For the longest time, no one moved. Lorna's vision was smeared with tears, and she was having difficulty seeing Alex. She didn't want to cry, didn't want to make things worse, but after everything, this was too much.
She had been going to tell him. The words had been on her lips time and time again, only to die before they came out. Lorna remembered the day that he'd told her that he thought of her and Scott when he tried to get back. She had never wanted to tell him the truth more than that moment, to let him know that she cared for him just as much as he cared for her.
Now, that chance was gone. There had been a right way to do this, a window of opportunity that she hadn't known had been narrow. She should have told him, should have been able to explain. Now, her throat swelling and raw, her very body fighting her, she had no idea how to undo the damage.
Even though her vision was smudged, she saw Alex shift, his fists clenching tighter. She wiped her eyes, desperately trying to figure out how she could explain without bursting another blood vessel.
"So, you're telling me you're her son?" asked Alex.
His voice was cold and low, a tone Lorna had never heard on him. Alex's voice had always been warm. Occasionally abrasive, sometimes angry or irritated, but never like this. He was furious.
"Duh," Peter said.
Alex jerked his head towards her. His eyes wouldn't meet hers: they were glued on Peter.
"Which makes her your sister," said Alex, his voice still that furious tone.
"Duh again," said Peter.
Alex advanced, his eyes narrowed, but it wasn't towards Lorna. It was towards her brother.
"Then why the hell is insulting your mother more important than noticing that your sister's injured too?" Alex demanded.
Lorna took in a shallow breath. What?
"Huh?" asked Peter, pushing himself up, "Lorna, you're-"
"Oh, so you finally noticed!" Alex snapped, "I don't know what's going on between you and your mother, but ya know what? That should not be your priority right now!"
Wanda glared at him.
"It's none of your business," she said.
"And it's sure as hell not yours right now!" Alex said, "In the five minutes I've been here it's complain complain! Your brother is sick! Your sister is sick! That should be your priority right now! Not me, not her!"
He shook his head. Lorna swallowed, uncertain as to what to do or say next. She couldn't see Alex's eyes, couldn't see his expression. He was so far away, and all Lorna wanted to do was reach out and touch him, to say something, anything.
Peter pushed himself up more fully, no doubt to argue, but she saw him blink a few times. He gripped the edge of the bed and proceeded to vomit over the side. The smell made Lorna want to gag, and Wanda immediately went to her brother's side.
Next to her, her mother made a small, concerned move, but Lorna knew her head would win over her heart. Lorna had never been particularly good with that, so, she pushed herself up on her elbows, trying to get a better view and figure out what was going on.
She could see Magneto take a few steps forward concern etched on his face. Hank handed Peter a glass of water, which he began drinking gratefully.
"This is what I mean."
Lorna turned and saw Alex, his back still towards her and his voice still cold.
"This is what should be important," he said.
He jerked his thumb behind him at Lorna's mother.
"Not whatever that is," Alex said,"So pull your shit together."
Her sister hissed between his teeth, but efore Wanda could answer, Alex turned on his heel and crossed his arms.
"Hank, do you need that tissue sample or what?" he asked.
"I...I rather think I do," Hank murmured, "Just um, I need to clean this up-"
"Let me do it," said her mother softly, "Heaven knows I'm not doing anything else."
With a worried look at the room, Hank gestured to another one of the rooms. Alex followed him, and Lorna felt like crying all over again. She took another shuddering breath as the door closed behind him.
"Alex has changed," said Magneto.
"I'm rather proud of the man he's grown into," Charles said quietly, "And, for the sake of that, and avoiding future altercations, I hope that we can move forward from here on out."
Lorna folded her hands in front of her, trying to digest what had just happened. Her eyes were still stinging, and she wiped them with her fingertips. She felt her mother's hand on her shoulder, giving it a strong squeeze before moving on.
"I'm a little lost," Peter rasped out, "Why did that just happen?"
"Is it not obvious?" asked Magneto.
He walked up, pointedly breezing past her mother as she fetched the mop. Lorna couldn't help but watch their movements.
"I would like to welcome you back into the land of the living, and I would also request that you try not to antagonize the people giving you medical treatment too much," Magneto said, "While I understand that your family matters are, well, let's say complicated, I would prefer all of you not killing each other. Not today in any case."
Peter shook his head and rolled on his side so that he could see Lorna. Lorna tried to push herself up more, but her elbows were getting tired. She wanted to sleep, but, as exhausted as she was, she could feel far too much adrenaline flowing through her.
It was an odd feeling, feeling so alive and yet bone-tired at the same time.
"Hey sis," he said, his voice low.
She forced herself to smile. Although she was glad that her brother was conscious, she couldn't find it in herself to smile at him. The past few minutes had been too much for her to smile willingly any more.
"Why're you crying?" he asked.
