Notes:   It’s bugged me for a while that Scott just bluntly stated he had three escape plans, in issue #9.  Military training or not, even Millar should know better than to have his leader spill plans over an insecure line.  I just had to restore a little common sense and sneaky paranoia to Scott.  Please remember that this series of stories are not in line with my Elk River Saga; Storm and Scott are no more than friends, here.  Also, I’m picking up again on the fact that the Summers family has some Indian ancestry.

Warnings:  Discussion of troubling material, including allusion to rape.

“Whoo-hoo!” Jean heard as the passenger door of a new, silver Lexus RX 300 SUV was thrown open and Storm looked out at her from the driver’s seat.  “Get in, pronto.”  Jean threw her bag on the floorboard and slid across leather that squeaked a little, then closed the door and Storm was off even before Jean could get her seatbelt on.

“Didn’t this thing have an alarm system?” Jean asked.

Storm glanced over in disgust.  “Jean – I was a professional car thief.  Didn’t you see Gone in Sixty Seconds?  I’m good, honey.  And a Lexus is worth a nice payoff.”

“We’re not selling it, Storm, we’re going to drive it.  Couldn’t you have picked something a little less . . . conspicuous?”

The other woman shook her head without taking her eyes from traffic.  She was driving carefully and without even breaking the speed limit, but her eyes moved constantly and they were headed out of town as fast as was legal.  “Look around you, Jean.  Instead of counting bugs or blue cars, count SUVs.  It’s not a Mercedes, and I wouldn’t take a freakin’ Cadillac if it was handed over to me with the doors open and the key in the ignition.  But I’ll be damned if I’ll drive a Honda when this baby was parked right beside it in the garage.  Not that we’ll be able to drive it that long.  We’ll have to switch cars all the way to Canada.”

Jean shook her head.  “Tell me again why I agreed to let you tag along?”

“Because I didn’t give you a choice and because you can’t steal anything worth beans without telepathic help.  I bet you never even shop-lifted.”

“Yes, I did.  Once.”

Storm smirked; it was an ugly expression.  “What’d you take?”

“Some barrettes.  It was stupid, too, because I could have paid for them.”  She looked out the window.  “I just didn’t want to, and no one was looking.  So I put them in my pocket.”

“And you’ve felt guilty for it ever since.”

Jean didn’t answer because, in fact, she had.

“You and Cyclops are such a pair,” Storm added.

Jean didn’t reply to that, either.  The secrets of Scott’s past were his own to conceal or reveal, and Jean saw little point in telling the other girl that Scott could have hot-wired the car as easily as Storm had.

Scott, Scott – where are you?

He was supposed to have called, but hadn’t.  It might mean nothing more than that he hadn’t had a place to call from, but Jean was worried.  Then again, Jean had been worried ever since the big idiot had decided to go after this woman.  Girl.  Whatever.  She’d been completely opposed to the idea, didn’t want him to risk himself, didn’t want him to risk the team, either, but that had been mostly her attempt to guilt-trip him into staying.  Normally, she’d have applauded a man for such a sense of responsibility about the child he’d been forced to father, but under the circumstances, she couldn’t and she didn’t.  He was their field leader and he was endangering himself, and perhaps the rest of them, as well.

And – in a small, concealed part of her mind – she had to admit that knowing he’d been with another woman (and more than once, too, because Essex had wanted to be sure the ‘breeding’ was successful) bothered her.  It bothered her even more that he was now worried enough about this other woman to go after her.  Had more transpired in that cell than forced intercourse?  Jean knew all too well just how much the strain of powerlessness and the stress of emotional extremity could build bonds.

She remembered Scott holding her in their own cell, after the mission to India.

Let the rest of them think she was going after Logan, that she was worried about Logan.  But Logan could take care of himself.  It was Scott she was worried about.  And if Scott did catch up to this other girl, Jean planned to be present.  He’d been there for her once, when she’d needed him.  She was going to be there for him, whether he wanted her to or not.

