Disclaimer: Fanfiction based on properties of Marvel Comics. No claim is made on their property and no material profit is intended or expected.
Ashes of Chaos: Break of Dawn
by Jaya Mitai and Persephone
Part 12
Moira was roused from a deep sleep the next morning by an insistent chime. She listened muzzily to it for a moment, trying very hard to connect the noise to a meaning so it would become a signal. It was not the distinctive sound of a medical alarm, because out of trained habit and concern she responded to those even before she was fully aware of being awake, much as she had years ago roused and hurried to Kevin's cradle almost before he could reach full wail. Matter of fact, she usually figured out halfway down the hall that she was responding to a medical alarm, and only then became properly alert and able to analyze situations.
At any rate, this wasn't one. That established, however sleepily, Moira rubbed at her eyes and pushed herself up onto one elbow, feeling a slight chill as her blanket slid down off her shoulder. Ugh, every muscle in her body felt sore. Not an intrusion alarm, which was a more jarring sound and should have had adrenaline flooding her at once. Not her regular wake-up alarm.... Wrong rhythm for the telephone....
Ah, that was it! Of course. Not the telephone, but someone wanted her on the vidscreen. Moira reached this conclusion triumphantly and rolled to a sitting position, then whacked her pillow in exasperation. A vidscreen call, and she'd be just out of bed.
On the bright side, anybody who'd be calling her on the vidscreen without an appointment, which she was quite sure whoever this was didn't have, would probably be an old friend -- most likely Xavier or Sean -- or associate, and it wouldn't be an utter disaster if they saw her half awake.
A dark burgundy bathrobe and quick hair-smoothing later, Moira deemed herself marginally presentable, and finally made her way into the room and jabbed the button to respond to the call.
She'd been looking at a face very like that one for days on end now.
"Nathan! 'Tis good to see you again." She studied the image. Swelling nicely down in the jaw, eyes focused and alert -- more so than hers, at the moment -- and the cuts and bruises essentially gone. Not to mention mobile. Much better.
"Moira. What's this I hear about you thinking about trying to treat Stryfe psychologically?" Cable began without preamble. "I have enough trouble thinking of you putting him back together physically, but his mind's too far gone, and--" he halted before his rant was fairly begun. "Oath, are you all right? You look exhausted."
"A'm fine, Nathan. A was just asleep, though, ye got me oot of bed."
"Got you -- Moira, it's 10:00 AM there!"
"Aye, well, A was up a wee bit late last night. And 'tis 5:00 AM there, sae A'm assuming ye had something particular on yuir mind, tae be calling? Ye look much better than when A last saw ye. Of course, if ye dinnae, A'd be worried."
"Oh, thanks. Seriously, Moira, you don't look... well. You look exhausted... more so than when I saw you last. Taking care of him and dealing with Legacy at the same time is doing you in, isn't it."
"Nathan...."
"I can see it, see the toll it's taking--" Moira opened her mouth, and Nathan rushed on. "Don't tell me, you want to 'get through to him', right? To heal his mind as well as his body? Moira, that's suicide!"
"Nathan."
"You don't know what he's like. I do. I've fought him for years, decades, you know that; he's a madman and a monster and he deserves to die! There is no way to 'get through to him,' Moira; if you try he'll only play along and use you as long as he can and then he will kill you. Oath, I know you -- you won't consent to having him executed as he should be, but can't you at least see this is pointless!"
"Nathan!"
At her more forceful interjection, Cable finally stopped for breath. "Moira, please listen to me...."
"Listen tae me for a moment, Nathan. Ye hae it right, A willnae hae ye cooming here tae kill him." Her accent thickened; she'd managed to wring a burst of wakefulness from the walk to the comm room, but she was still a bit sleepy, not to mention emotional, and her natural speech patterns tended to be exaggerated under those conditions.
"Ye ken perfectly well A've taken an oath that binds me tae help heal a man who's been brought tae me as a patient," she said quietly, but with growing force. "'Tis my duty as a doctor, and in the same way 'tis my duty tae at least try tae heal his mind as well!"
"Listen to me, Moira! It won't work, it can't. He doesn't want your help or anybody else's!"
She drew a breath and assumed a very reasonable tone. "Nathan, A have a duty tae try. As much tae the rest of the world as tae him, really. If A'm tae restore his body -- which A will -- A'd better be doing my best for all our sakes, his included, sae that he'll be able tae live in the world withoot fighting it for all time." Her tone turned from pensiveness to hint craftily at challenge. "Are ye saying A'm nae competent tae do it?"
Cable exploded. "NO! Oath, Moira, that's not what I said at all! If anyone could do it I'm sure it would be you, but don't you see he'll never cooperate? He doesn't want help. He doesn't want to live with the world; he wants to destroy it! You're one of my best friends; I don't want to watch you drive yourself to exhaustion and get yourself killed by that oath-forsaken maniac because you decided it was your duty to set off devoting yourself to some impossible, suicidal fool's mission!"
Moira's lips quirked as she listened to Nathan's concerned tirade crescendo and finally crash to a climactic finale. Listened incredulously -- had he really just said that? -- and yet with almost no surprise. "Nathan? Take yuir foot oot of yuir mouth before ye swallow it," she said gently. He looked at her, mouth opening slightly and brows drawing together in the beginnings of a confused expression. Her voice was soft, half amused, half rueful. "We donnae really like watching ye do the same thing, Nathan. Ye hae verra little room for talk."
She watched as his eyes widened almost comically in dawning comprehension. His mouth opened and closed several times before he shot to his feet, knocking his chair into a backwards skid across the floor, and spouted a stream of profanities in several languages. Moira estimated that about half of them belonged to languages currently extant. Then he stalked aside, right leg clearly dragging a bit, and disappeared from view.
