Disclaimer: All involved characters are the property of their respective creators, and all fall under the copyright of Marvel. No infringement is intended - I am most definitely not making any money off of this, as my bank account proves. I just like playing with the toys.
Thanks to those who reviewed last chapter! Sorry this took so long, I was on a wild and stressful visit to extended family and had precious little time to internets, much less write. Hope you enjoy!
Chapter Four
The drive to the hospital is a silent one; inquiries are made in hushed grief decorum, and their silence is filled with the sounds of sickness – anonymous machines beeping, subdued coughing, the squeak of old shoes on the shining tile floor. The contour plastic chairs are uncomfortable, which makes the already intolerable wait endless; some soap opera siren wailing "Fernando!" in the corner isn't enough to drag her away from the abyss of her own memory, which is kneading over the past few hours with an obsessiveness and clarity that borders on the insane. The smell of burning fat sticks like paste to the back of her throat.
"Want some coffee? " Val isn't entirely sure that her stomach can handle anything else, but she reluctantly agrees. As Sean hands her the little styrofoam cup, the phone in his pocket trills. He fumbles, nearly spills the brown tar on her, hurriedly apologizes and retreats. "Hallo?"
And as much as the rotten hospital coffee washes the taste of death out of her mouth, she can't get it out of her mind: the image of the boxcar's flame-blackened walls. The bodies, some of them nothing more than murky puddles of fat and black splinters of bone. Whatever God there might be wasn't kind enough to give them all quick endings, or, at least, anonymous deaths – there were plenty of blistered and charred half-faces remaining, all of their expressions mauled with agony, with fear. Plenty of bodies that had run into one another like tallow, until what remained was something from Lovecraft's personal hell. A lot of the bodies had broken arms, broken fingers, ripped and ragged fingernails from trying to escape; the red door of the boxcar was clawed silver. They were so young, most of them, and they must have been so afraid . . .
She and Sean had stayed until the forensic guys were done and the medical examiner guys had started clearing the scene, they picking up the death-stiff bodies like pieces of driftwood, placing them inside body bags. More than one corpse, upon its gentle placement, had let out a cloud of black chaff like a spent, kicked fire.
Now, Sean stands across the bleak hospital hallway in a somewhat-hunched stance that means he's hiding a conversation from prying eyes (not that there's really anyone here but her.) He's smiling into his phone's receiver and his eyes, previously reflecting her own desolation, have softened.
"Tá grá agam duit."He says finally and hangs up his phone, replaces it in his pocket. Val looks away, tries to look occupied with her coffee as he comes to sit next to her.
They sit in silence for a moment, sipping their coffee.
"You ever had one that bad before?" She ventures, finally.
"No." The good humor vanishes from his features – in an instant, he looks ten years older. He rubs his eyes with one hand. "MutteraChroist."
"Was that your wife on the phone?" Hoping to change the subject, honestly – though she hasn't seen a ring on his finger. That brilliant plan both works and backfires; Cassidy's tired expression drifts from morose to the sort of familiar misery that only time can beat into a person's features.
"No. My wife died a long time ago."
"I'm sorry."
A smile sidles across his face, chased by an expression of disbelief. "Why? Were you the one that done it? All these years of fruitless searchin' only to be paired wit' the guilty party!" A half-hearted wink. He reaches into his back pocket, produces a worn leather wallet; from that he extracts a photo cracked not from age but handling. "No, that was my daughter on the phone. Teresa."
"She's beautiful." Val isn't just being polite. Teresa's features are more delicate than her father's, and her hair charges past strawberry blonde and into a brassy orange that most women would murder for. But she's got the same bluish-green eyes, and her skin is pale as well, perhaps emphasized by the school uniform she seems vaguely exasperated with. In a matching mauve sweater and knee socks, a pleated skirt and an oxford shirt-and-tie, this skinny little pre-beauty rolls her eyes at her audience. She's got her father's humor then, too.
"She's a moighty handful, that one. Our screamin' matches are about enough t' bring the damn castle doun." And then he laughs. Val smiles back quizzically, not getting the joke, but laughing a little anyways.
"Agent Cassidy, Agent Cooper?" They both look up to meet the impatient amber eyes of a small black woman, and the laughing stops. 'No-nonsense' doesn't being to describe the woman's expression – she looks like she hasn't cracked a genuine smile since long before med school. "I'm Doctor Cecilia Reyes. The patient is ready for you."
