A Laying On Of Hands: Part Seventeen

by Cascade

"Damn! Damn! Damn!" Sam spit out a string of expletives and started to follow Dana but Tabitha still was holding onto his arm, and wouldn't let go.

"What was that about?" Tabitha asked dangerously, her eyes searching him.

"Ah'll tell ya later Tabitha." He tried to free himself from her grip.

"No. You'll tell me now. Who was that, and what did she mean?" Her hand tightened on his arm, and he knew there was no way out.

"That was Dana Hawkes, and I..." He started.

"Samuel Zachary Guthrie! That was the most heartless thing I've ever seen you do! What would Mama say?" Paige Guthrie lowered her voice. "What would Papa say?"

Sam used Paige's unexpected entrance to free himself from Tabitha.

He backed away from both women slowly. "Ah'm sorry..." He turned and fled from them up towards the women's dorms. "Ah've gotta go fix this."

"Dana! Please, Ah've gotta talk to you!" Sam's voice was muffled a bit by the door, but Dana heard it clear enough. It was the words she both longed, and hated to hear.

She slowly pushed herself to her knees and crawled to the door.

"Dana, can Ah come in?"

She ground her teeth against the cry that threatened to leave her, and hauled herself up to the level of the doorknob and locked it.

"Dana!" Sam exclaimed at the sound of the lock clicking.

She fell back to the floor and hugged her knees to her chest. "Sam, just go away." Her voice was remarkably even.

"Dana, dammit! Ah love you!" He pounded on the door once for emphasis.

She moaned at the utterance of the three words, and the tears that she thought that she had under control spilled down her cheeks again. "You do not!" she shouted back. "If you loved me you would have never even thought about kissing her." Her last few words were barely distinguishable from the sobs that had overtaken her again.

"Dana," his voice softened, and she heard him kneel outside her door. "Ah made a mistake. Ah was weak. Ah'm so sorry for hurting you. Ah never meant..."

"Yeah... well don't let guilt over me get in the way of a 'happily ever after' for you and Tabitha Smith." She spat out the words with venom, knowing it would hurt him and not caring if it did.

She heard him rise from outside her door slowly, and walk hesitatingly back down the hall.

"Sam! I want an explanation!" Tabitha approached him as he came back down the stairs. "What's wrong? Are you crying?"

Sam wiped a hand across his eyes and flinched visibly as he saw Cable striding across the room toward him. He was fixing a glare on Sam that brought Sam perilously close to trembling with fear. He'd never been on the receiving end of such a angry gaze before.

Sam squeezed his eyes shut and found his sister. She put an arm around him consolingly, but shook her head at him as well. "You blew it Sam."

"She wouldn't even open the door." He leaned into Paige for support. His knees felt weak. "Oh, God! Ah messed up. Ah lost her for good."

"Sam! So help me, if someone doesn't tell me what's going on, you and I are through!" Tabitha stepped around in front of Sam again.

He shook his head sadly at her. "You and Ah were already through. Ah thought you didn't want to see me anymore. Ah thought we had just drifted apart, and Ah fell in love..."

Tabitha was turning pale. "With her?" she finished for Sam. "You two-timing... What does she have that I don't? For that matter, what doesn't she have that I do?"

"Ah don't know. It may have been all in my head. She may have changed now into a completely different person... but she loved me once... she stayed here for me... Ah shouldn't have been willing to give that up without a fight." He'd stopped talking to Tabitha. He was talking to himself. His voice had faded to an inaudible whisper.

It was then that Cable made it to his side and hauled him bodily away from the two girls. "What in HELL did you do?"

Sam hung his head and didn't respond.

"You start talking, or so help me I'll pull what I need out of your head, and I guarantee it won't be as pleasant."

"Ah kissed Tabby and Dana saw," Sam mumbled, still not meeting Cable's gaze.

"How did you kiss her?"

