Chapter 2: Nightmares
She was dreaming.
She was lying on the cold cement floor of her cell when the door opened She dragged herself upright, blinking at the shaft of bright light that stabbed into her tiny prison. After all this time (how long?) of total darkness ,the light blinded her eyes.
Two figures walked in. Andi whimpered, crawling away from them, dragging her bruised body away from them toward the corner. But there was only so far she could go; the cell was tiny. Hands grabbed her; she fought back weakly, flailing out with her fists, gasping from the effort that took. Then two hands reached out, captured her wrists in a pair of handcuffs, and jammed her back against the rough wall. A hand grabbed her head, and rough fingers groped at her mouth. She clamped her teeth together, until a fist slammed against the side of her head and knocked her head back into the concrete wall. She cried out in pain as stars exploded in her head. The fingers caught her mouth, holding it open as some cold hard metal thing was jammed into her mouth. When the hands withdrew she found that her mouth was open wide, her jaws hurting from the pressure.
She was weakly yanking at the handcuffs trying to free herself, as one figure left and then walked back holding something in a bottle. Unable to close her mouth, Andi retched and coughed as the thick, milky, bad-tasting liquid was poured into her mouth. "Swallow it," said a voice. Andi tried to, but unable to use her tongue to force the stuff down, she choked on it. A fist buried itself in her stomach, making her cry weakly; she whimpered, but somehow got all of the thick stuff down into her stomach. The bottle was tilted, more of the stuff was tipped into her mouth, and again she was forced to swallow it. Then the gag was taken out, and the figures dragged her out into the main part of the basement. Dr. Hebron slapped tape over her mouth, then caught her handcuffs in a hook hanging from the low ceiling. He winched the hook upward until her feet left the floor and she was swinging in space.
Before long, the medicine they had forced her to swallow began to take effect. Andi tried desperately to scream out in pain around the tape as her intestines tightened, the cramps made worse by her hung position, but no sound escaped but a muffled wail. Seconds later, she started to retch as her smell overwhelmed her own nose. The two men aimed a hard stream of cold water at her body, washing the odorous coating off her legs. The cramps didn't stop for a long time, as her insides cramped, her shoulders cramped, and tears ran down her face.
She didn't know how much time elapsed. All she could do was hang there and endure the cramps rolling through her emaciated, shivering body until they finally let her down. The cramps had taken their toll on her strength, and she could barely fight as they dragged her to a table and threw her across it. Dr. Hebron uncuffed her wrists, only to re-tie them with rope to the eyebolts set into the top of the table, then removed her gag. Andi lay there in a stupor, her drugged, pain-fogged mind unable to understand the significance of the quiet 'zzzzziiipppp' behind her. Then something hard and stiff touched her…
* * *
"NOOO!!!"
Ororo jolted awake at the sound of the terrified scream. "Andi," she whispered as she flung herself out of bed. She didn't even bother to pull on her dressing gown as she ran out of her room and down the few feet of hall to Andi's room. Emma was just coming out of her room as Ororo passed her.
She flung open the door to Andi's room and ran across it. Andi was lying on her stomach on her bed, her legs twisting frantically around each other, and she was screaming in pain. "NO!! Oh, god…please don't, no, oh, god…it hurts…you're hurting me…please…no…stop it…stop it…stop it…I can't, I swear I'm telling the truth, I can't take it down…why won't you believe me?…owwww…please stop…it hurts…please stop…Mr. Xavier, please take it down so they'll stop hurting me…please…somebody help me…Miss Munroe…anybody….oww…no, please stop, it hurts…owww…NO STOP IT, IT HURTS YOU'RE HURTING ME PLEASE!!"
"Andi!" Ororo reached for the girl's shoulders, shaking them gently but firmly. "Andi, you're home, I'm here, you're safe, they're gone! They can't hurt you any more! Andi!"
The girl screamed incoherently again, flailing out with her fists. Desperation let strength to her fists and Ororo found herself falling backward off Andi's bed as the girl launched herself, eyes still firmly shut, away from Ororo.
Emma appeared in the doorway just in time to catch Andi from running into the wall beside the door. "Andi, snap out of it," she said, gripping the girl's upper arms tightly. She gave her a shake. "Snap out of it!" Andi struck out with her fists, catching Emma's jaw with a stiff right hook.
Emma released one of Andi's arms and gave the girl a hard, stinging slap across her face. Andi's head jerked with the force, and her eyes watered in pain. Slowly they opened. Brown eyes looked into icy blue ones with a stunned expression before her face crumpled and she started to cry.
