A/N: 12/13/09- Okay, so here's the thing ya'll, I screwed up. So the original version of Whispers is coming down, replaced by the following, hopefully I'll do it better this time.
As an added note for those of you starting out on this version and who haven't read the previous, this story takes place entirely in the X-Men movie 'verses, our beloved crew will not be swooping in on a spaceship to save the day though look for more than just the appearance of River along the way with some groovy powers of their own, and while this isn't really a run along to the movies look for some stolen plot rearranged and mish mashed. WARNING: Artistic liberties will be taken and used heavily, hopefully I don't serioulys anger any die hard X-men fans.
Without further ado, don't own anything, sadly…. Not makin' a cred….even more depressing…. Most of it has nothing to do with my own imaginings, except for a smattering of what I hope is witty dialogue and hints of original thinking… enjoy.
Prologue-
William Stryker stepped out of the hummer, pulling up his jacket collar against the bitter February cold, he nodded at the four soldiers whom had arrived in the accompanying vehicle; they fell in step directly behind him, armed for war, complete with military issue weapons and body armor. The whole of the group looking absolutely ridiculously out of place on the lushly groomed Tam estate, if it wasn't for the sudden terrified shrieking which came from the mansion one might have even found it comical.
Stryker didn't bother knocking, it was after all his sister's home, and he had come invited.
"William," Regan Tam met him at the bottom of the stairs, "I'm so glad you've come."
"Of course I came, family looks after one another." He reassured her.
"I just didn't know what else to do, I'm so sorry, after Jason, I hoped, well I had hoped," she stammered unable to form her words without insulting the man who had come to her rescue.
"You had hoped it was an isolated incident," he finished for her, his voice cold, "not to worry, I will take care of this little problem; she won't be an issue any longer."
"Gabriel, he hasn't come home since it began, he's talking divorce, he blames it all on me. I won't be able to show my face in decent society if this gets out."
"Uncle?" Simon, the elder Tam offspring appeared at the top of the stairs, confusion warring with disbelief, "I didn't believe, I didn't believe that you would consent to this Mother, I thought she was being irrational."
"Simon, this is for the best, if people knew…" His head jerked up at the unsteady sound of his mother's voice, his mother was not unsteady. Regan Tam was the pinnacle of the social elite; poise and confidence were first nature.
"What Mother?" He demanded his voice trembling with anger, "If people knew your daughter was a mutant? So you'll just toss her away like yesterday's trash, hide her under the rug! She's your daughter! How can you be so cold?"
"It's for the best, it is," she seemed to be reassuring herself more than him.
"You can't do this!" Simon screamed at her, "She's your daughter!"
Stryker snapped, "Watch your tone with your mother boy, this is none of your concern."
"None of my concern? None of my concern?" Simon asked incredulously, "You don't really think I'm an imbecile uncle, to not realize how valuable a telepathic empath will be to the government."
"You're a smart boy Simon, think about Jason, think of how he came to be," he warned.
Simon's face fell immediately, "She's not like him."
"Jason wasn't like he is in the beginning either boy, this is for her own safety, for your safety."
Simon snorted, "This has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with appearances, doesn't it mother?" He sneered.
"I'm sorry," River shrieked, appearing from nowhere, her face tear stained, she pulled wildly at her hair, "I will be better, I will not speak other's thoughts or listen to the whispers, I promise, please, his thoughts are twisted and Jason is caged, please don't let them put the girl in a cage, needles, he sees needles, they poke and they prod and the girl she will bled and scream, he will remake her!"
Simon pushed River back behind him, "You're not taking her, I won't let you."
"It's already done boy," Stryker said evenly, "Take the girl."
The soldiers advanced, "Mother please!" Simon begged, as the men ripped her from his grip, he fought against them, River screaming and lashing out wildly.
"Hold her still!" Stryker ordered advancing with a needle, "And contain the damn boy."
"I'll never forgive you Mother," Simon screamed trying to yank himself free, watching in horror as River's body fell limp and silent.
"It's for the best darling you will see," she told him again, watching with cold indifference as the unconscious body of her only daughter was carried from her home.
Five years later…
"What do you mean she's gone?" Stryker asked through gritted teeth, one hand clenched around the edge of his desk the other the latest lab results.
The soldier shifted nervously, "She managed to steal a pen sir, breached the facility before we realized she was gone, the choppers are out and every available man is on the perimeter, so far nothing though sir."
"FIND HER!" He roared slamming his fist against the table, "I don't care what it takes, you find her and bring her back, alive."
"Yes sir!" The soldier saluted and gratefully was gone.
Stryker dropped heavily back into his chair, the girl had been the program's greatest success since Weapon XI, a multi-million dollar military weapon refined to near perfection, lucid nearly one hundred percent of the time, magnified reflexes, enhanced empathy based telepathy and telekinesis, accelerated healing and damage resistance, specialized combat training, and none of the physical disfigurement which would have prohibited public deployment as with Weapon XI, a class 5 mutant whose possibilities had barely been tapped.
