Title: Help You if You're a Phoenix
A/N: This one has been a loooong time coming, my friends, and I actually had to cut it in half because it ended up being longer than I thought it would be. I've spent enormous amounts of time lately wasted on writing final papers, so that's my excuse for the fanfic delay. I'll probably get around to writing the next bit of my Excalibur Evo soon, but the final push aint over yet. I just wanna thank everyone out there who offered encouragement, Luba, Sue, Harry, Ellie and everyone else who left a review. It means a lot guys!
******
and god help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past-Ani Difranco
*********
Phoenixes came and went, goddesses refused to forgive, babies were born and life went on, determined and blind.
In the long run, four years seemed as if nothing.
In that time, the child was born, a beautiful girl with dark eyes and hair. Her father had, with a nostalgic ping, suggested the name Illyana but the mother was firm.
"Lilith," she said, holding her baby. "Her name is Lilith."
"Why Lilith?" Piotr had asked quietly, marveling at the delicate features of his baby girl.
Kitty looked up into his eyes, her own eyes large and deep. "In Jewish legend, Lilith was created before Eve. She demanded to be equal to Adam and was therefore sent out into the desert, to be a demon of the sand." She looked back down again, smoothing down the small wisps of hair. "Lilith. The first woman."
Piotr nodded and as Kitty turned into his chest with Lilith he thought his heart would burst from happiness.
In that time, the team had grown into an internationally known group. MI-X was held up as what other crime fighting groups should aspire to, with its mix of mutant and human and its openness with the public. They didn't run after, instead choosing to stay around and help the authorities. Some became famous, like Hugh Brady. The descendant of Druids became a world renowned magician-turned- playboy.
Pete Wisdom quietly struggled onward.
In that time, the world was starting to change. The New Reich's human concentration camps were destroyed and they went underground. The Sentinel project fell under United Nations jurisdiction. Artificial intelligence was on cusp of being perfected.
And Rachel had returned from England with no knowledge of what had brought her mental breakdown on to babysit for Kitty and Piotr's daughter.
"Lilly!!! Get back here!" Rachel darted around the house, breathlessly following the trail of giggles. She turned the corner and saw the last of Lilly's long black hair escaping up the steps. Smiling to herself, Rachel flew out the closest window and quickly through an opened window in Lilly's room. She perched herself on top of Lilly's bunk bed and waited.
The four year old darted into the room, closing the door behind her heavily and leaning against it, her little lungs gasping for air. As her breathing slowed, she looked up at her room and shrieked.
"No fair using powers!!!" she exclaimed, setting her lips into a pout at her 'Aunt Rachie'.
Rachel smiled and jumped down from the bed. "Sorry, kiddo, but you're too much of a menace not to use 'em. So now that you're trapped, what do you say about taking that nap?"
"No nap!!!" Lilly exclaimed violently, jumping up and down. "Not tired! See?"
"I do see," Rachel responded, shaking her head in amusement. "Does that have to do with all those chocolates you've been sneaking?"
Lilly instantly stilled and her hands flew behind her back. "What chalkylates?" She blinked her eyes, trying her best innocent face.
"Nice try, Lil. But here's a tip for the future- don't try lying to a telepath, okay?"
Lilly's face instantly fell into a scowl. "I want to use powers too!"
Rachel smiled and affectionately messed up Lilly's hair. "You'll have powers too one day when you're older."
"No!" Lilly shook her head. "I have powers now! See?"
And before Rachel could respond, Lilly had squeezed her eyes shut and had turned away from the older girl. Eye still closed tight, Lilly ran full force towards her bedroom door.
"Lilly!" Rachel shouted frantically. She reached out to stop the collision, but Lilly simply passed through the door and disappeared. Rachel had only one moment to stand there in disbelief before the door set ablaze.
She fell back, covering her face from the sudden explosion of flames. Looking around the room frantically, she saw a glass of water on Lilly's desk and flung it at the door, using her telepathy to put it out. Worried beyond measure, she rushed to the door and flung it open, terrified at the thought of finding a crying burnt child or worse.
Instead Lilly was standing there, her left ankle turned in and her hands behind her back. Her gray eyes were staring up at Rachel with the most heart-wrenching expression. Lilly's lips pulled down into a pout.
"Opps?" she said.
**********
It had gone worse than she had feared.
Piotr had returned home about twenty minutes after Lilly's small demonstration which gave Rachel more than enough time to be overwhelmed with unwanted thoughts and broken conclusions. As she told him about what had happened that day, she couldn't keep still. Her hands shook and he was just about to give her some of her medication to calm her down when he came to the same conclusion that had made her so jumpy.
He slowly put the pills down on the counter, refusing to face her. Lilly was in the living room, asleep on the couch, oblivious to the near mental breakdown of her 'aunt' and the tormented heart of her 'father'. His pace rhythmic, he walked up the stairs and came down again shortly, carrying a piece of luggage.
"Piotr? Where are you going?"
He shrugged, picking up the large gray suitcase. "I do not know. Perhaps home to Russia. Maybe find my own place in the city."
She cocked her head, fidgeting nervously. "You're just leaving?"
"Why not? I have no place here."
