Ancient History 4
Onesmartcookie78
A/N: The Salem witch trials (as well as the others that occurred in England, Wales, Scotland and wherever else) were wrong and I do not condone them in any way. My character, Victoria Bishop, is based off a woman hanged for witchcraft with the same last name. The part where she says that she does not know what a witch is and the judge responds that if she does not know, how does she know that she is not one? actually happened in real life.
Please note that I am trying to be as historically accurate as possible in this story; the historical events mentioned have been extensively researched.
Also; Erik's last name, "Lensherr" is mistakenly spelt that way in the movie. I will be spelling it properly, "Lehnsherr", with an h.
Lastly, Victoria gives nicknames. Cyclops is "Shades" and Storm is "Moneypenny". This is a dig at how Ororo answers the phone at Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters, causing Victoria to believe her a receptionist. It's also amusing because Halle Berry, who plays Storm, is a Bond Girl in Die Another Day. Jean Grey is "Mary Jane" because she has red hair. This name is taken under the pretence that Spiderman does not exist in the Marvel-universe.
And thanks so much to all my reviewers!
Summary: Victoria Bishop was born in the 1600s, so how is she still running around in the twenty-first century? With a deadly power, it's no wonder Xavier and Magneto want her for a weapon. Set during X-Men. Logan/OC.
Disclaimer: I don't own the X-Men (although I really wish I owned at least Wolverine), only Victoria and any other OCs mentioned.
"When we are tired, we are attacked by ideas we conquered long ago."
–Friedrich Nietzsche
"The past is never dead. It's not even past."
– William Faulkner, Requiem for a Nun
"No one saves us but ourselves. No one can and no one may. We ourselves must walk the path."
– Gautama Buddha, Sayings of Buddha
April 3, 2004
I followed hallways where they would take me, keeping track of my turns in a bid to refrain from losing myself hopelessly in the maze. I soon got confused, unable to think backwards when I tried to retrace my steps. I checked my pocket watch and found that my next class started in five minutes.
"Shit," I hissed. I was distracted by the time and tripped over a loose floorboard. I recovered, but something made me pause:
A loose floorboard?
I dropped to my knees and examined the offending object. I didn't exactly have the time for it, but something about it had really caught my attention and I was hopelessly lost anyway. Might as well look now, since I would probably never be able to find my way back.
I shifted the floorboard back in place and heard a mechanical click. My head swung to the left and I saw that a picture of a bird in flight had slid to the left.
'I've read too many Nancy Drew books.'
I sighed and took out my pocket notebook and pen. The things one can shove down their shirt when they're female. Always be prepared.
I drew a picture of the loose floorboard, and an arrow indicating that it needed to be pushed into place. I drew an asterisk and wrote in cursive 'click' then closed the onomatopoeia with another asterisk. I drew a followup arrow depicting the bird painting and its skew to the left.
Finally, I put the picture back in order, but nothing happened. I frowned, running my fingers over the engravings on the frame. I found one that I could push and did so- the wall moved to reveal a secret passageway and the floorboard popped up again. I indicated on my map the approximate location of the button and wrote 'push', then stepped through the door.
Instantly, my claustrophobic mind regretted the decision.
As if it could sense that I had walked in, the door slammed shut of its own accord behind me. I jumped at the unexpected turn of events as I was sealed in the darkness. My breath came out in pants as I pushed frantically on the wall, trying to get out. But I couldn't. I was trapped.
I could feel my heart racing like I'd just run a marathon, because it was suddenly too small and too dark and there was no way out.
December 31, 1692
Stuck in a coffin. Confusion, uncertainty.
I know I'm not a witch.
Recall cheers from crowd, chants of "Witch!", jeering. Food is thrown as they tie the knot binding me to my imminent hanging.
"She's a witch! Hang her now, before she kills us all!"
But I'm not! I didn't mean to kill her! Mum, dad, tell them!
Dad is dragging mum away, assuring her that the townsfolk are doing the right thing.
Don't believe him, mum! I didn't mean to! Please forgive me! I'm not a witch!
