***************Out of the Woods*******************
Jean walked through the corridors to the med-lab with a purpose. She had gone to bed a couple of hours previously, but had heard the psychic link that Professor Xavier had practically yelled into her head right before he left to help the Montique's.
The doors opened before her and the first thing she noticed was a girl she knew had to be Leila. She smiled at the little blonde sleeping in her room and continued around the bend to the medical beds. Third one down... Logan.
She paused at the foot of it.
The body upon it slowly breathed in and out. It was a steady rhythm, which by the relieved look on Kurt's face and the thoughts she picked up on, hadn't been the case until recently. She still couldn't believe what had happened.
Trapped in guilty thoughts of "not being there" despite not knowing what HAD exactly happened, she jumped when Hank placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Sorry..." he paused. She smiled at him and he continued. "Thanks for getting up in the middle of the night. I wanted you to take a look at Logan. Something unprecedented has happened to him, and while there is no external damage and his... healing factor still seems to be operational, we just want..." he paused to search for the right words.
"To take a look inside, but it's kind of impossible to take an MRI of a guy with a metal skeleton." Bobby interjected from his chair in front of the glass room holding the little girl. "What with the magnets and all..." Kurt added. He was at the head of Logan's bed.
Jean smiled, thankful for the humor, and asked, "How do you know his healing factor is still working?"
Hank shifted uneasily.
Nightcrawler answered. "Bobby froze his finger."
"Look it healed!" Bobby exclaimed jumping up and pointing at the digit.
Jean sighed. "Couldn't you have just given him a paper cut?" She stared at Hank incredulously.
Bobby just shrugged, walking back to his chair. Hank changed the subject.
"Kurt will let you in on all of what happened tonight, and why we think it's imperative for Logan to be woken up as soon as possible." He hurried back over to the monitors that held Logan's readouts.
After Kurt relayed the affairs of the evening, Jean sat down next to the medical bed that held her friend. She concentrated her mind flowing into his.
*Logan?* She thought.
No answer.
************************************************************************
Callie was a mutant.
Callie could see the memory of when different emotions existed in other people... more accurately, when the strongest point of that emotion existed. Even if it had happened years ago, Callie could find the memory and make the person relive it, causing the emotion to come back ten fold.
Callie could go back for any emotion... when a person felt the most love, when they had felt the most afraid...
And when she had taken the strongest fear the little girl had ever felt... What she had seen in that little chicklet brat's memory was:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The father with a laptop facing the wall.
The mother rummaging through old boxes... to get the winter clothes out... the earmuffs... to get the earmuffs for Chicklet.
Chicklet had seen the computer screen- an e-mail was open on it; she glanced at it on her tiptoes over the shoulder of her father.
Callie knew what was on it... at least the parts the little girl had read... the word Xavier stuck out in her mind... then the window came crashing down around her... and her mother had started crying, and Chicklet was scared.
OK WHATEVER! Callie shook her head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xavier.
A new beginning... a place to start... but what was Xavier? A person, a place... a really big dog?
Callie had a good idea of who might know. He seemed to know everything.
****************************
Callie didn't waste any time. Still glowing and seething with residual rage, she pulled up to her boss' palace. Palace was a strong word; maybe "awkwardly enormous" house was better. The house had yellow walls and blood-red windowpanes. It looked even more imposing and horrible then it sounded. Callie had been here plenty of times before.
Teeth clenched and mind jumbled, she barely missed the Porsche in the front driveway. She did, however, jam the car into park without it reaching a complete stop, ramming her left arm up and across her door and the dashboard, creating a nasty gash.
The pain renewed the rage still left inside of her and she ripped the door off the car with a glowing hand.
Looking at the door with disgust, she dropped it to the ground with careless force and, leaving her black shoulder bag there in the back of the car, she grinded herself forcefully towards the front door.
Through shimmering eyes, Callie stopped at the door for half a second. Actually thinking about knocking on it for less then that, she blew it right off its hinges.
~This can go the easy way... or the hard way...~
Either one she'd get some answers.
Not wasting her time with something as clichéd as "Honey I'm home." She smiled at the security guards running towards her.
