For the fun of it, I made a mini-poster/avatar for this fanfic !
http // www. gabe-e. com / pics / solaceinyou.jpg
Chapter 04: Trust me
Kitty Pryde sat still and silent beside the unconscious patient's bed. She had been sitting there, observing his immobile form for the past hour ever since he had blacked-out in the presence of Professor Xavier and Ororo. When she asked the Professor what they should do to help him, the professor said to let him rest. He said it was what the young man needed the most.
She breathed in and exhaled, and pulled her legs up into an indian-sitting position on the chair. She couldn't believe she was still there with him. She knew he didn't even know she was there. It was probably just a waste of time, accompanying someone who she does not even know and vice versa...And yet, she couldn't leave him.
Perhaps it was because of the way he had asked for her help...The way he begged for her to save him. But save him from what? Would she ever know? Or maybe, she doesn't want to leave --- because she feared that if he woke up, no one would be there for him.
/"Oh, Kitty! You and your heart of gold."/ She thought to herself and smiled. No wonder some of the younger students looked at her as their older sister. She always had a tendency to care for them --- Too much sometimes.
She pursed her lips and looked at his face. She remembered how horrified he looked when he held her arm...How teary-eyed he was when he asked for her help. Who knew what he had been through in Stryker's laboratory? How long had be been there?
Kitty immediately shook the thought away. That was the past. They had finally saved him. Now he was here, safe in their company...Free to dream of good things --- comforting things. The last thing he needed was more suffering.
She reached out and delicately brushed the hair off his forehead. She smiled as her skin came in contact with his. Maybe he would know that she was there --- That someone was actually caring for him for a change. She pulled her hand back to her side and sighed.
"Who are you?" She whispered, soft and gentle so as not to disturb his sleep.
Her eyebrows furrowed and a confused smile etched its way up her lips. She looked at the arm he had held before and looked at him again. "And how did you do what you did?" She would never forget the way he had held her in place. She couldn't 'phase out' of his grip.
"You really have to tell me about yourself when you wake up, you know." She said, smiling at him. "You have a lot of explaining to do."
Oh, how silly she felt --- talking to someone who could not even talk back, or hear her for that matter.
Kitty bit her lower lip and exhaled. Perhaps it was about time she left him alone to rest without her bugging him. She could visit him again later anyway. And if he did wake up, she knew Ororo would tell her at once.
She stood up, and was about to phase out of the room, when she saw his lips move ever so slightly she could have easily missed it. She gasped, and took a step back. Was he finally coming to?
"Hello?" She whispered, as she very slowly walked to the side of the bed.
The young man, with his eyes still closed, suddenly opened his mouth wide and took a deep shivering breath, causing his bare chest to rise and his head to pull back on the pillow. His pale hands balled into tight fists and his knuckles turned as white as snow.
At that moment, Kitty didn't know what to do. Should she phase to Ororo and inform her of what was happening? Or should she stay there and wait for whatever was about to come?
Then his body relaxed, and lay still on the bed, unmoving. His hands untwined and went back into their half open position. The tension in his body was gone, and he was once again silent and still.
After a few seconds, his dark blue eyes shot wide open, and his pupils contracted as the light from the room reached his eyes. He gave off a brief yelp, a cry of fear and discomfort as he quickly sat up on the bed, pulling off all the medical tubes that were connected to his wrists. His face and his eyes were filled with fear and nervousness as he looked around the room. His bare chest and his shoulders quivered and heaved with each and every quick breath. Sweat trickled down the sides of his face as he surveyed the strange area around him.
Kitty Pryde soon came into his sight, and he quickly scurried off the bed in fear of what she might do to him. He ground his teeth and backed into the corner of the room.
"Who are you?" He shouted. The veins on his neck protruded on his skin. "Where am I?" He asked again, louder this time. "What am I doing here? Is there going to be more pain? Are you going to kill me now? Are you with my father?"
Kitty wanted to cry at the sight of the boy before her. He looked as if 'pain' and 'suffering' had been the only things he had ever known. She nervously licked her dry lips and swallowed. She knew it wasn't her place to try and comfort him, but she couldn't just leave him now...Not now.
"It's going to be all right." She said softly. "I'm not going to hurt you. I promise."
He further backed away into the corner, trapping himself there. "Who are you? What is this place?" He kept his back pressed against the wall. He felt like an animal trapped in a cage. He felt the wall with his hands while looking at Kitty, hoping to claw his way out of it.
She took a step closer to him, moving as cautiously as she could. He was scared. He was afraid...Afraid of her and everything around him.
