Evvie woke before her companions had even begun to stir, and simply laid there for a moment, enjoying the complete and utter silence that accompanied such a beautiful and tranquil morning. Such mornings had been few and far between when the Xavier School had been operating at full capacity, and the mornings after it had closed had been far from relaxing. Evvie could recall many a morning where she'd woken to her father's hoarse screams, and had come running with medicine to numb the pain while Hank administered the serum that would 'help' him feel better.
This morning was that clichéd, once in a lifetime occurrence, where everything was so perfectly silent that you could hear the birds chirping a half a mile away, hear the cries of the crickets die off in the distance, and hear your own thoughts ring loud and clear inside of your head. And as she lay there, silently appreciating the beauty of that miraculous morning, that dull throbbing in her temples returned. Her eyes slipped closed, agitation causing the corner of her lip to twitch. The perfect morning had just been ruined by the emergence of a damned headache, and just that fast, it was categorized with all of the other subpar mornings.
Drunkenly, she stumbled off of her little cot and brushed out the t-shirt that she'd slept in. She assumed that her new roommates would have Tylenol in the medicine cabinet, but the task would be making it there in one piece. The two other cots were strewn haphazardly across the floor of the bedroom, with bodies fanned out in all directions. Although it was evident from their snoring that both were completely unconscious, she suddenly felt a debilitating wave of self-consciousness at the shortness of the borrowed t-shirt and the visibility of her body. Absently, she pulled down on the ends of the t-shirt, quickly stepping over the bodies and making her way to the bathroom.
She flipped on the light and closed the door behind her, immediately noticing that a pair of jeans and an oversized white t-shirt had been set out for her, with a note on top indicating that these were to hold her over until they could go shopping later. Deciding that she would dress after handling her headache, she opened the medicine cabinet and grabbed the familiar bottle. Grabbing two pills, she returned the bottle. She contemplated using the water in the bathroom for only a few seconds, before thinking better of it and turning to head downstairs. They were still knocked out cold when she reemerged from the bathroom.
It was a little easier that morning. He'd taken two Tylenol and was currently downing a stiff cup of coffee, no sugar. He felt a little better, but still looked ghastly. When the others came to the hotel restaurant that morning, Hank refused to look at him, which he couldn't fault him for. While he was still hurting over the loss of his daughter, and was currently pushing through unimaginable pain as the full extent of his power returned to him, he realized that he'd been too harsh on Hank. He'd needed a scapegoat and Hank had been the unfortunate victim. He didn't think he could say it to Hank's face yet… but the realization was slowly brewing and taking root.
"You look like hell, man." Leave it to Logan to point out the blatantly obvious in the most obnoxious, in-your-face manner possible. He pushed another cup in Charles' direction, realizing the professor was running a little low.
"I have been… attempting to locate Evvie. The process has been particularly strenuous. She has strong mental blocks in place and knows better than anyone what it takes to keep me out… even if she doesn't know she's doing it."
"But that means that you were at least able to tell that she's okay, right?" If she was sick or hurt, she wouldn't be able to keep the barriers in place, even if it was only being done subconsciously.
There was silence from the other man. Then, "Does it matter if I know that she's okay?" And then, after a second, he went on to explain, "In my mind, I realize that she is alright. But my heart… seeing is believing, to use a horrible cliché."
Logan was about to continue, but Hank chose that moment to come to the table, a steaming cup of coffee and a plate of eggs, bacon, French toast, and blueberries in hand. Charles looked at the array and felt his stomach turn. The pain was making him horribly nauseous, and the sudden bombardment of such heavy scents threatened to make him revisit the single cup of coffee that he'd had since awakening three and a half hours earlier. Absently, he wondered what kind of breakfast Evvie was sitting down to. Not knowing how much money she had on her (it couldn't be very much), that could be anything from a three course meal to a cup of orange juice. His stomach turned again.
Hank picked up a piece of bacon and bit off the end, grease staining his fingers. "I heard that Alex is back in town. He and Toad opened up a restaurant – I'd be reluctant to try the food, but I know that Alex and Evvie were really close. Maybe he knows something."
"Toad?" Logan thought back to the amphibious mutant that had attacked the train that he'd been on with Rogue. "Why would Alex Summers be hanging around Toad?" Logan knew very little about the younger Toad.
Hank shrugged. "Alex and Evvie kinda used to be a thing way back when, before the war. He wrote her for the first few months he was deployed, saying that it was likely he'd only be away for twelve months or so. Unfortunately, the mutant regiment was treated much differently than the human regiments."
The Vietnam War was the first war to use an approximately twelve month rotation, where soldiers would be discharged after twelve months of service. This constant turnover meant continuously adjusting to new superior officers and constantly training incoming soldiers. The mutant regiment was different, however. Because of their unique capabilities, the mutant regiment was kept for the majority of the war. Their powers were tested to their absolute limits, and then, at the end of the war, they were to be shipped off for 'experimentation'. Raven saved them before this could occur, however.
Hank explained that Alex had written her for the first few months of his service, promising that he'd be returning home soon. After the sixth month, though, the letters abruptly stopped coming. She wrote him frantically, worried that something horrible had happened. He never answered. Evvie had locked up the letters in a trunk at the foot of her bed and never mentioned them, so it would be interesting to see how she responded to finding out that he was alive. Logan, surprised, could only nod. He'd never heard about a fling between Evvie and Alex, and now, suspected that Evvie's feelings for Hank were only a rebound from something much larger.
Charles tried a tentative, "Do you have any means of getting into contact with Alex?"
Hank was silent for a moment, and for a moment, Logan was worried that Hank wasn't planning on answering. Then, "I know where the restaurant is. We can pay a visit before we leave town."
