Thank-you to anyone who reads this, Pandora
Chapter 19
Shadows are often not given the credit they deserve. They, quite often, treated as things unholy, the frightening unknown, the chill that creeps through your flesh when the dark corner of a room beckons to you. But to the young woman who lay awake on her cot, shadows were a blessing. A wonderful fog that kept the mind from jarring and kept unwanted memories from surfacing through. The shadows of her mind kept the thoughts out of the light, exactly where she wanted them.
She turned and lay on her side, her eyes gazing about her, drinking in the things around her. The moonlight that shone through her high window threw distorted images onto her walls,
calling her imagination into play. Here was a swan, here was a frail grove of skinny trees, here was a man with arms held out-stretched. She slowly let her hand reach out to the shadows that played on the wall, her fingers reaching out. A sound outside her door, and footsteps, leisured ones. She froze for a moment, her hand still reaching out and off her bed. The doorknob rattled, and as the soft creaking of the hinges reached her ears, the woman's hand had already flown back beneath the covers. She willed herself to remain calm, and brought her hands to her breast, feeling her fluttering heart through the flimsy materiel of her nightgown.
"You have woken, my dear", said a deep voice. "Welcome back to us."
A golden light filtered through the open doorway and silhouetted the form of a tall man walking towards her. She could not see his face, she could see nothing. Wait, her eyes, she closed her eyes. Yes, open them again. She sat up slowly, pulling up the covers with her like a frightened child, sitting back against the wall next to her bed.
"¿Dónde yo me despierto, señor? ", she asked, "¿Quién es usted y por qué estoy aquí?"
"No my dear, not like that", the man said kindly.
"Où suis-je? Qui êtes vous?", repeated, seemingly unaware that her tongue had suddenly changed, or that she had even understood his demand.
"One more try, please", the man said. "Speak to me so I will answer."
"Where am I?", she said once more, softly this time. "And who are you?"
But suddenly, as she asked those very questions, the answer seemed so unimportant.
"You mean you do not remember me, my child?", the man asked, taking a step forward, his face still cloaked in darkness.
"No", she answered calmly. "No, I do not and I cannot see you."
"Do you feel like you need to see me", he pressed, "Would you like me to turn the lights on?"
"No", she said once more, surprised at her quick answer. "I am not yet ready. My eyes are still sore."
"So you do remember, at least a little", he continued.
"I remember a great light, and I remember, people, family, a boy..."
"You are still under his control then, at least a little", the voice explained gently. "But your mind is already filtering what is true and what is false. What you have and what you have never really possessed. Those you love you", here he paused. "And those who did not."
Gabrielle sighed a little as she struggled to sit up. She slid her hands down upon the thin mattress in the effort of propping herself up. She felt vulnerable as she lay there. Sitting was not much better, but at least it was a small improvement. She moaned softly as she rubbed her eyes, trying to clear her focus. Why did her eyes hurt so? And her head...It felt as though a million little stabbing knives were cutting in-out in-out every second.
"You seem to know a lot about me", Gabrielle said casually, keeping the steady panic suppressed. "But I have yet to learn who you are."
"My name is Magneto", he told her kindly, "And I know more about you then you think Gabrielle."
"I don't like that you should know my name", she said finally, after a moment of silence. "But I can't think why."
The man took a step further, and the shadows that had masked his face dissolved as he moved into the light. The delicate moonbeams coming in from the small window lit his face up with an eerie glow. It made the lines in his weathered face more prominent and his eyes seemed to be sunken into black. Gabrielle looked ahead at him, refusing to be intimidated. This man didn't seem a threat, but then again, she didn't know much of anything at the moment.
"My dear", the man told her as he stopped before her. "I know your name because I named you. I know you because I raised you."
"You say you gave me my name?", Gabrielle asked uncertainly. "And that you have brought me up? I do not mean to be rude but, well, you do not look a thing like me."
"No offense taken Gabrielle", Eric smiled.
"And why is that I know languages in which you cannot answer me?", she demanded, growing more and more suspicious of the strange man who had claimed her.
"Tutors and teachers", he said, shrugging his shoulders. "I've tried to keep you learning new things as you grew."
"I don't look at all like you.", Gabrielle said firmly. There was no talking his way out of this. "I am not your kin, and you cannot assume as much."
"No, I suppose I cannot", he began.
