Cain and Marie, Tuesday morning

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When she came out the backdoor and looked around her at the trampled,
white world, Marie realized there was no way she was simply going to
track Cain down. The pagers were an option she didn't like. Artifical
contact didn't seem to help their tendancy to conflict.

Instead, she rose into the air slowly until she was above the mansion
roof. She scanned the grounds until she spotted him lumbering along at
the edge of the drive where it met the road, just beyond the
partly-open gate. In the time it would take her to walk out there, he could have
gone off in any direction so she flew out to speak to him.

"Good morning," she said, when she was just beyond the gate, still some
ten feet off the ground but dropping slowly to land near him.

Cain looked up at Marie, almost unrecognizable as a dark silhouette
against the bright morning sky as she descended. "Morning," he replied as
she drifted down, her feet making no sound in the soft snow. He nodded
over to an embankment leading down from the path, near a less-traveled
area of the property.

"Supposed to clear up this week," Cain remarked, seemingly apropos of
nothing. "Sun's going to be hitting right on the side of that hill
there. Snow'll melt there first, and the erosion's bad already. If it blocks
the stream down there, we'll end up with stagnant water and the
mosquitoes from hell in the summer." Reaching into his pocket, he pulled out a
small black device. "Laser rangefinder," he explained. "Should help
taking measurements for the erosion fence."

As he walked down to the embankment, Marie followed behind. Finally
Cain rolled his eyes and let out a sigh. "All right, I figure you ain't
come all the way out here to watch me take measurements of dirt. You got
something on your mind?"

"Not a social call, no," Marie admitted. She half-stepped, half-flew
ahead a bit to where she could look up at his face, staying a little
above him on the slope to bring her closer to his eye level. For a long
moment, she stood there scrutinizing him. Gusts of wind pulled at her
dark and white hair and she pushed it back impatiently with a
gray-gloved hand. "Do you know a man named Erik Lensherr?"

Cain paused, cocking his head to the side and thinking. "Should I? I
don't... damn, that name sounds familiar. He someone here I ain't met
yet, or some new celebrity coming to visit?"

Marie laughed at that but there was an edge to it and she stifled it
quickly with her hand over her mouth. As suddenly as she'd been amused,
she was wide-eyed and solemn, perhaps a little afraid. "I only ask
because you keep mentioning him," she said, taking her hand away. "By his
other name. His pseudonym, I suppose. Magneto." It was obvious that
she didn't like saying it, the way her mouth twisted at the word. She
hugged herself tightly when she was done speaking.

"Oh." Cain paused, scratching his head. "You see the guy on TV enough,
you stop thinking he's got a real name. Heh, I..." Slowly, Cain's voice
trailed off.

"Erik... Lensherr..." he slowly repeated. For a brief second, he closed
his eyes-

"Dad, this is Erik Lensherr. Erik, my stepfather, Kurt Marko."

"A pleasure, Dr. Marko."

"Please, call me Kurt. Any friend of Charles' is a friend of mine.
Can I get you something to drink, Erik?"

Cain snapped his eyes open. "Motherfucker," he breathed out loud. "That
son of a bitch."

Marie stepped back quickly, feet skidding a little on the thin crust of
ice over the snow. Her flight kept her from falling and she stopped
sliding, eyes fixed on Cain's face. "I'm sorry," she said, the words
coming fast and quiet. "I just... I thought you might and yet maybe not,
because I couldn't get anything clear. I thought maybe you did and he
just really didn't like you but then again, no one speaks of him much,
or not where I hear it or see it, because I try and avoid it and... I
just couldn't figure out why you made me so angry sometimes. I wanted
to know which of us it was." She looked like she was on the verge of
fleeing outright but she held her ground.

Cain held a hand up in a 'stop' gesture, not meeting Marie's eyes.
"You've got him in your head, don't you?" Without waiting for an answer,
Cain just nodded and continued on. "Plainly put, other than what the rest
of the world's got reason to, I don't give a shit about Magneto. Yeah,
public enemy number one. Yeah, big evil mutant menace. Magneto? He can
kiss my ass." Cain smirked. "Now, Erik Lensherr? Chuck's known him for
years. Shit, if I'd heard his name when they showed his mug shot on TV,
I'd never have known it was the same guy." Cain gave a small laugh,
staring past Marie into the distance. "And last time they run into each
other, Chuck just lets his old buddy go with one of his students. Ain't
that rich?"

Shaking his head, he looked down at Marie. "So yeah, I got some reasons
to feel right ornery about the son of a bitch. But even if he's in your
head, it ain't you."

"I think he probably remembers you a little," Marie said softly, only
relaxing enough to let her feet break the snow and touch the ground.
"He never forgets a resource. But that other name of his, I guess
because it still scares me somewhere, it calls him as well and it's always
worse when there are new ones to worry about. Makes it harder. It's no
excuse for my behaviour but it's good to know." She straightened,
tucking her hair back behind her ears to keep it out of her eyes.

"Hey, hey..." Cain stammered, feeling rather uncomfortable with Marie's
sudden vulnerability, so at odds with her confrontational demeanor that
he'd come to expect. "If whatever you got from him is still bouncing
around your head, can't Chuck just go in there and erase it? I mean,
that's what he does. He fixes stuff like that." Cain folded his arms across
his chest. "And if having voices in your head is your only reason for
being all pissy, then I obviously ain't been trying hard enough." He
allowed himself to crack a smile.