The tension bled out of the room and for the first time in the last twenty four hours, everyone could take a deep breath. "When do we leave?"
She was surprised that the clothes actually fit a lot better than she had imagined they would. Her belt was buckled a little tightly, but for the most part, everything had a very comfortable, relaxed fit to it. She wore it with a pair of ratty old sneakers, her shortened hair held up by a bright yellow scrunchie. Currently, she was in the mall with Alex and Toad. They'd already been to two stores in the mall, and had stopped at another store on the way there to buy a suitcase. Toad explained that they'd already made the necessary preparations to take off for several weeks so that they could leave to hunt down her mother as soon as they were done shopping.
"Thank you guys so much for doing this for me. I don't think you know how much this means to me." Evvie said, a bright smile on her face. That horrible headache had gone away, and her spirits were much higher now.
"I honestly can't believe the old geezer never told you more about your mom." Alex shook his head. "You know that that is why your power continues to grow, right? It is because of your mother's mutation. First, you could just stimulate brain cells. Now, you can stimulate anything."
"I just thought that that was normal. Dad had said that it was normal for power to grow and develop over time."
"Normal to grow and develop over time? Yes. Normal to change from one core power to broader horizons altogether? Not exactly." Alex shrugged. "Your mother's mutation is, for lack of a better term, shape-shifting."
"Which means that it can be expected for your mutation to continue to 'shape-shift' until it eventually takes its final shape." Toad supplied, "Whatever that might be."
Evvie's hands clenched from within the leather gloves. She could remember when they'd first discovered that all it would take was a simple brush of her hand against another's skin to overstimulate nerves and brain cells, and that the longer she touched someone, the higher the risk of casualty. If her power was mutating as they had said that it would, did that mean that she was stronger? Did that mean that now, with the simple brush of a hand, she could make someone fall to the ground, dead? She was immensely bothered by the idea of hurting or killing anyone, especially due to something that was so much a part of her, something she couldn't, at the time, control.
"What is she like?" Evvie asked abruptly, trying to get her mind off of her growing powers.
"Your mother?" Alex asked. Evvie nodded. "She's… very committed to the mutant cause. She's fighting for a day where mutants will be equal and not have to be ostracized for who they are. That's why she's taking on Trask."
"Trask?" Why did that name sound so familiar?
"He's a scientist that's doing research that involves doing experiments on mutants. Recently, he's been trying to get the government to approve a new project called the 'Sentinel Project'. He hasn't been able to get approval yet, but the testing on mutants has been to further his research for the project."
Distantly, Evvie recalled Logan telling her about the Sentinels in the future, and how Raven would murder Trask, but end up getting captured in the process. Her DNA would be harvested and used to perfect the Sentinels, and from there, they would set out on their mission to exterminate all of the mutants (and all those that supported or tried to protect them) from the earth. Could it be possible that this 'Raven' was her mother? It seemed rather likely. She tucked this idea away in the back of her mind to review later, not wanting to jump the gun and perpetuate the wrong conclusion. There was still much that she didn't know about the situation.
They entered a little store and finished their shopping. Alex and Toad were remarkably generous with the scant money that they earned running the restaurant, and poured at least two weeks' earnings into purchasing her new clothes. She bought two pairs of bell-bottoms, crop tops in assorted colors, a maxi dress, a mini dress, a few skirts, and a new pair of shoes. Even with the other things that she'd purchased throughout the day, they all knew that it wouldn't so much as put a dent in her new suitcase. And that was okay. They needed just enough to hold them over, but not so much that it became overbearing.
And then, not really speaking to anyone in particular, she set her eyes on a row of hair accessories and said, "I've always wanted to ask her why I wasn't good enough."
Toad and Alex shared a look, before Alex waved her over. "C'mon, let's go."
Peter sat in the driver's seat of his car, staring at his house with absolutely no desire to go in. He had a sketch pad pressed against the steering wheel, and there was a picture on the dashboard which Logan had conveniently left in the car when he'd handed the keys over to Peter. It was, ironically enough, a wedding photo. But that wasn't what made the picture fascinating to Peter. What drew his attention was that the bride and groom bore an uncanny resemblance to himself and Evvie, and that someone had written the date 1981 on the back of the picture in permanent marker.
He didn't think that Logan had left the picture behind on purpose. It definitely wasn't Logan's picture, because that definitely wasn't Logan standing up at the altar, but the picture was undoubtedly his, because he seemed to really be pushing for him and Evvie to be together. Peter simply couldn't take his eyes off of the photo. Evvie looked gorgeous standing at that altar, her hair grown out long and falling to her waist in thin braids. Her dress was a startling white against her tanned skin (he would later discover that her bachelorette party had been in Cancun). And her smile… it made him feel like the happiest guy on earth, even if he wasn't actually getting married to her.
He brought the picture down, pinning it to the top of the sketch pad. He'd been contemplating what to draw (it seemed like an eternity since he'd last picked up his sketch pad and pencil), but now it became abundantly clear. He wanted to draw her smile. And so he carefully mapped out the contours of her face, magnifying them so that they took center stage on the page instead of sharing the spotlight with someone else. He tilted her head slightly as well, fo00rcing her to face him. It only occurred to him once that, with so much time since he'd last touched a sketch pad, he might not do her justice… but he pushed the thought aside and pushed forward.
When his mother came out to check on him an hour and a half later, worried that he hadn't come inside after returning from his date with Crystal, she found him still inside the clunker, working over his sketch of Evvie's face. With the porch light on, she could see the faintest hint of the sketch, and she smiled. She'd never really met Evvie before, but she'd seen her at a distance and already liked her infinitely more than she liked Crystal. And it seemed that her boy was smitten with her too. So she'd let him sit in the car for a little while longer. After all, it wasn't like he had school tomorrow…