Not
Myself
By Princess
Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
Scott would have preferred to take one of the cars, but he had five passengers for this trip. He pulled the van up to the front door and waited. Christy was rounding up her students.
He wasn't really looking forward to an hour drive with the woman where he couldn't talk about so many of the things he'd like to talk to her about. Christy's need to keep secrets from the others made it hard to discuss anything of importance with her. And he still felt like it was wrong for her to just take over her double's life like she did. People had the right to mourn for the dead woman, and this Christy wasn't giving them that.
********
Christy had Jessi and Annie with her as they looked for the boys. She hadn't realized that simply getting the gang together would be such an ordeal. Jon and Erik weren't in their room and she didn't see them in the cafeteria. Emma was though.
Jessi was turning to try another place, but Christy walked up to the blonde telepath. "Emma." She smiled, but was a bit concerned about the tiredness she could see in the woman. She glanced at the girls waiting for her, and they got the message to wait. "Are you okay?"
"Yes, I'm fine." Emma sounded a bit irritated with the question. "As I've been telling everyone."
Christy decided Emma didn't like being asked that so much so she went with the question she'd originally been planning to ask. "I was wondering if you could help me. I can't find my boys."
Christy found herself studying Emma's face as the woman's eyes seemed to take on a subtle new glow. "Where did they need to meet you?"
"Scott's bringing the van out front."
"They'll be there."
"Thank you." Christy grinned. Emma had just saved her so much time hunting around the school. "Well I better get going. Scott isn't really the most patient guy around."
"You don't really like him do you?" Emma stopped her with that quiet question.
Christy had to think about how to answer this one. "He seems okay." She said non-committally, but Emma just raised an eyebrow and continued to stare at her, waiting for a real answer. "He's so convinced his way is the only way. I really should get to know him first, but…"
"But knowing us before meeting us makes that difficult doesn't it? You already know who you like and don't like."
"Yeah." Christy glanced at her students, the girls were looking a little impatient. "I better get going."
"Have fun." Emma smiled at her like she knew something Christy didn't and it amused her. "I'll see you later."
********
"I did some research…" Christy started when the van was moving over the bridge to Manhattan.
"Of course." Her kids said almost as one and grinned at her teasingly.
After a brief pause, Christy continued. "As I was saying I did some research and have a list of things we can do today. We just have to be to the theater by eight." Christy had also gotten Bobby to explain the subway system to her, because they were all going to be using that a lot. Christy could tell Scott was paying attention to the conversation even though he wasn't participating.
"You ever thought about the codename Oracle?" Erik was clearly teasing her.
"It's hard to be Oracle with a Pentium III." Christy glanced at Annie, who'd been a bit quiet this morning. "And I don't want to get sued any more than Poison Ivy over here."
"You need a real codename." This time Erik was serious.
"Are you keeping your codename MentalCase?" Christy asked innocently, just to get the focus off of her. She didn't like thinking about what codenames would fit her powers.
Erik grinned. "Yeah, I'm keeping it."
"I'm gonna keep mine too." Jon added, "Monkey Man… I could do worse."
"I need to figure out a new one." Annie seemed to be waking up finally, or more likely loosening up. They'd been a bit tense around each other this morning and Christy had to just accept that it would take time to get things back to the way they used to be.
"I'm not gonna be stuck with Bubbles." Jessi added very emphatically.
"Well, I hate to interrupt this very intellectual conversation." Christy grinned at them. "But Scott's gonna want to know where to drop us off." The resulting back seat conversation was something she could ignore so she turned back to face the front.
Scott spoke quietly while the kids debated over the printouts she gave them. "Nice evasive maneuver." She just smirked at him. It was a skill she'd had to develop, avoiding talking about something without looking like she was avoiding anything.
Finally they were dropped off at Times Square to start their day.
********
After Scott dropped them off he started towards his meeting. Christy's ability to avoid subjects when talking with the kids made it clear how she'd been able to take over someone else's life like she did. None of the kids even realized that she'd changed the subject. Christy was very good at manipulating conversations. That wasn't a comforting thought. With everything he found out about her he was more concerned about her being a threat.
Jean had come to bed late again, this time she'd been monitoring Emma while the woman went into Christy's mind. Scott heard about how drained it made Emma, heard about the moment of fear in her eyes when she first removed the helmet to see Jean and still Emma wouldn't tell them anything specific about what she was finding. She kept claiming she wanted the whole story first. The whole story was taking a long time to get, and the clear affect it had on the normally cool and collected Emma gave Scott a bad feeling.
********
"Ms. Frost?" The girl's voice pulled Emma's eyes away from the grading she'd been doing while the students worked on their assignment. "Umm, can we go? It's lunch time." Emma's eyes traveled to the clock and she noticed that she should have dismissed class five minutes ago.
