Eye of the Beholder

Author’s Notes: Thank you onewing for your review. So at long last, we’re going to the ball. I hope people enjoy reading it as much as I enjoyed writing it. As always, please leave a review.

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“Ok, as long as I don’t plan on breathing, I’m good,” Amanda whispers as James Jones finishes zipping up the last few inches of the back of her dress.

“You look lovely, my dear,” he states as she turns to look at him. “You make a stunning Christine.”

“Thanks,” she gasps as she looks at the man who is a couple inches shorter than her without her shoes on. “You’re looking very dashing yourself. The Phantom has never looked so handsome.”

“Thank you,” he replies as he bows with a flourish of his cape. “Are we about ready to go? Our limo is waiting.”

“Almost,” she answers as she drags herself across her hotel room, her skirts rustling with her every move, dragging behind her. “I need to get my shoes and earrings on and then I’m ready.”

“Take your time,” he assures her as he watches her start trying to pull up her skirts to find her feet so she can get her shoes on. “How many layers are there to those skirts?”

“I think there’s enough material in this dress to completely rig up that ship from Master and Commander with a full set of sails,” she grunts, trying to breathe while bent over in a dress that’s a bit too tight. “Oh look, I do have feet.”

He chuckles as she finally gets her shoes on and then heads over to the mirror to put her earrings in. She’s still a bit startled to see her normally straight hair done in a cascade of black curls down her back, the mask’s ribbons carefully hidden inside those waves. Despite the mask casting a shadow over her eyes, the green is still very noticeable and actually is a bit startling.

When she steps back to look at herself fully in the full length mirror, she must admit she doesn’t look too bad. The cream colored dress flows around her in a sea of crinoline and lace, with the bodice giving her a lovely hourglass figure and the neckline suggests that she has a lot more cleavage than she really owns. He comes to stand next to her and unfortunately, her shoes have added even more height to her where she’s now several inches taller than him.

“As I said, stunning,” he repeats. “I shall be the envy of every man there.”

“You’re uncle’s right,” she chuckles as she goes to gather her wrap and her purse. “You could charm the scales off of a snake if you wanted to.”

“That’s my power,” he admits. “To be incredibly charming when I want and persuading people into liking me. Not a flashy mutation, I’ll admit, but it has its uses. So, out of curiosity, what’s yours?”

“What’s my what?” she asks, pretending not to understand him while adjusting her shawl.

“You’re mutation,” he clarifies. “What’s your power?”

“I’m not a mutant,” she answers, looking him straight in the eye.

“But you helped Serena,” he states in confusion. “Why would you…”

“Believe it or not, James, not all non-mutants hate mutants,” she tells him with a gentle smile. “I believe I’m ready now. Shall we go?”

“Yes, of course,” he replies, quickly recovering and heading for the door, holding it open for her and she tries to pass him by without catching the voluminous skirt on anything or pinning him to the wall in the narrow hallway with it.

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A while later, their limo pulls up in front of the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum and as much as she’d love to stop and gawk, the night is much too cold to stand around dawdling with only a thin lace shawl to cover her nearly bare arms and shoulders. He quickly hustles her into the building and as they enter through the main entrance she gasps at the shear size of the place. Once she’s done staring at all of the planes both on the ground and hanging from the ceiling, she turns her attention to all of the people milling about and stops dead in her tracks.

“Oh dear,” she says, looking at the multitude of well dressed men in tuxes, capes and half masks.

“It seems they had a run on Phantom costumes,” her own Phantom muses.

“I’ll say,” she replies a bit breathlessly, whether it’s from the shock of seeing so many Phantoms of the Opera or from the tight dress, she’s not sure. “At least half of the men here are dressed as Phantoms.”

“I wouldn’t go as far as to say half, but still, it is quite dizzying to see so many doppelgangers,” he admits, turning to look at her. “But I must confess I believe the prettiest Christine is the one on my arm.”

“Snake charmer,” she smirks, not unkindly. “Where shall we meet if we get separated?”

“As if I’d let you out of my sight for a moment,” he chuckles as they make their way through the throng of people. “Fear not, my dear, you and I shall be inseparable this evening, no need to fret.”

“If you say so,” she mutters worriedly.

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“I cannot believe I let you talk me into this, Ororo” he mutters unhappily.

“It was part of the deal, Hank, and you agreed to it,” she replies, trying not smirk at his obvious discomfort.

“If I knew what you had planned, I would have suddenly found a way to come down with a cold,” he grouses, pulling at the collar of his costume. “Or influenza or the mumps or any number of contagious diseases that the President wouldn’t have any choice but to let me skip this little soiree.”

