
some time now, and she has yet to appear."
Psylocke crossed her legs and shrugged. Sending a
delicate telepathic probe upstairs, she grimaced at the
painful psychic residue the discussion had left. 'Whatever
the hell it was must have been bad, but it seems to be
over. I suppose it's been enough time,' she thought.
"Perhaps I was mistaken," she casually replied to Ororo.
"Oh, well.
She'll be here soon enough." Logan, sitting beside her on
one of the couches in a corner of the spacious lobby,
turned his head to hide his smile.
Ororo frowned at her teammates. "Very well. I shall
simply leave a message for her with the desk clerk. We
have business to attend to upstairs, in any case." Rising
from her seat, Storm walked purposefully over to the
check-in desk to dictate a message for Kitty.
Still seated on the couch, Logan watched his old
friend leave, then turned to Betsy. When Ororo was out of
earshot and otherwise occupied with the hotel clerk, he
stood in front of Betsy and extended a gentlemanly hand to
help her up. Lips twitching in a small smile, she took it
and rose gracefully to stand beside him, her slim hand
still clasped in his calloused square palm. The warmth of
his grip seemed to travel up her arm, and she felt once
more the same dangerous excitement creep through her
abdomen that she had felt in the department store. 'Oh,
dear,' she thought belatedly, guilty thoughts of Warren
warring with the warm pleasure of this so-far innocent
flirtation with Logan.
Logan looked up at her, craggy features creased in
amusement and another, deeper emotion. "Well, Betts,
whatcha say? You ready to try again?" He released her hand
gently, and paused. "Keepin' 'Ro from drivin' Nate and Dom
crazy, I mean."
She raised a wry eyebrow at his sly double entendre.
Doubt darkened her smooth features, and she answered him
honestly, as he deserved "I don't know, Logan. I think it
shall require some thought." 'How different he is from
Warren,' she considered. 'By this point in the trip Warren
and I would either be fighting or sitting here crying over
our respective problems. Even so, we've been through so
much together, and the love is still there, if horribly
battered and bruised...' She smiled softly at Logan and
whispered "Let me think about it." To her surprise, she
found she meant it.
He smiled gently, chestnut brown eyes twinkling with
understanding, and nodded at her. "That's a good idea
darlin'. You let me know what you decide."
A clear, commanding voice sounded over his shoulder.
"Decide about what?" Storm inquired curiously, already
grabbing her cotton canvas travel bag from the pile beside
Logan on the floor.
"About what we're doin' for dinner," Logan answered,
eyes still fixed on Betsy's sculpted features. He winked
at her, and bent to grab both his canvas bag and another,
larger garment suitcase, presumably Cable's.
Betsy laughed, a deep, lilting sound that cut through
the seriousness of the moment. "Yes, indeed," she smiled
at Storm. "What would you care to do this evening? Logan
is quite hungry, apparently." She returned his wink, and
was rewarded by a deep, gravelly chuckling of his own. She
delicately picked up her designer bags in one hand and
grabbed Domino's leather suitcase in the other with
surprisingly deceptive strength.
*****
Upstairs, Domino sat in the tapestried chair, pulling
the last of the blasted bobby pins from her hair. She
half-heartedly aimed them at one of her shoes, tossing
them into the hollow formed by the narrow, inhumanly
uncomfortable pumps. It was no real surprise when they hit
their mark- her reflexes and skills had long
since returned to normal after the ordeal that Gryaznova
bitch had put her through. Domino rubbed the back of her
neck idly, still feeling the scar that the now-removed
implant had caused. 'And they wonder why I hate friggin'
doctors so much,' she sighed and tried her best not to
think of the other doctors, Tolliver's doctors. She pulled
the afghan she'd retrieved from one of the bedrooms closer
around her, trying to ward off the cold.
The last of the pins gone, she began briskly running
her fingers through her hair until the dark tresses at
last flowed freely around her shoulders. It had taken
some doing, but she and Nathan had worked out a tentative
plan to present to the others. Cable had then excused
himself to the bedroom, ostensibly so he could phone the
mansion on a secured line and tell them all was well, but
she knew better. Whenever he received an emotional blow,
especially one of the magnitude she knew he'd suffered
today, he needed some time to process it alone. 'Probably
mediating,' she decided. 'Dead to the world. A bomb could
go off in here and he'd barely notice right now.'
It was a trait she shared, she knew, at least the
need for privacy if not the meditation. Oh, she prayed
occasionaly- Roman Catholic childhood faith never quite
completely leaving her- but Nathan's Askani practices had
always seemed more practical than soothing to her. 'Pain
control, biofeedback techinques, fine,' she thought 'but
as for all that 'What is, is' business-' She snorted. 'I'm
too tired to think philosophy right now.' Languorously
shifting in her seat to tug the tight pantyhose off, she
tucked them into the foot of one of the cast-off pumps, she
exulted in the quiet of the room. 'Amazing how much just a
little breathing room helps,' she thought to herself. Now
that she'd gone ahead and told Cable, the dread of having
to relive what Tolliver had done had almost completely
dissipated. All that was left was the ass-kicking, she
grinned, and felt curiously relieved at the weight that
just telling Cable had lifted. Untugging the pale silk
shell from the waist of the linen skirt, she breathed in
deeply, closed her eyes, and leaned back into the soft
chair.