Ororo grabbed Andi out of Emma's hands and pulled the girl to her, hugging her gently as she faced Emma, bristling. "That was completely unnecessary, Emma!"
Emma leaned insouciantly against the doorframe, crossing her arms. "She had to wake up," she said coldly to Ororo. "Look at yourself; you're going to have a big black eye tomorrow."
"We could have found another way!" Ororo retorted.
"We did. I did it. Don't be so protective of her, Ororo. She has to get herself under control." Emma turned and marched back to her own room, ignoring Ororo's enraged shout at her retreating back.
"You tell me how she is supposed to control her dreams!" Ororo would have said more, but her anger was frightening the girl in her arms, and she turned her attention to comforting the sobbing child.
"Ssshhh," she said, sitting on the floor next to Andi. Andi was crying hard, her hands rubbing her stinging cheek. "It's all right, Andi, it's all right, he's not here, he can't hurt you anymore…"
"I hate her," Andi gasped finally, sobs still shaking her thin body. "Why is she so mean? She's so cold. I can't stand her. Do I really have to take lessons from her?" She twisted in Ororo's arms. "Please, Mom? I don't like her. I'd almost prefer Mr. Xavier!"
Ororo sighed, and tucked Andi's head under her chin. "Emma cares about you, Andi. It may not seem like it, but she does. If she didn't, she would never have come here to begin with. She had some difficult experiences when she was younger; I don't know what they were, but they left a significantly deep impression on her psyche to alter her behavior. She tends to act cold and hard around everyone, but there is a caring human under all of that iciness."
Andi studied Ororo's face, her fingers tracing the bruise she had left on the older woman's cheek. "I guess I deserved it, though," she said, her voice soft with regret. "I'm sorry I hit you. I guess it was only fair that I get one back." Her hand rubbed her own cheek.
"It was not fair," Ororo said fiercely, surprising herself with her own vehemence. "You are not responsible for what you do in your sleep. You cannot control your dreams. I am sorry for what happened, child. I promise I shall call Xavier in the morning and ask him if it is absolutely necessary to have Emma teach you the necessary mental control." She rocked back and forth for a while, Andi's body resting trustingly on the floor between her knees. "Do you think you can get back to sleep?"
Andi sighed, and relaxed against her. "I don't think I could ever get back to sleep," she sighed. "Every time I close my eyes I see him…and Preston. They made me swallow drugs that would empty my body completely…and then they would violate me, and it hurt so much. They kept telling me they would stop hurting me if I took the shield around my mind down…but I couldn't. I didn't know how. They hurt me so badly, Mom, and I couldn't make them stop. No matter how much I begged, or how hard I cried, or what I promised them…they wouldn't stop. And it hurt, Mom, oh, God, it hurt…"
Ororo cupped Andi's chin and turned the girl's face up to meet hers. "Andi, look at me. It is over. They will not hurt you any more. I am here, and I am your mother now. They will have to kill me in order to get to you…and believe me, I have faced much worse than they, and survived. Now come on; you are cold, and you really should get back to bed."
Andi got up and climbed back into bed. Ororo tucked her in, rearranging the blankets and replacing the tossed, rumpled pillows. She was about to turn off the light and leave when Andi said, "Can you stay with me?" When Ororo hesitated, she begged, "Please?"
Ororo gave in. She couldn't withstand Andi's begging. And the child needed comfort. She stretched out on the bed behind Andi, and the girl snuggled against her under the warm blanket. The silence stretched out for longer than she thought comfortable, and or lack of anything else to do, Ororo began to sing softly. It was an old song, sung by cattle herders in her native Africa to while away the time. She sang the whole thing through, and started again.
"You've got such a pretty voice," Andi said after Ororo was done. "I wish I could sing like that."
Ororo smoothed away a lock of stray brown hair from Andi's forehead. "Your voice is fine," she said. "And you have other talents. I could not dance the way you do."
Andi giggled softly. "Mother enrolled me in ballet classes because it was what all little girls did. I thought I wasn't going to like it…but I did. And I was good at it. My teacher finally went to my mother and told her that I had talent, and that I should audition for a better school. She said she could arrange for me to attend a private audition at Julliard, and that she was certain I could get in. She thought my mother would be happy."
