The Lake
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission for entertainment purposes only.
Rain fell on the roof of the cabin in a steady, persistent rhythm. Inside, Nathan Summers sat by the window in a battered old armchair, staring out silently into the mist-enveloped Northern Ontario woods.So strange, for him of all people, to have dozed off to the sound of the rain. He'd lived most of his life in a time when rain could kill, and even after all these years in the twentieth century, he still hadn't quite broken himself of a certain wariness.
But this rain was different, somehow. Soothing. He felt like he could sit here and listen to it forever.
There was a lake out there somewhere, he reminded himself, smiling faintly as he pulled the blanket up around his shoulders to ward off the faint dampness in the air. They'd driven by it last night on the way in, when it had looked like a mirror, laying there amid the trees and reflecting the sunset. Maybe later he'd wander down there and get a closer look.
Definitely later. At the moment, he felt relaxed almost to the point of being limp, as if all the tension in his body had mysteriously drained away during the course of his unexpected nap. And the quiet--the quiet. It was just them, here, and a few other thought-traces in the distance. He could let his shields down, at last. There was no one here he had to guard against.
"You know," her voice said softly from the direction of the bed, "if you were going to sleep, you could have stayed here."
Nathan looked over at her, letting the faint smile linger on his lips at the half-diffident, half-searching look in the violet eyes that met his. "Much less chance of a stiff neck afterwards," Domino said with a hesitant flicker of a smile as she stretched and then laid back against the pillows, pulling the thick comforter up to her chin.
He chuckled softly. "I thought you said I was stiff-necked anyway, Dom--"
"Figure of speech," she said, the hesitancy fading and the smile growing, stronger but still wistful. "Come back to bed?"
He glanced back out the window. Still raining. Still awfully early, actually. "Sure," he said quietly. "Why not." Getting up out of the chair and leaving the blanket there, he walked across the cabin, back to the bed. Domino flipped the blankets back, and then pulled them over him as he laid down beside her.
"What made you get up?" she asked softly. He put an arm around her, and she nestled against him with a half-suppressed sigh.
"I was dreaming," he murmured, staring up at the dark wood beams of the ceiling. He didn't know whose cabin this was. Dom's idea, it had been, to come here. She'd made all the arrangements, and he hadn't asked.
"You should have woken me up."
Nathan felt the corner of his mouth tug upwards again. "I didn't need to do that," he said in a low voice. He'd liked watching her sleep, curled up beneath the forest-green comforter, glossy black hair draped across the pillow and only heightening the pale perfection of her features.
"I wish you had."
"It wasn't a bad dream." Although the transition had been--wrenching. As long as he'd been in the dream, reliving some of the happier moments of his childhood, it had actually been a rather good dream. Waking up, coming back to himself--that had been the hard part.
"I'm glad," Dom said softly, sliding an arm across his chest and hugging him gently. "You should go back to sleep," she urged.
She probably had a point. He hadn't been sleeping well, back at the mansion. Too much going on, too many other minds pressing at his shields--
Dom's arm tightened around him, very slightly. "No one else here but us," she said, almost huskily. "Relax, Nate. Go back to sleep."
He let out his breath on a sigh, and closed his eyes. "It's like I'm an open book to you these days," he murmured. It should have bothered him, how--precise she was when it came to reading him, these last couple of weeks. Either he was telegraphing his emotions far too clearly, or she was getting a whole lot more insight from the psi-link than he was--
"You always were."
He did smile, at that. But he was tired, more tired than he'd thought, and between that and the comforting warmth of her presence on the link - and the steady, steady sound of the rain - he found it so easy to drift off again.
This time, he didn't dream.
***
Domino flinched at the sizzle the bacon made when it hit the pan. The noise seemed too loud in the hush of the cabin, but as she glanced over in the direction of the bed, she saw with relief that Nathan was still sound asleep. I keep it down, he might actually sleep until I put the coffee on-- At that point, of course, the game was up.
The cabin was nicer than she'd expected. The friend who'd lent it to her for the next couple of weeks had called it the ideal 'hideaway', but she'd been expecting to have to rough it a little more than this. Place certainly has all the amenities--I'm pretty sure I don't want to know what Maggie uses it for.
It seemed like so long since she'd cooked, beyond sticking the occasional frozen something in the microwave. But she was feeling domestic, and she wasn't sure whether realizing that was more bemusing, amusing, or disturbing.
This - all of this - was overcompensation on her part, Domino knew. In any other situation, she'd be laughing at herself. She did not, as a rule, fuss, and yet that was exactly what she was doing right now. Fussing. Rearranging his life, simply because she had decided someone needed to, at least for a little while. Frankly, she'd expected him to dig in his heels and protest. She would have felt better--been reassured, if he had. But the passive way he'd agreed to this little 'vacation', as if he couldn't be bothered to put up a fight--well, it reassured her, but only in the sense of letting her know she'd been right in the first place.
