Night and Day: April in the Morning
Chapter 7
by
Mo
Disclaimer: The X-Men and Alpha Flight belong to Marvel. The movie belongs to Fox. Belarus is an independent country and belongs to its citizens, mutant and otherwise. Bryn Mawr is a private women's college founded in 1885. It belongs to the women, mutant and otherwise, who have lived and learned there for the past 116 years. I do feel like Scott and Logan are a little bit mine since I've been borrowing them for so long.
April's a morning person, just like me. It's the best time of day, we both agree. "Full many a glorious morning have I seen." Arthur, on the other hand, is the original night owl. Of course, if I quote Shakespeare on mornings he just quotes Heinlein: "That old saw about the early bird just goes to show that the worm should have stayed in bed." Sometimes I think it's a wonder we managed to get together in the first place, much less stay married all these years. Well, we may not be compatible in circadian rhythm, but we have other things in common.
So, Arthur's always asleep when we get up. We're usually the first ones downstairs. Once in a while Logan is there, sitting at the table in the living room, blueprints spread out in front of him, hard at work before the sun rises. Generally he's in a lousy mood when he's up early, though. I have tried suggesting he go back to bed, get a little more sleep and he might feel more human. He doesn't take too kindly to personal suggestions, though.
This morning, though, it was Jean-Paul who beat us downstairs. He was sitting by the fireplace in the living room when we came in, reading. I was holding April but she said an insistent "Down" and then "Dah-po" and did the toddler equivalent of running over to him - sort of a wiggly waddle. He picked her up and she laughed when he made a funny face for her. It's hard to believe he used to be so cool towards her when I see them together now. They started to sing that French hand-game counting song about a blackbird that lost its feathers as I went off to the kitchen to make coffee.
I came back with two mugs and poor Jean-Paul was singing the verse about the thirty-seventh feather the blackbird had lost, using his and April's fingers *and* toes. "You indulge her," I said, putting his mug down on the table next to him.
"And you don't?"
"I'm supposed to. I'm her mother."
"Well, I'm her... Oh, I don't know. How about French tutor? She's never going to learn to count in French if I leave it to you and Arthur."
"There is that." I smiled watching him, playing with my little girl, picking her up and flying around the room with her while she squealed with delight. "You're so good with her, Jean-Paul. You need to have a kid of your own. You'd make a great father, you know." His face just about crumpled. Clearly this was not the right thing to say. "Okay, I know it's not so easy for you to have kids as it is for me and Arthur. Believe me, I know we're lucky to be able to grow a whole human being just using stuff we've got lying around the house anyway. But lots more gay men are becoming parents, no? Adoption, surrogacy..." I was getting the impression I just stuck the other foot in my mouth.
"I did adopt. I had a little girl named Joanne. She died, though."
"Oh, Jean-Paul, I'm sorry. I had no idea. Could I have said anything stupider? Oh God. Do you hate being around us? I can't imagine what it's like. I'm so sorry. I wish I'd known."
"Thanks, Wendy. It was kind of hard being around April at the beginning, but it's better now. I didn't want you to know at first - I didn't want you feeling awkward around me, trying to keep April away from me. I figure we know each other well enough now that you will know I mean it when I say I want her - want all of you - in my life."
I took his hand for a minute and squeezed it. Then we sat there for a few minutes in silence, drinking our coffee, while April played on the floor.
"When are Scott and Warren supposed to get here?" I asked, after a while.
"They got in late last night - they're probably still sleeping."
"Not me." Warren walked in, looking at least half-asleep, though, stretching arms and wings as he entered.
Jean-Paul started to introduce us but I said we knew each other. Warren told me I hadn't changed a bit. I told him he was still a lousy, albeit charming, liar. Got up and kissed him. Introduced him to April, who stared open-mouthed at the wings.
"Where did you two meet?" Jean-Paul asked.
"Siberia," Warren said, and laughed. "No, not really. I had a girlfriend in Wendy's dorm in college. That's what they used to call the dorm."
"How come?"
"Well, it was officially Russian House," I told him. "Supposedly for Russian majors, although most of us weren't. But mostly it was because it was so far away from the rest of the campus. It was kind of a pain in the ass getting to and from classes but it gave us the privacy we needed." Jean-Paul raised his eyebrows at that. "It was the de facto mutant dorm. There was a whole cadre of us. A bunch of mutants and Heather." He smiled at that. "We called ourselves the 'Mawrter Mutant Underground'. It was great. I swear, I met more mutants in my first week at Bryn Mawr than I had in my previous 18 years."
"Underground?" he asked. "So the other students didn't know you were mutants?"
"No way," I said. "As colleges go, it's pretty tolerant of difference, but there are limits to tolerance. As I keep finding out, to my peril." I thought a little about our home in Vermont, about the dollhouse my grandfather had made for me when I was a little girl, sitting there in the playroom. Blown to bits with everything else.