"Of course you have a place here!" she exploded. "This is your family. So what if your daughter suddenly started being able to make fire? We're all just thinking worse case scenario. Maybe one day she will display your mutation, or maybe she doesn't have to at all. You can't base everything on what just happened; it doesn't have to mean anything-"
He whirled angrily at her. "But it does mean everything! It means she is not mine!" He paused, calming himself down. "Or at the very least, it means something." He shook his head ruefully, laughing to himself. "Do you know that if we had only looked at the numbers, I would have realized it was impossible for the child to be mine? I had not been with Katya at the right time." His face fell. "If only we had looked..."
"Piotr," she started softly, "she may not genetically be your daughter. But you're her father, in every way that counts."
"You are a telepath, Rachel. You see into the hearts and minds of men. You can even see the genetics of a person if you try hard, da? You might have protested at first, but now you are accepting it fully"
The fidgeting almost got out of control as Rachel shuddered, clenching her teeth. "I don't know. It.. it has something to do with... before." Before. That meant before her mental breakdown and time in Europe. Everything was divided that way. "It was a feeling I had. That I lost. That I don't even know is real." She suddenly turned desperate, scared. "Oh God Piotr, what if it didn't really even happen? What if this is just my sickness coming back?!"
He calmly shook his head. "I saw the burn on Lilly's door; I know you did not imagine it." He laughed again, self-mockingly. "We sound like we've accepted this so fully. But it does not seem real to me."
"Wait for Kitty to come home. She's your wife. You should at least talk before just getting up and disappearing." She paused and walked closer to him, extending a hand onto his shoulder. "I know what you're afraid of. You're afraid she'll run off to Pete Wisdom and you'll never see her or Lilly again."
"Wisdom?" He turned to look at her. "How could it be Wisdom?"
He didn't know. Her voice caught in her throat and she looked at his large sad eyes. "When we all went to England to help Pete, they..."
"They were together," he said shortly. He shook his head. "I suppose I should have always had known. Katya has never looked at me the way she looked at Wisdom."
"She loves you, you know," she said quickly, her breath rushed. "She loves you and she loves Lilly and Lilly loves you. Nothing has to change." She bit her lip, unbelieving of what she was going to say next. "You don't have to tell her about this."
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I never thought you would say something like that, Rachel."
She shifted awkwardly, looking down at her feet. "I just want Kitty to be happy. And..well, this all reminds me of my own family. You know, the endless debate about Scott or Logan." She looked up at him again eagerly. "It's horrible being torn like that without ever really knowing. I mean, after all, Xavier's results early-on said the baby was yours. This back- and-forth could go on forever without anyone knowing for sure."
"I know for sure," he said quietly. "But you are right. I do not want to just abandon my wife and child." His eyes brightened. "Maybe my Katya will choose me and renounce Wisdom forever." He lowered his head as he continued, muted once again. "Or at the very least, we will not have to live a lie. I could not do that."
Slowly, the gray suitcase was lowered to the ground. Rachel smiled as she picked it up and hugged it close to her chest. She heard Lilly's small snores from the next room. Everything was going to see alright.
"I must see the Professor," Piotr said abruptly. "I must discuss this all with him."
"Piotr, it was his technology that said that Lilly was yours. He's not going to have any different answers for you now than he did then."
"Perhaps his machine malfunctioned. We could try again. Maybe Charles' was just distracted that day-"
"Or maybe he lied." Her tone was ice, her voice, steel.
He stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at her slowly, his brow wrinkled, and she looked back up at him, her eyes wavering with what looked like tears.
"Lied?" Piotr shook his head. "Why would the professor do that?"
"I don't know, Piotr. But he is the most powerful telepath in the world. He would have easily been able to determine whose child it was." She moved closer to him, her voice becoming a desperate plea. "But that doesn't matter anymore, Piotr. Just sit down, wait for Kitty to come home. We can deal with this all tomorrow."
He shook his head, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. He marched into the foyer of the house with a nervous Rachel trailing behind him.
"No," he said firmly. "We deal with this now. I am going over there to talk to the Professor and Hank." He turned back, looking imploring at Rachel. "You will stay with Lilly until Katya comes home, da?"
She nodded solemnly. He smiled slightly in reply and she closed her eyes. She could hear the door open, the door close, his footsteps across the driveway, the car start up and drive away. He was gone.
She opened her eyes again, looking around the house. She could hear Lilly stirring slightly as the young girl began to wake up. She could hear the clock ticking senselessly on the wall. Everything was normal, she told herself. Piotr will talk to Charles, Charles will apologize, Kitty and Piotr will talk and will raise Lilly together, despite some random genetics. Everything was going to be perfectly okay. She looked down and noticed that her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
"Auntie Rachie?"
Rachel spun around wildly, shocked by the young voice. Lilly stood at the doorway, her small face peering out cautiously. "Did I hear my daddy?"
Rachel was afraid she was going to begin hyperventilating. She walked over to Lilly, scooped the girl up and began to pace up and down the living room. "Yes, honey. He just came to see how you were. He had to take care of some things."
Lilly frowned, grimacing as Rachel's grip on her became continuously tighter. "You shoulda waked me. I want to see daddy."
