Family 10.8

** AUTHOR'S NOTE

Hey there! I wanted to let you know that I've decided to publish the entire backlog of Rogue Evolution on my website, artoflupin.com. There you'll find chapters as far ahead as "Snow Fall 11.6", and in a couple of weeks, I plan on having the log on my website be a chapter ahead of any other site I post to!

If you'd prefer to wait for uploads here, no worries, uploads will continue here as scheduled.

Thanks! **

 Thanksgiving wasn't really a holiday Anna had celebrated before. She and her mother's weren't big eaters and it's not like they had any extended family to invite to a dinner. So if it didn't end up being just another Thursday, they would treat themselves by ordering extra egg-rolls from the Chinese place down the street.

The prep before was a little overwhellming to say the least. Sure Logan did most of the heavy lifting, both literally and metaphorically, but each student was assigned some stupid thing to do. Mash the potatoes, polish the silver, set the table, strain the green beans, wash the cooking equipment, blah, blah, blah.

Then there was getting dressed up. Kitty didn't mind, and if Anna was honest, she didn't either. It was more the fact that they were doing it for MacArthur than anything.

"He'll probably get all pruney if you don't wear a dress," Kitty said while putting on her pink earrings.

"He can suck my left one if he doesn't like it," Anna answered while squeezing into her tightest black skinny jeans. By the end, the pair looked like diametric opposites, but Anna still let Kitty paint her pinky nails pink as had become some sort of tradition since her birthday.

It was rare to see the others look so presentable. The boys were all in suits with matching ties aside from Kurt who insisted on wearing a yellow polka-dotted bow tie. Jean wore a beautiful dress in classic red in matching lipstick. Her hair was done in curls and flowed eligently on her shoulders. The only thing clashing with her otherwise stunning visage was the fat turquoise earrings.

"Wearing the training wheels?" Anna asked when they met at the bottom of the stairs.

"I have to. If I didn't, Xavier would notice and know I was up to no good."

"I wish you could be."

"I know, but trust me. The smoother this goes, the better, and then he leaves tomorrow."

Anna grumbled but she knew it was true. The less drama there is, the better.

"I'm all for women's emancipation, or whatever it is-" said MacArthur through a mouthful of spuds. "But don't you feel like you would fit better in a dress of some sort, Miss Ororo?"

Ororo stared back at the man from across the table. Her black suit with a coblat blue tie was imaculate. As opposed to MacArthor's tan suit with a mustard yellow button up undernieth which looked so wrinkled it was likely it was dredged up from the bottom of his suitcase. "My suit fits me perfectly well, thank you for your concern, Mr MacArhur."

Scott took the ninth or fifteenth sip from his cup of sweating water. "So, what did you think about the Mustang yesterday, Dad? Did all the work myself. Lowered it like you taught me, and even did an at-home alignment using some concrete blocks we had sitting around to prop up the wheels."

"Well, that 'at-home' part shows. When I got behind the wheel I could feel the car pulling to the right."

"I've been having issues working that out. Every time I get it on the blocks I can't seem to work out the issue. Do you think you could help me out before you go?"

"We'll see, son." MacArthur cut into his steak. "Other cars look good. I'm amazed you were able to make that screaming wreck of a Gremlin out there halfway respectable."

Anna felt her fist curl tight enough around a beam of wood under the table her nails caught the grain.

"That one was a, uh, labor of love." Scott gestured to Anna from across the table. "It's Anna's car, actually. We took it for a test drive a couple of days before you came and it did great!"

MacArthor eyed Anna while he chewed on some gristle. "You live in this place and that's the car you got?"

"It's the car I wanted," Anna said through gritted teeth.

"I'm just pulling your chain, little lady! My first car was a beat-to-hell square square-body Ford. Ugly as hell but it got the job done. Gotta start your way from the bottom, right?"

Logan leaned on the table with one hairy arm. "You sure like to talk a lot, don't you pal?"

"Excuse me?"

"Mr MacArthor." Xavier forced a little smile and tilted his head to one side. "It's been a pleasure as always having you join us."

"Oh, pleasure is all mine, professor!" MacArthur raised his glass of wine. "Always a pleasure to see you, the boy," He raised his glass in Jean's direction. "And little Jeanie of course," he winked.

Jean smiled a very toothy smile with long narrow lips. "Uh-hu!" She raised her water glass.

"Here's a round to family, eh?" MacArthur raised his glass once more and didn't wait for anyone to join him before he then downed half his wine.

"That reminds me," Scott picked at the scabbing flesh around his thumb. "You still haven't answered me about Mom. She hasn't called or anything. I know you guys have different schedules, but I thought she would have flown out to join you over here at some point."

"Your mother," MacArthor put his glass down and for the first time that evening the smile left his ruddy cheeks. Anna and Jean's eyes met from across the table.

"Well, son, as you know, your mah hasn't been well for a while."

"What?" Scott sat straight. "What? No - no one told me that. What's wrong?"

"She's had the cancer, boy."

The energy of the room hit a wall with the momentum of a speeding car.

"Cancer?" Scott sat still as glass. "Cancer? What… what cancer?"

"She's been struggling with breast cancer. We've been treating it off and on, but… well you know how it goes."

"How what goes?"

"Son, there ain't no easy way to say this, so I'll just say it." MacArthur pushed his plate aside and put his elbows on the table. "Your mother passed away a week before I arrived."

The look of Scott's face that day would forever be burned in Anna's mind. So much was expressed with so little. His wide eyed stare, the part in his pale lips, his spread fingers as they slowly began to tremble.