"Class is over." She spoke a bit more loudly, but it wasn't necessary. All the students were waiting for permission to leave.
After packing up her work she started towards the teachers' lounge. She was halfway there when she noticed Jono nearby. "Jono, I need some help grading." Her project with Christy had taken up more time than she'd anticipated and she didn't want to fall behind. "Do you think you have time to do that later today?"
He looked a bit surprised with the request, but then Emma normally preferred to do all the grading herself. "Sure Ms. Frost. I have time during fourth period."
"Very well." Emma stopped walking long enough to pull out the work she was giving him. Maybe she'd be able to get a little sleep before tonight now. Normally she could go a night or two without sleep, but not when she was also pushing her powers to their limits on a nightly basis.
Jono was almost ready to leave for the cafeteria when Emma thought of something else. "Have you ever heard of something called fan fiction?"
Jono's eyebrows rose. "Yeah."
"Well, don't keep me in suspense. What is that?" A touch of irritation entered her voice. She was hardly at her most patient when she was this tired. In Christy's memories Mark had mentioned that.
"When people write stories based on a T.V. show or book or something. They borrow the characters and make up their own stories. Since I don't sleep very much I sometimes stay up reading some."
"Thank you." She dismissed him while she thought about that. Mark had lied to Christy about the fan fiction to spare her feelings. It wasn't a comfortable feeling to know so many people knew such private things about her life, even if they were all dead now. Things neither her nor Scott had wanted anyone to know had been idle conversation in Christy's world.
Emma was Christy's favorite in her world, not Jean. Christy thought Emma was smarter than Jean and for some reason Emma didn't want Christy knowing about her affair, because she liked being someone's favorite something. No one liked being second best, and Emma was no exception to that. Unfortunately she was consistently put in second place. Second place to Jean lately more than anything else. Jean was the lead telepath at the school, Jean had Scott's love, Jean had the team's respect. The list went on.
Only she wasn't second place with Christy. A woman she hadn't known for long had not hesitated when Mark had asked who her favorite was. She hadn't needed to think about it. The answer she gave Mark about why wasn't very in depth, and Emma found she wanted to know more. What made Christy pick her over all the other X-men? If she liked reformed characters there were certainly enough of them on the teams. It would take more power to guide Christy's thoughts so that Emma could get the answer, and given how much power it took just to read Christy's memories Emma wasn't convinced she could guide her thoughts enough to find out.
It would be nice to take a tour of someone who had good thoughts about her for a change. Emma had seen enough thoughts that held contempt, suspicion and distrust when it came to her.
"Emma?" Jean's voice interrupted her thoughts and Emma glanced up. Jean looked concerned. "You aren't the only telepath here. You can ask for help if reading Christy is too hard."
Emma ground her teeth for just a moment. "I have it under control." In this one thing she wasn't taking second place. It was too important for them all that she be the one. Jean wouldn't be able to handle what she saw in that woman's mind and Christy needed acceptance so badly. The guilt she held for doing what she needed to in order to survive was overwhelming… and yet Emma had the impression that Christy would never have resorted to those extremes if it weren't for the fact that other people were suffering. Christy would never see what she'd done as heroic, but in a dark and disturbing way it was.
Jean sat across from her at the table and Emma didn't bother to hide her sigh at the unwelcome intrusion.
********
Annie was surprised that Christy would want to see the twin towers. It was one thing that the woman didn't open up for debate, so all of them were staring up at two very tall buildings. There was nothing too special about them except they were tall, so why was Christy still staring so quietly?
"Christy?" Annie moved closer to her, thinking that five minutes of just staring was more than enough, but somehow reluctant to interrupt the woman.
"What?" Christy finally looked down.
"Can we get some lunch? We could eat at Burger King." Annie pointed to the nearby fast food place. She didn't want to ask for anything too expensive while they were out today. Christy wasn't rich and insisted on paying for everything today.
"Sure." Christy's eyes followed hers to the place. "Let's go."
********
Erik rubbed his temples and sighed. Being in the city was hard on his shields and he was feeling overwhelmed.
"You okay?" Christy asked quietly while they walked towards the subway station. He didn't have to answer because her eyes became knowing. "You think a break in Central Park might help? Less people."
"Yeah, that would be good." If he went to the center of that place maybe the emotions would calm down a bit. Just long enough to get his shields back up.
Christy turned back to the others and told them about the change in plans before turning to him again. "I've wanted to see Central Park anyhow. Everyone hears about how it's so big."
"Thanks." Erik gave her a weak smile. Christy was making sure he didn't feel like he was messing up the trip because he didn't have control of his powers. "I'm gonna miss you when you leave." He finally said what none of the others wanted to talk about, even among themselves. Christy wasn't staying.
