Crown Of Thorns

Chapter Eight: Paying The Piper

My labour started about twenty hours ago. My waters broke while Sam and I were watching television together, and Hank rushed us both down here, to the med-lab, where I've been ever since. I'm sat with my legs up in stirrups, with Sam holding my hand anxiously on my right side and Mum and Dad on my left side. Uncle Scott is standing behind them, wringing his hands and trying not to faint from worry. Mum, Jean and the Professor are all using their powers to help numb my brain as best they can, but I can still feel a huge amount of what's going on, and I really wish I couldn't.

"You're doing really well, honey," Sam tells me, encouragingly, and he wipes away some trickles of sweat from my brow with a handkerchief before handing me a bottle of water. "Here. Gotta keep your thirst away, right?"

"I… guess so," I say, feeling another nasty stab of pain just as I do so, my face screwing up into a wrinkled parody of itself as I let go of both Mum and Sam's hands and put my fingers on my belly, as if I'm trying to force my baby out that way – without much success, unfortunately. "God, now I remember why I never… wanted to have a baby…"

"Well, young Miss Braddock," Hank begins, "I hope you will change your mind soon, because you are now fully dilated, and your child will be arriving very shortly. Push, Rebecca – push!"

"You can do this, button," Mum says as she takes hold of my hand again and squeezes it with a firm, but tender grip. "One last push, and it'll all be over, I promise."

Dad starts to say something then, but it's all lost in the white heat of the pain that washes over me as I scream in stomach-turning agony, and try my hardest to do what Mum and Hank asked of me – and then it's all over. I can feel every last ounce of pressure lifted, and I sink back into the chair, panting and sweating, my hair sticking uncomfortably to my face and neck. But that's the least of my worries now, as Hank shows me my baby, wrapped in a soft yellow blanket that he had saved especially for this moment.

"Your baby, milady," he says kindly. "You and Samuel should feel very proud – you have a beautiful little girl."

I look at my baby as she nestles in my arms, her tiny, perfectly-formed hands opening and closing as she holds her head close to my chest, and I can't help but feel a huge swell of maternal pride at what I've done. I can't quite believe what's happened to me, either, and all I can do is turn my head to look in my fianc's direction and say "Look at her, Sam. Look at her – she's perfect."

"Yeah," Sam agrees in a soft whisper. "That she is." He reaches out to touch her, his fingers brushing the fine, tawny fur that covers her entire body and following the contours of her almost feline face with delicate precision. "Guess one of us must have hair in our genes somewhere, huh?"

Mum and Dad have been standing back for a moment or two so that Sam and I can get our heads around what's just happened, but now they're crowding forwards, eager to see their first grandchild. Dad touches my daughter's hand with his forefinger and lets her grip it tightly. "Hi there," he says in a voice so quiet I almost can't hear it. "You're going to be so loved, little one – you won't have to want for anything, I promise."

As Dad is busy telling my child how he's going to buy her a pony for her first birthday, Mum brushes my forehead with her lips and then kisses Sam on the cheek as she looks adoringly down at the child in my arms. "Congratulations, button," she says, smiling. "Was it worth it?"

"Oh yeah," I murmur, still not quite able to believe what's just happened. Around the other side of the bed, Hank is ushering Aunt Jean and the Professor out of the room so that the rest of us can all catch our breath as a family. Aunt Jean waves goodbye and smiles at me as she leaves, looking as pleased to have been here as Mum and Dad.

I'll see you later, honey, she says. Promise me you'll let me hold her then?

I promise, I tell her, with a smile of my own. You might have to join the queue, though.

Jean laughs knowingly, and shakes her head. Guess I should have booked my spot before all this happened, huh?

Guess so, I reply, as I nestle my daughter close to my chest. Bye, Jean.

Jean winks at me as she leaves, and calls back to me "See you later, Rebecca." Then she looks at Uncle Scott and says "You coming, Slim?"

Uncle Scott raises his eyebrows over the rim of his ruby-red glasses. "I'll be along in a minute, Jean. Just let me say hi to my new niece, okay?" Jean nods silently, although I can tell she's exchanging a few words with Uncle Scott through their rapport, and then quietly leaves. When she has disappeared, Uncle Scott steps forwards and reaches out tentatively with one hand so that he can brush his fingers against my daughter's doll-like arm. "Wow," he breathes, almost as if he's afraid of breaking her in half just by touching her. "She's amazing." Then his face cracks into a broad smile, and he adds "Can Jean and I borrow her – just for a little while?"