Nobody said anything for a minute. Then Warren asked if there was any more coffee and Jean-Paul offered to show him where the kitchen was, taking his own now empty mug with him. They came back with a steaming mug each and sat down on the couch next to each other. April went back over to Jean-Paul, raising her hands to be lifted to his lap. He told her to wait while he put down his hot coffee before he picked her up. She snuggled into his lap but kept looking at Warren, at his wings. Finally, she reached out and before I could stop her, pulled out a feather.
"Ouch!" he said, laughing though. April smiled, looking pleased with herself. She showed the feather to Jean-Paul, saying "Une plume!"
"Oui. C'est ca." He was laughing now. "Just like the song. But this is no blackbird," he added, pointing at Warren. "He's an Angel. C'est un ange." April clapped and laughed and then waved the feather in the air.
At that moment of conviviality Logan entered. Warren stood up and walked over to him. "Hi, you must be Logan," he said, extending his hand to shake. "I'm Warren Worthington." Logan looked down at Warren's hand with something approaching disgust, and made no move to shake it. Warren kind of stood there awkwardly for a minute, then put the hand on his head, smoothing his hair. "Umm, nice to meet you," he said, trying one more time. Logan merely grunted, walking off towards the kitchen. "Maybe he needs coffee," Warren said after the door closed.
"Oh, I think he needs more than that," Jean-Paul said.
I got the feeling he might have said something more if Scott hadn't walked in at that moment. He greeted everyone - a huge smile for April on Jean-Paul's lap. "Plume!" she said again, waving her prize at him.
Scott laughed. "She works fast," he said.
"Always the way," said Warren, shrugging shoulders and wings. "Women just can't keep their hands off of them."
Scott laughed. "Pay no attention to him," he said, turning to me. "He's always been a legend in his own mind."
"I'm sure Wendy has drawn her own conclusions, Scott. We've known each other for years." He recapped the Bryn Mawr story.
As Warren was talking, Logan walked back in with two mugs of coffee, handing one to Scott, who thanked him and took a sip. "Hey, this is really good. Last time I was here the coffee was awful. Did you find somewhere else to shop?"
"My friend Laura in Seattle sent me five pounds of coffee beans. She took pity on me when I told her about the limited options in Prince Albert."
There was suddenly complete silence. I got the feeling I'd said something terribly wrong for the second time this morning. Before even finishing my coffee.
"You gave this address to someone outside of Alpha Flight and the X-Men?" Logan asked, barely suppressing a growl.
"Well, yeah, she's an old friend. We'd been talking; she offered to send me coffee. I don't get what the problem is here. Am I missing something?"
"Oh come on, Wendy," Logan was really growling now. "You know this is supposed to be a secret location. What is the fucking point of all the planning and design for secrecy if you're going to go giving out the address to the immediate world?"
"She said she gave the address to one friend, Logan," Warren began to defend me.
"Shut up, Worthington. This is nothing to do with you." And then, turning back to me, "It was an idiotic thing to do, Wendy."
"Really, Logan, I don't think you need to talk to her like that," Warren tried again.
"Scott, he's your guest. Shut him up or get him out of here. I've got damage control to do. I can't be bothered with this guy."
Some kind of look passed between Scott and Warren. I thought Warren was going to say something more, but he didn't. I was paying more attention to Logan, anyway. "I'm sorry. I didn't think," I said.
"Obviously. Okay, tell me the whole story. You were talking, you said? So she had the phone number here? And you gave her the address, too? What does she know about this place? Who else have you been blabbing to?"
"No one, I swear. I've kept in touch with some folks by email, Laura among them. I've just said that Arthur and April and I are living in Canada, that we're trying to figure out what to do and where to go next. I haven't been any more specific than that. Laura didn't have the number here. I called her a couple of times and mentioned the coffee once. And she offered to send some. I'm sorry, Logan," I said again. He didn't say anything. "She's a mutant, if that makes any difference."
"Not a bit. She's still an outsider. Who has she given the address out to? That's what I want to know."
"I don't think she would have told anyone. She wouldn't have had reason to, I don't think. I mean, I can ask her not to, if you want. I'm really sorry, Logan. Look, I can tell her more, explain that we don't want the address getting out. But she doesn't know anything about it except that it's where I'm living. I didn't tell her what we're doing up here or anything." He was starting to look a little mollified. "I had been planning to ask you if she could come up here and visit, actually," I said. The anger came back into his face. "Okay, stupid idea."
"No, I don't think it is," Scott weighed in. "Logan, why don't you have Wendy invite her? We can find out more about what she may or may not have said to others. Maybe we even end up recruiting her and it's okay." Logan looked like he was at least thinking about it. "What's her mutant power, Wendy?"
"Languages. She can speak and understand any language perfectly, without any previous exposure. Read and write, too. It's pretty amazing. She was a big help in college." Logan looked like he was considering it. "I'm sorry," I told him again. "Laura's a friend of Heather's, too, Logan. And she's in between things now - that's why I wanted to invite her to come up here. Maybe she would end up joining Alpha Flight. Or your team, Scott."
"Okay. Invite her. But tell her - not a word to anyone about where she's going. And when you're talking to your other friends, keep your fucking mouth shut about where we are." He stalked out of the room.
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