A/N: Your regular Author's Note has been pre-empted, for a special presentation from Jubilee, who will be joining us for the remainder of the fic.
Ju: Thank you Zelda. Okay, like, Zelda doesn't own the X-Men, okay, and like, she'd really like you to, like, you know, review … (a pause. Frantic waving from Jubilee to attract the author's attention).
Z: Who left this thing turned to Valley? She wrenches a dial. Better? Jubilee nods.
Ju: (clears her throat) Okay, here's the drill: the disclaimer was at the beginning. Reviews are appreciated -- they're the only concrete evidence of your existence in the ephemeral world of Internet communications. Hey, cool! I didn't know this thing did philosophy, did you?
Zelda shakes her head.
A VOICE FROM BACKSTAGE: And there's glomping in this section! Oh, and angst too!
Ju: That's it! She jumps down and races backstage. Liam Kincaid, that was *my* intro! You are sooo dead.
Z: And now, on with the fic.
PART 4: DIANA
"Then you will be able to tell us what you were doing at Senator Carr's fundraiser last Tuesday night." The Professor's statement echoed in Melusine's head. A political fundraiser? She would never go to one of those things, not without Diana, and Diana was in Switzerland and hadn't talked to her for three months. She babbled something incoherent in reply, aware at last that the gaps in her returning memory were more substantial than she had admitted.
The confusion evident in Melusine's face wrung Hank's heart. How could the Professor treat her so? He'd seen the trauma Melusine's brain had suffered in the fall. "Professor Xavier, how do you know that Melusine was there?"
"Wolverine remembers seeing her there," Xavier gestured for their silence, "but the memory was blocked-" "Like me?" Jubilee questioned softly from her seat next to Logan. "Like Jubilee's," the Professor finished.
In the middle of the room, Melusine was shaking her head. "No. I don't-" She raised her eyes from the floor to look at Professor Xavier. "Show me?" she asked.
Nestled next to Scott on one of the big leather sofas, Jean slid her hand into his as she picked up echoes from the rapport between Melusine and the Professor. She shivered as barriers crumbled and shifted in the newcomer's mind, as terrible images ghosted through her own mind, rippling out from Melusine's own recollections.
Scott squeezed his fiancée's hand in silent sympathy, feeling her pain along the slender thread of the psychic link that they shared. Jean relaxed as the bond between Xavier and Melusine dissolved, Melusine again studying the Oriental carpet as though there might be a pop quiz on its design later in the evening. He barely had time to register Jean's ripple of amusement before the young blonde woman pulled herself together, giving him in passing a glance full of sad self-awareness.
"It looks like my work," she admitted, "but I would need to see it to be sure."
The Professor nodded. "Logan?" Jubilee twitched as Logan uncrossed his arms and took a step forward. He glanced down at her reassuringly. "It's okay, kiddo. Ain't it, Chuck?"
I will do my best, Xavier said simply.
That's about all a man can ask, Logan replied, knowing the Professor would pick up the thought. "Well, darlin'?" he asked Melusine, almost tauntingly.
In three swift steps, she crossed the room to stand before him, her composed exterior undermined by the strain in her hugely dilated pupils. "If I could have your hand, please," she asked, holding up her own hand, palm out. With a nervous swallow he brought his own seemingly enormous hand up to hers, and in a dizzying rush, Melusine took them Within.
Jubilee watched the two of them with trepidation. Would she finally discover the truth of her missing day? Was Melusine somehow involved? They remained motionless, only their increasingly shallow breathing betraying their inner struggle. Melusine jerked her hand away from Logan's with a gasp, then froze as she met his momentarily glassy eyes.
"Well?" asked Storm.
"I did it," Melusine admitted, her bewildered gaze still locked with Wolverine's increasingly sharp one, "but I don't remember it."
"And what about me?" Jubilee demanded, surging to her feet. "What did you do to me?" She held out her shaking hands. She had to know! Melusine turned and covered Jubilee's palms with her own. The universe made a brief, precipitate somersault around her head, and she remembered. Remembered the party, the fifty dollars, Melusine kidnapping Doors and then ... saving her life. "You!" she yelped.
