Dis: I do not own Pro. X, Scott, or Ororo. I do own everything else, but its worth dirt so yeah.
A/N: This is a one shot that came to me in a dream. I don't know what i was thinking but i hope you understand it. It is about how racist problems affect everyone and the love you feel for a family member. Hope you like.
For My Son:
The sound of the chains kept in time with my slow pace as I was lead down the pale hallway. My wrist were cold and weighed down by the heavy metal, but I held my high as I went along. I was doing the right thing; being here was just a part of it.
"Hold it," the guard in front of me said as we came to cell 23, the cell I would spend most of my future in.
The cuffs were taken off my wrists and ankles while my bed things were handed to me. "Stupid woman," I heard and walked into the brick cell to find my roommate sitting on the bottom bunk. I guess that means I have the top.
Pardon my rudeness, I have forgotten to introduced myself. My name is Kate Potter, age 47. I am a social worker in Richmond Virginia, or I was. I have a daughter Joy, who is 24, married and lives in Montana. I also have a son, Kevin. Kevin is now 17 and living in New York with some friends. Recently I have been sentenced to the Mutant Containment Facility run by the government in Washington DC. There is only one problem with this sentence.
"You're human," my cellmate said dumbfounded at the fact.
She looked at my neck as I looked at hers. Mine was bare, while she wore a collar. This was already explained to me. The collars were to make sure no mutant used a power that could help them in anyway. Being human, I didn't need one. I am the only prisoner that didn't need one.
Slowly I climbed up the metal ladder to my top bunk. I was not meant to be in this situation at my age. After making my bed, what else is a mother to do, I sat and watched my cellmate. She must have been young, in her teens. Her actions and overall attitude suggested that she would have been friends with my son.
Ah yes, Kevin, my son. The reason why I am here, and truthfully, I wouldn't have it any other way. Let me start at the beginning, ten years ago.
My husband was a good man and I loved him with all my heart. He was killed in an accident ten years ago next month. I don't have all the details, but the cops said something about blaming it on a mutant. I started thinking that mutants were not as good as some people thought them to be. For the next five years or so I supported the separation of humans and mutants, but I never supported violence of any kind. I went to a few rallies and a few sit-ins, but everything changed on one winter afternoon.
I had just gotten off the phone with my daughter in college when there was a knock at my front door. I opened it to find a tall man with sunglasses and an older man in a wheel chair, which I found out later were Scott Summers and Mr. Charles Xavier. They told me some interesting information: that my own son was a mutant and they were here to help. I thought them mad, and to prove it I took them to my son up in his room. Much to my surprise I saw him, practicing with his new gifts.
I stood there shocked as did Kevin. Everything I was protesting against was in front of me, in the form of my only son. The son who was the catcher of his baseball team. The son who was with me since day one. The son who's first word was 'car' and has had a huge obsession with them. The son who could make me laugh at any time, the son who was my baby.
Kevin tried to explain, but then it hit me. I loved him, and I still loved him even after I knew. He was a mutant and I didn't care because he was my son.
"You see," Charles started, "mutants are apart of life. They are the friends and family of everyone. Like some humans, some mutants are bad and are filled with evil ideas. Those few are the ones you hear about, but, like you, the rest of us just want to lead a normal life and cause no harm to society at all."
He gave me a slight smile as I began to understand what he was saying. I remembered when my daughter was in high school and all of the school shootings were happening. The news made it seem that every teenager that felt out of place and depressed was a shooter, and needed to be watched. But, after a long talk with Joy, I realized that EVERY teenager feels out of place and depressed during high school as they inch closer to taking that first step into the real world. The media was just running with the few bad apples that had snapped.
So my ideas had changed at an instance, because I could not be against my own son, no matter what. But when they explained that they wanted to take Kevin to a private school in New York, I wasn't biting.
"There is no cost at all," Charles said while Scott told me how Kevin would be taught to use his gifts. Being as involved in the mutant situation as I was I knew that places, much like the one I was in currently, existed and I would be damned if I shipped my own son to a prison.
Charles must have understand my feelings when he brought up an idea. Why don't I come along for a week or so to check out what I was sending Kevin to. I was still uneasy, but Kevin said that he would feel saver if I came along, seeing as he was only 13 and had never had been away from home for more than a day. So it was settled. Kevin and I packed our bags and were flown to New York.
I felt good about what I saw. The school had a decent amount of kids, mutants, who lived there. The adult staff members were mainly very young. Scott Summers was only 23 at the time and his girlfriend was about the same. I stayed until Kevin told me he would be all right in this new place alone. He had made fast friends like I knew he could do. Scott and Kevin shared the same obsession for cars and grew close in the time I was there. An African woman about my age, who I now know as Ororo, assured me that she would look after Kevin as her own. A month after I had gotten there, I was ready to leave, but the night before I had tea with Charles.
Having tea with Charles is something that I will miss now that I am locked up, we had continued it after that night, but the first time was special, it had sealed my fate. We started talking about random things like life and politics when a thought crept into my head.
