See What Happens
Disclaimer and author's notes: We'll just call this a "slight AU." The time frame is in the X-Corporation era, shortly after Xavier was surprised to see James Proudstar alive and working for him, but even within this period, the story is not exactly canon-compliant. The Real Answer vs. Fake Answer, as Peter David related in a letter column some time ago, this thus: The fake answer is I decided to fiddle with the X-verse because I liked it better my way. The real answer was I took off for a 2-year stint in Albania and left my comic books at home, and even my memory isn't that good. All characters are property of Marvel Comics and I make no profit from their use.
The more cynical would say it was a mark of the vastness of Charles Xavier's fortune that the situation would arise in the first place. The more sensitive would attribute the sequence of events to the bizarre dynamics of mutant relations. The practical upshot, either way, was that when he was returned to his right mind, Xavier found that he had people working for him in the X-Corp whom he could neither explain nor trace nor document.
When he decided to sort out his employees by having the operatives fly into the Xavier Institute, Theresa wasn't sure why she needed to be included. The professor had been entirely in control of his faculties when he'd put her unit together in Paris. He knew how he'd hired her and what she was doing in his employ, but perhaps for the sake of completeness--and even the more sensitive would admit that this much, at least, was certainly a mark of impressive resources--he was treating all units equally and had scheduled them all to fly to the mansion in Westchester County for their interviews.
Not that she was complaining. Paris was comparatively well under control for the time being and would probably not suffer any catastrophes in the two days they expected to be gone. There was something refreshing, even comforting, in coming back to the mansion. It helped, of course, that the occasion meant she was seeing old friends.
While Jamie left a dupe at the headquarters in Paris to monitor the situation, his central body came with Sam, Theresa, Julio and Monet. At the same time as the Paris branch was scheduled to arrive, also scheduled were the operatives from Nepal and Argentina. Theresa watched the group milling outside from the window of the room she was sharing with Monet, and a part of her, the part that still rebelliously remembered the time when she and her then-teammates were held prisoner on the grounds, raised an eyebrow and wondered whether the professor had considered the particular group he was reassembling at this point in the schedule. The part of her that remembered how the professor had treated her when she was held prisoner, meanwhile, recognized that he was probably aware that he no longer had reason to be concerned. No matter what the professor's intentions, Theresa was undeniably delighted at the faces gathering below.
She'd known for months that the news of her old friends' deaths had been mistaken, as she now had Sam Guthrie among her teammates. She spotted Tabitha Smith in the crowd, now working for the X-Corp in Argentina along with Dani Moonstar and Roberto DaCosta. Though she'd already heard about Maria Callasantos's membership in the Nepal branch, it nonetheless gave Theresa an unpleasant jolt to see her skulking curiously at the edges; she was nowhere near forgetting what Feral had done to her at their last encounter. But even Feral couldn't distract Theresa from the sight of the Nepal operative she'd been waiting to see. It helped that, being at least half a foot taller than nearly everyone else on the grounds, he wasn't exactly easy to miss, but it was her first time seeing James Proudstar since she'd departed from X-Force.
That was all she needed; Theresa let the door slam behind her and made her way downstairs and outside, unsure whether her feet even touched the ground on the way.
James Proudstar usually kept an eye on Feral. It had become something between a caretaking responsibility and a masochistic occupational compulsion to keep her reined in and accounted for. Today while he greeted Sam and Rictor she stayed agreeably in his peripheral vision so he wouldn't have to wonder whether she was getting Up to No Good and about to pick a potentially lethal fight with a student, or something. All it took that day, however, to take James's attention away from his mercurially feline teammate was a flash of color at an upstairs window. Her appearance was far from unique, as James was acquainted with several redheads associated with this organization, but there was something about the way Theresa Cassidy moved that he recognized every time.
She was outside in seconds, and as soon as James could see her there, uniformed and smiling and slightly flushed, she met his eyes. For the first time in months, he was no longer concerned with Feral. He started towards Theresa while she wended her way through the crowd as if James would disappear if she didn't touch him, but then he felt a light pressure at his arm.
"Hold it, Proudstar. Let her come to you for once," he heard Julio, known as Rictor, say at his elbow.
Though he was not accustomed to taking advice from anyone regarding Theresa, he considered that this was probably because it had been such a long time since anyone had offered him any. This time, he did as Julio said, perhaps because it really was such a novelty to see Theresa so eager to reach him, but he never dropped eye contact with her. As she drew closer, it occurred to James that he was grinning like a gigantic idiot, but as she came within his arm's reach, her own smile growing ever brighter, he was beyond caring how he looked to anyone.
Come to him she certainly did that day, as, when James reached out toward her, she didn't merely return his embrace but even jumped into his arms to let him sweep her up like old times in Arizona.
James was vaguely aware of Sam and Rictor chuckling to each other and perhaps several other people turning to stare at the apparition of Theresa wrapped up in his arms with her feet dangling a foot above the ground.
"How long has it been?" she sighed into his ear.
"It's been a while," he answered back.
Theresa drew her head back to look at him up close. "You've let your hair grow back," she observed, letting her hand stray to finger the ends of his shaggy black hair. "I like that."
"The buzzcut didn't work for me," he agreed, unable to tear his gaze away from those bottomless blue eyes.
"It's so wonderful to see you again," she said.
James nodded dumbly; he may have managed to say something as articulate as, "Yeah. Same here," while they heard someone give a small deliberate cough. There was a moment's delay before James looked over to the side at the same instant as Theresa.
"Hi, Terry. Jimmy," their old teammate Tabitha greeted them, smirking bemusedly while Dani and Roberto came up from behind.
After the preliminaries were out of the way, they all changed into civvies and found a spot next to a tree where they could get caught up, lounging around in the sunshine like a bunch of shameless teenagers. Feral slipped up the tree branches to terrorize some songbirds, while the rest of them stretched out on the grass.
"I could tell the X-Men all about these so-called secondary mutations," said Dani wearily, "and tertiary, and so on, and they could write whole books just about my powers."
"Your powers still going crazy?" Sam asked lazily from his spot with Tabitha leaning back in his arms. "Are we safe sitting here?"
"I'd laugh, except that would be asking for trouble again," Dani replied. "My power seems to be working itself out. For now. We can only hope."
