Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
~Logan, we can't read her.~ Jean reminded him while Christy stared at the carpet in silence after Scott asked the question.
~Her scent isn't normal, but I'll do what I can.~ He answered as he focused his senses on the woman. He usually could smell how nervous someone was and make guesses as to if they were lying, but with Christy it wouldn't work the normal way. He'd just watch out for when her scent disappeared altogether and hope that it meant something.
"I got here in July." She started to talk, but her voice was quiet as if she would prefer they couldn't hear her. She still wasn't making any eye contact at all. It sent a warning bell off in Logan's head. Liars, bad liars didn't look you in the eye either. "We… I mean she and I had the same job. Having the Summer off helped give me time to figure things out."
Scott was heading this discussion, so the rest of them kept quiet. "So you've been here since July. Where is the Christy from this world and how did you get here?" Logan was watching her carefully, and didn't have to disguise it since she wasn't really seeming to notice him. She looked up but she was focusing on a piece of wall between Scott and Jean. Her legs moved up so that she could wrap her arms around them as she just stared at nothing for a moment too long for anyone to be comfortable.
"I don't… I didn't mean to…" Christy stumbled over words that made the hairs on Logan's back stand up. The woman wasn't sounding as confident as she did in front of her kids, she was sounding scared. "I don't know how I got here. A portal just opened up and I was suddenly standing on a street with my double. It pulled her back through it. She was so scared. I just sat there and watched, I couldn't even move."
"So she's on your world now?" Scott's voice was softer than a normal interrogation. The woman's looking so fragile had to be affecting him.
When Christy closed her eyes Logan noticed her scent was gone at the same time he watched a tear travel down her cheek. God, why did she have to cry. Logan hated seeing women cry.
"No, my world was destroyed. She's dead. She died in my place."
********
Christy couldn't look at anyone right now. She took a few deep breaths and she tried to control her emotions. Surprisingly it was harder to do than it used to be. She'd had lots of practice. She was really feeling scared now.
It was at the last minute that Christy decided to give them the truth, or as much as she thought that they could handle. A brief memory of Remy being persecuted for something he hadn't admitted to made her feel like confessing was perhaps the best option. "It was destroyed by an asteroid. The portal… showed up just seconds before I was going to die." She looked into Jean's eyes pleading with her own eyes for understanding. "I'm the only survivor."
Christy stopped talking for a moment to collect her thoughts. "We knew it was coming for two years. Some idiot decided to warn us. It was the biggest mistake ever made. People went insane. The planet became like hell." Christy could still smell death in the air during her nightmares. "Suicide and murder rates skyrocket. People stopped working, because what did it matter if students went to school, or if other people had running cars…" Her voice got softer, "Or if anyone else had food."
Christy could hear a few people fidgeting a bit, but she continued. "Gangs of people were created. People on their own couldn't survive, you needed to be able to give a show of force to keep the raiders away from your supplies, and everyone was a raider. There was war, famine, pestilence and plenty of death. A real proper Apocalypse." Christy shook her head. "Television and radio went out as it got worse, so no one knew how the rest of the world was dealing with it. Many people had relatives elsewhere and wrote to them even though there was no postal service." She chuckled without any real humor. "Some idiots even bothered to rob empty stores for the money. They didn't understand that money meant nothing anymore."
When she went quiet no one spoke for a while. Christy understood that it would be hard to come up with a response to that. She took pity on them and turned the conversation. "I'm not sure how the portal was created or by what. There wasn't any machinery it was just a spot overlooking the water. A beach. The asteroid had streaked through the sky and hit a place not too close to Washington. For something so deadly it really was beautiful."
"Could you have created the portal?" Scott spoke finally. "Many mutations show up during extreme stress."
Christy wanted to say she wasn't a mutant and that her world didn't have those. "I don't know. I don't know anything anymore." She whispered. "I thought it was maybe her fault, maybe she created it since she came from the world with mutants, but I couldn't find any evidence in her journals that she was anything but human. Her mother used to take her to the casinos too, and she was able to go in." Christy sighed as she studied Scott. "I didn't really think I was one… but… I was stabbed a few days ago. Might have been fatal and it was healed in almost no time. I didn't even bleed. Maybe it was me."
"Well, you aren't human." Jean spoke softly, gently breaking this to her. "Human's wouldn't have a mental shield like you do."
"Yer scent is all wrong too. It's kinda faded." Logan added and Christy turned to glance at him. That was new information.
"If what you say is true." Emma spoke while seeming to be staring a hole in Christy, as if she'd be able to determine the truth by staring hard enough. "Then I am sorry for your loss."
"Thanks" Christy felt tears in her eyes. She'd just admitted that it was possibly her fault the Christy from this world died and they weren't holding it against her. Maybe some day she could tell them the rest of the story, but Christy wasn't going to rush to do that. She didn't even like remembering what she'd been like, she wasn't looking forward to letting other people know.
The sound of one of her kids walking down the hall above them drew Christy's attention. "I don't want them to know. I don't want my family to know either. I can't tell them she's dead, and I need her things. How would that look?"
Scott sat forward just a bit. "It isn't right to not tell her family."