"Well, she wasn't. My mother wanted me to be a doctor, to be rich so that I could, as she put it, 'take care of her and Father' so they wouldn't have to work anymore. So she took me out of ballet class, and I spent all my time studying. I got around that by enrolling for every dance class that any of the boarding schools I ever entered offered. That's how I stayed in shape."
Ororo thought about that. "Doesn't Julliard have open auditions, too? For anyone who wants to try out? Have you thought about it?"
Andi sighed. "I dream about it," she said wistfully. "But I'll never make it; I haven't had classes in a couple of years, and I'm really out of shape."
"You will never know until you try," Ororo suggested. "And while we're on that subject, Dr. Daniels said you really should get some physical exercise every day. If you are going to take up dancing again, even as a hobby, I think biking might be a good way for you to get your leg muscles back in tone."
"I've never ridden a bike," Andi said in a small voice.
Ororo smiled. "I can teach you," she said. "Think about it." Andi mulled that over as Ororo began to sing again, and when she looked down next, Andi was asleep. She smiled and started to ease out of the bed.
Andi rolled over, her hands grasping at Ororo's sleep shirt. She slid as carefully as she could back into bed, and Andi relaxed. Ororo closed her eyes. Just a short time, she promised herself. Just until Andi's really asleep.
When she opened her eyes, birds were singing outside, and sun shone through the curtains.
* * *
Emma was up first, as usual, when Ororo got up. She swept through he kitchen without a word to Emma, got herself a cup of coffee, and then marched back out to her own room, taking the cordless phone with her. Emma sighed and sat back at the table, waiting.
Ororo checked on Andi as she went back to her room. Good, the girl was still asleep. She went into her bedroom, closed the door, and started to get dressed as she dialed the mansion's number.
Xavier picked up the telephone in response to Jean's telepathic call. "Xavier."
"Charles," he heard Ororo's distressed voice say, "It's about Andi--"
"Is she all right?"
"Oh, yes, she's fine. It's about Emma. Andi woke up in the middle of the night with a nightmare; I tried to wake her. She was terrified; she hit me and got away from me. Emma caught her before she left her room, and she woke her by slapping her. Charles, I understand Emma has some things in her past that shaped her into the woman she is today; but I am not all that convinced that Emma is the best person to handle Andi's training, after all she has been through…"
Xavier sat quietly. "I am going to speak to Emma, Ororo," he said, "But she will stay with you and Andi. Her experiences give her a unique qualification for caring for a child who has been used as Andi has."
"What experiences?"
"It is not my story to tell, Ororo. Perhaps you should consider asking Emma yourself. Could you let me speak to her?"
Ororo opened the door to her room, glided back down the hall, and handed the phone wordlessly to Emma, who took it. "Good morning, Charles," Emma said.
"Good morning to you as well, Emma," he said cordially. "I understand there was some excitement last night."
"That's an understatement," Emma said dryly, taking a sip of her coffee.
"Emma, I understand, more than anyone else, what you experienced at the hands of the guards at the asylum you grew up in. Andi has had some of the same experiences, but they haven't done for her what they did for you. Andi isn't as strong as you."
Emma sighed and rolled her eyes, but Charles' next words froze her completely. "Emma, are you happy with the person you've become?"
Emma considered that. Was she? She was cold, a mask of indifference pulled over to shut everyone out who cared for her. No one knew who she really was inside…well, very few. She used everyone around her ruthlessly, to get whatever she wanted…but she wasn't really happy. "No," she said, "I'm not."
"Then don't make Andi become another you," Xavier said, his voice tense. "Andi isn't like that. A part of your soul, the sensitivity and passion and gentleness, died a long time ago. Andi's is struggling to live. Don't kill that part of her."
Emma bit her lip. "All right, Charles," she said quietly. "I won't."
She hung up the phone, set it down on the table, and looked up at Ororo, standing in front of her tapping a toe on the floor. "I'm sorry," she said slowly. "I was a little out of line last night, and I'll tell Andi so when she wakes up. I didn't think."
Ororo sighed. "Charles said you should stay," she said. "He said that you have a 'unique qualification' for teaching Andi. Can I ask?"
"You can ask," Emma said. "But I won't answer. No, Ororo," she said, holding up her hand, "Some things are too private for others to know. I don't want to tell you, so you'll have to settle for that. Besides," she said with a small smile, "You have your hands full with handling Andi's emotional state. You don't need to worry about mine." She got up, poured another cup of coffee, and handed it to Ororo, who accepted it as the peace offering it was meant to be.