"Sorry, sir," Sam says, a smile of his own crossing his lips before he puts his arm around my shoulder and kisses me on the forehead, "can't let you do that. I gotta get used to being a daddy first, after all."

"I guess so," Uncle Scott replies, doing his best to look disappointed. Then he turns to Mum and Dad, and nods at them conspiratorially. "Think you can get them to change their minds, Betsy?"

"Absolutely not." Mum wags her finger at him, as if she is scolding a naughty child. "You should know better, Mr Summers," she continues, in the same kind of authoritarian tone, "than to expect me to use my powers in such an… unethical way, especially against my own flesh and blood."

Uncle Scott laughs, and then looks back down at his niece, as if he can't tear his eyes away from her. "Can't blame a guy for trying, though, right?"

"No," Mum says, nodding thoughtfully as she enjoys the positive energy flowing through the room. "I suppose not."

The air in the corridors of the mansion is cold. It's especially so for me, since I'm only dressed in a pair of silk pyjamas and a woollen robe, having only just been released from the med-lab by a fussy, over-analytical Hank, who was trying desperately to get me to stay in bed for a few hours more rest (which I really wanted to take in my own bed, and so I told him that quite clearly. He wasn't very happy about it, but he agreed to it anyway). I think it's probably best that I'm being wheeled up to my room by Sam, though, because I really don't think I could handle much walking right now – my legs still feel like they're made out of melted toffee, and my back feels about as taut as an untied shoelace now that all the strain it's been under has been cut drastically. My little girl rests on my lap, and I can't resist cooing to her a little as we both get wheeled along the corridor. I know she hasn't got a clue what I'm saying right now, but it feels right to do it, so I'm doing it.

"Hi," I whisper gently, brushing her little face with my fingers, marvelling at how everything about her is so well-developed – her pointed fingernails and eyebrows are all there, and she has a full head of hair, too, which is coloured the same as the rest of the fur on her body. I know I saw all of this with my little brother, but this time is different, just because this time it's my baby I'm holding. My child.

A part of me.

"This is the best place to grow up in," I say quietly, pointing ahead of me down the hallway. "You won't ever have to worry about people thinking you're bad here."

"Seems that way, punkin," says a voice from a little way along the corridor. I look up and see Uncle Logan leaning casually against the wall near the room that Sam and I have begun sharing. He is dressed as casually as he always is, in a red and black-check shirt and scruffy blue jeans, with his battered Stetson angled down a little over his hairy face. He pushes himself into a standing position and lopes towards us at an effortlessly relaxed pace. When he gets close to us, he kneels and stretches out one rough hand to touch my daughter. He pauses then and asks "You mind?" I shake my head, and he reaches out again with his right hand. He's a little tentative at first, more than once drawing his hand back as if he's afraid he's going to hurt her, but then he closes his fist and tries again, brushing her soft, tiny hand gently with his blunt fingers. For a moment or two I can see a rare smile on Logan's face as he leans closer to her and tentatively samples her scent, and then he looks up at Sam and me and says "You did good, kids." Then he stands up and nods towards mine and Sam's room. "I left you a little surprise – go ahead, take a look." He stands aside so that Sam can wheel me inside, and when he's done so, I can see a wooden cradle standing in the centre of the polished floorboards, the large sash window casting streams of sunlight across its painted surface. It's decorated with delicate patterned carvings that curve all over its surface, and there are rows of wooden bars on each side which connect two arching headboards, both of which have a large X symbol etched into them. When Sam and I turn back to face Logan, another smile has splashed itself onto his hairy face. "Call it a housewarming present, kid," he says simply. "I did one for your mom, so I figured it was only fair to do one for you, too."

"Thanks, sir," Sam tells him gratefully, as he sees that I can't quite say anything at the moment. "Thank you so much."

"My pleasure, son," Logan says, and then draws Sam into a hug, slapping the younger man on the back a couple of times as he does so. "Congratulations, bub. Take good care of both of them."

"That's what I was plannin' to do, sir," Sam replies, sounding a little taken aback by Logan's show of emotion, but also sounding very happy that he's got the older man's seal of approval – he knows how highly Logan thinks of me, after all, so being able to say that Logan thinks he's doing the right thing has been very important to him. "Never crossed my mind to do anything different."

"Good boy," says a guttural, snarling voice from behind us, even as the sucking boom of a disappearing tesseract fades away. Instantly, Sam turns to see who said the words, and Logan growls from the back of his throat, his claws popping from between his knuckles with a messy tearing of flesh. Stuck in my chair as I am, all I can do is crane my neck backwards to get a visual confirmation of what my telepathy is telling me.