“What are you complaining about?” she asks as she tries to surreptitiously pull her dress further up her body. “It’s not like you’re in any danger of falling out of the top of your costume.”

“But must you have picked Beauty and the Beast, Ororo?” he grumbles.

“Would you like some cheese with that whine?” she teases as they make their way through the crowd of people filling the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum. “Besides, it could have been worse. I could have picked The Phantom of the Opera.”

“While I must say that the Phantom and I do share a few traits, seeing as we’re both highly intelligent men that are shunned because of our looks, I do see your point,” he replies as yet another Phantom and Christine walk by. “The place is absolutely crawling with them. I almost expect one of them to start singing The Music of the Night at any moment.”

“Oh goddess, I hope not,” she groans at the thought as they continue through the crush of people.

“Not a fan of Andrew Lloyd Webber?” he asks, his sensitive ears picking up the sounds of instruments tuning up not to far away.

“Not a fan of people who can’t carry a tune in a bucket,” she grumbles. “So we’re here, now what?”

“Now we mingle and try to make a good impression on people letting them know that mutants aren’t as evil and dangerous as the media makes us out to be,” he replies as they continue on.

“And how do we do that?” she asks, finally noticing that he seems to have a destination in mind.

“We dance,” he answers just as the band starts to play.

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Well, it has to be some kind of record. One moment she was looking up at the Hubble Space Telescope replica that they have on exhibit while James was rubbing elbows with some politician whose name she’s already forgotten and the next, when she brought her attention back to Earth, he was gone. Not that she knew it at first. Another Phantom had taken his place and she didn’t realize it until another Christine had slipped her arm in his.

“Great,” she mutters as she starts to search through the milling throng.

A quick glance at her cell phone hidden in her purse tells her that she’s managed to lose her boss’s nephew in less than an hour.

“He’ll probably sick Steele on me if I don’t find the little twerp,” she mutters to herself as she tries to carefully check each Phantom she sees and she sees a lot of them. “Just my bloody luck.”

She searches from one end of the place to the other, coming up empty on her search. When they had arrived, there were already a couple of hundred people at the museum and now there’s at least double that with more coming and the ratio of Phantom costumes to others is still nearly 1:1. She groans in near desperation as she stands on her tip toes and looks around the dance floor.

Just before she gives up and turns away a flash of unusual color catches her attention out of the corner of her eye. She gives it a good long look and a smile creeps across her face. Yes, this will do perfectly, well, almost perfectly.

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“Having fun so far, my dear?” Hank asks as he leads Storm through a waltz.

“The dancing has been fun,” she admits. “But hobnobbing with all of these politicians has left a bit to be desired.”

“I believe I’ve done my civic duty with the hobnobbing, so there’s no one I have to go and say ‘hi’ to,” he states. “We could leave if you like or we could keep dancing. But personally I’d rather stay since I’m very of curious to see if she’ll keep following us

“She who?” she asks, looking at him in confusion.

“Over by the stage,” he tells her. “The left hand side, there’s a lone woman in a cream colored dress with black hair.”

“The tall one that looks like she’s trying to find someone?” she questions.

“That’s her,” he responds.

“She looks like another Christine,” she states as he spins her around so the woman is behind her.

“Yes, but where is her Phantom?” he rhetorically queries. “I noticed a couple of hours ago that she was following us, but I just thought I was just imagining things. After all, there just as many Christines here as there are Phantoms and they all pretty much look the same. But I’m fairly sure it’s the same woman.”

“Why do you think she’s been following us?” she asks as he starts to move closer to the stage.

“I think she’s lost her Phantom and she’s looking for him and maybe she’s hoping that he’ll seek me out,” he answers. “At least that’s what I’m hoping and that she doesn’t have some other dire plan in mind. At any rate, she’s followed us all around the museum.”

“Are you sure it’s the same woman?” she inquires. “After all, everyone is wearing masks and there are a lot of women here that are dressed almost exactly like her.

“As you pointed out, she’s rather tall,” he reminds her. “And I’ve noticed that no two women are wearing the same exact dress, so I’m fairly sure I’ve been seeing her wherever we’ve gone the last couple hours.”

“Are we dancing closer to get a better look?” she questions as he spins her towards the stage.

“Yes,” he replies.

They twirl past the place the woman had been standing just a moment ago and they can see she’s moved a little ways off. She still looks like she’s searching for someone and doesn’t look to happy about it either. She glances in their direction briefly and then quickly turns away, moving through the crowd, steadily making her way around the dance floor. He’s disappointed that he didn’t get close enough to get a good look at the woman, but he feels Storm stiffen in his arms and he looks down at her.

