Thanks again to Jubes for another review!
*************Shakeups and Breakdowns**************
Walking down the mansion halls back to the med lab, Leila could still hear all the sounds of the night. The crickets chirping, the sounds of floorboards creaking as the house settled itself into slumber. But she could no longer hear the steady rhythmic patterns of all the students sleeping or the swooshing sounds of eyelashes as a person blinked.
She hadn't really noticed it all before, or more accurately she had been bombarded with everything all at once and was too busy trying not to go insane, to care about what she heard, but as weird as it sounded she really missed it. She knew she wouldn't miss any of the noise in the morning... when all of the sleeping bodies turned into yelling teenagers... or mobish protestors.
Leila shook the thought from her head. But in all honesty nothing had really changed... she didn't know why those people had been mad at her so how could she prevent it from happening again? Maybe Dr. Hank's ear thingies were the answer. But somehow, Leila didn't think so.
Still, she did miss the sounds and no one was yelling at her now... so...
Leila looked down at the dial that Dr. Hank had given her. Turn the knob to the right and it made the whole world go away, turn it the other way and it came crashing back inside of her head.
Leila pumped the dial left.
The universe opened back up. She hadn't realized how much she had longed for all of those noises. The crickets were all spread out in the front yard, the lotus bugs cooed and echoed, the breath of a hundred different mutants all escaped in a hundred different ways.
'Maybe this isn't so bad.' She thought to herself. 'Especially if I can make it go away so easily. I can feel like this at night, and be normal in the day. Like a secret identity or something. No one would be mad at me if they didn't know.' She smiled looking up to Jean who yawned and smiled back.
Then she heard Kurt's voice.
"Ich bin so froh Sie sind wach!!" *
It was so loud. His voice screamed in her head.
It had come from behind the closed metal doors to the medlab.
"Mmm..." Leila whispered, putting her hands to her head and tumbling to her knees. She dropped the dial as she fell. It went crashing and thundering to the ground. All the sounds in her head, it created so many vibrations, the noise was pounding. How could she have been so stupid? Nothing had changed.
This was almost how it had felt back at home. She had made the throbbing ease up before. How had she done it? She couldn't remember.
Everything had gone black... and she had woken up in her daddy's arms.
She missed her daddy. He wasn't here to help her now and it felt like reality was melting away. Pretty soon there would be nothing left but pounding echoes. Jean's footsteps on the tile, the snores and wheezes in the bedrooms, the hollow voices from within the med-labs, even the distant crickets were betraying her. She felt dizzy and wanted to scream.
Suddenly it all stopped.
Leila took her breath in small slow gasps. She looked up at Jean who was holding the girl's dial in one hand. The other hand was on her hip.
"Our own Little Miss Earthshaker. You need to be more careful until we have a chance to work with you on controlling your powers Leila." Her forehead scrunched in a worried look for the little girl. "Are you alright?"
Leila nodded she was fine.
"You really shake things up." Jean said staring at the floor underneath the girl.
Leila looked down and saw that the tiles underneath her were cracked and disheveled. It was as if something had smashed them from the inside out. They looked like vibrations, like a little earthquake, had smashed them.
"Did I do that?" She gasped, taking the dial from Jean's outstretched hand. She pushed it so far to the right that she could barely hear herself breath.
"~Come on sweetie, let's get you back to the lab.~" Jean said both physically and psychically.
"Ok... but I almost forgot. That person who was hurt? The one who helped me against... well, he woke up..." Leila started, whispering really fast. "I could hear Kurt, he yelled, well not yell; he talked but it sounded like yelling, course you blinking sounded like your eyelashes were yelling... but... I..." Leila trailed off looking down at her feet.
"Logan's awake?" Jean started with relief. She quickly frowned. "Why does that worry you?"
"He's gonna be mad at me..." Leila whispered, pretending to find something really interesting on her shoe.
"Honey." Jean said kneeling down. "Why would you think a thing like that?"
"Because it's all my fault that he got hurt. Everything's my fault."
Jean brushed a stray blonde bang from the girls' eyes. "He won't be mad Leila. I promise. Let's just go talk to him ok? Then we can get some sleep. You've had a really big day."