Besides, she wanted a look at this Madelyne Prior.  She could count on one hand the number of times that Scott had completely closed her out of his memories – and his experience with Madelyne was one of them.  Maybe it was just prudery on his part, but she suspected there was more to it.  He’d refused to tell her more about the girl than the most generic of things.

“Where was Scott when you last talked to him?” Storm asked, breaking the silence.

“Toronto.  Their leads put Sabretooth up around the Ottawa region.”

“He said that over the phone?”

“God, no.  You know Scott.  Bluff, bluff.  He said he was over near Vancouver.  We worked out a code before he left.  They were in Toronto and headed for Ottawa.”

Storm rolled her eyes.  “Speaking of paranoia, we’re going to stop in the next town and change cars.”

“Already?”

“It’s been three hours – plenty of time for the car owner to be missing her car and phone the police with tags and description.  Even with the plates muddied, we’ve gone longer than I wanted to before switching.”

“So we steal another car?  Are we going to have to do this all the way to Canada?”

“No, we’ll take a bus for some of it.  We want to avoid giving them a pattern to pick up.”

Jean shook her head.  Ororo knew far more about this than Jean really wanted to think about, but under the circumstances, that was a good thing, and the reason she’d given in when Storm had insisted on coming with her.  Henry had been furious, but Storm had simply reminded him that she’d been on her own longer than he had.  A dimpled smile and a kiss and he’d been eating right out of her hand.  He could never argue with her for long.  It had been Peter who’d put up the strongest resistance, throwing at Jean all the same protests that she’d thrown at Scott.

In the end, Jean and Storm had snuck out a little before dawn, like thieves, and hitch-hiked into town.  Storm hadn’t been keen on the hitch-hiking, but Jean had pointed out that telepathy had its advantages.  And now here they were, over the state border and looking for a new car to steal.

“God,” she muttered, “I feel like Thelma and Louise wannabes.”

Storm laughed; it had an edge.  “Only if I get to be Louise and shoot the motherfucker rapist.”

Jean thought about that.  She wasn’t sure she liked the implications.
 
 
 

Their hotel room gave new meaning to ‘grunge,’ and Jean wondered when was the last time the sheets had actually been washed.  “I can’t say my ambition in life was to spend time in a pay-by-the-hour joint.”

“They don’t ask questions,” Storm pointed out as she dropped the key on the cheap, pressboard dresser.  The dark paper veneer top had been burned by cigarettes and the mirror above gave back her reflection cloudy around the edges.  On the far wall were bad prints of fishing boats.  She watched a daddy-long-legs walk its way down the off-white wall.  “I’ll take the bed by the door,” Storm added, tossing her little backpack on a pillow and kicking off her shoes.  Jean tossed her pack on the other.  They didn’t have much in the way of personal items.  After their escape, she and Scott had made sure that everyone had a few changes of clothing and the necessary toiletries, but their post-captivity entertainment had consisted only of a pack of cards, a Nerf football, and a little radio.  They’d been too grateful to be free to cry over a lack of high-tech toys.

Now, Jean turned to find Storm peering out between the curtains.  “You know, I was kidding, earlier, about Thelma and Louise, Storm.  I really don’t think anyone’s chasing us.”

The other girl just turned to stare.  “I didn’t survive by being complacent.  And cops or no cops, did you just forget about Weapon-X?”  She returned to looking out the window.

“All the king’s horses and all the king’s men couldn’t put Weapon-X together again.”

“I wouldn’t bet on it, honey.”

Jean dropped down on the bed edge.  “There’s no one chasing us.  I’d know.”  She tapped her temple for emphasis.

“Fine,” Storm said without turning.  “You be sure your way; I’ll be sure mine.”

They didn’t say anything else for a while; Storm watched out the window for another ten minutes, then left the room for a bit, returning before sunset.  She seemed more relaxed and went in to shower for the evening.  Jean flipped channels on the TV, which she had to do by hand because the remote had no battery.  She needed news but found nothing of note, just the usual depressing array of local crime stories amid sappy human interest pieces that didn’t qualify as ‘news’ by any stretch.  She missed NPR, and sighing, flipped off the TV to glare at the telephone.  She should check in with Peter.  It was a land line and Scott had been very specific only to call the hideout from a land line.  When he’d called, he’d never spoken longer than two minutes, to prevent call tracing, just on the off chance that the wire had somehow been tapped.  Jean thought he was paranoid, but she trusted his paranoia.  It had kept them alive and free since their escape.