Melusine stepped back with a little sob. "I don't remember. I don't remember!" she cried in frustration. The rush of images from the girl were like some kind of freakish film, starring a bizarre stunt double of herself. Someone who walked, talked, thought like she did-except she had never thought those thoughts, said those things, killed that man. Yet it was something she could have done. It was nothing she hadn't done before, nothing she wouldn't do again-
Melusine, the Professor's mental voice compelled, be well. Calm yourself. That's it, slow down your breathing, bring in your shields. He waited until she had followed his instructions, then delicately meshed his own thoughts with hers.
"Would someone be so kind as to elucidate the proceedings for the non-telepathically gifted among us?" Jean paused in the midst of mentally reassuring a shaken Jubilee to answer Hank's inquiry. "It was Melusine who blocked Jubilee's memory. Jubilee saw her kidnapping Doors. She followed them. Your Lizard," she turned to Rogue, "cracked her on the side of the head, causing significant cerebral trauma. Melusine healed the injury and helped Jubilee escape, but doesn't remember anything herself. You can ask the Professor," she said in reply to the skepticism she felt oozing from Logan.
Xavier pulled back from his telepathic probe of Melusine with a soft sigh. "Perhaps time will simply have to take its course," he offered.
"But-" she protested. What she had remembered about herself, in the past half hour, couldn't be overlooked. Could it?
"Melusine. This school, my work; it's about the future. Not the past. Tomorrow you, Hank, Jean, and myself will start again. And I believe you had asked permission for your friend Diana to visit? So tonight, let's have dinner, shall we?" The Professor started his motorized chair towards the exit; Scott leapt to his feet to open the door. Hank offered his arm to Melusine. "Shall we check on the progress of our meal?" Eyes wide, she tucked her hand around his arm, leaving one last thought for the two other telepaths in the room. I hope you don't regret this.
Neither do I, my dear, reflected Xavier in the private recesses of his own mind.
***
"Auntiemellie! Auntiemellie!" came a loud cry, as three and a half feet of five-year-old fury hurled itself through the front door of the Xavier Institute and into Melusine's eager embrace.
"Cassie!" She gave her goddaughter a fervent hug, then stood to greet Diana. For a few minutes their conversation was unintelligible to the others who'd found convenient excuses to loiter around the mansion's main entrance. Finally Diana stepped back to take a good look at her errant friend. Cassie had swarmed into her beloved godmother's arms, and now laid her dark head possessively on Melusine's slender shoulder. "You're wearing your hair down," Diana said approvingly. "I like it." Melusine's free hand moved compulsively to her temple, feeling the absent weight of the three tiny braids she normally favoured there. A gentle cough came from behind her.
"Diana, may I present Scott Summers, Jean Grey, Ororo Monroe, Logan, and Professor Charles Xavier?" A tall young man with chestnut hair and ruby-red sunglasses stepped forward to shake her hand. "My friend, Diana DeSantos, and her daughter, Cassandra." And if Jean and Ororo were a study in contrasts, one with red hair, red outfit, pale skin, the other, white hair, white clothes, and lovely dark skin, they were equally matched by Logan and the Professor. Logan was compact, muscular, and quite possibly the hairiest man she'd ever seen; the Professor, even confined to his wheelchair, was long, lean and bald as a baboon's-
"Welcome to the Xavier School for Gifted Children," greeted the Professor, derailing her train of thought. Diana surveyed the welcoming committee a second time.
"A little old, your students," she observed.
Scott stepped right into the awkward silence that followed. "Oh, we're the faculty," he assured. Diana didn't have to look to know that Melusine was rolling her eyes.
***
Diana leaned back in her chair, enjoying the warm spring sun on her face. They were seated on the grassy lawn behind the mansion, Melusine, Cassie, and a few other children playing a raucous game of tag nearby. "It's a truly wonderful location you have here, Professor Xavier." She shifted in her seat to face him directly. "Now, where did you find Melusine?"
"In Manhattan. She was injured. My people brought her here."
"Not to a hospital?" she snapped.
"Considering her injuries, and her unique physiology, it seemed the better choice."
"Unique," Diana began. "You mean that she's a mutant. So this school for gifted children is really-"
"A school for mutants," Xavier confirmed. Diana laughed.
"Wonderful! I see I shall have to increase my donation." Her smile faded as she continued. "How was she injured?"
