Long chapter is long. In which more is revealed, everyone is unsettled, nightmares are passed around, Charles know more than he wants to let on, Logan and Rogue continue to be adorable, and Kitty and Erik continue to be blissfully ignorant of the fact that they're creeping everybody out.
Logan and Marie's talk wound up including Ororo, the Professor, and Raven. Logan was deeply uncertain the last one should be there at all - she might be on their side, but future-Mystique was ruthless as hell, and this one had been totally willing to murder Trask. He wasn't sure just how much he could trust her, but at least the Professor could sift through her brain if he had to.
He sat on the worn, antique sofa, one arm around Marie, who felt far too cold even through the fabric of her shirt. That was, he knew, one of the symptoms of shock, though she looked - and, more importantly, smelled - otherwise okay. Stunned, and rather unhappy, but she wasn't going to go into a fugue or anything.
"What's this about?" Ororo asked, perched on top of a dresser.
"Marie was gracious enough to let me look into her mind," the Professor said. He sounded weary in a way Logan associated with his much older self. "Some of what I saw there has told me why the other time-travelers might be here."
He paused, but nobody tried to prod him. When he continued, his voice wasn't quite steady. "There were dissidents, within the camps," he said at last. "Employees, not prisoners. They planned to plant a virus into the mainframe that controlled the Sentinels, to destroy them all at once. The plan was discovered, and in theory they were all caught and killed. If what the others from the future say is true, one of the dissenters must have survived."
"How -" Ororo started, but he held up a hand.
"Don't ask," he said. "I mean it. I saw what I saw, and I don't want to explain. For Marie's sake as well as my own."
"That's what was there?" Marie asked. "What I'd forgotten, and you found?"
He nodded. "You didn't forget, Marie - you repressed. With good reason. Now, I don't yet know where the others are being held, but once I find them, we have to go break them out," he said to Ororo and Raven. "We can't let them try to change the future independently of us. If we're working at cross-purposes, God knows what damage we'll do. We need to get rid of Trask, and bring them here."
"I thought we had to keep Trask the full three days," Raven protested. "Not because of them, but because of the conference."
"That's likely going to go on much longer than three days," the Professor said. "We've achieved our objective - he's been kidnapped and held hostage by 'humans', unless anyone gave themselves away while hunting for him in the basement."
"They didn't," Logan said. "Trust me, I'd've known. It's why they were all so pissed off when they came topside again. Had to find him the normal way."
He doubted he imagined the Professor's silent sigh of relief. "Logan, I know you have plans for that bag in the garden," he said. "I would advise you to wait, given what Clarice and Kitty did. As much as most of you would like to legitimately poison him, I have plans for him."
Logan desperately wanted to ask just what they might be, but he knew better - if the Professor wanted them to know, he'd tell them. As he said nothing further, he obviously didn't want anyone else in on it. Yet.
"Are we going to bring the others back here?" Raven asked, and Logan thought he knew exactly what was going through her head. If they didn't want to stay, the mansion was hardly constructed as a prison - and locking anybody in the basement really wasn't to be thought of. Oh, there were a few people he'd happily stuff down there, but these other people had probably come from a future just as bad as his group's, if not worse.
"No," the Professor said. "It won't be safe, keeping them in France. We'll take them back to New York with us."
There had been six people in that van. Their own group numbered eight already - the Professor's plane might be fairly decent-sized, but cramming fourteen people in it wasn't going to be fun. Especially since their group was...well, what it was. If the other was even half as fragmented, they were in serious trouble.
"Then what?" Marie asked. She was still shivering a little, and Logan's arm tightened around her, just a fraction. She gave him a grateful look.
"We can't make any further plans until we talk to them," the Professor said. "We have to find out what they know - just what their future is like."
Logan was pretty sure that was Professor-speak for 'I need to read their minds.' Fair enough. "When will your sources get back to you?" he asked. "How long until we know where they're being held?"
The Professor shrugged. "I can't be certain," he said. "Very soon, if they're anything like as efficient as they were when my father used them."
