Alright, for everybody who read this, yes it has been re-uploaded. :) That being said, yes this story is a Erik/OC one, and yes she is a mutant that can control the weather. But don't worry! My character isn't a Storm copycat! She is actually based off of the character Magda, of whom was Erik's wife in the comics, as well as the mother of Pietro and Wanda (I think). Please give this story a chance!
-Padua Burke
Disclaimer: I own nothing. Except Leticia.
Happy reading.
The Lady of Westchester
2003, Westchester, New York
"It has to be done soon," thought Leticia busily. "Wanda will want to make a grand entrance for her and Pietro's birthday celebration. Oh I hope she adores it." The fabric lying in her lap was a deep, yet bright, scarlet being sewn together into a little dress, her whole focus on every stitch, intent on making it absolutely perfect.
In the midst of admiring her handiwork, while fretting about what sort of pattern she should make with the scarlet rhinestones on the hem of the skirt portion of the dress, Leticia was suddenly aware, that in some point and time in her life, she had done this before. Just as she began to rummage about in the myriad of memories she had acquired in the last forty-two years, Leticia looked down at her sewing once more, and noticed something that made her catch her breath. Her hands. They...they were no longer weathered and wrinkled, but smooth and supple. They were the hands of a young maid, and certainly not one of an old woman such as her.
She looked up to see if anything else around her decided to change without her permission and found that, yes, everything had changed.
In fact, Leticia highly doubted she was in the same room she vaguely remembered falling asleep in. Either that or this had to be the best practical joke the students had ever had the courage to pull on an instructor at the mansion. Leticia snorted softly to herself at the possibility while examining every inch of her surroundings in bewilderment.
She found that she was perched snugly on an enormous four-poster bed, the wood of the headboard and the arms that held up a canopy above her rich with brown, nearly black tones. The pillows and blankets strewn about her were all bright red, and Leticia couldn't help but think of lavishly wrapped gifts at Christmas when inspecting them.
The curtains drawn back neatly from the bed were made of thick cascades of silk, and if any ornament or piece of furniture didn't happen to be red, it was the brightest gold.
"What on Earth...," she murmured to herself, nearly giggling at this garish room, yet worried as she still did not know where she was. "Certainly not the mansion," she decided, "Charles would never put so much effort into decorating a room to look so ostentatious, perhaps...," then it hit her like an anvil falling gracelessly on some cartoon nitwit. If her hands had the appearance of youth...Leticia searched the place for a mirror. She didn't have to look for long; at the foot of the bed there sat a gigantic dresser, made of the same wood as the bed, and just above there hung a mirror that took all of her reflection in. The sight of herself left her speechless.
She indeed was no longer a little old woman, but now looked as if she were in her mid-twenties. Her eyes no longer took on that slightly clouded tint that old age had brought, but were now sharp, dark, and clear. Her face had not one wrinkle or line, the skin about her eyes, cheeks, and forehead now smoothed, her lips no longer thin but now full and rosy.
Leticia shut her eyes tightly for a moment or two, let out the breath she was holding, then opened them again. No, still young. But how? For a moment she thought that the woman in the mirror was her daughter Wanda, as it was apparent from the time she was a girl entering adolescence that she looked so much like her mother that even Erik was startled from time to time by their similarities.
She edged closer to the mirror to inspect herself more thoroughly.
No, it was definitely her and not Wanda.
Although she could have easily been mistaken as Leticia's sister by the way she herself looked currently, Wanda's profile was a tad sharper than her own, her jaw and cheekbones reminiscent of Erik. Wanda's eyes were slightly different as well, more almond shaped than Leticia's wide orbs; but it did no good to rifle through the details of her daughter's face as it did not help her answer the questions as to where she was and what was going on. Leticia was so absorbed in studying her face that she at first didn't notice the slight glimmer of light seemingly at the corner of her eye. Her gaze moved to scan the rest of her reflection and she finally saw what was causing the slight shimmer floating across her vision.
Atop her head sat a crown, or a tiara of sorts, and it was by no means a fake plastic one used at little girls' birthday parties to satisfy their desire to be a princess.