He had climbed a long way back from the catastrophe on Three Mile Island and without the girl he doubted the survival of his research, he had to have her back, at all costs.
Professor Charles Xavier disengaged himself from Cerebro, "Jean."
"Yes, Professor," She asked as the chamber door hissed open, her smile fading quickly.
"Call for Storm and Cyclops, we must leave at once."
"Professor, what is it, what's going on?"
"There is a girl Jean, and it is of the utmost importance we get to her first."
River Tam did not feel the coldness of the snow beneath her bare feet, it was inconsequential, her first rush of fresh air, that was all that mattered, the first touch of sun against her pale face, the sounds of a world not contained and sterilized, a world that didn't reek of gun oil and deception. How long had it been? How many days had passed? Had it been one? One long nightmarish day or had it been a thousand and did it even matter? No, it too was inconsequential.
She was aware, or at least a less active part of her mind was aware, of sirens, of footsteps which screamed in the snow behind her, but they were distant, too distant now to be a threat, and so the noises were discarded, and her attention focused forward, which direction? She could not go home, that girl did not exist, that place and word were nothing more than a vague memory, a broken dream. River shook her head clear, those thoughts were unproductive, was direction even consequential?
River fell to her knees, a cloud of powdered snow rising around her, feeling the cold for the first time. Was the girl inconsequential as well? They had discarded her, deemed her unworthy, given her freely to the needles and to The Uncle.
/I know you're there child/ a whisper spoke to her, and her whole body jerked up and forward in surprise, instinctively falling into a defensive position. The whispers spoke, but never did they speak, not directly to her, they spoke to themselves. /We are friends/ River remained hesitant. /My name is Charles Xavier, I know what you are, and I know you have no reason to trust us, listen child, listen to the whispers I know you can hear, the whispers cannot lie, know our minds, and true intentions/ The whisper soothed her, the voice was warm, comforting, a voice which had dried a thousand tears, and River listened, wanting to be closer to that warmth, and the whispers never lied, she knew this.
Concern, wariness, anxiety, they were worried for her. River allowed the new concept to play along the edges of her mind, when was the last time anyone had worried for her? Simon. But no, Simon was not among them, she listened harder, to hear the more silent voices, the ones layered below the surface of the others, the ones which twisted and knotted and took time to unravel, but the man, the Professor, was patient, though his mind was more closed to hers than any she had ever encountered, but this did not surprise her, he knew about the whispers, his mind was strong, but so was his heart, and his compassion bled through his skin. Compassion, it felt like a warm blanket against her mind and she wanted to be closer to it, to wrap herself in it.
/I only wish to help you child/
/The girl will not be caged again/ she pushed defiantly back at him, The Uncle had only wished to help.
/I do not wish to cage her/
/Then what is your purpose/
/To teach her to fly/
River listened to the whispers, the Professor did not lie. Cautiously, she wound her way through the twisted snow cover undergrowth of the forest, moving like an abused starving animal, being offered a morsel, and wary of the fist which would follow. She paused every so often, evaluating the whispers as she went.
A woman who could dance with the wind and scream with the lightning. A man who saw with fire, the world burning beneath his gaze. Another woman who moved objects with invisible strings and strained to hear the whispers, and another who resided within her consumed by rage and fire, River did not think either woman was aware of the other.
"They must not touch her skin." River warned out loud as she stepped into a large clearing, the four strangers awaiting her at the mouth of a sleek black jet, she marveled at their grasp of machines, The Uncle had nothing such as this, "Whispers scream and burn when flesh touches flesh, she does not like it, if the condition will be satisfied she will go with the Storm, Cyclops, Jean Grey, and Professor."
No one found it strange the girl knew their names, being raised by one of the world's most powerful telepaths tended to desensitize one to mental invasion.
Xavier nodded, taking in the girl's wild appearance, bare footed and clad in no more than a tank top and hospital pants, her eyes sunken and withdrawn, they rested nowhere and saw everything, the depth of her mind and the speed at which it moved, analyzing and understanding information almost instantaneously astonished him, "It will be respected."
"There are those that seek this girl, and they will never cease, like wolves they devour and burn all that stands in their path, she is evolution, she is the future, she is theirs." River warned.
"River, child," Xavier soothed her, "you and your gifts belong to none but yourself, and as for the wolves, we have ways to blind them," his lips twitched upward, "my dear Storm, if you will."
"With pleasure Professor," the wind dancer smiled, her eyes rolling to white, and River marveled at their comparison to the fresh fallen snow on the ground, they were lovely, and she listened fascinated as the woman called Storm spoke to the water vapor in the air, as she sung to the wind, and they answered, a dense fog forming, shrouding the forest entirely.
"Come now child," Xavier called to her, "Let us take you home."
/Home/ River asked through her mind.
/Yes child, home/
Endnote: 'Kay there's Chapter 1 rewritten and edited and I must say I am much more pleased with it than I was the first. Chapter 2 will most definitely be up before the end of tonight, chapter 3 maybe, if not definitely tomorrow at which point I also aspire to bring you the elusive chapter 4. Much Luv.
'Til After Now.