"Powers working themselves out are a good thing," said James, who couldn't keep his eyes off Theresa sprawled out in the grass next to him.
"Yeah, speaking of that," Dani began, "James, I hear you're flying now?"
"Not anymore."
"What do you mean, 'not anymore'? Can you fly, or not?"
"I don't think so, now. I sort of forgot about what Wisdom taught me, and I haven't been able to fly since," James explained. "Can't say it really bothers me, either."
"But, why wouldn't you want to fly?" Theresa demanded. "It's like freedom itself, why would you just let it go away like that?"
James shrugged. "I'm sure it feels perfect for you, as you've been flying since you were, what, twelve? But I felt like such a tool in the air like that, I don't mind going without it."
"Maybe 'freedom itself' doesn't work for everyone," Sam suggested, "though I agree with you, Terry."
"It was like," James began, and raised his hands to his shoulders in an imitation of flying wings, "'Look at me, everyone! I'm a bird!'"
"He's a plane!" continued Tabitha. "He's--"
She and Sam finished together: "SUPer-Jimmy!"
James faced them and thrust both his middle fingers upward while everyone laughed.
"Now, Theresa," began Roberto when they'd recovered, "I heard a while ago that you got your powers back, but we never learned how it happened."
"Oh, it was so bizarre, even I'm not exactly sure what was going on," she began. "You remember Deadpool? He made it all happen, I know that much. He brought me to some place, where these researchers took some blood from Wolverine and used his healing factor to put my vocal cords back in order. There was a fight, and I got woken up when it wasn't quite finished, but I could use my powers again!"
"Deadpool cooperating with Wolverine?" said Tabitha. "There's something I'd like to see in person."
"Well, actually, that was a bit of a sticky point," Theresa explained, "because Logan didn't exactly volunteer."
"And I assume Deadpool didn't share much of this 'sticky point' with you before the fact?" asked Roberto.
"Now there's where it gets even odder," Theresa continued. "I don't remember anything for days before I woke up in that laboratory. I think Deadpool found me under some sort of mind control, and the dodgy scientists also got me out from under that. I got in touch with my Aunt Tori afterwards, and she said I was acting awfully funny and then just went outside. That was the last time she saw me, and I don't remember it."
"Yeah, that sounds sticky," Tabitha agreed. "Kind of thing that happens, though, when you're a mutant in the field."
"So, fill us in, Terry," said Rictor, "are you and Deadpool friendly, now? How did this happen?"
To James's great relief, Theresa didn't go very far into it. "I got to know him a bit when Tom gave him trouble awhile back, so, yes, we got to be on good terms," she said. Tom was her father's criminal cousin, Tom Cassidy, who'd raised Theresa from infancy, and had, curiously enough, harassed Deadpool for basically the same kind of assistance that Deadpool later conscripted from Wolverine on Theresa's behalf.
"Are you still talking to him, then?" asked Roberto.
Theresa looked at James first, and a much more haunted expression took over her face before she answered. She'd told James about her dealings with the mercenary Wade "Deadpool" Wilson before, and so he knew better than anyone else present what an emotionally loaded question it was.
"Not anymore," she said after a pause. "Of course I'm grateful to him, although I still worry about what was done to Logan in the process. He gave me my life back, and I can't forget about that, but...I can't get gratitude confused with…" she trailed off, too long for James's comfort, before she finished, "friendship."
"Does that mean you tried being friends with him after you got your voice back?" asked Rictor.
"I did try, but I can't stay a part of his life. Wade's a rather...unstable, man."
James knew it was wrong, but he just couldn't resist. With the memory of his last encounter with Deadpool still fresh in his mind, he quipped, "I hear the Pope is Catholic, too."
While the rest of their group laughed again, Theresa swung her sandaled foot around and stomped into his chest, thus pushing herself several inches back through the grass.
"Anyway, Ric," said Tabitha some time later, "do you still hear from Shatterstar?"
"Yeah, I do!" Rictor answered. "Shatty's just in the city, he's got a career going as a dancer, it's great!"
"What?!"
"A dancer?!"
"Shatterstar?!"
"You all think I'm joking, but it's pure Shatterstar, it's great for him. He works for pop stars and dances in their music videos and stage shows," Rictor explained. "So he gets to exercise all day, and gets paid for it, it's him all over!"
"Does he still hold those damn swords when he dances?" James wanted to know.
"Of course not, Jimmy, he just grabs the swords for his private work-outs. He works empty-handed just like any other dancer," Rictor answered while James continued to roll his eyes.
"Yeah, sounds like the little pretty boy's got himself a good gig," James muttered.
"Get over it, Proudstar!" said Rictor, throwing a handful of grass at James. "The only reason you didn't like Shatty--" he began.
"Who said I didn't like him?" James demanded. "I never had a problem with 'Star," he insisted, "even though he was a twit," he finished under his breath.
"You only ever thought Shatty was a 'twit' because Terry here loved to watch him work out," Rictor laughed.
Theresa became a noticeable shade of pink and swiveled her head around at Julio. "Rictor!"
"Well, don't be ashamed of it!" he insisted. "Don't try to deny it, anyway, it's one thing you had in common with Kitty-Cat."
Theresa swung her other foot over and kicked Julio in the chest, knocking him onto his back, where he found himself facing straight upward into the mulberry tree's branches. Feral dropped herself to the lowest bough and snarled, "Shut your mouth, Julio!"
Seeing that Feral merely snapped at Julio but stayed in the tree, Sam, Tabitha, Dani and Roberto were able to laugh once again.
"I heard from Sam," James said to Theresa later, "that you've been having some trouble with your vocal cords since you got your powers back."
"My throat isn't quite what it used to be," she admitted. They were alone now, walking around the lake on Xavier's property. "The process with Logan's healing factor was interrupted, so I don't think the vocal cords ever really got to heal all the way. That's probably why they bleed sometimes."
"That sounds frightening."
"It is, but I'm getting therapy for it. My doctor makes me gargle a lot of nasty-tasting chemicals, and I'm supposed to exercise the pipes by singing for at least a half hour every day." She shrugged while James laughed curiously. "I could think of much worse ways to heal than that, though it certainly makes life interesting at headquarters."
"Yeah, there are worse kinds of therapy than that," James said. "Feral's seeing a doctor, too."
"I've been wondering about that since I heard you two were working together. Is this the kind of therapy I think it is?"
