Misfit- Chapter 5
Disclaimer- Ok I own Lizzie, Her daddy dearest and the mutants you've never heard of before and that Marvel haven't either. If they do not fill the above criteria then they are not mine and Marvel own them, I am just borrowing and am making no money. I wish I was but that's not the point.
Notes- Anything but Ordinary3 best friend and god, thanks always. Retribution X is still one of the greatest stories out there so read them. Ncsgirl for your kind words thanks, believe me I appreciate it. ZilentZombie, Xx-Disturbed-xX and Darkthedestroyer thank you for the reviews of previous pieces of work. These encourage me to write and to write more. So thanks.
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The darkness, the bright flashes… memories forgotten returned. Pain thought healed ripping through your heart and veins again; fresh as the time you felt it first.
The car… Twisted metal. The rose… left behind. The police… Standing helplessly by, Unmoving like statues. Time frozen in the mirror of the dream world.
Elizabeth the elder, stood amongst the devastation. She stood behind herself; Elizabeth the younger, an eight year old, her mousy hair piled on top of her head, clutching a rose as the wind howled by and the rain poured down.
"Where's mummy?" the younger girl asked innocently, but her mouth didn't move because she was not talking. She wasn't thinking it either. Instead it was an echo from the time before this frozen moment, this eternal instant. In the box, in the dark, she had asked her father where her mother had gone.
"Headache darling, she went home. She'll be waiting for us." Came the voice of her father, cutting through the air. He wasn't there either- just another echo. His words were simple enough, but now they were stained with a thousand tears. Her mother wasn't waiting when they got home.
"You enjoyed that didn't you?" His voice asked again.
In unison, both versions of Elizabeth nodded while still looking at what lay in front of them.
"There's some police up ahead sir, looks like the roads closed." Taylor, their driver announced through the blackened window. that's how she remembered it, but had it been through the intercom- was there even an intercom in the limo? It didn't matter because she didn't see it, she just heard the words instead.
"Sir, they say there's been an accident up ahead but their gonna let up go through. Just don't look out the windows, apparently its pretty bad…"
Twisted metal, two cars becoming one, a fatal union.
Mother…
The black limo, our cars twin.
Mother…
"That's my wife's car."
Mother…?
Everything stopping, the world crashing down. Running from the limo to this spot, the place that haunts one forever.
Mother… Mummy…?
"Wake up mummy…" Her neck at a strange angle, blood covering the front of her gown, glass embedded in soft flesh… Closed casket.
She can't be dead though… she's MY mummy.
"Elizabeth… get away from there!!"
"But I want to see mummy, wake up mummy…"
But she didn't and never would.
"Dad, what's wrong with mummy?"
She's dead… the older Elizabeth stared at the younger, still clutching her rose, as she was dragged away- lifted and carried over daddies shoulder, still looking back and crying. The elder however stood clutching an identical rose, lifting it to her nose as the scene changed around her; to the open grave, the earth the Father and her own had thrown. She lifted the rose again, this time it was rotting, maggots crawling from in between the petals. Finally she threw it into the ground…
Ending her nightmare…
Elizabeth leapt up in bed as the nightmare ended. A cold sweat poured from her forehead as she sat gasping for breath.
"Damn telepaths, why do they always have to meddle where they aren't wanted." She whispered quietly trying not to disturb her roommates.
She checked her gold, heart-shaped watch for the time… just coming up for 10. Why was she always the first one asleep?
Well her dream made her not want to go back to sleep, and she could feel the acid in her stomach swirling and gurgling around. She needed food and now before she woke up the entire academy. So slowly she slipped out of the door.
Storm silently slipped down the stairs in a half daze; She'd had the dream again. She had it almost every night since Jean had…
She needed something to drink, someone to talk to, anything- she just didn't want to go back to sleep.
She heard a crash in the kitchen and decided she should investigate.
"Damn it, who'd put a saucepan there!" A girls voice exclaimed and a scraping could be heard as she forced it back into place.
Storm reached the door and peeped round the edge. Standing by the fridge was the little anarchist as Logan had put it.
Elizabeth stood in the doorway of the fridge looking puzzled before removing a family sized bag of Doritos from it.
