Chapter 4: Nightmare
Amanda was waiting for Bruce when he came back down the stairs about an hour later. "What the hell was that about?" she said, her voice tight with anger. "In the car you said she wasn't going to be able to stay. Now all of a sudden she's coming to Massachusetts with us!"
Bruce raised an eyebrow at her. "Well, isn't that what you wanted?" he sat down on the couch, and turned on the TV, looking pleased with himself. "I'm just giving my lady love what she wants."
"Come off it, Bruce," Amanda said angrily, stalking over to him and clicking off the TV. You never do anything without a purpose. You're not doing this to make me happy; you're doing this for some reason of your own. What is it?"
Bruce dropped the charming façade. "I got my own reasons, okay, woman?" he snapped at her. "If you don't like it, tough. I don't have to explain anything to you."
Amanda sat down on the couch beside him. "Bruce, I'm not trying to demand an explanation or anything, I just want you to tell me why you suddenly changed your mind," she said coaxingly.
Bruce sighed and switched the TV back on. "Look at those colored sparks she generates, Amanda. Those were atomic in origin. Think what kinds of research papers I could write if I could find out how she does that! The recognition, the awards! Why, I might be able to win a Nobel!"
Amanda stared at him in disgust. "That's despicable, Bruce!"
Bruce grinned. "People think the same about people in your profession using rats to test medicines and cures on," he said snidely. "So where's the difference if I use a mutant? They're not real people, anyway. They're an evolutionary aberration. Hey, when I'm done with her, maybe you might want to take her and examine her. I'm sure there must be some physical structures in her somewhere that allow her to do what she does."
Amanda got off the couch and stormed out of the room, going up to her room and changing angrily into her nightclothes. She flung herself down on her bed angrily. Bruce was an asshole. He couldn't see that mutants were the same as everyone else, they just happened to be able to do things other people couldn't. She pulled the blanket over her head, trying to block out the image of Julie wired to one of Bruce's machines. Somehow or another, she was going to have to disrupt Bruce's plans. But how?
* * *
Ororo parked her silver convertible outside the motorcycle shop and walked up to the door. When a few taps on the door produced no results, she ascended the metal stairs to the overhead space that Logan had said Moose lived in, and tapped at the door at the top of the steps.
The door opened at her second knock, and Moose stood framed in the doorway. "Hello?" And then he blinked as he saw who was standing at his door. "Ororo?" he said incredulously. "What are you doing here?"
"Logan said you were not feeling well when he came home early last night," she said, holding up an insulated zippered bag. "I made some of my chicken soup. Jubilee used to say it would cure anything. I decided to see if it would cure broken arms as well." She softened the joke with a smile.
"Oh. Well, if you put it that way…" he stepped aside, waved her in, and closed the door behind him.
Ororo looked around the loft space. It wasn't as small as it looked from the outside; in fact, it was fairly roomy. She supposed that was because of the scarcity of furniture. A bed sat against the wall in one corner near a window. There was a nightstand with a small table lamp beside it, and a dresser with clothes in it directly under the window. The opposite corner had been furnished to look like a kitchen. A solitary table and two chairs sat around it, and a refrigerator marked the divide between the kitchen and the living space. The living space contained a battered but comfortable-looking couch and a TV in a wooden entertainment center. There was nothing else in the loft but a threadbare rug near the door. It was all neat, in stark comparison to most of the bachelor places she had seen…and that included Logan's and Remy's, and even Bobby's room, back at the mansion.
He shrugged. "It ain't like the fancy place you an' the little Lady live in, but it's home," he said quietly. "Me an' Lee like it."
"Who's Lee?" Ororo asked curiously.