The wood shifts under my feet until it's replaced with air. I'm free falling and I know these will be my last few moments of living. I want to cry, but there's no time, only pain in my neck and the roar of the crowd as the rope fails to immediately snap my neck. Suffocation.
The crowd riots: "The witch is dead! Woohoo!" they all champion the executor. They're sick, bloodthirsty. Afraid of the unknown, of what could be.
But that's what happened before, so what's happening now? The answer is simple: I'm not dead. I'm alive.
My Lord must want me to be purified by flames. My death must have disgraced him.
Frenetic beating against the wood does nothing at first.
It's so very small in here, let me out!
Slowly, the few inches of dirt covering my grave start to give.
Please! Let me out, I'm dying in here all over again! This isn't the way God wants me to die!
They didn't bury me deeply at all, but there's no air and my arms are so weak and my neck hurts and it's so very hard to move.
I'm not a witch!
My thoughts are jumbled.
I can still recall the crowd shouting:"Witch, witch, she's a witch!"
Just want to escape the darkness. It's all around me. I can't get out. I'm choking all over again. I'm gasping for air that's never going to come when, suddenly, I make headway. But it's just as dark outside as it is underground. I cry.
I somehow shook myself out of the memory that haunts my dreams after a venture into an enclosed space and took calming breaths as I stuck my head between my knees. My eyes closed, but the darkness wasn't going to go away (it never would) and inside my head felt too small. Not to mention I kept seeing flashes of flames licking at an eight year old's body, charring flesh and-
I shivered at the cold and reached out to touch the wall. The tangibility grounded me in a way, even though it was damp and slick with moisture. I pulled my hand back, then realised that I didn't have a torch, so the wall would have to guide me anyway.
I crinkled my nose as I edged along. It was slow going and I tripped more than a few times. Ten minutes later, I had to stop because I hit a wall. 'Thank goodness, I can finally get out.' Figuring I'd reached the end (and hoping that the passage hadn't branched off on the other side), I felt along the wall for something, anything, that would get me out.
Oh, God, what if there was not way out?
My left hand connected desperately with a crack in the wall and I traced it, hoping it would lead to a way out. 'I need to get out, now!' At the bottom of the wall, the crack branched off. I kept my left hand on the main crack and traced each of the lines until I found a button. Sighing in relief, I hit it and the wall slid up.
I pushed my way out to find that I was in the kitchen. I took a lungful of fresh air, coughing from the wet, heavy air of the secret passage way. I checked my watch; there were still twenty minutes of my class period left. I cursed and half-ran down the hallway, scribbling that the passage lead to the kitchen. Maybe I could activate it from the kitchen side as well?
As I was writing, I crashed into a wall. I fell, but the wall caught me. Definitely not a wall. Logan stood in front of me, raising an eyebrow.
"What are you doing? You smell," he paused, looking for the right word, "damp."
I raised both of my eyebrows at him, waiting for the innuendo to catch up with his brain.
He just smirked. So he'd meant it as a double entendre.
"I was crawling around in a secret passageway. I like being on my knees," I said, stepping past him and practically running away. I wasn't nervous or anything, I just needed to go teach a lesson. Of this, I swear.
When I reached my classroom, it wasn't the chaos I'd imagined it might be. No one was swinging from the lights, there was no orgy, and no one had set anything on fire. They were just calmly sitting in their seats and talking. I must have made an impression earlier.
"This is English class, yes?" I asked, sitting at my desk and crossing my legs. "Everyone take out a book and read. Do homework if you want. Just read and stay silent." And with that, I pulled out my Nancy Drew novel to see if there was any other way to find a secret passage.
When classes for the day were over, Charles called all of us to the lab. He asked Jean and I to conduct a biopsy (okay, I'm exaggerating; he just wanted X-rays and a blood sample study) on Logan. Jean agreed immediately and looked at me almost as though she was daring me to accept.
Slowly, I nodded and was questioned by Mary Jane and Logan on if I was qualified to be doing the sort of work I would be on him.