"Hi!" Callie started, pretending to wave at the men. Half way up, her hand grabbed hold of the table she was standing by. Just imagine that as her bat, and the guards as the balls. They went flying with a sickening thud resounding through the house at the end hallway.
~Could never do that before...~
This guy had made her strong. It was like everything about her was different. The rage wasn't leaving like Callie had thought it would. It definitely wasn't as concentrated as it had been, but it still grabbed a hold of her insides, screaming.
She had never killed anyone... other then... that rage had stayed with her as well. In fact, all of their emotions had stayed with her, two lifetimes of regrets all poured down into a little girl... They stayed with her all through the rest of her childhood... all through the psych evaluations and the foster homes, the mental homes... Her boss had finally helped her claw her way free of it... free of her parents... finally out of the woods.
That man back in the Montique's, he... he had been close to death.
When she found him again, maybe if she did kill him...
Well, it wouldn't be a "borrowed" emotion if there was no one to give it back to. And she loved the way she felt... it was all so simple. She didn't want to be free of this.
Callie smiled dropping the table. That was when he came in from upstairs... her boss.
"Is there a reason for all of this... sweetheart?" he patronized from the top of the stairs.
Callie allowed her smile to spread. She looked at him through feral eyes and growled.
"This is... new. Callie sweetie don't try to scare me... I have neural inhibitors on..." he said pointing to his cuff links. "You know your powers don't work on me."
He started walking down the stairs.
"What's Xavier?" Callie rumbled.
"What? You mean who?" He asked wearily, looking over at the unconscious forms of his guards. "Was that absolutely necessary?" he stopped, hand flipping in the air towards their general direction. One of them groaned.
"Who's Xavier?" Callie growled.
"Sweetheart listen," he continued, slowly walking over towards the guard station (there were guns in there Callie knew). "He's just some old man with a bunch of kids and a school. Why do you want to know?"
"Where's the school?" Callie seethed, as her boss finally reached the station.
"God Callie, I know you live a secluded life and all," he said quickly, grabbing a gun from across the partition of the station. "But you really just don't know ANYTHING, do you?" he yelled pointing it at her.
Callie just smiled.
She'd get her answers the hard way then...
************************************************************************
Jean walked through the corridors to the med-lab with a purpose. She had gone to bed a couple of hours previously, but had heard the psychic link that Professor Xavier had practically yelled into her head right before he left to help the Montique's.
The doors opened before her and the first thing she noticed was a girl she knew had to be Leila. She smiled at the little blonde sleeping in her room and continued around the bend to the medical beds. Third one down... Logan.
She paused at the foot of it.
The body upon it slowly breathed in and out. It was a steady rhythm, which by the relieved look on Kurt's face and the thoughts she picked up on, hadn't been the case until recently. She still couldn't believe what had happened.
Trapped in guilty thoughts of "not being there" despite not knowing what HAD exactly happened, she jumped when Hank placed his hand on her shoulder.
"Sorry..." he paused. She smiled at him and he continued. "Thanks for getting up in the middle of the night. I wanted you to take a look at Logan. Something unprecedented has happened to him, and while there is no external damage and his... healing factor still seems to be operational, we just want..." he paused to search for the right words.
"To take a look inside, but it's kind of impossible to take an MRI of a guy with a metal skeleton." Bobby interjected from his chair in front of the glass room holding the little girl. "What with the magnets and all..." Kurt added. He was at the head of Logan's bed.
Jean smiled, thankful for the humor, and asked, "How do you know his healing factor is still working?"
Hank shifted uneasily.
Nightcrawler answered. "Bobby froze his finger."
"Look it healed!" Bobby exclaimed jumping up and pointing at the digit.
Jean sighed. "Couldn't you have just given him a paper cut?" She stared at Hank incredulously.
Bobby just shrugged, walking back to his chair. Hank changed the subject.
"Kurt will let you in on all of what happened tonight, and why we think it's imperative for Logan to be woken up as soon as possible." He hurried back over to the monitors that held Logan's readouts.
After Kurt relayed the affairs of the evening, Jean sat down next to the medical bed that held her friend. She concentrated her mind flowing into his.
*Logan?* She thought.
No answer.
************************************************************************
Callie was a mutant.