But she didn’t phone Peter.  She didn’t need to hear him scold her again.

And that made her wonder if Scott might have avoided calling her for the same reason.

And that in turn made her wonder if maybe he’d called since she’d left, so she picked up the phone after all and punched in the numbers to reach Peter.

Yes, everything was fine, he said.  But no, neither Scott nor Logan had checked in.  Frustrated, Jean hung up.

Storm emerged, toweling her absurdly long hair.  Jean envied her that hair, having seen how all the men admired it, impractical though it was.  Even Scott had remarked on it.  “Why do men like long hair, do you think?” she asked, idly.

“They think it looks feminine, they like getting their hands in it, and they don’t usually have nice hair themselves.  That enough reasons?  Why?”

“Just curious.”  Jean rolled onto her side and bunched up a pillow under her head, had to resettle herself a couple of times because of the earrings.  She’d quit wearing the ones up in the cartilage because she could never find a comfortable way to lay on them.  “Do you keep yours long for Hank?”

“I keep it long because I like it that way.”

The answer surprised Jean.  “But you always seem . . . I don’t know.  Fashion conscious.”  Boy conscious, she’d wanted to say.

Storm left off toweling to drop the towel carelessly on the floor and come crawl into bed, using a comb to fight with tangles.  She’d kept her clothes on, too, Jean noticed.  She must be no more eager to expose too much skin to possibly unclean sheets than Jean was.  “I like clothes,” she said finally.  “And I like cars.  I used to buy Car and Driver and Cosmo at the same time.  Sometimes I bought travel magazines because I liked to imagine going all the places I’d never been, and I bought architecture magazines because I like to look at funky buildings.  People can have a lot of interests, you know.  I’m not the ditzy blonde you think I am.”  Her hand was rough on her hair.

They were silent then.  The lone bed light made a yellow circle on the bolted-down end table with its phone, a Gideon’s Bible, and a cheap alarm clock that gave the wrong time.

“I don’t think you’re ditzy,” Jean said at last.  But didn’t she, just a little?  The only thing Jean shared with Storm was the same uniform.  The other girl’s interests had always struck her as trivial or shallow.  In any case, Storm didn’t reply.  “Why’d you fight me to come along on this trip, Storm?  What’s in it for you?”

“My name is Ororo, you know.  You might try using it some times.”

Jean kept hold of her temper.  “All right.  Why’d you come with me, Ororo?”

“Because I’m worried about Scott, too.”  She had finished one half of her hair and now started on the other.  “Because you’re naive and I don’t trust you to keep your ass out of the fire by yourself.  You mean a lot to him, you know.  I figured it was the least I could do, to keep you in one piece for him.”

It was usually only Scott or the professor who addressed Jean that bluntly, and she blinked, not sure how to reply.  There were three rabbits to chase, all racing in different directions.  She decided that, for now, arguing her own competence was the least interesting.  And she already knew how Scott felt about her.  So – “It sounds like you care a lot about Cyclops.”

A sour smile cut Ororo’s face.  “Cut the psychobabble phrasing.  If you’re asking if I’m in love with Scott – no.  Not that way.  For one thing, he’s in love with you.  For another, I’m dating Henry.  For a third, you haven’t figured out yet whether you want the leader or the lone wolf.  Until you do, I’ll keep my nose out of it.”

“So you aren’t in love with Henry?  You would go after Scott?”

“I like Henry.  I care a lot about him.  Maybe I’ll learn to love him.  Love doesn’t happen over night, at least not for me.”  She laid down the comb finally and flopped onto her back.  The sheet rustled, sharp.  “I’m not sure I really know what love is, anyway.  I mean, all men really want is to fuck you senseless, if you’re pretty.  And if you’re not, they don’t notice you at all.  I think I’d prefer the latter, frankly.”

