To Let the Thunder Roll

by Kaylee

She stared at the people disembarking the flight, heart jumping just a little as each new face appeared...and wasn't the one she was looking for. Smiles to friends, family, lovers, husbands, wives. Weary frowns and impatient grimaces from others who shoved their way past those of more joyful mindsets. A laugh here. A cheerful babble there.

But not the one she waited for. Not the one she wanted to see.

***

They'd gone dancing. That was one of the strongest memories she held of that night. Dancing, giving bodies and souls over to music that thudded and burned its way through every nerve. The air had been wild, electric. Voices rose around them, speaking a language she only knew through the mental gift of a friend and teacher. Her heart had already been waking with that long-buried ferocity, and every thrumming beat brought it more and more strongly to the surface -- that abandon, that release, that freedom.

The dark, elegantly slanted eyes had taken in her face, and she'd grinned into them with joyous acknowledgment. A night, at long last, without the burden of smothering every dangerous, threatening emotion. Surrendering to excitement. Shrugging off control with an ease that was frightening. And when the lights flickered in protest to the storm outside, she'd laughed and thrust her arms skyward and shouted wordless challenge to any who would dare rebuke her.

***

Passengers thinned, faces growing more irritated as those who'd waited the longest to escape the confining metal bird finally reached the terminal. She stood now, hands clenched behind her back, cobalt gaze sweeping each arrival with fading hope. A hint of desperation tried to rise in her chest. With practiced skill, she shoved it down inside. That's all she'd been doing lately, it seemed. Shoving it all down into the dark, and forgetting almost entirely that wondrous time when she'd let it rise...

***

The lithe body had moved closer to hers as the music became a hip-grinding number. The heady sensation grew stronger as her own body responded without thought, giving over to the strength of the moment. Slim, strong hands touched hers. Fingers traced her palms, her forearms...over her shoulders and down her waist to caress lightly over her hips. Something had woken inside in response. Her arms had risen...slid behind a neck, over shoulders, drawing her partner closer in wordless acceptance. A light had kindled in the other's eyes -- fierce as a predator's, tender as a mother's. Softness as chests touched. The solid strength in the thighs brushing hers. The hands on her hips slid up her spine, then back down, fingers digging slightly, arching her body forward and pressing them full length against one another.

***

Everything had gone to chaos these last weeks, it seemed. Lives had been turned upside down with changes that would terrify her...if she allowed herself that luxury. Friends were injured. A mentor was gone. Strangers walked the house that had been a sanctuary, and one of them prowled with murder in her eyes. It took every ounce of her not-inconsiderable self-control to remain calm, to stay serene, to just keep it all together. Because now the onus was on her, and lives depended on the fact that she kept a clear head and a strong will and a caged spirit...

***

Heat. Tingling sensation throughout her. Sweat -- not perspiration, but honest, natural sweat -- touched both their skins and made them glisten. They'd danced, and when they'd tired of that, they'd run laughing out in the rain-drenched streets to the first clothing store they found. She'd felt her eyes widen at some of the assortment, and her companion bumped her ribs gently with an elbow and told her that the night was just beginning, and that they were going to enjoy it as if there were no tomorrow. She'd taken in the feverish wildness in those untamable eyes, and she'd wondered how someone could live every day with that savage excitement and unrelenting exuberance.

She'd wondered if she could live that way, too.

Then she'd stopped wondering as she was pushed into a dressing room with an armful of clothing, and she'd just given herself over to the night.

When she'd donned the clothes -- somewhat uncertain if they were all where they were supposed to be -- she'd stepped out with a new hesitance.

"How do I look?"

A smile pulled lips -- a smile of mischief, not the cruelty she knew could twist them. "You look fantastic. Leather suits you."

Her own smile had flashed. "Not so well as it does you, I think."

"Some people might argue with that..." Then with a casual intimacy, the other had stepped close and slipped a hand over her shoulder to circle the weight of her unbound hair. "This, I think, is due for a change."

"My hair?"

"Your hair." Laughing in eyes that were hard and soft at once. "No tomorrow, Ororo. Can you handle it?"