"Why the hell would a sane person keep crisps in the fridge?" she asked herself quietly.
"Because no one looks there for them…" Storm spoke up stepping into the doorway, pulling herself up to her full height to look imposing.
The Girl leapt into the air about three feet and went into a fighting stance before realising who she was facing. She quickly changed into the respectable ramrod straight-backed girl that had been in Xavier's office earlier. Then she softened it a bit.
"Core blimy, don't do that again." Lizzie smiled recovering from the shock. Storm just stood by the doorframe watching the girl as she tried to conceal the bag of chips behind her back.
"What are you doing up?" the teacher asked, trying to sound as stern as she could, but inside she was glad that someone was awake besides herself. Since the attack on the academy some six months before most of the children avoided the halls and downstairs of the academy when the teachers were not around.
"I couldn't sleep." The younger woman bluffed unsuccessfully. Her cover was fully blown when the timer on the microwave went off with a loud PING.
"…And I was a bit hungry." She confessed finally.
Storm pulled up a stool to the central surface, watching as the girl finally revealed the family size bag of chips and tossed them on to the worktop beside a strawberry milkshake. She glided over to the microwave and pulled a box out containing a middle-sized burger.
Storm rolled her eyes as the girl settled down in a seat just up from her, "Do you think it's wise eating all that junk food before bed?"
"I need the energy." Came the reply through a mouthful of burger. "I need to keep my energy levels up in case…" she paused looking at Storm for a second before shaking her head and replacing the burger in the box "In case I need to use my powers, it takes a lot of energy to… Do what I do." She wasn't going to give much away Storm realised but she still recognised that the girl was probably telling her more then she had let be know to anyone else- possibly she knew more than Xavier. That was a very strange feeling.
"Does it take a huge amount of energy then… to use your powers?" The girl nodded and resumed eating her dinner.
"Only when I use them for a lot of time, if I only use them in short sharp bursts then it doesn't. But it takes a lot to use one of them- that one I don't use much."
"What do you do, Lizzie?" the girl looked annoyed, and threw the remnants of her supper down, Storm however wasn't fazed "Why won't you tell anyone?"
"Because its private. I don't want people I hardly know- no offence intended- knowing my secrets when those people closest to me don't know them."
"No offence taken, but we can't help you if you don't tell us." Storm looked at her with a little distain.
The girl paused on her way out the door; she turned back to the teacher for a second "What makes you think I need your help? I've done fine by myself for eleven years, I'll do fine for the rest of my life." She started to walk again.
"You've deigned your powers for eleven years, when do you ever use them? To sneak away from people, to fight people? What do you do?"
"You keep asking that. I use them plenty." She shot back.
"Really? When was the last time you really used your powers? I mean for something really big?"
Elizabeth faltered, then finally she moaned "3 months ago." She shuffled her feet in embarrassment.
"See that wasn't so hard was it?" The older woman smiled at her before reaching for the discarded remains of the burger and taking a bite.
"Hey, I thought you said junk food before bed…"
"I lied."
Two hours and the two were still sitting in the kitchen, Elizabeth having decided for all its worth that she would stay and learn a little more about what she was getting herself into at "Mutant high".
Storm however was no closer to understanding the enigma that was Lizzie Windsor, every time she asked her a question the girl would counter it by asking one of her own so that the emphasis was taken off of her. It was a masterful trick, and it only reinforced what Storm had learnt already; this girl was bright, very bright.
"So you ever had a boyfriend, or doesn't your power permit that?" Storm questioned sipping her root beer. The question had lead on from Elizabeth telling her how sorry she felt for Rogue and Bobby- never being able to show each other any kind of intimate bond.
"How 'bout you?" Lizzie smiled back, liking the fact that the teacher was getting interested, and that she was holding a little power.
"I've had boyfriends, powers permit it but telling the man you love you're a mutant is a passion killer."
"Don't I know it." The younger of the women agreed.
"Ahhhh, so you have had a boyfriend." Storm basked in the glory of her small victory over the other, but she just shook it off.
"I was saying in the metaphorical sense, I know how you feel as a mutant…"
"Don't wriggle out of it, I found something out about you."