“Storm – Ororo –   You’re exaggerating.  Henry would love you anyway.”

“Henry idolized me for my body and my face.  Oh – and my hair.”  Sour humor, as sour as the smile she’d worn earlier.  “He doesn’t see me at all.”

“Yes, he does – ”

“No, he doesn’t!”  Ororo sat up.  “Don’t say stuff just because it’s expected, okay?  I don’t need to be fed shit when I know it’s shit.  He thinks I’m some weak, wimpy little woman, and now he’s blaming himself because he couldn’t stop what Sabretooth did to me, like that makes him less of a man.  I’m just the object; his pretty little toy – all soiled now.  Well, I’m not a toy.  And I’m sick of being pretty.  But of course, if I was ugly, no one would look at me at all, would they?  Men are such dicks.”

Jean wasn’t at all sure what to say to that, but maybe it was more important to address the anger than the logic, or lack thereof.  Sure, men liked pretty women, but women liked pretty men, too, and liking wasn’t the same thing as loving.

Yet Ororo was no where near ready to hear that, just now.

“I don’t think you’re weak,” Jean said instead.  “I’m not sure – if it had been me – that I’d be holding together as well as you are.”

Ororo didn’t reply for a long while.  Then she said, “There was India.  You survived that choice.”

“Apple and oranges.”

“Yeah.  It is.”  Another long pause.  “I hated you, before India.  That they used me and not you, because they were afraid of you, afraid that – with just a few of them – you could mess with their minds.  And Rogue couldn’t be touched at all.  So they always took me.  But after India, I didn’t hate you.”

Unbidden, tears blurred Jean’s eyes and she took off her glasses, laid them on the night stand.  Even now, weeks later, the memory of what Wraith had made her do could squeeze her heart.  “I felt him die.”

“I know.”

“I didn’t just do it, I felt it, Ororo.”

“I know.  Scott told me, explained it to me.”

“I never want to kill anyone again.”

Ororo didn’t reply to that.  It was silent a while.  Jean turned out the light finally and rolled onto her side again, tried to sleep, but sleep was a long way away.  She could tell from Ororo’s breathing that she wasn’t asleep, either.

“Ororo?”

“Yes?”

“He does love me, doesn’t he?  Scott.”

“He loves you very much.”

Silence.

“Do you love him?” Ororo asked finally.

“Like the brother I never had and always wanted.”

“That’s all?”

“I don’t know.”

Sheets rustled again.  “You’d better think about it, girlfriend.  He deserves better than to be strung along.”
 
 
 
 

“You’re sure they won’t – ”

“Quit angsting.  I’m a telepath.  I may not be able to steal the car, but I can handle a little mind confusion.”

Ororo shook her head and tapped her thumbs on the steering wheel.  Jean heard her mutter, “I hope you’re right, or we’re dead.”  Figuratively, not literally.  They were approaching one of the check-points near Niagra that crossed over into Canada.  Nope, nothing to declare, just a little stolen Nissan Xterra and some camping equipment.  Storm had wanted another Lexus since they’d probably be driving the car a while, but Jean had put her foot down.  A Nissan was less conspicuous, and it was a good four-wheel drive.  Besides, Jean got an ironic kick out of the name, and there had been some food in the back in a cooler, sleeping bags, a little tent, and a Coleman gas lamp, among other things – which suited their purposes just fine.  Once they were over the border, they could quit worrying quite so much about being tracked.  Police would be looking on the US side, relying on the border check-points to prevent the car getting into Canada.  Except, of course, if there was a telepath inside.  They’d still have to be careful, but Jean was really looking forward to ceasing to trade cars every few hours, or riding on a stinking bus.  She felt horribly guilty about the cars, even though they’d left them in perfectly good shape.  She’d wanted to leave them full of gas, too, but they just didn’t have the funds for that.  They didn’t have funds at all.  That was another area where Jean found Ororo a big help.  The girl wasn’t just a good car thief, she was a good pick-pocket, too, but they made it a policy not to take more than fifty dollars from any one person, which sometimes meant turning in a wallet with cash still left inside.  It quieted her whining conscience, and she’d defend herself to Scott later . . . though she doubted that his methods of getting money were any more legal.