It was downright weird, hearing him talk about his father. In the future, Logan had known him for over twenty years, and he'd never once mentioned either parent. There were no mementos of them anywhere in the school, unless he kept them in his private rooms. It was a subject Logan knew better than to push, but that didn't mean he wasn't curious.
"We'd better make sure everything's ready to move, then," Raven said. "Immediately, if we have to. Not that we brought a lot with us."
"No," the Professor said, "we didn't. I'll need to order a few more things for the trip back."
"What do we do if the airport doesn't want to let us back onto the plane?" Marie asked. "If they're still pissed about whatever the baggage guy said about us?"
"The 'baggage guy' ran over Kitty," Logan snarled. "Anybody tries to give us shit, I'll just remind 'em of that." Forcefully, if he had to.
"That won't be necessary," the Professor said, tapping his temple. "Nobody's going to stop us doing anything now."
Downstairs, Vlad the Inebriator had done his work a little too well on Clarice and Hank.
Kitty hadn't needed Hank's urging to abstain. Her earlier combination of alcohol and opiates had left her feeling quite sick to her stomach, so she sat on the floor and nibbled on bread. While she knew quite well what Clarice was like when drunk, Hank was a whole other story entirely. Apparently, he liked to sing.
He put his heart and soul into it, too, but unlike Trask, she was pretty sure his voice wouldn't sound pleasant under any circumstances. It had Clarice in stitches, but to Kitty it just sounded like someone was dragging a cat behind a car. Over gravel.
Magneto had actually been talked into a glass - one glass. The only noticeable result was the fact that, for once, he didn't look like he wanted to kill everyone in the immediate vicinity with a rusty fork. He was sitting on the table, watching the drunken pair with the fascination of a zoologist studying some rare new species.
"Is he like that in the future?" he asked, at last, nodding to Hank.
Kitty snorted. "No," she said. "Not at all. Seeing him young is even weirder than you and the Professor."
"What are we like, in the future?" The fact that he'd asked the question at all told her that the alcohol had done something; had he been sober, even if he'd cared to know, she was sure he wouldn't have said anything.
She was quiet a moment, considering, still nibbling bread. "The Professor's a bit like he is now, really," she said. "He's got that same...empathy. He's just a lot wiser, and if he ever gets really angry, he never lets on like this one. He almost seems like he's...well, more, somehow, than the rest of us. By the time we all came back here, he was the one everybody leaned on - even you."
"And me?" he asked, genuine curiosity in his voice.
That took her another moment of consideration. "Well, I never met you before everything went to hell," she said, "but you seem to regret...everything. I heard you tell the Professor that you'd wasted so many years, fighting him and all of us with him. That you'd give anything to have a few of them back. Which, I wish you'd figured that out ages ago, before you tried to murder Rogue."
Now he was the quiet one. There were still enough painkillers lingering in her system that she imagined she could actually see the gears turning in his mind. He drained the last of his glass, staring at nothing. "To be fair," he said at last, "while my future self tried to kill your friend, I haven't. Did I really fail so very badly?"
Kitty eyed him, deeply suspicious. Oh, he sounded genuine, but he was still...him. A lying liar who lied like a rug. "Yup," she said. "Like I said, all you ever accomplished was getting a lot of humans and mutants killed. I mean, I sort of know why - Rogue used to have your nightmares sometimes, after the Statue of Liberty - but still. You went just a tad overboard."
He looked at her sharply, genuinely startled. "What?"
She grimaced. "That's right, you wouldn't know that. Rogue, when she absorbs someone's powers, also absorbs their memories. The longer the contact goes on, the more she gets. Apparently, in the future you have some killer nightmares about...you know, where you came from." She was actually making an effort not to be insensitive, though since it was her, she possibly wasn't succeeding very well.
"How does she not hate me?" he wondered aloud.
"She's a forgiving person," Kitty said. "And she's gone through worse, I'm sure, since then. I mean, it was bad enough for all of us, but we weren't in the camps. Most of the people I know died, but at least I didn't have to watch all of them." No, what she'd seen had been bad enough. What she didn't understand was how Rogue was still anything like sane. Then again, she might not be, if she hadn't run into Logan - literally, apparently - as soon as she reached the past.