James nodded. "She's on anti-psychotic drugs, a little lithium, and twice a week she gets on the computer for a chat session with Doc Samson. She doesn't always like what he has to say to her, either."
"A little lithium?"
"See, there's the juggling act with her. She's on those drugs so she won't try to kill anyone who doesn't attack her first, but if they get her on too even a keel, she's of no use on the battlefield. Maybe you remember what she was like in X-Force?"
"I'm not about to forget any time soon. Does she really do psychotherapy by IM?"
"Yeah," James confirmed, nodding in the understanding that it sounded to Theresa just as surreal as it appeared to him. "There aren't many trustworthy English-speaking analysts in Nepal, so we had to get creative with her."
"'We'? Are you involved in this?"
"I'm the one who makes sure Feral takes her pills, for instance. The therapy sessions, however," at this, he started to laugh, "don't always go so well. Sometimes I hear hissing and yowling from behind that door, and then Maria comes galloping out on all fours, and if I ask nicely what's the matter, she might curse in Spanish about assholes with couches in their offices. She doesn't break anything valuable, though, so we know she's making progress."
"It's good that she has you," Theresa said hesitantly, "to keep an eye on her."
"She's not the same animal anymore," said James. He halted in his path along the slope of land into the water. "She's not like she was when she ripped your throat out, or gutted Sam. She isn't proud of what she did to you."
Distractedly, Theresa nodded, with her hands unconsciously touching the part of her neck that Maria Callasantos had slashed open with her claws. Theresa stood a few feet away from James, on higher ground, so he was better able to see her throat. Interruption or not, the dodgy scientists had done a good job; her voice was just as clear and controlled as before her injury, and her skin bore only a few straight, needle-thin scars. James suspected it was mainly because of his enhanced eyesight that he could see the marks at all. Even more clearly, however, he could see that no amount of physical healing would ever undo the memory of what she'd gone through when the surgeon had made his prognosis, nor would James ever expect her to forget: they'd had every reason to believe that Feral's attack had not only destroyed her powers, but left her permanently disabled. Theresa had left X-Force and spent the following six months figuring out what to do with herself as a woman who couldn't talk above a whisper, much less scream.
"It's great to hear your voice after all this time," he said, at which Theresa looked up again and smiled faintly. "And I don't expect Maria to say it in so many words, but I think she's also glad to hear you can sing again."
"That's a nice thought."
"Damn," he shuddered upon hearing how he sounded. "I keep calling Feral Maria."
"That is her given name, isn't it?"
"It is, but when did any of us call her that when she was our teammate? It weirds me out. Maria was my mom's name."
This time it was Theresa who paused in her steps. "You never told me that before."
James shrugged, though it dawned on him what kind of floodgates he had just cracked open. "I guess not. I tend not to talk about my family."
"I noticed," Theresa said seriously. "But I would have liked to know about them. I'd still like to know about them."
"There's not much to tell, truth be told," he said, looking at a stand of trees visible from just above her left shoulder.
"I don't want you to dredge up any painful memories for my sake," Theresa urged, and somehow demanded his eye contact again. "I mean, in those months after we got back from Ireland, I didn't bring it up, because I figured it would make you uncomfortable if I asked, but Lord knows you certainly found out a lot about my family. And you knew all about our goings-on, and my problems. And I suppose that was my fault, for bringing you into that, but I didn't intend for it to be all about me."
"It's still not comfortable to talk about them."
"Of course I respect that, and I'd never want to push you, but surely, some time, you could tell me a little bit about the kind of people they were?" she offered. The unspoken argument hanging after her request was, "Surely they had lives, before they died?"
"I will, sometime. Yeah," he conceded. Just not yet.
"When you say you can't stay a part of Wilson's life," James asked later in the same walk, "do you wanna tell me what happened?"
"I still don't understand it myself," she began to explain. "I woke up and found my voice working again, of course, and it felt wonderful. I can't describe what it was like to find that I'd been put back together. And I was disturbed at how he'd used Logan to make it happen, although it didn't look like Logan was ever badly hurt, so, when I said good-bye to Wade, I was feeling a little..." she searched for the right word, "ambivalent?" she attempted.
"But is all that happened? You were ambivalent?"
"Oh, of course it didn't end with that. I've been thinking maybe I should have let it end there. No, I got a job in Brooklyn, and shared a flat with a few other girls, and I started thinking of what an amazing thing Wade had done for me, so I got the idea to start seeing him regularly."
James waited for her to continue.
Theresa took a deep breath, and went on. "So I managed to find his number, don't ask me how, and I left a message on his answering machine, to come and meet me at the Botanical Gardens. And he showed up, and...he treated me horribly.
"I haven't seen or heard from him since that day, and with the way he behaved there, I don't think I want to."
"Did any of us ever believe Wilson was a model of sanity?" said James.
"Of course not, but even for him it didn't make sense. Even now sometimes I wonder if it was even him that day. Did he care about me, or hate me? He couldn't figure himself out, and I took the brunt of it."
"It sounds like you caught him in a time when he wasn't in his right mind."
"Well, that much is obvious. Only, after all the experiences I've had with him, I don't know when was the last time he had a right mind to be in. And despite it all, I still don't doubt he cares about me, ultimately, but..."
"He doesn't know how to show it," James finished.
"Right. So that's why I can't afford to mistake gratitude for..." she paused again, this time looking James in the eye, "affection," she said. Her voice was low, serious, slightly questioning and communicated all that she wasn't ready to reveal to the rest of their old teammates. "Or love," she added.
James nodded silently, and at that moment he realized that she could just as easily have been talking about him.
They both kept quiet for a while, in fact by this point they were on at least their second lap around the lake.
"I'm really glad we're getting a chance to see each other again," said Theresa.
James laughed softly, involuntarily, with the thought that these kind words were really quite redundant by that point in the day. "It's only for a day or two, but, yeah, I guess the circumstances could be a lot worse, right?"
"I don't just mean that," she continued. "When we were in X-Force together, I know I wasn't always good to you."
"What are you talking about?" he protested. "You were fine." In all honesty, this was politeness more than insight, as Theresa had sometimes been an incredibly frustrating and confusing person to have as a best friend, not to mention the object of his affections, but he was loath to spoil the first time they got to talk to each other in real time in over a year.
