Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
Scott glanced back from the cockpit at the others again, his gaze landing on Christy a bit longer than the rest. He hadn't bothered to tell her that the plane had a surveillance system, or that he'd turned it on because he didn't fully trust her. While he had pretended to need to pilot the plane he'd been watching footage of her fight. Luckily for the cameras it had all happened on the plane or the ramp. That was all the camera's covered. He'd winced in sympathy at the blows she took. He'd been impressed with, well not her skill she hadn't the hand to hand skills, but her determination.
That bastard they had in the back of the plane tied up and being guarded had touched her. His jaw clenched as he turned to stare back out the window. He'd left her at the plane partly because he didn't trust her, and partly because he was worried she'd get in the way or get hurt since she didn't know how to fight without guns. She could have been raped on this plane with no way to call for help. He hadn't thought to show her the communication device and she wasn't able to yell out mentally for a telepath to hear her. She'd been isolated.
She'd saved their lives. He glanced back again at the quiet woman leaning against the window. While Hank and Jean talked with the kids Emma was listening in and getting to know her future students, and Christy was just staring out the window. An outsider. He sighed and set the autopilot before getting up and moving to take the seat next to Christy.
She glanced over at him and then looked surprised. She must have expected someone else. Probably Emma. Christy didn't hang around with anyone as much as she did Emma. Emma was a strange choice for a new person to latch onto. She wasn't one to warm up to new people quickly and didn't normally exude welcome. The fact that the two of them were getting closer was puzzling. Most people would be upset when they found out a telepath was poking around in their mind without permission, but it didn't look like Christy was. She didn't even seem upset with the body snatching.
It took him a moment to open his mouth as he tried to think of what to say. "You did well." He spoke quietly so that this was just between them. The others were in the middle of the standard welcome to Xavier's talk. "I…" He felt awkward. He didn't like having to apologize and he wasn't comfortable with these type of talks. Christy was just quietly letting him talk. Everything about her was quiet since she gave him that backpack with a bomb in it. "Thank you." He left it open for what he was thanking her for.
"No problem." A slight smile warmed the words just a little. He sat back in the seat a bit more trying to get more comfortable.
"That guns comment… I'm sorry."
"You were right." The touch of resignation in her voice didn't sit well with him. He'd had time to think about what he'd said along with the fact that Emma had told him before that even though Christy didn't look it she wasn't a remorseless killer. "Without my guns I can't do much. If I weren't a mutant…"
"You just need to learn to fight." He started to talk with his teacher persona. He was uncomfortable with the knowledge of what would have happened if Christy didn't have a mutation that let her take a beating like the one he saw she did. He'd thought she was being flippant when he told her she'd gotten her ass kicked, since other than her ruined shirt and dirty pants he couldn't see it. She had though.
"Yeah." Christy sighed. "So this plane flies itself?" The change in subject was obvious. He sat back again and felt a bit more comfortable talking about something he understood better than he did Christy. He did notice Jean's approving glance when he looked over at his wife.
********
Emma had studied the new students carefully while they listened to the dull speech Jean gave. This was the third pre-made team they'd taken in this year. Hopefully it wasn't going to be a new habit. Renee was the one the police had in custody, and her power was the ability to fly. Kenny could teleport, but only a very short distance and not with anything more than the clothes on his back. Carmen could change his skin color to blend in with the colors around him as long as those colors were black or gray. Stacy could talk to cats and her twin brother Malcolm could talk to dogs. They'd work well enough together to steal, but it remained to be seen if they could do anything else.
She moved to sit next to Christy again, away from the chattering. Scott had mentioned that Christy might need some woman to talk to while giving her a strange look, so here she was. "You're being quieter than normal."
"I didn't want to interrupt the boring speech." Christy gave her a weak smile while glancing at the speech still in progress. "Those kids need that punishment. It's the only warning they get to how dull and lifeless the classes you all teach are." The grin grew just a little and Emma's indignation faded as she noticed it was just a joke.
Her voice was low so that no one could hear them, while wishing that it wasn't so hard to get Christy to lower her shields so that they could have real privacy. "Are you okay?"
Christy seemed to be taking an inventory of her body. "A bit sore, but nothing major."
Emma felt like telling Christy she could overcome that soreness. That her own mind was limiting her to human reactions and pain, but she let it go this time. Christy didn't always take that well, and it hadn't been Christy's physical well being she'd been asking about.
"That isn't quite what I wanted to know."
"I managed to catch someone without killing them." Christy sounded just a little proud of that accomplishment. "It is so much harder."
Well, that hint of pride seemed to indicate Christy was fine. Emma sat back and let Christy have her quiet time.
