Disclaimer: I don't own anything in this story but Allegra.. I know, it's a bit of a Mary Sue, but I couldn't help it. Originally written in 1998.
When Worlds Collide Part 3
The next few weeks passed quickly, with no word from the Professor except scrawled notes in the mail saying they were well, but not much else. Allegra kept herself busy by going out to nightclubs and shopping during the day. She dragged Remy with her often, but the main constant with her was Grayson. The Society pages in all the major papers had a field day with the "mysterious young woman" with Bruce Wayne's ward, especially since no one seemed to be able to get her photo.
One day, about three weeks after the Professor left, Allegra and Grayson had returned from one of the multitudes of shopping expeditions laden with bags and boxes. Alfred met them at the door, ready to take their new acquisitions off their hands.
"Alfred, is Remy around? I got the most handsome shirt for him." Allegra said as she took off her coat.
"Yes, Miss Allegra, he is in the library. Shall I get him for you?" the older man asked, taking bags from Grayson.
"Don't bother, I'll show him. Grayson, could you get that green bag for me?"
"Sure." He followed her into the library.
"Remy, cher, I've got the cutest ..." she began when she found Remy standing by the fireplace. She never finished her sentence because an agonising, blinding pain enveloped her mind. Sharp confusing images and the feeling of loss and confusion overwhelmed her as she collapsed onto the library floor.
Grayson and Remy dropped everything, both lunging to try to catch her. Grayson got there first and caught her head before it hit a table leg.
"Allegra! What's the matter?" he said, almost screaming as Remy grabbed her wrist to check her pulse.
"Cher, speak to us. Come on, you can do it." Remy strained to say. His eyes were wild with fright.
"Get me ... me to my room. Please." she rasped, straining to speak. "Over .. overload. Too many images."
Less than a moment passed before Grayson had picked her up and started running up the stairs, two at a time with Remy matching him stride for stride.
"Alfred! Call the doctor! It's an emergency!" Grayson yelled as he went up the stairs, clutching her tightly. Allegra lost consciousness trying to tell him no doctors. He never heard her.
When she woke, it was to the face of Remy hovering over her, his face a mask of worry as he stared at her.
"Grayson, she wakin' up." he said as he looked to the door. Allegra could barely make out Grayson talking with someone in the hall.
"Re...Remy?" she rasped, her voice hoarse.
"Don't try ta talk, cher. Doctor says you're goin' ta be alright, but to save your strength for the next few days." he took a damp washcloth from a basin beside the bed and lightly washed the sweat from her face.
What's wrong with me? she telepathically said into Remy's mind.
"Doctor says you had a slight hemmorrage in your brain." he said, then leaned close and whispered, "None of your psi abilities, it could set it off again."
She nodded her head slowly to respond, not wanting to move much other than that because her whole body was wracked with pain from her attempt to talk to him telepathically. The pain subsided and she tried to manuveur herself to see who Grayson was talking to.
"Don't you go and get ancy on me, cher, I won't have it. You just lay there and take it easy." Remy said with a stern paternal look.
She slowly moved her arm up to salute him. He smiled back and patted her hand. She was glad that she could feel it.
He stood, saying, "I'm goin' ta get your medicine now, cher. Grayson'll sit with ya til I get back. D'accord?" Before she could react, he disappeared out the door.
Grayson came over and sat where Remy had so recently vacated on the bed beside her. He clasped her hand in his and Allegra could see a remnant of the fear and worry that he was experiencing. Their eyes locked for a moment, then Grayson looked down and muttered, "You scared the hell out of me." under his breath.
"I'm sorry." she croaked as she tightened her grip on his hand a little.
"No, don't talk, just let me rant a little." he said, dismissing her. She accepted it and braced herself to be yelled at. She was more than slightly shocked when he began speaking in a soft voice.
"Let me start by saying that if it hadn't been for Remy, you would be in the hospital right now, hooked up to every single machine they could put you on. But Remy convinced me that with your previous occupation, which yes, he told me about, it would probably cause more trouble than it was worth." he stopped for a moment, again looking into her eyes. "Don't go getting mad at Remy for telling me about you working for the Shop, because if he hadn't explained things to me, I would have taken you to Gotham General no matter what else he would have said."
He stopped again, seeming to catch his breath.When he looked at her, her heart stopped for a moment as she noticed there were tears in his eyes.
"You know how much we all care about you, but it took me until today to admit to myself how much I care for you. When you blacked out, I thought the worst. I didn't know what to do, other then I had to help you somehow. I realised when the doctor finally convinced me that you would be alright that I didn't want the Professor to come back, because that would mean that you would leave here. I don't know how I would deal with that."
She let his feelings of love and concern wash over her, and returned the overpowering feeling of love to him, wanting to cover him with affection to show she understood and that she felt the same.
"Well, now that I've spilled my guts to you, I'll let you think about all I've said. You need to rest now, though, so I'll go sit and brood on the balcony while you get some sleep." He stood, but held onto her hand a moment longer. "If you need me ..."
She nodded, squeezing his hand one last time. As she thought about all that he had said, she drifted off to sleep.
~~~~~
Sleep may have come easily to Allegra, but her dreams in that sleep were hard for her. They were assortments of the images that had originally caused her collapse, but at a speed and strength her mind could handle.
Barren icy wastes originally surrounded her, then the image changed to a grungy alleyway littered with derelicts and trash. Strong feelings of loss and fear enveloped her along with almost hysterical confusion. Whoever was sending these images felt wholly unconnected with this world. A brief flash caught Allegra by surprise, and she saw the person who sent this picture for a brief second.