There was a meowing at the door, and Moose opened it again, this time to admit a blue-eyed black cat. It wound around his ankles, purring, and he scooped it up, patting its head. "This is Lee," he said, holding the cat up so Ororo could see it. "She's got blue eyes, and black fur, an' I thought she looked like the little Lady, so I named her after Jubilee." He put the cat down, and it scampered across the loft to the kitchen area, where it pawed at a cabinet and meowed. He opened a cupboard, revealing clean dishes stacked inside, and took out two bowls. One he filled with water and placed on the floor. He reached into another cupboard and took out a can of cat food, opened it, and dropped its contents into the dish, and set that down in front of the cat as well.
The cat meowed once and switched its attention to the food as Ororo stepped past it and set her bag down on the table. Opening it, she took out the covered container of soup and placed it on the table. Moose brought two bowls and two spoons to the table, and she poured out a generous portion of the soup and placed the bowl in front of Moose. "Here."
He tasted it as she sat down and dipped her spoon into her own. "This is good," he said, grinning in surprise. "Wow, this is really, really good. The little Lady made me somethin' like this once, but she said it wasn't as good as your chicken soup. I tol' her she was jus' exaggeratin', but she said you really was a better cook, an' I guess she was right." He seemed a little more cheerful as he finished it, and she savored her portion as he finished his.
"Logan informed me that you got the casts removed today," she said when they had both finished and were sipping coffee that he made.
"Yeah, an' about time," Moose growled. "I done had enough o' them itchin' my skin. Got a sore place on my shoulder where the edge o' the damn cast rubbed against my skin." He turned, and showed her the red, inflamed patch of skin on the back of his shoulderblade, just clearing the edge of his sleeveless tank top.
Ororo got up and went around behind him, inspecting the skin. "Do you have anything to put on this?" she said.
"Well, yeah, the hospital gave me some stuff, but it's kinda an awkward place to reach, and I can't manage the trick, so I jus' left it alone. It don' hurt that much, anyway, an' it'll heal faster if I leave it alone."
Ororo tsked gently and went to get a paper towel from the roll hanging from the wall over the sink. "Now I know where Jubilee got that particular saying from," she chided him. "She used to say that all the time to me; she could not reach it, and she was too stubborn to ask someone for help, so she would pretend it did not bother her and leave it alone. She nearly contracted an infection once. She left an open wound alone and went out to work on her bike with Logan, and grime and motor grease got into it. After that, he started to check on her himself. If she did not do it herself, he would either make her do it or he did it for her himself." She finished cleaning the skin around the wound. "Where is the salve you received from the hospital?"
"Oh, no, you don't have to, honest, Ororo…" but she placed a finger on his lips. He shrugged, and when she removed her finger he said, "In there, the cupboard over the sink. I got a first-aid kit down in the shop, in the bathroom, if that would help too." She nodded and made a motion, as if she were going to get up. He prevented her. "No, stay there. I'll get it."
He returned a short while later with the white box in his arms, and sat back down as she opened the kit. She cleaned the area with an alcohol swab, then squeezed some of the salve from the tube onto his skin and rubbed it in with her fingertips, noting with some amusement the way he leaned back into her touch. Poor man, she mused as she carefully taped a white gauze pad over the raw area. He doesn't have anyone else to do this for him.
As if reading her mind, he said sheepishly, "The little Lady used to do stuff like this for me all the time, but she's…gone…and there ain't nobody else who cares enough."
"I care," Ororo said gently, washing her hands in the sink. "Jubilee cared for you a great deal. The least I can do is pick up where she left off."
"I don't…I don't want you to feel like you have to," Moose said awkwardly, twisting the kitchen towel around in his fingers.
"I do not 'have' to," Ororo said, packing the now-empty dish back into the bag she'd brought it in. "I came here tonight because I wanted to. I would comfort Logan if I could, but he does not wish me to 'fuss over him', as he puts it. Jubilee is…no longer here…for me to care for, or for you to care for." She lapsed into silence as she collected the empty dishes and placed them in the sink. "It seemed to make sense to me to 'fuss over' you, since you seem to need it."
