Shinobi and Sarah

[x-shinobi.livejournal.com]

Sunday afternoon, Shinobi gathers up his guts goes down to the basement to finally talk to Sarah.



Just be reasonable, and it'll go fine, Shinobi thought as he made his way towards Sarah's door, nervously rubbing at the nape of his neck. He really had sat on this for way too long - bad boy, not taking the advice he gave to other people to heart. No expectations. Take your time. He paused in front of the door, eyeing its cheerful little sign, and lifted a hand to knock. "Sarah? Are you and the mutt company-able?"

Looking up from her desk, a stack of papers under her hands, Sarah took a moment to wonder why he'd bothered to knock. She'd always told him to just come on in. It was as much his room as it was hers anymore. Behind her, Oscar scrambled towards the door with an excited bark. "Yeah, come on in," she called, pushing the black scribble covered papers to the back of the desk.

"Baaaack," Shinobi tutted down at the puppy as he opened the door a crack, waggling a pair of fingers at him. "I can't come in if you don't - there's a lad." Quickly squeezing inside before Oscar could change his mind, Shinobi closed the door, just in time for his feet to get pounced on. "Apparently, my shoes are trespassing.."

"Oscar, come here." Pulling a bone from her shoulder, she waved it at him and dropped it to the floor. "You can chew on this for a while, and not ruin pretty-mine's shoes." Curling up her feet beneath her, she smiled. "I think he's happy to see you."

"Oscar? Happy to see me? Never." Grinning, he reached down to ruffle the puppy's ears before the bone caught his attention, and shoes were abandoned in favor of something actually chewable. "He's far more of a momma's boy."

"Wouldn't you be?" She pushed off on her desk and spun the chair around to face the bed. "I mean, he's got his own personal toy factory, right here."

"He is the envy of puppies world-wide," Shinobi agreed, finally abandoning his spot near the door in favor of moving towards the bed, so he could sit on the edge. "Not interrupting you when you're writing, am I?" he asked after a moment, waving vaguely towards her desk.

"Nah, just reading through some old stuff. I found a big pile of it under my bed this morning." She shook her head reassuringly, and scooted her chair closer to him. "From when I first got here."

"I ought to get you a bookshelf or something," Shinobi murmured thoughtfully, folding his arms across his lap and glancing off towards a likely-looking wall. "Don't want Oscar to get ahold of your stuff."

"This stuff's been bled all over. I don't really think it matters." She glanced down at her bone covered hands for a moment. "Besides, most of it is just plans. From a long time ago. Not much good now."

Shinobi nodded slowly, tapping his fingertips together in a nervous fidget. No, Shinobi, we do not continue delaying this by mentioning your own notebook of plans. Be good. "On that note.. can we talk?" He paused. "Or, can I talk, and you bear with me while I do? Something like that."

"Of course you can talk..." She started, adding curiously, "Since when did you have to ask?"

"Boston," Shinobi said quietly, and even he wasn't entirely sure if it was a response to the question, or just him rushing on past it before he got cold feet. "I didn't know you'd gone back until I checked my e-mail that morning. Amanda'd written, said the X-Men'd gone after you in the tunnels, that I should hurry my arse up and come back to the mansion. Said Jono'd told them you were going."

Sarah started to say something, and but stopped herself. He had said he wanted to talk.

It was debatable as to whether or not Shinobi'd have heard her even if she had said something - his eyes were focused on Oscar, fingers absently fiddling with the ends of his shirt's sleeves. "I took you from the school, helped you find them, find out about them.. and you ditched me. The next time I saw you, you were just back from the other side of dead." He paused a moment. "Why?"

"It was something I had to do." She sighed, running a hand through her hair, and leaning forward slightly. "It wasn't your fight."

"And when were you planning on telling me that?" Shinobi asked, keeping his eyes firmly rooted to Oscar. "If it wasn't my fight, you shouldn't have let me help at all."

There was a long silence where Sarah tried to come up with something to say. Finally she just looked away (not that he would have noticed, looking down and all) towards the other side of the room. "What do you want me to say? That I was wrong?"

"Don't know," Shinobi admitted, hnching forward enough to prop his chin up in his hand. "Silence just doesn't seem to have done me any good, that's all."

"I wasn't thinking, I guess." More looking out to the side. It was better this way, really. "I needed all the help I could get, but not for the fight. That was something a Morlock had to do." Then more silence. "I just wanted it to be over."

"You could have left a note," Shinobi said quietly, his attention shifting from Oscar to instead focus on his shoes. "I was the last person to know. Jono was the first." He hesitated before tentatively nudging one of the wheels on Sarah's chair with his toes. "Nothing's stopping it from being over but you."

"Because I thought he wouldn't care." She kept her gaze firmly elsewhere. Easier to talk to the wall. It's what she'd done for years. "I told him because I thought he'd let it go. I didn't want everyone freaking out about it, and sending the fucking superhero club in after me." Her already quiet voice lowered more. "And if I'd known that's the way he'd react, I wouldn't have even told him about it."