“What’s the matter?” he asks as quietly as he can and still be heard over the music.

“Well, I can’t be a hundred percent sure,” she starts hesitantly while he looks back towards the woman’s retreating back. “But from the brief look I got of her face, I could swear that’s Amanda Simon.”

“Why do you think that?” he nearly demands, his full attention back on his friend.

“Black hair, green eyes and again, look how much taller she is than most of the other women around here,” she responds as they look back and see her disappear around a corner. “I’m not completely sure since I only saw her for a moment from a distance, but those eyes are pretty intense.”

“I would love to meet the lady, if that is her,” he states, still staring at where they last saw her.

“Then go talk to her,” she tells him as the music ends and they stop dancing while everyone politely claps. “It’s not like she’s afraid of mutants.”

“I could, but you’ve met her, you can make the introductions,” he decides, barely noticing that the band leader is stating that the band is taking a break.

“Actually, I’m probably the reason she hasn’t come any closer to you,” she points out.

“Why do you think that?” he asks, confused and a bit disappointed.

“Well, she did threaten to sue the school,” she reminds him.

“I thought all of that got taken care of when you last talked to her,” he says.

“It was, but that doesn’t mean that we’re best friends,” she replies as she waves towards where they last saw their mystery Christine. “Besides, I’m not positive it is her and who knows where she’s gotten off to now.”

“Probably not far,” he snickers and she looks at him questioningly. “Maybe it’s time to turn the tables. I have an idea.”

He outlines his plan to her and she shakes her head while she chuckles.

“Is there any particular reason why you want to torment this woman?” she asks.

He tells her about the phone calls and the ending result of them and she can’t help but laugh.

“She actually said you sounded snooty?” she chuckles.

“Yes,” he huffs, pretending to be affronted. “In fact, the last time I tried calling her, she said I sounded even snootier then the previous times. So, are you going to help me or not?”

“Fine, I’ll help you, but don’t blame me if she back hands you when you scare the hell out of her,” she answers. “What exactly do you want me to do?”

He grins and then tells her what he wants from her. A minute later, they go their separate ways through the crowd, both watching out for their mystery woman.

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Ok, her birthday hadn’t been the best day of her life, but at least it hadn’t hurt. Right now, it’s a tie on the frustration level, but at least her feet, legs, shoulders and torso didn’t feel like they want to revolt on her birthday. She’s beginning to think that there are lead weights hidden in the many layers of the dress, not to mention that the shoes feel like they’ve shrunk a couple of sizes, and are pinching her tired feet, she’s fairly sure if she takes a deep breath she’ll snap a couple ribs and the mask is making her face itch. She can’t recall being this uncomfortable ever before, not even when she wore that god awful bride’s maid dress at her sister’s wedding and it doesn’t help that she still hasn’t found James. Her stomach growls at its displeasure of being ignored for so long and she just sighs in near defeat.

She had hoped that since James admitted that he’s a mutant himself, he’d head for the most obvious mutant in the place, but no. After trailing around behind McCoy for nearly three hours, there’s still no sign of her ‘date’ and she’s about ready to call it quits. McCoy’s returned to the dance floor with Storm and while the woman doesn’t seem to be jumping for joy being here, at least she’s having more fun than Amanda. At least if she loses her date, he’s easy to find.

“Where the bloody hell has the little twerp gotten off to?” she growls to herself.

After checking out the area around the dance floor, she moves on to the surrounding galleries in hopes of spotting James. When she notices that the band has stopped playing, she decides to give following the Ambassador one last shot and heads back towards the West Gallery, still keeping an eye out for her date. Deciding that if at midnight she still hasn’t found James, she’s calling a cab and going back to the hotel and her job be damned. Getting Steele off of her back isn’t worth this much pain and aggravation.

When she gets near the dance floor she can see that it’s mostly cleared out except for one woman standing in the middle who seems to be waiting. The fact that the woman is an African American with white hair leaves no doubt in Amanda’s mind who she is, but she’s just standing there by herself. Amanda looks around for McCoy, but doesn’t see him right off so she stands up on her aching toes to see if she can spot him.

“Looking for something?” a deep, rich, velvety baritone asks.

With a startled squawk, Amanda tries to jump and turn around at the same time, but from up on her toes and the vast number of yards of material around her legs, all she manages to do is lose her balance. Before she can draw breath to scream, she can feel herself falling backwards with no way to stop herself.