Sure enough, standing behind me, brandishing a large rifle (which looks like it's been pieced together from a dozen different guns) is Scalphunter, and behind him are gathered Vertigo, Scrambler and Riptide – and none of them look like they're here to offer me their congratulations. "Time's up, Mindwipe," Scalphunter laughs, deliberately using the codename that Sinister himself gave to me, just to remind me that I never truly escaped our mutual creator. "Give up the kid and nothing bad will happen to your boyfriend."

In an instant, Logan has placed himself between Sam and myself and the Marauders, both sets of bone claws unsheathed. "Go," he says in a low tone, before turning back to us briefly and shouting "Get the hell out of here! Go!" It's all the incentive Sam needs, and he rushes around to the front of my chair to help me stand, making sure I'm holding as tightly to my daughter as I can. As we struggle down the corridor, we can hear the sounds of battle erupting behind us, Logan's growls and snarls mixing with the sharp cracks of gunfire and the whirling thuds of Riptide's resin stars as they hammer themselves brutally into every surface around him. We haven't got more than five metres down the passageway when one of those resin stars lodges itself into Sam's shoulder. I can feel the razor-sharp edges cutting deep into his flesh through our link, and it's all I can do not to share his cry of pain.

"Can't hang around any more," Sam grunts through gritted teeth, blood already beginning to run down his back and drip onto the floor. "Brace yourself, Rebecca – hold on tight." He picks me up in his arms and ignites his blast field, propelling us down the corridor twice as fast as we would have been able to travel before. The wind rushes past my ears, but I can still hear my baby screaming. Trying to keep as firm a grip on her as I can, I cuddle her closer to my chest and hope that this will all be over as quickly as possible.

Sam propels us out of the window ahead of us and brings us down to the lawn outside, where I can see Bobby, Dad and Uncle Scott all sitting on the grass and looking up at the afternoon sky. When they see us, though, they instantly snap out of their relaxed state and rush up to where we're standing. "Are you okay?" Uncle Scott asks, even though it's pretty obvious we aren't.

"The Marauders," I say, gasping for breath. "The Marauders are here."

"Oh, no," Bobby says, before his fists clench and his body instantly becomes covered in a layer of ice. He's just in time, too, because just as he does that, the window through which Sam and I flew explodes outwards, carrying Uncle Logan with it in a shower of wood and glass. He lands heavily on the mansion's lawn, sending clumps of earth and grass flying, and as he picks himself up, Scalphunter, Vertigo and Riptide all follow him out of the window. They land much more gracefully than he did and are almost instantly ready for whatever is coming their way – Scalphunter's guns are trained on Uncle Scott in the blink of an eye, as if Grey Crow instinctively knows where the greatest threat is. Bobby decides to make the first move by moving towards them on an ice-slide, his iced-up form gaining about a hundred pounds of mass in the brief time it takes for him to reach them. Before they register that he's done so, he's thrown himself at Scalphunter and landed a hammering right cross into the other man's scarred jaw. Scalphunter rolls with the blow, but still loses his grip on the gun in his right hand. Seeing that the other gun is dangerously close to his body, Bobby nods at it, encasing it in a thick globe of ice. Bellowing in rage, Scalphunter tries vainly to pull his hand out of the ice, but then simply backhands Bobby across the face with it, sending him crashing to the ground. Before he can do anything else, though, Uncle Scott has hit him squarely in the centre of the chest with a wide-angle optic blast, and Scalphunter is pushed backwards into Vertigo and Riptide, the three Marauders sprawling to the grass in a messy heap. As soon as he's done that, Sam takes off with a short run-up and flies quickly towards Scrambler. Carefully, he picks the other man up in such a way as to leave no openings for the other man's mutant powers, and then flies in a corkscrew pattern that should disorient and confuse anybody who isn't a natural flier.

Sure enough, when he comes back down to earth, it's all Scrambler can do to stagger two paces before he collapses to his knees and brings up most of his lunch. Sam grins at me quickly, and says "Payback's a bitch, ain't it?"

Meanwhile, Uncle Logan has picked himself up, and, together with Uncle Scott, is using a pincer movement on Scalphunter, Vertigo and Riptide – while Uncle Scott uses surgical optic blasts to push them in the direction he wants them to go, Uncle Logan is attacking them at close quarters and forcing them off-balance. Riptide's resin stars pepper his flesh, but he doesn't seem all that bothered by them, and for a moment it looks like this battle is almost over.

