The Longest Night: Part Six

by Kerri

"This was stupid," the voice spoke to her through the white haze. "You know better, 'Lotta." The voice was angry. To hell with the voice, she didn't care. Couldn't the voice just leave her alone?

Hands touched her, rough and gentle, pulling off her wet clothing, bundling her in warm quilts. Her hair was rubbed with a towel. Charlotte tried to move from the insistent hands, but she couldn't get away.

She shivered inside and burrowed deeper into the false warmth. False because there was no way she'd ever really be warm again.

Nathan and Jean left her in the first floor bedroom. "I'll send you back to the mansion," he told her. "Get Logan and bring him here."

"But Charlotte-"

"I can take care of her." He handed her Charlotte's homing belt. "Just get him and come back." After a long minute looking at the device and remembering the the use of it, he programed in the coordinates and Jean stepped through the gate.

Charlotte was still wrapped in the covers, she hadn't moved. She was finally sleeping. This had been one long, endless night for them all.

Nathan rested the back of his hand against her cheek, she was still far too cold. With a sigh he stripped off his clothes down to the thermal shorts he wore under his uniform. The quickest , most effective way to elevate body temperature was through direct skin to skin contact. This wasn't a smart idea, not by any means, but he really didn't have a choice.

Lifting aside the quilts, he slid in next to her and pulled her close, settling her into his arms and covering as much of her as he could with his body. She felt icy, slight tremors running though her smaller frame. Her lips were still tinged blue, her head tucked under his chin, her cold cheek resting against his heart. He could feel the rush that still ran through her from her battle with herself, hating it - her, and reveling the pure flood racing through them both. She fairly hummed with it. Solstice only made him more sensitive to it.

He remembered this feeling from the years past. The cascade of adrenaline from combat, sharing the rush with her during their hand-to-hand training.

He remembered their first clash of wills; not fondly, but he remembered.

***

He'd been with them for a week, during which she'd left him alone. He hardly saw her at all and it didn't bother him a bit. Whenever he caught sight of her, she glared and then ignored him. Suited him just fine. He wanted to serve his time and get an early release for good behavior; good behavior defined as not killing his warden.

One morning he found her in the forest.

He meditated, trying to rid himself of the tension that choked him. The utter serenity and peace surrounding him was the one thing he liked about this place. There were other people in the area, but he never saw any of them. Just felt them, catching stray thoughts here and there. Matt told him they were in the valley adjacent to this one, restricted to the old Indian village until further notice. *She* ordered everyone away while he was here.

They all took her orders as gospel. Who did she think she was and what right did she have to give orders to anyone? His anger at Hammer for sending him here spiked up again, completely destroying the mood he'd worked hard to achieve this morning.

Charlotte crossed his range of awareness. Without thinking, he got up and followed, focusing his anger on her.

He didn't know she was aware of him behind her until she stopped at a gate.

<Come in,> she told him, the bitterness in her 'voice' warning him of the depth of her own anger and hatred of him. <Come on in and meet the past.>

He couldn't refuse her. This was what he'd come here for, wasn't it? He stepped through right behind her and found himself surrounded by the dead.

One by one, she introduced him to her family and his, though he didn't know it then.

Name after name rolled over him, along with her unshed tears, her guilt, her fury. Famous and infamous names, obscure names. Legends. Icons. The last hopes of a dead race.

Not the last hope. He was the last hope, though he hadn't known that yet, either.

They sat in there together for a very long time in silence. Charlotte leaned back against a grave marker, allowing selected memories loose for him to 'see,' the people she'd love and cared about.

Hammer's words finally hit home to young Dayspring. She and Matthew could teach him.

His life could have ended in a heartbeat at her whim if he'd pushed her any harder, if her control had been any less.

She finally led the way out through the gate and shut it behind him. <It's starts today.>

Her weaponless specialty was wrestling, and that was his first lesson. Nathan supposed she chose it to establish her dominance over him, which it did at the time. He named her 'Queen Bitch of the Universe' while she held in him in a wrestling lock until he was almost faint from the lack of oxygen, her stronger mind and centuries-honed skills easily besting his younger self. No matter that he was more than a foot taller and a hundred pounds heavier. She whipped his ass.

And continued to do so only a daily basis for the next four months.

Was it only 20 some years ago in his life? 20 years that spanned centuries, millenniums?

Now the tables were turned, he was older, stronger, infinitely more wiser than the young man who'd known her. The older man knew the secret to her fighting style. He knew to cheat.

He learned that lesson perhaps best of all. Fighting fair was useless when your enemy didn't follow the rules.

Their training sessions became the preludes to more intimate battles. Not lovemaking. There had been no love between them. They were adversaries, constantly fighting for dominance in every aspect of their association, taking their private war from the practice field into the bedroom.

Love did come, reluctantly, with limitations. He hated her. A part of him still hated her, the 'older woman' in his young man's memories.

He couldn't hate her now, she wasn't that person. She didn't know it, wouldn't know for a couple hundred years, and may never know if he accomplished what he'd been sent to do.

He wondered if Logan had discovered that side of her, if it existed *because* of the other man. Looking back, he could see elements of Wolverine's fighting style in the way she moved and fought.

Nathan knew what would help her now. He didn't have the level of understanding she shared with Wolverine that would allow her to release her emotions on him. Logan better get here before then. He wasn't doing it.

He didn't dare try.

***

Jean flashed into a snow drift right on the front walk of the mansion. The door swung open, Scott ran out and scooped her up in his arms to carry her inside. She hardly had time to feel the cold.

Hank ran a professional eye over her when she walked into the Med Lab with Scott. Jubilee was still in bed. Del - good heavens, Charlotte's granddaughter, Jean thought to herself again - sat in a corner of the lab patiently with Matthew. After all these years she could afford to wait a while for more answers than Hank and Matthew could give her.

"How is everything?" Jean asked Hank.

"Fine, just fine," he turned a fond smile on his young patient. "Jubilation will return to her customary self very soon."

"I could do it now," the young firecracker protested, "but Miz Frost said she'd ground me with extra homework if I did."

"And Thomas?"

"Is he okay?" Jubilee asked, her voice cracking a little. "It wasn't his fault. Tol' Frosty not to blame him."

Jean and Hank looked at each other. Del sat up, eavesdropping unabashedly.

"We don't know yet," she answered, "there won't be any news until dusk tomorrow."

"Let me know, 'kay? We were havin' a really great time. I wanna do it again, 'cept for that last part."

"I'll let you know first thing I hear," Jean promised.

Emma was on her way back in when Jean and Scott left the Med Lab. "How is everything?" she asked.

"Nothing yet."

"Does Charlotte need any assistance?"

Jean shook her head. "Nathan is still with her. I came back to get Logan." Emma actually sounded like she *was* sorry. Jean was surprised 'Miss Frost' could show consideration for anyone else but herself.

"Good luck," Emma's face showed her disgust. "He's run off. Domino went after him."

"Jeannie," Remy's voice echoed down the hallway.

"We might as well take this into the War Room," Scott said, "and tell everyone at once."

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