Rachel paused by the large bay window, holding Lilly close to her just as she had before held Piotr's suitcase. Lilly squirmed, but couldn't break free of her hold.
"It's okay," Rachel whispered. "You'll see your daddy again soon."
Rachel broke her promise to Piotr. When Kitty came home, she did not leave. She stayed, pacing up and down the living room, seemingly unaware of the scared Lilly and worried Kitty. After a few minutes, Kitty had begun dialing the number for the headquarters of MI-X in order to get Dr. Oliva on the phone. But then she remembered the time and she remembered their leader and she replaced the headset in the cradle.
"Rachel, sit down," Kitty said, holding her daughter close. "You're scaring us."
Rachel sat, but her legs kept twitching as if they continued pacing without the rest of her body. "I'm sorry, guys. Sorry. I just can't calm down. Sorry."
"What's wrong?" Kitty implored. Lilly sniffled against her chest and she ran her hands through her daughter's silky black hair.
"Something is really bad," Rachel started. Her teeth were chattering. "Today-"
All of a sudden, Lilly interpreted her with a loud, piercing howl as she threw her head back away from her mother. Her eyes were clenched shut and her face red from crying.
"Baby, what's wrong?!" Kitty's hands flew around her daughter in a panic, looking for some sort of object that may have hurt her, some cut or wound that she had not noticed.
Lilly's howl tapered off and she flung herself forward, her small arms circling around her mother's neck and holding on tight. "Don't hate me mommy!!!"
"Mommy could never hate you, honey." Kitty rubbed her daughter's back comfortingly, looking imploring at Rachel who had been just as surprised by Lilly's outburst but had now begun pacing again. "Why would you think that mommy ever could?"
Lilly pulled away slowly, her small face twisted with grief. "I made Auntie Rachie mad. I used my 'owers."
"Your 'owers'?" Kitty looked over at Rachel. She was shaking her head violently and Kitty desperately wished Piotr was home so that she could have some help with the two.
"Yeh, my 'owers. Like you and daddy have."
"Oh, you mean powers," Kitty said calming and then quickly did a double take. "Powers? You have powers?! But you're too young to have powers..."
"But I have 'em!" Lilly protested blue eyes wide. "And I used 'em today and made Auntie Rachie mad."
"No," Rachel said. Her voice sounded dead and flat. "Her powers surprised me too. So when Piotr came home, I asked him about it and he didn't know either, so I told him all about it and now he's gone and I shouldn't have said a thing.."
"Wait a second." At this point, Kitty was beyond confused. "What's wrong with telling Piotr about this?"
"Because of what her powers are. She can phase, but that's not it," Rachel said. She stopped pacing, looking Kitty dead in the face. "Lilly can create fire."
In her mother's arms, Lilly began to sniffle loudly again, pushing herself deeper into Kitty's embrace. Rachel watched Kitty's eyes. At first, nothing. And then a deep confusion, a scurrying search to rack her brain, figure out what this meant. And then it dawned on her. Rachel watched as the realization spread from her wide eyes to her quivering lips and then through the rest of her body.
"Did Piotr think..?" Kitty faltered as her voice cracked.
"Yes." Rachel nodded her head out towards the driveway. "He went to go see Xavier."
"Jesus," Kitty silently whispered, holding her still crying daughter close, mindlessly smoothing down her hair and rocking her. "Jesus." Her eyes flew up to Rachel's. "But it doesn't have to mean that. Mutation is random. Look at Piotr's own family. He has his strength and his organic steel, but Illyana was a teleporter which isn't even remotely related, and- "
Rachel shook her head. "But they were siblings, children of parents who only carried the X-gene, it wasn't active. You and Piotr both have active X-genes with hereditary codes that make them impossible to be denied."
Kitty's mind was racing, looking for every other alternative. "But couldn't it be possible that my parents were both carriers for this new mutation? It doesn't have to mean that Piotr isn't-". She stopped abruptly, looking down at the child in her arms.
"No, it doesn't have to mean that. But Piotr thinks it does. He went to go talk to Charles."
Rachel was instantly off again, pacing up and down the room as small objects lying around started hovering in the air and flying around her head. Clutching her daughter close, Kitty instinctively phased them both.
"Rachel, could you please stop? I know you're worried, but things could be worse." Kitty glared at Rachel. "Besides I think this affects me a lot more than it does you."
Rachel abruptly stopped. Her cold glare terrified Kitty. "You're such a bitch."
"What?! Rachel, I think-" Suddenly Kitty found that she could not speak, her mouth being telepathically squeezed shut.
A terrified and sniffling Lilly was yanked telepathically out of her mother's hands, floating away up the stairs before being placed firmly in her own bed. Kitty watched numbly as her daughter floated away, her small face scrunched up in heart-breaking sobs.