She'd taken in a deep breath, letting that thing, that wildness answer what she saw in the other's gaze.

"Yes."

***

A man eyed her appreciatively, letting her see the appraisal -- as if she'd somehow find it flattering, or send him a "signal" that an approach wouldn't be rebuffed. Her jaw clenched as she looked away. Beauty was something women fought for. Money, makeup, clothing, hair styling. All these things to win the attraction of men who wanted to possess them...for a night. Just so they could say they had.

Not all men see only the physical beauty, she reminded herself. And some women see only that, and they hate it because it is something they do not and cannot have.

And yet they never seemed to realize how little looks meant to her...what little importance they had for someone who gave her soul to a world that would see her age and wrinkle and shrivel over time. Other people touched on the concept of time as a fleeting thing -- a thing that was noticed only in passing, then discarded until it took something from them. But she...she was aware of it always, as a great heavy thing that watched with idle amusement the busy little lives that flickered in its face. Something huge. Something wild. Something that could be put in tiny little gears and springs underneath the face of a watch, but couldn't be contained there, couldn't be slowed or stopped.

Time didn't much like the reservation she fought for. It dragged those smothered passions out to the surface eventually, as she always knew it would. Time saw everything sooner or later.

***

Glorious, thick white hair had fallen in tendrils to the floor. Scissors snipped with that sibilant whisper. "A friend of mine," her guide had explained. "Shop's not open, but he'll do this for me."

And he did. Scissors, then razor, buzzing warningly in her hearing. She hadn't looked in the mirror as the weight of mane was diminished. Had looked instead at the wild one who showed her the world that night, and who told her there was no tomorrow. No tomorrow. Not next week. No ten years from now.

Only now.

And now was a very powerful thing, when she let it be.

When she'd turned to face the mirror she'd seen someone she didn't know looking back at her. Gone was the nature-pure innocence she knew the others saw first and foremost. Gone was the goddess who knew nothing of the ways of lesser beings. A dark-skinned, blue-eyed, leather-clad woman with electric vibrance in place of composure sat there, ready to face...whatever came. She turned her head wonderingly to see the dark skin revealed beneath the upstanding white mohawk that now made up her hair.

"So different..." she murmured.

"You don't like it?"

She shook her head slowly. "No." Almost felt the disappointment coming from the other, and eased it with a slow, slow smile. "I love it."

***

Overhead sounded a rumble of thunder. She was getting anxious. Losing focus. Compose self...then reach out and calm the sky. Steady...steady...ignore the frustration that's been building for weeks -- no, months -- and keep it all steady...steady...

***

"Steady there, WindRider," cautioned her friend when they crossed the doorway into the small ramshackle apartment. "Watch that step."

"I have not had so much to drink that I cannot walk straight," she'd retorted with no venom, bending without complaint to remove her boots as her companion did the same. "And I believe you had a good bit more than I."

"Maybe I did," said the voice, suddenly very close behind her. She whirled with a little start. Almost lost her balance when the half-removed boot fouled her step. That now-familiar smile was in place beneath the dancing eyes. "Did you see all the looks you were getting at the last club?"

"I did not notice," she answered honestly. No. She hadn't. Instead she'd noticed black-gloved hands on her hips, her back. A fit, hard and soft body meeting hers. Lips only inches from her own -- so close. Close enough to just lean in and--

"The wind is howling," the other said softly. "Is that your doing, 'Roro?"

"Mine," she confirmed, holding very still. "And yours."

A step towards her, graceful as a cat, muscle clearly defined beneath supple leather. "Is this a good thing?"

A thunderclap boomed overhead. She smiled and finished pulling off her boot, then unhurriedly closed the last step between them. With deliberate slowness she caressed her palms over the other's arms, back. "How do you make me feel as if I really can live as passionately as you?"

The eyes darkened with a hint of unaccustomed solemnity. "If you're not going to live each day with everything you have, what's the point in having lived it?"

"I have no answer," she said quietly. "And at the moment...I do not care."