The girl said nothing, but reluctantly followed behind Jean Grey as she stepped lightly back towards the med labs.
*************************
The big metal doors opened wide to swallow her up as Leila stepped inside.
Her big green eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up to see Jean give Logan a huge smile.
But he looked straight at her.
She hung her head. The tears rolling freely down her cheeks to the cold floor.
He walked over to her.
"I'm sorry!" She blurted, still looking down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to run away. I didn't mean to run into HER! I didn't mean for you to get hurt! I didn't mean to make everyone so mad! I didn't mean any of it! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" She gasped and cried and held her head.
Logan bent down on both knees. He lowered himself down far enough to have to look up to meet her gaze.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I..." the little girl stopped when she looked into his eyes.
There was no anger in them. No hurt or regret or hatred or pain. Nothing of what Leila had seen in that woman's eyes. The one that had hurt them. No pain like she'd seen in her parents eyes, or the hurt she'd seen in Kurt's. No... Logan... his eyes were beautiful.
Leila gasped, her mouth suck at an "O". Her arms fell to her sides. She stared at his eyes.
Logan went to say something but...
The girl collapsed into him.
Hugging tight. Clinging to his neck, feeling his shirt pull and his scratchy skin on her forehead.
She sobbed into him, letting go of all the pent up emotion she had been feeling for the past two and a half days. Ever since her powers had manifested. Ever since the whole world had started hating her. Not knowing if her parents hated her too. Not knowing what she had done wrong. Feeling lost and all alone, yet never alone. How could she be with everyone screaming in her head?
She hugged him tight. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She whispered.
"I know." Logan hugged her back. He closed his perfect eyes. "Shh...It's ok."
Leila fell asleep in the arms of the man who had saved her.
Sure it hadn't been Logan who had gotten her away from that Lady or the mob around her house. But when she had looked into his eyes she could see that he was really just like her.
He knew what it was like to be afraid, to be lost completely, to not know why people were mad at you, to not know why they HATED you, or how you could make it all ok again. He also knew that things could get better, that she was safe here, he felt safe here; he felt that this was his home. She could have a home here too. No one would be mad at her now.
She had seen it all in his eyes. They were such old eyes. They would have had to be to have learned so much.
*******************
Logan closed the door to the girl's soundproof room in the medlab. She had fallen asleep on the bed inside the second he had laid her down. Her auditory modifiers were on a little table by the side of the bed.
"As entertaining as this has been..." Bobby began, getting up from his seat, "Can I go to sleep now?" He asked with big tried eyes.
"I think we could all do with some sleep." Cyclops stated moving himself and his wife towards the doors.
"As much as I'm inclined to agree with you, oh illustrious leader, we didn't have Logan wake up just so he could fall asleep again." Hank said, walking towards Logan as he spoke.
Logan had his eyes fixed on the little girl. He wasn't even blinking.
Hank stopped in front of Wolverine and bent down a little.
"Are you alright Logan?"
"Fine." Logan droned back still looking ahead.
Hank's posture changed. He looked down at the floor covering his eyes.
"I mean..." Hank shook his head. "When I think of what happened to you and Kurt and that little girl I just..." Hank paused. He seemed surprised to have to wipe a tear from his eye... he shook his head again. "Wow I must be a lot more tired then I thought!" He rubbed his eyes and moved past Logan to go back to his tables.
A bit puzzled by Hank's actions, Kurt ignored it and instead asked. "Yes, Logan, that woman. Is there anything important you remember about what she did? I remember feeling an odd sensation, you remember? When Mr. Montique shot the tranquilizer dart, I was going to 'port but... I think it was that girl; the one with the dark curls and outdated designer wear... Black is really more of a winter or a fall color, and are you even listening to me?" Kurt had also made his way to where Logan was standing. He stood behind and to the right of him.
"You were afraid." Logan stated, still looking at Leila through the glass.
"I..." Kurt stuttered, caught off guard. "Yes, that is what I felt. Did she do a similar thing to you?"
Logan looked Kurt straight in the eye.
"No."
Kurt began to shudder. Before he could even understand what he was doing, he BAMFed away. Not even far... but just to a corner of the med-lab. He just had to get away from Logan. He couldn't catch his breath, his heart was pounding in his chest, and he didn't know why, but before he could figure anything out he heard Scott shout.