Leticia, back to when she was still sewing Wanda's scarlet dress, thought that she had felt a slight weight being pressed down on her head, but ignored it as the feeling was nearly nonexistent. Now she could feel this piece of headgear's full weight, as though it wished to make its presence known to her, the light of the room's lamps causing it to glow eerily against the backdrop of gold and red. Leticia couldn't tell exactly what it was made of, but she knew for certain that it was a metal; it was too dark to be silver, but it was also too light to be steel.
The tiara in itself managed to be bright and dull at the same time, a combination that made it look luminous, and as Leticia drew even closer to the mirror she could see tiny flecks of red, possibly rubies, encrusted all over it. A small part of her mind wondered silently to itself why anything about her appearance, or the appearance of this room should be of any importance to her; these details still didn't answer her questions.
"But...they are important," Leticia argued to her logical self. "I do not know how, but they are important to me."
She continued to stare at the tiara as if mesmerized.
Every contour, every plane of metal in the piece was somehow contorted, as though whoever fashioned the crown itself decided to neither etch specific detail into it or polish it. Leticia was reminded of old knarled tree branches, only this time they were glittering and willed into the shape of a standard royal headpiece.
Without warning, the room, as well as what seemed to be the air itself, changed around her. Leticia whipped her head around to see if she could catch the setting in mid-transformation, but found that her head, along with the rest of her body, felt heavier. She quickly sought out the mirror once more and saw that now a veil of a somewhat transparent, black fabric had been pinned to all the available patches of hair that were not touched by the metal of the tiara. The veil, along with the gleam of the headpiece, made for a very dramatic reflection.
It cascaded along her back, so long was it that Leticia had to shift her position on the bed so that she would prevent herself from sitting on it. Littered all about the veil were tiny orbs of metal, seemingly the same kind as what was used to make her crown.
The rest of her was no longer draped in her flowing nightgown, but dressed into a stiff, high-collared black dress, her waist imprisoned by what felt like a corset, her legs completely covered and entangled within silk skirts. She looked like some dark princess from a dark fairytale, a sinister queen ready to make her debut to loyal subjects.
Leticia placed a hand to her crown and felt how cool it was beneath her fingertips; she noted that now even her hair had returned to its former glossy, ink-like black, not a white or grey strand in sight. Everything from her attire to the room itself seemed so familiar and yet so foreign.
She heard her own words echoing in her mind softly, as though her voice were coming from some place far away.
"I do not know how, but they are important to me."
All in one moment a barrage of images consumed her attention, all playing before her mind's eye like a silent film. She saw the sinister tiara once again, but this time it was held by a pair of rough hands littered lightly with freckles, the fingers long and slender. She tried to reach out and touch the figure holding the malformed thing, but found that she was both unable to move and speak.
Whoever it was they were coming toward her, but Leticia still could not make her head tilt up to reveal their identity. She then heard her own voice again speak, but still in that hushed, far away tone: "You know who it is."
The figure was now in front of her, and the moment she saw those hands up close she knew who it was. They were the same hands that had touched her, that had caressed her skin and hair for a little over four decades now. She felt the weight of his presence all around her, the heady feeling of his passion, power, and menace that accompanied him always and that intensified whenever they were together. Her willowy ghost voice spoke once more, but only in a whisper: "Erik."
The grip his hands had on the tiara tensed slightly, and it was then she knew he had heard her utter his name. Leticia felt a bit smug in regards to Erik and the new found tension flowing between them now in this dream-like world. "All these years and I can still arouse him just by handling his name intimately," she thought as he drew closer.
He was now directly in front of her and made to coronate her with what she realized was something he himself had made for her to wear. Leticia began to see more images, this time of those hands folding and arching around a mass of floating liquid metal. Slowly but surely the crown she had seen emerged from his desire to form it; these images of the headpiece's creation came to an abrupt stop however, and now it was just her back to being motionless and speechless whilst it was being set atop her head.
Not even a split second that the crown was on Leticia that she felt her body exhale with a breath she didn't even know she was holding. She stretched her fingers out in delight that she could move again and looked up to see if the person in front of her was truly indeed Erik.
To her absolute horror it was not truly indeed Erik.
It was Shaw.
Her heart turned to lead and dropped into her stomach; her mouth fell open in a moment of pure, unadulterated terror. The helmet...it was too dark to be silver, but too light to be steel. Just like her crown.