"One small thing, that's all. What have you REALLY learnt from that slipped piece of information?"
Storm paused and thought, "That you had a boyfriend," She started to laugh, "That there is a heart beating under that strong exterior."
Elizabeth paused with her bottle halfway to her lips stunned. "You thought I didn't have a heart?" She asked quietly.
Storm realised what a mistake she had made when the saw the anxious, injured look in the girls eyes. She was more sensitive than anyone had though. "No, I didn't. Well… of course you have a heart it's just…"
The girl got up quickly and Storm remembered something from earlier, "Humans have a way of lashing out when they're afraid, or hurt" this sentiment could now be extended to Elizabeth Windsor.
"Don't go back on what you just said. You thought I had no heart. I have just as much heart as everyone else here. Maybe more so"
"I don't doubt that Elizabeth, it's just that… well when other people come here, it stirs up a lot of emotions, and you… well you seem to be taking the transition really well."
"Well." She scoffed, "Me, ha! Storm I'm a mess. I may keep my head when I'm in the public but… I'm lost; I'm alone for the first time in years. I'm supposed to confront my powers and embrace them, but all my life I've been told that… that I shouldn't have them and that I certainly shouldn't use them, for the good of my family and name. Everything's changed in the course of a few hours, and I feel like I'm drowning in it. But I have to keep going, this isn't just going to stop, I have to get on with it. No matter how I feel." The young woman this time made it to the door before looking back at the teacher who stood, a little shaken by what the other had said.
Elizabeth just gave an incline of her head and a faint glimmer of a smile before turning on her heel and walking out and down the corridor, wiping steadily forming tears from her eyes.
By the time she was halfway to her dorm room, Elizabeth Windsor had given in and let the fear and loneliness she was feeling take full hold of her body. She'd never been alone like this before; there had always been people around her. She'd never let them into her mind or let them see her feelings and now crying in the hall of a strange place was making her even more self-conscious.
She did her little game as she walked, trying to compose herself. Whenever emotion threatened to consume her before to this degree she played a game her father had taught her, a game that protected the world as well as her heart, after all a simple slip with her emotions could cause havoc. As she walked she tried to think of a sentence.
"I'm walking through the hall," she whispered. Now she had to write a song and sing it to herself as she moved.
"I'm crying my heart out." She continued, singing a little melody that she composed herself.
"I wish someone could hear my pain." And she really wished someone could, but there was no one else in the corridor and there wasn't likely to be. It had just turned midnight according to her watch; none of the mutants would be up and about now.
"I'm fighting for my every breath. But wishing it could be my last. But I'll survive. I always survive." She finished as she slowly walked into the dorm. Somehow whenever she played the game the last words of the verse were I always survive. She had enough verses stored in her memory to turn the song into a 3 hour opera. But it was true- she always did survive.
She walked slowly over to the mirror on the wall, stickers covered the edges, each of some pop or rap star that Lizzie had never really heard of, but didn't want to draw attention to the fact.
Silently she examined her puffy eyes in the reflection as Digital tossed and turned muttering something about sheep and Aqua snored even louder than when Lizzie had left earlier, Obsidian just lay as still as death. The girl in the mirror couldn't be her. For the first time since her mothers death Lizzie's reflection looked worn down and broken and that wasn't how Elizabeth Windsor should have looked. There should have been a spark in her eyes, the mischief she was renowned for the passion she inspired. But there was nothing, her eyes were hollow.
She needed to be her again. Become the woman she was before she came to this place. Gain some control. There was only one way to do that.
Lizzie checked her watch and did a quick mental sum on how long certain things would take and if it would in the long run be possible. She assured herself it could be done and that it should be, for her own sanities sake.
A wicked smile that enchanted all that met her crossed her lips and for a second the glow of mischief re-entered her eyes. Tonight she was going to have some fun.
As Elizabeth prepared and busied herself she didn't notice the eyes watching her, inspecting and noting her every move and every note she hummed from inside her wardrobe, peering through the gap.
The person, whoever it was, waited until Elizabeth exited fully dressed out of the window and onto the little roof below before raising a walkie-talkie to their lips.
"She's on her way, boss" the man's voice cut through the darkness as he smiled evilly.
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