Not Myself
By Princess Alexandria
Princess_alex24@hotmail.com
Christy curled up into herself, striking a classic fetal pose. Emma couldn't sense anything from Christy now. After the deep scan Christy had managed to gently close the doorway to her mind, giving Emma the choice of taking over or getting out. Emma respected Christy's desire to be alone in her head for the moment and ended the connection. She didn't stop holding Christy though. Emma was on her side holding Christy to her. She wasn't sure what to say, and her own memories of standing in the middle of a classroom and watching the blast from the Sentinel cut down her students kept replaying in her mind. Christy's pain was so similar it touched on Emma's causing the telepath to relive her own pain.
Emma pulled Christy tighter to her body and started to rock gently. Trying to soothe the quiet pain. Christy wasn't crying. She was silent and Emma barely could hear her even breathing. In spite of her movement she wasn't sure Christy even registered that she wasn't alone.
"She was an innocent." Christy started to whisper. "She had plans, hopes that she wrote down almost nightly." Christy's voice sounded strained. Emma didn't interrupt her, but she was not surprised that it was this thing that was bothering Christy more than the knowledge that the blast had indeed hit her. Emma had been working on an explanation for that one, but it wasn't the issue Christy wanted to address first. "She had a schedule to pay off her bills, and plans to travel once she could afford it." Christy's tears must have started, because Emma could hear them in the voice. "She wanted to see Egypt before she died. She was making plans. She should have had years."
Emma moved to caress Christy's hair, pulling it out of the woman's face. She pulled back just enough to lean up on one arm so she could look down into the reddening face of Christy's pain. She could only see it in profile because Christy wouldn't look at her. "She… she didn't deserve this. It should have been me."
Emma wasn't sure how to respond to this. "Christy, you're doing something with the time you've been given. It's all we can do, find a purpose and do our best to…"
"I killed her." Christy's voice was a growl. "And I didn't need to. I was afraid, and I killed her. That is worse than any of the other deaths I've caused, I had reasons for those… but her…." Christy's voice lowered to almost inaudible, "I stole her life in every way a person could do that. It was me."
"You were in shock." Emma's voice rose above the whispers they'd been using. "No one could be expected to think clearly after what had just happened." Emma had hoped that Christy wouldn't realize right away that the tunnel was hers and that she'd controlled it, but Christy wasn't stupid. It reacted to Christy's thoughts too well for it to be anything but an extension of Christy's own powers.
"That doesn't mean she'll ever see Egypt." Christy took a shuddering breath. Emma desperately hoped that this wasn't the last straw that would break this strong woman. Without the connection she couldn't be sure how bad the damage really was. The silence stretched out for far too long as Emma let Christy quietly process her thoughts.
"It's the deaths isn't it?" Christy's voice startled Emma, who had started to think the woman had fallen asleep. It took a moment for Emma to follow the change in conversation.
"You may take that energy and use it to make the tunnel."
"No." Christy's surety was a surprise. "The tunnel was there, I just stole it." Emma moved to lean on one arm and look down at Christy again. Her body was a bit sluggish from the silent vigil at Christy's side. Christy finally looked at her and Emma could see that Christy was getting to the point of acceptance, or hiding the fact she couldn't accept it. The woman recovered from a lot rather quickly. "It was the tunnel to heaven." Or maybe Christy's mind finally snapped. Emma felt her concern grow. "I died and it was supposed to take me to heaven, or probably hell… but I hijacked it." Emma's heart thumped in painful regret. She shouldn't have unburied the memories. Christy wasn't handling this well at all.
"You didn't die Christy." Her voice was soft as she tried to get Christy to listen to her. Her hand snaked out to caress Christy's cheek. "I can't read the dead, so you must be alive." Christy closed her mouth at that before she finished the obvious protest on her lips. Emma sighed. "Jono doesn't have a heart beat, but he's alive. His powers destroyed his chest and jaw, but he is alive even though he has a huge hole in his chest where his heart should be." Christy's expression became thoughtful. Emma decided to continue the argument. "When I'm in my diamond form, I'm clinically brain dead, but I'm still alive, and I can still think." She stared into Christy's eyes and noticed the vulnerability was completely exposed to her. Christy wanted to believe her. "We're mutants Christy. Some of the normal definitions of life don't always apply to us. If they did the Professor would have planted a diamond in the cemetery last summer when my secondary mutation appeared." She gave Christy a small smile and noticed the tension starting to ease out of the woman.