***********************
"Why the Hell do I even need to be here? You figure something out and when you're not wasting my time let me know!" Cyclops yelled at his wife who was just staring at him astonished.
"Scott, what are you doing?" Jean calmly asked. "All I suggested was that I stay here and try..."
"Whatever!" He interrupted. "It doesn't matter! Stay! I'm gone..." Scott turned in anger to storm out into the hallway, but Bobby was standing, blocking him.
"What the hell are you doing Drake! Get out of my way!"
Bobby just smiled.
"Now!"
"You have no idea how special you are to me!" Bobby started. "You are all so special!" He looked around the room. Bobby went to try and give Scott a huge bear hug.
Scott growled trying to get away.
Jean just stood there in the middle of the medlab and pinched herself. 'This has to be a dream...'
"Is the group having a collective mental breakdown? What is going on tonight!" Jean looked over at Logan who was still staring towards the back of Leila's room. His eyes weren't focused on anything.
"What did that woman do to you?" Jean tried to focus her mind back into his, but found that it was spread all around the room.
"That's ... different."
Jean looked around her. Bobby had now successfully trapped a cussing Cyclops in the crushing-est hug she had ever seen. To keep from falling to the ground Scott was bashing Iceman in the shoulder. Kurt could be seen in the corner he had BAMFed into and was in the fetal position rocking back and forth. Hank was now crying hysterically at the medlab tables. Leila was sleeping peacefully a smile on her face.
Jean looked back at Logan and walked briskly over. "You don't mind me diving deep into your subconscious and messing everything up right?"
No answer.
"Ok... good." Jean sighed, her breath catching in her throat as she felt her own powers overwhelm her more normal human senses. "I mean... it's not like that hasn't happened before..."
She gave him a weak smile of encouragement to which he never even noticed.
She focused her mind and watched as everything went black and turned to flames.
************************************************************************
Translation: * "I'm so glad you're awake!"
*************Shakeups and Breakdowns**************
Walking down the mansion halls back to the med lab, Leila could still hear all the sounds of the night. The crickets chirping, the sounds of floorboards creaking as the house settled itself into slumber. But she could no longer hear the steady rhythmic patterns of all the students sleeping or the swooshing sounds of eyelashes as a person blinked.
She hadn't really noticed it all before, or more accurately she had been bombarded with everything all at once and was too busy trying not to go insane, to care about what she heard, but as weird as it sounded she really missed it. She knew she wouldn't miss any of the noise in the morning... when all of the sleeping bodies turned into yelling teenagers... or mobish protestors.
Leila shook the thought from her head. But in all honesty nothing had really changed... she didn't know why those people had been mad at her so how could she prevent it from happening again? Maybe Dr. Hank's ear thingies were the answer. But somehow, Leila didn't think so.
Still, she did miss the sounds and no one was yelling at her now... so...
Leila looked down at the dial that Dr. Hank had given her. Turn the knob to the right and it made the whole world go away, turn it the other way and it came crashing back inside of her head.
Leila pumped the dial left.
The universe opened back up. She hadn't realized how much she had longed for all of those noises. The crickets were all spread out in the front yard, the lotus bugs cooed and echoed, the breath of a hundred different mutants all escaped in a hundred different ways.
'Maybe this isn't so bad.' She thought to herself. 'Especially if I can make it go away so easily. I can feel like this at night, and be normal in the day. Like a secret identity or something. No one would be mad at me if they didn't know.' She smiled looking up to Jean who yawned and smiled back.
Then she heard Kurt's voice.
"Ich bin so froh Sie sind wach!!" *
It was so loud. His voice screamed in her head.
It had come from behind the closed metal doors to the medlab.
"Mmm..." Leila whispered, putting her hands to her head and tumbling to her knees. She dropped the dial as she fell. It went crashing and thundering to the ground. All the sounds in her head, it created so many vibrations, the noise was pounding. How could she have been so stupid? Nothing had changed.
This was almost how it had felt back at home. She had made the throbbing ease up before. How had she done it? She couldn't remember.
