Whispers

- I -

Kitty settles down on the cold concrete at the top of the steps leading from her apartment porch to the ground. It's dusk and a chill, bluish light settles in shadows across the view of lower New York.

"That about does it, y'all. You boys go on ahead. Ah'm goin' stay with Kitty."

Kitty doesn't look up when she hears Rogue, self-proclaimed southern belle, shooing off the men back to the mansion. They tromp past her down the stairs, few glancing back. Rogue settles beside her on the top step.

"Beer, huh? Pass one over, sugah."

Kitty reaches blindly and hands Rogue a beer, then tosses back her head and downs the last of her Miller Lite.

- Too -

Pyro stares at the ceiling of the special high-security prison for mutants: his current residence. It is night. The inmates are mostly sleeping, though he knows the guys in one cell down at the end play cards.

He closes his eyes, trying to sleep. It's a futile effort. He hasn't slept since he got here two days ago. He's heard the guards talking. They're going to try to cure him, and he stays awake and alert, convinced he can stop them when they do.

Pyro rolls over on the narrow cot to look towards the aisle and jumps back, stifling a yell.

Katherine Pryde is standing in his jail cell.

She looks like a shadow on a moonlit night, her form nearly invisible, and he wonders if she's phased.

"What are you doing here?" he demands harshly.

Seeing her stirs all sorts of feelings in him that he doesn't want to feel. He's spent so long trying to forget. Love. Joy. Her. It's not for a mutant like him. If he keeps telling himself she never could love him, he never could love her, he'll get over it.

He doesn't.

-

the earth shakes beneath her feet

the rains cry from heaven's seat

lightning burns within her hand

thunder rolls at her command

-

Burning red eyes darken intently. He stares at her, his face a mask of stone.

"What is it?" Ororo asks. She reaches up her hand to stroke his cheek, but he shakes his head away, eyes falling to the cold, wet pavement.

The skies renew their torrent. She chides herself for losing control and steadies nature to a light drizzle. Then she returns her attention firmly to Remy.

New York is not what she expected. It is dark and cold and she misses the things she understood. How can she ever find that odd, yet comforting gentleman who invited her here?

Lightning flashes across dark African skies, and all the savannah holds it breath in the onslaught of terrifying rain.

In Cairo, Egypt, a small, dark-skinned child plays about her mother's feet.

She hadn't expected this. When Jean-Luc told Carol Danvers, senior SHIELD operative, that he was sending his best, she did not expect this nineteen year old, wet behind the ears whelp.

She curled her lip. Most Guild reps didn't ask for a ride either. She crossed her arms over her chest and studied the scruffy figure crossing the tarmac from a military-use biplane, but he made good use of those long legs of his and his height, and he reached her in a few seconds. Her lip curled again. His scent was tarnished with heavy cigarette and a bad need for a bath.

"Remy LeBeau, I presume?" Carol shook his hand. No one could accuse her of playing favorites with her actions.

Finally, he lifted his face to her, smiling grimly as he firmly returned the handclasp. Weariness showed through dark, dark eyes. She couldn't see the color through the matted auburn hair he wore to halfway down his neck. His face at least was mature, including the dusting of a five o'clock shadow to grant him a semblance of manhood.

"Danvers," he said simply, thick Cajun patois lilting out with a bone-weary sound underlying the drawl.

Startled, she gave him a second study. His long brown duster covered a thick blue shirt in a muted color, jeans, hands stuffed deep in the pockets of it, and a small, sagging duffel hung off his shoulder. His stance was...wary, she decided, but fatigue could hide a great deal. She tested the theory.

"I told Jean-Luc I would probably have to send a rep." She turned and began walking toward the nondescript white car she'd arrived in. He followed behind her, not missing a step, as she continued, "How did you know it was me?"

Carol caught the briefly lifted shoulder from the corner of her eye. Her opinion--and curiosity--bumped up a notch. He could keep his council very well.

She opened the door to the backseat and waved her arm through the opening. "Get in."

"And if I let y' fall?" memories of Gennie, blood on Bella's dress "Non! Y' stay here. Y' become de best Mistress de Assassins ever had."

"Non. I can say non as strong as y'."

"And can y' stick t' moi after I tol' y' non?"

"Dey'll never exile y', Belle."

eyes cold and hollow

If she wasn't an assassin, his deadly beauty, she would be shedding tears. And if he wasn't a prince of thieves, he would be crying with her.

"I bit dis apple. I won' share."

When she finally walks away, she does not look back. ...

He shouts a Cajun curse to New Orleans, the city, beauty and ugliness, the bayou, the river, the coast, drunk with sin and sacrament, where saint and sinner hail Maria, where Thief and Assassin ply their trade. He turns his back on his home, his family, the only life he’s ever known.

He starts walking.