"No. Don't talk. Listen." The illusion of fire began to flare up behind Rachel. "You are an attention seeking, desperate and pathetic slut. You have Piotr, a man who loves you and wants to be with you, and then you go and spread your legs for this perverted old man. If I didn't know you better I would think you were using him for sex, but you're just such a pushover, such a spineless girl that he probably gave you one compliment and you flung yourself on top of him. And now you have a baby, a bastard, and you're lying around being all self-pitying when this whole mess if your fault. Your husband has just run off to try to be convinced that what he knows is right is really wrong, and you don't even care that he's not around. You know I had to talk him out of walking out on you? Now I'm beginning to think that maybe you would have appreciate it if he left, so you could call up Wisdom and be the easy little pathetic tramp you are." Rachel began to pace again. A few nearby family pictures began to shake as they slowly rose into the air.
"Is Wisdom even the father? Or has there been more since, more before and more after? How many nameless men have you fooled around with? How many times have you spread your legs just to feel pretty and wanted? For God's sake, Xavier made you the leader! He thought you were the most mature, the most competent! And look at you!" The floating objects began to fly around the room as Rachel's eyes glowed red.
"Why did you do it, Kitty? Why didn't you listen to me and not come back from England? I told Pete to keep you there and you ran away from him again. And why did you let Xavier make you the leader, trap you here, you married the wrong person, I was trying to tell you, no one was listening and then there was just this big darkness that was swallowing me and I wanted to help, I wanted to save you, to tell you that you weren't marrying the father like you thought but then that blackness, and the jacket and the airplane and then there was nothing and oh god..."
Rachel slowly began to sway. Kitty found that she could again move and darted towards her friend as the photo frames fell to the ground just seconds before Rachel.
Kitty swooped to her friend's side, cradling her limp body numbly. Rachel's usually vivid eyes were blank and rolled back in her head, her mouth foaming as her head twitched from side to side.
"Shit," she muttered, looking desperately around. On the counter were Rachel's pills, but she knew if she tried to get Rachel to take them, she would choke. Propping a pillow behind Rachel's head, Kitty flew to the phone, and desperately dialed the number she had been scared of before.
On the other side of the Atlantic, just moments before midnight, Pete Wisdom angrily picked up the urgently ringing phone.
"MI-X. Wot the fuck do you want?" he growled, glaring at the half-empty glass of whiskey that this call had taken him from.
"Get me Dr. Olivia. Now. It's an emergency!" the voice on the line cried.
"I'll have to transfer you. Wait-Pryde, is that you?"
"On second thought, we don't have time. You still have that jet, right? Get Olivia and get the jet and get over here as soon as you can!"
"Calm down, girl. What's the big deal?"
"It's Rachel. She's... I don't know. She's had another attack. Just get over here!"
And they did, faster than even Pete thought was possible. Red was a merciless flyer, taking every possible risk to get there just a big faster. Cloe spent the time pacing, grumbling that Pete should have gotten more information from Kitty over the phone. Pete was just about to explode at her when Red announced that they had arrived.
"Someone wake up Hugh," Pete grumbled, glaring at the sleeping Irishman. "If we have to suffer, then so does the playboy." Pointing at the hem of Hugh's pants, Pete sent a heat knife over and chuckled to himself as the flame instantly woke up Hugh who screamed like a little girl before putting it out.
"Will you boys stop for once?!" Cloe was panicked as was, and the guys' antics were not helping any. "Red, get the damn runway down already."
"Jeez, someone's being all menopausal," Red sneered, flicking a few switches on the dashboard. A mechanical hum sounded as the runway was lowered.
They walked out, Cloe dashing ahead of the others. Standing at the bottom waiting was an older, yet still familiar Kitty. Nestled in her arms tightly was Lilith sucking nervously on her thumb. Deep blue eyes turned out to stare at the newcomers tiredly.
"Where is she?" Cloe asked frantically. With one small motion of her head, Kitty indicated the jeep that was parked behind them and Cloe was off again, pulling the door open and sliding into the backseat. Pete could see through the tinted windows as Cloe cradled Rachel's head in her lap, pulling back the girl's eyelids to check her pupils and such. He turned back to the woman standing before him and something inside him felt numb.
"Great mothering skills, Pryde," he sneered. He heard Red stalking up behind him and he could practically feel the heat from the daggers that she was glaring at Kitty. "You usually keep the kid out at four in the mornin'?"
She glared at Pete, turning her body and Lilly away from him. He saw her eyes were haunted and it looked like she had probably been crying recently. "I wasn't about to leave her alone in an empty house. My husband isn't home yet." The word 'husband' was deliberately spat out.
Hugh ambled over to Kitty, giving her his best smile regardless of his exhausted condition. "Nice to meet ya... Is it Mrs. Rasputin," he lilted. "I'm Hugh Brady and that gel hidin' behind Pete is Red Bixby."
"I'm not hiding," Red protested, and she slowly sauntered past Kitty, looking her up and down before joining Cloe in the jeep.
"Please Mr. Brady, call me Kat."
Hugh grinned, his eyes twinkling. "Only if you call me Hugh."
Pete watched the exchange and could feel his irritation growing by the second. Hugh was laying on his charm. He had seen it happen before and he had seen Hugh always getting exactly what he wanted.
"Enough bloody pleasantries. Let's get on with this. Your place good?" Pete snapped.