Just like her...all thoughts died away as she looked into those knowing, laughing, cruel eyes, eyes that told her he knew secrets that would make the most strong-willed of men shrink back. That he reveled in those secrets. Those eyes were like jagged pieces of glass as they gazed down on her, shining with excitement.
Excitement for what?
At first he only stood there ramrod straight, all flashing orbs and condescending smile, and then the smile grew wider.
And wider.
And wider.
Wider still.
Until his lips literally stretched from ear to ear, his mouth filled with teeth that belonged to an angler fish. Leticia couldn't even blink, the entire measure of her being filled with an overwhelming sense of dread and disgust.
What disturbed her more than anything else though were the corners of Shaw's mouth when he gave her his monstrous grin. The flesh there was ripped, as though his face just wasn't big enough anymore for his new jaws. As he widened his smile, the corners of that gory mouth were then hidden within the confines of the helmet, and blood began to drip down onto his shoulders.
He lunged for her.
In her desperate attempt to get away she turned, but as though she had just run off the edge of a cliff she now felt herself falling. Everything around Leticia was black, black like a bottomless pit that ended only when it reached the core of the Earth. She felt her mouth fall open into a silent scream, her veil and long skirts billowing all around her.
Before she knew what was happening, a sudden burst of light blinded her momentarily, then...she felt silk beneath her grasping palms.
She was no longer falling but...she tore the veil from her eyes and saw that she was back in the red and gold room, beneath being the silk clad bed. Before she had the chance to roll off and search desperately for an exit from this nightmare, there was an explosion of noise that caused her to freeze in fear. It sounded like a car crash, metal grinding against metal. And then all was silent.
"God, just wake up already," she told herself in a hushed tone, as if she were afraid someone might hear her. Just as she started a slow crawl towards the edge of the bed she heard another sound that arrested her attention. She stilled all movements just to make sure it wasn't the rustle of her own skirts that she was hearing.
The sound was soft, but she could tell it was beginning to pick up volume. It was the sound of...gears. Gears turning and screeching over each other, as one might hear in a factory of some sort. Leticia prayed that the sound wouldn't get any louder, but found her prayers unanswered as the slow, maddening grinding was starting to reach a repetitive boom in her ears. The room itself began to tremble from the noise, and the only thing that could make this worse in Leticia's opinion were to be if she looked up and saw Shaw with his glass eyes and demon mouth again.
The damned sound was now so loud that she clasped her hands over her ears in a feeble attempt to stop her ear drums from exploding. "Stop, stop, please stop," she whimpered to herself. The moment she stopped pleading the noise was muffled dramatically. She looked up to see if there was anything different about the room this time since last in it.
As far as she could tell nothing had changed; even the trembling of the room and its furniture.
"The noise hasn't lowered at all," she thought, "my hearing must have been affected then." She could still feel the pulse of the grinding gears reverberate through her chest, which confirmed her guess that it was she that was altered and not the noise itself. Along with the muffled gears another sound had started much to Leticia's dismay. It was a low buzz, and though it wasn't loud in the least it drowned out the rest of the gears' constant screeching. The buzz seemed to have an echo attached to it, one that sent a shudder through her body, as though it were a warning of some sort.
Trying her best to ignore the buzzing and focus on getting out of this prison, Leticia was nearly off the bed when a sharp pain hit her square in the chest.
More pain came when she felt herself fall back on the mattress, the crown now digging into her skull when her head collided with the firm surface. "It's like someone's punched a corkscrew through my chest plate," she thought hazily. The invisible corkscrew twisted, and Leticia writhed on the luxurious sheets, a cry of pain issuing from her that she could not hear.
Just the pain and that damn buzzing.
She could feel herself pull her body into a tight ball, swaying gently as though that would rid her of her current torment.
A sob was beginning to force its way up her throat. "When will this end, when will this end?" Through the noise and the pain Leticia peeked through her transparent veil that was currently thrown over her eyes to check if she was completely alone.