********
Her watch face was cracked, but it still seemed to tell time. Christy had missed dinner by five and a half hours. It was almost midnight. No chance she could talk to her kids and see how their day went. Well, another less advertised problem with being a superhero. She sighed and sat up a little straighter. That got Emma's attention out of the book she was reading. "I need some dinner. Want to join me?" Christy felt a little nervous asking. They still hadn't talked about the fact she'd had a friend murdered. Emma didn't seem to be pulling away, but still…
And to think there were a few other less than attractive things Emma still had to find out about. If Emma still wanted to be around her, Christy would just let her see it all. Everything. If someone was just the sum of their experiences, finally someone would get to see her and not the other Christy mask she wore all the time.
"I need to get the children set up in dorms and we still need to interrogate that man." Emma told her while unbuckling her seat belt to get off the plane. Christy just nodded, but Emma tilted her head a little and looked at her. "My last class gets out at 12:45. I'd like to come by and look at your memories again."
Christy searched Emma's eyes for any hint that the woman was disgusted by what she'd seen, but it just wasn't there. "What do I have to have done to push you away?" She whispered almost to herself.
"Christy." Emma rested a hand on hers. "I'm no angel either. I haven't had to live in that world, but I have done things that make the others around here nervous. I'm not going to judge you so callously, when I can see why you did the things you did." She squeezed Christy's hand at that moment and Christy felt like pulling her into a hug, but there were people around. Well, why not? She reached out and pulled a stiff blonde into a hug.
When she pulled away she noticed Scott's unmoving staring, but no one else seemed to notice. "I'll see you tomorrow." She whispered.
"Alright. Well, I need to get to work. If something comes up and I have to miss the meeting, I'll let you know."
********
"Your friend has nice soft breasts." The bastard sneered at them. "Anyone know if she's as tight as I imagined?" Scott's jaw clenched again. They were just waiting for the telepaths to take care of making him more cooperative. He and Logan had escorted him to the holding cell and rigged up a way to lock him in that he couldn't escape from with his powers.
The sound of Logan's claws coming out was hard to miss in the echo of the room and Scott glanced at him, silently willing him not to rise to the bait. He knew it was futile though. "What you talking about bub?" Logan hissed at the prisoner. Emma told them his name was Barney. Lousy name.
Barney was a cocky shit. He stared up at them with no fear as he told them about molesting Christy and his plans for her that were just postponed. "Logan, don't kill him." Scott said coldly while his eyes never left the slimy weasel in the cage. "yet." That seemed to shake Barney up a bit. They weren't going to kill him, but a healthy dose of fear would be a good thing. If he was going to play the game of pissing them off to see if they got sloppy, Scott could let him know that pissing them off was dangerous.
The door opened and Scott glanced at it to see both of the team telepaths enter. Good, he was getting sick of this guys mouth. "Mr. Personality awaits ladies." He glanced at the man again and spoke a bit more quietly. "Our telepaths are rather fond of "The little girl"." That was what Barney called Christy and they didn't need to give him a name. "I hope you were lying about what you did." He felt a bit of satisfaction at the fear that showed in Barney's eyes at that moment. Scott had absolutely no compassion for a man that would try to do anything to a woman like that, and he didn't doubt that Barney really would have taken the unconscious Christy into the bushes to rape her. Christy's mutation saved her in spite of Scott's lack of anticipating that something could go wrong at the plane.
********
"Well, this at least gives us a place to start." Charles spoke after they gave the report on Barny and what he knew about the ring.
She'd mindwiped that bastard's memory of touching Christy and extracted any desire for revenge against the woman. In fact he'd never remember what Christy looked like or who it was that had captured him.
They sat around a table for this meeting and now that a plan of attack against the men responsible for using mutant teens had been set in motion they still sat there. Emma knew what was next.
"Can you give us a report on what you've seen in Christy's mind?" Scott asked, but it held less suspicion that it had before. Christy had earned a little respect from the field leader.
"I would really rather wait until I have all the details." Emma spoke a bit coldly.
"Why are you waiting? You've given reports on less information before." Scott sounded a bit irritated with her waiting.
"She's complicated, as is the situation she found herself in. I want all the details before I talk about it."
"Emma." Charles sounded tired. "Maybe we would be more inclined to be patient if we had something now."
Something. Worded perfectly for Emma to keep the secrets she wanted to keep. Emma nodded subtly agreeing to that arrangement. "Once her world knew it was going to die Christy found herself out of a job immediately. Students didn't care about school when they had no future. The president issued guards to all major cities, but the guards were corrupt and instead of helping people were more of a threat than any of the problems they were supposed to solve. They were the Raiders Christy talked about. The very people sent to help them raped, killed, and stole their way across the city." Emma spoke coolly and barely paid attention to the growing tension in the others. "Christy's brother lived in California. The day her mother committed suicide she was finally able to reach him by phone, only to find out he wasn't coming home. She neglected to tell him their mother was dead so that he wouldn't worry and buried her alone. She lived alone in her house, keeping it dark so the raiders wouldn't realize she was there for a couple months before running into a former student while scrounging around the remains of a grocery store for food. That is how she became part of the tribe."
