"Cess?" He raps his knuckles halfheartedly against the wood of her door, and steps into the room when he sees her sitting up in bed, knees pulled up as her blankets curl around her. She doesn't look up at him, and her eyes are filled with that faraway look that tells him just where her mind is.

He slides in beside her, one arm coming around her shoulders; it's this gesture that prompts the tears to fall. "Hey," he says, not really sure what else to say, and he cups the back of her head with his hand as she hides her face on his shoulder.

"It felt really, really great." She sniffs, her shoulders still shaking as she pulls away minutes later. "It felt like everything was back to normal."

He reaches over and thumbs the tears from her cheek, droplets lingering still, the way rain does on glass. "What's so special about normal?" He murmurs softly, not really trying to make light of the matter, and knowing she understands that he just doesn't know what to do with tears.

She laughs and hugs him, and another round of sobs escapes. For a moment, the almost fascistic notion of getting even with the rest of humanity comes to mind. Damn flatscans, he thinks, not really meaning to use the racist slur. Deep down, it's his own anger at his parents that's adding to his frustration here.

He waits until she pulls back, fingers coming up to tuck her red hair behind her ears. Despite being as shiny as a kitchen pot, she looks young. And hurt. And more human than those who insist that being a mutant means you no longer have a right to be.

"He used to call me his little angel." She hugs herself, her face crumbling at the pressure of all that pain again. "Mom couldn't have any more kids, and I know he always wished I had a brother. Hell, I wished I had a brother." The hiccups come right on cue, and with a thought he moves the glass from the table into his hand, ready to hand it over should she need it. "But I was his little girl." She says. "I was his little girl," a broken repetition.

He catches her when she leans forward, the motion accompanying her quiet keening.

It is here that his resolve is made. They are both orphans now, after a fashion. Disowned through shame in a world that lies through it's teeth, preaching equal opportunity when the truth is there is none.

-----

This is set sometime after the Hellions mini-series arc.