'Peace and quiet...ah....' she sighed to herself,
relaxing, sinking deeper into the cushions of the elegant
chair. 'If I could just have a day or two of this I might
actually be alright....'
A few moments later, the sweet silence was broken by
two sharp raps at the door and an imperious, albeit highly
muffled, voice.
"Nathan! Kitty was not there- let us in! I wish to
speak to you about something!"
Domino exhaled sharply, feeling the earlier irritated
tension return immediately at the sound of Storm's
melodious commands. 'I'm just not gonna worry with her
right now,' she decided, trying to forcibly command
herself to relax again. 'Just get her out of here, Dom,
then go back to relaxin'.'
Summoning up her sweetest voice, she walked over to the
door and called out "Nate can't talk to you right now,
Storm... Go on to one of the suites. We'll call you when
we're ready to brief the team."
Outside the door, Storm paused briefly. Betsy and
Logan, standing to one side of her, glanced at each other
quickly but neither said anything. Betsy sent 'Let's let
them handle this one by themselves. Domino's alone.
Nathan's gone in the other room and Ororo's got to learn
that she can't bully her around like she can some
others...' Logan nodded in unspoken agreement, his keen
hearing catching even the faintest sounds from the other
room.
Storm planted her hands on her hips in grim
determination. "Domino. I do not have time for these
games. Let us in the room, NOW."
Inside the room, Domino's eyes flew open at the curt
command. 'Did she say what I thought she just said? I
think she said what I thought she just said.' Eyes
narrowing to deep jade slits, she muttered a staccato
growl, all pretenses at good humor gone. "Storm. We. Are.
Busy. Go. Away. We'll call you in a little while."
The other woman snorted. "I do not think so. Open
that door."
Domino's lips twitched angrily. 'Alright, then, if
that's what she wants to do. I'm not in the mood to play
nice.' Regretfully pushing away the image of opening the
door and punching the other woman in the jaw, she grinned
wickedly as an even more appropriate response sprang to
mind.
Stepping quickly out of her linen skirt, she tossed
it behind the door and slipped out of the linen shell.
Grabbing the afghan from the chair, she ran lightly back
to the door, pulling her fingers haphazardly through her
hair to make a wild, unruly mess. Breathing in and out
rapidly for a second, she then held her breath to make her
skin flush even through the makeup. Conscious that the
other woman was waiting, she quickly popped one of the green
cosmetic contact lenses out and wrapped the afghan around
her.
Completely nude except for the afghan, she opened the
door slightly. Huffing and puffing like she was out of
breath, she looked at directly into Storm's feline eyes
and sighed. "I told you we were *busy*, Storm," she
growled, allowing the afghan to slip down to show more
skin. "Now what do you want?"
Staring directly into the other woman's
disconcertingly purple/green gaze, Ororo's eyes widened in
stunned hurt surprise. "You...were...busy?" She questioned
brokenly, taking in the other woman's obviously disheveled
appearance. Coffee-colored skin flushed with embarrassed
anger as she put the situation together, Ororo drew
herself up to her full height and choked "Kitty is not
here yet." She paused haughtily, trying to regain control
of herself. "Call us when you are...done." Her voice
dripping ice, she pivoted sharply to stalk down the hall
to the other suite, electricity almost visibly sizzling
around her enraged form.
Noticing the amazed gazes of Betsy and Logan, Domino
winked conspiratorially at the two. Psylocke, now
telepathically well aware of the details of the prank, was
struggling to contain her own ribald laughter. "Looks like
you could use your clothing, dear," she chuckled, and
stepped inside the room long enough to deposit Domino's
suitcase on the ground.
Logan followed long enough to do the same for Cable's
bag. Touching her arm with a rough hand, he chastised
half-heartedly "Ya oughta not done that t' 'Roro, there,
darlin'." It had been all he could do not to burst out
laughing out there in the hall, and his words sounded
hollow even to himself.
Domino rolled her eyes. "Yeah, right, old man. Now
you two get on out of here before the weather witch thinks
we've made an orgy and she got left out..."
When they'd left, she shut the door gently behind
her, locked it carefully, and put her clothes back on. As
an afterthought, she opened the door and hung the 'Do not
disturb' sign on the doorknob, a broad, self-satisfied
smile on her face for the first time in ages.
To be cont'd...
===
-DuAnn
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you. Not as
the world gives, give I unto you. Do not let your hearts
be troubled and do not be afraid.
-John 14:27
ÿÿÿÿÿÿÿ
ODEHANDLE]
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