Backdated to June 6th

[x-mactaggart.livejournal.com]

After making sure Cain isn't going to run out of the Medlab first chance he gets, Moira goes to find Jim to make sure he's okay after the days events. A more than sore spot has been hit and while things aren't made better, it's easy to see why their relationship holds true.



No lambdoid suture. No squamosal or coronal, either. Jim frowned slightly as his brush stroked the curve of the parietal bone, playing the memory back again. No, there was no parietal bone. There had been no plates in the skull. Nothing to separate the structures of parietal, occipital and frontal, just one smooth, seamless piece of bone. Just another one of those small, inconsequential detail that confirmed his own suspicions. As he'd thought, then. Whatever they'd encountered in the gas station, it hadn't been anything that had ever grown or aged in its own right. Not in the human sense, at least.

Distracted and wrapped as tightly in his shields as he was, Jim still felt the approach of a familiar mind outside his door. Very familiar. Jim sighed and pinched the bridge of his nose. To anyone else he would have been Not In, but this was different. Besides, when Moira was worried there was no escape.

"Come in," Jim called as he sensed her stop in the hallway, settling on a compromise between practicality and what he knew could be irritating telepathic anticipation by speaking the invitation aloud. He raised his brush to the canvas again as he heard the door open, moving on to the zygomatic arch now. "Hi, Moira. How's Cain?"

"Grumpy," Moira replied, dryly but honestly. "It looks like everythin's checkin' out jus' peachy but I need ta be sure. Nay matter how much he bitches an' eyes th' door." Closing the door behind her, she peered around Jim to look at the painting. "Ye've been busy."

"Channeling," Jim said distantly. He daubed yellow-white definition around the shadow of an eyesocket. He paused to wipe his eyes on the back of his arm. "That's what it was on the astral plane. Fire. Bones and fire." He shook his head, dipping his brush in the cup of water on the counter next to him. "I saw it burning through my shields."

Standing behind him to look at the painting a little more, Moira shot him a worried look but didn't push him, either physically or mentally. "Is tha' wha' ye saw earlier?" she asked, trying to figure it all out.

"Yes. After things started breaking. Right before you got thrown across the store." Jim swirled the blood-red paint on his pallet. "And I just stood there."

"Love, yer a telepath, nay a precog," she responded softly. "Ye couldnae 'ave known wha' was goin' ta 'appen an' I certainly dinnae blame ye. We've nay idea wha' was goin' on, wit' Cain or when thin's started ta break."

"Yeah. We don't." But he had a sick, cold feeling he knew how it would end.

"I cannot be stopped."

Jim let his hand fall away from the pallete, the paint-smeared brush held heedless against his thigh. "I'm sorry," the young man said quietly, eyes fixed on the flames of the canvas before him. "That was the second time David hasn't been able to protect you."

That was what prompted her to grab his other hand, the one without the paint brush. "Ye listen ta me," Moira said sternly. "There was nothin' ye could 'ave done ta protect me durin' all this mess wit' Cain...an' when th' Headaches 'it on Muir. Ye 'elped me more than ye can know by jus' bein' there."

"By sitting there in shock while Charles almost killed you?" Not the worst moment in David's life, because he'd long passed the point of counting, but . . . close. To this day he still didn't know what had been more horrific: feeling the man he'd known and trusted since he was thirteen in his mind trying to kill him, or watching the same thing nearly happen to the only mother he had left. It had been watching Uncle Andrew murdered in that 7-11 all over again, and worse. David may not have been able to save Andrew, but he'd at least been able to avenge him. Against the sheer, unbridled power of Charles' telepathy he'd never even had the chance.

Grabbing Jim by the shoulder, Moira made him turn around to face her. "By bein' there for me when it was all over. Charles 'as a ton more trainin' than ye back then, even now. Ye're powerful but against him then? Especially after ye'd gone through the same thin' just moments before?"

And that had been terrifying, not knowing what was going on, watching him on the floor, screaming his heart out. She'd buried one child already, she'd be damned if she was forced to repeat it.

Jim only raised his blue eyes to hers, saying nothing.

If I'm so powerful, why can't I ever do anything but watch?

If Moira started at all, she didn't show it, just simply raised her hands to cup his face. "I love ye," she said. "Even if ye dinnae think ye're a white enough knight for me, I still do an' ye've saved me in ways ye'll never understand."

It was wrong to feel this way. She wouldn't always be there for him, and it was wrong to expect her to be. No one could. That was a lesson David had learned long ago.

Everyone left. All his life was just waiting for that moment.

Jim raised his face to hers and whispered, "I love you, Mom."

Stepping closer, Moira brought him against her for a fierce hug, the sudden well of hot tears escaping only to be absorbed by his shirt. Their relationship was disjointed and not normal but they both needed it, though it always looked like Jim needed it more. But she needed it as much as he did even if the reasons were different.

"I wish ye could see an' feel 'ow truely proud o' ye I am. I always 'ave been."

"David wasn't the telepath." The pallete and brush hung at his side, forgotten. Slowly his arms rose to embrace her, and somehow a smile still found its way to his lips. "I'll just believe you."

She laughed a little at that, her voice lower from the tears and stress, "Ye'll jus' 'ave ta take me at my word," Moira agreed, "like all those other times before."

Jim moved his forearms against her back slowly, the closest to a comforting hug he could manage with full hands. Labs. Labs, and heather flowers. Moira's smell. Home's smell.

"Okay," he said.