The Weight of Water
Rating: PG13
Pairing: Sara Side (CSI) / Professor Xavier (X-Men movieverse)
Spoilers: Takes place near the end of season three for CSI, and after X-Men2.
Feedback: Makes my day
Disclaimer: If it was in the show, it's not mine.
Archive: At my site Checkmate (http://helsinkibaby.ahkay.net)
Summary: Sara has a visitor
Notes: For the Pairings That Ate Fandom Challenge, Round Three. All trollprincess’s fault.
Walking from the parking lot to the CSI lab, Sara reached up and rubbed the back of her neck, hoping against hope that the gesture would ease some of the tension that she felt there. Not that she held out any great hopes of that; said tension had been there all week, ever since she and Nick and Catherine had been investigating a rape-homicide, a case that had precious little evidence to begin with, and which, if possible, had even less when a second home had been broken into, four blocks away, using the exact same MO. Which was what Nick was complaining about as they walked.
“A second crime scene,” he was saying. “We’re supposed to have more evidence, not less…”
He might have been looking for a response, but Sara couldn’t come up with one, left it for Catherine to pick up. “Them’s the breaks Nicky,” the older woman said, sounding every bit as tired as Sara felt. “We’ll process what we have… see what we can find… and if all else fails, we’ll go home, catch an hour of sleep, and look at it with fresh eyes later.”
That hour of sleep was sounding mighty good to Sara, though she wouldn’t mind a few more tacked onto it, so she grinned with considerable empathy when Nick all but begged, “Why later? What’s wrong with now?”
Even Catherine seemed to agree, chuckling dryly as she led the way into reception. “Log first,” she said. “Sleep later.”
Nick muttered something that sounded suspiciously like, “Slave driver,” and Sara fought back a smile, something that became much easier when she’d taken a couple of steps into reception. All at once, it was as if every hair on her body was standing on end, an almost electric charge running the length of her spine. She stopped dead, tightened her grip on the evidence she was holding, suddenly afraid that she was going to drop it, and she barely heard Nick’s expression of surprise when he had to stop short to avoid walking into her.
Instead, she turned her head slowly, finding, as she knew she would, a pair of dark eyes looking at her. It was a familiar face, albeit one she hadn’t seen in quite some time, serious eyes, aquiline nose, craggy features that were capable of either harsh severity or absolute tenderness. In her time, she’d seen both, and everything in between, but today, his face was blank, carefully inscrutable as, with the push of a lever, he manoeuvred his wheelchair towards her.
“Sara, you ok?” Nick asked, at the same time as her visitor said, “Sara. You look well.”
She couldn’t answer Nick, could only focus on the man in front of her. “Professor,” she said, surprise ringing clearly in her voice. “What are you doing here?” Too late, she realised how that sounded, especially when Nick stepped just a little closer to her, close enough that she had no trouble hearing him, couldn’t ignore him.
“Sara?” he asked, his voice hovering somewhere between concern and implicit threat. “Everything ok?”
“Everything’s fine Nick,” Sara said, forcing herself to look at him, away from the sudden upward quirk of a pair of lips, a pair of eyes that sparked in momentary amusement. “This is Professor Charles Xavier… Professor, this is Nick Stokes… Catherine Willows. We work together.” Which was somewhat obvious she realised, especially when Nick gave her one of those looks of his, and she knew she should have been more embarrassed over it, but she was more than a little flustered at two parts of her life colliding like this, and, from the look in Xavier’s eyes, he might have realised that.
He didn’t call her on it though, just nodded. “I was rather hoping we could talk,” he said, and something about the way he said it made Sara’s insides twist, but not as much as his next words. “It’s about Jean.”
Sara was a trained CSI, a trained interrogator, able to discern the most minute of changes in someone’s voice. Though no-one else would have been able to, she heard the waver in Xavier’s voice when he said the other woman’s name, and she saw the flash of pain in his eyes that went along with it. She noticed other things too; how his features were more drawn than usual, how the lines in his face seemed deeper, that he seemed somehow smaller.
She noticed all these little things, and she knew.