"What good would that do?" Christy suddenly was worried that she'd made a mistake. "And I'm here. I may not be the one they always had… but I'm doing alright. I've managed to do this for months." Her voice got more strained as she felt more helpless. If this group decided to destroy her carefully created life it wouldn't be hard for them. "Dammit, I didn't tell you so that you could destroy everything!"
********
Emma didn't need her telepathy to see that they'd cornered Christy and the woman would come out fighting if she had to. Scott's idealistic beliefs had just threatened to create an enemy out of a woman with untold amounts of knowledge about them all. She was inclined to believe her as well at this point, although she wouldn't mind more proof at some point.
~Scott, don't push this right now.~
~Emma, can you read her now?~ Scott sent back.
~No, but I can see it. I've seen this type of desperation before. Stand down, the woman that died has been gone for months. There is no need to resolve this immediately. In a way she is that woman, so this isn't an easy situation with a clear answer.~ Scott's biggest flaw was his belief in things being all right or all wrong. He was far too blind to the shades of gray that existed between, even after all the battles and hard decisions he was forced to make. His strict morality was often a cause of debate between them.
"Fine, we can keep your secret." Scott spoke out loud to Christy, and Emma watched the wary way the woman studied Scott. Christy had a little bit of a predator in her, of course if life on that planet was as bad as Emma imagined it was Christy would have had to or she couldn't have survived two years like that. "But I want to know more about what secrets of ours you have."
"We would be here for a very long time and I'd still forget to mention things." Christy sighed and Emma could see the woman looked very tired all of a sudden. "Also, there is the fact that I don't want to give you information you don't already have. I don't want… it's just prying too much. If someone like Spiderman hasn't told you his real name and I assume you know it I could cause trouble. You understand?"
"You know Spiderman's real name?" Scott couldn't resist asking about that.
"That isn't the point." Christy rubbed her forehead. Emma glanced over at Jean to see if she was trying to push her way inside the woman's mind, but Jean just shook her head. This was a headache brought on by the conversation.
********
It took a while to get Scott to realize that Christy was really just trying to look out for the people she knew too much about and wasn't trying to pull something over on them all. Christy would have to thank Jean, she was sure that woman had something to do with his finally backing off on the need to know everything Christy knew, at least for now. She knew it would probably come up a million other ways on other days.
"So Wednesday is your training day?" Hank asked to bring the conversation back around. Christy knew he meant physical training. They tended to value that a bit more.
"Yeah, but don't expect too much." Christy felt bad about her inability to do much with them. "We can only go out at night when the park is closed, and I never let them go full out because I can't afford hospital visits and we couldn't afford the gene testing they sometimes do in those places anyhow." Her eyes landed on Emma. "If you tell them about that Danger room you might get Jessi and Jon interested. They're the more physical ones. They'd like seeing what all they could really do. Erik's more interested in his Empathy than his telekinetic ability, so the classes would appeal to him more."
"What about Annie?" Rahne asked and Christy could swear there was a hint of a challenge in her voice.
"Annie wants a real power so badly it hurts her." Christy hated seeing the disappointment in that girls eyes everytime they went out and she couldn't do anything. "I really hope she has one. It would be so lame if she just has the green skin."
"She hasn't taken her image inducer off." Emma spoke.
"She won't. You're still strangers. It took her a while to trust her friends enough to show them." Christy sighed. "Her father threw her out immediately after it happened and I didn't find her for a few days. She hates being stared at, and I'm sure she heard quite a few comments. She doesn't really talk about that time. I do what I can to reassure her, I mean she is very pretty, she's just green. It isn't really…" Christy stopped, not liking the look in Rahne's eyes when Christy commented on Annie's appearance. Homophobe, big time. "Annie might be gay and I don't want anyone treating her funny because of it." Christy focused her attention on the werewolf. Her voice held a clear warning. "If your school doesn't practice all forms of acceptance, then you best be honest with my kids right off the bat. None of them are closed minded bigots. I'd hate for them not to fit in."
"We have a mandatory Diversity class that covers all sorts of diversities, sexual orientation included." Emma spoke. "We don't accept homophobic comments on our campus. You don't need to worry about that."
Christy just nodded, but she seriously doubted the school was clean of all homophobia. Still it might be better than the rest of the world. She could expect Rahne was homophobic, but Christy was betting both telepaths wouldn't be. She really didn't know about the guys though.
"So the training… do ya do much sparring?" Logan redirected the conversation.
Christy sighed. "I didn't learn normal fighting. I was gonna start some self defense classes to get something to go off of, but really its like the blind leading the blind on that."
"Wouldn't you have needed to fight on your world?" Scott sounded a bit surprised at her lack of skill.
Christy gave him a weary look. "I specialized in ambushes, so no… not really."
********
Annie sat on her bed staring at her book, but she wasn't really seeing it. Jessi had told her something that she didn't like and she'd wanted to deny it, but Christy's behavior today made her have to believe it. Christy had known they had a spy in the house and hadn't told anyone. She had also not mentioned that these people were the X-men, and it was beginning to seem like Christy's claiming to not know these people was a lie.
