A/N: don't own done sue
Lyrics are from 'Clarity' by Zedd & Foxes
Clarity
Chapter Two
High dive into frozen waves where the past comes back to life
Fight fear for the selfish pain, it was worth it every time
Hold still right before we crash 'cause we both know how this ends
A clock ticks 'til it breaks your glass and I drown in you again
'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?
Walk on through a red parade and refuse to make amends
It cuts deep through our ground and makes us forget all common sense
Don't speak as I try to leave 'cause we both know what we'll choose
If you pull then I'll push too deep and I'll fall right back to you
'Cause you are the piece of me I wish I didn't need
Chasing relentlessly, still fight and I don't know why
If our love is tragedy, why are you my remedy?
If our love's insanity, why are you my clarity?
"She needs a doctor."
"She's a healer. She'll heal."
"And if she doesn't? He beat her half to death, Charles!"
"Trust me. She healed her internal injuries on the way here. She needs rest."
"What if you're wrong?"
"I'm not."
"Her life is at stake."
Voices clanged through her head, each one like a jackhammer personally pounding into her skull. Eden wanted to roll over, away from the intrusive voices but her body still hurt too much. She tried to force her eyes open, after a few attempts she almost managed it. She could just about see the dim room she was in. It looked like a bedroom. She could see Charles and Erik and a girl directly ahead of her, their voices lowered to hissing whispers as they argued. Well the girl and Charles were arguing, Erik was standing by the window staring out through the stained glass. The girl's voice rose sharply and Charles hurriedly took her arm and led her from the room so they could continue their discussion in the hallway.
Eden mentally assessed her broken damaged body in silence, pain throbbing through her blood from her scalp to her toes. She could still hear the faint murmur of the argument through the thin wooden door, the faint thrum of rain speckling the window, even the steady rhythm of her own breathing.
"You're awake."
Eden blinked, somehow even that managed to hurt, and looked across at him. He was shrouded in darkness, his arms folded across his chest but she could feel he was looking at her. He stepped away from the long arched window and further into the room.
"I need to use the bathroom."
Erik's mouth twitched; evidently that was not what he'd expected. Eden worked herself into a sitting position, teeth gritted against the pain. She had to catch her breath and wait for the dizziness to ease as she slid out from under the sheets, putting her feet flat on the plush carpeted floor and hanging her head over the side of the bed. For a minute she thought she might throw up but it passed and she managed not to ruin Erik's shiny shoes. Erik heaved a heavy sigh and took her hand, helping her climb down from the big bed. She wobbled on her feet for a second, taking stock of how much everything hurt as blood rushed to her extremities numb from lack of use. He was staring at her with a bizarre look on his face and she turned away. He was surprisingly patient as he guided her, step by painful step, across the room. When she reached the bathroom, she hovered in the doorway for a moment.
"I'll wait out here." Erik said gruffly.
She nodded, stopping abruptly when her head felt as if it might fall off, and crossed into the room. The bright glare of the sudden light hurt her eyes but she forced herself to look at her reflection in the ornate mirror. One of her eyes was sealed shut by a brilliant purple bruise that covered half of her face, her lip was split almost to her jawline, black and blue bruises like flowers spread over her collar bone and one shoulder. From the tenderness, she had a couple of broken ribs and the pain in her left ankle was shocking, there was a very deep gash on her right thigh that should have needed stitches. On top of that every muscle ached, every bone hurt and her skin felt stretched too tight. Blood matted her hair to her head like a grotesque wig and, exploring the damage, she encountered a nasty sizeable gash on top of her head and a smaller one at the back.
She'd switched on the shower before she'd even realised what she was doing. Someone had wiped her down and discarded her bloody clothing, changing her into a hideous floor length nightgown. She unlaced the material and it slid to the ground. It took some effort to climb into the shower, tears of pain squeezing out of her eyes when she bit her split lip. The hot water felt both glorious and agonizing on her battered body but she persevered, gently sponging herself down until the worst of the blood was gone. This turned out to be a mistake. Once the blood was gone, her bruises were thrown into sharp relief against her pale skin. She struggled back into the nightgown before she staggered out of the bathroom. Erik was leaning against the wall, his long legs stretched out and his hands thrust deep into the pockets of black jeans. He cocked his head towards her, his blue eyes glancing at her wet hair and the newly revealed bruises chequering her body.
"I thought you'd fallen in." He observed flatly, lifting his eyebrows.
She laughed, taken by surprise at the joke. Erik took her arm again, helping her stagger back into bed. She groaned as he practically lifted her up into the tall bed, jolting every sore bone in her body. Even the sheets covering her body hurt. Erik poured her a glass of water from the pitcher on the bedside table and helped her take a sip.