"Honey," I told Mary Jane sweetly, "I have gone to college more years than you have been alive. I have studied more than you ever will and know enough about anatomy that I dissected myself. I think I know a thing or two about drawing blood and taking pictures utilising a machine that conducts-"
From the look on her face, I should've added a "could" in front of "dissect". Dammit. Maybe next time.
"She's dissected herself?" Mary Jane's voice raised fractionally. "She's clearly unstable, professor; you can't let her-"
"I trust Victoria," Charles defended me. "She has a masters in physics, biology, and anatomy as well as PHDs. She did a residency with a renowned surgeon a few years ago. She's more than experienced."
"She just admitted that she's basically experimented on herself-"
"I actually never said that, though now that you mention it..." I mused, enjoying making Mary Jane angry. Maybe it was because of how she looked at Logan, but the way others had interacted with him had never bothered me before.
"Did you or did you not?" Mary Jane whirled on me, face flushed.
"It was a dark time and science had advanced so much," I shrugged. It wasn't that big of a deal, was it? I hand't done anything I felt uncomfortable with, and that was all that mattered, right? I could still look at myself in the mirror and not turn away after a minute; granted, it was with a certain wretched mix of disgust, guilt, and self-loathing– though I didn't know how to name the feelings when I searched my reflection; I only knew that I felt an inescapable, undefinable something that was capable of making me feel sick to my very bones. But I could still sleep at night. Why should it bother them, then?
"In fact," I added with a measure of blatant amusement, "That's how I found out I was a mutant, actually– and that the appendix doesn't actually do anything in humans. I want to run that one again, though," I mused. "Logan, you game?"
Everyone looked at me like I was stark-raving mad.
"Are you telling me," Mary Jane said slowly, "that you removed your own appendix?"
"I was testing a theory," I answered, crossing my arms over my chest.
"What sort of theory could possibly involve an appendectomy!?" she shrieked.
Logan winced at the volume.
"The discovery that whenever I die, someone dies in my place. Before I slit my wrists that one time to find out how much blood a human can lose before dying-"
"You did what?" Charles looked very upset by now, and so did everyone else.
I blundered on, "-I had died relatively normal deaths for the time period. Hanged for witchcraft, burned for witchcraft, murdered in a mugging. Those were not uncommon things to die from.
"But in a small town where everyone insists that the victim was happy and had no reason to commit suicide? Well, I got suspicious. So I had to make my death something really strange. I was curious to see the purpose of the appendix anyway, but was disappointed when it didn't work; I had lived.
"I found out later that when I die, someone else dies in my place. A life for a life, as it were," I finished.
There was dead quiet.
"How did you find that out?" Scott questioned softly, like he was afraid of the answer.
Charles put his face in his hands.
I stood still for a moment. I had brought it up. It was only fair that I end it. I always did. I bit my lip, "I buried myself alive, and when I woke up a few deaths later after fighting my way out of the ground, I found out that a group of three or four women had done the same." I closed my eyes. "Like I said, a very dark time for me.
"Now are we going to do this or not?" I met Charles's eyes, practically begging him to allow me to. I looked to Mary Jane next, but no love was won there; her eyes were hard, accusing, and a little scared. I flicked over to Scott, but he was hard to read. Next to Ororo, who seemed to think I was an abused puppy. I wanted desperately to snort.
Finally, I connected with Logan. He wore no expression, just seemed to be examining me for all I was worth, like I was the one under the microscope. Whatever he found seemed to satiate him, because he nodded to me, granting me permission.
"If I trust you and Logan does," Charles snapped Logan and me out of our staring contest, "then I see no problem with it. So long as you have his approval, in fact, I will allow you to conduct any tests you see fit."
I smiled gratefully at the pair of them, and Logan smirked a bit back. I was fairly certain he was incapable of actually smiling, so I left him alone.
Mary Jane scoffed, "I refuse to work with her," she proclaimed, the finality in her tone evident; we had all made our decisions and she had made hers.
"Fine, then," I conceded. "If Logan's alright with it, we can conduct separate tests on him and compile the data. Who knows, maybe we'll be able to find more that way," I said diplomatically, looking to her for a response. "How does that sound?"