The last thing she needed was to be vulnerable, as well as unable to move, and find Shaw above her where she lay ready to butcher her. To her relief, though it was short-lived as a small flare of pain shot through her once more, she was alone but found the room changed yet again. She immediately shut her eyes, refusing to be drawn in by all these bizarre changes in this stupid place that lead her to dark abysses where evil men lurked.
To her intense frustration, Leticia found that she had lost control again of all her motor skills, and felt an unseen force behind her eyelids that tried to force them open. She practically pleaded with her hands to rise up and cover her eyes but it was all useless.
She couldn't even scream in anger when her eyes completely opened, and now was forced to witness what else this evil room had in store for her.
Right in front of her were three items that she instantly recognized. The most noticeable was the scarlet dress that she was sewing before everything went to hell on roller-skates. To Leticia's surprise it was now finished, but no longer a dress made for a little girl.
The dress was cut for a woman about her size, only the color of it remained unchanged. "Wanda," she thought. On the dress lay the other two items, both gleaming in the lamplight, their silver coloration sticking out amongst all the scarlet. To the right lay a pair of rings, one a thick silver band, the other delicate and engraved with flowers. "Pietro and Crystal's wedding bands." The item to the left was a comb made to be a decorative hairpiece rather than for grooming, the top of it engraved with flowers just as Crystal's wedding ring was. "Lorna." The comb used to be her own, made and given to her by Erik, his very first gift to her. She gave it to Lorna on her eighteenth birthday, and was told that one day she too could pass it on to any daughters she may have.
Each of the items sprawled before her represented her family. She scanned over them again, and wondered why nothing of Erik's was there.
The moment her husband crossed her mind, she heard a voice, one much like her phantom lilts when she was in the dark with Shaw, but surprisingly it was not her own.
"Never again."
The message was so brief, the tone so soft that she couldn't decipher who it was that had spoken. Not long after the ominous message was delivered, and despite her current paralysis, Leticia felt the air in the room shift once again. "No, no, NO, not again," was her mental plea as the setting was either changed or added to. The pain was still nestled within her chest, but it seemed to be fading. "At least I can have a reprieve from this ripping, knawing..." without warning a tidal wave of pain slammed into her chest, rippling out to her unmoving limbs.
Her agonized scream was caught in her throught.
She was in so much pain this time that her eyes began to fill with tears. "Wake up Leticia, wake up," her internal dialogue moaned pitifully as the wetness poured out.
As the pain slowly subsided she was able to focus a bit better, and suddenly realized that the big red spot in her line of sight wasn't there before. The pain she had experienced was so great that she suspected that whatever was there now had been before her for some time and she hadn't noticed its appearance. The water in her eyes made it difficult to see what it was; she attempted to blink the remaining tears away but she couldn't even do that. "Who is controlling me? What is controlling me?"
She pictured herself laying on this too red bed with strings coming out of various points of her body, a puppeteer peering over the edge controlling her and the objects of this room. She wondered if the puppeteer was the demon Shaw that she had encountered.
"Move, move, come on goddamnit move..." the blast of pain that came this time was so tremendous that all Leticia could see for a minute was a searing, white light. Molten lava coursed through every vein, needles punctured skin; she felt as though she were being roasted and skewered alive. And just like that the pain vanished and Leticia blinked.
She felt perfectly fine, as though the pain had never been there, as though she hadn't been slowly going insane from not being able to even twitch a finger. Now she was more than twitching, the feel of her muscles relaxing as she cautiously lifted herself off her stomach. She rolled her wrists and cracked her knuckles. "Hm, no aches, no trembling, it was as though it had never happened." Hearing her own voice made her feel giddy as it came out smoothly, no traces of exhaustion framing her words.
Looking around the room, as she had done when she first landed here, Leticia noticed, the dread building back in her stomach like bile, that the room was still shaking. She felt herself cower slightly, anticipation building that at any moment the horrible grinding sound would roar back to life in her ears.
With the tilt of her head she braved another look at the massive mirror that hung over the dresser, ready to see if anything else about her had changed. Her focus was ripped away from her reflection however as she saw what must have been the great red spot earlier. Dead center of the dresser there sat Shaw's helmet. Despite the fear that was nearly driving her into panic at the thought of Shaw being in the room with her, Leticia couldn't help but think: "I don't remember it ever being red."