She knew, and she nodded, looking down at the carton in her arms, barely aware that Catherine and Nick had moved away. “I have evidence,” she said mechanically. “This stuff has to be logged… it could take a while…”
Xavier nodded. “This is where I’m staying,” he told her, holding out a card. She took it, her fingertips barely making contact with the edges of the cardboard, noting that he was doing the same.
“I’ll be there,” she said, taking the card, sliding it into the back pocket of her jeans, stepping back, then turning, taking the same path that Catherine and Nick had taken. When she walked past the reception desk, she turned, wasn’t in the least bit surprised to see that Xavier hadn’t moved, hadn’t taken his eyes off her.
>*<*>*<
Sara finished logging the evidence faster than she might have thought, though she was well aware that that was only because Catherine and Nick stepped in to help her. Left to her own devices, she still would have been there at the start of the following shift, because she could hardly think straight. Bad enough that seeing Xavier had unleashed a thousand memories within her, she also had to deal with the conversation between Catherine and Nick she’d overheard.
Catherine’s had been the first voice. “-that accent,” she was saying in tones that can could only be described as rapturous. “I’d listen to him read the phone book.”
“If that’s what does it for you,” Nick quipped. “At least we know Sara’s always had a thing for older men.”
Catherine had laughed at that, and Sara had decided then that it was a good time to enter, pretending not to notice the suspiciously guilty looks on their faces. She logged evidence as best she could, considering that she wasn’t anywhere close to being on her game, pretended not to notice that the others had noticed it too. And when Nick had thrown down his pen, had stretched almost theatrically and declared that it was time to leave, she’d been, uncharacteristically, the first one out the door.
She’d gone to her car, had started to drive before she could change her mind, and she hadn’t stopped moving, not until she came to the door, raised her hand to knock. Only then did she stop, hand poised to rap on the door, and suddenly, absurdly, she couldn’t go through with it, didn’t want to walk through that door, face her past colliding with her present this way. She wanted to run down the hall, as far away from here as she possibly could, forget everything but her job and the life she’d made for herself in Vegas.
Then a voice sounded in her head, cultured English tones that were almost amused. “Come in Sara,” it said. “The door’s open.”
Sara dropped her hand as a rueful smile came to her lips. She should have known. Shaking her head, her hand fell to the door handle, and she pushed the door open, took a deep breath before walking in. Each step she took was measured, controlled, and she spent the first few seconds in the room admiring the view, the lights of Vegas stretching out all around them. It gave her time to collect herself before she looked at him, saw the way he was looking at her. She smiled self-consciously, wrapping her arms around herself, suddenly wishing she hadn’t left her jacket in the car. “Nice room,” she said, laying her purse on the dressing table, and he inclined his head in acknowledgement.
“I took the liberty of ordering breakfast,” he said, extending a hand towards the table, where an array of food was spread out. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like… there’s fruit, danishes… some cereals I think…”
“I could use some coffee,” Sara said, a small smile springing to her lips, because this, at least, was good familiar ground. “Do you have coffee?”
He opened his mouth in a silent “ah”, smiling as well. “I have tea,” he said simply, because he didn’t drink coffee, never could stand the stuff.
“Earl Grey, hot?” Sara asked, remembering it well, and Xavier tilted his head in acknowledgement.
“What else?” he asked, moving to the table, reaching for the teapot. “You’ll have some?”
“Thank you.” For a few moments, the only noises in the room were the chink of china, the splashing of the tea in the bottom of the cup, the heavy thud of the pot as it was set back down. Then two cups were poured, were sitting on the table, and they each had to move, to look at one another, say something, anything, to one another.
It was Sara who broke the silence.
“She’s dead, isn’t she?”
The words invaded the space between them, hung there, heavy and cloying, but not so dense that Sara didn’t see the look on Xavier’s face. He looked as if he’d been slapped, though he reined his emotions in quickly, his usual sangfroid returning so rapidly that Sara could have been forgiven for thinking that she’d imagined it. But then he spoke, unmistakable sorrow in his voice, and she knew she hadn’t.
“Yes.”
She’d known, Sara told herself. Had known something was wrong the second she’d seen him where he had absolutely no call to be, had known Jean was dead the moment he’d spoken her name. Still, having it confirmed rocked her to her core, and she had to look down at the thick white carpet, concentrating on what pattern of the fibres she could see, before she could look back up at him again.