Whoever started the kiss was lost to the realms of fractured memory. It didn't matter. All that mattered was that it was started, and that lips opened without hesitation, and then tongues touched. Hands that caressed innocently enough found their way around ribs to a chest, then a breast, then a nipple standing proudly erect beneath clothing.

Clothing was shed piece by piece as they made their way across the room as far as the couch, then thumped down to it, laughing at their lack of patience, panting at the growing heat in bodies and minds. When breasts were bared, lips closed unerringly over a dark, tight nipple. Moist warmth suckled gently, fingers tantalizing the other nipple to keep it at attention. She gasped, leaning back and letting the other take the initiative. When a hand stroked down her flat stomach, over her thigh, and down lower to slip gently between, she parted her legs readily and shifted to accommodate the touch.

And then it was all a fever of heat and gentler warmth, overwhelming sensation and comforting arms. Skin to skin, heart to heart, soul to soul...a joining so pure and seamless that Ororo could barely tell where she left off and the other began. Outside the weather raged, celebrating inhibition with a staccato drum beat and flickering spears of light, singing wind that howled hauntingly and lashing rain that drove the unprotected indoors.

Ororo found herself that night.

When had she lost that vital thing?

She shook her head, struggling to shove the memories down, down, with everything else. Too distracting, these past glimpses of what she'd once held. Standing now in an airport, waiting for someone who might not even come...this was no time to be lost in what-had-been. There was only now, this moment, and she was standing alone amidst a throng of people, and regret could be buried as deeply as anything else, damnit she knew that, so she could just quiet the aching, keening thud of her heart and turn with as much composure as she could manage, leaving this place and these people far behind while she tried to find that balance she'd once held...alone, but strong...alone, but resolute...alone, but--

"Ororo!"

She froze, heart jumping up and lodging in her throat.

"Ororo, over here!"

Feet turned slowly, boot soles scuffing over the polished floor.

"I would have been off sooner, but the fool sitting beside me demanded some attention, if you get my drift. If I ever have to fly seated next to an oaf like that again..."

"Yukio..." Ororo was surprised at the catch in her voice. Of course, given that her heart was blocking her throat, it shouldn't have come as a shock that words wouldn't sound quite right. "It is so good to see you. I was not sure you would come..."

The hint of cold fury that the woman had been carrying from whatever encounter she alluded to just...vanished. Those sharp, so-observant eyes took in Ororo's face, the tension showing there, the tautness of her body. She dropped her good-sized leather bag and stepped forward, a hand reaching to close on Ororo's shoulder warmly. "What's wrong, Wind Rider?"

Words surged into her mind; various answers to a question she'd been longing for over these past weeks. All the things which were tearing her apart...all the doubts and fears and questions. They sprang into her mind...but didn't reach her mouth.

Instead, Ororo wrapped arms around the other woman and drew her into a fierce embrace, lips finding and catching the other's responsive mouth in a kiss full of all the suppressed passion in the windrider's soul. The looks they drew didn't matter to her. The sudden krakaBOOM of thunder outside barely registered.

Yukio smiled wickedly against her lips and drew back slightly. "Well hello to you, too."

The words surged again, all at the same time. "Yukio, I...it has been mad here, and it feels as if...I have missed you so much..."

A warm, strong hand briefly caressed her dark face. "Easy. I'm here. We'll figure it out."

It was so very, very hard to thrust those nearly babbling words aside and find something sensible to say. "How long...?"

"How long am I staying?" Yukio smiled, and deep in her eyes something glinted with mischief and humor and something kinder and more savage than both. "Long enough."

"Long enough?"

"Yes."

Something unclenched its desperate grip deep in her chest. She drew in a breath, and for once it seemed to reach all the way into her lungs and throughout her body.

Ororo smiled suddenly, and wondered when the last time she'd smiled had been. It felt good, smiling. Like something she'd like to get in the practice of again.

"Come on," Yukio said with a grin. "I'm hungry." She stooped to shoulder her bag again, then linked an arm companionably through the taller woman's. "And we've got a lot of catching up to do, don't we?"

Thunder chuckled approvingly.

"Yes," Ororo agreed. "We do."

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