Fractals

Fractals Chapter Twenty Four (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply

A/ N Goddess Foxfeather , Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… *finally unshaken* InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly for archiving/hosting! :) ProPhile: The smutbunnies aren’t cooperating. Morgan: *glomp * Readers/Reviewers: I’m a bit unnerved lately so if this chapter is a bit… odd… well, blame RL. Thank you a million times over for reading/reviewing!


Lance loved Mondays. It was the one day he got to sleep in. His first class was not until nine thirty and he relished every second of sleep until his alarm went off at nine twenty five. He could sleep through Todd’s occasional shower, the off key singing, the comings and goings of the others in the hall and even the passionate make out session around eight am that involved odd vinyl squeaking noises and he did not want to consider overmuch. He was snuggled deep in his doze, curling his toes into the thick blanket over him, when he felt a shadow fall over his face. Before he could open his mouth, someone’s hand was over it and a knee was on his chest, pressing down hard. “Where,” Amara growled,” is my knife?”
Lance was torn between a sigh of relief and a growl of annoyance. He had an hour left to sleep! With a violent twist and pull, he knocked Amara onto her back and was on top of her, pinning her in turn. “What knife?”
“Do not,” she said softly, her eyes hard, “lie to me. I know you took it. You thought I was cutting again and instead of asking me, you took it and went to the Professor with it.”
Lance feigned guilelessness as he stared down at her. “I never…”
“Do not lie to me,” she repeated, her skin growing hot beneath his hands, her skin taking on an orange sheen, so subtle he was not sure that he even really saw it. When he did not move off of her, she said sternly, “That is an Order, Lance. You know what happens when you disobey me.”
Lance froze and slid off of her. Sometimes, it was easy to forget the nature of things between them, especially since no one seemed to understand it. He had tried to explain it to Todd on occasion but he could not wrap his mind around Lance’s willingness to obey Amara. With a sigh, he rubbed sleep from his eyes and sat up. “Amara,” he said seriously, wishing he had a cigarette before doing this, “let me see your arms.”
Her eyes became hard and something seemed to close off inside her. “You do not trust me,” she said flatly. “I am offended.” She was off the bed and on her feet so quickly that Lance barely had time to realize she had moved before she was at the door. “I do not reward suspicion with blind obedience.” The slamming of the door jarred his very teeth when she left, not even looking back.
“Fuck…”

Amara was missing her math class, but she did not care. She was fuming inside, the fire barely restrained beneath her skin. She had noticed the knife missing on Saturday, after Lance left her to get dressed. She had waited this long out of the misplaced hope that he would return it or that maybe she was just absent minded and had placed it somewhere different and forgotten. The final straw was the note stuck to her seat in her first class of the day, biology. It was a request from the Professor to please come see him during lunch, that he wished to discuss something important with her. She knew then, knew in her bones, what Lance thought. Part of her wanted to be cutting again, just to show him, but she bit back that urge and sat heavily in one of the overstuffed library chairs, waiting. She had not intended to waste time when she skipped class but Lance’s room had been on the way to the library and her anger had just boiled to the surface. Sighing, Amara slid down in the chair in a most unroyal manner, tapping her toes together in a rhythm reminiscent of a heartbeat as she closed her eyes. _One thing at a time, _ she told herself. _The knife can wait. And Lance… he will have to be reminded of the rules… _
“Hey!” Jubilee flopped down in the chair opposite Amara, dropping her heavy book bag onto the floor with a loud thud, books skittering out of it in disarray.
Amara opened one eye. “If this noise level is an example of your usual attitude towards thiever’m s’m surprised you survived as long as you did on the streets.”
Jubilee narrowed her eyes. “I’ve just spent the morning with Rahne and Logan. I’m not in a good mood and if you piss me off, I’m not giving this to you.”
“Remy was looking for you,” Amara said idly, sitting up. Her eyes had a faintly predatory gleam as she leaned forward. “Whatever for?” Then more casually, “He seemed in a terrible hurry.”
Jubilee pressed her lips together into a thin line. She knew when she was being baited and cursed Amara mentally for doing this to her. “Do you want to discuss my lover or do you want your fucking file?”
“My fucking file? I knew the record keeping here was thorough but…”
Jubilee bit back a snort. “Hell of a time to grow a sense of humor,” she sniped, reaching into her book bag and producing a thick paper file and two silver discs. “I got the hardcopy and the CDs. Now pay up.”
Amara ignored her for the moment, reaching for the coveted materials. “Let me see if this is the right one first,” she demanded.
Jubilee hesitated, then sighed, shoving it at her. “Might as well. I know where you sleep after all…” She popped her neck as she waited, trying not to think of Remy and failing. Stealing the files for Amara had been ridiculously easy and only served to distract her for five minutes or less. Her insides ached and she felt like crying. Logan had fixed her with a look when he got in the car and said she stank of cologne, not even asking where Remy was though she knew he could recognize the scent. Rahne had been marginally better, her silence sympathetic rather than bored or disinterested. _Logan knew, _ she thought to herself. _He knew Remy was leaving. That motherfucking son of a bitch knew… _ She was snapped out of her reverie by Amara’s startled gasp. “Paper cut?”
“It’s here,” she breathed, bent over the open paper files, her nose practically pressed to it. “Which CD is the first one?”
“What? Oh… here,” Jubilee picked up one of the discs and handed it to Amara. “What the hell is so interesting about that map? It’s South America. You’ve seen it before in Storm’s geography class.” She trailed Amara to the computer, sighing in aggravation as the Nova Roman stared dumbly at the machine. “Here, give it here…”
Amara jittered like a child as Jubilee shoved the CD into the drawer and brought up the file with the map in it. “There,” she said, her voice shaking. “Damn it, where’s Kitty when you need her…”
Jubilee shrugged. “It’s a map…”
“Can you make that picture thing on the side bigger?”
Jubilee clicked on it and flinched as the picture on screen disappeared, then reappeared as the map overlayed with a photograph. A tiny speck of an island, so small she almost mistook it for an error, was circled in bright yellow. It was a good distance off the coast of South America, so far that she wondered if it had ever been inhabited. “Amara, what the fuck is wrong with you?” she finally asked as the Nova Roman breathed down her neck. “Back off…”
Amara reached out and pressed her finger reverently to the screen over the dot. “I’ve been looking, I’ve been looking for so long… I didn’t even think about my files until yesterday. All the things they know about us, of course someone would have known, or tried to know…”
A light went on in Jubilee’s head. “Is that… Nova Roma?”
Amara nodded. “I… I think so.” Her earlier foul mood was gone. She felt like sinking through the floor in pure bliss. “I think it is.”