The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea Chapter Sixty Six—Epilogue (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply


A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta…the tribe has spoken. Jamie/Rahne it is… InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink and Dracena are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting! :) ProPhile: More smut soon, I promise. Morgan: You okay? Readers/Reviewers: I know there’s going to be some loose ends here but it’ll pick up again in the next story. Continuity and all… *GLOMP * Thank you soooooo much for sticking with me on this!!!

Professor Xavier sighed as the burn of the brandy still sang in his throat. It had been a long night and was looking as if tomorrow would be a long day. “Emma, be a dear and decant the port, would you?”
The bottle lifted and uncorked, tilting to pour into a crystal decanter. “Charles,” she said from her place on the fainting couch, well away from the port, “have you lost your mind?”
“Not yet,” he replied after the briefest hesitation. “Port, Sean?”
The Irishman did not respond verbally but shook his head, his eyes pressed tightly closed. Logan spoke, though, after another few minutes of silence. “I’m with Emma, Chuckles. You’re fucking crazy.”
“It worked, didn’t it?” he responded mildly. “Logan, be a dear and open the door for Ororo, would you?”
Logan acknowledged the Professor’s mildly tipsy request with a raised brow but acquiesced nonetheless. Storm sailed into the room, her long cape fluttering behind her and bespeaking a recent return. “The children,” she sighed, “are settled. Seven of the new students’ parents called and withdrew them from the school bu had had six more call and say they know the secret and want to enroll...” She accepted the tumbler of port hovering before her with a grateful sigh. “I may scream soon.”
Sean snorted bitterly. “Join the club.”
Professor Xavier drained the tumbler and set it on his desk. “The fact remains, whether we like it or not, we have a new layer to our deception which we must keep up with. I don’t like it but I do not want the public finding out about us in this way. It will be difficult enough as it is without the first widely seen image of the childrenng fng fighting Sentinels!”
Logan passed a hand across his stubble-dark jaw. “Chuck… this is too big now. No way can we stay secret anymore. The herd is stupid but not that stupid…”
“Magneto,” Sean began slowly, trying to formulate a response that did not include the word ‘fuck’ several times over, “did his job well. We’re out there now. We’re in the open.” He finally opened his eyes and pinned Professor Xavier with a look akin to a glare. “No amount of bullshit or money or psychic brainwashing will cover this up, Charles. Magneto knows. His little group of idiots knows. Some people, somewhere in the world, know and won’t be bought or erased. This is the beginning of the end…” He bit his tongue on the rest of what he was going to say, turning his face away from the steady gaze of the older man. After the briefest hesitation, he added, “I don’t care for myself. I can deal with it. It’s Theresa I’m worried about. My…anger…is because she is barely accepting being a mutant herself, barely accepting being one without having a price exacted for it as Black Tom did. Now, she’s going to have to deal with it in front of the world.”
Storm set her glass down and spoke softly. “To be fair, Sean, she is not going to have to deal with it in front of the world. None of them are. We will protect them until our last breath if it comes to it. They may be powerful but they are still children.”
“Not to those freaks out there,” Logan bit out. “Not to the ones who aren’t mutants or the ones who don’t have a loved one who’s a mutant. To them, they’re monsters, menaces, nightmares…”
Emma exhaled slowly. She found it hard to picture someone like Kurt or Kitty a nightmare but then, she thought ruefully, she was at a disadvantage. “I think we’re overworrying. It’s over. The news stations and papers that covered it are issuing retractions immediately and that annoying radio station in the city is already making fun of this, calling Charles an eccentric surpassing Howard Hughes because of his elaborate toys.” She narrowed her eyes. “And for the record, my house is not Baroque!”
Professor Xavier smiled slightly. “The workers will be at Frost Manor in the morning to begin repairs, Emma. Would you like some of the students to help?”
“No,” she responded quickly. “Firestar is help enough. She’ll be supervising them… I need to find that girl a better job than ‘lackey’ though.”
Sean glared, unable to switch gears from anger to calm so easily as the others. “I don’t believe the lot of you, thinking this will go away so easily!”
“We don’t,” Logan cut him off, “but at this point, we don’t have a choice. Nothing we do can stop it now. If it comes out, it’s out.” He shoved himself away from the desk, draining the last of the alcohol from the crystal in his hand and setting it negligently on the corner of the old oak desk. “Right now, I’m more worried about where the Brotherhood hared off to. Wanda’s damn near impossible to pin down… Tabby thinks she’s feeling guilty about missing the bulk of the fight. We got Belladonna coming in tomorrow for that kid and I’m expecting a fight outta Remy over that and Kitty told me she saw someone skulkin’ round earlier on the perimeter that might’ve been Pietro. If so, I wonder why he wasn’t with his dear old dad…”
Professor Xavier held up a staying hand. “It’s after midnight. We have a very long day ahead of us tomorrow. The children did well enough at the press conference to allay suspicions for a little while but we will most certainly be under scrutiny. I suggest we go about life as normally as possible but, please, keep triggers to the minimum. Don’t bring the jet out of the hangar, no outdoor power control practice, keep a close eye on any and all excursions off the grounds. No one leaves here without an adult chaperone. No one.”
Storm nodded. “I’ll go make the final rounds of the sleeping quarters and check the doors.”
Sean shoved himself to his feet, still frowning. “I’m driving Rahne to the airport in the morning. I guess I’ll get some rest…” He lingered for a moment, halfway hoping for some further instructions but getting none, slumped from the room. Logan trailed after Storm and soon, Emma was the only one who remained before the Professor.
“The Boston school won’t open until the spring now,” she sighed, sounding almost relieved. “I’ve notified the parents of the delay and some of them are calling here this week to assay the possibility of starting their children here and switching schools in January.” She nodded mostly to herself and pressed on. “I saw Jean in the kitchen earlier… she and Scott are still not on friendly terms, it seems.”
“They are…seeking themselves, I believe.” Professor Xavier sighed and closed his eyes, looking much older than his years for a fleeting moment. “We were put between the devil and the deep blue sea here. We had to expose powers… The Sentinels are still an unknown commodity and I am not sure why they stopped attacking as they did. The children want to believe it is because they could not compete against the mutations but… Something else is at work. Magneto seemed shocked that the battle ceased so quickly and readily.”
“Do you expect more problems later?”
“Yes. Yes I do…” He opened his eyes and sighed as he looked steadily at her. “Go to bed, Emma. Tomorrow is going to be a very long day.”