Right at that moment, whatever spell had been placed on the room to have it remain deathly silent was broken. The grinding was now louder than before, a sonic boom smashing out all other noise as well as Leticia's sanity. She felt her power surge through her, the electricity in the air beginning to crackle dangerously.
"I have to get out, I HAVE TO GET OUT!" And with that she stirred the air around her till lashing tendrils of wind formed into a cyclone that proceeded to tear the room apart. Every object was mercilessly crushed by the howling tempest, including the dreaded red helmet. The ceiling had no choice but to give to Leticia's force, and as she rose up and flew out she laughed with triumph and joy.
As she soared upward her vision grew bleary, but not with tears like before: with exhaustion. Her survival instincts railed at her for this. She could practically hear a little voice screaming "No! You can't fall asleep in mid-flight! You'll fall to you're death you idiot!" Leticia, giving in to the inviting lull of slumber, lightly brushed that voice aside and replied: "Don't worry, the wind will carry me." And with that she slipped into warm darkness, sounds coming from far away, echoes of buzzing, grinding, screaming, and curiously, the sound of a woman softly sobbing.
"Don't cry," she thought gently, "don't cry."
Leticia Lensherr had grown quite accustomed to nightmares in the course of her lifetime. First she dreamt of the camps, then she dreamt of the Cuban beach disaster, then of losing Erik, then of dying, and then finally she dreamt of losing her family.
Day after day the news was littered with stories of mutant versus human conflict. Families afraid for their lives because a child of theirs was 'different', parents blaming these children, children blaming their parents, it was a societal disaster. Politics went through the ringer as well, senators arguing amongst each other about what to do in regards to the 'mutant problem'. The X-men had a lot on their plates right now, especially Leticia, Erik, and perhaps more so than anybody, Charles.
They were teachers and leaders to the younger mutants attending the institute, and so they had to be strong in the face of every stressful situation that threatened their way of life. The problem was that these stressful situations were coming in an unending, unrelenting succession.
To make matters worse, only a week ago the manor received a frantic phone call from Pietro that Wanda had begun to lose control over her powers yet again, and that she refused to get out of bed some days unless he forced her to get up and eat something. Leticia and Erik immediately set out to see if they could ease the strain on their daughter, and luckily were able to sooth her without Charles backing them up. This time at least. And so, with the government practically frothing at the mouth to grab at any reason they could to storm Westchester and confiscate everything and everybody, along with the public ready to march against them with torches and pitchforks, as well as her youngest child being slowly eaten alive by her own mutation, yes, life for the Lady of Westchester was stressful.
Most nights Leticia and Erik would fall into bed and into an exhausted, dreamless sleep, but now the nightmares had set in again. All of them were dreams of chaos, pain, and the endless worry she bore for her three children of which now she could no longer keep a watchful eye over as they lived separate lives away from the mansion. But the dream she had tonight was different.
Not once had Leticia dreamt of her younger self, nor had she dreamt of anything so vivid and terrifying. Not since she was a teenager anyway.
In her dreams she usually saw the inhabitants of the mansion doing or saying unintelligible, nonsensical things, but tonight she could have sworn her nightmare had been real. She could still feel silk between her fingers, an ache in her chest, the crown upon her head, and the wind against her face.
Although she was awake, Leticia kept her eyes firmly shut.
All her life she had been fortunate enough to sleep like the dead. Even when coming out of the deepest and darkest of nightmares her body would remain eerily still, unlike Erik who would thrash and cry out in the past. Truth be told, she was still afraid. She didn't want to open her eyes and find herself trapped in that gold-red room again, Sebastian Shaw slithering about in the dark corners.
To her annoyance however, she had to open her eyes. She could feel her face firmly smashed into something soft, and surprisingly, flesh-like. Next thing she knew her vision was filled with white cotton and the rise and fall of a chest. Erik's chest. Or at least she hoped it was Erik.
Gently, she pushed her face away from Erik's side and cautiously peeped up to inspect his face. To her relief she was greeted with the sight of his beloved features and not the demon Shaw. She took a moment to admire him as she settled her chin on his chest. His wide nose. His grim mouth. His sharp cheekbones. His wavy hair. Leticia wanted to kiss each of them.
