Chapter 7: A Conversation
The computer lab was emptier than usual for a Wednesday afternoon, as many students were enjoying the warm weather by playing Frisbee on the lawn or reading in the grass. Callie wandered into the lab that afternoon and quickly accessed the internet. She scrolled through pages of news with disinterest, though she had once eagerly taken in the most mundane news stories eagerly. During her browsing, she stumbled onto a site that showed aerial photos of places throughout the world. She typed in the address of the mansion, and smiled to herself as she zoomed in as close as she could, imagining that the small specks she could see on the lawn were students that she was acquainted with. On a whim, she entered her home address, and suddenly felt a pang of regret and homesickness when the image of her house and neighborhood came up. She was staring at the computer screen, transfixed, when she was jolted out of her reverie by someone sitting down beside her.
"Hey Callie, what are you doing cooped up in the lab?" Peter asked, good-naturedly, peering over her shoulder at the screen.
Callie was startled by his sudden appearance, and motioned to close the webpage, before he spoke again.
"Oh, what's that? Is that your house?" he asked.
"Yeah," she replied, her voice uncharacteristically unsure.
"Oh geez, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to be nosy," Peter exclaimed, instantly repentant when he noticed the look on her face.
"Peter, no, don't worry," she reassured him, shaking off her sadness, turning towards him and putting her hand on his arm.
"Ok, ok," he agreed, brightening again. "Hey, does this site let you look at any place in the world?" he asked, changing the subject.
"Yeah, pretty cool, right?"
Peter took over the computer and started typing in various landmarks around the country, and soon he and Callie were joking and laughing, talking about places they had visited and would like to visit some day. When their laughter died down, Peter smiled at the girl sitting beside him and pushed his chair out, getting to his feet.
"I'd better go, got to study with Kitty." He laughed when Callie made air quotes with her fingers and stuck the tip of her tongue out at him. "It's been fun, sorry to interrupt you for a little bit."
"You didn't interrupt at all. Now go 'study,'" she replied with a laugh, watching him leave. Callie turned back to the computer, shaking her head at what she was doing with her afternoon. After logging off, Callie left the lab, and wondered what to do with herself. Dinner was in a few hours and she really had been growing more and more depressed by staring at the image of her house and thinking about the family she had left behind. Stepping outside, it seemed obvious that going for a nice long walk around the campus would clear her thoughts and put her in a better mood.
The weather outside was so warm that Callie's light sweater was more than enough to protect her against the breeze that had begun to stir outside. She saw Bobby, Rogue, and Jubilee throwing a Frisbee around on the lawn, and thought about joining them, before deciding to continue her walk, following one of the gravel paths around the side of the mansion towards the gardens. She was continually impressed by the quality of life at the school, and the environment that surrounded the building perfectly matched the excellent learning environment and welcoming atmosphere that Callie had experienced so far. Her mind wandered from thoughts of the school to her meeting with Storm scheduled for the next day. Callie couldn't help but be nervous. She had seen and met such amazing people, all of whom seemed to assimilate so well despite their differences and had such potential to do great things with their mutations. She knew that she could help with her mutation, but it was so natural to do so that her healing skills seemed far from extraordinary. She wondered if she would be able to answer Storm's questions, if she would behave as poised and mature as she wanted to, and most of all, if she would be able to prove to Storm that she belonged at the mansion, and she wasn't just a waste of time.
Callie walked to the back of the garden and sat down on a bench looking out at the pond. She stretched her back and cracked her wrists, something her mother always hated. Her eyes instantly misted at the thought of her mother, who she missed painfully despite what her mother had intended to do to her. She tried to block the thoughts out, and instead the images of Sara and Josh's sweet, young faces appeared in her mind. She could almost hear their small voices asking why she had left, if it was because she didn't love them anymore, and if she would be coming back soon. She told herself to think of something else, her ethics homework, what would be served at dinner, the meeting with Storm, anything but her family, because she couldn't handle missing them and wondering if they understood why she had left. A sob escaped her tightly closed lips and she clapped one of her hands over her mouth, her shoulders hunching as she tried to keep another cry from escaping. Tears slipped out of her eyes before she could stop them, and finally she allowed her body to shake with her sobs, and she didn't even bother to wipe the tears away, but allowed them to flow over her cheeks and hands. Maybe she needed this cry, she thought, as she realized she had pushed her family out of her mind to avoid feeling anything resembling the emotions she now felt.
Suddenly, the sound of someone stirring caused her to stop and look up, instantly wiping her face, aware of the mascara that came off on her fingers and was inevitably collecting beneath her eyes as a result of her unplanned onslaught of tears. She realized that someone had been sitting only a few feet away from her bench, leaning against a tree facing the pond. Blinking to clear the tears from her eyes, she realized that the person was Warren. And Callie had utterly no idea what to do. His eyes met hers, and even at the distance, she felt as if with one glance, he was able to look into her, rather than at her. She sniffed and ran her fingers underneath her eyes again, and then rubbed her wet hands against her jeans. She couldn't help but stare at him, and the way in which the sun fell through the trees and cast shadows on him, causing him to be simultaneously hidden and illuminated. What was there to say? Sorry for crying my heart out and disturbing your meditation? Even if they were true, no words that Callie found seemed appropriate for the situation at hand.