Amazing. She wasn't burning the bacon. Turning back towards the refrigerator to get the eggs, she saw Nathan sit up, blinking around at the cabin. "Hey," she said easily, retrieving the eggs. "Good morning."
He looked a little groggy. "Not morning," he muttered, sliding out of bed. "What time is it?"
"Were we keeping track?" Domino asked with a smile.
Nathan blinked at her as he stood up. "I guess not," he said a little uncertainly, glancing over at the window. "It stopped raining?"
"It did indeed."
"Well--good." He stood there for a moment or do, as if he was trying to gather his thoughts. "Breakfast smells good," he finally said.
"Well, it's almost ready. Even if it is more like lunch," Domino said briskly, cracking open an egg and somehow managing not to get it all over herself or the stove.
Nathan made one of those noncommital monosyllabic noises that generally irritated her to no end, and wandered over to sit on one of the stools lining the other side of the small 'island' that sat in the center of the kitchen. Once she got the rest of the eggs in the pan, she turned around to face him, leaning back against the counter and keeping one eye on the stove.
As she looked at him, Nathan tilted his head at her, almost inquisitively, as if he was trying to decide whether or not to ask her something. But his gaze was oddly distant, as if he was only half-there, and most of his attention was fixed on something else.
"It's so quiet," he said. "Reminds me of Switzerland." He smiled faintly, looking almost thoughtful. "I really should rebuild that place one of these days."
Domino turned back to the stove to turn the eggs over. "Not a bad idea," she said cheerfully. "Lots of good memories in that place--"
"Yeah."
The eggs were done. Domino transferred them gingerly to the plates, and then dumped the frying pan itself in the sink. "That's going to be murder to get off," she muttered, filling it with water.
"There is a dishwasher."
Domino turned back towards him, trying not to grin at the absolutely innocent look she was getting. "Yeah, but if I put it in there like that, it won't get clean. Have to scrub it first."
"Washing the dishes before you put them in the dishwasher? Sort of defeats the purpose, doesn't it?"
She attempted a severe look as she handed him his plate. "It's a machine. Doesn't mean it's efficient. And if you get me into a debate on the merits of technology, I swear I'll drag you out fishing today just to be petty."
"I wouldn't mind giving that a try, actually," he said meekly, poking at the eggs with a knife as if he expected them to jump up and start singing show tunes or something. She gave him a dark look. He hurriedly downed a mouthful or two, and she nodded, satisfied. "I mean," he continued, words slightly obscured by the fact that he was still eating as he spoke, "it'd be interesting. I've eaten fish before, obviously, but I've never actually caught it myself."
Domino blinked. "Well, Maggie did say she had some fishing gear around here. We could--if you wanted to." The image of Nate with a fishing rod in his hands was a little--odd, to say the least. "It can be sort of boring, sometimes," she felt compelled to add, for some reason.
Nathan shrugged. "Something different," he said softly, meticulously cutting his bacon into neat pieces. "I wanted to see the lake, anyway."
"Fair enough," Domino said, somewhat bemusedly, and ate her breakfast, trying not to be too obvious about watching him as she did.
***
"We're lopsided, you know. The boat's lower in the water on your end." Domino shook her head as she turned off the motor. "Good thing we didn't take the canoe. That would have been a REALLY bad idea."
Nathan trailed his hand in the water alongside the boat, half-mesmerized by the play of the sunlight on the surface of the lake. With the motor off, there was very little sound at all out here. Birdsong echoed across the lake from the shoreline, the lapping of the water against the hull of the boat coming in soft counterpoint. "We're not going to sink, are we?"
"No. But you weigh a ton," she said dryly.
Nathan looked up, and smiled at the teasing sparkle in her violet eyes. "You just complain about that because it gives me an edge when we're sparring."
"Hah! Some edge, when I can take you two out of three times--"
"You're exaggerating again."
"Okay, three out of five."
"In your wildest dreams, Dom."
She threw back her head and laughed, and he felt his own smile growing, almost despite itself. "I suppose it'd be hardly plausible to pretend I've kept count after all these years," she said, almost wickedly.
"Definitely stretching credulity," he said, mock-solemnly. The sky had cleared almost completely, save for a few stray wisps of clouds, and although it had been cool back under the trees, it was warm enough in the sunlight that he slid off the jacket he'd thrown on as they left the cabin, and laid it on the bottom of the boat.