Kitty made a small shrugging motion and her body seemed to quiver for a second. She quickly covered it up by jumping slightly up and down in an apparent attempt to keep herself warm in the morning air. Both she and Pete paused while the rest piled into the Jeep.
"It's.. uh," Kitty was completely lost for words. Lilly shifted in her arms and Kitty instinctively rubbed her daughter's back. "It's nice to see you again, Pete."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure." And then he stalked off into the car, his entire body stiff with the intense hatred, intense passion, intense envy he felt when he saw her.
Later, back at Kitty's house, Lilly was finally sleeping fitfully in her own bed as the others occupied the living room, nursing large cups of coffee. Cloe had set off a smaller room for Rachel and had not allowed anyone to go in as of yet.
Pete walked around, looking at the wood floors, the large windows and he knew that the money for all of this didn't come from some day job. Leaning, he scooped up a photograph frame that lay face down on the floor. Turning it over, he saw a long crack of glass running straight along Piotr's face as he smiled happily with his wife and baby girl. Red, who was watching Pete intently, instantly spoke.
"Where exactly is your husband, Mrs. Rasputin?" she growled.
"Kat, please. And Piotr is... well, I'm not exactly sure where. He left before I got home. Rachel said that he went to see Xavier about an hour or so before I got home." Kitty was staring intensely at the floor as if she was memorizing the pattern of the wood.
"Aren't you worried about him?" Hugh piped up innocently, his eyes wide.
Another half shrug from Kitty.
"Is it often in your husband's nature to take off and stay out all night?" Red positively purred out her question.
Kitty's head snapped up and she fixed the younger woman with an intense and distrustful glare. "No, it's not. He just went to talk to the Professor. That's it."
Red's lips pulled back into a smile. She had gotten under Kitty's skin, and had begun seeing some of her weak spots. If she kept pushing a little harder, she would know everything she had to in a matter of minutes...
Pete caught her eye and shook his head. Before Red could continue just to spite him, Cloe entered the room breathlessly and everyone's attention shifted. Deterred, Red snarled and slouched further in the couch.
"Rachel is more or less in a vegetative state," she reported grimly. She shook her head and whipped away a few beads of sweat that had accumulated there with the back of her hand. "There's not much I can do right now, but I did give her some things that should calm her down. She shouldn't be having any more convulsions at least. I won't be able to do more unless we take her back to England with us. Will will probably be a bigger help than I."
Leaning against the wall, Pete nodded somberly. "We best be going to see the good ol' professor then, folks."
Kitty was instantly on her feet. "What? Why?"
Pete looked at her bewildered at her reaction. "To get some permission to take Rachel girl here back with us. Charley boy don't like us too much and he would probably accuse us of phoenix-napping." He shrugged, fingering the cigarettes that were tempting him so much in his jacket pocket. "Plus we can find your MIA lug of a husband."
Kitty stood her ground, glaring intently at Pete. "Rachel does not belong to Charles. If anything, I'm more of her guardian than he is and I say she can go." She put her hands on her hips. "As for Piotr, I would appreciate it if you stayed out of my personal matters, Wisdom."
He growled, striding across the room until his angry face was inches away from Kitty's. "Oh I get it now, Pryde. YOU make us get out of our bloody beds so we can come take YOUR bleeding crazy friend and clean up YOUR mess and then you tell me I should stay out of your PERSONAL matters?" He shook his head angrily. "Let me tell you something Pryde, I'd be more than happy to stay outside of your personal matters for the rest of my bleeding life. So if we fix up Rachel and clean up your mess well, you can bloody well fly over to us if you wanna see her." He looked over to the others who were watching him, mouths open. "Cloe, get Rachel ready. Red, call a taxi. We're out of here."
And they were. Almost as quickly as they had come, they were gone. Alone in her house with her daughter, Kitty finally allowed herself to break down and cry.
A/N: This one has been a loooong time coming, my friends, and I actually had to cut it in half because it ended up being longer than I thought it would be. I've spent enormous amounts of time lately wasted on writing final papers, so that's my excuse for the fanfic delay. I'll probably get around to writing the next bit of my Excalibur Evo soon, but the final push aint over yet. I just wanna thank everyone out there who offered encouragement, Luba, Sue, Harry, Ellie and everyone else who left a review. It means a lot guys!
******
and god help you if you are a phoenix
and you dare to rise up from the ash
a thousand eyes will smolder with jealousy
while you are just flying past-Ani Difranco
*********
Phoenixes came and went, goddesses refused to forgive, babies were born and life went on, determined and blind.
In the long run, four years seemed as if nothing.
In that time, the child was born, a beautiful girl with dark eyes and hair. Her father had, with a nostalgic ping, suggested the name Illyana but the mother was firm.
"Lilith," she said, holding her baby. "Her name is Lilith."
"Why Lilith?" Piotr had asked quietly, marveling at the delicate features of his baby girl.
Kitty looked up into his eyes, her own eyes large and deep. "In Jewish legend, Lilith was created before Eve. She demanded to be equal to Adam and was therefore sent out into the desert, to be a demon of the sand." She looked back down again, smoothing down the small wisps of hair. "Lilith. The first woman."
Piotr nodded and as Kitty turned into his chest with Lilith he thought his heart would burst from happiness.