In the cupboard, Trask groaned, loudly enough that they could actually hear him over Hank's abysmal singing. Kitty didn't know just what the group in the basement had done to him, when they finally caught him again, and she didn't think she wanted to.
With a scowl, she grabbed one of Clarice's discarded shoes - a fantastically ugly, lime-green vinyl platform - and hurled it at the door as hard as she could. "Can it, short stuff!"
"What the hell, Kitty?!" Clarice yelped. "Don't break my shoes!"
"Sorry," Kitty said, though she was anything but.
There was a faint, spluttering choke from the direction of the table. When she looked at Magneto, she found him trying desperately to keep a straight face, head in his hands. Evidently he decided it wasn't worth the effort, because he broke down laughing.
That cut off Hank's warbling. His eyes had gone huge - he looked so much like a terrified rabbit that Kitty cracked up, too. It made her ribs hurt, but she just couldn't help it.
Unfortunately, it also jolted her stomach, and she barely managed to crawl to the trash can before her stomach won its mutiny with the rest of her. Stew, bread, and bourbon, unsurprisingly, were not half as tasty coming back up as they were going down, and she was bitterly regretting that painkiller now. Especially since the effects had completely worn off.
"Fuck my life," she muttered, and retched.
Dimly, she heard the kitchen tap turn on. A pair of shoes entered her view. "Throw up on my feet and I'll drop this on your head," Magneto warned, setting the glass of water beside her. "Drink that."
She retched again before she dared lean away from the trash can. "Thanks," she said, grimacing a little as the water washed away the sour taste of puke.
"Are you all right?" Hank asked. He might be drunk, but apparently his caretaker instincts were still on full-force.
Kitty scowled at him. "Do I look all right?" she demanded, and turned away to make use of the can again. Ugh.
"Drink that," Magneto reiterated. "Slowly."
Miserable though she was, Kitty could recognize the echo of her own words on the plane. She swigged, spat, swigged again, and swallowed. "Are you gonna sit there and wait for me to down this whole thing?"
He arched an eyebrow, his expression so smug that she desperately wanted to hit him. "Yup," he deadpanned.
Tired though Marie was, she knew it would be a long while before she could sleep. While she was glad the Professor had taken whatever memories he'd seen with him, after all he'd said, she couldn't help but wonder just what they were. How would she have known about anybody trying to sabotage the Sentinels? Had she somehow been in on it? She supposed it would make sense, that they wouldn't kill her for it - she'd been, she thought bitterly, a valuable asset. But it probably meant whatever they'd done to the others had been so terrible her own brain had shut it away.
She was curled up on the couch now, head on Logan's chest, the sound of his heartbeat and the scent of the summer night calming her a little. He knew her well enough to know when she needed to just sit - that there were times she needed company, not speech. The nature of mutation meant she perennially touch-starved, and while he couldn't touch her directly, she knew that he valued what he could give her. She knew he was the only person who could do it without tension, without flinching.
The others, her friends from before - Kitty and Jubilee especially would consciously touch her arm or her back, and Bobby had certainly tried, but it was just that: conscious. They'd wanted to let her know that they weren't afraid of her, that she didn't need to be afraid of herself, but all of them, even Bobby, were still wary underneath it all. Logan had never been wary, even when he really should have been.
"What d'you wanna do," she asked abruptly, "when everythin's...over? Once we get everyone back to New York, and figure out what the other guys are doin', what they want? I mean, sooner or later, things go on, right?"
She felt him shrug. "Whatever you wanna do, darlin'," he said. "Nothin' in this time I'm supposed to be doin' that'd effect the future. You know the Professor'll always let us stay with him."
Marie shut her eyes, warmed through. While she wanted to trust most of the others, she did trust Logan. "Suppose he'll still need to form the X-Men, no matter what happens," she said. "Although I don't know what's gonna happen when he finds young Ororo. Pretty sure bad things can happen, if two people from different times meet up."
"Hope that's just science fiction," Logan grumbled. "If not, we're gonna have a problem further down the line, when you and Kitty and Clarice're all kids."
She fingered the white section of her hair, as she often did when she was thinking. "You think we can keep Magneto from tryin' to kill young me, this time? I'd rather she not have to go through that, too."