"That's very sweet of you to say, but I haven't forgotten those two weeks in Ireland."
"What about them?"
"There's no need to lie about it," she said. "You were always there for me, even though I spent a lot of that time treating you like garbage."
"You were up against a lot," he pointed out, "and I figured you were a little too preoccupied to be considerate. Not to mention, maybe you remember, I wasn't always okay with how you were behaving."
"You were a lot more okay with it than you should have been," Theresa insisted. "And I know I did a lousy job of showing you how much that meant to me, but I couldn't have asked for a better friend, and I knew that then as well as now."
"If it was supposed to be a matter of keeping score, then let's see," James began. "I dealt with your miserable drunken ass, and you saw me covered in Michael Whitecloud's brain matter."
"Oh, don't remind me," Theresa shuddered.
"It was your voice that kept me going while I was battling Stryfe in Hell," he continued, "and I haven't forgotten what kind of shape that lab was in when I came back to my body on Earth." At this, it was Theresa's turn to laugh. "So I figure we're about even."
"I just wanted to obliterate that monster after what he did to you," she recalled aloud.
"I noticed. So don't tell me you weren't a good enough friend to me back then."
She smiled again; it was a warm, serene look, which James had often seen on her when she was about to lean on him, or let him lift her up for no reason except that it was their little running joke. At that instant, a thought struck him, as inexplicable yet clear as if someone had just appeared at his side and whispered it in his ear: Just grab her. Snatch her up and kiss her. See what happens.
He'd only attempted such a thing once before; when she came outside in the middle of a football game one day at Camp Verde, and he took the opportunity to "tackle" her. She'd given him the most thrilling vibe when he declined to put her down; she saw what he was about to do, and he could feel it in her body language: she was all anticipation. He could tell she was nervous, but ready.
Or perhaps that had merely been James's wishful thinking through the haze of hormones, but either way, Rictor had put a stop to it by throwing the pigskin in James's face, and there had been no more of that. And that was probably all for the better at the time, because what had James honestly been thinking, getting ready to lip-lock his best friend in front of their teammates? Playing football tended to put crazy ideas in his head, was his only defense to himself afterwards.
He smiled contentedly back at her, but somehow made no movement in her direction, and then just as quickly as it had come, that impulse to "see what happens" vanished.
There was no one watching them, no one was going to interrupt them, and he didn't know when they would next be in the same time zone, so why couldn't he do it now?
"So, how do you guys get along on your team?" he asked, finally.
"Really well," she nodded.
"Have you seen your dad?" he began, tentatively. "I mean, since you went to stay with your Aunt Tori?"
"No," she breathed, and there was a definite note of annoyance in her voice. "I wrote to him back and forth sometimes, but I didn't feel up to making the trip when he asked me to join him for Christmas."
"And you haven't seen him in person since you joined the Paris team?"
"No, why?"
James wasn't stumbling blindly; he knew Theresa was appalled her at the way her father had bungled his venture in the X-Corps, but he'd also learned better than to pretend everything was okay just to avoid an argument. "Since he moved back to the Keep, it wouldn't be that much trouble to pay him a visit. Or at least invite him to come and see you."
"That would require me to talk to him," she pointed out.
"And?"
"And I'm not ready for him to hear the things I have to say to him right now."
"Which do you think would be worse?" he attempted after a few moments of silence. "Showing your father how much he's angered you, or cutting him out of your life for years?"
"How did it become so important to you?" she demanded. "I'm not asking you to be angry at my dad, so what does it matter to you?"
James knew she knew the answer, and neither of them had to say it out loud.
"I'm sorry," she sighed. She appeared to deflate as she said it; she looked away from him and her posture slumped forwards. "I know what you're saying, and of course I understand."
"Only that your dad is alive," he replied. The drawn-out version went unspoken between them, but no less obvious: Unlike anyone in my family. "And he loves you," he finished.
"I do want to get in touch with him," Theresa assured him, "soon. I just...I'm just not sure how to do it yet."
She reached out and grabbed James by the wrist; he stepped up onto the grassy bank and walked next to her. Theresa slumped in against his side, with her arms around his waist, and James let his arm curl around her shoulders just as naturally as he would breathe when coming up from underwater.
"So it may not be my business," said Dani Moonstar later, "but really, what are you doing out there in Nepal?"
"About the same things you're doing in Argentina, probably," he replied. They were, to make a long story shorter, perched on the edge of the roof of the mansion, where they watched several mutant teenagers frolic in the pool below.
"For one, we keep in touch with the Paris branch and others, but no one can say when was the last time anyone heard from you."
"Okay, so we don't make as much use of the communications equipment," he said with a shrug.
"But are you really happy out there?" asked Dani.
"Why would you ask about that?"
"You're out in the middle of nowhere, playing big brother to Feral with no one else except Sunfire, and you haven't even exchanged a word with Theresa in months, let alone the rest of us. Doesn't that seem odd to you?"
"What if it is? What are you saying I should do about it?"
"As long as you're here, you could request a transfer to the Paris branch," she suggested. "There are other mutants who could take your place in Nepal."
"So, why should Xavier think I'd be of better use in France? Because I'd rather be around my old friends?"
"They're also your old teammates," she pointed out. "And besides, if Sam switches to the Argentina unit, they could use another mutant in France."
"Is Sam talking about getting a transfer to Argentina?"
"Not yet, or not to me, but I see how he looks at Tabitha."
"And you think Xavier'll go for that? How many of us is he about to switch around so we can be with the people we want?"
"You make it sound frivolous, but you'd be asking to be placed with teammates you already know how to work with," Dani argued. "Not to mention putting us where we're at least relatively happy."
"Dani, if I recall, you spent months living with the enemy for the sake of your job," James responded. "Did that make you happy?"
"I had a job to do, with an end in sight, and it was still brutal," she returned. "I hope I never have to do anything like that again." She caught her breath, then went on. "It's not only you, either, who could do better than that post. If it's Feral you're worried about, I can't imagine that isolation is good for her, either."
"Where would she be better off, then?"
Dani shrugged. "We've got room for her in our unit. There'd be more of us to keep an eye on her, she needs a shrink she can see in real life, and she even speaks Spanish."
"Yeah, I can imagine Tabitha would be just thrilled about having Feral around," he muttered.