"You're a healer." He said after a moment of uncomfortable silence.
"Sometimes." She replied warily. He lifted his eyebrows. "I can manipulate things that have separate parts." She said slowly, partly because her throat was agony from the strangling and partly because she'd never put her mutation into actual words before. "The human body is made up entirely of separate parts."
"That's how you heal." Erik nodded, pursing his lips thoughtfully. "You can do it to others, and yourself?"
"It takes energy, energy takes time." Eden sighed, exhaustion washing over her. "Thank you."
Erik flinched, his brow furrowing as he studied her.
"For the help." She clarified. "For beating them to a pulp."
He turned away, his face shuttering closed. They avoided each other's eyes, thoughts churning.
"Healing is putting things back together." He mused, so quietly she had to strain to hear him. "Can you take them apart?"
She looked at him warily, again feeling that darkness he seemed to carry deep inside him.
"Yes."
"Why didn't you?"
She swallowed against the pain in her throat, shifting uncomfortably. They were still staring at each other in silence when Charles re-entered the room. He beamed when he saw her awake, when he saw her wet hair he scolded Erik for letting her shower alone and possibly make her injuries worse. Erik ignored him, stepping away from Eden's bed to make room for Charles and his bedside manner. Eden answered Charles's questions politely, feeling unutterably awkward that she'd refused to help them, quite obnoxiously too, merely an hour before they'd come to her rescue and saved her life.
"You want to see how I heal." She said suddenly, breaking through Charles's explanation of where they were.
Charles chewed on his lip looking mildly annoyed and the blonde girl stifled an amused grin. Eden was starting to get the feeling that no one ever interrupted Charles.
"You can't see a lot from the outside." She sighed wearily. "Help me."
Charles helped her push back the sheets and wriggle back up into a sitting position, trying not to look too eager. It was almost endearing the way his eyes lit up like a kid at Christmas. Eden rolled the hem of the nightgown up to expose the ugly cut on her thigh.
"How telepathic are you?" She asked Charles, cutting off his reply before he could launch into another speech. "Well do what you have to do if you want to watch. I guess it's the least I can do."
Charles took her hands in his, staring at her with those intense blue eyes until she could feel his faint presence in her head. It was an odd feeling, a feather-light brush against the back of her consciousness. She took a deep steadying breath, narrowing her focus onto her leg. The pain in her head intensified as bright blue lit up her leg. She shifted her focus, blocking out everything but her wound. The blue got brighter, illuminating the severed edges of the gash. She coaxed the layers of skin and muscle and veins to repair, to knit themselves back together. It hurt almost as much as the beating. If wrenching things apart was painful, sewing them back together was agony. When she was done she withdrew her focus with a grateful sigh. There was nothing left of the vicious gash but a slender pink line marring the pale skin of her thigh that would fade by morning.
"Fascinating." Charles breathed, his fingertips grazing over the mark in wonder.
He seemed to have forgotten that the skin he was exploring was her thigh so Eden let the familiarity slide. Erik made a small noise and Charles blinked, taking back his hand with a half smile and leaping to his feet to pace the small bedroom as he mused aloud.
Eden barely heard him; she was already drifting to sleep.
Over the next three days Eden healed her various injuries between periods of deep heavy sleep. She let Charles stay with her as she worked since it seemed to interest him so much. On the third day when Charles arrived at her door with her lunch on a tray, he was trailed by a tall nervous looking youth in glasses. Eden had progressed to climbing out of bed on her own and, after sweet-talking Charles into getting her some clothes made in this century, dressing herself. She was sitting on the floor with her back against the end of the bed reading a magazine when they entered and Charles handed her the tray. He introduced the youth as Hank and then settled himself down cross-legged on the floor besides her. The gangly youth looked unutterably awkward as he followed suit and Eden grinned, offering him a pillow from the bed. Eden picked her way through her lunch as Charles and Hank tossed theories around about her mutation. She healed the last of her injuries for them and Hank hurriedly scribbled down some notes.
"Do you need to rest?" Charles asked as he poured her a glass of water.
"No. Actually I'm okay." Eden said with some surprise, accepting Hank's help as she scrambled to her feet. "Can I get out of this room now?"
Charles studied her carefully from head to toe. She was paler than snow beneath her still florid bruises flowering every shade of blue black purple and yellow across her face and vanishing under her slightly too tight cream blouse and reappearing in ugly patches on her long slender legs under her high-waisted navy blue shorts. She'd healed all of her internal and serious injuries but she had left her bruises to heal naturally, the result being that she looked as if she had been hit by a truck.