Callie could see the memory of when different emotions existed in other people... more accurately, when the strongest point of that emotion existed. Even if it had happened years ago, Callie could find the memory and make the person relive it, causing the emotion to come back ten fold.
Callie could go back for any emotion... when a person felt the most love, when they had felt the most afraid...
And when she had taken the strongest fear the little girl had ever felt... What she had seen in that little chicklet brat's memory was:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The father with a laptop facing the wall.
The mother rummaging through old boxes... to get the winter clothes out... the earmuffs... to get the earmuffs for Chicklet.
Chicklet had seen the computer screen- an e-mail was open on it; she glanced at it on her tiptoes over the shoulder of her father.
Callie knew what was on it... at least the parts the little girl had read... the word Xavier stuck out in her mind... then the window came crashing down around her... and her mother had started crying, and Chicklet was scared.
OK WHATEVER! Callie shook her head.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Xavier.
A new beginning... a place to start... but what was Xavier? A person, a place... a really big dog?
Callie had a good idea of who might know. He seemed to know everything.
****************************
Callie didn't waste any time. Still glowing and seething with residual rage, she pulled up to her boss' palace. Palace was a strong word; maybe "awkwardly enormous" house was better. The house had yellow walls and blood-red windowpanes. It looked even more imposing and horrible then it sounded. Callie had been here plenty of times before.
Teeth clenched and mind jumbled, she barely missed the Porsche in the front driveway. She did, however, jam the car into park without it reaching a complete stop, ramming her left arm up and across her door and the dashboard, creating a nasty gash.
The pain renewed the rage still left inside of her and she ripped the door off the car with a glowing hand.
Looking at the door with disgust, she dropped it to the ground with careless force and, leaving her black shoulder bag there in the back of the car, she grinded herself forcefully towards the front door.
Through shimmering eyes, Callie stopped at the door for half a second. Actually thinking about knocking on it for less then that, she blew it right off its hinges.
~This can go the easy way... or the hard way...~
Either one she'd get some answers.
Not wasting her time with something as clichéd as "Honey I'm home." She smiled at the security guards running towards her.
"Hi!" Callie started, pretending to wave at the men. Half way up, her hand grabbed hold of the table she was standing by. Just imagine that as her bat, and the guards as the balls. They went flying with a sickening thud resounding through the house at the end hallway.
~Could never do that before...~
This guy had made her strong. It was like everything about her was different. The rage wasn't leaving like Callie had thought it would. It definitely wasn't as concentrated as it had been, but it still grabbed a hold of her insides, screaming.
She had never killed anyone... other then... that rage had stayed with her as well. In fact, all of their emotions had stayed with her, two lifetimes of regrets all poured down into a little girl... They stayed with her all through the rest of her childhood... all through the psych evaluations and the foster homes, the mental homes... Her boss had finally helped her claw her way free of it... free of her parents... finally out of the woods.
That man back in the Montique's, he... he had been close to death.
When she found him again, maybe if she did kill him...
Well, it wouldn't be a "borrowed" emotion if there was no one to give it back to. And she loved the way she felt... it was all so simple. She didn't want to be free of this.
Callie smiled dropping the table. That was when he came in from upstairs... her boss.
"Is there a reason for all of this... sweetheart?" he patronized from the top of the stairs.
Callie allowed her smile to spread. She looked at him through feral eyes and growled.
"This is... new. Callie sweetie don't try to scare me... I have neural inhibitors on..." he said pointing to his cuff links. "You know your powers don't work on me."
He started walking down the stairs.
"What's Xavier?" Callie rumbled.
"What? You mean who?" He asked wearily, looking over at the unconscious forms of his guards. "Was that absolutely necessary?" he stopped, hand flipping in the air towards their general direction. One of them groaned.
"Who's Xavier?" Callie growled.
"Sweetheart listen," he continued, slowly walking over towards the guard station (there were guns in there Callie knew). "He's just some old man with a bunch of kids and a school. Why do you want to know?"
"Where's the school?" Callie seethed, as her boss finally reached the station.
"God Callie, I know you live a secluded life and all," he said quickly, grabbing a gun from across the partition of the station. "But you really just don't know ANYTHING, do you?" he yelled pointing it at her.
Callie just smiled.
She'd get her answers the hard way then...
************************************************************************