"You didn't think he'd care?" Shinobi asked dubiously, looking up from his lap with an expression of disbelief on his face. "You thought your best friend, bloke you roomed with in the boiler room since you got here, only one who could ever really understand you, your nightlight, wouldn't give a rat's ass that you were running off to get yourself killed?"

"Getting killed was not my fucking intention!" she snapped, nails digging into her bone covered palms. "Sure, it's easy for you all to say that now, but believe it or not, I did not have a fucking death wish when I left that morning. I hadn't been training all my life with the intention of getting gunned down after three."

"They were military trained," Shinobi replied in a strained voice, firmly stomping down on the surge of temper that wanted to come out and play when she snapped. "I know damned well it wasn't your intention to, luv, but there was no other way it could have turned out. Not alone, not against all of them."

"I thought I could. I was wrong." She shrugged, crossing her arms across her chest. "But a Morlock had to do it. And I tried."

"You did," Shinobi agreed quietly, watching her for a moment. "So what happens now?"

She looked over at him, and quickly looked away again. "I get ready for the next time. I have to finish what I've started."

Shinobi nodded slowly, silently working his jaw as he drew in a deep breath. Calm. Calm was good. We like calm. "Pete helping you with that?"

"Some. It's more me beating the hell out of the gym at the moment." She rubbed her forehead with her hands, or as much as she could with bone on both her forehead and hands. "I do want it to be over. Life would be so much simpler if I didn't have to worry about who to kill next because they want vengeance."

"You're the only one keeping it from being over," Shinobi repeated gently, letting his breath out in a tired sigh. "Sarah, love, their vengeance got you killed. Sure, you got better, but I think you can tell them to bloody well shut up and let you live for a little while now."

"It doesn't work like that. It's just not something I can ignore." The chair squeaked as she shifted, pulling her knees up to her chest. "She....she thought I was worth something. That I deserved to be taken in and taken care of, and trained. I can't forget that now."

"You don't ignore it. Not overnight. You know, all the shit my dad's pulled, and I don't want him dead anymore?" Shinobi managed a tired smile. "It took a while.. a long bloody while, but.. but you can. It's possible to live without forgetting, honestly it is. It isn't easy, but it gets easier."

"You going to take me to the tunnels, and help me explain to them that I'm done?" She pushed, her voice sounding deadly serious as she spoke. "Paint 'I fucking quit' on the walls in my own blood? We could make a date out of it."

"I'd kind of like a chance to be with you someday, not you and the bodies in the tunnels," Shinobi replied quietly, eyeing her for a moment longer before looking down at Oscar again. "If the dead are going to continue to be more important to you than the living, Sarah, I don't think any dates are forthcoming."

"Oh." Another pause prevailed as she blinked, once, then again. "I... I'm sorry."

Shinobi leant down, to very carefully ruffle Oscar's ears. "But you're still going to go after them, aren't you?" he asked quietly, in a rather resigned tone of voice.

"You told me once," she started quietly, "that doing what I'd been saying I was going to do all along made me noble." She peered over her knees, clutching them to keep her hands from shaking. "When did that change?"

His answer was prompt. "When Scott showed me a picture of your corpse."

Any other time, Sarah would be outraged that there were pictures of the Morlock tunnels floating around somewhere. That she seemed to be the only person who had any sort of respect for them and the people there. But now she couldn't seem to get past the fact that the room seemed to be closing in around her. "I'm sorry..." she managed to choke out again.

"I love you, Sarah, honestly I do," Shinobi said with a strained, humorless laugh as he lifted his head. "But if things go on like they have, I'm going to go mad, and I've been trying to avoid that, you know? One Shaw already in the giant killer robots trade, don't need a second." He smiled tightly, stubbornly ignoring the way his eyes stung. "I can't play second fiddle to revenge anymore, love, or second best. There's more to life than death, and you are allowed to tell them that."

"...I'm everything you don't want to be," she added quietly, "The killer, the smoker, the one person in this house who will never be an X-man. I'm surprised you put up with me for this long." And then she looked up at him, with tears running down her face. "But look at it this way. If tomorrow you came back from town to find everyone here massacred. Scott, Amanda, Paige, Nathan. Angelo. Take your pick. Dead. Every last fucking one. Lying in a pool of their own blood. Tell me pretty, what would you do? How would you move on?"

"I came back to the mansion and found you massacred," Shinobi pointed out quietly, hesitating for a moment before tentatively reaching out to try and wipe the tears from her cheeks with his thumbs. "Granted, it was a picture. And granted, you got better. But first, I was sick for a couple days. Managed not to throw up on Scott, at least, which I'm sure he'd appreciate if he knew.." He trailed off, blinking slowly and making a faint noise. "..wait. Bad analogy. You didn't get your family killed. I have the monopoly there. Give me a minute, I need to think."