"I don't need it…" he started, and she gave him such a look from under her long lashes that he started to chuckle helplessly. "The little Lady used to give me that same look," he said when he finally stopped laughing, "whenever she thought I'd said something especially stupid." He sobered, looked at her thoughtfully. "If that's what you want to do, 'Ro, then go on ahead. Not as if I could stop you anyway; never had much luck stopping pretty ladies from doing whatever they wanted to do."
She blushed, and was prevented from answering by the sight of Lee tugging at the corner of the carpet. "Lee!" Moose lunged for the cat, but she scampered out of his way, dragging the carpet with her, and Ororo saw the brownish-red stain that marred the floor there.
"What happened here?" Ororo looked at the stain.
"It's the little Lady's blood," Moose said. "She tangled with that gang called the Bloody Eagles, an got hurt bad…Logan an I went looking for her, found her here...it was last year, right before she…died…" Ororo nodded.
"I remember that," she said. "Logan said that you said he should take her to a hospital, and he told you that we had better medical facilities at home than the hospital had."
"Yes, well…" Moose's cheeks turned pink. "I didn't know then that you guys were the X-Men," he said.
Ororo gave him a narrow-eyed look. "No, Jubilee didn't tell me," he said, "I figured it out when I saw the fancy place she and Logan lived in, and when I saw her saving that plane full of people. Don't worry, I wouldn't tell a soul; she'd probably come back to haunt me if I did!"
Ororo chuckled, albeit a bit sadly. "She probably would," she said quietly.
"I didn't know how to get it out of the floor, so I just pull the rug over it." He looked at the stain sadly. "It's all I have of her...except this," and he pulled his dog tags out of his shirt, and she saw the tiny circle of gold on it. "Logan told me I could keep it."
"He wears her engagement ring around his dog tag chain," Ororo said softly, touching the little circle of gold. "It is odd that you do so as well." She dropped the ring, looking up into the eyes of the man who treasured it so much. "She will never be gone, really, as long as you remember her."
"And you remember her, too," Moose said softly.
* * *
Amanda's eyes flew open. For just a moment she wasn't sure what had woken her, but then it came again. Julie's scream. She sprang out of bed and flung open her door, ran down the hall, and stopped in Julie's bedroom door in shock.
Julie was writhing in the bed, her face twisted in pain. As Amanda watched, she curled up, as if she'd been punched in the stomach, and then she arched her back, screaming again, every muscle in her body pulled tight in agony. "No…" The cry was full of remembered pain. "No, Creed, please don't, not again, please stop, you're hurting me, stop it, stop it…"
Amanda bit her lip, tears filling her eyes. Whatever had happened to her friend had to have been terrible, to have caused her such pain. She was about to go over to the bed, to try and wake her up from the nightmare, when Bruce pushed past her. "Wake up," he said, none too gently to the straining, gasping figure on the bed. "Wake up. You're disturbing my sleep!"
Julie punched the air in front of her, her fist narrowly missing Bruce's cheek. He grabbed her wrist to keep her from punching him again, and she went wild in the bed, screaming incoherently. Amanda said from the door, "Bruce, let go of her wrist. She doesn't like anything touching her wrists!"
Bruce grabbed her other wrist. "What, you want me to let go so she can punch me again?" He shook his head. "Uh-uh." He pinned the struggling girl down to the bed with his body weight as he snapped, "Wake up!"
Julie's eyes remained tightly shut, and she didn't respond. If anything, her struggles increased, and Bruce nearly fell off the bed as she twisted wildly under him. He transferred both thin wrists to his other hand, and before Amanda could stop him, he had slapped Julie's face hard enough to leave a reddened imprint of his hand on her pale cheek. She froze, then with a burst of strength Amanda didn't know she had, she threw Bruce off her body and flung herself out of bed, crawling across the floor to the corner of the room and curling up on the floor.
Amanda went to kneel beside her, staying out of the girl's personal space, and said the name, "Logan." Julie's body froze, and the soft whimpering sounds she was making stopped abruptly. Amanda said it again. "Logan."