In that time, the team had grown into an internationally known group. MI-X was held up as what other crime fighting groups should aspire to, with its mix of mutant and human and its openness with the public. They didn't run after, instead choosing to stay around and help the authorities. Some became famous, like Hugh Brady. The descendant of Druids became a world renowned magician-turned- playboy.
Pete Wisdom quietly struggled onward.
In that time, the world was starting to change. The New Reich's human concentration camps were destroyed and they went underground. The Sentinel project fell under United Nations jurisdiction. Artificial intelligence was on cusp of being perfected.
And Rachel had returned from England with no knowledge of what had brought her mental breakdown on to babysit for Kitty and Piotr's daughter.
"Lilly!!! Get back here!" Rachel darted around the house, breathlessly following the trail of giggles. She turned the corner and saw the last of Lilly's long black hair escaping up the steps. Smiling to herself, Rachel flew out the closest window and quickly through an opened window in Lilly's room. She perched herself on top of Lilly's bunk bed and waited.
The four year old darted into the room, closing the door behind her heavily and leaning against it, her little lungs gasping for air. As her breathing slowed, she looked up at her room and shrieked.
"No fair using powers!!!" she exclaimed, setting her lips into a pout at her 'Aunt Rachie'.
Rachel smiled and jumped down from the bed. "Sorry, kiddo, but you're too much of a menace not to use 'em. So now that you're trapped, what do you say about taking that nap?"
"No nap!!!" Lilly exclaimed violently, jumping up and down. "Not tired! See?"
"I do see," Rachel responded, shaking her head in amusement. "Does that have to do with all those chocolates you've been sneaking?"
Lilly instantly stilled and her hands flew behind her back. "What chalkylates?" She blinked her eyes, trying her best innocent face.
"Nice try, Lil. But here's a tip for the future- don't try lying to a telepath, okay?"
Lilly's face instantly fell into a scowl. "I want to use powers too!"
Rachel smiled and affectionately messed up Lilly's hair. "You'll have powers too one day when you're older."
"No!" Lilly shook her head. "I have powers now! See?"
And before Rachel could respond, Lilly had squeezed her eyes shut and had turned away from the older girl. Eye still closed tight, Lilly ran full force towards her bedroom door.
"Lilly!" Rachel shouted frantically. She reached out to stop the collision, but Lilly simply passed through the door and disappeared. Rachel had only one moment to stand there in disbelief before the door set ablaze.
She fell back, covering her face from the sudden explosion of flames. Looking around the room frantically, she saw a glass of water on Lilly's desk and flung it at the door, using her telepathy to put it out. Worried beyond measure, she rushed to the door and flung it open, terrified at the thought of finding a crying burnt child or worse.
Instead Lilly was standing there, her left ankle turned in and her hands behind her back. Her gray eyes were staring up at Rachel with the most heart-wrenching expression. Lilly's lips pulled down into a pout.
"Opps?" she said.
**********
It had gone worse than she had feared.
Piotr had returned home about twenty minutes after Lilly's small demonstration which gave Rachel more than enough time to be overwhelmed with unwanted thoughts and broken conclusions. As she told him about what had happened that day, she couldn't keep still. Her hands shook and he was just about to give her some of her medication to calm her down when he came to the same conclusion that had made her so jumpy.
He slowly put the pills down on the counter, refusing to face her. Lilly was in the living room, asleep on the couch, oblivious to the near mental breakdown of her 'aunt' and the tormented heart of her 'father'. His pace rhythmic, he walked up the stairs and came down again shortly, carrying a piece of luggage.
"Piotr? Where are you going?"
He shrugged, picking up the large gray suitcase. "I do not know. Perhaps home to Russia. Maybe find my own place in the city."
She cocked her head, fidgeting nervously. "You're just leaving?"
"Why not? I have no place here."
"Of course you have a place here!" she exploded. "This is your family. So what if your daughter suddenly started being able to make fire? We're all just thinking worse case scenario. Maybe one day she will display your mutation, or maybe she doesn't have to at all. You can't base everything on what just happened; it doesn't have to mean anything-"
He whirled angrily at her. "But it does mean everything! It means she is not mine!" He paused, calming himself down. "Or at the very least, it means something." He shook his head ruefully, laughing to himself. "Do you know that if we had only looked at the numbers, I would have realized it was impossible for the child to be mine? I had not been with Katya at the right time." His face fell. "If only we had looked..."
"Piotr," she started softly, "she may not genetically be your daughter. But you're her father, in every way that counts."
"You are a telepath, Rachel. You see into the hearts and minds of men. You can even see the genetics of a person if you try hard, da? You might have protested at first, but now you are accepting it fully"
The fidgeting almost got out of control as Rachel shuddered, clenching her teeth. "I don't know. It.. it has something to do with... before." Before. That meant before her mental breakdown and time in Europe. Everything was divided that way. "It was a feeling I had. That I lost. That I don't even know is real." She suddenly turned desperate, scared. "Oh God Piotr, what if it didn't really even happen? What if this is just my sickness coming back?!"
He calmly shook his head. "I saw the burn on Lilly's door; I know you did not imagine it." He laughed again, self-mockingly. "We sound like we've accepted this so fully. But it does not seem real to me."