"Which means you have either taken me from my family and are keeping them from me", she interrupted. "Or..."
"Or we have taken you in when your family would no longer care for you", the man said, cutting her off, smiling apologetically.
"How can I believe you?", Gabrielle whispered.
The man took one final step forward. Slowly, he grasped Gabrielle's trembling hands within his own. Placing one of her own hands on her swollen stomach, he smiled when the girl gasped in shock. Gabrielle froze as she finally noticed the bulge in her middle. How had she missed it? How had she, was she, did this mean she was...
"You need to believe me", the man told her quietly, "Because you can't even believe yourself."
Gabrielle fought back the tears that were threatening to spill. She pulled her hand out of Eric's grip and clasped them tightly against herself. Her mind was wheeling, trying desperately to remember something, anything, that could tell her what was going on.
'Tell me everything", she whispered desperately.
"There there", he cooed to her as he sat himself next to her. The girl clung pitifully to his shirt,
sobbing into his chest. He smiled to himself as he smoothed back her hair in a parental gesture,
hushing her softly. "I'll help you to remember it all. Are you ready?"
Eric felt the girl nod her head against his breast, and motioned towards the door. John Allerdyce had waited patiently for Magneto's signal, for the moment when their plan would fully be put into action. He stepped into the room casually, his hand reaching into his coat pocket. Quickly pulling out a collection of snapshots, he handed them to Eric, who took them from John sharply, signalling to that John retreat. Grumbling about the lack of appreciation, John left the room a little louder than he had entered.
"I have something that will help, my dear", Eric said calmly, pushing Gabrielle away gently. Sniffling still and wiping away her tears rapidly, the girl looked curiously at the photos Eric was holding out. It looked like a man with a visor, shooting a frightful red beam towards a smaller man who appeared to be jumping away quickly.
"Before we begin, I suppose you should know my own name", the man said. "But can you remember it on your own?"
Gabrielle looked at him apologetically before shaking her head. "I'm sorry", she said with half a grin, "But it's as though I've never met you before, even though it seems you, well, raised me or,
took me in or,..."
"My real name is Eric, but you may call me 'Father', you always have."
"Yes, I always have", the girl murmured as the suggestion sunk into her impressionable mind.
Magneto could not suppress the sinister smile that played upon his lips. His plan was falling into place perfectly. As he suspected would happen, it seemed that when he had used the special radiation to modify Gabrielle's genetical code and physical state, that her mind had been wiped clean as well, ready to be moulded. Prepared to be filled with whatever instructions that Magneto so chose to impose.
"This man", Magneto continued, pointing to the man in the picture, "Is a very evil man, a mutant in fact."
"A mutant?", Gabrielle asked him. "How do you mean? Is it this light that seems to be coming from his visor?"
"Indeed. Cyclops, or Scott Summers, is in fact capable of emitting a very powerful laser from his eyes. The visor helps him to control it."
"And he is trying to hurt this poor man", Gabrielle said, gesturing to the jumping man fleeing from the beam.
"He is", Eric replied seriously. "In fact, he has an, army, shall we say, of hateful mutants who attack civilians and the mutants who would try to stop them, such as Todd here. Todd is a friend of mine, he is like a brother to you actually, how strange that you don't remember. But he was simply trying to save a child from Cyclops' deadly beams.
"Cyclops", Gabrielle whispered viciously. "I shall remember his name."
This is simply too easy, Magneto thought to himself. If all goes as planned, I shall be able to destroy the X-Men from the inside. And this girl will do it for me.
"And this woman?", Gabrielle asked as Eric showed her a picture of a lean woman with lush red hair.
"Jean Grey", Magneto explained. "Telekinetic, and just as dangerous as Scott."
"May I look at these?", Gabrielle asked shyly, gesturing to Magneto that she whished to take the pictures.
"Of course my dear", he said, promptly handing them over. "Who am I to refuse you anything"
Gabrielle sat quietly for a moment as she filtered through the collection of snapshots. A young, blond boy shooting ice from his fingertips, a long-haired girl with two white locks that framed her face, a vicious-looking man with steel knives protracting from between his knuckles,
Gabrielle could not stop looking at the strange mutants. How could they be so evil? How could they be so different from the kind man at her side?
"This one is the deadliest of all", Magneto indicated as Gabrielle paused to look at the picture of a bald man in a wheelchair.