“How?” Her voice was very quiet, practically a whisper, and his was just as quiet when he answered.
“There was an attack,” he said slowly. “On the school. Some of the children were taken… and I was captured. By a Colonel Stryker.” He swallowed hard at the name. “Stryker was extremely anti-Mutant… and he wanted me… he wanted to force me to use Cerebro to wipe us all out.”
Once again, Sara wished for her jacket, because she felt cold all over. Cerebro, the Professor’s machine that allowed him to keep track of every Mutant on the planet, see where they were, turned against them, used for evil instead of good… it didn’t bear thinking about.
“We were held in an underground facility at
Water.
Tonnes upon tonnes of white water, pushing at its barrier, breaking through,
cascading with force across white land, white on white, dangerous, destructive,
destroying, death a certainty…
Sara shivered, and Xavier kept on talking.
“We got to the jet, but something was wrong… the thrusters weren’t working, so we couldn’t take off… Jean…” His voice faltered on the name. “Jean went outside… she used her powers to deflect the water around us… to raise the ship into the air… she saved us.”
Sara’s jaw dropped, and she leaned heavily on a chair, very afraid that her knees weren’t going to hold her up. When she knew Jean Grey, Jean had been quiet, timid when it came to her powers, even though it was clear to everyone that her potential was enormous, and it had been whispered, quietly, always quietly, that she could one day be as powerful as the Professor himself.
“God…” she whispered now. “She could do that?”
“Oh yes.” Xavier nodded slowly. “There were a great many things that Jean would have been able to accomplish… had she trusted herself more…”
He trailed off, lost in thought, and Sara drew in a deep breath. “She saved you all…” she murmured, more to herself than him, but he nodded.
“We could have saved her,” he said, and she looked at him sharply, narrowed her eyes. “We had another with us… Nightcrawler, a teleporter… she wouldn’t let him. She spoke to us… through me… told us that she had to do it…”
“I know what I’m doing… this is the only way…”
Sara didn’t know she was speaking aloud until she realised that Xavier was staring at her, mouth agape. “How did you-” he began, unable to say any more, and she reached up slowly, tapped her right temple with her index finger.
“I dreamed it.”
The words didn’t do anything to soothe the Professor’s mind, not if the tone of his voice was anything to go by. “Dreamed it?” he echoed. “I thought-”
“They don’t come often,” she told him, cutting across him, and it happened to be true. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she noted how odd it was to be talking about this with anyone, because it was something that she tried very hard to forget, to ignore. But he knew about the dreams, because they were the reason that she’d come into his life, as a scared out of her mind sixteen year old whose dreams had developed an eerie habit of coming true. Which was fine when it came to knowing what to study for her English mid-term, but not as welcome when they woke her up at night, screaming over some nightmare that she’d had, the dreams nowhere near as frightening as the reality of opening the newspaper the next day, or the day after that, seeing what she’d dreamed in vivid colour written down in cold black and white.
It had been one of the few times she was
relieved to have parents like hers, ex-hippies who weren’t freaked out by what
was happening to their daughter, who didn’t cart her off to a doctor, throw her
in a loony bin with white padded walls. No, George and Annie Sidle knew enough
to make an educated guess about what was going on, had made enquiries about
where they could go to get help. Enquiries that had led them to
She’d been so scared walking into that study, those walls lined with books, the big wooden desk, the whole place screaming serious formality, so at odds with the free and easy pace at the Sidle family B&B. And on first glance, she’d been cowed by the man behind the desk, with those dark eyes, that craggy face, but he’d talked to her, put her at ease, and he’d diagnosed her in less than five minutes.
A genetic mutation, leading to precognition, and possible latent telepathy.
Her parents had left that day, but she’d stayed, had stayed for six months, and in that time, one of her closest friends, the one that Xavier had asked to show her around, was Jean Grey. Several years older than Sara, studying to be a doctor, Sara had been intimidated by the tall brunette, who seemed so composed, so sure of herself, so at ease with her powers. It was only later that Sara had realised what a carefully constructed façade that was, but it hadn’t made her think any the less of Jean. On the contrary, it only increased her admiration for her.