"Bet your ass we can. Assumin' he's even stupid enough to try, with all he's found out abut the future. And there's a thing, Marie - right now, the body I'm in, is the one I had in 1973. There isn't any other me runnin' around, so when the time comes, I'm gonna have to go find the younger you." He paused. "Goddamn, that sounds weird. Anyway, I've gotta find you and bring you to the school, too."
Marie did the math in her head. God, that was twenty-seven years from now. She'd be in her fifties by then. "Won't that be weird," she said. "How d'you know about this body? Your claws?"
"Yeah. Still bone. At least this time I can avoid Stryker."
Marie shivered. She still occasionally had his nightmares, though she'd never tell him that. "We might both be better off, this time around."
"Damn right we will. I just want to get back over the damn Atlantic already. France makes me twitchy."
She sat up enough to give him a bewildered look. "Why?"
"I'm not sure," he admitted, disgruntled. "There's just somethin' wrong here." There was more, she was quite sure, but she was equally sure he wouldn't tell her. Not unless he thought it was actually dangerous.
Honestly, she was sort of glad. This mansion was really nothing like the one in New York, and not just because the other had been her home. Something about it gave her the willies, and she doubted she was the only one. The others, despite their frictions, never seemed to wander around inside alone for very long. Ororo spent most of her time in the garden, and Marie was pretty sure Raven was often with Hank. The Professor was the only one who didn't seem to be affected by it.
"What," she asked, "you think it's haunted?"
It was meant as a joke, but Logan didn't laugh. "I don't think it's haunted, but...I don't like what I felt, down in that basement. There wasn't anything actually with us down there, but it felt like there should have been, if that makes any sense. If Hank was himself, he'd have sensed it, too. Maybe he did - he's been so jumpy anyway that it's hard to tell."
Marie shuddered. She thought of Clarice and Kitty, both of whom had, so far as she knew, staked out their own rooms last night. Of course it wasn't likely that anything would happen to them, but still...dammit, now her imagination was running away with her. "Don't think I wanna go wanderin' around by myself, now," she said, laying down again, head tucked under Logan's chin.
"Good," he said emphatically. "I'd warn the others, if I thought it'd do any good. 'Course it's probably bullshit anyway, but still...I don't like it, and I don't like this house. Be glad as hell to get out."
Marie had to agree. She was glad as hell to have him here right now. She didn't think she'd ever get any sleep now, otherwise.
Clarice woke the next morning on the lawn, of all places. She'd drooled on her own arm in the night, and she grimaced when she sat up.
Pain exploded through her head, and she had to shield her eyes from the sunrise with one hand. Inexplicably, her arm was covered with elaborate swirls and spirals drawn in black Sharpie. Clearly, there was quite a bit of last night she couldn't remember. Her mouth tasted absolutely foul, and her tongue felt like it was coated in glue. Now she remembered, far too late, why Vlad the Inebriator rarely saw the light of day.
Standing seemed like far too much effort, so she crawled across the dewy grass until she reached the patio. The sliding-glass door was shut, but thankfully it wasn't locked. Opening it was enough of a bitch as it was.
Ororo, sober and hangover-free, sat at the kitchen table. Someone - probably her - had cleaned up the kitchen at some point after Clarice passed out. Hank was nowhere to be seen, which made Clarice just a bit grumpy - he'd staggered off to bed and left her on the lawn? Kitty physically couldn't have helped her in, and Magneto was a jerk, but she'd expected better of Hank.
The scent of coffee drifting from the corner improved her mood a little, though she knew she really ought to start with water, if she ever wanted to kill this headache. She gave Ororo a nod, and immediately winced.
"Any idea why I was on the lawn?" she asked, gingerly reaching into the cupboard for a glass.
"You were rather adamant that you didn't want to go inside," Ororo said, but there was a faint note of worry, rather than amusement, in her tone. "Tell me, did you dream last night?"
"If I did, I don't remember it," Clarice said, filling the glass and gulping the water down in three long swallows. It soothed her parched throat, even if it didn't do anything for the fuzz on her teeth. "Why?"
