Perfectly Normal

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch, and Uberbeta… *G * Did you soak the towel in water to see it grow? InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: *random gloke * Morgan: *sneaky stalk glomp * Readers/Reviewers: The story is going to start wrapping up soon but, like always, there will be some loose threads to carry into the next one. J Thank you all for reading and reviewing as you can!

“Emma, breathe.” Warren stretched his arms over his head as he rose onto his toes, his wings opening to their full extent in the late afternoon light streaming through the window of Emma’s study. “We’ll find her.” His muscles were sore from being confined in his company town car for the ride from the private airport the Worthington corporate jet had landed at just outside of Boston. “Betsy is doing her best right now…”

“You fail to grasp the gravity of the situation,” Emma snarled softly. She reached into a narrow desk drawer and produced a thin handful of papers. “These arrived with the afternoon mail. Threats, all of them. Friends of Humanity, Society for Racial Purity, Aryan Brotherhood and several anonymous ones.” She threw them at Warren, the papers falling like huge snowflakes to his feet, sliding down his chest. “I have a houseful of children panicking and sending off so many impulses and thoughts…” She paused and took a deep breath. “He’s taking her to Muir Island.”

Warren raised a brow and exhaled noisily. “Muir Island. Wow.” He shook his head slowly, scrambling to remember everything he had ever heard or learned about the place. “Isn’t that Moira MacTaggert’s domain?” When Emma merely snorted in response, he continued, mental floodgates opening. “I remember Charles talking about her… quite the item, them. Or at least formerly…” He eyed Emma a tad sheepishly, suddenly remembering her own history with the Professor.

“She was long before me,” Emma put in coolly. “And that is beside the point, Warren.” She pushed herself away from the desk and strode over to him, stopping just short of touching him before speaking again. “Things are falling apart. Years of being so careful, being wary and silent, being secretive about every damned thing…” She trailed off again, closing her eyes. “A child has been taken from my care. Her father must be informed. I leave that to you, Warren. This is my responsibility. I am taking Firestar and we are going to Muir Island.”

“Why Firestar?” he asked quietly, knowing enough not to argue with Emma when her mind was set on a course. “She’s barely out of her teenaged years…”

“And she is obedient,” Emma snapped, walking swiftly towards the door. “She is an asset to me and has been since the Hellfire days.” She paused, her hand on the doorknob. “Sometimes I feel it was a mistake to disband the Hellfire Club.” Without a backwards glance, she let herself out of her own study, hurrying down the hall to the foyer where the students were gathered. She did not know nor care if Warren was following her; she was working quickly, making plans and executing them before she could second guess herself. “Has everyone notified their parents of the, er, fieldtrip?” she asked loudly, stopping in the midst of the small band of students, each of them looking more scared than the last. Except Sam, she noticed. Sam looked angry, beyond angry. His lips were fairly white from how tightly he was clenching his jaw, his gaze blank. “Sam..”

“Everything is taken care of,” he bit out. “I’m not going back,” he said suddenly. “I’m going with you!” He shrugged off the fluttering fingers of one of the younger students. “I ain’t gonna let her be taken like that and…” His words choked off in a gasp and his fingers flew to his throat, his eyes angry and bulging at Emma.

“Let him breathe,” Warren snapped, grabbing Emma by the shoulder and turning her to face him. Sam took a great, gulping draught of air but did not continue his nascent rant. “You’re staying in Bayville,” Warren informed him in no uncertain tone. “You are not going to Muir Island because it is too dangerous and you are in the care of the Xavier Institute. No student is going.”

Emma shrugged off Warren’s grasp. “Take them to Bayville. Firestar and I will leave within the hour.” She turned her gaze on the assembled students but did not address them. “Warren, see to it that Magneto is informed.”

“Magneto? Emma, I know he’s keeping an eye on things for Charles but…”

“Tell him,” she snapped. “Tell him and have him send Mystique.” She knew Mystique well enough to be aware of her abilities and her professionalism, to term it mundanely. “She can meet us at the airport by seven.”

“Commerical?” Warren’s brow arched, his tone a mockery of Emma’s own cultured one. “How pedestrian.” Inside, the annoyance that had been percolating for some minutes was quickly reaching an angry boil. “Magneto and Mystique are not the best people to have involved, Emma. Not if this man works for them…”

“I never said he did,” Emma pointed out, turning her attention back to the students. “You will all go with Mister Worthington.”

Warren bit back the string of swear words that threatened to spill from his lips as Emma disappeared down the old servant’s hallway to her private suite of rooms. “Right. Everyone grab your bags and meet me on the front lawn.” With nary a backwards glance, he strode out the massive double doors and headed for his car. Betsy, he thought, was going to have a field day with this one.

“Pardon?” Magneto felt his brows creep up as Warren Worthington III repeated his tersely worded statement of moments before. “Muir Island, that miserable place…” He sighed softly and glanced across the room to where Mystique stood, poring over some paperwork in the waning afternoon sunlight and frowning at what he could only assume were the numerous mistakes in grammar the student in question had made. “I’m afraid I cannot spare her at the moment. However, when our, ah, guests are gone, we can meet you there posthaste. Say, within forty eight hours?”

“Who was that?” Mystique asked as her long time superior and sometimes friend hung up the phone. “And where am I supposed to go in two days?” The handwriting paper really was atrocious, but, she thought with a mental sigh, that’s what happened when you only had three fingers to hold a pen with.

“Warren,” he replied with a slight lilt to his tone. “It seems we’re to go to Muir Island. Again.”