Jean had already been inducted into the Professor’s inner circle by then, his band of X-Men as they were known, and she’d told Sara that, with her powers, she could one day join them. If she could learn to harness it, Jean would say, what an advantage she could have, seeing the future at will, discovering evil, stamping it out before it even happened.
Fine words, and a fine ideal, but not what Sara had wanted.
Because the one thing she learned above all
others during her time at the school was that that life wasn’t for her. That
much as she might have railed against her parents, much as they might not have
understood her, much as she might have felt an outsider in
So she stayed at the school, and she learned enough to keep the dreams at bay, but no more than that.
Then she went home.
She kept in touch though, visited every year, to touch base with her friends, also so that Xavier and Jean could monitor her, make sure that nothing untoward was going on in that brain of hers.
It was a nice place to visit, but, as the saying went, she could never live there.
“But they still come?” Xavier asked now, drawing her back to reality, and she nodded.
“Sometimes.” Just enough to remind her that her ability –she refused to call it a gift; gifts, as far as she was concerned, were something that you wanted - wasn’t going away. Times when she woke up gasping, having seen something grisly as if she was standing right in the room when it was going on, leading to times when she walked into a crime scene, realised she’d been there before and knew exactly what had happened. The guys always wondered why she could get by on so little sleep, didn’t know that it was because she was afraid of what she might see.
“What did you-?”
“Water… coming towards me… moving around me… and her voice…” Sara looked down, swallowed hard against the sudden dryness in her throat. Anything to buy her some time to recover her composure, she reached for the teacup nearest her, took a sip from it. Boiling hot, it seared down her throat, made her wince… but she wondered, was it the heat of the tea, or guilt stabbing her like a needle that caused the wince? “I meant to call her… but we had a case, and then I couldn’t get through…” She hadn’t thought anything of it at the time; she knew better now.
She heard the clink of china on china, knew that Xavier was using the same trick as she was, for the same reason. Closing her eyes, she took a deep breath, laying the cup back down on the table.
Then she looked over to him again, found him watching her, and once more, her voice broke the silence.
“Why did you come here Professor?” It was a serious question, but it caused a funny smile to spread across his face, and he even chuckled, bringing a finger to his lips as if to keep it at bay. “What?”
“Professor,” he said, and suddenly, he didn’t seem to find it funny anymore. “I had hoped… with everything we’ve been to one another… that you might at least call me Charles.”
She wanted to look away, but she couldn’t, heated memory flooding through her, locking their gazes. Her throat was dry as the desert when she spoke, and all she could do was repeat her question. “Why did you come here?”
“I wanted to tell you in person,” he said simply, after a long pause. “I felt like I owed that to you… to her…” She had a sudden memory flash, an image of her and Jean at the school, talking on one of the couches in the living room, the two of them smiling and laughing. She looked young in it, her hair curling halfway down her back, and Jean looked young too, which meant that it was one of the many conversations they’d had back when things were simpler between them, back when she was in high school, or maybe even college. She couldn’t remember what the conversation was about, and she wondered for a second if it was her memory, or someone else’s, shook her head to dislodge it. “You were so close…” he concluded quietly, and Sara smiled sadly.
“Once,” was all she said.
“Something happened between you.” It was a statement, not a question, and Sara nodded.
“I don’t think she ever really believed that I wouldn’t join the X-Men one day,” she said quietly. “Then, when I became a CSI… she understood that I was fighting evil my own way… but I think there was a part of her that would rather I’d done it there.”
Xavier narrowed his eyes. “But that’s not the whole truth… is it?”
Sara sighed, shook her head. “No. Things got strained when she found out about you and me…” A slight smile appeared on his lips, and she shrugged, her cheeks burning. “She had… concerns.”
At that, he actually laughed. “She was hardly the only one,” he countered. “As I recall, I also had… concerns.” He paused before the word, just as she had, gave it the same inflection as she had. “You just refused to take no for an answer.”
Sara laughed too, suddenly glad that Catherine and Nick weren’t privy to this conversation, in light of Nick’s earlier comment about her attraction to older men. They would have had her dead to rights. “We kind of agreed never to speak of it… especially since the one time we did, we ended up screaming at one another… I told her that she had no room to talk about age gap relationships-” She stopped talking abruptly, one hand flying to her lips, all sense of levity forgotten. “Oh my God, Scott.” Xavier’s expression darkened, and Sara felt that cold creeping across her skin again, and it was all the more painful, because, in those few seconds, she’d been warm. “How is he?”