Warren saved Callie from the burden of making conversation by rising to his feet. She thought that maybe he would walk away and pretend that nothing had ever happened, but instead he walked towards her, stopping in front of the bench. "Could I sit down?" he asked, his voice clear and polite.
"Of course," she replied, perfectly decorously.
Callie was worried that he would start the unavoidable conversation with a conventional "What's up?" which somehow seemed strikingly inappropriate considering what he had just heard and seen. Instead, they sat in silence for a few moments, until he turned to look at her, studying her face.
"I never even asked you what your mutation was," he said, but his voice echoed with the compassion that shown wordlessly in his eyes.
"Healing. I can heal people by touching them," she said softly, looking up at him for a moment, and then dropping her eyes to stare at her tightly clasped hands.
"How did you discover you could do that?"
Callie instantly imagined Warren discovering the wings growing out of his back, and realized with a jolt how painful that must have been for him, physically and mentally. "I can't even pinpoint the exact moment. I realized when I was younger that kissing my sister and brother when they were hurt actually made their hurts go away. As I grew up, I was able to focus it more, I guess," she explained, realizing after she stopped talking that explaining her mutation had broken down the wall that stood between them and took her mind off of her embarrassing discovery.
Warren nodded. "So, I can assume that you aren't upset because someone you know is sick or hurt?" Callie looked at him in surprise, and realized by the small smile on his face that he was joking as best as he knew how. That realization made her grin, and she nodded, almost laughing, shaking her head at the simple way in which he seemed to do things.
"No, it isn't that. I guess- the thing is that I miss my family," she admitted. "It sounds pretty trivial when I say it out loud," she observed, as an afterthought.
"Not at all," Warren disagreed. "The mansion can be a lonely place."
Callie nodded in reply. "Everyone's been great, you know, but I can't help but think of them." Her voice trailed off and rose in pitch, and she thought that she might start crying again.
"Did you travel far to get here?" he asked, and she noticed that he was asking her enough questions to keep her talking, but he ever so carefully avoided getting too personal.
"No, I'm from the northeast, so it's not like I'm in an entirely new world. What about you?"
"I lived on the west coast for my entire life, but it really isn't that different. I've hardly been here longer than you. Just a few months. The days all run together after a while."
"Are you studying anything? You seem a bit older than the other students here," she continued, feeling comfortable enough to ask him about himself.
"I don't know what I'm doing," Warren stated, and left it at that, for now. "I don't have much of a family to go back to," he said, looking at the ground and lowering his voice.
Callie was quiet, and the faces of her brother, sister, and mother shone so vividly in her memory it was as if they were right in front of her. "My brother and sister loved my mutation. And I loved helping them," she said, and Warren looked up at her, genuinely interested in what she was saying. "But my mom- it was like I disgraced her by being different. I couldn't go to school anymore because my school nurse wanted me to be tested for a mutation I clearly had. My mother wouldn't hear of it. She loved me though, I'm old enough to know that she only wanted what was best for me, but that doesn't make the fact that she didn't accept me for who I was any easier to handle. I wonder if they're ok, if Sara and Josh understand, if my mom is worried, what she told them to explain where I've gone." She seemed to be unable to stop talking, and the words kept flowing as her face took on a stricken expression. "What if they don't understand? I can't stand the idea of them growing up hating me, of thinking I didn't love them, because I do, so much," she said, tears falling unbidden, once again. Warren leaned close to her, startling her, and wiped away her tears gently with his fingers. He pulled back, as if he realized how close he had been to her.
"Why did you leave?"
"I got the letter from the school in the mail. Storm doesn't even know how it reached me. I don't know if I would have had the strength to come on my own, but my mother told me the day I received the letter that she planned to take me to receive the Cure the next day." Callie was familiar with mutant affairs enough so that she realized Warren's connection to the Cure, but she couldn't not mention it. She hadn't told anyone at the school that she was going to be forced to be Cured, and she thought that if anyone would understand what she had felt, Warren would. She watched his face change, his eyes widening, and his lips curving down as she mentioned the Cure. Not knowing if she should ask him anything, she continued, saying, "It was the only time in my life that my mom acknowledged me as a mutant. First, an abomination, and then something that could be fixed or cured." She stopped talking, but he did not respond, it was as if he couldn't. It seemed to Callie like he was struggling to keep his emotions in check, and she wondered if she should tell him that she knew who he was and who his father was. Would that change anything between them, would it have any effect on the here and the now? She stayed silent for a few more moments, watching how his emotions flickered subtly over his face but still told her so much about him that she never would have known.
"I'm sorry," she offered, finally, her voice soft and repentant. "I didn't mean to-"
He cut her off, raising his hand in a dismissive wave. "No, you have nothing to be sorry for. I did tell you that I don't have much of a family to go back to. Enough said."
Callie was disappointed that the subject was closed, as she found herself wanting more and more to know Warren's story, to hear him speaking about something real and true about himself, instead of their polite conversation and his insightful questions about her. She wanted to know about him, but she was empathetic enough to realize that she opened up to Warren about her true pain in a chance moment of vulnerability, while Warren was closed. Not as much as before, perhaps, but closed he was. They sat there, side by side, both bearing the knowledge that their parents had wanted to change the most integral and unique aspect of their beings. And that, if nothing else, brought them together.
