Mirror, Mirror

Mirror Mirror Chapter Thirty Seven
Disclaimers Apply

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… finally autumn again! *happy dance * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: Happy now? J Morgan: *gloke * Readers/Reviewers: Thank you for reading/reviewing as you can!

Professor Xavier closed his eyes and exhaled slowly. He wanted ten minutes to himself, he thought. Ten minutes without Emma niggling at his shields, without minor or major crises, without having to spend an ounce of effort worrying about anything at all. He could feel them all moving around him and if he let himself, he could extend that web of awareness further and deeper than any of them realized. For one tiny moment, something that seemed to be turning into a daily occurrence, he wished he could do it all over. He wished he could go back to the first days of his friendship with Eric, the first hours even. He would say something different, do something different, anything to make the path turn and take him away from everything for just a short while. As it was, the dreams were the worst. Dreams of what his life, the lives of his students would be like had he not worked with Magneto all those decades ago. Dreams that vacillated between pleasure and nightmare. _Don’t make this all about you, Charles, _ he chided himself. _That’s the first fault of a tragic hero… it’s all about them. _
“You’re not listening to me.”
He smiled genially and opened his eyes, favoring Jubilee with a kind look. “Jubilation, there’s not much I can do at this point. Remy is old enough to make his own choices and right now, he’s choosing to remove himself from the Institute for a while and do some work with another organization.” He waited; he knew it was coming.
Jubilee lurched to her feet, her hands fisted at her sides as she glared at her mentor. “That’s not right! Don’t you care that he might work with a group that’s, I don’t know, against us?” She wanted to stomp her foot but managed to restrain herself, settling instead for a slow, seething breath hissing between her teeth. When the Professor did not answer her, she pressed on. “He’s just doing this because he’s mad about me and Kurt. He can’t go back to the Guild,” she added, her voice ratcheting up a notch. “They’ll kill him!”
Professor Xavier moved around his desk to her, wishing he had taken two aspirin earlier instead of one. “Jubilee, you are familiar with the adage ‘If you love someone, let them go…’?”
“That,” she declared, dashing at the dears on her cheeks with the back of her hand, “is fucking stupid. Pardon my French. Why can’t you talk to him? He listens to you!”
“Remy has to make his own choices, Jubilee. He knows the risks well enough.” He paused, gauging his next words against what he knew to be her possible reaction. “This incident with Kurt, the breaking up beforehand… It was the impetus he needed to seek his own path. And if his path brings him back here, then that’s his choice as well.” He braced himself for her outburst, wincing as his neck cramped from the tension.
“That,” she said slowly, giving him an incredulous look, “is the most refried, pseudo-Zen bullshit I’ve heard in my entire life. And believe me,” she added, striding to the door of the upstairs study, “I’ve heard some prize winning shit.”
“Jubilee,” he called gently, “try to clear your mind. You’re due in the Danger Room in half an hour and you’re scheduled with Todd.” Her defiant snort as the door slammed only punctuated his headache. Logan and Mark, he knew, were down in the hangar, gathering whatever they needed for their second attempt. Jono was back in the basement as if he had never left. Out there somewhere was Paige, somewhere Cerebro could not find her. It was about time for his daily phone call from the Guthries, he noticed, wheeling closer to the phone. It was easy to hate Magneto now, he thought. It was easy to blame him for all of this, from Essex on down, but he knew it went deeper than that. Even without Magneto there would be the Friends of Humanity, in some form or other. The folded paper on his desk proclaimed the rally coming that evening, a proudly smiling Graydon Creed standing before the banner strung up on the community college’s balcony, overlooking the courtyard where the meeting was to be held. Tapping a finger idly on the picture, Professor Xavier sighed. _Breaking up the gathering would only make us targets. And it’s their right to think and do this, so long as it’s peaceful… _ He paused, a slight smile curling his lip. “But I’d really like to slap them all around for a while…”
“Professor Xavier?” The knock fell on the door at the same time as the words, preceding Saint John. “Someone’s downstairs for you. She won’t come up. Says she refuses to bow to your will…” He shook his head and rolled his eyes. “She’s waiting in the front hall and scaring some of the younger kids.” He paused, his demeanor changing slightly from confident and typically Saint John to slightly uncertain. “And, later… can I talk to you? I need some advice.”
“Of course,” the Professor soothed. “Did this woman give a name?” he asked, getting back to the original topic. “Or an organization?”
“Nope,” the teenager sighed, “but I think she’s a Morlock.”
“Why’s that?” he asked, hurriedly rerouting his office phone to the downstairs study with a few taps on the keypad.
Saint John shuddered theatrically. “It looks like her spine is coming through her skin!”
“Not all visible mutants are Morlocks,” he scolded gently, following Saint John into the hall. He knew better, though. He knew exactly who it was. “Please go see to it that Storm received my notice about Jubilee missing class due to a meeting with me,” he said, effectively dismissing Saint John as they reached the elevator door. “I’ll be in the downstairs study for the rest of the afternoon.”