"Wait for Kitty to come home. She's your wife. You should at least talk before just getting up and disappearing." She paused and walked closer to him, extending a hand onto his shoulder. "I know what you're afraid of. You're afraid she'll run off to Pete Wisdom and you'll never see her or Lilly again."
"Wisdom?" He turned to look at her. "How could it be Wisdom?"
He didn't know. Her voice caught in her throat and she looked at his large sad eyes. "When we all went to England to help Pete, they..."
"They were together," he said shortly. He shook his head. "I suppose I should have always had known. Katya has never looked at me the way she looked at Wisdom."
"She loves you, you know," she said quickly, her breath rushed. "She loves you and she loves Lilly and Lilly loves you. Nothing has to change." She bit her lip, unbelieving of what she was going to say next. "You don't have to tell her about this."
He looked at her with a raised eyebrow. "I never thought you would say something like that, Rachel."
She shifted awkwardly, looking down at her feet. "I just want Kitty to be happy. And..well, this all reminds me of my own family. You know, the endless debate about Scott or Logan." She looked up at him again eagerly. "It's horrible being torn like that without ever really knowing. I mean, after all, Xavier's results early-on said the baby was yours. This back- and-forth could go on forever without anyone knowing for sure."
"I know for sure," he said quietly. "But you are right. I do not want to just abandon my wife and child." His eyes brightened. "Maybe my Katya will choose me and renounce Wisdom forever." He lowered his head as he continued, muted once again. "Or at the very least, we will not have to live a lie. I could not do that."
Slowly, the gray suitcase was lowered to the ground. Rachel smiled as she picked it up and hugged it close to her chest. She heard Lilly's small snores from the next room. Everything was going to see alright.
"I must see the Professor," Piotr said abruptly. "I must discuss this all with him."
"Piotr, it was his technology that said that Lilly was yours. He's not going to have any different answers for you now than he did then."
"Perhaps his machine malfunctioned. We could try again. Maybe Charles' was just distracted that day-"
"Or maybe he lied." Her tone was ice, her voice, steel.
He stopped dead in his tracks. He looked at her slowly, his brow wrinkled, and she looked back up at him, her eyes wavering with what looked like tears.
"Lied?" Piotr shook his head. "Why would the professor do that?"
"I don't know, Piotr. But he is the most powerful telepath in the world. He would have easily been able to determine whose child it was." She moved closer to him, her voice becoming a desperate plea. "But that doesn't matter anymore, Piotr. Just sit down, wait for Kitty to come home. We can deal with this all tomorrow."
He shook his head, grabbing his jacket and pulling it on. He marched into the foyer of the house with a nervous Rachel trailing behind him.
"No," he said firmly. "We deal with this now. I am going over there to talk to the Professor and Hank." He turned back, looking imploring at Rachel. "You will stay with Lilly until Katya comes home, da?"
She nodded solemnly. He smiled slightly in reply and she closed her eyes. She could hear the door open, the door close, his footsteps across the driveway, the car start up and drive away. He was gone.
She opened her eyes again, looking around the house. She could hear Lilly stirring slightly as the young girl began to wake up. She could hear the clock ticking senselessly on the wall. Everything was normal, she told herself. Piotr will talk to Charles, Charles will apologize, Kitty and Piotr will talk and will raise Lilly together, despite some random genetics. Everything was going to be perfectly okay. She looked down and noticed that her hands were shaking uncontrollably.
"Auntie Rachie?"
Rachel spun around wildly, shocked by the young voice. Lilly stood at the doorway, her small face peering out cautiously. "Did I hear my daddy?"
Rachel was afraid she was going to begin hyperventilating. She walked over to Lilly, scooped the girl up and began to pace up and down the living room. "Yes, honey. He just came to see how you were. He had to take care of some things."
Lilly frowned, grimacing as Rachel's grip on her became continuously tighter. "You shoulda waked me. I want to see daddy."
Rachel paused by the large bay window, holding Lilly close to her just as she had before held Piotr's suitcase. Lilly squirmed, but couldn't break free of her hold.
"It's okay," Rachel whispered. "You'll see your daddy again soon."
Rachel broke her promise to Piotr. When Kitty came home, she did not leave. She stayed, pacing up and down the living room, seemingly unaware of the scared Lilly and worried Kitty. After a few minutes, Kitty had begun dialing the number for the headquarters of MI-X in order to get Dr. Oliva on the phone. But then she remembered the time and she remembered their leader and she replaced the headset in the cradle.
"Rachel, sit down," Kitty said, holding her daughter close. "You're scaring us."
Rachel sat, but her legs kept twitching as if they continued pacing without the rest of her body. "I'm sorry, guys. Sorry. I just can't calm down. Sorry."
"What's wrong?" Kitty implored. Lilly sniffled against her chest and she ran her hands through her daughter's silky black hair.
"Something is really bad," Rachel started. Her teeth were chattering. "Today-"
All of a sudden, Lilly interpreted her with a loud, piercing howl as she threw her head back away from her mother. Her eyes were clenched shut and her face red from crying.