"How do you think?" Sam exclaimed, finally raising his head as his voice rose in volume. "How could Ah have kissed her that would have sent Dana up to her room in tears? Ah kissed her like Ah should have kissed Dana. Ah kissed her like we were in love."

Cable closed his eyes briefly to focus his thoughts. "You flonquing idiot! You picked the worst possible time with the worst possible girl. I told you that I'd be really upset if you ever hurt her, and you proved me correct. She stayed here for you. It would have been much easier for her if she'd left, but she did it because she thought it would hurt you if she had to leave you. I hope she can still focus on her training."

"What do you want me to do!? Ah made the biggest mistake of my life. Ah'm readily admitting that. Ah tried to talk to her, she wouldn't let me talk. All you're doing is fixing me with some guilt trip, which is no larger than the one Ah've already got, Ah assure you. If you want to keep talking, then give me some advice on how to fix this mess. If you insist on dumping guilt on me, sir, then it'd be much more effective to leave me alone, since Ah'm giving myself more than you are."

Cable stared t him silently for a moment and said nothing.

"Ah've gotta go outside," he said quietly, heading for the door.

He opened the door and shut it behind him and ran out into the new snow that had fallen during the party. The wind was wailing around him now, and the storm was probably only a few steps short of a blizzard. His cheeks stung as the wind and snow whipped at his tears. He blasted into the air, finding little comfort in it. He found a tree behind the mansion and hauled himself up to a broad branch. He huddled next to the trunk and tried to think of anything he could do to fix the situation.

Desperate plans flooded his mind: Smashing down her door and holding her tight until she listened to him. Sitting down in front of her door and refusing to budge until she let him in. Refusing to eat until she talked to him. Throwing himself off the roof and 'forgetting' to blast...

He drew a shaky breath and exhaled it. It was halfway between a sigh and a sob. The storm calmed for a moment and he found that the tree that he was sitting in was right in front of her window.

He stared, transfixed as she stood in front of her window and stared out. She was silhouetted by the lights in her room, and for a moment he worried that she might see him, but he realized it was too dark.

She pushed herself away from the window, walked to the middle of her room and ran her fingers through her hair. Her cheeks shone with moisture and she ran a hand over one, wiping the tears away absentmindedly. Her shoulders slumped and he could see that the muscles in her back were all tight. She picked up the picture frame on her dresser. She looked at it closely, and dissolved into tears again.

He swallowed. The picture was the one of her family. Both she and her mother had been in love with men that had then turned on them.

"Oh, lord," he whispered to the wind as it picked up and the snow started to fall heavily again.

He leaned back against the tree and squeezed his eyes shut. He would have given anything to be in there with her, massaging her knotted shoulders, kissing away her tears, holding her...

He could almost feel her in his arms, and he imagined her kissing him back, imagined looking in her eyes and finding his forgiveness in their depths.

His imagination took over for a while, and he almost believed that she was laying, happy and warm, beside him.

He finally opened his eyes and glanced at the stark, frozen world around him. His insides felt ravaged, and he screamed his sorrow into the wind.

He came inside again as the party was winding down. Most of the guests had gone to their guest rooms. A few people hadn't quite made it that far. Bobby Drake was sprawled on a couch, asleep. Tabitha was nowhere to be seen. He made his way to the foot of the stairs and found Paige sitting at the top of them. Her knees hugged to her chest, her chin propped on them. She looked at him and smiled halfheartedly.

"Paige, go to bed. It's late." he said in a monotone as he approached the top of the stairs.

"What were you trying to do? Give yourself pneumonia that she'd have to heal?" She got to her feet in front of him. He gave her a hurt look.

"Look, in the morning some people are going to be very pissed at you for what you did. I'm not happy with the whole thing, but I am your sister, so I owe you a little sympathy at least. I'm on your side."

He stopped in front of her. "How is she?" he asked quietly.

"She let Jean into her room a while ago. She's calmed down a little now. I think she thinks she overreacted a bit, but she still doesn't want to see you. Meggan went up to talk to her too."