The feeling of holding a woman in her arms like this was a bit foreign to Emma. She was comforting someone in a way no one had showed her how. She was just using what she'd learned about Christy in her mind to deal with this. Christy needed physical comfort more than words, where Emma wasn't practiced in giving either but she'd try both. "You've done so much with your time here." Emma's hand slowly caressed Christy's upper arm, almost distractedly, while she formulated her words in her mind. "I know you're upset about what happened to her, but she wasn't equipped to save those children. You're children needed YOU, not her. Without your help what would have happened to them?" Emma could feel the tension in Christy's frame and knew she'd made her point. It was Christy, this Christy, that saved Annie and Jessi's life by taking them in. It was this Christy that saved Erik from being discovered because his powers would have led the government to him if he didn't learn to stop projecting. "Could she have done any of that? Would she have?"
"No." Christy's voice was tense, but Emma felt better about these tears Christy started to shed. They weren't tears of horrible pain, but seemed to be a cleansing acceptance of what was. The tears were less violent. Of course if Christy would just let her in again Emma could be certain it was healing tears. "She would have walked away. She wouldn't have thought she could make a difference." Christy sighed and seemed to push back into the embrace, seeking it. Emma tightened her hold and heard another soft sigh. "Before… everything, I would have walked away too. I didn't think I could fight for anyone."
"Living through pain sometimes gives us the conviction we need to make a difference." Emma thought of her own loses. Her own dead students, and how she'd become more and more convinced that the reason she still lived was to teach the next generation how to protect themselves. Charles had the noble ideals about learning to live in peace, but Emma was here to just make sure these students lived. "You've already made a difference Christy, and you've just begun."
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Christy groaned just a little as she opened her eyes. The silence gave her the impression that it was late and she didn't remember falling asleep. She started to roll over when she felt the arm around her tighten just a little, surprising her into realizing she wasn't alone in the bed. Emma stayed?
She carefully rolled over and stared down at the blonde telepath. Emma fell asleep. The arm that had been holding Christy fell back to Emma's side rather naturally. The light had been turned off and it was the moon that gave what little light Christy could see by. Emma chose to stay. That was the only explanation for the light. Christy had fallen asleep crying and Emma stayed.
Christy felt like her heart stopped, and knowing her mutation it was possible. She just stared at the blonde asleep on her bed and thought about how kind Emma had been. She'd never seen evidence that Emma could be like that in the comics.
The blonde hair was so very blonde. Christy carefully moved a hand out to touch it and see if it was as soft as it looked. She'd been wanting to do that for a while, but didn't dare. Emma's hair felt like silk under her fingers. It was hard to pull the hand away from that softness, but she didn't want to risk waking Emma. The woman might decide to leave then, and Christy didn't want her too. She didn't want to be alone right now, and just having Emma there helped make her feel better.
Christy rolled over slowly so as to not jar the bed and got up. She needed to go to the bathroom, and she needed to take off Jean's now wrinkled and tear damp outfit. She thought about taking Emma's shoes off so that the telepath would be more comfortable, but she left them alone.
She had power alright, and the first thing she did with her power was kill out of fear. Self loathing didn't even cover how she felt at the moment. She had to look at that woman's family regularly, had to talk to people that knew her, and she'd done that. Intellectually she knew Emma was right. She'd been in shock, recently saw the world end… but in her heart she still felt guilty. That death served no purpose and that woman had been what Christy missed being herself, innocent and uncomplicated.
She slid back into bed after risking pulling a blanket over the woman next to her carefully.
Emma may not believe her, but Christy was certain that she did in fact hijack the tunnel to heaven and made it do what she wanted, which was to take her to Emma's world where she thought she'd feel safer. In her last moments in that other world she'd fixated on her heroes and wished they could take her away from the death she could see coming. That tunnel took her exactly where she wanted to be. The only way it could have done better would be if she'd fallen onto the mansion lawn.
She was glad Erik made her feel the need to call for help. She had no idea she would have stubbornly avoided these people if it weren't for him. To think she could have missed meeting Emma in person and seeing this side of her… Christy sighed. She just couldn't regret the fact that she lived and it should make her feel more guilty, but maybe Emma was right and this was what was meant to happen. She was better suited to help in this world than her double had been.
