It was never the same she thought, experimentally bringing a finger to her lips.

They said it was saline, salt and water and a few other chemicals -- but back then it had been thick and metallic, with the copper tinge of blood.

She sighed and opened the window, but could hear nothing but the sound of the window groaning, loud and creaky as an old woman's joints. She'd have to ask Scott to oil the hinges, she thought absently, and stared out at the hedges bordering the grounds.

There had been a time, before he'd left and taken his superior senses with him, that she'd have heard the long grass at the far edge of the property slap together as the wind whipped through it.

She'd forgotten exactly what it sounded like, had forgotten, too, the sensation of touching her silk gloves and feeling each individual particle like pearls of sand against her fingertips.

She'd forgotten the fascinating sight of a troop of ants marching towards their colony next to Storm's azaleas, and inside the wall beneath the Professor's window.

She'd forgotten just about everything; the texture of another's bare skin, the sound of her laughter, bright and happy, and the glint of her freshly painted fingernails in the sunlight.

She tried to file those memories, lock them up tight so she could turn the key and pull them out on a rainy day.

It worked for an endless moment, two, then she accidentally brushed against someone, and the memories were swept from their cabinet with the gust of change.

But the one thing she would always remember, was the taste.. of her tears.