They were almost up to the check-point.  One car away.  Ororo drummed her thumbs harder on the wheel.  “Relax,” Jean told her, and the word spoken after minutes of silence made the other girl jump.  Then it was their turn and the Canadian border officer was asking them the standard questions: origin, destination, etcetera.  Jean reached out . . . just so . . . and the man was passing them through without pause or awareness of anything out of the ordinary.  Just a couple of American college girls out for a weekend camping trip.

They stopped next to exchange their cash.  The line was long; Ororo was unduly nervous and Jean debated the wisdom of trying surreptitiously to calm her by telepathic means but should she realize what Jean was up to, it would wreck the fragile trust they’d built over the last four days.  So Jean did nothing, instead distracting herself by studying the faces of others waiting in the little room.  There was a middle-aged man who might have been an athlete once but who had gone to age and fat and too many cigarettes, and three college boys in baseball caps who checked out Jean and Storm without either subtlety or class.  Jean could almost see the drool.  Ororo had turned her back on them, but Jean could tell how their frank scrutiny made her even more nervous.  The attention of men did that to Storm now, and all her clothing these days covered her from throat to ankles.  There was also a woman with two grade-school aged kids who were whining, and last, a pair of young lovers, late high school or early college – Jean couldn’t be sure.  Jean found them interesting for the cross-racial pairing.  A blond white boy and a dark-skinned Indian girl who was almost the same height as the boy, and he wasn’t short.  She wondered if they might be Canadians returning since Indians were a bit more prominent north of the 49th Parallel, but she’d also heard that the tensions were higher, at least in some places, and black skin was more welcome than red.  The young couple was certainly acting nervous enough, as twitchy as Ororo, and aware of the eyes on them.  The boy glared first at the college students, then at Jean . . . and something about that glare felt almost familiar.

Strange.

Ororo elbowed her and Jean could feel the force of the other girl’s thought.  Quit staring at them.  Shit!  How rude.  Haven’t you ever seen a biracial couple before?

It’s not that, Jean sent back. Look at the boy.  He looks familiar.

Ororo managed to observe from the corner of her eye; Jean needed to learn how to do that.  He looks a little like Scott, Ororo sent.  But what’s strange about that?  Scott has that Clark Kent all-American I-was-born-in-Kansas look.

Ororo was right, Jean realized with a jerk; the blond boy did look like Scott.  But Ororo was wrong, too – or maybe she was more right than she realized.  Take his glasses off (something Jean had seen only a handful of times) and Scott’s Indian blood showed through – a slightly atypical appearance that wasn’t Clark Kent at all, but more ‘American’ than most Americans.  And now that she was thinking about it, there was something vaguely native about this other boy, as well, despite the coloring.  It was the wide face, the slightly canted eyes, the features all placed towards the middle and a mouth that slanted down at the corners – just like Scott’s.  That must be all it was.  He had Indian blood like Scott did, and that might explain why he was with an Indian girl.

The girl had laid a hand on his arm and relaxing, the boy smiled at her and put an arm around her shoulders – more companionable than romantic.  Maybe Jean had misjudged the nature or their relationship.  Or maybe she hadn’t.  The girl had shifted minutely until her hip rested against his; anyone watching might think he hadn’t noticed, but Jean could feel the rise of tension in him.  He’d definitely noticed.  Amused, Jean smiled to herself, and then wondered what strangers would see if they watched her and Scott?  The little touches.  The little looks.  Maybe Ororo had been right last night.  She should stop stringing him along.  The problem was that Jean still hadn’t decided if she wanted to reel him all the way in, or cut him loose.

Twenty minutes later, Jean and Storm were back in their ‘borrowed’ truck and headed north on Queen’s Highway.  For perhaps the hundredth time, she thought to herself, Scott, where are you?

Go on to Paxnirvana's "Migration"
 

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