Then Sinister materialises in front of me, another tesseract closing behind him as he steps out onto the grass, flanked by Blockbuster, Harpoon and my clone, who hangs off Harpoon's arm like a demented child holding its mother's hand. "Hello, child," he says, in that genteel, cultured voice that could almost strip flesh from bones. "I believe it's time for you to pay your debt to me, don't you?"

I shake my head furiously, clutching my screaming baby close to my chest, trying to get her to settle down a little. "No," I tell him, feeling tears flooding my vision. "No! You're not having her!"

Sinister steps closer to me, his eyes narrowing to slits. "My dear Rebecca," he says in a low, dangerous tone, looking like a snake about to strike, "I'm afraid you don't have a choice. You are my daughter, little girl, and I am your father – so do as I tell you, and give me your child. Now."

"No," I snarl, spitting the word out with bitter venom and feeling fury surging through my veins like liquid magma as tears course down my cheeks. "This is my baby, and I will not give her up; not to you, not to anyone."

Before Sinister can reply, he's suddenly encased on four sides by four tall walls of ice. Bobby alights by my side and chuckles, knocking on the side of the huge ice blocks with one large fist. "Hey, Khan, can you hear me in there?" he snickers. "You call this a good strategy? I'm laughing at your… superior intellect." Then, he picks me up and uses an ice slide to carry him, me and my little girl as far away from Sinister as he can manage. "You okay, snowdrop?" he asks me cautiously, as soon as we're a safe distance from the ice blocks. I nod, silently, and he raises his iced-up eyebrows in response. "Yeah, I guess that's all you can say, ain't it?" he muses, before he looks towards the mansion, indicating the hastily-assembled team of X-Men running towards us, pieces of their uniforms still unsecured or missing – Mum, Dad, Hank, Bishop and Rogue. "Nice of you to show up, guys," Bobby says, almost sarcastically. "Better late then never, right?"

In fact, it's just in time, as Sinister finally manages to smash open the walls of his prison with a couple of powerful energy bursts, and then begins to advance on us with both of his clenched fists still trailing wisps of energy. His murderous expression carries with it a searing mental presence – before my mind turns to a white haze of pain, I can see Mum and Jean clawing at their foreheads in agony. I'd do the same, but I can't let go of my child. She wails loudly again, angrily telling me that she wants to be fed, but I can't do anything about that now. Through tear-filled eyes, I can see Bishop unhooking one of his guns from his waistband and firing a crimson burst of energy right at Sinister's head. It sizzles through his liquid flesh, leaving a hole that melts back on itself almost instantly, and Bishop then fires twice more, hitting Sinister in the chest and right leg.

Sinister just smiles thinly, and shakes his head as his body quickly repairs itself and his initial anger gives way to gentle amusement. "I'm disappointed, my boy. I thought you had a longer memory than that – or do you not remember what happened the last time you tried such a strategy?" Then, his expression hardening, he stalks towards the rest of the X-Men and continues "I hope you realise this is a futile gesture. I have come for Rebecca's child, and I will be leaving with Rebecca's child. There is nothing you can do to stop me."

Just then, Hank steps forwards and holds up a sealed vial filled with a thick soup of something that I can't identify. "Wait," he says. "I have a deal to propose."

Sinister raises an eyebrow archly. "Do you now? Well, then, Doctor McCoy, do enlighten me. What can you possibly give me?"

Hank throws Sinister the vial, which he catches easily with a single movement of his right hand. "That's DNA samples and amniotic fluid I took from Rebecca's womb for an amniocentesis scan," Hank says. "You can do whatever research you want on those. And if you take them, you leave Rebecca's baby with us."

Sinister's left hand strays to his chin as he weighs up his options, and examines the vial's contents with a critical eye. Then he smiles broadly, his awful dagger-teeth gleaming like a shark's. "Very well, Doctor," he says in a coldly conversational tone, "you may consider this bargain struck. I have always believed that live subjects are better, of course, but DNA is as good as anything else, I suppose." He leers at me then, making my skin crawl. "I trust I shall get some good research from these samples – good DNA is hard to come by, after all…"

A tesseract opens behind him, and he and his Marauders vanish into thin air, leaving behind only his threats and some broken glass to show for it. It's only when the rest of the X-Men crowd around me that I can finally feel safe. "Take me home," I ask Sam quietly. "Please…"