"I'm gonna miss you too." Christy sighed. "But let's not think about that now. We're busy having fun, and I still have days left."
"Why don't you ask them for a job?" Erik pushed just a little more. "I'm sure you'd be great."
They stepped through the turnstiles before Christy answered. "This is the sort of place you get invited to work at. I can't just ask for it. If they thought I'd fit in they would have just offered." She didn't sound too happy about that. "Besides my disappearing right now would be suspicious and I can't appear suspicious."
Erik had let himself forget about that. Christy could still be in danger when she went home, if he didn't cover their tracks well enough or if something else went wrong. Once the subway came he got on and took a seat quietly. It just wasn't fair that Christy couldn't stay.
********
Emma found Scott in the halls outside of her classroom when she was getting ready to leave after teaching her last class. He was waiting for her. "I dropped her off for her sight seeing." Scott said minimally while coming in for privacy. He closed the door behind him. "Emma…" He shook his head. "I don't know what to think about her. The more I know the more I'm concerned. She knows too much. She's too good at pretending to be a dead woman, and she kills far too easily."
"Killing isn't easy for her Scott." Emma leaned against her desk to talk. "It rips her apart every time she does it, but she refuses to let anyone see that."
He sighed. "Why does she do that?"
Emma sighed. She wasn't really prepared for this conversation. "I haven't seen everything, but… she was a leader on a dying world Scott. People looked to her for miracles and she had to make horrifying choices to keep her people alive as long as possible. She feels like she sold her soul to do it."
"What did she do?" He was clearly analyzing a threat rather than focusing on Christy's pain and Emma didn't feel like he was being fair to the woman's torment.
"I am still working on getting all the information."
"What do you know now?" His voice was stern and Emma's irritation bristled, but she couldn't put off giving a report forever.
"I know that it was a hell world. She didn't lie about that. I know that she is so much stronger than I originally thought. To come out of that sane is a miracle, and I do believe she is sane." Her fist clenched. "One of her leaders tormented her regularly, claiming that gay people all went to hell, telling her she needed to submit to a man to go to heaven, telling her that it was her fault people were dying of starvation when she couldn't do anything about it." Her voice became a whisper. "Making her bury the children she felt she'd failed to save." That had hit Emma hard. She'd lost so many children of her own. Christy's pain from that was too closely mirrored to her own pain. Scott moved closer and rested what was supposed to be a comforting hand on her shoulder but she didn't want him to touch her right now. She moved a step away and his hand fell to his side.
"If scanning her is getting to be too hard for you, maybe you should bring Jean in on this." He spoke softly, and Emma knew he was concerned about her own pain, but it felt like once again someone was telling her she was second best and it was time to bring in the big guns.
"I don't think having Jean in Christy's mind would be a good idea." She could list several reasons, but this one would stop the discussion. "She knows about us." Scott blanched as he stared at her in disbelief. "She doesn't believe it, but if Jean ran across that memory…"
"This is the sort of thing I was afraid of. Secrets that she could use against us."
"Even if she believed it, she wouldn't use it." Emma could see his disbelief. "She likes me too much to hurt me like that." You however, she might throw to the wolves, Emma thought to herself.
"It isn't like it's a real affair." He spoke quietly, once again trying to justify his participation. Emma didn't feel like catering to his guilt at the moment.
"I'm going to continue trying to map the rest of what happened. She told us she became a leader at one point, but the last memories I saw still had her as a hunting leader." She knew she had votes on who Christy should have replaced, and hoped that the woman had at least rid herself of that one torment before the end of her world. It took Scott a moment to pull himself back into the conversation that had moved on without him.
"Well try and get more sleep. We can't have you running yourself into the ground for this."
"Your concern touches me." She spoke with heavy sarcasm. "But I need to get napping if I'll be ready for tonight's show and tell session."
"Do you want someone to wake you for dinner?"
"No, I'll grab something when I wake up." Emma pushed off her desk and started towards the door. "You could have really hurt her emotionally with that simulation earlier. She only acts like she's made of stone."
"Like you?" He spoke softly and Emma had to nod just a little in acknowledgment.
********
The play was nice. Phantom of the Opera had been out forever, but Christy had never seen it. The kids were staying in New York so Christy didn't feel too guilty not giving them a choice on this, since they'd have the opportunity to see others if they wanted.
A train. Man, Seattle didn't have such great public transportation. No one would need a car in Manhattan and the fact that they were able to get almost home without one was interesting.
Christy glanced at the kids while she made the call for someone to pick them up at the station. They looked a bit tired from the day.
"Xavier's." Emma cool voice answered the phone and Christy smiled a little.
"Hey, we need a ride."
"Oh, well then I'll drop everything and rush right over." Emma's teasing was easier to hear over the phone. That woman was warming to her faster than Christy thought she would. Especially considering that when they met it looked like Emma hated her.