Time stopped completely as not a solitary breath passed anyone's lips. The house didn't creak, the birds didn't chirp outside, there was only silence. Complete, devastating, silence.

Scott's fingers eventually pressed into the tablecloth and spread. Making the fabric taught between his fingertips. "She died… a week before you got here… and you didn't tell me?"

"I figured it was best to tell you this sort of thing in person."

"Tell me this in person? Here? In front of everyone at dinner?"

"Here there are plenty of people who care about you and can help you -"

"You didn't even tell me she was sick!"

"What good would that have done? I'd just worry you. Not like you could have done anything about it."

"I would have called! I would have visited!"

"Well, the phone works both ways, don't it? Why do we always need to be calling you for updates, huh?"

Scott stood so suddenly that his chair fell behind him. He clasped a hand to his mouth and the other to his chest. He backed away slowly at first before rushing out the room. A few moments later the front door slammed.

Jean pushed herself out of her chair, gave MacArhter a withering look, and then followed after Scott.

MacArthur ran his hand over his face and made a long jagged sigh. "I apologize, everyone. I'm sure you all know how Scott can be. Besides, he's always been a mama's boy."

Anna stood and slammed the table hard enough with both fists all the silverware on her side of the table trembled. "Okay, you know what?" She started to shout.

"Miss Marie!" Xavier called her name even louder.

Anna turned toward her guardian. "No! He doesn't get to-"

"Mr MacArhtur," Xavier gave a pointed look at the man. "You will follow me. Now." Xavier backed up and wheeled out of the room.

MacArhtor looked at the others in the room, inlcuding Anna who was towering over him, then sheepishly followed the other man.

Logan balled up the cloth napkin in his lap and pounded it onto the table before standing. "I'm packing that little prick's room."

"Can I help?" Anna shouted

"You're too pumped up, kid. Cool off before homicide is hanging over your head in front of a grand jury." With that, Logan disappeared the same way the others had.

Evan stood and produced a spike out of hand. "I say we pin that jerk-off to a wall and leave him there to dry!"

"Evan." Ororo looked between him, Anna, and then Evan again. "You will do no such thing. The rest of you will stay here and do nothing to make the situation worse."

Evan's hard face softened, even if it was just a little, looking back at his aunt. "…yes, ma'am."

"Thank you." Ororo neatly folded the napkin in her lap and rested it on the table. "Now I'm off to go make sure our dear Logan doesn't do something that he will regret later." She said as she went off after the other adult.

Kurt stared at the open archway. "We can't just sit here and do nothing."

"We aren't." Anna pushed off the table, rounded the mess of abandoned chairs, and threw the front doors open.

Scott wasn't easy to find. He wasn't in the garage, the cliff overhang, or any of the usual spots. It was by scanning for Jean's red mound of hair Anna spotted the pair of them sat near a creek bed just beyond the treeline in Logan's woods. She didn't hear any voices as she approched or even hushed whispers. There was only the mumbled trickle of water rolling down smooth rocks. The sound of her approach was nearly defining in comparison.

Jean looked back, patted Scott's shoulder, then walked over to join her. "He's totally locked up." She rubbed her neck and mumbled "Fucking bastard."

Anna gave a knowing nod, then passed her to join Scott's side. His legs were crossed and there were muddy patches on his knees. His face like stone and he held his hands together in his lap like vice-grips to the point they lost color.

Anna adjusted a few rocks under her so she could sit a little better then removed her gloves. She ran a hand in the cool water. "It's not right." She said after a little while. "I… uh, was out in these woods not that long ago because the world I thought I knew was turned upside down too." She looked at him. His face hadn't changed. "It was after the mountain. It's not the same, and I wouldn't dare compare them… but it felt like that day I had lost my mom too."

Silence.

Anna pulled her hand out of the water and dried it on her jeans. She leaned to one side and pulled something out of her back pocket. "I hope you don't mind. I kinda broke into your car." She produced his dog-eared copy of 'The Baron of Monte Carlo,' by Kristen Ramsey, and offered it to him. He looked at it.

"You told me once a little about her. You said she turned you into a real bookworm."

Finally, Scott's mouth opened just enough to let out a haggard whisper. "I'm dyslexic. Teachers gave up on me when I was a kid. She was the only one who bothered to teach me. She was the one who taught me to love books."

"She sounds incredible."

"She was…" A lump grew in Scott's throat. "She was my best friend." A tear ran down his cheek.

"I'm so sorry, Scott. I'm sorry she was taken from you and you didn't even get a chance to… to do anything."

"I loved her. She was always there. She never cared who I was… what I was. She was always there. There with so much love to give. She was all I had. And now… I've got no one. I'm not even good enough for Douglass MacArthur…"

Anna felt a shutter in her chest and did her best to bite down the feelings. "A pretty smart lady reminded me recently that… we all are kind of a family. Like a family sometimes we don't get along, but we also love each other, protect each other, and support one another. It may not be exactly what any of us thought, but it can be just as grand as anything any of us could have ever imagined."

She bit her lip to fight the tears and looked at him. "Scott, I know none of us could replace your mom, but do you wanna be a part of our family?"

Scott's arms wrapped around her as he dug his head into her shoulder. His whole body trembled as the floodgates of tears spilled forth. "I'm sorry," He mumbled. "I'm so sorry."

She rested her chin on his shoulder and felt hot tears roll down her cheeks as she rubbed circles in his back. "There ain't nothing to be sorry about. I got you. It's okay to cry."

Maybe they were always there and Anna hadn't noticed, but the other students were already croutched around them. One after another they wrapped Scott in a hug and held him as he cried.

"It's okay to cry," Anna mumbled. "We love you, buddy, and we're all here for you. All of us."