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Emma woke up and stared at the ceiling. The nightmares were back and she'd barely managed to not yell out once she realized she wasn't in her own room. The images of her student shifting through the broken pieces of wall looking for his hands… The girl with so many sharp pieces of glass imbedded in her it was hard to carry her without jabbing them in further. The endless darkness as she tried to find a way out of the tunnel to the surface, desperately hoping it would be in time to save the girl that had been alive when she picked her up, but had died in her arms. Those images blended with her Hellions, with the Massachusetts Academy explosion… Emma knew death. Sometimes she wondered if she was truly helping these students, since her caring about them put them at risk, because everyone knew Emma's students died horrible deaths.
Emma turned to see Christy, and that was when she noticed she'd been covered sometime during the night. She was careful not to disturb the woman next to her. Christy sent her students to Emma to keep them safe, knowing Emma's poor luck in doing that for her own students in the past. Emma felt like waking Christy up and warning her that Emma was cursed in that regard, but she knew it was just her nightmare clinging to her. Once daylight hit she'd feel better.
"Emma?" The softly whispered and tired sounding voice startled her. She preferred being able to read the thoughts of her bed companions so that there weren't surprises like this. As she thought about that she found that Christy wasn't blocking her at all, and she could sense the concern. "You're crying."
Emma's hand moved up to her face to feel the evidence of tears. She hadn't realized she was doing that. Before she could come up with some excuse Christy sat up. When did she change into her pajamas and why didn't Emma wake up when Christy did that?
"Emma?"
"I'm fine." Her voice was cool as always, but Christy didn't look very convinced. "Just a nightmare." She could sense Christy's discomfort and was about to pull away when Christy moved forward to hug her. It held no demands. Emma could sense Christy was trying to comfort and that she did have some idea about what those nightmares had been. Every once in a while Emma was surprised yet again by the insight Christy had into their world… into Emma. Emma rarely got a comforting hug with no strings attached. She felt the urge to pull away, but she didn't. If anyone could understand Emma's pain it would be Christy. No one else here seemed to understand such large scale loss. It was one thing to lose one or two loved ones, but to lose dozens, repeatedly in the same violent way… Emma felt a humorless chuckle in her throat. The sign of insanity was to keep doing the same thing over and over hoping for a different result… but Emma kept teaching as if she expected maybe someday her students wouldn't all die on her.
After a moment she pulled back and Christy let her. She looked into concerned eyes. "Thank you." Emma spoke softly and moved to stand.
Christy's moment of panic was concealed to all, if it weren't for the telepathic connection Emma had recreated. Christy didn't want her to leave, and it wasn't all concern for Emma, though some of it was. The sense of need from Christy stopped Emma's retreat. She'd planned to leave and spend the rest of the night in her own lonely bed. "Sleeping in this isn't very comfortable." Emma motioned to her outfit.
"I could lend you a tshirt." Christy's attempt to keep her there was expected. Emma took the out Christy gave her and nodded. She'd stay. She could deal with the misconceptions of the other X-men in the morning, but Christy was still a bit thrown by the scan and really Emma was responsible for that. She should stay and make sure Christy was alright.
Christy got up and looked in the closet. Emma noticed Christy didn't need to turn on the light. Either she knew everything she had by memory or she had good nightvision. "I don't have anything white." Christy turned and smirked at Emma. Emma could hear the rest of the comment in Christy's mind ~Are you able to wear other colors or is it some sort of color allergy?~ Christy was debating about saying it out loud, but Emma's chuckle made her realize it had been heard.
"You're in my head?" Christy sounded curious, not insulted. Another difference from the other people Emma normally interacted with. Emma frowned just a second before covering it up and taking the offered shirt to go change. Christy wasn't even aware she was letting Emma in now? Emma probed the opening she used and it was just big enough for her. The shield was still working.
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Emma came out of the bathroom wearing the blue t-shirt. Christy had seen this woman in less but her eyes took in the sight greedily before realizing what she was doing and stopping herself from staring. Emma's legs were beautiful and the tshirt showed off quite a bit of them. The blue looked so good on the pale skin. Christy could imagine it went well with Emma's eyes too. Blue was definitely her color.
"My brother told me white was my color." Emma spoke quietly and Christy felt like cursing her short memory. They were still connected and she'd been staring. Christy didn't know Emma had a brother, but she kept that to herself. It was the middle of the night and they could both use some sleep.
"You look good in white too." Christy smiled shyly and moved over in the bed even though she didn't need to for Emma to get in. She invited Temptation to sleep next to her. She must be a masochist. At Emma wicked smirk Christy groaned quietly and rolled over trying to think of nothing but trying to sleep. That proved difficult with Emma slipping into bed next to her, but after the tension of worrying about her thoughts faded she started to fall asleep. Sleep came easier than it normally did.
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