"Okay. Well, we'll just wait…" Christy watched the kids talking. "Thanks."
********
Emma drove up to the small group and sent out a telepathic hello to get their attention, well all but Christy's. She still couldn't do that with the woman.
The drive home was short but filled with what were now her students talking about the fact that they had to start school tomorrow and complaining that they'd be so tired. Christy wasn't offering any sympathy for the complaining and Emma just smiled at them. She'd see what type of students they were, or at least those that were in her classes.
Once they pulled up to the garage Christy spoke to the kids. "Okay, I'll see you tomorrow after classes."
"What are you gonna do when we are in school?" Annie sounded a bit concerned that Christy would be bored.
"I'm sure I can think of something. Don't worry."
********
Christy walked into the kitchen with Emma. There was a man at the counter reading.
"Jono says hi." Emma spoke and Christy gave her a questioning look until the blonde moved to indicate the man. "Christy, I'd like you to meet one of our T.A.'s Jono."
Christy looked at him and the hidden face reminded her of who he was. He communicated just with telepathy. That wouldn't work too well with her. "Hi. Sorry I can't hear you." She felt a little bad about the fact that it probably looked like she'd ignored him.
Emma spoke for him. "He understands." He just nodded at her politely and got up to leave.
"You don't need to leave. We're just getting something to eat."
"Jono has a T.V. show he was waiting for. He says goodnight."
"This inability to hear you is a pain isn't it." Christy gave him a weak smile. Even though she couldn't see a mouth, his eyes looked like they smiled.
They weren't alone long before Emma leaned against a counter and stared at her. "I was wondering if you'd be willing to visit my telepathy class this week. My students haven't seen someone who has a shield like yours." Christy looked up from the fridge she was attempting to raid. "I would like them to see that they can't just rely on their powers. Some foes won't be that easily defeated."
"I'm going to get a major headache out of this aren't I?" Christy asked but Emma didn't answer her. She just kept looking at Christy waiting for an answer. Yep, a major headache. Christy sighed. "You better have enough aspirin in this place."
"Have you considered that you don't really need aspirin? It's just a placebo to you." Christy just stared at her. She hadn't really thought about that.
"Am I really hungry?" She asked quietly and turned back to the fridge. Suddenly she just didn't feel like eating. She closed the door. "Maybe I don't need food." The thoughts on what she'd eaten in the past made her feel ill. "I used to, I had to need it… I…" She stammered out, almost not aware of Emma. "God, if I ate food other people could have used and I didn't need…"
"Your mutation is most likely rather recent." Emma spoke gently and Christy was surprised to find the blonde leading her to a chair. "Doctors have taken your blood before, they must have. You never got calls about missing samples then did you?"
Christy thought about that for a minute. She'd been injured on hunts and those had bleed. Those had taken time to heal. "Yeah, maybe it's a new thing." She started to relax. She gave Emma a weak smile. "Things were a little tight at home. I wouldn't have wanted to take what I didn't need."
"There is no guarantee you don't need food now." Emma was being so gentle, her hand resting on Christy's arm in reassurance. Christy sighed. She wished she could believe Emma would still care if she knew the truth, but she wasn't feeling brave enough to risk that right now. Maybe once the X-men weren't so suspicious of her she'd tell them about it all. She didn't want them to toss her out without getting to know her. "So lets eat. I missed dinner."
"We had an early dinner." Christy felt a little guilty about having two dinners, but it had been six hours.
"You don't need to justify it Christy." Emma turned to actually cook and Christy suddenly had a vague memory of hearing the woman wasn't capable of that.
"Ah, I can cook if you want." She spoke a bit hesitantly and Emma turned to stare at her.
"You've heard something haven't you?" Christy's guilty grin had Emma sighing heavily. "Complaints about my cooking were inter-dimensional. That is just lovely."
"Did you really used to fight in your underwear?" Christy smirked at Emma while trying not to envision this beautiful woman in the outfits she'd seen in the comics. Still a blush came to her cheeks, and Emma's eyebrow rose in a subtle question that made Christy blush even harder.
"The outfit I wore when I was in the Hellfire club was… revealing." Emma didn't sound the least bit embarrassed, but then if she'd worn that for years she must have gotten over any sense of modesty long ago. "And you haven't seen my latest costume yet." Emma's grin was almost flirtatious. "You'll see it tomorrow when you come to my class."
Christy couldn't help but think that if she'd been one of Emma's students, she wouldn't have been able to pass the class. She wouldn't be able to pay attention past the roar of her hormones. If Emma thought her latest costume was worth mentioning it was probably pretty brave.
"Don't you get cold?" Christy asked before thinking about it. Emma just smirked and turned back to working on dinner. Christy was going to have to let the woman cook if she didn't want to insult her.
********