Mary Jane sniffed, but agreed. "Who goes first?"
"Flip a goddamn coin," Logan growled, fed up with our passive-aggressive behaviour, "before I decide I don't want you sticking things in me any more."
"I'm pretty sure it's the other way 'round," I mumbled quietly enough that only he could hear. Logan's eyes shot to me and he raised an eyebrow in amusement. "You can have dibs first, Mary Jane," I told her, shrugging. "I don't mind waiting. I have all the time in the world."
"It's 'Jean'," she corrected me, pulling on her lab coat.
Oh, right, I hadn't told her the nickname I'd come up with yet.
"I know, but I give everyone nicknames," I explained. "It's just the red hair... you've never seen the Spiderman movie, have you?"
Mary Jane looked at me blankly, and I swept my eyes over the room. Ororo gave me a thumbs-up and winked. I knew she had good taste in movies! Scott just shrugged and Logan nodded slightly, as though he understood-maybe-okay-only-a-little-bit-alright-not-at-all.
I cleared my throat, "Go on then, Mary Jane, whilst I'm still relatively young."
Ororo coughed to hide her laughter and shifted to stand next to me whilst Mary Jane huffed and pulled Logan into the lab. "Victoria, we've got to have a movie marathon one time," she put her hand gently on my arm and squeezed. "And don't let Jean get to you," she dropped her voice so that Scott couldn't hear, "she's just jealous that you and Logan have history and she's attracted to him."
I groaned, "I thought I was the only one who noticed that she all but dropped to her knees and begged for him to-"
Ororo laughed. "Shush! She's engaged to Scott, she would never do that!"
"That's certainly not how it looked," I grumbled, biting my lip.
Ororo hesitated, her brown eyes reluctant. "Were you and Logan ever-?"
"No," I said quickly, then laughed reassuringly. "No. Whenever I met him though, I would have his undivided attention. He's hard to win over, but once you do, he's fiercely loyal. During the Civil War, he decided he could trust me, at least in a combat setting, and he protected my secret. When we met again in Vietnam and confessed our mutations, he was once again a constant at my side.
"That's why I'm jealous; whenever I see him, I'm used to him being practically attached to my hip and ready to rip apart anyone who finds out something about me that they shouldn't," I assured her.
Ororo squeezed my arm again. "How much does it hurt that he doesn't remember?"
Her words hit me like a truck.
January 13, 1975
"If you see me, don't be a stranger," I pleaded as Logan and Victor packed their stuff. They had killed a high-ranking officer, though I didn't know much about it; rumour had it from the chain of command that the officer had been on our side, but it was also said he was the enemy. Either way, the Wolverine and Sabretooth were due to be executed via firing squad. Fortunately, no one but me knew their little party tricks.
Logan turned to me as he slung his pack over his soldier. "Only if you stop going to war and posing as a man so that I don't need to save your sorry arse," he smirked, leaning closer mischievously to murmur in my ear: "it's a nice arse, though."
I laughed with him and hugged him. He immediately stiffened, seeming awkward, before his hands came up to close around me. "Take care, Logan," I reminded him, kissing him on the cheek.
I turned to leave, only for Logan to grab my arm, swing me around, slam me into a tree and slant his mouth heatedly over mine. I shivered, breathing in the taste of Logan and memorising the feel of him as he kissed me fervently, desperately, like he would never see me again. And who knows; the world is large and it was possible that the two of us wouldn't meet again for centuries.
Which would be why he's kissing you like you're water and he's a man in the desert.
His right hand came to rest to the left of my head, his left hand on my hip. His tongue found its way into my mouth and I tangled my fingers in his hair, murmuring his name.
He pulled back fractionally, allowing his eyes to connect with mine for a second. His blue-grey eyes, flecked with gold that I'd never noticed, glowed in the dimming light. His mouth lingered from my skin long enough for me to see the desire in his orbs before his lips found the pulse humming on my neck.
He smelt like the rain, gunpowder and the woods, similar to me and everyone else stationed here, as well as something masculine and just plain Logan. His lips on mine were electric and shivers went down my spine. I bit his lip and he growled in return, pressing against me further.