She felt a giggle build up in her chest as she caught herself thinking like a swooning idiot of a school girl about Erik's profile. "It's not like I can control myself," she defended against her no nonsense, logical self, "this is Erik I'm swooning about after all." The giggle that started in her chest rushed to the tip of her tongue, but she swallowed back her silliness as it would wake the man beside her.
Leticia groaned when her eyes read the time on the clock beside their bed.
1: 50 A.M. it blared.
She let out a frustrated breath. Along with each of her nightmares this week she would wake directly afterward and not be able to go back to sleep. If this pattern continued at the rate it was she'd be a tyrant by the weekend, the new additions of the school frightened by the sleepless, grumpy, old hag. Speaking of old...Leticia peered back down at her hands.
Relief spread through her at the sight of her weathered, leather-like appendages. They were back to being the hands of an old woman, experienced, worn hands.
Most nights when she had nightmares she was content to burrow into Erik's side and doze until it was time to get up. But not this night; she felt restless.
Slowly as well as carefully Leticia attempted to disengage herself from Erik's side, but found it difficult. Her husband had kept the habit of drawing her close to him as they slept ever sense they had first fell in love. She knew it was because he would not feel content until she was safe and secure in his arms, and so he began to practically cage her to his side at nights. Instead of finding it stifling, Leticia would eagerly burrow herself into his chest, loving the feel and smell of his skin. But as much as Erik being near was a relief, she now needed to have at least a few moments alone.
Thankfully her figure was still slender, and so she finally managed to slip from Erik's grasp without jostling him awake. She knew though that she would have only a limited amount of time to think however. It would only take Erik a mere matter of minutes before he would wake and find her gone. Then he would come looking for her and ask if she was alright.
During the course of the last two weeks he had made it his business that his wife was as comfortable as possible, always holding her and whispering soothingly, never missing a chance to steal a few moments from their busy schedule and tell her he loved her and that she was beautiful; sadly though they still hadn't even had the time to have a full conversation with one another. Leticia knew that he was eager to talk, especially after he noticed her growing more and more weary each day.
She noticed that the moon was a full one tonight, and so decided that the gardens would be an agreeable place to think in until Erik showed up, to which she was sure he would. "But until then I suppose I shall drown myself with worry," she thought wryly, hoping that Charles wasn't awake to hear her. All she needed was the both of them being mother hens about her distress at two in the morning.
Before heading out from their room Leticia took a long look at her reflection in the mirror over her dresser. "Never would I have thought that I would feel such relief at seeing you, you weathered thing," she thought at the image before her. Her hair was its usual grey, silver, black color, her face lined at the forehead and mouth corners, her eyes no longer as bright as they once were. She tapped the dresser lightly with her fingers, as if she wanted to create a small sensation of feeling to ground herself to reality, and then gently headed out the door, opening it slowly so as to ease that dreadful sqeaking that would wake not just Erik but the dead as well.
After closing the door just as slowly, Leticia made her trek down to the gardens, taking the less traversed routes about the great house so as to avoid the night owls. "Or any little ones that should be in bed," she thought as she found two children at the foot of a stairwell whispering excitedly to one another. The moment they looked up and saw her descending from the steps they scampered off quickly, hoping that Miss Letty wouldn't tell the Professor about their nighttime adventure. Or worse. Tell Mr. Erik.
As she hadn't recognized who the two little culprits were she let them go without a hassle. "I'll just look for the two munchkins who can't keep themselves from nodding off at breakfast," she laughed lowly. Not that she'd be any better than they come the sunrise.
The moon was still out however, as she found it none too difficult to navigate her way to the kitchen by its light. Strangely, Logan wasn't there; he traveled the mansion's more obscure routes more than she, although this was her home. Leticia hoped he was able to actually sleep for once instead of prowling about restless like she was doing. She silently found herself envying his healing abilities as they kept him alert and ready for the pressures of the day despite living a nearly sleepless existence.
Leticia finally reached the sanctum of the garden, relishing the light breeze that blew in as she pushed open the kitchen's back door. She let the wind weave itself through her loose silver locks, enjoying the feeling of it entering the limp crevices of her white nightgown. The tiredness that sluggishly swam through her blood settled deep within her bones.