Moira couldn't help wincing at the crashing sounds from off camera, as the chair collided vigorously with the wall and was then (she hypothesized from the rattling and banging) picked up, shaken, thrown against another wall, and then dashed against the floor for good measure. There was a duller thump somewhere in the mix that might have been Cable losing his balance and catching himself with a shoulder to the wall.
Nathan's image limped back to the vidscreen, and he leaned on the edge of the control panel, breathing heavily, and glowered at her. Moira, being an old friend and of forceful personality herself, was pretty much immune to the glower and would have returned it if she hadn't been interrupted by a yawn. No real venom to this one, anyway, not towards her.
Not like the ones she'd been getting lately.
"I walked right into that, didn't I?" he managed in a rueful tone that contained some quality vaguely resembling an approximation of calm.
"Aye, that ye did, A'm afraid." She hadn't meant to be quite so provoking, but he'd left such an utterly perfect opening that she'd hardly been able to help herself.
Cable buried his face in one hand for a moment, leaving the other on the edge of the console for support. He took several deep breaths before turning away and limping out of view again, briefly, to retrieve his maltreated chair and sit in it. Moira was vaguely surprised that it was still in one piece, much less capable of supporting him. He leaned his elbows on the console, laced his fingers under his chin, and looked at her pleadingly. "All right. Point taken. But Moira," he said rather plaintively, desperation coloring his tones, "I worry about you."
It was much more difficult to resist Nathan when he was being plaintive than when he was being cantankerous. Moira steeled herself. "A'm perfectly fine." That would have been much more convincing, she thought, if not for the yawn that insisted on being yawned directly afterwards. "A'll admit 'tis a wee bit more sleep A should be getting" -- now that was quite a concession, for her -- "but yuir brother's nae up tae doing much of anything at all yet; the worst he can gie me is a tongue-lashing and an evil ee."
"Oh, for NOW, sure," Cable grumbled. "And he's not my brother," he added with a glare. "What about when you get him up and around again -- which I've no doubt you will -- and he brings the building down around your ears?"
Moira restrained herself judiciously from pointing out that Stryfe had so far done significantly less structural damage to her research facility than either Cable or Nate Grey had done on their respective first visits. It was true, but not terribly relevant; besides, in Cable's case it had been her fault, however unintentional. "There's nae real sign of his powers coming back, and A'm thinking he'd have a wee mite of trouble tearing the place down without them, nae being Samson or the like."
"There's no guarantee his powers WON'T come back, and you know it. Moira, please. It's bad enough watching what you're doing to yourself, but," his voice failed him for a moment before he continued more softly, "I can't bear the thought of what he might do to you."
"Nathan --" She seemed to keep saying that. The name came more gently to her mouth now, with gray-blue and gold-bright eyes both seeming to plead with her. This time it was almost more an attempt to reassure than to interrupt, and unsurprisingly he barely slowed.
"Whether his powers come back or not, he won't cooperate any more than he thinks he has to do to live. He'll try to trick you; he'll pretend to go along with you. If his telepathy does come back he could, and would, mind-control you. Quickly, slowly, either way. He could do just enough to make you believe in him, and fool you, and then break your heart when he showed his true colors again, because I know you'd get involved -- oath, you're already involved; I can see it in the way you're setting your mouth and looking stubborn at me, and don't start in with me about the dirty kitchen implements again -- in wanting him 'well.'"
She did smile, a little bit, at the sideways approach to the cliché.
Nathan heaved a deep breath and appeared to shudder slightly. "Or he could make you his mind-slave, to one degree or another," he said bluntly, heavily. "He could use you. Control you. Take away your will and make you a shadow or twisted reflection of yourself, turn you directly against -- your friends or trap us into situations where he can play us against each other. Moira, if you don't care if he hurts you, if he takes away your very self, can't you at least think what it would do to the rest of us, or just how much more harm he could do if he forced you to help him?"
Moira bowed her head against the intensity of his gaze, then raised it and met his eyes steadily. "A ken there tae be risks, Nathan. A cannae deny it, and A thank ye for the warnings. But A'm still bound tae treat his injuries, and A cannae do that responsibly without making an effort tae bring his ideas around as well. A willnae pretend that's only for his sake or only tae make him less of a threat, because A cannae omit either one and still tell the truth. A donnae think the situation's quite as hopeless as ye see it, either."
"You wouldn't," he grumbled. "That's why I'm worried. Not that it's the ONLY reason, or anything. I should fly over there and drag him out and shoot him."
"Donnae even think about it."
"How're you going to stop me?"
"Thinking or doing?"
"Either one."
She looked evasive for a moment. "Ye donnae want tae ken."
He laughed, but not very cheerfully. "Well, that's you all over. He can't have done anything yet."
"Be reassured," she suggested dryly.
"Why? He hasn't had a chance so far," Nathan returned stubbornly. Then he sighed, looking all at once very tired. "Look, I understand that you think you have to do this. I don't like it one bit. Not one. But I won't come over there to save you from your own folly -- as long as you promise to talk to me at least every week so I can see if you're all right."
"Agreed," Moira said instantly, then smiled at Nathan's sudden look of suspicion. "Donnae give me that look. Did ye really think A'd object tae yuir keeping in touch for once?"
His face cleared, and he had the grace to look ever so faintly chagrined for a moment. "Then... good." He sighed again. "Actually, I still wouldn't go that far, but we know that. G'journey."
"And the same tae ye, Nathan." She flicked the off switch as he reached for his own, and then sat pensively for a moment in front of the blank screen. After a moment, she stirred and sternly sent herself to the shower instead of first indulging in a cup of coffee.
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