Logan answered her. "She took a header off a three-story building." The Professor hastened to reassure her. "Most of her injuries are healed, but she is still suffering from short-term amnesia, specifically relating to the period before the fall. We hoped you might be able to help us. Do you know of any reason why Melusine would have attended a fundraiser for Senator Carr?"
Diana shook her head. "No. But then, in all honesty, I haven't spoken with her for nearly three months. I was getting a little concerned."
"You don't hear from your friend for three months and you get a little concerned?" The sarcastic edge in Scott's voice earned him a glare from Jean.
"Mr. Summers, Melusine is a professional. I've found it doesn't do to inquire too deeply into what she's doing." Diana's tone was matched by the frosty gleam in her customarily warm brown eyes.
"A professional what?" wondered Storm. Diana sighed. Mel? she asked. It's alright, her friend replied, in the midst of the children's game. They'll find out sooner or later.
"I was sixteen when Melusine snuck into my father's house the first time. I caught her, she ran away, she came back, I took her to my father. She was frightened to death."
"Of?" Jean inquired.
"Melusine's mother was dead. Her father was a drunk and a gambler. When his losses got too high, he offered her as payment."
"How awful!" murmured Jean.
"I don't think she thought so at first. She was six, small and intelligent--just what the local Thieves' Guild was looking for. By fourteen, though, she'd become too large and clumsy for children's work, yet not large enough for 'adult' jobs. But the Guild owned her; her father's debts had increased and there's always a market for pretty children ..." Diana trailed off in the face of the shock she could see on the faces of Ororo, Scott and Jean. Logan and the Professor wore identical grim, unsurprised expressions.
"Papa offered her a job. As my bodyguard. Which she accepted." She raised her eyebrows at Logan's snort. "You find something amusing?" Logan considered his options, and kept his mouth closed. "That was Papa's intent. He knew, with her telepathic ability, Melusine was perfectly equipped to detect any threat to me. Yet, as a young girl, she would be discounted by others and able to go everywhere with me. Papa purchased her contract from the Guild and Melusine became a member of the Petrucci family."
"Pardon me," choked out the Professor. "Do you mean the Petrucci family?" Diana quirked her head apologetically to one side. "Then your father was-"
"'Papa John' Petrucci, head of one of the most powerful Mafia families, yes," she corroborated. "Melusine took her duties very seriously. But since my marriage and Christopher's death, she's taken on more specialized assignments, long-term, troubleshooting problems, that sort of thing." Troubleshooting? came Melusine's amused thought, carrying a whiff of old guilt with it. Stop that, Diana chided. We've both agreed it was not your fault. "Melusine follows her own agenda, but she always has her family's interests at heart." She smiled warmly at the stupefied group.
***
"Are you sure you're going to be okay here?" Melusine looked up from buttoning Cassie's coat.
"Actually, yes," she answered Diana, standing to embrace her friend. "You know I can take care of myself."
"That's not what I meant," she said, grasping Melusine's chin in one hand and searching her friend's face. Melusine appeared well enough, but the shadows in the purple eyes told a different tale. "You look tired, Mel. Why don't you go to the beach house? It'd do you oceans of good."
Melusine's eyes flickered as another memory shot out. "The beach house?" she questioned softly. "I'd forgotten!"
"Well, d'uh!" Diana scoffed, then pulled Melusine close for another hug. "Now, you are coming to see us soon, right?" Melusine nodded.
"Good!" Cassie stated firmly, taking her mother's hand. "I miss you. So does Mommy. And so does Basil."
"Then how can I stay away?" she smiled.
END OF PART FOUR
Jubilee comes sauntering back onto the A/N stage, brushing her palms together twice, then bringing them up to blow imaginary smoke from them.
Ju: And that's why you don't mess with the Jubinator. Tune in next week -- we're all going to the beach! Remy and Logan and Scottie in trunks, oh my! And don't forget to review. Her voice becomes menacing. Or I'll get you too!
A VOICE OFFSTAGE: She really means it!
Ju: KINCAID!!!!!
Z: Thanks for reading! Races backstage to separate the two imaginary characters before they make mincemeat of her mind.
Only your reviews can stop the insanity! Or keep it going, as the case may be.