"If you can learn to deal with Feral, I'm sure Tabitha can. I'm also there, and I know Maria better than anyone else except maybe you, by now."
"Yeah, all right, granted. So, what, is Sunfire supposed to be the whole team by himself?" he argued uselessly. He knew where she was going, in fact, and had nothing to counter it.
"Have you or Feral gotten especially close to Sunfire? Would he not be able to deal with getting a couple of new teammates?"
"Okay, point taken. I just can't picture going to Xavier and asking for a transfer because I'd rather be around Terry," mused James. "And Rictor," he added, "and Sam, if he stays put."
"You don't have to put it to him like that," said Dani. "But there's something to be said for having your heart in the job."
"I'll give it some thought," he agreed.
"But you're here today. Now is as good a time as any to have that conversation," said Dani.
She stood up and headed back to the door to the staircase, which left James alone in his spot looking at, but no longer seeing, the students enjoying the sunshine. Before that day, or at least before that conversation, he had been okay with his job, his home, his lot in life. He would never have consented to work with Maria if she hadn't been getting serious mental help, but since she was getting that help, he thought he was okay with, as Dani said, playing big brother to her. He got along with Sunfire. He didn't object to the isolation in Nepal, or even the climate in the Himalayas. He handled the work that X-Corp threw his way. He had known for years that he would not be happy to wake up at age 40 and still be fighting evil as a way of life--assuming he lived that long while doing so--but the fact that he was going on 24, the age at which his brother had died in the X-Men, did not perturb him.
He had been just fine with all that, and then Danielle Moonstar had to come along and tell him he could have more. He could, not only work for a cause he believed in, but also have real friendship again, and maybe even pursue a love that he'd long thought was out of his reach.
It had taken him so long, and cost him so much, to accept the idea of Theresa being out of his reach, that he'd become more comfortable in assuming the question would never be raised again.
Of course she had never expressed a clear interest in being anything more than close friends with James, but when X-Force moved into the mansion and back under Xavier's aegis, it had nearly ruined even that innocent rapport. It wasn't the change in status itself--though that had left both James and Shatterstar secretly wondering what on Earth had ever been so objectionable about their team's previous independence--but the personnel shifts that threw them for a loop. Sam had been moved, nominally "graduated," to the X-Men, and Theresa had taken his place as the team's Deputy Leader, and for months after she returned home from the undercover assignment that won her the position, she didn't have time for James anymore.
Actually, if it had merely been a matter of free time, he might have understood that she had a job on which to focus her energies, but somehow, she'd managed to make time with him, but then have no energy, no interest. He couldn't trace it to her responsibilities, either; she simply wasn't emotionally there anymore. The best way he could describe her attitude later on was "blowing hot and cold." She managed to develop the most mind-bending ability to get his hopes up, then leave him clattering messily back to Earth, once she was named X-Force's new Captain. James could no longer tell where he stood with her during that period; were they friends, or was she interested, or was she tired of going so far even as to be close friends anymore? The effort he put into being her friend had become a dizzyingly tiresome, demoralizing part of his life, as much because he couldn't let it go as because he couldn't make it work.
He had been so confused over her, in fact, so exhausted from whipsawing between anticipation and disappointment that Gloria Muñoz couldn't have chosen a more ideal time to make his acquaintance.
Not that he knew her initially as Gloria; she'd introduced herself as Risque, first luring him to a junkyard and setting off a bomb in his proximity. James had found it quite a thrilling surprise, then, when out of the wreckage skipped a gorgeous young woman who kissed him and told him not to forget.
As if he would ever fail to remember that.
Only after she betrayed him had he thought to ask himself why he hadn't seen the signs. Why did she initially pose as a BIA representative to invite him to a strange place, blow something up around him, and then make out with him? Who was this strange woman, how had she found him, and why was she interested in him in the first place? Why and how had she, specifically, been the one to rescue him from Selene and take him home to Florida to nurse him back to health? What was her name? He didn't even think to ask until the day she reappeared in his life, which also turned out to be the day she drugged him.
Those were the questions that he realized, only when he woke up in Detroit three days later, that he should have been asking all along. Only after Risque revealed her purpose did James recognize that he'd been so ready to trust her not because she'd saved his life, but because of the way she looked at him. He'd regained consciousness after Selene's attack to find himself under the care of a woman who was interested in him. That was all he'd needed to know at the time, and when he later asked himself why he hadn't asked why, the answer lay plainly between him and Theresa.
James still didn't suspect that Gloria had previously known how he felt about Theresa before they met, but either way her timing had been impeccable. He'd been sitting wide open to any woman who showed an interest in him, and so Risque had fooled him as easily as leading a blind man to the edge of a cliff. It was his frustration over getting so little feedback from Theresa that left him so willing to ignore the warning signs in Gloria. It was that frustration that left him feeling so burnt out from fighting evil, so unfulfilled with X-Force, and suddenly so eager to give Theresa up as a bad job when he got the chance to frolic around with a woman whose name he didn't know and who offered him no responsibilities except to help her have a very good time.
He'd kept enough sense to come back to New York when he heard his teammates were under attack; that much was a comfort to him now.
After leaving him for the next several weeks to wonder where she'd gone, but also fall back into the missions with X-Force and resume his post as a mutant combatant, Risque had come back to find James elated to see her. At the end of that day, Gloria explained the true source of her interest in James by drugging him with "enough tranquilizer to knock out King Kong." As he slipped into an unconsciousness that would last three days, the last thought to pass through his head was, So she doesn't care about me after all.
She later said she'd had no choice, that she was indebted to Sledge, and that she'd fallen for James despite all that. It left James so nonplussed not really because he didn't believe it, but because the discovery of the true nature of their relationship left him on such shaky ground. He then had the answers to the questions he hadn't thought to ask, and they left him no more horrified at Risque than he was furious at himself.
The truth was he didn't intend to fight evil for the rest of his life. He'd never said so out loud to his teammates, at any point in his career, but he didn't want this to be the sole occupation of his adult life. He wanted a family, eventually. He wanted a woman to call his partner, he wanted children to raise, he wanted a home that wasn't defined by security and secrecy, he wanted a job that didn't put his life in danger on a regular basis. He wanted to live long enough to see his children grow up. He wanted to get more out of life than his parents had done, and perhaps that was much of the reason he was still fighting for the cause of mutant peace, but it was also the reason why he didn't see himself in the same place in twenty years.