Christy had also spent time alone with Emma Frost. Annie's fingers tightened around her pencil. That woman was cold and Annie didn't like her at all. She didn't like the idea of this Emma trying to sway Christy. She'd been trying to get into Christy's head.
And what were they all talking about for all this time? Christy and the X-men were in Christy's room and if Annie wasn't sure she'd be caught she'd be glued to the door to listen in.
********
Erik stared up at the ceiling of his bedroom. He couldn't hear anything or sense anything in the other room, but at least from his bedroom he'd definitely hear when they opened the door. He was pretty sure they were talking about him. Jean had been helpful in teaching him about shields and actually testing them, but she'd said things that bothered him. What bothered him the most is that he knew she was telling the truth. If he didn't get training he could end up getting someone he cared about hurt. If he projected his emotions during a tough time they could lose their concentration. If they were ever in real danger Erik had the ability to be either the biggest liability or the biggest asset depending on his control of his power.
He remembered projecting his fear the night Christy rushed off to save that one mutant in the parking lot. He'd managed to scare off the attackers, but he'd also hit Annie and a few other people in the stores. He didn't bring that up, but it could be dangerous. Even when he was trying to help he could have made it worse if the place wasn't as deserted as it was. Maybe he did need to go to the school in New York, at least for long enough to get the Empathy under control. Erik grimaced. He didn't want to leave his friends and family to move across the country. He needed to talk to Christy about this, he needed some advice.
********
Jon was washing the dishes by hand to give him time to think. Jessi wasn't as upset as she had been, but knowing that when she was hurting it was Christy that went to her still hurt him. It was his job as the boyfriend, and while he cared about Christy he didn't like having that so very publicly disputed like that. He hadn't been in a serious relationship before, but he loved Jessi. It should have been him.
He had the general idea of what had happened. Jessi told Wolf something, probably about their relationship, since he wasn't the one to go to her. Did Jessi want out? Was she just staying with him because they lived in the same house and she didn't want to make waves? God, he hoped not. He'd known Jessi for years, and he didn't think she'd be like that. If there was something wrong she'd tell him, wouldn't she?
He was so deep into his thoughts that he didn't notice his girlfriend lean against the doorway watching him while he cleaned out the sink..
********
Jessi could see something was bothering Jon. He always had that look on his face when he was worried. She'd been so wrapped up in her own embarrassment over talking to Wolf about their relationship and how she hoped he'd get over his hang-up about sex soon because she wanted to be with him. She'd also talked in great depth about her first boyfriend and sex in general.
Jon was really insecure about sex. He worried about pregnancy and even though he never said it out loud, Jessi had the idea that he also worried that it would be his first time, and it wasn't hers. He didn't want to be bad at it, or worse at it than her first boyfriend had been. Personally she couldn't imagine anyone being worse than Steven had been, but even if Jon wasn't that great Jessi at least loved him. It had to make a difference didn't it? Steven had been a mistake and Jessi had known it at the time. Jon didn't feel like a mistake at all to her.
"I love you." Jessi spoke softly and watched his slightly startled turn to face her. He'd been really out of it if he didn't notice her standing there.
"What didn't you want me to know?" He sounded a bit hurt. Jessi sighed.
"Let's go to my room to talk." It was bad enough that Wolf.. or Rahne or whatever knew she wasn't going to have anyone else listen in on this. Rahne had tried to give her advice, but Jessi didn't like any of the wait your too young and its something that should be shared in marriage only. She'd go with Christy's advice instead. Talk to him and tell him. Christy hadn't been surprised when Jessi quietly told her a summary of what she'd told Wolf and she hadn't treated Jessi like she was thinking of becoming a whore just because she wanted sex with her boyfriend.
********
Emma nodded her good-byes and followed the team out to the van. They'd be staying a few more days. Christy was obviously very attached to her students, and after the losses she suffered Emma would be willing to bet those children were all that were keeping Christy from completely losing it. In spite of that Christy was trying to help them take her students away, because she believed going to Xavier's would be better for them.
Emma had faced death a few times, but never anything on that grand a scale. To lose absolutely everyone in one big catastrophe was hard to even grasp. No wonder Christy clung to her double's life so desperately. It's the only familiarity she had left and from the sounds of it, people weren't entire the same anyhow.
"We should probably leave someone to keep an eye on them." Scott spoke as they started to pull out of the driveway. Not everyone was ready to trust Christy, and Emma thought that was probably best. Christy knew too much, it was a huge security risk.
"I'll take first watch." Logan volunteered. "I'll come back with the van and park a block or so away." They'd managed to drop a few listening devices around as a precaution.
"When we come for dinner tomorrow, we should bring it." Emma rested her head on her hand. "They don't have any money to spare."
"What she's doing is pretty amazing considering she doesn't have the money to back it like the Professor did." Jean spoke quietly. "I would hate to hold a full time job and then train a bunch of teenagers. She has to have no time for herself."
"She doesn't want time for herself." Emma sighed. "She wants to stay busy so she doesn't have to deal with the pain." She didn't need to be a telepath to see that, she'd been there.