“Devastated.” He spoke quietly. “He keeps wondering if there was something that we could have done differently…” He looked down then, away from her, and Sara didn’t need telepathy to know what he was thinking.
“You couldn’t,” she told him firmly, but when he looked up at her, there was a world of pain in his eyes.
“That’s what I told Scott… and he didn’t contradict me. But still… I wonder…” They were whispered words that she knew he’d never shared with another, words that had her crossing the room to kneel beside his wheelchair, resting her hand on his arm. The material of his suit was scratchy and warm against the palm of her hand, and being so close to him, it was so easy to remember other times, other places…
Shaking herself, she looked into his eyes, finding untold pain there, but something else, burning under the surface. Ignoring that took all she had, and it was hard to speak, but she knew she had to. “There was nothing you could have done,” she said firmly. “Jean made a choice… she did what she did to save you… to save Scott and Storm and the kids… that’s what you’ve trained them their whole lives for. What better way is there to go?”
“Old in her bed… surrounded by Scott and their children,” he countered, and the stabbing pain that shot through her heart could have belonged to either of them.
“She gave her life for the people she loved,” Sara told him. “That’s to be honoured… you taught us that.”
“Sometimes…” His voice was so soft that even with their physical proximity, Sara could barely hear him. “Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t succeeded quite so well.”
“You can’t think like that.” He looked away, and she didn’t think about what she was doing, reached out with one hand and laid it on his cheek, turning his head so that once more, he was looking right into her eyes. “This was Jean’s decision,” she told him then. “And it’s not your fault Charles… it’s not.”
His face stayed troubled for a moment, then lightened, that same faint smile coming to his lips. She narrowed her eyes, wordlessly asking what he was thinking, and he copied her gesture before he spoke, raising his hand to her cheek. “Finally,” he said. “You called me Charles.”
Sara felt her cheeks burn, and she wasn’t sure if it was from his words or his touch, and if it was the latter, was it his touch today or in memory. Either way, she smiled, shrugged a shoulder, but she didn’t drop her hand from his face. Her thumb moved up and down across the skin of his cheek, and when he mimicked the movement, her eyes fluttered shut of their own accord. When she opened them again, it was no real surprise to her that she’d leaned forward, or that maybe he had, but they were closer to one another than they had been before, their lips so close that they were almost touching.
Closing the gap was inevitable.
The kiss was what she remembered all their first kisses being; measured, tentative, as if he was afraid that she was going to pull away from him, as if she was afraid of the same thing. Their lips moved against one another as she wound her arms around his neck, dimly aware that he was pulling her closer to him as well, and she wasn’t sure if she moved herself, or if he moved her, but somehow, someway, she was no longer kneeling on the floor beside him, was on his lap, as close to him as she could get. The realisation had her sighing into his mouth, taking advantage of that to trace the path of his upper lip with her tongue, seeking entrance, smiling against his lips when he granted her permission.
Gradually, she became aware that Xavier was seeking access himself, and slowly, carefully, she let him in, dropping inch by inch her guards, the blocks that she used to keep people from getting too close to her, from letting her get too close to them. Strong, nigh on impenetrable from years of keeping people out, it was always hard for her to let them go, fearful that she would be swamped by another’s thoughts, drowning beneath them like the water she’d dreamed of from Alkali Lake.
It was never like that with him though. Powerful as he was, he was careful with her; not flood water, raging and destructive. Rather, rain water rolling along pavement, finding each crack and crevice, filling them, pulling in its wake all the flotsam and jetsam of her life, bringing them to one place, bringing them together into a seamless whole. There was no conflict there, no pain, just smooth clear water, endless joyful ripples along its surface. It was a place of peace and contentment and pure sensation, a place where she could feel his hands moving across her body, but could also feel what he felt, how her skin felt against his palms. Likewise, when her hands moved over his body, when his fingers threaded through her hair, she could feel both sides, wasn’t sure where she ended and he began, didn’t care all that much.
All she knew that was here, in this moment, she was accepted, she was cherished.
And when that knowledge rolled down her cheek, he was there to brush it away.