He looked to be a young man, about sixteen, with odd clothes and auburn hair. The thing that stuck out in Allegra's thoughts was that despite how young he was, a lock of his hair was snow white. While she was sleeping, her subconscious mind reached out to embrace the boy, to try to send a beacon to him as the Professor once did to her. Her mind disassociated itself from the pain she was causing to herself until she felt the tug of acknowledgement to her beacon.
She awoke with a start, trying to remember where the boy was. She strained to sit up, but Grayson noticed and reached to stop her. She brushed his hand away and sat up in bed.
"There'll be a boy," she began, and when he tried to stop her from speaking, she ignored him. "I don't know when, but he will show up asking for a telepath. Send him up no matter what, okay?"
"Alright. As long as you calm down and stay in bed. What's this about?"
"He's the one that caused my collapse." He looked angry. "Not on purpose, Grayson. He just doesn't know his own strength. He's lost and scared, and he was reaching out , trying to find somebody who could help him." She looked around, just then realising her surroundings. The fact that medicine bottles where scattered over a table near the bed showed that Remy was back, but that it was dark surprised her.
"How long have I been asleep?"
"Oh, about six hours." he replied, looking at his watch.
"Shit. It only feels like a few moments." she cringed as a bolt of pain tore through her body.
"Here," he said, handing her a water glass and some pills. "These will help the pain."
"Thanks." she said, dry swallowing the pills, then gulping the water down to relieve her throat.
"You seem a bit stronger. Are you?" he said after a moment.
"A little. I think." she said, pausing as if to pick the right words. "I think he was trying to heal me when we broke contact. It was strange." she shook her head, realising that she couldn't find the words to explain what had happened.
"All this is strange, at least to me. I've never really been around a telepath before. There was a lady in the circus that told fortunes, but she ended up being a fake. So I haven't the slightest idea as to how to deal with all this."
A knock at her door interrupted whatever he was going to say. Alfred entered the room with a puzzled look on his face.
"What is it, Alfred?" Grayson said, wondering what had gotten him so flustered.
"Well, Master Dick, there seems to be a young man outside wants to talk to Miss Allegra, it seems. I told him it was out of the question, with her being ill and all, and also because he wouldn't give a name." He looked out of sorts from this breach in protocol.
"It's alright, Alfred. Send him up, please." She said, adjusting herself in the bed.
"If you think it's proper, then ..." Alfred left the sentence hanging and went to fetch the boy.
"Are you sure? I mean, this kid could be a raving lunatic who would kill you so much as look at you." Grayson said, tucking the blankets around her legs.
"No, he's not psycho. I would have felt that taint." she grabbed his hand and made him listen to her. "I know you're just worried about me, but it's going to be fine. I swear to you."
"Well," he begrudgingly gave in, "if you're sure ..."
"Yes."
"Is it alright if I stay in here, at least?"
"Okay. As long as you're silent and don't lose your temper. Promise?"
"Promise."
The door opened as if on cue and Alfred came in, followed by the person she had seen in the vision. The clothes he was wearing reminded her of a tattered flight suit that her jet pilot friends used to wear, but it had strange symbols and clasps adorning it. The main thing that shocked her was a large X in a circle on his left shoulder, the symbol Xavier used for the X-Men.
His chin-length auburn hair hung down in his face, with the shock white lock prevalent. He looked up and there was instant recognition with Allegra.
"Hello, Nate." she said, automatically knowing his name. "Come, sit down and we'll talk. This is Dick Grayson," she pointed towards Grayson, sitting beside her on the other side of the bed, "And you've already met Alfred."
"Which name are you known by? Amanda or Allegra?" he said, his voice strong, despite the youth in his face. Allegra looked startled, maybe even petrified beyond words.
After a moment of recovery, she said, "Allegra, please. I haven't answered to Amanda in ..."
"Eight years." the boy finished for her.
"Damn, you're good." she muttered, then stronger, "and quick. I didn't think you would get here so soon."
"I flew the whole way." he said simply.
"Come, sit down. There is a chair right here." He picked up the chair and set it next to the bed as Alfred left.
"We've got a lot to discuss, and I feel my medication kicking in, so we don't have much time." she began, looking at him straight in the face. "I can't probe your thoughts, I'm not strong enough, so I need you to answer some questions for me."
"I'll try."
"Where did you come from?"
"I was fighting with Holocaust, and then a small child opened up the portal in the crystal, and this tall black man with a M tattooed on his face walked through ..." he broke off, trying to find the words, "and then I was in a cold, white snowdrift, by a large lake, with no one in sight. A man found me wandering and helped me get to this place. This city is supposed to hold Apocalypse's palace, but I couldn't find it." A murderous glint lit his eyes. "I'm going to kill him, just like I did to his henchman, Sinister."
"Apocalypse doesn't have a stronghold in Gotham, in fact, he's been unnaturally quiet the last year or so. As far as I know, he's never had a real handhold in America. I don't know all that much about Sinister, so I can't say anything about him, but the first man you described sounds an awful lot like Bishop. He's a member of the X-Men, as I am. He was here with some others of the group a few weeks ago."
"Does Magneto still lead the X-Men?"
"Magneto?" she laughed to herself. "Magnus does not lead us, Professor Charles Xavier does. Last I heard, Magnus was in a coma somewhere."
"Who's Xavier?" Nate, said, completely confused. Allegra looked shocked for a moment, then the world started to dim as the medication kicked in. "We'll talk later, Nate." she said weakly. "Grayson, could you get Alfred to see to everything for Nate?"
"Sure, don't worry about it." he replied, kissing her lightly on the forehead, then walking Nate out of the room. Allegra then slipped off into a blessedly dreamless sleep.
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No, I'm not done yet... Please tell me what you think!