Marie and Ororo, this afternoon.

[x-storm.livejournal.com]

Marie goes up to the greenhouse to retreat from stress, and finds Ororo there, repotting plants. They talk and start to rebuild the friendship that they had once had.



The greenhouse was -always- warm and green , but spring brought to it a sense of rightness - it didn't feel quite so much like stepping into something artificial, but more like a very organized garden. The rows of plants were starting to go the bright green of new growth, with hints here and there of reds and yellows and purples as the flowering plants budded. Ororo breathed deeply, taking in the smell of fresh dirt, and water, and mulch and clay. She smiled peacefully and sunk her hands into the bag of soil on the worktable, crumbling it between her fingers.

With Angelo safely off to class, Marie leaned on the wall for a moment and closed her eyes. She knew of one quiet place to go. She skipped the stairs and flew to the fourth floor, landing at the greenhouse door and letting herself in. Silence surrounded her as soon as she closed the door behind her and she sighed with relief.

Ororo looked up from where she was gently tamping down the soil for a small potted plant at the sound of the door opening, and then the quiet sigh. She briefly considered - for just a moment - not greeting Marie, and then quashed the thought. There had been too much avoiding in the past, and not enough talking, and now was as good of a time as any. She waited a moment, until the girl had turned, and then cleared her throat quietly so as not to startle her.

Marie opened her eyes and looked around, attention drawn to the potting table. "Hi," she said with a slow, tentative smile. "Not used to anyone else being up here still. Congratulations on that mission Saturday, looks like it was perfect."

"Thank you." Ororo said, meaning it. "That girl's community deserves most of that praise though. That was how it should be, it gives me a great deal of hope." She brushed a lock of hair away from her face with the back of one hand, and smiled.

"Me too," Marie agreed, smiling back. She gestured around at the otherwise silent greenhouse. "Look, if you wanted to be on your own, I'll go on up to the flight platform. I was just looking for a little student-free space."

Ororo shook her head. "No, Marie, you are as welcome here as anywhere else. Some of the plants needed repotting, and it is good for recentering myself." She indicated the cluster of leafy green plants sitting happily in their fresh new roomy pots. "I neglected the greenhouse almost as much as I neglected ... everything else." she added regretfully.

"Well, most people are a little sturdier than plants. We can make it through the dry seasons okay." Marie approached her slowly, hands in her pockets, and leaned on the potting table a little distance away, looking over at Ororo almost shyly through some stray white bangs.

Ororo nodded once, then gestured towards her plants. "But both need care and tending to grow and be healthy, and this is quite the extensive metaphor, isn't it?" She laughed a little. "Teaching Literature has rubbed off on you as much as Logan has."


Marie laughed a little and blushed. "Nathan accused me of being fluent in euphemism the other day. I've been studying that and metaphor, it would seem. It keeps my mind amused instead of thinking of ways to strangle people on bad days," she confessed.

Ororo laughed. "Fluent in euphemism. I like that." She wiped off most of the dirt on her hands with a nearby small towel, and looked directly at Marie. "Metaphors aside, I do owe you an apology, and an explanation." She paused to think for a moment, then continued. "I owe many people explanations. You are just at the top of the list."

Marie looked as though she were going to protest but then nodded slowly. "I'm listening, then." Her expression was distinctly wistful; she wanted terribly to give Storm a hug like she used to but if there was one truth she knew above all others, things weren't the same anymore, so she stayed still, waiting.

"I retreated. Into myself, away from all of you, and while that is no excuse, it is what happened. An explanation, as I said." Ororo frowned. This was certainly harder than she has expected, though perhaps no more than she deserved for abandoning her friends. "Regret does not begin to express how I feel - in hindsight, I made the worst possible decision I could have, in trying to push away my fears, I pushed away the people I care for most, and then was not there to help when I should have been."

She set her shoulders, catching herself from tipping over into guilt and depression, and mentally chastised herself. This had to be done, and had to be said, and that was -that-. "I could not be honest and open when I should have been."