It was moments like these that Leticia truly did feel old. A good portion of the time she felt like she had always felt ever since accepting this place as home: a strong, energetic woman and X-man. It was in this very garden where she first took the smallest of Xavier's students, when the institute was finally established, and led them in playing games and eating popsicles on hot summer days. Where she watched them befriend each other, and learn that they no longer needed to be afraid.
Leticia finally reached the fountain before she crossed her arms and came to a halt. She allowed her eyes to slide shut so that she could allow her many memories to wash over her. The trickle of the fountain's water brought her back to when Pietro didn't even reach her hip height wise, and he played tag around it with the others his age at the time, all groaning with frustration because they couldn't catch him. The wind that gently flowed around her made her think of Lorna in her teenage years, and how when the wind would whip her beautiful green hair about, Erik would come and hold her and run his fingers through her mane. The early morning darkness she knew was still there behind her eyelids made her think of Wanda, and of how she would sneak out to this very garden, thinking that no one would ever suspect, and practice controlling her magic-like mutation, a glow of scarlet dimly lighting the grounds before the house.
Wanda. Her youngest. Her baby. Who was now dealing with another bout of physical, mental, and emotional stress. Of whom she could do almost next to nothing for except make endless inquiries about her health to her son. Pietro did his utmost to assure his mother that her efforts to help were not in vain, and that Wanda truly benefitted from seeing her and Erik, and that she would be calm in no time. She wished with all her heart that she could believe him.
Leticia squeezed her eyelids even firmer together, desperately trying to beat down her frustration and sorrow over her inability to chase away her daughter's pain when she heard the kitchen door she had come out of minutes earlier squeak open. A slight sigh puffed out of her.
"Took him all of five minutes to wake and find me," thought Leticia with a twinge of irritation. Privacy was a rare thing at the institute, especially if you were an instructor such as herself, everyone coming at you left and right with issues that needed resolving, tears that needed to be tenderly wiped away, fires that needed to be put out after fights between students, walls that needed to be patched up after said fires, etcetera, etcetera.
His soft footsteps were drawing closer, but still she did not open her eyes, nor move from her hunched over position. She could have sworn she heard him give a soft chuckle of amusement at her attempt to stay unnaturally still and blend in with the flora and fauna all around her. A small, reasonable voice rose up within her and said "He's not here to dump his problems on you; he's here to hold you and kiss yours away."
Sure enough not a moment later Leticia felt two strong arms wrap firmly, yet tenderly, around her waist, her small body being drawn backwards towards the broad chest. She let him move her, yet still didn't bother to open her eyes or loosen her arms from their rigid position.
This time she knew he was chuckling, as though to say "Ah. A challenge I see." Leticia held in the rude snort she was about to make. "Just a few moments alone is all I ask, but I can't even..." and oh dear, then came the kissing. The first was to the back of her head, a long, deep kiss that told her he wasn't going to leave her alone to stew in her self-deprecating thoughts, letting her know he was there to take care of her. The second went to the side of her head, an assurance that just a few more kisses would have her melting into his caresses. The third was placed on the shell of her left ear, the smallest of nips placed at the end to add a bit of spice to it.
Stubbornly, yet not without much internal struggling, Leticia remained motionless, willing herself to be impassive to Erik's teasing, annoying, wonderful, bloody amazing, God-I-love-this-man kisses. She could feel a grin tug at the corners of her mouth as she playfully resisted his passionate advances. She knew, she just knew, that one of his brows were arching up, framing that "oh so that's how you want to play it, no matter, you won't be able to resist me much longer" expression.
And with that came the fourth kiss on her cheek, not a chaste one that family or friends used as a greeting, but a powerful, searing one. Along with the kiss he roughly nuzzled her temple with his forehead, willing her to give into his affection and give him her attention. "Gah! You win this round Erik!," she thought exasperated, though not without hints of glee at what was to come next.
Leticia turned in his arms and placed her own around his shoulders, burying her face into his chest. His hold on her constricted so that now they were practically fusing together, they were so close. She could feel the rumble of triumph within him, the sound reverberating downward from his throat, but she could tell the atmosphere had lost its light-hearted, teasing quality, and he would no doubt start to ask her what was wrong and why she had been hiding away her doubts and fears from him.