>*<*>*<
Sara was flying. No, she realised, not flying, but hovering, suspended in the air. She should have been scared, because humans weren’t supposed to fly, let alone stand in midair like she was doing, but she wasn’t scared. She wasn’t scared because he was beside her, his hand in hers, and he would never let anything happen to her. She looked down, frowning when she saw the white hills, the calm water below them, miles and miles of water, going as far as the eye could see. She’d never been here, but she’d seen this place before, and she didn’t know why she was here now.
She turned to him, ready to ask him, but he wasn’t looking at her, was looking at the surface of the lake. “Wait,” he said, holding up a hand. “It won’t be long now.”
Sara was all ready to ask what, but then she saw it.
A shape, vague, but undeniable. Something huge, moving underneath the surface of the water. Something huge and powerful, because latent telepathy be damned, this, whatever it was, had power greater than anything she’d ever felt and it was growing and evolving and coming closer to the surface and it was just about to break through…
Sara woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed. Eyes wide, she stared around her, reassuring herself that there was something solid beneath her, that she was not out in the open air, but that neither was she in her bedroom. She was in someone else’s bedroom, and things began to fall into place, falling much more quickly when she heard a voice in her head.
“So… you’ve seen it too.”
Shaking, she turned to look down at him, pulling the sheet closer around her naked body as she did so. It did nothing to warm her, because while prophecy dreams always had her waking like that, as if her body had been doused in freezing cold water, she’d never had a dream quite that real, that powerful, before. But he knew something about what she’d seen , whatever it was, and if she were a betting woman, Sara would bet that that had something to do with how vivid the dream had been. She didn’t speak, didn’t have to, when she asked him, “What was that?”
Nor did he speak when he replied. “I don’t know.” She narrowed her eyes, sure that he must know more than that, but the notion only lasted a moment because she could feel him in her mind, could feel his doubt, his uncertainty. The fact that he was troubled enough to let her know that, even in this most intimate of events, more than anything else told her that he was speaking honestly.
At his words, a chill ran down her spine
like cold rain water. “That was
“I don’t know.” Laying a hand on her back, he moved it up and down slowly, lost in thought for a moment, and Sara’s mind was flooded with images; a jet that wouldn’t fly, the sound of tonnes of water rumbling towards them, the smell of panic, Scott shouting, crying, Jean saying goodbye, Charles’s pain…
She must have made some sort of noise, because suddenly, instantly, the images stopped, like water shut off from a faucet, and there was only Charles, pulling her close, her skin against his, his lips against her temple, his voice in her head a whispered apology, the only emotions concern for her, along with a dash of guilt, and somewhere, somewhere far under the surface, a sliver of hope.
When she could open her eyes again, could think, she ignored the concern, the guilt, concentrated instead on the hope. “She couldn’t have survived,” she whispered, speaking out loud, because she needed to hear the words herself, needed that to block out what her heart wanted her to believe. “Charles, you saw the water… there’s no way she survived…”
His eyes never wavered, his face never changed, and his voice sounded in her head. “And you shouldn’t have been able to see what you saw… and you shouldn’t hear me now.”
She sighed, allowing him to pull her down, pressing herself closer against him, pulling the sheet around them both. She was cold again, but not as cold as she had been, and his fingers, running through her hair, spread warmth in their wake. “Does Scott…” she began and he shook his head.
“What should I tell him?” he asked, speaking aloud now too. “That I have a feeling that she’s out there… somewhere… some way? That you dreamed something similar?” Put so plainly, she could see his point.
And yet… she couldn’t shake the feeling that she would want to know.
“You’ll tell me, won’t you?” she asked him. “If you find out anything else…”
He gave her one of his looks, the kind that told her without words, without thought, that it was a ridiculous question. “And you, of course…”
“Of course.” Twin smiles were on their lips until Sara yawned. Her cheeks flushed with embarrassment, and he chuckled. “Go to sleep,” he told her.
“I have work…”
She was trying to look at the clock, but he pulled her down again, saying, “You have time.” She didn’t resist for long, resting her head on his shoulder, closing her eyes. “Go to sleep,” he repeated. “I’ll wake you in a couple of hours.”
Within minutes, Sara was sleeping dreamlessly.