Marie's answering smile was a little wan. "He's never offered," she
said simply. "And I don't know if he can or if I'd want him to now. I
don't mind their voices. It's when... when it's them and not me
speaking that I get a little freaked. I'll deal." She shoved her hands in
her pockets and set her jaw, pulling her composure back around her. "Oh,
and the grumpy, tactless, old bastard, bad-tempered thing?" Her smile
actually reached her eyes now. "I think I'm immune to that. God knows
I should be by now."

Cain whistled innocently. "Hey, as long as you don't start making moony
eyes my way, we're cool. I swear, you girls these days and your 'ooh,
older men' thing." Cain coughed slightly, attempting not to insult Logan
in front of Marie. "Anyway, if bringing up... him... gives you some
kind of weird flashback, might want to talk to someone about that. If not
Chuck, Moira. Or make a call to that doc that was here this weekend.
'Cause I'm sure since Chuck let his old buddy just waltz off to freedom,
you guys probably ain't seen the last of him."

"I'm sure we haven't seen last of Erik. It's one of the reasons I
stick around. I don't want to get used again." Marie tensed at the idea
but inhaled and let it slide. "I've been in enough therapy to open a
clinic, so no more. It is how it is; like I said, I'll deal. I'll tell
Moira, though. It'll interest her." She quirked an eyebrow at Cain
then and gave him a wicked grin. "And I promise not to traumatize either
of us by finding you at all attractive. I don't think you could handle
me anyway, old man. Feel better now?"

Cain relaxed, letting out a long sigh. "I swear, some of you kids here
make me feel my age these days. That little British punk weirdo's bound
and determined to send me to prison the way she keeps following me
around, and with half these kids, it's about who's screwing who and how
often." In response to Marie's arched eyebrows, Cain just shrugged. "Hey,
you hear things in the house. Not THOSE things, just - okay, you know
that spot under the staircase that's being recarpeted, that little
alcove?" Marie nodded as Cain went on. "Well, used to be I'd stand there and
listen to my dad and Sharon fight about stuff. Could hear every word
through the old dumbwaiter shaft. You just gotta know where the sounds
carry in this place."

"Well don't worry about me that way," Marie said dryly. "I take the
health and safety of the people around me pretty seriously and I sure as
hell don't know anyone else around here I'd let in my head." She
sighed heavily. "They're just being young. It's their prerogative and I'm
not going to judge. As long as it doesn't interfere with anything
important, I don't care who's doing what."

Cain nodded. "Hell, I may be old-fashioned, but as long as they ain't
blowing the roof off the place - literally - or shattering windows, I
could give less than a damn." He looked briefly down at the rangefinder
in his hand. "So yeah, you got some of the bad guy in your head, and it
gives you the willies. If that's what set you on edge, no hard
feelings. We all got our problems, right?"

"That's about it," Marie admitted, dropping her eyes to the snow where
she was kicking it about a little. "I just needed to know how much you
knew, because I couldn't get a read on it clearly. And you /are/ a
pain in the ass, but that usually doesn't phase me much. I pride myself
on being pretty damn patient and it was getting to me something fierce."
She looked up at Cain as the wind pulled her white bangs loose around
her face again. "Thanks."

"You know," Cain replied after a moment's thought. "You're the first
teacher I've heard say that. That you give a damn about the kids and
actually want to make sure they're safe."

Marie shrugged, looking off toward the mansion. "At the end of the
day, it's all about the kids. Even the awful ones. Erik taught me that,
believe it or not." She bit her lip and then looked back to Cain.
"They matter, all of them. Makes me tired some days, but I think it's
worth it."

Cain shrugged. "Some of them, they know what's good for them. It's the
ones that're convinced they know everything, how the world works, that
they don't need anyone - " Cain snorted derisively, "Those ones, you
can't tell me you don't want to see them try and make it on their own,
teach 'em a bit of a lesson."

"I'd rather just hang in until they fall," Marie said. "And pick them
up when it happens. But that's the role I've chosen to take. Doesn't
mean it's going to be right all the time or it's going to work for
every kid. Thing is, I can't take both tacks, you know? Or it makes it
harder for them to let me pick them up." She gave Cain a wry smile.
"That's why kids come with two parents, and usually a set of relatives for
back up as well, right? Balance."

Cain's eyes narrowed. "Right. Every kid gets those. Good ol' Mom and
Pop." He twirled the rangefinder around his finger like a gunfighter,
then cracked a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes. "Well, Miss Marie,
I got work to do. I'm sure you'll want to be keeping an eye on your
students before they tear apart the kitchen looking for the Choco Frosted
Sugar Bombs."

"That's just the model," Marie said, making her way up the embankment.
"That's where the whole village thing comes in." She pointed up to the
house. "Even if you have to make the village yourself. The job's got
to be done by someone, or the world's got to be changed until it is.
I'll see you later, Mister Marko. You're right. I do need to go look
after my kids."

Cain nodded, watching Marie rise up into the air and towards the
mansion. Making his way down the embankment, he grumbled quietly to himself.
"Idealists. The lot of 'em."