She paused to glance around. She still had everyone's attention. Charles looked saddened by what Christy went through and Emma had barely scratched the surface. She continued to tell them about the beginning of Christy's time with the tribe. Emma was giving a verbal report and knew they all must realize that a telepathic report would have been more encompassing. She didn't want to risk the other telepaths sensing that she wasn't being completely honest with them yet.
"A change in the structure of the tribe resulted in her being the leader of her own hunting team and one of the tribe leaders rode her because she was gay. Claimed it was her fault she wasn't finding food and forced her to bury the dead as punishment. For every dead child she lowered into the ground she felt like a piece of her soul seemed to die. She started to believe that she alone could do something to stop the starvation. She started to believe that everything rested on her, even though she wasn't the leader of the tribe and she wasn't the only Hunting team leader." Emma sat back. That was all they'd get now, and it would give them time to absorb the fact that Christy was under a lot of pressure before Emma told them what the pressure resulted in.
"Do you think she's stable?" Charles asked her quietly.
"For what she's been through, she's a miracle." Emma sighed and pushed some hair out of her eyes. She might as well bring up the other thing now. "She was a mutant on her world and didn't know it or let herself recognize it. She has another power Charles." She looked up at the older telepath. "She can feel death. Not the way we do. The best way for me to describe it is that death caresses her like a lover. If someone near her died she could tell because of the pleasure she felt."
"She gets off on death?" Scott sounded stunned and disgusted. That wouldn't do. Emma turned her eyes to him and gave him a cold look.
"No, not like that. She doesn't enjoy peoples' deaths. It's a physical reaction, involuntary… and it isn't powerful enough for her to 'get off'." But it was pleasant. Emma remembered the shared feeling. No wonder Christy refused to think about it, it was a bit ghastly to feel like that from death. Emma had to wonder if part of Christy's eventual acceptance of cannibalism had anything to do with the positive reinforcement she had built in for killing. Could several deaths at the same time intensify the feeling? Did she orgasm as her world died? These were new thoughts and Emma pushed them out of her mind for now to deal with the briefing she was still conducting. "She did however feel one death like we would. She felt her double die. That Christy's fear, her shock as she was sent to a world that evidently was missing enough air to breath. The tunnel that connected the two worlds collapsed when that woman died, and it left the only doorway into Christy's mind."
"Do you think that she could be convinced to let me in?" Charles asked and Emma just started to shake her head.
"No. She only trusts me." Emma could see the barely concealed disbelief on Jean's face. "While she likes most of you just fine, she feels some sort of bond with me."
"Did you put that there so that she wouldn't let anyone else in?" Jean accused her and Emma turned in her seat enough to stare at her. Jean wasn't used to being in second place. Emma smirked.
"No, that's been there a long time. For years from what I can tell." She glanced at the others listening in. "She knew us before she ever came here, from the comics she read and she feels emotionally safer with me." God, it felt good to say that. Her eyes fell on Jean again before she turned back to the Professor. It indicated that there may be reasons that Christy didn't feel safer with either Jean or the Professor, and Emma left it at that. "She's learning how to open her shield so that I can have a faster connection. She's accepted that I want into her mind and is letting me do it. I'll be visiting her tomorrow to get more information."
"She's willingly letting you snoop around?" Logan sounded a bit skeptical, but not accusing. He would have a hard time accepting that someone would want that.
"Christy has been pretending to be someone she isn't for years. First on her world when she became a leader and then here, where she has to watch everything she says so that people won't suspect she isn't the Christy they knew. The constant acting has put a toll on her and I sensed that she's relieved she doesn't have to do it with me." Emma sighed. "She needs therapy actually, to deal with what she's been through, but you can see how she can't trust anyone with it. If she were staying I'd suggest she meet with me several times a week. As is, all I can say is sending her to an empty house will be a big mistake. She needs people around. It's part of why she took in the children to begin with. She needs to believe she's alive for a reason, and she's starting to consider new ones now that we have her children. Ones that involve going against the F.O.H. on her own because she thinks if she asks for help we will do it for her and she needs to be needed."
"Oh, that's not a good idea." Scott spoke up. "She really didn't do well against Barney. I saw the footage and she came very close to losing that fight."
"And I've seen her in action in her memories." Emma stared at him. "If she resorts to her old methods she could do damage, but then she'd be killing more people. She needs to be taught new ways to do things because she isn't going to not do anything. She's not going to go back home and pretend to be that Christy much longer. She can't keep up the charade forever. Even Mystique gets time off from being someone else."
"Interesting that you brought Mystique up." Jean spoke to the silence in the room. "Because there is evidence that Christy could be a shapeshifter as well." Emma could see Charles sit up a little straighter at that. She'd already made that possible connection. Christy's body was impermanent. The control she had over what organs existed and what didn't was just the beginning. Emma had been waiting for something more to come of that strange power and it was a lucky coincidence that her own presence in Christy's mind gave her the evidence she needed.
When the meeting was over and they were released for the night Emma could see Charles was deep in thought. "Emma, could you stay a moment?"