"My name is Kitty. Kitty Pryde." She spoke as she approached him. "You...What's your name?"
The frantic boy continued to claw at the walls. "Why am I here? WHY AM I HERE?" He shouted, ignoring Kitty's prior question.
Kitty noticed what he was doing. "Please stop that. You're going to hurt yourself."
He defensively pulled his hands to his chest and clenched them tight --- almost tight enough for his fingers to dig into the delicate skin of his palms. "Everyone wants to hurt me. They all want to hurt me! But it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter because I don't feel anything anymore! I'm numb, Kitty! Numb all over, from all the pain and the darkness and the cold and – and - I wanted to die! I wanted to die but they would not let me die! They would not even grant me death!" His words quivered as he shouted at her.
"No one's going to hurt you. Not anymore. You're safe now." She explained. She wanted to tell him that he was finally free from the pain he had endured. She wanted to show this battered soul that his suffering had finally ended.
She swallowed, and took another slow step towards him. "Everything's going to be fine. I promise. You can trust me."
She could feel her heart pounding in her chest now. But she remained calm. She didn't want to show him that she feared him. Yes. Kitty Pride feared the enslaved human before her. She wasn't even sure if he was a human or a mutant, but - there was something about him --- something about him that didn't feel right. And the fact that he could 'counter' her powers, was a fact she kept in mind.
The boy's breathing slowed down, a sign that he had calmed down a bit. His hands relaxed, but he kept himself in a defensive position. He focused his dark blue eyes on her, watching her every motion, observing her as a prey would its predator while he continued to press his back against the cold wall, waiting for Kitty's next move.
Should he really trust her? Did she truly mean it when she said she would never hurt him? Due to what he had been through, he had lost the ability to trust. To him, the world was against him. To him, the only person he could trust was himself. To him, life was filled with pain and nothing more.
"You asked for my name." He said softly.
Kitty smiled. "Yes. I did. But if you don't want to tell me, it's all right." She was now standing an arm's reach away from him. She could easily reach out to him if she could. But she would not do that now. Not yet while he was still in his defensive. She didn't want to scare him away.
The boy looked at the floor, to think perhaps, and then looked at her. "I don't have a name." He then realized that no one's ever asked for his name before, therefore he never thought it was important. For as long as he could remember, she was the first one.
She furrowed her eyebrows. "You don't have a name? Everyone has a name." She offered him a comforting smile. "You must have one. Your father and your mother must have called you by, well, something..."
He grimaced. "Never speak of my father!" He suddenly shouted. The blue fire in his eyes were back and he gritted his teeth in anger. "William Stryker..." He whispered. "I hate him! I hate him! He called me his 'experiment'! I was an experiment to him, Kitty!" He spat out the words with so much enmity. "He gave me no name! He said I was his masterpiece, his work of art, but he could not even give me a name! How could he when he couldn't even love me?" He punched the wall adjacent to him with the side of his fist.
William Stryker. William Stryker was his father? No wonder the pain in his eyes were too much to bear. To have a father do that to his son...The thought alone was unbearable. No wonder he hated him with a passion. And she couldn't blame him. How could she after everything he's been through in Stryker's hands? Moreso, how could Stryker hate mutants so much to lobotomize both his sons for his cause? Did he have no heart?
"Please..." Kitty pleaded. "Calm down...Please..." Now she wished she had called Ororo the moment he woke up. He was too unstable for her, too unpredictable. What if he was more dangerous than he seemed?
The young man stared at her silently. No one has ever pleaded to him before. He was always the one who pleaded --- Pleaded for sanctuary, pleaded for mercy, pleaded for death. But pleading meant nothing to him anymore. All of his pleading and begging resulted to nothing.
"I don't trust you." He said. "I don't trust this place. This is all just a trick! It is, isn't it? It's not real. I'm still trapped. And you, you're not who you say you are! This is all a part of father's experiment!"
"It's not! Believe me!" Kitty answered. "It's real. All of it. You're safe now, here, at Professor Xavier's school for gifted youngsters. No one's going to hurt you anymore. Don't you remember? You helped Logan and the others escape from Stryker's underground base. You saved them. You helped them live. And in return, they saved you. You're safe now, with us."
He pursed his lips and continued to stare at her. He slowly breathed in and exhaled. He tried to remember...And he did. He remembered leading the others to safety. He remembered escaping with them. Most of all, he remembered killing the man he hated the most. Perhaps she was right. Maybe he was finally free. And wherever he was now, it was better than the hellhole he had spent his life in.
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T B C :)