Sam digested all the information and started to move away.

"Personally," Paige said quickly, before Sam could get out of earshot, "I just think everyone's mad because it was you and Dana instead of Remy and Rogue. People were saving up things to yell at Remy about as soon as he did something stupid, and instead it was you. This is the first holiday party I can remember where he and Rogue didn't go at each other's throats." She smiled at him, hoping to cheer him a little, but he never turned around to see it.

"Come in." Sam called from his bed, giving permission to enter his room to whoever it was that had knocked. It was late afternoon and he wasn't even dressed yet. He'd slept restlessly the night before, and had just laid in bed listening to the other teams' jets taking off all morning. He thought he remembered his sister coming in to say goodbye, but he could have just dreamed it.

He looked up to see Cable looming in the doorway. He got up quickly. "Sir, Ah..."

"Sam, shut up. You don't even know what I'm going to say yet."

Sam shut his mouth. "No, sir. Sorry, sir."

Cable shook his head. "I know you know you screwed up. I know you're sorry, but some things you can't apologize for. Betrayal can be one of those things."

"Sir?"

"Dana's decided to go to Muir Island and continue her studies there under Meggan. When she comes back... If she comes back, it's going to be on her own terms and timetables..."

Sam jumped up out of bed. "She's going to Muir? When?"

"She left with Excalibur earlier this morning."

Sam felt behind him for the bed, and sat down on it in shock. He was silent for a long while, before reaching numbly over to his night stand for a stack of photographs he'd looked at the night before. He stared at the top one for a while, tracing Dana's smiling image with a finger. He closed his eyes and shook his head. "Ah have to fly to Muir," he said as he stood and grabbed some clothes to put on. "Ah have to see her. Ah have to talk to her. Ah need her. Ah kept forgetting that. When she was dying, Ah..."

Cable caught him by the shoulders. "Sam, no. I know what you want, but she doesn't want to see you. I don't think it would be good for either of you."

"What do you know?" Sam yelled as he threw on his shirt. "Ah need her. Without her Ah may as well just throw myself over a cliff. It's true love, or destiny, or something, and one mistake on my part shouldn't destroy that. Ah need a second chance."

"She doesn't want to give you one. You don't automatically get a second chance in real life, Sam. I'd think a big boy like you would have learned that by now." He lowered his voice menacingly. "If you do try to fly to see her without her permission, I will stop you and throw you over your cliff myself."

Sam swallowed and sat heavily back down on the bed. He ran his hands through his hair and gazed at the floor. "This is the first time Ah've really regretted being an External. If you could just blow my head off with one of your big guns, it would make this situation a whole lot easier." He laughed humorlessly and sighed.

Cable gave him a piercing look.

Sam looked up and met his eyes. "Ah'll wait for her. Ah'll wait as long as it takes. Ah know Ah love her, so now Ah'll just wait for her to realize she loves me. Ah'll pay any price she asks, and Ah'll never leave her side again."

"I'm sorry Moira, I'm just not getting anything," Dana said as she walked with the doctor to the kitchen. "I don't understand it. I can feel pain, I know that you're sick, but I can't find anything to fix. It's almost as if it were psychosomatic, but I know that can't be... How does this disease work again?"

Moira opened the door into the kitchen and went to the cupboard and brought out two coffee mugs. "The virus damages DNA." She filled both mugs with coffee and brought them over to the table where Dana was already sitting.

Dana tapped her fingers on the table. "DNA... DNA... Why would I be unable to fix flaws in DNA?" She reached for the sugar bowl and stirred two spoonfuls of sugar into her cup.

"Because, lass, ye wouldna ken what t' replace the flaws with," Moira hypothesized, tapping her spoon against her mug as she thought. "I'm guessin' that you use DNA as your guide t' heal. If the DNA is corrupted, it would appear to you as if everythin' were in order." She squinted in thought and took a sip of her coffee. "Och! That has to be it... Eat a good breakfast, lass. I'm goin' t' want t' make sure of this. Come down t' the lab when ye and Meggan are through. I'm going t' calibrate the equipment." She picked up her mug and left the room, leaving Dana by herself in the kitchen.