>*<*>*<
Walking into the crime lab later that same day was something of a surreal experience for Sara, and not just in the normal just-had-a-prophecy-dream kind of way. It was as if she was there, but not really there, looking at everything through a haze. She’d felt a little like that since she first woke up, a shower and breakfast – fresh tea and fresh fruit – had done nothing to alleviate her symptoms. She knew that it would pass; it always did, but she’d never before had a prophecy dream while her mind was linked with Xavier’s, figured that his powers had acted like an antenna, intensifying the images that she’d seen.
That was the theory at any rate, but she was the first to admit that she was going purely on guesswork.
She’d kissed Xavier goodbye, promising once again that she’d contact him if she had the same dream, promising also that she’d come to the school sometime soon. She wanted to see Scott and the others, was hoping too that the surroundings would help her to remember Jean, possibly even invite another dream, one where she could see more, help Xavier figure out what had was lurking underneath the waters of Alkali Lake.
First though, she realised, she had to make it through the next few days and weeks at work, something that was going to be hard to do if the look on Nick’s face when she walked into the break room was any indication. He didn’t beat around the bush, lifting an eyebrow and smirking at her. “Those the same clothes you were wearing yesterday?” he wondered, and she rolled her eyes, choosing to ignore his laughter, Catherine’s knowing smile, Greg’s confused expression as he watched her by-pass the coffee machine, going to the box of tea-bags instead.
“You’re drinking tea?” he asked, and Sara shrugged.
“Something wrong with that?”
“You never drink tea,” Greg pointed out, which lead to more laughter from Nick.
“And you look totally out of it,” he grinned. “Must’ve been some date.” Greg’s ears pricked up at that. “Date?” he asked, but Nick didn’t pause, kept right on talking, wondering “What did the two of you get up to anyway?”
On a different day, she would have given him a smart answer, or one of her patented death glares. Today, however, she just glanced at him, then at Catherine, the perfect answer coming easily. “We read the phone book.”
Catherine had the grace to look abashed, Nick just looking guilty. “You heard that, huh?” the other woman asked, and Sara grinned.
“Yeah,” was all she said, making her cup of tea, taking a sip and just about managing not to make a face. Earl Grey it was not, and she remembered why she rarely drank the stuff. Looking up from the rim of her cup, she saw Catherine and Nick still looking guilty, saw Greg still looking mystified, and decided to put them out of their misery. “He’s an old friend,” she told them simply. “Here on some… unfinished business. There’s nothing going on.”
“Right.” Catherine’s scepticism was palpable, as was Nick’s.
“Uh-huh.”
“Seriously.” Sara looked each of them in the eye. “He had some news for me… about a mutual friend.” Her throat caught suddenly, unexpectedly, and she took another drink to cover it up, but it didn’t work, because her audience looked concerned.
“Everything ok?” Nick asked gently, and Sara shook her head.
“She died…” she said softly, her voice trailing off, and Nick looked stricken.
“Sara, if I’d known…”
“It’s fine, it’s fine.” She waved him off, shaking her head, trying to clear it. When that didn’t work, she shifted into work gear, looking at him and Catherine. “We should get started… we’ve got a lot of stuff to get through. You get that address Nick?”
“You don’t have to Sara-” Catherine began, Nick cutting across her with, “If you need some time-”
“It’s ok,” she said, finishing off the tea – which really was vile – in a few quick gulps. “I’m fine.” Moving to the sink, she began to rinse the cup, turning it quickly, letting the cold water cascade over it. As she did, it came back to her again.
White hills surrounding calm water, miles and miles of water, going as far as the eye could see.
A shape, vague, but undeniable.
Something huge, moving underneath the surface of the water, coming closer to the surface about to break through…
And breaking through the surface, through the guilt and the concern, that sliver of hope that Charles had felt that morning, expanding, mushrooming, breaking through like flood water through a dam, surrounding her, enveloping her, bathing her in its warmth.
She heard Catherine’s voice at her side, a hand on her shoulder bringing her back to reality. “Sara,” Catherine was saying, in a tone of voice that told Sara loud and clear that it wasn’t the first time she’d said it. “You ok?”
And Sara smiled, answered honestly. “I’m fine,” she said. “Let’s go to work.”
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