Domino leaned back, taking a deep breath and tossing her hair back over her shoulder in a movement as graceful as it was unconscious. "So," she said, regarding him with a broad grin. "Were you serious about fishing?"
He thought about it. "Why not?" he finally said, shrugging. "We can let them go if we catch any, right?"
Domino blinked at him, silent for so long that he wondered if he'd said something extraordinarily stupid and forgotten about it as soon as he'd opened his mouth, or something along that line. "Throw them back?" she finally said, very quietly.
"Well, we've got lots of food back at the cabin, right?" he said, lamely. "We don't have to kill any fish--"
"That's--very--practical of you," Domino said, sounding like she was trying not to choke on something.
Nathan studied her expression for a moment, then gave his best martyred sigh. "Just go ahead and laugh."
"Oh, I wouldn't dream of it," she said, ducking her head to the side and going into what he was perfectly sure WASN'T a minor coughing fit. "It's just--well," she continued, a little hoarsely, her voice rippling suspiciously, "I didn't think you'd be so--tender-hearted about, um, fish."
"Well, fish have feelings too," he said, more defensively than he'd intended. Dom bit her lip, turning an interesting shade of red, as if the laughter was building up to critical mass inside her or something. "They do," he protested. "In a way--" A giggle escaped her, and he snorted. "Everything living does. It's not much of an awareness, nothing a human being could have a conversation with. Just sensations."
"This is all--very riveting, Nate," Domino said after another faux-coughing fit. "Um--tell me, do you talk to insects, too?"
He shook his head. "As a matter of fact, yes. And I'm telling all the mosquitoes in the area that you have the best-tasting blood within a hundred miles."
"Oh, low blow--I'm glad I packed insect repellant," she chuckled.
"Yeah," he murmured, looking down at the water again and reaching out to the flickers of awareness he felt in the depths. Primal, like he'd told Dom. It certainly didn't class as anything even approaching thought. Just--basic things. Water was good, air was bad, and the sound of the boat could mean they would be wrenched from one to the other. One moment content, in the next gasping for air, dying--
His breath caught, and he felt Dom's sudden concern along the link. "They drown in air like we do in water," he said, the strange, almost unbidden words coming out uneven, shaky. She reached out, taking his hand, and he forced himself to take a deep breath. "I'm fine, Dom. But could we maybe just--" He trailed off uncertainly.
Her grip on his hand tightened slightly. "Sure," she said gently. "Anything you want."
He stared down fixedly at the water. Part of him wanted to tell her to take the boat back to the dock. The sunlight was just as bright, but the water seemed darker, all of a sudden. Deeper. It was insane. This was a tiny freshwater lake, not the North Pacific, but still--
"We could just float around out here for a while," he said, trying to push it away, out of his mind.
"Sure," she said again, even more softly.
He closed his eyes, and listened to the birds.
***
Domino threw another piece of wood onto the fire, relishing the crackling noise it made as it spat sparks up the chimney. She loved big fireplaces, always had, and the fire itself was coming along nicely, filling the cabin with warm, flickering light, and driving out the chill that had descended as the sun had set.
Nathan sat cross-legged on the rug in front of the fireplace, examining the bag of marshmallows with a very skeptical expression. "We burn these?" he asked a little hesitantly as she sat down beside him and picked up the two skewers.
"No, we ROAST them. If you burn them, you've had them in the fire too long." She pursed her lips, thoughtfully. "Then again, there's a school of thought that says it's better to burn them. The inside certainly achieves a more complete level of gooeyness--"
"Gooeyness? Is that a word?"
"In this context, yes," Domino drawled, tickled by the whole conversation. "After all, you don't want to half-roast the marshmallow. Then you get a solid center surrounded by a thin layer of goo--"
Nathan arched an eyebrow. "I'm getting some very unappealing mental images."
"Shush." She took the bag of marshmallows from him, ripped them open, and stuck one on the end of one skewer. "Watch and learn." It didn't take long to toast the marshmallow to a warm brown all over. Nathan's look of mild fascination changed to wariness as she withdrew the skewer from the fire and offered the finished product to him. "Come on," she teased. "Try it."
Nathan slid it off the skewer gingerly and popped it into his mouth. It took a great deal of willpower not to burst out laughing at his expression as he chewed, grimacing, and swallowed.
"That was--interesting."
"They're good!" Domino protested, unable to help a grin.
"Must be an acquired taste."
"Wimp," she scoffed, laying the skewer down on the hearth and sliding over, closer to him. He put his arm around her, and she relaxed against him with a sigh. "Are you going to try roasting one yourself?"
"If you promise to eat it," he said. Leaning against him like she was, she felt as well as heard his soft chuckle.