But would he ever find that woman? Was he capable of becoming that man in her life? Would he only ever be of interest to a woman with a task to carry out? Would Risque's ploy be the closest James ever got to having a love in his life? Those were the questions that had haunted him for weeks after he woke up from her cocktail, and which he still couldn't properly answer. The one good thing James could say about his fling with Gloria was that he'd come back from Florida to find that Theresa's initiative in their friendship was revived after months of lying dormant in the shadow of her new Captaincy. She gave him her attention again. He saw how worried about him she'd been while he was missing after the fight with Selene, and noticed how zealously she'd gone after Gloria when he didn't come back from their day in Manhattan. To her credit, furthermore, her interest did not wane again once Gloria was no longer in the picture. Perhaps it was because he'd gotten his best friend back, and even to a point where he could occasionally snap at her and she wouldn't resent him for it, that James had then decided he was okay with being "just friends" with Theresa.
So they'd fallen into being Just Friends again. That was, arguably, part of the benefit he'd reaped from Risque's seducing and betraying him; he was better able to appreciate what he had with Theresa. She may have taken him for granted, maybe strung him along, and even treated him rather inconsiderately for a while there, but she'd never lied to him. His bond with her had never been anything other than what she said it was. So he found he didn't mind that they were Just Friends. If he had to choose between being Just Friends and having mad, glorious sex with a girl who subsequently drugged him and sold him out to her employer, he would go with the Just Friends arrangement. He could be in love with Theresa, and still be Just Friends with her, and be okay with that. He could be in love with a girl who didn't return his feelings, just as easily as one who did, as long as he had the chance to enjoy her friendship.
When he was brutally honest with himself, he accepted that it was far from his style to sweep a girl up and "see what happens." Sometimes he wondered if he'd only ever tried to kiss Theresa at the time and place that he did because he'd known he wouldn't be allowed to follow through. He could take Cable's advice far enough to find the courage to rock the boat regarding the way she treated herself, but no further than that. When it came to the type of relationship they had, he was unable to risk scaring her off with anything bolder than "Because I like you--a lot--that's why!" His fling with Gloria had reminded James that he was not about to let More become the enemy of Enough. The truth was that James did not have the personality to pursue a woman the way society said a man was supposed to do. He needed a woman who would come to him.
Come to him. Save him the anxiety of risking rejection and alienating a perfectly good friendship. Don't force him to spell it out. He thought he could be clear enough about that with Theresa that she would, in time, come to him. He thought his behavior spoke for itself. Perhaps the problem was that his behavior had spoken for itself better than he'd intended.
He still remembered his exact words to Theresa on the day he first took Cable's advice: I told you I care about you because I do. But I want to help you because you need it, not because of what I'll get out of it. And when he was even more brutally honest with himself, he considered that this had not been perfectly truthful. He had wanted, dearly, for such sentiments to be the truth. Of course he'd desperately wanted to see her quit drinking and generally stop punishing herself for sins that weren't hers, and of course he'd wanted to see her happier and more at peace with herself, and he'd found it an honor that she trusted him enough to ask him to come to Ireland with her. He'd thrown himself headfirst into the often thankless task of helping her straighten her head up. But could he really, genuinely claim that he hadn't also hoped to "get something out of it"? In fact there had been a part of him that hoped she would realize he was the guy for her, and perhaps Theresa had picked up on that. He didn't learn until later that alcoholics are supposed to be celibate for some time after they quit drinking. It was some time before he found out that sex would become the new addiction and the new basis for dangerous behavior if they went into it too soon, and perhaps Theresa understood that better than he had at the time, and wisely behaved accordingly. Then again, perhaps she had also shied away from coming to him the way he wanted because she had sensed that minor dissonance in James's intentions.
Or maybe, finally, she simply never liked him that way. He was okay, now, with the thought that the level of friendship they had reached by the end of her time with X-Force was all he could have expected to achieve with her. Sure, Jesse Aaronson had often joked that James was the object of her affections, but really, what did Aaronson know?
"Mr. Proudstar?" called a voice from below.
James nearly jumped straight off the roof when he realized a student was addressing him that way. Nevertheless, she had his attention.
"Are you hungry? Ms. Frost says it's time for dinner."
His attention brought firmly back to the present, he found that the sun was getting low in the sky and he was, indeed, ready to eat. What was he thinking, anyway? He couldn't sit around on the roof and ruminate all night long.
Another familiar voice jarred him back to reality after dinner. He was absently crossing the next room when he heard his name called by a man he hadn't expected to see again any time soon.
"Cable, what are you doing here?" he greeted, shaking hands with his former leader.
"Would you believe Xavier contacted me," said Cable, "and told me I would find most of my old team here tonight, in case I wanted to catch up with them?"
James nodded. "Good of him to let you know."
"So, how is Nepal, then?"
"It's okay. It's kind of like Camp Verde, only cold."
"I'm surprised to hear you put it like that. Maria is getting mental help, I see."
"Well, I wouldn't agree to work with her otherwise. We only get along okay as it is," James explained.
Cable nodded, peering at James critically through those strangely jaded, penetrating eyes that he'd come to take for granted, and trust implicitly, at the age of nineteen. "Yes, I'm sure you do," he replied, though James was not soundly convinced that Cable believed him.
"I never intended to abandon you kids," he said unexpectedly. James was, again, caught off-guard; he had to think for a moment to remember the stage of X-Force's life at which Cable may have been said to "abandon" his charges. "You weren't there at the moment, so you didn't see how it played out, but, I really didn't want to walk out on you all," he explained.
"I never thought of it as abandonment."
"Your teammates just made it clear that I was no longer calling the shots," he continued, "and I realized you'd already had a lot of time without me to guide you, so I saw what was happening when the others weren't up for my plan. It was time to make a clean break."
"Yeah. That was...kind of the impression I got when they picked me up in Detroit," he recalled. "So don't worry about it. We managed to figure it out pretty soon."
Cable nodded. "You did, from the first time I left you. I came out of the timestream and found you had a new base. So I just thought, later on, you'd find your way if it came to me cutting you loose."
"Maybe we weren't such 'kids' after all," James suggested.
"When I called you that, I didn't mean you were children."
