NachtcGleiskette - It's so good to 'hear' your voice! I'm sorry I just dropped this story. Believe me - it wasn't because I wanted to or lost interest. But, I'm getting things back together now and this story just nagged at me to finish it. So - here I am!
Gabrielsdoubt - Hi! Thanks for the thoughful review! You know, I never considered it comparable to Job, but - a guy who's just living his life, has everything going for him and WHAM! "What about my servant Job?" - yeah, thanks a lot God. Please review again. I really enjoy interacting with reviewers!
littlelotssecret - Please, by all means, be cheesy! I love it all. Mozerella, Colby, Feta... Anyway, I am glad you're enjoying it.
xXSlightly-PsychoticXx - Yeah, poor Kurt. If its bad, its probably going to happen to him. I still have a few surprises that will hopefully keep everyone entertained...
Jean found the blue mutant some distance from the camp. He was hunched over, sitting on the ground, his tail wrapped around him like a wrathful serpent. His head was bowed, not in prayer but in pain. Lacing her hands together, she took a breath and sat down in the damp grass next to him, he barely spared a look at her. After a moment, the red haired telepath spoke. "So..." She took another breath. "Who was she?" The woman in his mind, the woman who was carrying a child, the woman whose memory had caused Kurt so much pain, he couldn't help but flinch from it.
Kurt was silent for a long time. He didn't want to say it. He didn't want to give this nightmare life by admitting to its existence. But lifting his head and staring straight ahead, he finally spoke. "She..." His shaky voice gave out on him and he had to try again. "She was my wife." His whole world, his daughter's mother, the one he'd sworn to protect with his life. The one he'd left lying dead on a cold, dirty, concrete floor without a second look.
'beloved wife - loving mother'
Grief, if not tears, finally came with his confession as he buried his head again in his murderous hands.
"Oh, my God..." Jean breathed in horror. It was obvious, even from their brief contact that Kurt had loved this woman intensely. But, his wife?? If Stryker could control someone that completely...She fought down her rising panic at the thought of Scott and the professor caught in the hands of such a madman.
Instead, she turned her attention back to the distraught victim of a campaign against his own kind. "Kurt, I'm – I'm sorry." Somehow, that just seemed so inadequate. She laid a gentle hand on his unresponsive shoulder. After a moment, she got up and left. She didn't have to be psychic to know he wanted to be left alone.
Perhaps he had been on a fool's errand with his beliefs in God. That God worked all things for good. What good could have come of this? Kurt couldn't bring himself to say that there was no God. But he now knew that there was no God that cared for him. He clutched at the Rosaries in his pocket. The ones that had been gifted to him by his wife. He would have thrown them into fire if they weren't one of the few things he had left that connected him to her. As painful as it was to hold them, it would have been more painful to destroy them. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the plain gold band and the sacred beads. One, a promise to a wife that he had failed to keep. The other a promise to a God that he no longer felt beholden to. After many more moments of internal anguish, tears finally came as the weight of his loss fell on him and his faith was shaken to its very foundation.
After leaving the large ornate Catholic Church that had been host to the Donivan family since the South's Reconstruction, well over a hundred year ago, Joe had insisted they stay with him at the family's estate. After Rachel had put it up for sale, Joe's rare sentimental side got the better of him. He purchased it himself with the hope that one day, when Rachel's children came to visit, they would race through the hallways shrieking like wild Indians – just as she had. Now, he felt like he was entering a tomb as he pushed open the heavy front doors. It was the servants day off, so the four of them sat alone in the huge house. It seemed the home grieved with them as if it sensed that there would be no future Donivan children to slide down it's banisters, or use the dumbwaiter to hoist themselves up and down in mischievous adventures.
Joe's anger roared to find out the Jemaine and Stephan were Kurt's siblings. His first reaction had been to throw them out of his house. Joe and Stephan dissolved into a screaming match as the hurt at losing their loved ones found release in their anger towards each other.
"SHE WAS MY NIECE!!" the tall, strong, elder Donivan erupted, his hands curled into fists, wanting to punch something.
"SHE WAS OUR SISTER!!" Stephan yelled back, uncharacteristically out of control. For a moment it looked as if the two were actually going to come to blows.
Tears streaming down her face, Jemaine implored both of them. "Please, this is not what Rachel would have wanted." Her words seemed to touch the two battling men as their stances relaxed slightly. "She loved us. She wouldn't want to see us fight." She took a small breath to ready herself for what she had to say. "But, she would want us to find Kurt." Stephan stepped in front of his sister protectively as Joe's eyes darkened and threatened closer to her at the mention of his niece's murderer.
Swallowing hard, she continued. "We have to find out what happened to him to make him - " she couldn't finish. All she could think of was the countless times she had watched the couple curled around each other happily and how happy she'd been that they had found each other.
Lumi finally stepped in. She stood before them, taking her place as elder and leader. "Jemaine is right. There is nothing more we can do for Rachel. But, we must find Kurt." She stared at them and dared any of them to question her authority. That was why she had put herself and Jemaine on an airplane, and traveled across the ocean - to find what was left of their family.
Joe bit his tongue and took a moment to calm himself. Finally, he took a deep breath and led them into the entertainment room. "There is something you need to see." The giant flat screen flashed to life with a grainy image of the White House attack.
Staring at the odd angles of surveillance cameras, Stephan and Jemaine stared in awed horror at their brother's assassination attempt on the US president. After the screen went blank, Stephan's eyes narrowed into a dark scowl. He turned a reconciling expression toward Joe. "You have to belief us, Joe. Kurt would have NEVER done any of this on his own. Somehow, Stryker is at the heart of this."
"I don't know how Kurt could have done this at all." Jemaine shook her head, pulling herself out of her shock. "He could only teleport four or five times without exhausting himself. Even then, he couldn't teleport back to back." She turned her head away from the blank TV screen to the group. "And, he was not trained to be a fighter. Even with his abilities, he shouldn't have stood a chance against so many trained men with guns."
"He was conditioned." Lumi's voice was filled with pain as she saw the expressionless eyes of the blue furred mutant on the screen. Even with the poor resolution of the video, she could see that this was Kurt's body, but not his soul. "He was controlled."
A tense truce was called between the group as night settled onto the home. Joe agreed to help them find Kurt, if he could. His search had turned up nothing. Neither had Stephan's. But they hoped by joining forces, they might have the resources to, at least, piece together what had happened after Stephan had left Kurt in Boston.
At Storm's insistence, Jean tried to lay down and get a few hours sleep, but a million troubles played at her mind, refusing to let her rest. Alkali Lake, Stryker, Professor Xavier, Scott...Logan; her emotions raced around her in a deafening whirlwind. Finally she settled into an uneasy slumber. But, instead of a soothing dream, she was trapped in the research facility at Alkali Lake, reliving Kurt's nightmare. She tried to direct her dream away from the heart wrenching scene, but something held her to it. Her mind was dragged away from the dead woman on the floor and toward Stryker and his men. He was pointing to the body and giving orders. She tried to hear what they were saying. It was important, she knew it was. There was something here she needed to see. No. Not see...hear. Something she needed to hear. Struggling with the muddled conversation, she held her breath, replaying the moment over and over.
A word. A single word.
Straining with all her strength she fought for that word. Then suddenly - she caught it!
With a cry she bolted upright, her eyes wide, her chest heaving. She looked wildly around for a moment then jumped out of her sleeping bag. Racing away from the safe lights of the camp, she ran as fast as she could to prove, or disprove, herself; three lives hanging in the balance.