A/N: Rated for mature themes and language. Somehow this came to mind when I decided I wanted to write a holiday fic.' I have no idea how.

I am a sick, sick, twisted person.

Disclaimer: You know, giving Marvel to me would be a kick-ass christmas present, but alas...

The grounds are beautiful this time of year; everything about the mansion is. With every kind of mutant ability and mountains of money available, the teachers don't have any excuse for the decorations to be anything but stunningly gorgeous.

Carter is having the time of his life. He just got out of class, and she can see him participating in an epic snowball fight with the rest of the kids outside. It's snowing, but not hard enough to make anything the tiniest bit uncomfortable, just enough to give everything that extra touch of beauty and good-feeling.

Annie is cold. They still haven't gotten the heating in her room quite right; either that or Bobby is being vindictive. She doesn't mind, though, not really--it makes winter feel more authentic. She needs authenticity in her life, after all the crazy happenings in the last few months.

Christmas is so joyful and spirited here. The teachers are nicer than usual--even Emma Frost was spotted giving out candy canes during class. They want to make it up to the kids who can't share Christmas with loved ones, either because they have none or their families abandoned them.

Annie scowls at that thought. She's still a bit angry that so many X-men thought that she would leave Carter here without her, or worse, run off with him. What kind of mother could possibly do that?! No matter how uncomfortable mutants made her--something else these X-people loved to exaggerate and hold against her--she would never hurt Carter like that. He is all she has.

Annie knows that isn't quite true, not anymore. She has friends here; she has a steady job and a reliable home; hell, she even has a man she loves and who loves Carter. But she can't shake off the survival instincts, the ferocious protectiveness and the paranoia that have gotten her through those horrible years after Carter was born, after she left his dad. Dreams of that lifetime still plague her: vague memories of struggling to pay the rent on the shittiest apartment in the shittiest part of Chicago; getting fired from her temp job because she took Carter with her to work when it was discovered his day care teacher had been implemented in child porn; those few nights between apartments when she had no place to go but a bench in some park, cradling her baby boy and praying that the cops decided to be kind and leave her alone.

Sometimes those memories come back to her, in the middle of the night, but that's rare. What she can count on is the dream, always the dream; one specific memory of the worst night in her life.

It had been six months. Six months since she'd stolen her baby and herself from that madman, set out to make a new life for herself. A sense of dread woke her from her dreams, and she knew Carter was gone even before she rushed to his crib, before she found her apartment trashed and everything burnt. She knew he'd returned for her son.

Annie knew Karl's friends, and more importantly, knew that they played poker every night at the local mutant club. She had to fire three warning shots into the table, the wall and one of the guys' feet before they realized she meant business, before they gave in and told her where Karl was hiding.

She was stupid enough to think she could talk him into giving back her son. She should have just knocked him out as soon as he opened the door, but instead she used words, demanded that he give Carter back. Karl had smirked, obviously drunk, and replied, Yeah, when hell freezes over, ya bitch. He turned, swaggering into a messy apartment. Long time, no see, Annie; come on in, I'll get ya a drink.

She stepped into the living room, hovering close to the door in case he tried anything. I'm serious, you asshole. Give me my son or I swear to god I will send you to an early grave.

He snorted and burped. Wow toots, you really got me shakin' in my boots.

Carter started wailing from his crib, and in an instant Karl was standing over him. Don't you ever stop crying, you little shit?! He raised his hand and brought it down hard upon the baby's cheek.

At that point she snapped. She wasn't Annie Ghazikanian anymore; she wasn't anyone. She was just Carter's mother; she was an animal reacting to a threat to her offspring.

Karl found himself staring down the barrel of her pistol. You wouldn't have the guts, he whispered.

Give me my son you fucking monster or I will turn you into a blood splatter on the floor.

He stared at her, then wrapped his hand around the gun barrel. Annie felt the metal in her hands go from cool to boiling hot in less than a second, melting in her hands and burning her skin. Without thinking she raked her hand across Karl's face, smearing as much molten lead across his eyes as possible.

He screamed, clutching at his face as the lead burned then cooled, sealing over his eyes. You fucking bitch!! One hand groped aimlessly and found her wrist; Annie felt her skin grow hot, boiling hot, hotter than anything she'd ever experienced. She could see steam rising from her pores; she could hear her own skin sizzle and burn.

Grabbing him, she did the only thing she could think of, pulling him down onto the floor and away from Carter. A fist smacked into her jaw, throwing her off him. Annie felt strong hands around her neck, felt everything getting hot, hot, so hot, too hot; heard her baby's screams in the background; felt the metal cross he always wore around his neck rip off in her hand; felt his blood as someone's hand, not hers surely not hers couldn't be hers plunged the sharpest end into his neck.

Dimly she was aware of him falling off her, clutching at his neck and making wet, choking sounds. She vaguely remembered pulling the cross out and slitting his throat properly, making sure he was dead. But really, all she knew was her baby, her baby's cries that ceased when she picked him up again, her baby that didn't mind her soggy red hands or charred flesh, her baby whom she damned herself for as she stepped into the car and didn't stop driving till she hit New York City.

Karl was on the news that night; she watched it from a rat-infested motel room in New York. It was reported as a mutant hate crime, complete with spokesmen from X-Corp giving eloquent, vehement speeches on how there was too much hatred in this world, how this kind of thing had to be stopped. The mutant-haters stabbed him three times with his own cross before slitting his throat and letting him bleed to death, they cried. I ask you, is this the kind of world we want to live in? Is this the kind of world we want to raise our children in?

Annie struggles feel remorse, regret, something. Sometimes she'll lie awake beside Alex and try to feel tears gather behind her eyes, try to conjure up any feelin at all about the murder of a man she once thought she loved.

Nothing.

If anything, she regrets not killing him sooner.

And that scares her. That scares her more than any of these mutants ever could.

She is a nurse. A healer. She is supposed to bring life to people, or at least make their final days happier. Her hands have consoled, warmed, given medicine, performed what some would consider miracles.

But someone's hands wrenched that cross from its chain. Someone's hands pulled back his hair and ignored the pleading look of horror on his face as they dragged the sharpest part of the cross across his jugular. Someone's hands didn't even bother to wipe off the blood before they went to pick up her son.

Someone's hands.