"Logan, let's go. We don't want to keep our executioners waiting," Sabretooth drawled in a creepy sing-song voice.
Logan rested his forehead on mine, his blue-grey eyes scrutinising my face. His lips brushed against mine again and then my forehead. "I'll see you later," he promised (or at least, I hoped he did), as he stalked away. He never once looked back.
Maybe I had lied to Ororo a bit. But I'd hardly consider one good snog to be "a thing". Nor did my thoughts often stray towards that memory, which is also a lie.
"It hurts more than you can imagine. It feels as though he ripped the still-beating heart from my chest and had his fun tearing it to shreds. Then, to add insult to injury, Mary Jane stopped by in her stilettos and happened to curb stomp it a few times," I confessed softly.
Ororo didn't try to console me with false words, "Girl, tonight we are watching whatever movie you want to with some of your favourite ice cream."
I grinned at her; this was the type of female friend I wanted.
A few hours later, I was snapping latex gloves on my hands as I hovered over Logan. His eyes were shut, though they popped open when he felt my gaze on him. After staring at each other silently for a few minutes, he grumbled: "If you have something to say, say it."
I hesitated, taking the second to plunge the needle in his arm in order to draw blood. "It's nothing, just... thank you for trusting me." I turned to get another phial off the prep-tray, setting the filled one down. The action was carefully timed so that he couldn't see my face. "You reacted in my favour despite my..." I swallowed thickly. Horror stories. "-revelations."
The hand of the arm I wasn't drawing blood from caught my fingers as I went to screw the second phial into place, diverting my gaze to his eyes. There was a deeper understanding in them than I would've thought he'd get out of my remark- he knew that his trust meant more to me than the blind trust of a stranger. Because I knew him, even if he didn't remember me right now. His perceptiveness surprised me.
"I don't know how far this trust you gift me with extends, so let me know when I cross a line." I gestured for him to follow me so I could take X-rays, "Which I might do in a second," I breathed as I saw his skeleton. Every inch of it was coated in adamantium. I could guess due to the shine of the metal, but there was only one way to tell. "Logan, how do you feel about diamonds?"
Logan's eyebrows shot up, "Depends- what do you plan on doing with them?"
"Nothing damaging," I said hastily, reaching for a diamond edged scalpel that I'd bought a while back. I'd gotten a matching pair during my brief stint as a thief a few years ago. "Just... adamantium, supposedly the strongest substance on earth, has been surgically grafted over your whole skeleton. Stick out your claws for me?" I asked, stepping closer.
Logan eyed the scalpel wearily before meeting my gaze. I gave him a charming smile and he sighed, letting the claws shoot out of his right hand. I gestured for him to move closer to me, knowing he wanted to feel like he was in control with the dangerous claws he had out. He rolled his eyes, taking measured steps towards me. I held out my left hand and motioned for him to put his right in mine.
I didn't look up to see the speculative, exasperated expression on his face. I knew it was there though. When his hand landed on mine, electricity surged through my body. I fought to keep the attraction in check, knowing he'd smell it, but he said nothing if he did.
I lowered the scalpel to his claw (how had it escaped my notice earlier in Xavier's office that his bone claws had turned into metal?) and carefully sliced at it. The blade of my scalpel promptly snapped in half.
"Son of a bitch!" I hissed.
Logan, who hadn't been paying attention, retracted his claws and jumped away from me like I'd burned him before snatching both my hands up, causing me to drop the scalpel. I caught my breath sharply in response, then realised he was looking to see if I'd cut myself.
I laughed a bit, "The scalpel broke in half, Logan, I didn't-"
"Yes you did," he held my left hand up in front of face, showing me a bit of blood.
"Oh," I relaxed. "It's nothing. Anyway, that confirms that it's adamantium."
"Jean didn't talk while we were doing this," Logan muttered.
"Just letting you know my findings," I bristled at being compared to the redhead, and Logan noticed, but didn't comment. "Now take your shirt off, I want to run a few more tests."