Everything had gone black... and she had woken up in her daddy's arms.
She missed her daddy. He wasn't here to help her now and it felt like reality was melting away. Pretty soon there would be nothing left but pounding echoes. Jean's footsteps on the tile, the snores and wheezes in the bedrooms, the hollow voices from within the med-labs, even the distant crickets were betraying her. She felt dizzy and wanted to scream.
Suddenly it all stopped.
Leila took her breath in small slow gasps. She looked up at Jean who was holding the girl's dial in one hand. The other hand was on her hip.
"Our own Little Miss Earthshaker. You need to be more careful until we have a chance to work with you on controlling your powers Leila." Her forehead scrunched in a worried look for the little girl. "Are you alright?"
Leila nodded she was fine.
"You really shake things up." Jean said staring at the floor underneath the girl.
Leila looked down and saw that the tiles underneath her were cracked and disheveled. It was as if something had smashed them from the inside out. They looked like vibrations, like a little earthquake, had smashed them.
"Did I do that?" She gasped, taking the dial from Jean's outstretched hand. She pushed it so far to the right that she could barely hear herself breath.
"~Come on sweetie, let's get you back to the lab.~" Jean said both physically and psychically.
"Ok... but I almost forgot. That person who was hurt? The one who helped me against... well, he woke up..." Leila started, whispering really fast. "I could hear Kurt, he yelled, well not yell; he talked but it sounded like yelling, course you blinking sounded like your eyelashes were yelling... but... I..." Leila trailed off looking down at her feet.
"Logan's awake?" Jean started with relief. She quickly frowned. "Why does that worry you?"
"He's gonna be mad at me..." Leila whispered, pretending to find something really interesting on her shoe.
"Honey." Jean said kneeling down. "Why would you think a thing like that?"
"Because it's all my fault that he got hurt. Everything's my fault."
Jean brushed a stray blonde bang from the girls' eyes. "He won't be mad Leila. I promise. Let's just go talk to him ok? Then we can get some sleep. You've had a really big day."
The girl said nothing, but reluctantly followed behind Jean Grey as she stepped lightly back towards the med labs.
*************************
The big metal doors opened wide to swallow her up as Leila stepped inside.
Her big green eyes were brimming with tears as she looked up to see Jean give Logan a huge smile.
But he looked straight at her.
She hung her head. The tears rolling freely down her cheeks to the cold floor.
He walked over to her.
"I'm sorry!" She blurted, still looking down. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it. I didn't mean to run away. I didn't mean to run into HER! I didn't mean for you to get hurt! I didn't mean to make everyone so mad! I didn't mean any of it! I'm sorry. I'm so sorry!" She gasped and cried and held her head.
Logan bent down on both knees. He lowered himself down far enough to have to look up to meet her gaze.
"I'm sorry I'm sorry, I didn't mean it. I..." the little girl stopped when she looked into his eyes.
There was no anger in them. No hurt or regret or hatred or pain. Nothing of what Leila had seen in that woman's eyes. The one that had hurt them. No pain like she'd seen in her parents eyes, or the hurt she'd seen in Kurt's. No... Logan... his eyes were beautiful.
Leila gasped, her mouth suck at an "O". Her arms fell to her sides. She stared at his eyes.
Logan went to say something but...
The girl collapsed into him.
Hugging tight. Clinging to his neck, feeling his shirt pull and his scratchy skin on her forehead.
She sobbed into him, letting go of all the pent up emotion she had been feeling for the past two and a half days. Ever since her powers had manifested. Ever since the whole world had started hating her. Not knowing if her parents hated her too. Not knowing what she had done wrong. Feeling lost and all alone, yet never alone. How could she be with everyone screaming in her head?
She hugged him tight. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry." She whispered.
"I know." Logan hugged her back. He closed his perfect eyes. "Shh...It's ok."
Leila fell asleep in the arms of the man who had saved her.
Sure it hadn't been Logan who had gotten her away from that Lady or the mob around her house. But when she had looked into his eyes she could see that he was really just like her.
He knew what it was like to be afraid, to be lost completely, to not know why people were mad at you, to not know why they HATED you, or how you could make it all ok again. He also knew that things could get better, that she was safe here, he felt safe here; he felt that this was his home. She could have a home here too. No one would be mad at her now.