They are both filthy. Filthy isn't even the word – they might not even be recognizably human, Piotr thinks as he tries valiantly to smudge the mud off of Illyana's face with hands that are covered with it, and so only succeeds in painting brown eddies into her cheeks. Those glacial eyes of hers are singing as she bats his hands away and dances a few steps from him, then notices with sudden disdain, "Aww, it got in my hair!"
"That is what you get for playing in the mud," he says as he turns and starts back towards the truck. The field is clear of tree trunks now, deeply pitted with their upturned nests.
"You pushed me!"
"Yes, but you threw a ball of mud at me. You should have considered that I am both stronger and faster than you before you launched that ill-planned attack."
"But I'm smarter!" And she jumps up onto his back in another ill-planned attack; his clothes are probably already ruined so he falls forward in a death stagger, knees hitting the ground with a small splash, then his hands. Illyana flees, squealing as he rolls onto his back. She starts running around his collapsed figure towards the truck, stops when she realizes he isn't following.
"Petya, come on, it's almost lunch time." He lays supine in the mud, unmoving, eyes closed.
"Piotr Nikolaievitch! I'm hungry! No more playing!" He says nothing, remains silent and still.
Her voice starts to sound a little nervous. "Stop it, it's not funny!" She creeps closer, until she's hovering over him. "Come ON!" And she stamps her little foot.
"AH!" In a sudden attack he grabs her leg and pulls her down into the mud with him; she screams as she falls on her butt, as he wraps her into a wrestler's hold.
"Piotr Nikolaievitch, LET ME GO!"
"Did you say something Snowflake? I'm sorry, I can't hear you. I am dead. You have killed me."
"STOP IT!" He finally releases her and she has gotten that sulky scowl that he knows so well. She struggles into a stand. The bottom of her dress is absolutely saturated with black mud and as she turns to study it, her expression becomes one of horror. "It looks like I POOPED!"
He can't help it; he doubles over, emitting sounds too deep to really be described as giggles, until tears are forming in the corners of his eyes. "You're MEAN!" She shouts at him, then stomps over to the truck. Wiping his eyes, still half-laughing, he manages to stand without slipping, and follows.
The ride back to their home is a silent one, with Illyana sitting in the passenger seat, her face screwed up in petulance, her arms tightly crossed – the ride over the bumpy road makes her exaggerated expression of indignation silly, as she bounces against the binding of her seat belt and struggles to keep her arms against her chest. He looks over at her often and when she catches him, she shoots him sour glares. He sticks out his tongue at her, and he can tell that she is struggling very hard not to smile.
"Are you going to say you're sorry?" She says finally, loudly.
"For what?"
"For pulling me into the mud!"
"I have no idea what you're talking about. I was dead at the time. Some little blonde snowflake probably killed me - you should ask her for an apology."
"Ugh, you're so STUPID!" But her expression has changed into one of belligerent amusement, and when they finally pull into the muddy causeway that marks their driveway, she turns to him and says, "We need to sneak in the back way and change, so we don't get yelled at."
He nods soberly. Once out of the car, he allows her to take him by the hand and lead him to the back door. They kick off their filthy shoes, and she ever so slowly opens the door, as if it's made of glass. She is first – Piotr helps her take off her mud-spattered clothes and then buries them into the waiting wash, and then they head into the wood-paneled washroom. To the left side of the room are two large barrels full of water; a small faucet protrudes from the wall beside it. Illyana stands shivering, teeth chattering as she soaps herself quickly with a sponge, while Piotr mixes the scalding water from the tap with the cold water of the barrel. "Hurry up!" He helps her pour the warm water over her head. After, he wraps her in the robe previously hanging by the door.
"Now go upstairs and change, and be very quiet." He winks and she grins, her previous anger forgotten. She steps into her dirty boots, flitters back out the door as he starts removing his own mud-caked shirt.
"Piotr?" She calls back quietly a moment later. "There's someone in the kitchen." And then she's gone again. After a quizzical pause, he takes enough time to hurriedly wash his face, to try and scrub out the dirt that is caught in the cracks of his knuckles and under his nails; he finds some cleaner jeans, a t-shirt from the waiting laundry and puts them on. Then he leaves the banya, and circles around to the kitchen door.
He can hear three voices distinctly, and immediately knows something is wrong. It's not the unfamiliarity of the third voice that causes the hair to rise on the back of Piotr's neck as much as it is the tone: the timbre of the stranger's low voice is terse, commanding, broken by desperate pleading of Piotr's proud father. His mother is crying.
As he comes closer he can begin to make out whole phrases, and he stops, heart in his throat.