"You and I have the same job in a way," I began. "You help mutants find a save haven, and I try to do that with my clients."
He nodded at this fact. "But as you know its not as easy as it looks. Obstacles make it harder and harder to bring people here. Even with all of our technology, I only can save a handful of the mutants out there."
"I know what you mean. Even if I try everything in my power to help a kid get out of a bad environment, it is most likely that they will wind up in a home where they would just run away." An idea hit like no other. My eyes grew wide as I said the next line. "I can help you."
I explained the idea as I thought it up. If I found a mutant in my work I could introduce them to these X-Men. If they agree to go with them, something would be worked out where they would run away from the home they were placed at and into the waiting arms of Charles.
Although he admitted it was a good idea, Charles did not like the fact that I would willingly but myself in the middle of this mess. I only made the point that no mother would let her son go off and fight a war as she sat by doing nothing to help. If he was in this mess, I was in this mess.
In the end he agreed to my plan and told me to call if I knew that I had the file of a mutant in my hands. I went home, without my son, and went back to work. In a month's time I found my first mutant kid. His name was Jax and his father beat him on a regular basis. Like what happen with Kevin, I found out Jax was a mutant by accident. I came to his house with a few policemen to take him away from his father when a noise was heard in the back. The policemen went to check it out and left me in the front. A 16-year-old boy came running out the front door bleeding from the face. I rushed to help him when I realized that his eyes were not natural, they were green and yellow. He shook his head a couple of times and they went to normal.
I approached Jax with my idea of getting him to a safe place for mutants at the first moment I had alone with him. He was hesitant, but agreed. I did everything in my power to make sure that Jax was sent to the orphanage on 6th Street, a place where kids go missing all the time and its not a big deal. Like planed, he escaped into the woods where Ororo was waiting to take him to Charles' school.
When I went to visit a few months later and a very happy Jax, who thanked me for saving his life, greeted me. Charles was also very pleased. I felt that I was helping my son. I saw every misunderstood mutant as my son or a friend of my son. I had to protect them from the world I was once a part of.
The years passed and I helped as many mutant teenagers as I could. Some felt that the school was not for them, in which I found the nicest place possible for them. But most, like Jax, decided to give it a try. Everything was going great, I had even reached a few mutants from other states. But all good things come to an end.
Just after Kevin's 17th birthday, about three months ago, I met a 14-year old girl named Morgan. Her parents had locked her in a basement when they found out about her gift, but when the police questioned her mother about it, she lied for fear of how the public would see her as the mother of a mutant.
Morgan was placed in the orphanage on 6th Street like all the rest were, but what happened next no one could have foreseen.
Morgan's gift was that she could create a flame in the palm of her hand, and changed the color depending on her mood. When a fight broke out at the orphanage Morgan was scared and hid in a corner. As she sat there hiding someone tried to help her, but when she put out her hand to stop them a yellow flame covered her palm, revealing her secret that she was a mutant.
Before I was aware of this, the police, who helped her out of her original home, were taking her away again. They locked her up and questioned her. May the lord bless that child's soul because I know she was put through a lot. Some how my name came up and as soon as I got the call from the orphanage, the police were at my door to arrest me. I was taken to the town's police station and was questioned about why I did what I did and how many others there were. I didn't give away any information.
Finally they gave up and took me to the jail. I was charged with failure to cooperate. When I was put back into the police car I felt a presence that I recognized. Charles was around with his X-Men, and he could see me.
"Don't get me out of this," I thought to him, "If you take me now they will come for the ones I have already helped, and Kevin."
"We will be watching," was his response as I saw a parked car take off from in front of me.
I was not hurt at all, I don't think anyone had the heart to beat a woman who was almost 50. But they with held food from me for long periods of time and kept me in a small room with no windows, all alone. The thought that I was here instead of Charles, Scott, Jax, or even Kevin kept me going no matter what they did. I was a mother and would gladly trade in my life for my son's life. If he can live to make things better, if my grandchildren could grow up in a world without so much hate, then it was all worth it.
More time went on and I was being no help to those who held me captive. The government was so sure that mutants were savage beasts that needed to be stopped, but the mutants weren't the ones holding an old woman hostage and refusing to feed her. For a while I was not let out of the windowless room for a week at a time. Finally they decided to show that they were some-what human and took me to court to decide what to do next.
I was considered an equal to the mutant 'problem'. For this I am proud of. They sat me down and gave me one last chance to name names and locations. I told them that the lack of food had made me forget and they would never know. Then it was decided then where I would spend what I believe will be the rest of my life. My now weak, bony body was chained and led to the Mutant Containment Facility where this story began.
My cellmate was now reading a worn out book with a torn cover in a chair across from the beds. I looked at the cover and recognized the title. It was one of the Lord of the Rings books that were becoming popular again.
"Good book?" I asked
"I've read it three times, its always the same happy ending," she said throwing the book on the bed. She looked back up at me with something on her mind. "Why are you here?"
"I am here because I love my son and would do anything for him."
"In what world is that a crime?"
"Sadly...," I said with a sigh, "this one."