Two more repetitions of the name, and Julie was quiet, sleeping soundly and dreamlessly. Bruce gaped at her as Amanda slid an arm under Julie's arm and half-dragged, half-carried the sleeping girl back to the bed. Dropping her onto the bed, she straightened the sheets and pulled the blanket up to cover her again. Bruce had enough sense at least to remain silent as Amanda tucked her in, then turned and followed her out of the room. He didn't say a word until she had closed the room door.
"What was that all about?" He snapped, thankfully quietly.
Amanda leaned against Julie's bedroom door. "When I found her she was a wreck. She'd been brutally raped and beaten, is my guess, judging from the marks all over her body. There were marks on her wrists that looked like someone had tied rope around them, and she couldn't stand anything touching them. She spent two weeks lying in that bed up there suffering from delirium and fever. I could barely get her calmed down enough to put salve on the rope burns on her wrists.
"She had nightmares like the one you just saw. She'd scream and cry, and I couldn't touch her while she was in the middle of one of them. Whenever I touched her she'd start fighting. One night I remembered she had a tattoo on her hip of the name 'Logan.' I spoke the name, and she calmed down and went back to sleep."
"Yeah, well, a good slap would do the trick too," he grumbled as he started to walk away.
Amanda grabbed his arm. "No it doesn't. It just makes her cry and withdraw into herself. You saw it. Nothing wakes her when she has one of these nightmares; she just has to calm down and get back to sleep. And the only thing that calms her down is that name. But she never remembers the dreams in the morning. Sometimes I think that's a good thing...I can't imagine how she's going to feel when she finally remembers whatever happened to her." Amanda shook her head and went off down the hall toward her own room.
She woke with sunlight streaming in the window. For a moment she wondered why she'd slept so late, then the memory of the events of the night before came back to her and she jumped out of bed.
She dressed quickly and went downstairs, noting as she went that Bruce's room door was still closed. So he was sleeping late too. Good. She'd have a chance to talk to Julie before Bruce did.
Julie was downstairs cooking breakfast when Amanda came in. Eggs were cooking in one pan, and bacon sizzled merrily in a skillet on the other burner. Julie herself was sitting at the table, sipping coffee and staring abstractedly into space. There were dark circles under her normally bright blue eyes, and she looked tired.
"Morning," Amanda said, going to the coffee maker. "No, no, just sit, dear, you had a rough night last night. I'll get my own coffee," she said. As she stirred her cream into her cup, she looked searchingly at Julie. "How do you feel?"
"Not good," the girl confessed. "I had another nightmare last night, didn't I?" Amanda nodded, and Julie pressed her lips together. "I sort of remember Bruce coming into the room, and slapping me," she said. "But you were the one who calmed me down. I don't remember the dream, though." She sipped her coffee. "Amanda, do you have any idea what happened to me?"
Amanda sat down heavily. She knew, but she didn't want to tell Julie. Not out of any sense of meanness, but because she didn't think the girl was ready to hear about it. From what she'd heard Julie scream in her sleep, Julie would need to have people she knew and trusted around her to help her when she finally did remember what happened. "I don't know," she said slowly, as if she were thinking. "You cry a lot in your sleep, but I don't know what happened, apart from what I deduced from the injuries you had." She looked into her coffee. "I'm sorry." She didn't look at the girl as she spoke, worried that Julie would see the lie.
Julie shrugged. "It's not your fault," she said quietly. "But maybe I shouldn't go with you to Massachusetts. Maybe I should stay here. Maybe someone's looking for me somewhere."
"But Amanda said the name Snow Valley brought some kind of memory back," Bruce said, coming into the kitchen. "If you come with us, we can maybe figure out why it's familiar."
"I guess," Julie looked dubious, as Amanda gave Bruce an odd look. He ignored it and sat at the table, demolishing a plate of eggs and bacon with more appetite than Amanda had ever seen. Because his head was bent over the plate, neither girl saw the triumphant grin on his face.