"Hank had terrible nightmares," Ororo replied. "Logan so rarely sleeps that I can't tell with him, but Magneto looked terrible when he came through and grabbed coffee. If he slept, he didn't do it well, and he wasn't half so drunk as you and Hank last night. Trask panicked until I gave him a sedative. Tell me," she said, seriously, "do you like this house?"
"I - well, honestly, no," Clarice said, reaching for the last piece of bread. "I mean, it's beautiful, but there's just..."
"...Something wrong?" Ororo offered. "I know. I felt it even before the basement was opened, but I didn't recognize it for what it was. I'm going to talk to the Professor about leaving."
Clarice stared at her. "Really? I mean, do you think he'd even listen? We could just be paranoid." Even as she said it, though, she doubted it.
"We might be," Storm allowed, "but you and I haven't survived so long by discounting our intuition. It wouldn't pay to ignore it now."
She had to agree, even if it also made her feel like a fool. Ororo was right - they hadn't made it in the future by ignoring their instincts. How the hell were they going to get that across to the Professor, though, without sounding insane? He'd been here before, and he wouldn't have brought them if he thought there was anything...off...in the house.
Clarice didn't believe in ghosts. She'd seen far too many very real horrors to give any credence to the supernatural. There were, however, plenty of Wrong Things that actually existed - God knew she'd seen enough of them - and the fact that she couldn't identify this one didn't mean it wasn't there.
Rogue and Logan came in together - surprise, surprise - while she was halfway through her coffee. They were shortly followed by a very hung-over Hank, who looked about as bad as Clarice felt, and the Professor, who was pale and deeply troubled. Last to join them were Kitty and Raven, the former leaning heavily on the latter's arm.
"Show of hands," Kitty said, gingerly sitting at the table, "who had nightmares last night? Out of everyone who actually slept, I mean."
To Clarice's surprise, everyone but Logan raised their hands - and she suspected he was outlier only because he hadn't gone to sleep. But then, of course he wouldn't have: if he'd suspected anything weird, he'd have stayed awake to guard Rogue while she slept. The two of them were so sweet it was honestly a little disgusting.
She was quite shocked to find the Professor had had them, too, though. But then, she probably shouldn't be - he was, after all, a telepath. If there was something nasty here, he'd know - but then, why hadn't he said anything before? Or had he not felt it until the basement was opened? Now that was a spooky thought.
"Magneto didn't say," Ororo said, "but he didn't look like he slept well, when he came stomping through here earlier. I'm not sure where he went, either."
"That's comforting," Clarice muttered. "He didn't run off with the van or anything, did he?"
"No. But he obviously wanted to get away." Ororo looked at the Professor. "We need to leave," she said, in a tone that would brook no argument.
He sighed. "I know. Someday, when I have time, I want to find out just what happened here. For now, I'm shutting up the house. I don't want any caretakers in here, even for a little while. Logan, give Trask your...concoction...and we'll drop him off somewhere well outside Paris. The rest of you, get your things."
Hank looked at Raven, and Clarice didn't need the Professor's telepathy to know what he was thinking: he wanted to grab whatever they'd been cooking in the lab. She gave him a very slight nod, and the pair left together - her striding, him shuffling.
Marie glanced at Logan. "We've already got all our crap. Kitty, you need a hand?"
She shrugged. "I don't have any spare clothes or anything. Clarice?"
"Ditto. We should grab some crap for your knee, though. And your head. And your ribs. You really are just one walking piece of broken, aren't you?"
Kitty scowled. "You are so lucky you're hungover," she said. "I know what I need to grab: the croutons."
"As long as you don't bring any spiders," Clarice muttered. She didn't miss the way Rogue shivered.
"I'll go with you, to grab some supplies from the medicine cabinet," Ororo said.
Now it was Clarice who shivered. Still, if it came down to it, she could easily portal herself and Ororo away from...anything. Whatever. She didn't even know what she was afraid of, which just pissed her off.
She stood, a bit unsteadily, but before she and Ororo made it out of the kitchen, Magneto stalked in, and threw a set of car keys at Logan. Ororo had been right - he'd had a shitty night, even if he slept at all. There were dark smudges almost the hue of bruises under his eyes, and his complexion was downright grey.