"And you got me killed how?" She shook her head, wiping roughly at her own eyes and leaving bloody scratches on the unprotected skin just below her eyes. "Last I checked, I was the one who left. I was the one who did it alone, and no amount of convincing from anybody was going to change that. Blame me. Blame me for needing their approval so badly I'd go out and kill for it. But don't blame yourself. Ever."

"I told you we could leave," Shinobi replied patiently, leaning back to count things off on his steadily-shakier fingers. "I drove us away from here, I found out who they were, I found out where they were. If I hadn't done that, you wouldn't have been able to leave to do it in the first place, because Charles would have seen it coming and stopped it!" He shook his head firmly, wrapping his arms around himself and looking down at his lap. When'd it get so damned cold in here?

"No, they'd have ignored it, just like they did. Nobody would have had any fucking clue, just like they didn't, until I left to go to the tunnels. They won't stop it if they don't think I'll actually do it. They're incredibly good at pretending there's nothing wrong." She reached out a hand to touch his arm gently. "I'd been here since May. And when I went out it was a huge fucking shock. You really think they were going to stop me?"

"There's a very big line between planning and doing," Shinobi replied hoarsely, reaching for the hand resting against his arm so he had something to cling to. "When it was just planning, it wasn't an immediate threat, but if Charles or Betsy or Jono sensed you on your way out the door, you wouldn't have made it to the end of the fucking driveway. They'd have stopped you."

Without pulling her arm away, she untucked her legs and went to the bed next to him. Her forehead on his shoulder a little reminder of just how much she needed him. "Tell me I can't, and watch me tell you I can so." She sighed, and rested her free hand tentatively against his leg. "Without you, I'd have left this place for good a long time ago. Without this place, there would have been no rescue."

"Most powerful telepath in the world lives upstairs, he could'a stopped you with a thought," Shinobi replied unsteadily, letting his head loll to the side to lightly rest against hers. "Without me, there'd have been no need for a rescue in the first place." He shook his head a little, without lifting it. "I can't do it again. I won't."

"Yes, but the most powerful telepath in the world wouldn't stop me from leaving. It's my choice to leave the house. And once I did that, the man surely has better things to do than supervise a psychotic sewer rat 24 hours a day." Sighing, her hand abandoned his leg to rest against his far cheek, and she looked up to kiss the one closest to her. "I love you, Shinobi. I love you so much, and I don't want to hurt you. Ever."

"Then try living in the present, for a change," Shinobi replied quietly, releasing her hand so his arm could try and find its way around her waist, instead. "Try letting go, please? You.. you could talk to Kylun, find out how he does it, he came home to find it like you did.. m-maybe he could help?" He was dimly aware of just how pleading he sounded, but he didn't particularly care.

She didn't respond right away, burying her face into the crook of his neck and wrapping her arms around him, scared that if she let go he'd leave and never ever come back. "You're all I need. I guess I should act like it, huh?"

"I promise I won't make you quit smoking," Shinobi murmured with a wobbily smile, quite willing to be clung to - it was only fair, as he was doing the same to her, his head tipping forward to rest against her shoulder. "Or try out for the leather brigade. Even if you'd be really hot in a leather catsuit."

"I keep telling you they don't have a monopoly on leather catsuits. Why don't you believe me?" There was a muffled sniffling sound very close to his ear, and she squeezed just a little bit more.

"Point.. Christmas present for both of us, maybe," Shinobi mused with a small nod, then slowly turned his head enough to press a light kiss to the side of her neck. "Love you.. 'm sorry if I scared you."

"Don't be. I think I needed it." Her face was still buried in his shoulder, muffling her words. "I still love you."

"I still love you too." Shinobi paused, thinking for a moment, before he lightly bumped his nose against her cheek. "Love you more when I can kiss you, though."

"Greedy bastard," she mumbled, turning her face just slightly to the side. Despite the tears, the ghost of a smile played on her lips. Just a little.

Shinobi nodded sagely. "Very greedy," he agreed, taking advantage of the turn to press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. "Gonna be okay?"

"I hope so. What about you?" She watched him answer, knowing he would probably answer positively, whether he was or not.

"Will you talk with Kylun?" Shinobi asked after a moment, tilting his head slightly to one side. "I really do think it'd help.. and I'm more likely to be okay if I know you're getting help."

"I can try." she nodded, fingers finding and intertwining with his. "Though we've never talked. I can't guarantee we'll get along."

"He's a monk," Shinobi pointed out lazily, giving her hand a squeeze once she'd successfully captured his. "They're mellow. Easy to get along with if you let yourself."

"You put too much faith in my people skills." She sighed, and stretched up to kiss him. "But if you'll excuse me, right now I'm going to steal you. For a long time. Or at the very least long enough for a nap."