"You understood and agreed to the terms we negotiated. You are not honestly trying to circumvent our contract now?"
"You have to understand, there has been so much rain. We couldn't have possibly foreseen! If you just give me more time—"
"I'm sorry." Then, almost placating, "Please do not worry. Better us than what remains of the KGB. We will take good care of him."
"Father?" For a moment Piotr is terrified that he has finally been caught, that his recklessness and selfishness in indulging in that otherworldly power has ruined them. His mother's face is hidden behind a kerchief and she makes little whimpering noises like a wounded dog; his father leaks tears from tired eyes, though he shows no other signs of grief. When Piotr steps in the two look up at him as if flinching from a blow. The man who sits across from them - he dressed in a sharp black suit the weather, their poverty hasn't touched - meets Piotr's eyes with something like satisfaction.
"Oh, Petya." Piotr's father moans as he buries his head in his hands. "Oh, my son, I am so sorry."
"Got it!" Joanna Cargill leaps into the air with undeniable grace and power – in another world it might have been an action televised live into millions of distant homes, met with the screams of thousands of zealous fans. Instead, in this place of concrete and barbed wire, she spikes a threadbare grey volleyball over a patched net. It flies like a bullet across the gray court.
And hits Rogue in the face. It knocks her off her feet.
"HEY!" The counselor shouts at Cargill, who high-fives her teammates with a smug grin even as Rogue goes down. "No rough stuff!" The rebuke is tired, perfunctory. Cargill simpers.
"I can't help it if the new girl can't move her ass."
Rogue reels on the ground, her nose a fountain of blood; no one helps her but she manages to stagger up. She charges across the court, under the net and then the counselor does approach, pepper spray in hand as Rogue goes at Cargill, screaming, "BITCH! I WILL SLAP THE BLACK OFF YER MOMMA!"
It doesn't really make much sense in retrospect, but it gets the desired result – Cargill launches back with upraised fists, her mouth pulled in a sneer of wrath, "OH, you did NOT just say what I THINK you said—"
Not one, but two counselors drag them apart. "Anna, take five, now!" (They call her Anna because they refuse to indulge in any gang affiliations her moniker is perceived to have – the irony of the chosen name sometimes makes Rogue smirk). So they push Rogue - careful not to actually touch her skin, like she's got something catching - toward the chain link fence and she goes, nose still streaming crimson. No one offers her any help. The other girls watch her with hard, guarded eyes, and she sneers at them as she heads over to the sparse grass of the court's perimeter. Sitting down hard, eyes oozing infuriated tears, she kicks off one shoe and pulls off her small, regulation ankle sock, holds it against a nose that has not only become a bloody mess but a blazing inferno of pain. Her eyes are starting to swell a little too, and her forehead aches; she wonders if Cargill broke anything.
She's been here for a week now – a week of concrete walls, shuddering fluorescent lights and long tile hallways; of crowded rooms that are somehow terribly lonely, where her only privacy is in the unremembered dreams. Of getting in fights that always leave the other party either unconscious or pale and gasping on the floor like a beached trout. She'd fought back the first time, but when solitary had made her consider what kind of noose her panties would make, she had decided that bruises were better than isolation. Cargill may be a superbitch and her cronies might not be any better, but at least they're something.
This latest stunt, though, is making her seriously reconsider her pacifism. God help Cargill if her nose is broken –
"So what you in fo', chere?"
The voice startles her – mostly because it's male. Since coming to this place she's only encountered the other gender through detached screens or over intercoms, and they're never there for her. Nevertheless, after the initial "Who, me?" moment, she's not all that surprised to look up and find a boy, maybe a little older than she, leaning up against the fence, his fingers hooked in the chain links. The boys' compound is next door, after all, though for all the ostensible security it's supposed to be a galaxy away. Behind him, a group of similarly uniformed boys circle the basketball court in a half-assed ring.
"What do you care?" Her nose is swelling up – she's starting to sound like she's got a cold.
"Pretty girl in a place like dis always a concern for Remy LeBeau." Despite their uniforms – khaki pants, navy blue shirts, white sneakers – he manages to wander into the no man's land between sexy and sleazy; in her current disposition, Rogue is more apt to apply the latter. Crew-cut hair slick with grease or intent, his clothes are slept-in disheveled, a look rocked by gritty movie stars and the chronically homeless alike. Beneath a pair of obviously non-regulation sunglasses is a clear five o'clock shadow (despite the fact that it's only now coming up on noon). But Rogue can't help but feel a little spark of charm emanating from the wide grin full of sparkling teeth; his stance, too, reflects an ease in his own skin that's difficult to come by in anyone, much less someone her age. "So?"