You, she thought, I'm crying because of you. And I'm crying because of Wanda, and because of Alex, and mom. I'm crying because, in another time and another place, it wouldn't have been like this.
But she couldn't say that, not with Hank telling her she was at risk of bursting another blood vessel in her throat. As upset as she was over losing her voice at a time like this, she wasn't going to make it permanent.
So this would have to be a deferred conversation, or at least a limited one. She tapped the side of her throat, feeling the oven-like heat of her skin beneath her fingers, and then put a finger to her lips.
"You can't talk?" he asked.
She nodded.
"Did that bastard hurt you?" demanded Peter.
She sighed and shook her head. Wanda sat down at the foot of Peter's bed. Their mother returned, carrying a mop. Charles wheeled over to her, and she thought she could hear the faintest whispers of a conversation.
"You're late to the party, but there was an accident," said Wanda, "Apparently Havok has a cousin with similar, and his powers got out of control."
"Then why isn't that shit down here?" asked Peter.
Lorna rubbed her face with her hand.
"Does he not know?" Magneto asked.
She nodded, feeling slightly grateful to him for supplying the answer. There was nothing else to be grateful to him for, not really, and she wished he wasn't there. It would be so much easier to talk to her siblings without him there.
"Why not?" demanded Peter.
For lack of a better way to explain, Lorna held up eight fingers.
"I don't get it," he said.
Lorna held up the fingers again insistently.
"For God's sake, he's eight," Wanda said.
She nodded, feeling relieved that her sister decided to fill in the blanks.
"That's...wow. He's a kid," Peter muttered.
"That's why he doesn't know," said Wanda, "That's too young."
Lorna nodded again, feeling much better than she had a few minutes ago. Things were still bad, but at least her siblings weren't blaming Scott for this. She was glad that he was upstairs, safe and asleep. Perhaps he was worried about mundane things, like his homework. Maybe he was still scared.
In any case, he didn't know that her injury had taken a turn for the worse. And he wouldn't, not if she had anything at all to say about the matter. Hank would figure this out, she would heal up, and then she would go back to teaching class as fast as possible.
The door opened to the back room. Hank walked in, looking a little tired.
"I need to check your blood pressure," he said, "I'll bring you back out here in a moment, but I need to check on this first."
She sighed and leaned further back into her pillow. Anxiety was coiling in her stomach, but she couldn't protest. Even if he did bring her into the same room as Alex, she wasn't quite sure if he wanted to speak to her at the moment.
So she just nodded and gave a small wave to her family. Lorna forced another smile for them and let him wheel the bed into the side room. Alex was there, his back to the wall and running his hand absently over a bandage on his forearm.
Hank stopped pushing the bed and shut the door.
"I'll try not to listen," Hank said, "But this is the closest thing that I think you two are going to get to privacy tonight Alex."
She blinked and Hank chuckled.
"I actually do need to take your blood pressure, but I didn't have to do it in here," he said, "I'll just go over and prep the machine."
He turned his back and Lorna looked at Alex, his back was still to her, and he was still stroking that bandage. There seemed to be a slight slump in his posture, and Lorna didn't like it. She didn't like him looking so defeated.
"I know why you didn't tell me," he said, the coldness gone from his voice, "Things like that...I don't know the whole story, but you're not with them now. There was pain involved at some point, a lot if the way you looked at them was any indication."
Her throat felt thick from more than just her injury.
"I don't blame you for not telling me. Do I wish that I heard it from you instead of like this?" he asked, "Yeah, yeah I do. I wish that you could've told me during one of our conversations, or during dinner or...any time really. I wish it wasn't like this."
His fingers abandoned the bandage and hung limp by his side.
"It does piss me off that Hank and Charles didn't tell me, but I get that too," Alex said, "It wasn't their secret, and they did...Charles told me that strength like yours, like mine, doesn't come from an easy life. I knew that something had happened to you. Something like this? Of course not. But..."
He let out a frustrated breath.
"What I'm trying to say is that it doesn't matter," he said, "It doesn't matter to me who you're related to, whose blood you share. I know better than anyone that our pasts don't define us. I know who you are, and that doesn't magically change because of your brother and sister. And...quite frankly..."
He turned then, and Lorna saw the warmth in his face and his eyes.
"If you think I'm gonna let someone like you go just because you've got terrorists in your family, then I'm sorry, but I'm not that dumb," he said.
Tears filled her vision and Alex walked to her side. She reached up and touched his face. Lorna couldn't speak, couldn't tell him what it meant to her to have someone accept all of her, her past, present, and possibly her future. There were no expectations to meet for Alex, no one else that she had to be.
And she was a little glad that she couldn't speak, because there were no real words to explain that. She wasn't sure if there was anything, in all of the books she'd read as a lonely child, as an almost desperate student, to describe how much she loved him in that moment.