It touched her deeply how Erik loved them just as much as her more positive qualities, the look in his eyes completely serious when he would profess that he would do anything for her. She sighed as she felt Erik take hold of her arms and begin to move her slightly away, effectively interrupting her cuddling. Before he could stop her she snapped out of his hold on her shoulders and went back to nuzzling the spot on his chest that she had been at previously.
It was his turn to heave a sigh, but the sound of it wasn't heavy with disapproval, and so they both gave into the cuddling of which soon became kissing. "I'll never get tired of this," Leticia vowed, a vow she had felt take hold of her heart ages ago.
"What am I to do with you?" his grave, yet smooth voice questioned. She could feel the giggling from earlier creep up from her stomach.
"Why...whatever you like my dear," she said while dissolving into suppressed laughter at her poor attempt at sounding seductive. Erik pulled her away from his chest again, his grip on her a tad tighter so that she couldn't escape and continue convincing him with her kisses that they didn't need to talk right just then. "Now," he started while she peeped up at him cautiously, "what is it exactly that my wife is doing out here alone at two in the morning?"
His brow quirked up again at his own inquiry, his expression the very picture of "you're in big trouble young lady."
Leticia merely smiled up at him sweetly and replied, "Oh nothing. Just waiting for my handsome, young lover to come and meet me."
The brow arched up higher.
"Is that so? LeBeau* left yesterday, so it couldn't be him."
"It's no one you know."
"Not yet," Erik quipped with a feral grin. Leticia remembered she had joked like this with him once before they were married. His handsome face had pulled down into the most horrified grimace, his eyes blazing over Xavier's grounds, ready to commit unspeakable violence to said 'lover' once he was spotted. Leticia still grins at the memory to this day, but this was nothing compared to the explosion of laughter that ensued when her younger self saw Erik's horrified, jealous, over-protective visage burn over the pastures of green grass.
"Is it Wanda?"
His voice was barely above a whisper, but her head snapped up to meet his gaze as though he had shouted. By the way he witnessed her face harden slightly with the sorrow she tried desperately to smother, he knew he had struck at the heart of the matter. Not that he wasn't aware of it before, but life had been so hectic this last week and a half that focusing on anything but the affairs of the school and their students was just not an option. Leticia placed her hands on her hips and looked into her husband's face.
"Do you remember Pietro and Wanda's eighth birthday, and how I sewed that little scarlet dress for her?" Erik nodded. His daughter couldn't get enough of strutting around in that dress at the time, preening about the mansion like the princess she was. "Like the princess she is," Erik corrected with pride and love. He waited for his wife to continue.
"I dreamt...I dreamt that I was as I had been then, intent on sewing that dress, worrying about their birthday party." Erik knew that there had to be more than what she had told him, as he assumed most likely that she had taken to a new set of nightmares ever since they sought their daughter out to comfort her.
He wanted to rid his wife of that hard look in her eyes, the look that acted as a hardened shell that held the sap of despair and disappointment beneath it. He took her in his arms gently and kissed her forehead; Leticia knew it was his way of saying she didn't have to say anything more about this night's nightmare.
For about a tenth of a second she could have sworn the terrifying aura of Shaw's presence had drawn near, and she shuddered involuntarily into Erik.
"Wanda is strong my dear. She gets it from her mother." Leticia gave a tiny smile at that.
She could feel him begin down the path that would lead them back into the mansion. Moving with him, they both headed back to their room to catch a few more hours of much needed rest. The days coming ahead were going to be long ones.
Leticia, whilst on the cusp of falling back into the lull of sleep, found herself wanting to clutch Erik and declare that something terrible was coming, that her nightmare wasn't just about Wanda, but of all of them, of how they would all somehow be snatched away from her.
As she felt herself sink further down into the murky depths of her subconscious, Leticia saw flashes of sharp, gleaming teeth, felt the winds that carried her out of that prison she had dreamt of blow and slap the planes of her face, heard the distant, muffled cry of a woman mourning.
All these sensations eventually faded into blackness, but not before she heard, with the perfect clarity of which she heard it on that fateful day, a strong, accented voice declare "Never again."
*Remy LeBeau/Gambit