James had nothing to say to that. He'd never thought to accuse Cable of anything, though the old future-bred warrior apparently thought he was on trial for something.
"I notice Theresa's happy to see you," Cable pointed out.
"I guess," James responded, with the curious sensation that he wanted to hear more, yet also wanted to flee from the room. "I mean we've always been the best of friends. We sort of fell out of touch when I supposedly died, but I never wanted to cut her off."
"But you're getting back in touch with her now, I take it?"
James moved to respond only to find that the breath stopped in his mouth, frozen in the question of what exactly was he supposed to say? Cable was watching him once again in that manner that gave him the disquieting impression of being x-rayed, which, of course, took on an entirely significant level of meaning with the knowledge that the older man was telepathic.
"You did take quite a risk," Cable assured him, "when you told Theresa how you felt about her. A weaker bond than yours would have fallen apart. But you may notice that when you shared that with her, she did not reject you, as you feared she would."
James made a mental note to himself: Never, ever think about anything around Cable. No good will come of it.
"And when you broached the subject of her drinking problem, she did not push you away. She invited you with her to her childhood home," he continued. "Now that takes a lot of trust, doesn't it?"
"I noticed, at the time." He didn't say it out loud, but the memory came back to him, despite his best efforts, of the conversation he'd had with Cain Marko on his and Theresa's last night in Ireland. If she no longer needed him, then he might lose her. And of course he hadn't lost her, but...
"It's almost like she never left," James said. "I mean, today. Seeing her again, it doesn't feel like it's been all this time since I last saw her."
"But it has been all this time. She has had all that time without you in her life. So you can bet that she does not think in quite the same way as she did when you two saw each other every day."
And if she doesn't think the same way, then how does she think, now?
"I know how you all feel about being told how young you are, so I'll say this only as a man who's been involved in your lives before," said Cable, and James drew the reassuring impression that the conversation was drawing to a close. "You might be surprised at the effect that some..." he seemed to choose his words carefully, "distance, can have in any kind of relationship. You've certainly had some distance, by now."
Cable let him go while he turned to Sam again, and so James slipped out of the room as inconspicuously as his power of enhanced speed could allow him to do.
I accepted Cable's advice about Theresa before, and what came of it?
Although she kept quiet, he knew she was in the room before he opened the door.
First, James could hear a heartbeat and breathing from behind the door, of a rate to indicate a person relaxed, but wide awake. When he picked up the scent, he knew it was Theresa. A person's scent, he found, was made of components both variable and constant. There was always, even on the cleanest body, a slight residue of sweat and oil that carried a smell unique to the individual. That constant was especially pronounced on people with long hair, because a lot of oil tended to rest in the hair. Then there was clothing, whose scent depended on the fiber composition and laundering practices. As he grew comfortable with his senses and got to know certain people, James learned to associate certain clothing smells with individuals. Artificial fragrances were the part that gave James the most trouble; anything stronger than a heavily perfumed shampoo overwhelmed his nose. Theresa had stopped wearing perfume when James told her he'd developed enhanced senses, which left the jasmine-scented hand lotion and coconut shampoo she'd been using for so long that the combination was as familiar as her voice.
So he opened the door and found her sitting on his bed. He heard a definite start from her when he opened the door. She looked not surprised but bore the expression of a deer in headlights; it was the sort of reaction that left James to wonder how long she'd been sitting there.
A part of Theresa worried that this was the wrong approach to take. As lovely as the day had felt, their walk around the lake--the first time she'd been alone with James since she told him she was leaving X-Force--had been far from cut and dry. Meanwhile, the question kept haunting her of what exactly she was trying to accomplish, and whether she had any right to make the attempt anymore. She still hadn't yet forgotten Tabitha's words to her, the day they forced Risque to lead them to where she'd taken James: You're a little late to take an interest in his love life. Two years after being told she was too late, what kind of result could she hope to get?
Wasn't it James, though, who got to decide whether she'd lost her chance? After all those months, turning to years, of being too afraid to trust herself, or too hesitant to sort out her feelings, or whatever it was, exactly, that had held her back, didn't she owe it to both of them to give them a chance to sort out the ambiguities that continued to hang in the air?
Then again, what would he think, really, about her waiting in his room for an unknown number of hours? For one, it was only 8 PM and she had no way of knowing how much longer she would have to wait for him to come back. It would be just her luck, really, if her friends threw a party and kept James out until the wee hours while she sat on her hands and missed out on the fun because she'd decided to take a leaf out of the stalker's book.
The heavy footfalls sounding in the hallway just outside the door made little impression, but then the doorknob turned and the sound made her nearly jump off the bed. There was James. Another thought suddenly occurred to her: Suppose something happens. What then?
"What are you doing here?" James asked as he shut the door behind him.
Suppose Theresa got her way, and she made progress with James that she'd never managed to attempt in the two years that they were teammates and she knew that he was fond of her. Then they'd climb back into their respective jets the next morning and fly back to their headquarters on different continents. What kind of relationship could they maintain then?
"I wanted to be alone with you," she answered.
"You mean, more alone than when we were by the lake today?"
"Yes, that's what I mean."
James flattened himself back against the door as if someone outside were trying to intrude. His eyes widened involuntarily, and Theresa felt a precipitous, even sympathetic sense of anticipation.
There would never be a perfect time to have this conversation. She'd waited too long for that perfect time to happen, until she no longer had the words to say. She now accepted that an imperfect time was the best she would ever have.
"How did you know I'd come back before Rictor?" he questioned.
"He told me he was going out to the city tonight to meet Shatterstar."
James gave her a promising-looking smirk and deliberately locked the door. Theresa scooted over to the far edge of the bed to make room for him to get comfortable next to her.
Theresa couldn't help but smile as James reclined against the headboard of the bed. He wrapped his arm automatically around her back, letting her curl in around his side. Beginning with the days when she was still drinking and just coherent enough to remember him taking care of her during her binges, Theresa had always loved the feeling of James holding her. It was the reason why, later on, she'd allowed and even encouraged him to carry her around when she was more than capable of walking, thus developing a habit that led their teammates to snicker at them like they were odder than most young mutant combatants. There was something about being in his arms that made her feel like the object of desire, yet also protected from intrusion, two sensations that didn't always go hand in hand. He made her feel cherished, was the best way she could describe it.