"Okay... you do that..." Dana said, trying to run Moira's half of the conversation back in her head. Moira talked a little too fast and her accent got worse when she was excited.

Dana shook her head and raised her coffee cup to her lips when Kitty came in.

"Good morn... Ack! What are you doing?" She ran through the table and pulled the mug from Dana's hands before she could get a sip. She jogged over to the sink and poured it down the drain.

"Hey! What was that for?"

"No one told you about Moira's coffee?"

"No." Dana got back up and retrieved her cup from Kitty.

"Moira's coffee is not a beverage. It's about as palatable as motor oil."

"Oh, come on, it can't be that bad." She poured herself another cup.

"Hey, don't say I didn't warn you."

Dana took a sip, and lasted a whole second before she spit it back into the sink.

"I told you. Everyone says that Moira's not a mutant, but I think she has to be one to drink that stuff and survive."

"Maybe it just needs a little milk and sugar." Dana said weakly, still recovering from her first encounter with the coffee.

"It doesn't help. Nothing helps. Trust me. We've tried every combination of every ingredient we could think of. The only combination we've found that works is pouring it all down the sink."

Dana leaned her head against the cool glass of her bedroom window. It was Christmas Eve, and she could hear Christmas carols being butchered from down in the living room. She could only imagine what Bobby Drake was doing to the same carols back at the mansion. She sighed, and cringed a little, feeling the familiar emptiness that had taken hold of her psyche ever since she'd left. It had only been a week and a half. She hoped the feeling would recede after a while. Maybe someday she would actually get over Sam Guthrie. She hoped he was happy spending his Christmas with Tabitha Smith.

She crossed her arms over her chest and rolled her shoulders and head. She'd been tenser than usual lately. She really needed to relax.

A knock at her door made her jump. "Dana? It's me, Kitty. Can I come in?"

"Sure."

Kitty phased through the door, with her usual nonchalance. The whole phasing thing was still a little new to Dana, and still seemed really bizarre.

"Kitty... Doors open for a reason."

"Doors open so people who can't do what I can do can get from one room to another." She smiled.

"That is so weird." Dana shook her head.

"You want to try?"

"No!" Dana yelped. "Sorry, no. I'm quite happy with my molecules phased the way they are. Besides, I heard some people get nauseous. I just had a large dinner. It wouldn't be pretty, trust me."

Kitty chuckled. "That's all right. Here." She held out a small package to Dana. "The others are putting gifts out under the tree. I figured you might want to open this one in private."

Dana raised an eyebrow questioningly, but accepted the gift. On the top of the package was a gift tag. It read:

To: Dana Hawkes

From: Sam Guthrie

"It was in the box that Jean and Scott sent." Kitty said, as Dana stood still staring at the small box.

"Oh." Dana swallowed. "Well, thank you for finding it and bringing it up here. I appreciate it."

Kitty nodded. "Sure. I'll be downstairs with the rest of them. I gotta go remind them which side of the menora the candles go on. They never remember..." She shook her head and turned quickly. She actually opened the door this time and smiled back at Dana before shutting it quietly.

Dana sat on the bed with the package on her lap, and just stared at it for a while, working up the courage to open it. Finally she slid a finger underneath the wrapping paper and freed a small jeweler's box from the paper and ribbon. She opened the box and pulled a small gold disk on a gold chain from the box. On one side was the stylized X in O design of the X-Men. On the other side there was some engraving done. There was her name, her code-name, and the date she became an X-Man. It was one of a kind.

Something only Sam would have thought of to commemorate her achievement.

She sighed and fastened the clasp behind her neck, and then slid the charm underneath her T-shirt. It settled over her heart.

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