"Wow," Kitty said, "you look like shit. What's with the keys?"
The look he shot at her was pure poison, but it didn't do anything to budge Clarice's very unfortunate suspicion. Oh God, she hoped she was wrong, because that was so wrong. "I found another van," he said to Logan, ignoring her. "Legally, this time. We're going to need another."
"...Why d'you say that?" Rogue asked, looking at him with deep suspicion. "Who told?"
"Nobody," he said, with more than a little asperity. "The heating ducts in this place are amazingly good sound conductors. Did any of you even think that we'd need another vehicle? Charles, I'm sure you did."
The Professor nodded. He looked both chagrined, and more than a little irritated at being found out. "I did. Thank you, Erik. Logan, if you would take care of Trask, we can get going soon." He sighed. "I wish I knew just what was...here. I loved this house, when I was small."
"You know," Kitty said, thoughtful, "this place didn't feel weird at all, until Trask opened the basement. Professor, did anyone ever stay here, apart from your family?"
He sighed, helpless. "I'm not sure," he said. "I don't think so, but I can't be certain. If someone did - if they were a mutant themselves - who knows what they did down there. What they might have...left."
Brief silence fell. "Well," Kitty said, eventually, "on that creepy note, should we maybe get this done? Logan, did you actually cook your shit last night?"
He nodded. Rogue, Clarice was sure, must have crashed on the table while he did it, because there was no way he would have left her alone, if he'd felt what the rest of them had.
"Good. Let's blow this Popsicle stand. I feel like my skin might crawl off if I stay here any longer."
Clarice had to agree. She glanced at Ororo, who headed for the hallway again.
Logan, ski mask in place, went to deal with Trask, while Kitty tried to wheedle Marie into helping her to the van. She seemed to have full confidence in her friend, but Marie was a little reticent. Oh, she had her long-sleeved shirt and gloves on, but with Kitty hopping like she was, there was always the possibility of her forehead colliding with Marie's face. Knowing poor Kitty's luck since they'd landed in the past, it was almost a given.
"Oh, come on, Marie, please? Face it, right now I'm just a lump in the way. I'm not even hungover - I promise I won't throw up on you."
"Sugar, I don't wanna hurt you," Marie protested. "That's the last thing you'd need. And I know you weigh as much as a wet cat, but I don't think I could carry a dry one right now." She'd only been away from the camps for three days, after all: her muscles were non-existent.
Understanding entered Kitty's eyes, and sympathy - sympathy, not pity. Marie, given the nature of her mutation, had learned to tell the difference long ago, since she got plenty of both from people. "Gotcha," she said. "Knee's not so swollen anyway. Just don't tell Hank I moved on my own, or he'll duct-tape me to the inside of the van or something."
Marie wanted to laugh, but she honestly wouldn't put it past the poor frazzled man.
"As entertaining as I'm sure that would be for all of us, you're enough of a liability as it is." Christ, Magneto could appear like a damn ghost when he wanted to - he wasn't Logan-level stealthy, but it was bad enough. He was holding a cane with a rather ornate silver handle. "May you have better luck with this than I did."
Marie blinked, but Kitty eyed the cane with deep suspicion. "What did you do to it?" she asked.
He actually rolled his eyes. "Nothing," he said, exuding exasperation like an aura. "Get to the van before you somehow fall into a hole and break your leg."
She glowered at him, snatching the cane, and actually spend a few moments inspecting the handle, as though she expected to find it coated with motor oil or some other slippery substance. "Thanks," she said, grudgingly, and hauled herself to her feet.
"Be careful. If you fall on your face, I'm not catching you."
"Jerk."
"Bitch."
"Holy shit, you can swear. Really swear, not just 'damn'. Plebe."
"I'm not dignifying that with a response."
"Uh, dude, you just did."
Marie shook her head. Wrong. So very, very wrong.
At this point, even I don't know what the fuck is up with Erik and Kitty. All I do know is that I seriously pity whoever spills the beans about The Assumptions, because it will not end well. I haven't yet decided who's going to be on the receiving end of that shitstorm, but it will be epic.
The creepiness in the mansion will be important later. Very important. The Xavier family history is a dark one.