She laid her left hand on James's chest and felt his heart beating like a bass drum while he took a deep breath.
"My mother," he began. He couldn't say it all at once; he needed to take another breath, then looked directly at Theresa. "Always wanted a girl."
"But you didn't have a sister."
"No, I'm pretty sure I would have remembered that. But Mom always wanted to have a daughter, so, of course, she waited ten years after John, and then I was born, and her doctors told her not to have another kid. Since I was born prematurely and had to spend my first two months in the hospital, Mom agreed that was enough and didn't risk it again."
"You were born prematurely?"
"Yeah, I was tiny and it was a close call. You're looking at me like I'm making it up, but John liked to show me the pictures to prove it. So, then, my parents had all the family they were going to have, and Mom never got the daughter she wanted."
"Did she say she was hoping you'd be a girl?"
"Oh, no, Mom never said anything about it, but when there was no one else around, John sometimes teased me that Mom was hoping for a girl and got me instead."
"What, did he want you to think you weren't wanted?"
"Nothing like that, but he was a teenager, and I was his kid brother, so he liked to mess with me by saying stuff like Mom was about to start making me wear dresses and play with dolls. Scared the hell out of me when I was little."
As scandalized as she was, Theresa couldn't help but start giggling. "That's awful!"
James smiled reminiscently and shook his head. "No, it wasn't. He was just a 15-year-old boy looking after his 5-year-old brother. Siblings annoy each other, it happens."
"So, did anyone other than your brother tell you this story?"
"I still don't think John was making it up. Mom never acted like I was anything other than what she'd always wanted. Dad never mentioned it, and my grandfather told us to stop being ridiculous. It makes sense, though. My mother would have liked to have at least one daughter. I can believe that about her."
"Did you only have the one grandfather?"
"Well, that was my dad's father, who lived with us. My grandmother died before I was born, and Granddad moved in because he sort of needed help taking care of himself, but he also helped Mom look after me and John. My mom's parents were still alive, but they lived down the road from us."
"It sounds like you had a good family," Theresa remarked.
"I did. My granddad was kind of...cranky, sometimes. He didn't live long enough to have that conversation with me, but he threatened John that if he ever brought a white girl home, Granddad would never speak to him again. I think it was big talk, now, but John thought he was dead serious."
"Even if it was big talk..." Theresa began.
"Whenever my mother went shopping outside of the reservation, she would always show her receipt to a guard by the exit before she left the store. No one ever asked her to do this, but that guard would always look through her bags before he let her go. I must have watched her do this about ten times before I asked her why all the other customers didn't bother with it. So once we were back in the truck, John explained to me that people who run stores think that Indians steal a lot."
"I'm sorry."
James shrugged. "It wasn't so bad for us, at least. My grandfather was up against much worse, in his youth, and he grew up in grinding poverty, too, which I'm grateful we managed to avoid. But that was where he was coming from."
"Did your brother ever decide to test him?"
"Not on that point, no. I don't want you to think my grandfather was unkind; I spent a lot of my childhood sitting on his knee for story time. We were lucky to have him around."
"I'll bet you were," she replied. She wanted to say, my grandfather is a retired pediatrician, and he still lives in Belfast, but I hardly know him aside from that. James's pounding heart had only slightly calmed down since he'd joined her on the bed. "I'm going to write to Da once I'm back in Paris tomorrow."
James nodded gently. "Your dad's a good guy. And I know it's not my business, but..."
Theresa cut him off: "Don't worry about whether it's your business or not."
He had no response to that; he looked toward the end of the bed, avoiding Theresa's gaze, while the hand curled around her left side stroked her lower arm. She was content to stay like that all night, except the steady pounding in James's chest reminded her of what she was supposed to be about.
"If I could have met him," she began. This could have been the worst possible direction to go, but she could no longer afford to play safe. "I hope your grandfather would let me tell him about how my ancestors were skirmishing with the British in Ireland while your people were getting screwed over by the Anglo settlers."
"He would have liked you," said James, nodding again. "Yeah, he would have noticed you weren't part of the people that took away our land." While Theresa let out a long breath, James looked directly at her. "So, does that mean you would have wanted to come home and meet my family?"
"I'm so sorry for the way things went between us," she pleaded.
"What do you mean, the way things went?"
"In X-Force together, we were there, and we were the best of friends, but..." she trailed off, "our friendship, it never went anywhere, and..."
This time James interrupted. "I don't have any regrets."
This much, Theresa knew, was politeness rather than honesty, but if she was going to push her luck, it wouldn't be in that direction. "Well, I do."
"What do you regret?"
"All that time, when I knew perfectly well how you felt about me, and we saw each other every day..." she sent up a silent prayer, felt herself going pink, and finally tossed caution and good sense to the clouds, "and I never found out what it was like to kiss you."
The next moment it felt to her as though the bed had suddenly gone into flux: James sprung up, slid Theresa into the center of the mattress and set himself over her on his toes and elbows in one seamless motion. Then his lips were on hers, and her hands were still free. Without thinking, she hooked one barefoot leg around his while with her hands she clung to his back and pulled herself up, pressing herself ever closer to his possessing body. She didn't want to stop kissing him; it was wonderful, it was the most natural thing in her life. They were tasting each other, and breathing each other in, and he was on top of her, yet he brought his hands in under her back so he was also holding her up, and it was exactly where she wanted to be.
He rolled them over so they lay side by side, and he released her mouth, but still held her just as close. Theresa had to catch her breath. She allowed the slightest warming of tears to leak from her eyes. James buried his face at the back of her head, nuzzling her hair and breathing deeply of her scent.
They would go back to their separate continents the following day, and then they would just have to figure out how to cope with the distance.
"No regrets," he whispered in her ear. "I don't regret a thing we ever did."
Theresa regretted a great many things they hadn't done, but she resolved that there would be time to tell each other about what might have been and what couldn't have happened any other way. Now she knew there would be time.
She persuaded James, somehow, without words, to loosen his hold on her. She raised herself up while he settled onto his back, and she was quickly straddled on his waist, letting him stroke her hips. The sensation of his hands kneading into her skin sent a shiver up her spine, but it didn't stop what she was about to do.
Never breaking contact with his eyes, Theresa pulled his hands up off her hips and brought his fingers to the first button at the top of her blouse.
~RM