She had seen it all in his eyes. They were such old eyes. They would have had to be to have learned so much.
*******************
Logan closed the door to the girl's soundproof room in the medlab. She had fallen asleep on the bed inside the second he had laid her down. Her auditory modifiers were on a little table by the side of the bed.
"As entertaining as this has been..." Bobby began, getting up from his seat, "Can I go to sleep now?" He asked with big tried eyes.
"I think we could all do with some sleep." Cyclops stated moving himself and his wife towards the doors.
"As much as I'm inclined to agree with you, oh illustrious leader, we didn't have Logan wake up just so he could fall asleep again." Hank said, walking towards Logan as he spoke.
Logan had his eyes fixed on the little girl. He wasn't even blinking.
Hank stopped in front of Wolverine and bent down a little.
"Are you alright Logan?"
"Fine." Logan droned back still looking ahead.
Hank's posture changed. He looked down at the floor covering his eyes.
"I mean..." Hank shook his head. "When I think of what happened to you and Kurt and that little girl I just..." Hank paused. He seemed surprised to have to wipe a tear from his eye... he shook his head again. "Wow I must be a lot more tired then I thought!" He rubbed his eyes and moved past Logan to go back to his tables.
A bit puzzled by Hank's actions, Kurt ignored it and instead asked. "Yes, Logan, that woman. Is there anything important you remember about what she did? I remember feeling an odd sensation, you remember? When Mr. Montique shot the tranquilizer dart, I was going to 'port but... I think it was that girl; the one with the dark curls and outdated designer wear... Black is really more of a winter or a fall color, and are you even listening to me?" Kurt had also made his way to where Logan was standing. He stood behind and to the right of him.
"You were afraid." Logan stated, still looking at Leila through the glass.
"I..." Kurt stuttered, caught off guard. "Yes, that is what I felt. Did she do a similar thing to you?"
Logan looked Kurt straight in the eye.
"No."
Kurt began to shudder. Before he could even understand what he was doing, he BAMFed away. Not even far... but just to a corner of the med-lab. He just had to get away from Logan. He couldn't catch his breath, his heart was pounding in his chest, and he didn't know why, but before he could figure anything out he heard Scott shout.
***********************
"Why the Hell do I even need to be here? You figure something out and when you're not wasting my time let me know!" Cyclops yelled at his wife who was just staring at him astonished.
"Scott, what are you doing?" Jean calmly asked. "All I suggested was that I stay here and try..."
"Whatever!" He interrupted. "It doesn't matter! Stay! I'm gone..." Scott turned in anger to storm out into the hallway, but Bobby was standing, blocking him.
"What the hell are you doing Drake! Get out of my way!"
Bobby just smiled.
"Now!"
"You have no idea how special you are to me!" Bobby started. "You are all so special!" He looked around the room. Bobby went to try and give Scott a huge bear hug.
Scott growled trying to get away.
Jean just stood there in the middle of the medlab and pinched herself. 'This has to be a dream...'
"Is the group having a collective mental breakdown? What is going on tonight!" Jean looked over at Logan who was still staring towards the back of Leila's room. His eyes weren't focused on anything.
"What did that woman do to you?" Jean tried to focus her mind back into his, but found that it was spread all around the room.
"That's ... different."
Jean looked around her. Bobby had now successfully trapped a cussing Cyclops in the crushing-est hug she had ever seen. To keep from falling to the ground Scott was bashing Iceman in the shoulder. Kurt could be seen in the corner he had BAMFed into and was in the fetal position rocking back and forth. Hank was now crying hysterically at the medlab tables. Leila was sleeping peacefully a smile on her face.
Jean looked back at Logan and walked briskly over. "You don't mind me diving deep into your subconscious and messing everything up right?"
No answer.
"Ok... good." Jean sighed, her breath catching in her throat as she felt her own powers overwhelm her more normal human senses. "I mean... it's not like that hasn't happened before..."
She gave him a weak smile of encouragement to which he never even noticed.
She focused her mind and watched as everything went black and turned to flames.
************************************************************************
Translation: * "I'm so glad you're awake!"