Charles sensed a presence behind them and he turned automatically, knowing he'd find Erik looming in the doorway. Erik's vivid eyes flickered over each of them enquiringly, lingering for a brief moment on a clearly disgruntled Eden. She looked slender and fragile in the ill-fitting clothes spotted with bruises but he remembered the strength with which she'd tackled him. She looked away from him, towards Charles and Hank and then back towards him when they all continued to stare at him.
"Well?" She asked impatiently. "Can I escape?"
Erik lifted his eyebrows. He'd only come to find Charles because Raven and Angel were having a furious argument that seemed to be taking over the entire ground floor and he could not be dealing with it. Instead he'd walked right into whatever this was. Charles was frowning the way he did when he thought very hard about the consequences of something and Hank was edging nervously from foot to foot.
"Charles?" Eden prompted dangerously, crossing her arms over her chest.
Charles could see the angry glitter in her eyes and the defiant tilt of her chin. She looked remarkably like Erik for a split second and Charles chewed on his lip. Despite the numerous times he had been in her mind he still knew very little about her and he was remarkably protective of his little family.
"Are you keeping me prisoner?" She asked point blank, looking Charles and Hank up and down with a seriously doubtful look on her face.
"No, of course not." Charles blustered.
"Then excuse me." Eden sidestepped around Hank, stood toe to toe for a brief moment with Erik before gliding into the hallway.
"Should she be wandering around the mansion alone?" Erik observed idly.
"I think she just wants some time." Hank said quietly, avoiding Erik's gaze.
"Perhaps you should keep her company." Charles suggested.
Erik looked up when the silence lengthened to find them both staring at him.
"I am not a babysitter." He said dismissively.
Charles stared at him and he stared right back irritably.
"Please Erik." Charles peered entreatingly across at his friend and Erik scowled. He hated it when Charles used the eyes on him.
Eden padded barefoot down the hallway, counting doors as she went. She mentally stored the layout of the floor for later, enjoying stretching her limbs after so much rest. The dark wallpaper was making her slightly dizzy and she briefly put a hand to her eyes. Her face was slightly damp with sweat and she shivered. Maybe this hadn't been such a good idea after all. Following the twist of the hallway she found herself at a dead end, nothing but a blank stretch of ugly wallpaper and a huge equally ugly tapestry of a battlefield. There was a window, though. Hoping for some fresh air, Eden crossed the wide hallway and tugged at the sash window. It didn't budge an inch. She settled instead for leaning her hot forehead against the cool glass, staring out at the rolling green vistas stretching into a dark patch of trees in the distance.
The hairs along the back of her neck prickled and she tensed, pulling away slightly to search the glass. There was a slight smudge where her forehead had been but only her own pale reflection staring back at her. It wasn't exactly a pretty sight. Her pale freckled face was florid with dark ugly bruises and her eyes were sparkling feverishly. She looked away, her eyes meeting his in the glass.
She looked as if she was about to keel over and Erik frowned. Her slender arms and legs were trembling, the blue black bruises spotting her pale skin. Erik took her elbow.
"Not as strong as I thought I was." She mumbled to herself sadly as he led her back to her now empty room.
She sank down onto the side of the bed, looking down at her bare feet glumly. She even had bruises on her feet, he noted absently.
"Being murdered will do that to you."
She squinted up at him, her mouth curled into a frown partly distorted by her swollen face. He'd said it so expressionlessly, she couldn't work out if he was joking or not. He stared intently back at her, his face a blank mask.
"Who were they?"
She flinched, the question taking her by surprise. During their daily conversations, Charles had never asked her about her attack other than to clarify that it had not been because of her mutation. Her fingers tracked over her battered swollen face lightly, her tiny pink tongue darting out to trace her dry damaged lips nervously.
"I don't know."
"Why did they attack you?"
She shivered, pushing her shaky hands back into her wild hair.
"They wanted something."
"Something?"
"Something I stole."
"What was it?"
She closed her eyes, turning her face away from him.
"I don't know."
"You don't know." He repeated icily. "You don't know what you've stolen that would be worth killing you to get it back?"
"I don't ask questions. I'm a good thief. I work for clients. I don't steal for myself." She snapped tetchily.
"How Robin Hood." Erik murmured smoothly, a smirk flickering across his mouth.
Eden glowered at him, wanting more than anything to knock that smile off his face. Instead she rolled away from him.
"I think I'm going to rest now." She said pointedly, not looking over her shoulder to watch him leave the room.