Forge and Dani - Do it for me, okay?

[x-mirage.livejournal.com]

Dani finally tracks Forge down to give him some gifts and sisterly advice (which he ignores). They talk around a few things but hopefully some of what Dani said made it through Forge's think skull.



Dani had looked all over the school for Forge including his shower, her room and even outside. No Forge. He wasn't in any of the usual
places either like his lab, the garage or his room. This was getting ridiculous, it wasn't like she misplaced her keys. This was her friend! She should be able to - there was a movement in the gym. Turning in, she was surprised to see a short and somewhat metallic form in the back.

"Forge?" she called, her voice reverberating across the otherwise silent gym.

Forge looked up from where he was running on the treadmill, the rhythmic slap-click of his feet on the moving belt having lulled him into a dull fugue state. Slowing the machine down, he jogged in place, pushing sweat-soaked hair out of his eyes. With a frown, he recognized Dani across the room.

Waving absently, he grabbed a towel and began wiping the sweat away from his neck, dropping to a nearby bench. Leaning down, he started stretching. When you only had one flesh-and-blood leg, cramps always seemed twice as bad.

"I've been looking for you," she said quietly, recognizing the introspective exercise beyond the physical. "This is probably the last place I would have thought of," that was the point, the voice in her head said sarcastically. She pushed it away.

"That was the point," Forge said calmly, leaning down to press his forehead to his knee and stretch. "I have a lot of physical therapy time to catch up on from this past month, and I don't do well working out in a group."

Working out, with the exceptions of tai chi where you were alone in the group and playing a sport, was something that Dani generally considered to be a solitary endevour. "I'll go if you want..." she offered, preparing to get up.

Taking a deep breath, Forge shook his head, motioning to the bench. "Sit. Haven't seen you for a few weeks outside of the kitchen, I... your hair's getting longer," he observed. "Everything's slowly going back to normal, huh?"

"Yeah...normal," Dani self-consciously ran one hand through her hair, it was well past her shoulders now and almost past her bra-strap which was good. "You've been busy, ain't like there's been time to just hang out, you know? Your hair is getting long too. I like it."

Forge nodded, reaching to pull his ponytail a little tighter, tucking a few errand strands behind his ear. "Have you seen Ms. Maximoff's? Looks completely different short. Almost like she's a different person. But yeah, long for you."

He sighed, absently adjusting a set of screws near his ankle. "But then, you know me. Always trying to stay busy. Use what I've got to help out where I can. Mr. al-Rashid... I identify with him, you know? Having what happened to him... it shouldn't keep him from as much of a normal life as he can have, right?"

"I thought he did have a normal life....like you. I mean, aside from the craziness here. But if you think about it, he could walk away from the X-Men right now, metaphysically speaking, and he'd be able to live a completely normal life regardless of the prosthetics. He won't," she said with certainty, "but he wouldn't've been hurt if he wasn't an X-Man either. It was a choice he made. You chose to help him. Ain't nothing wrong with that."

Forge laughed, short and sarcastic. "Normal like me, right. He's got..." He trailed off, remembering his conversation with Sam. If the oldest Guthrie could go through everything without being bitter... well, he was doing a lot better than Forge could.

"Wasn't much of a choice. Needed to be done, was the right thing to do, so you do it, right?"

"Yeah," she agreed, putting an arm around his shoulders, "but that don't mean it was easy or make you feel good. I got you something though. A couple somethings."

Forge arched an eyebrow. "You already caught my birthday - what's the occasion?"

"You need it," Dani shrugged and handed him a paper bag, "I didn't wrap it or anything. It ain't your birthday."

Cautiously, Forge opened the bag, pulling out what looked like a long stick of incense. "Hey, this is one of those smudge things, right?" He recognized it as similar to the one Dani had burned for him before he'd gone off to his surgery. "Neat. And..."

The other object in the bag was heavier, irregularly shaped. Forge withdrew it, eyebrow arched almost into his hairline. Slowly, he flipped the small switch at the back and set it down. As a tinny recorded version of the theme to "The Addams Family" played, the life-size human hand crawled about on the gym floor, stopping to snap its fingers every so often.

"When I said I needed a hand organizing things," he finally said with a small smile, "I didn't mean it this literally."

"It's for when you build your Frankenstein," she informed him smiling, it was good to see him smile again, he didn't seem to do that often enough, "And if you ever need a hand and I'm not around. 'Cause yours isn't detatchable anymore. And I figure you could use a good cleansing. Release the negative energies around you."

Picking the hand up, Forge turned it over slightly, resting it against his metal one. Odd little irony that something picked up cheap from a gag gift store could seem more human than him.

"I still think a good shower would do more for the cleansing," Forge admitted, shifting his weight as he felt a hip cramp developing, setting the hand down and beginning to massage it out. "And then back to the old routine. Class. Save the world. Little bit of sleep in the middle. 'Normal' life."

"This ain't a physical cleansing, Hahkota," she reminded him gently, making a face, he did reek, "But that wouldn't be a bad idea either. I'd offer you use my soap since it has similar ingredients to the smudge stick but I think Meggan wants to nibble on it some more."

Forge rolled the smudge stick between his hands. The thought was tempting, to burn a little bit of sage, little bit of wax, and everything would be better. That somehow he would be better, and things would be right.

That would be an experiment doomed to failure, he thought, placing the stick and the hand back in the bag. Putting on a smile, he nodded to Dani. "Thanks, I'll be, um, shower now. Have a few follow-ups to do in the lab, then a paper to write for Professor Xavier. The usual, you know?"

"Hey, I know you Mr. Science-is-life. Have some faith without facts, okay? Burn the stick like the directions say. Make me happy," Dani was almost pleading with him, but she knew it would work. It wouldn't change things per se, but it would help to erase the metaphysical dirt and grime so he could make a fresh start. "It's ain't a cure-all, it won't take the hurt or pain away. And it won't fix anything, it ain't suppose to. It will clean your spirit so the future will be better."

"I have faith in the facts," Forge responded. "Because they don't change. Science is dependable, it gives the right answer every time. There's no fudging it, no emotion clouding it, it's what's pure. But..." He rolled the top of the bag shut, clenching his hands on it tight enough for the knuckles on his right hand to go white. "For you, okay? What could it hurt?"

"Thanks. It will get better," Dani reassured him as she stood to leave. "And you ain't alone."

Forge watched her all the way until the door shut. Counting slowly to ten, he stood up, setting the bag down on the bench and stepping back onto the treadmill.

"Like hell I'm not," he said, turning the machine back on and beginning to run.