"So what?"
"What you in fo', girl? Bein' deaf?"
She rolls her eyes. "Fer beatin' up sleazy Cajun swamp rats."
"Ah, right through mon coeur!" He clutches at his chest, staggers back from the fence; her lips twitch up, despite her best efforts. That makes his grin widen. "Oh, see, dere's de belle dat drew me all de way over from de mindless hamster wheel." He tips his head back towards the running group, then collapses on the sparse grass beside her, eyes her through the holes in the fence. "I bet you been framed, dat it? No way a pretty t'ing like you done anyt'ing t' deserve a place like dis."
"You'd be surprised."
"You didn't do anyt'ing t' deserve dat." He points at her nose, "That girl is - how do you say? - a bitch. Pardon my French. Let me see." Begrudgingly, she pulls the sock away from her face.
"Looks like you gonna get a couple of shiners, but I don' t'ink it's broken."
"Thanks." Sourly, then, in a tone that she hopes conveys that she wants to be left alone, "We ain't supposed to fraternize." She tips her head to gesture over his shoulder, where one of the counselors seems to be watching them. Remy brushes at the air in an offhand manner.
"That's de worst punishment of all chere, But don't worry, ol Remy's been in de system so long, he's got friends everywhere." As if to demonstrate he gives the counselor supervising the female players a two-fingered salute; the counselor eyes him for a second, then turns away. "I don' make no trouble, keep t'ings quiet, an' dey doan mind."
"And what exactly have you done to gain a level of such prestige? Ah wouldn't think they'd look on male prostitutes so highly here."
A grin, as he ignores that last little touch of acerbic wit. "Oh, little bit o' dis, little bit o' dat. Auto theft, larceny, breakin' an' enterin'. After a while, an homme lose track of what he done t' offend de cultured masses." He reaches two fingers through the hole in the fence, as if to brush her cheek, "I jes never learn –"
"Don't touch me." At her backwards flinch Remy's hand retracts; he looks hurt, but his smile quickly retakes the hill.
"I ain't got nothin' catchin', chere. But if you want t' take t'ings slow, I respect that. I am a southern gentleman, after all. And you are most certainly a respectable southern lady." His grin turns coy and he flips two fingers – and voila, a card, the Queen of Hearts, and she would not under any circumstances admit that she felt a little prickle of childish wonder at seeing it appear from nowhere – his sleeves are short, after all.
He offers it to her through the gap in the links. "However, I will have to insist on yo' name."
"You insist?" She rolls her eyes as she snatches the card, eyes it, then him. "This shit don't actually work on those other girls, does it? This creepy, cheesy thang you got goin' on." She gestures at him in an up-and-down sweeping motion. "So what do you do, Remy LeBeau, seduce the girls and get the guards to let you sneak in at night or somethin'? Or do you just wait until y'all get out, have yer fun flings an move on? You get off on screwed up girls with criminal records and attachment issues?"
She expects him to react like everyone else does to her trenchant tongue – for that dark cloud of offense and hurt to cloud his features; for him to stand swiftly, call her a bitch, and storm off. It's happened more times, with more boys, than she can count. But to her surprise, he just keeps grinning. "I knew dere was somet'in more dan dat smile dat brought me over here, chere, and I t'ink I jes figured out what it is. You fiery. I like dat." He rises, stretching his spine like a cat. "You keep dat card. There'll be time for names later." He winks as he begins sauntering back to his own side of the field. "Though I expect sooner. A bientot, chere!" And he gives her a lazy, two-fingered wave.
Rogue watches him go, having stood nearly in tandem with him, clutching the card in her hands. The boys had begun to collect and the volleyball game is called (no one is the winner, it's not about winning) and the counselor is calling for "Anna."
Rogue tears the card in two and drops it in the scant grass, where he's sure to find it.
She should just go. She could, if she wanted to – she always wears her mother's jewel on a chain around her neck, and it's the only thing she has worth keeping. But there is the issue of funds, and Ororo's never been naïve enough to think that money doesn't form the axis of everything.
That, and she owes El-Gibar a goodbye, at least.
The money is hidden behind a loose tile in the room that she shares with Fatima; she's never been naïve enough to test the idea of 'honor among thieves', either. The fruit of a lifetime of labor (too often depleted by a too-generous heart) is enough to get her started, though she's lucky that her occupation is just as mobile as she is.