"He looks so kind", Gabrielle said sadly. "He does not seem evil, or violent."
"The truly evil rarely appear so, my child", Eric told her seriously.
Gabrielle looked at the photo from a moment longer. Something tugged at her memory,
something playing at the back of her mind, begging to be released. Perhaps she had encountered this man before, and he had hurt her in some way?
"Father", Gabrielle said slowly, the word tasting strange on her tongue. "Why is it that I feel like I have met these mutants before?"
"Because", Magneto sighed, "They stole you away from me."
"What!", Gabrielle explained, looking at the pictures more closely. "Why, what use could I be to them? And why don't I remember it?"
"You do not remember because they tried to brainwash you", Eric explained. "Your, brothers,
and I managed to rescue you before they could wipe your mind completely and re-program it."
"But why did they take me away from you?"
"Because Gabrielle", he said sadly, "You too are a mutant. A very powerful one, and they wanted to exploit your gifts."
"A mutant?", she said quietly. Slowly, she raised her hands, palms towards the sky. It seemed to her that she could see red, blood, flowing along the lines in her palms. But as soon as she did,
she saw bandaging, and a callused hand clumsily bandaging her hands. She could almost feel them, and for a moment...
"I shall help you regain your powers soon enough Gabrielle", Eric said quickly, cutting into her thoughts. "I have but picture left to show you."
Gabrielle snapped out of her reverie and put the picture of the bald man next to her on the cot. As her attention went back to the last picture in her hand, her fingers suddenly became clammy, and her arm began to shake slightly.
A boy, a young man really, with unruly auburn hair was throwing some kind of explosive towards another man with blonder hair, who seemed to be controlling a large ball of fire. The auburn-haired man was looking past whoever had taken the shot, and Gabrielle shivered as she noticed his eyes. Red, crimson like blood, the irises glowed on the black of his eye. This was no simple camera glare. These were his eyes.
His hands were clothed with black gloves, fingerless, and he wore a long brown coat. It seemed that Gabrielle could hear the duster snapping, twirling quickly. It was as though she could feel it in her hands, between her fingers. She brought the picture closer, inspecting it all the more intently. How could she imagine the feeling of his shirt on her skin? How could she have any idea of what he smelled like? Why was it that looking at him made her shiver?
"He did it to you, you know"
Gabrielle looked up, tearing her gaze from the picture. "What do you mean Father?" It was getting easier and easier to say.
"This, my dear", Eric said sadly, as he placed his hand gently on Gabrielle's swollen middle.
Gabrielle's eyes widened, and she looked back at the picture. Is this why she could almost taste him now? She had, they had, she was pregnant and it was because he... Did this mean..?
"Did I love him?", Gabrielle asked, choking back a fresh sob. She traced the mutant's face tenderly with her forefinger.
"I do not see how you could", Eric said coldly. "When I learned what he had done to you, when I found you bleeding and in tears... I almost killed him for it, but I needed to be strong for you."
"What do you mean?", Gabrielle whispered, unable to take her eyes off the handsome stranger.
"He raped you my dear", Eric told her softly, reaching out to tuck a stray strand of hair behind her ear. "He violated you to exact revenge on your family, on me. He knew it would destroy us,
destroy us because we loved you so much..."
"He, he raped me?", Gabrielle asked in horror. She looked once more at her large stomach, and then back at the stranger. Wouldn't she remember fear when she looked at him? Wouldn't she remember the pain? All of a sudden...
She saw a brutish man, a large man, his face hidden in the darkness, pushing her up against the side of a building, pulling up her skirts, snaking his face into her neck. Her nose wrinkled in disgust. It suddenly smelt terribly of fish.
She remembered the dark. A small, dark room where she was laying on a blanket with a man. She shivered as she touched him in her memory, and her heart grew cold as she pictured his eyes glowing down at her...
"I remember it", she said fiercely. "I remember him hurting me."
"My dear?", Magneto asked, trying desperately to hide his smile.
"I hate him", Gabrielle whispered savagely. "I hate them all for what they did."
Magneto hid his smiled in Gabrielle's hair as he reached out to embrace her.
No one, not even the Wolverine, noticed the young teenager with the long copper hair who had stolen away from the others. All were so preoccupied, that no one had any idea that she had taken a jeep, and was driving it away as fast as she could.
"What have I gotten myself into", Rogue sobbed as she tore away from the mansion.