Marie extended a hand tentatively. "Ororo... Storm... you've never done less than everything you could," she said quietly, sounding more like the girl she'd been last year. "I missed you so much, but I never took it personally. I'm just... I'm sorry you went away from us, because you shouldn't have been alone when things were bad. Don't be hard on yourself, please. I probably couldn't have done anything for you, but I could at least have been there. If you think you might need forgiving for anything, it's done already, as soon as it happened." She blinked back unexpected tears and swallowed hard.

Ororo took Marie's hand in both of hers, and held it gently. "I am not sure what else to say, except that I am grateful." she smiled, though just a touch sadly, then decided that being tentative and avoid-y was better left in the past. She let go of Marie's hands, and wrapped one around the other woman's shoulders, pulling her into a hug.

The hug came as a surprise and Marie stiffened a little, startled, and then returned it, nestling her head against Ororo's shoulder. "Don't you do it again, missy," she said, mock-scolding, to cover her tears. "I missed you something awful," she confessed. "I'm so glad you're back. You are back, right?" Not just in body, but in spirit, she meant.

Ororo nodded, silent for a moment before she felt she could answer clearly. "I am." she said quietly. "And I am not going away again if I have any means to prevent it."

"Good." Marie ran the back of one hand across her eyes as she let go of Ororo. "I'm glad we got that cleared up. Did you want some help with those plants? I managed not to kill /everything/ while you were gone." She was felt shy all of a sudden, a little awkward, and at the same time she had months worth of things to say and no idea where to start.

Ororo nodded. "Most of the plants seemed a bit enthuastically watered - and there were a few broken pots, but nothing that can not be repaired or replaced." She gestured towards the other end of the table, where another cluster of pots waited to have plants put in them. "If you would like, the group there still needs repotting."

"I can do that." Marie peeled her gloves off and pulled one of the empty pots toward her. She started shaking loose potting soil into it, letting it run through her bare fingers. "We were ever as bad as this group of students?" she asked as she coaxed a plant out of its too-tight home and into her hands. "Me and Bobby and John and Piotr and all?"

Ororo returned to her own plants, and answered only after suppressing a laugh. "No, I suppose you were not, though there was far less excitement in general while you four were students." She thought for a moment, then continued. "Some of them -are- good kids, they just have had to face so much all at once, I think they're overwhelmed."

"They're not the only ones," Marie said dryly, smiling in spite of it. "I can't wait for the semester to be over. I have more white hair than ever, I swear. Between them and Logan, I'm going to have hair like yours by the time I'm old enough to drink."

"And if you do not, Scott will when some of those students turn eighteen." Ororo smiled. "And we all will if John ever decided to even consider teaching. You, Scott, and every one of his students." She said dryly. "Jonothan has nothing on John for sarcasm. "

Marie laughed at that. "Yeah, he's a bit of an amateur, really. As monsters and nihilists go, most of the kids are these days." She tossed her hair back impatiently as her bangs slid into her eyes again. "And as for Scott... Alex and I are taking him to the movies tonight to get him out of the house for a bit. Hell, Logan dragged him off to a bar on Saturday. Emergency pressure-release procedures are a go."

"Logan took Scott out?" Ororo blinked in surprise. "I am impressed." She frowned a bit, and sighed. "He and I have not spoken much since I returned, and that will be remedied as soon as possible."

"They're getting along a little better. As in, no recent fistfights or anything," Marie said happily, tucking another plant into its new home. "And no name-calling where I can catch them at it. Not that they have a choice." Her smile was bright and cheerful and spoke volumes about the consequences of Marie's two favorite men in the school failing to be minimally civil. "And yes, you should talk to both of them at some point. They've both missed you."

Ororo laughed lightly at the implied threat to Scott and Logan in Marie's tone. "Scott and Logan getting along, agreeing publicly on the journals, at this rate, we will have the end of the world before summer." She smiled, and nodded. "I will definitely talk to them both. Though, perhaps separately, to prevent that apocalypse."

"You're a wise woman. You know, I think we can get these plants here all repotted before I have to go check on Angelo again." She opened another bag of potting soil and picked up another plant. While she worked, she gave Ororo a shy smile. "I'm glad you're back," she said quietly.

"I am too, Marie. I missed all of you." Ororo patted the leaves of the plant she had just set into its pot, and smiled. Things were starting to look - if not back to normal, at least back to something that could be healthy, for her, for the school, for everyone, she hoped. "It is good to be home."