"Do I look like a garbage can?" she said with a mock-scowl, looking up at him. "You've got a bit of marshmallow on your chin," she said, keeping a straight face as she reached up and wiped it away.
He smiled down at her for a moment, but the smile vanished, bit by bit, as his gaze drifted back to the fire. She wasn't sure how to describe the silence that fell over them. It wasn't an uncomfortable silence - she didn't feel the usual urge to fill it up with something, anything, even if it was pointless smart-assed comments - but neither was it the occasional blissful silence they sometimes found themselves sharing.
The link ached. There was no way else to describe it. Domino closed her eyes as a shudder went through his broad chest and the link grew colder and darker, vibrating with pain.
"Nate," she said softly.
"Two weeks," he said, his voice coming out strained, broken around the edges. "How--can it have been two weeks already?"
Domino opened her eyes, pulling away from him gently and staring up at him. He kept gazing into the fire, not turning to face her, as if meeting her eyes would be some kind of admission he didn't want to make. "You lose track of the days, at times like this," she said, her voice husky. "You should know that as well as I do."
He nodded jerkily, still not meeting her eyes. "I keep--I keep wondering why--" He swallowed, as if past a lump in his throat. "It wasn't that big a plane. She should have been able to cushion the crash, telekinetically--"
Domino didn't point out any of the possibilities. He knew all the reasons why Jean might not have been able to stop the small passenger plane's fatal dive into the ocean, just short of the Alaskan coastline. Knowing didn't help, of course. It couldn't make sense of the senseless, explain why Scott and Jean had been alive and happy one minute, and gone the next.
"Maybe--if I had gone with them, when they asked, I could have--" Nathan shook his head, brushing the back of his hand across his eyes almost angrily. "What is, is," he rasped, sounding so tired, so defeated, that Domino's eyes blurred with tears. "You'd think I'd have learned by now. Makes me look pretty stupid, doesn't it, to keep asking why--"
"No," she said gently, taking his hand in hers and squeezing tightly. "Makes you look human, Nate. That's all." She saw the need in his eyes, maybe before he knew it was there, and immediately shifted forward, to where she could hug him with all the strength she had.
His arms slid around her, hesitant at first, but soon he was holding onto her as if she was the last solid thing in his world, his only anchor. "I miss them," he whispered.
"I know." And she did. She'd felt every bit of what he felt, right from the moment when Ororo and Hank had given him the news, all the way through the funeral and all the endless days afterwards--she didn't know why, but he hadn't been shielding himself from her. It was part of the reason she'd known she had to get him away from the well-meaning crowd back at the mansion. He'd done all the public grieving he could, and when he'd gone quiet and unnaturally subdued, she'd known that what he needed, he'd never have found there--the space and time to adjust, again, to a loss he'd never expected.
She didn't know how long they stayed like that, wrapped in each other's arms, but eventually he was pulling back, wiping at his eyes again and trying very hard to smile. "What were you saying about it being okay to burn these things?" he asked shakily, picking the bag of marshmallows up off the ground.
"Well," she said with a weak chuckle, dabbing at her eyes surreptitiously, too, "they're usually still edible, even if you do. Except you wind up picking charcoal out of your teeth--"
"Sounds appetizing," he said, managing something very close to a normal dry tone as he slid a marshmallow onto the other skewer and stuck it determinedly right into the flames. "Remember, you promised to eat this one."
"I did, didn't I?" she murmured, shaking her head. "You know, Nate, they turn out better if you hold them close to the embers rather than in mid-flame."
"Now you tell me," Nathan muttered, pulling the only slightly-blackened marshmallow out of the flames and lowering the skewer towards the base of the fire.
"Hey, it's an art," she said, leaning her head against his shoulder. "You're still holding it a little too close--"
"I don't--" The marshmallow burst into flame, and he pulled the skewer back, staring at it balefully. Domino bit her lip, trying not to smile, and then blew on it delicately.
He extended the skewer towards her, and she winced. "You're not really--"
"Eat it."
She couldn't help a giggle as she slid it off the skewer and ate it in two bites. "Mmm," she said deliberately, licking her fingers. "You roast a good marshmallow, old man."
Nathan shook his head at her. "You are so full of it," he growled, but there was something else in his eyes, a warmth that she'd missed, so badly.
"What can I say?" she bantered, and then beamed. "I forgot! I brought chocolate and graham crackers, too--"
He looked mildly disturbed. "Why?"
"For s'mores!"
"I don't want to know, do I?"
She jumped up, giggling at his expression. "They're good. Trust me."
#Always,# his voice whispered along the link, and something tense and worried inside her began to relax as the cold bleakness on the link began, ever so gradually, to thaw.
fin