She heads downstairs and can hear the other children playing in the yard, games strange to the uncultured eye, ones not found anywhere else but in El-Gibar's dusty courtyard. They are the kissing cousins of the familiar childhood romps like tag and hide-and-go-seek, only these are designed to teach children how to strip pockets without being noticed, how to hide from the flashlights of police. How not to be seen. She played them herself, a long time ago.
She almost presses on when she hears low tones coming from the luscious darkness of the salon; they're supposed to be a struggling orphanage but everyone has their vices, and El-Gibar happens to bear his particular blemish in style. Furnished in deep royal purples and blues, crushed velvet drapes and thick Persian carpet, dimly lit with recessed lighting, one entire wall of El-Gibar's salon is dominated by a massive television – one that can be hidden in a moment, if necessary. It's a room forbidden to the children, and Ororo herself has only been in it once before. Inside she can hear the clinking of cups and muted tones in what she only subconsciously recognizes as English, can smell the soft mint of tea. Ororo stands before the door, almost trembling – not with fear, exactly, but the cautious trepidation of a life finally started . . . and maybe the grief that it had taken her so long to begin.
Am I really doing this? She'd promised herself she would so many times before . . . she had almost managed to on half a dozen occasions. But something had always held her back. Girls like Fatima, who needed her even if she needs no one herself.
And then she hears her name, and, thinking herself summoned, strides into the dim recesses of the room. She is therefore just as surprised when El-Gibar and guest react as if interrupted, with the embarrassment of invaded privacy. The atmosphere in the sumptuous den suddenly becomes tense, uncomfortable, and the prickle of excitement in her stomach blackens at the edges, as if burned.
"I did not mean to interrupt." El-Gibar's single guest meets her eyes unflinchingly, and some center in Ororo turns to cagey steel.
El-Gibar rises with an awkwardness she has never seen before. "I came to say goodbye." Her declaration comes out weaving, her eyes, attention still fixed on the unfamiliar man. He is a westerner in an expensive suit that stretches at the knees and waist for his wide girth and stature; he, too, has come into a stand. Despite his ruddy-blonde hair and beard, his grin, his small, squinted eyes make her think of a fat jackal. He offers his hand and she makes no motion to take it, acknowledging it with the same expression she would use if someone were offering her a black adder.
She looks to El-Gibar, finally, the man she considered as a father in her youth and as an equal as of late (feelings she thought were reciprocated). When he does not meet her eyes, she knows.
"Ororo, this is Mr. Henry Leland." He says quietly.
"What is this?"
The man called Henry Leland says something to her in English – she recognizes only one word, "America". She ignores him, eyes trained on El-Gibar.
"What is this?" It is not so much a question as a spat. There is no answer. "I am going to Kenya. Thank you for all that you have done for me. Tell Mr. Leland that it was pleasant meeting him." And she turns back towards the door.
"Ororo—" Leland is making annoyed protestations as she stalks towards the doorway, and El-Gibar calls only half-heartedly, "Ororo, please, you don't understand—"
And then something happens. She won't remember much of it afterward, only the impression of sudden, terrific weight on her body, as if her limbs have been pumped full of lead. With a startled shout she drops to her knees and they explode with pain at the hard impact with the ground. Then, to all fours; her hands slap stinging against the tile – now El-Gibar is running towards her.
"Ororo? What is wrong?" She can't move; sweat has sprung up on her brow from the effort of trying to drag her trembling limbs up, of just staying on all fours and not crashing into the Earth – with a toneless cry of incomprehension a sudden dry wind blasts through the room, and throws El-Gibar from his path, into the far wall. Something shatters, and the whipping wind tears the curtains from their rods. Overhead, the sky blackens with the suddenness and ferocity of an act of God, and the children in the courtyard still, watching. The man Leland remains, though, and walks towards her calmly, clucking in English. She sees the liquid shine of his polished shoes and her head is hit by a sudden impossible weight and her neck gives; her forehead slams down into the floor hard enough to crack the tile beneath it.
Then, nothing.
Agh, accents, the bane of my existence. If I should ease up on Remy's 'th' replacement for reading-ease let me know - I tore my hair out contemplating authenticity vs. readability. Also, I have absolutely no experience with juvenile detention facilities, and the internet, surprisingly, is not a fountain of knowledge in this respect. So, as always, if there are any glaring mistakes, let me know!
"Tá grá agam duit." - the internet says this is Irish for "I love you."
mon coeur - French; my heart
As always, review review review!