"Baby, what's wrong?!" Kitty's hands flew around her daughter in a panic, looking for some sort of object that may have hurt her, some cut or wound that she had not noticed.
Lilly's howl tapered off and she flung herself forward, her small arms circling around her mother's neck and holding on tight. "Don't hate me mommy!!!"
"Mommy could never hate you, honey." Kitty rubbed her daughter's back comfortingly, looking imploring at Rachel who had been just as surprised by Lilly's outburst but had now begun pacing again. "Why would you think that mommy ever could?"
Lilly pulled away slowly, her small face twisted with grief. "I made Auntie Rachie mad. I used my 'owers."
"Your 'owers'?" Kitty looked over at Rachel. She was shaking her head violently and Kitty desperately wished Piotr was home so that she could have some help with the two.
"Yeh, my 'owers. Like you and daddy have."
"Oh, you mean powers," Kitty said calming and then quickly did a double take. "Powers? You have powers?! But you're too young to have powers..."
"But I have 'em!" Lilly protested blue eyes wide. "And I used 'em today and made Auntie Rachie mad."
"No," Rachel said. Her voice sounded dead and flat. "Her powers surprised me too. So when Piotr came home, I asked him about it and he didn't know either, so I told him all about it and now he's gone and I shouldn't have said a thing.."
"Wait a second." At this point, Kitty was beyond confused. "What's wrong with telling Piotr about this?"
"Because of what her powers are. She can phase, but that's not it," Rachel said. She stopped pacing, looking Kitty dead in the face. "Lilly can create fire."
In her mother's arms, Lilly began to sniffle loudly again, pushing herself deeper into Kitty's embrace. Rachel watched Kitty's eyes. At first, nothing. And then a deep confusion, a scurrying search to rack her brain, figure out what this meant. And then it dawned on her. Rachel watched as the realization spread from her wide eyes to her quivering lips and then through the rest of her body.
"Did Piotr think..?" Kitty faltered as her voice cracked.
"Yes." Rachel nodded her head out towards the driveway. "He went to go see Xavier."
"Jesus," Kitty silently whispered, holding her still crying daughter close, mindlessly smoothing down her hair and rocking her. "Jesus." Her eyes flew up to Rachel's. "But it doesn't have to mean that. Mutation is random. Look at Piotr's own family. He has his strength and his organic steel, but Illyana was a teleporter which isn't even remotely related, and- "
Rachel shook her head. "But they were siblings, children of parents who only carried the X-gene, it wasn't active. You and Piotr both have active X-genes with hereditary codes that make them impossible to be denied."
Kitty's mind was racing, looking for every other alternative. "But couldn't it be possible that my parents were both carriers for this new mutation? It doesn't have to mean that Piotr isn't-". She stopped abruptly, looking down at the child in her arms.
"No, it doesn't have to mean that. But Piotr thinks it does. He went to go talk to Charles."
Rachel was instantly off again, pacing up and down the room as small objects lying around started hovering in the air and flying around her head. Clutching her daughter close, Kitty instinctively phased them both.
"Rachel, could you please stop? I know you're worried, but things could be worse." Kitty glared at Rachel. "Besides I think this affects me a lot more than it does you."
Rachel abruptly stopped. Her cold glare terrified Kitty. "You're such a bitch."
"What?! Rachel, I think-" Suddenly Kitty found that she could not speak, her mouth being telepathically squeezed shut.
A terrified and sniffling Lilly was yanked telepathically out of her mother's hands, floating away up the stairs before being placed firmly in her own bed. Kitty watched numbly as her daughter floated away, her small face scrunched up in heart-breaking sobs.
"No. Don't talk. Listen." The illusion of fire began to flare up behind Rachel. "You are an attention seeking, desperate and pathetic slut. You have Piotr, a man who loves you and wants to be with you, and then you go and spread your legs for this perverted old man. If I didn't know you better I would think you were using him for sex, but you're just such a pushover, such a spineless girl that he probably gave you one compliment and you flung yourself on top of him. And now you have a baby, a bastard, and you're lying around being all self-pitying when this whole mess if your fault. Your husband has just run off to try to be convinced that what he knows is right is really wrong, and you don't even care that he's not around. You know I had to talk him out of walking out on you? Now I'm beginning to think that maybe you would have appreciate it if he left, so you could call up Wisdom and be the easy little pathetic tramp you are." Rachel began to pace again. A few nearby family pictures began to shake as they slowly rose into the air.
"Is Wisdom even the father? Or has there been more since, more before and more after? How many nameless men have you fooled around with? How many times have you spread your legs just to feel pretty and wanted? For God's sake, Xavier made you the leader! He thought you were the most mature, the most competent! And look at you!" The floating objects began to fly around the room as Rachel's eyes glowed red.
"Why did you do it, Kitty? Why didn't you listen to me and not come back from England? I told Pete to keep you there and you ran away from him again. And why did you let Xavier make you the leader, trap you here, you married the wrong person, I was trying to tell you, no one was listening and then there was just this big darkness that was swallowing me and I wanted to help, I wanted to save you, to tell you that you weren't marrying the father like you thought but then that blackness, and the jacket and the airplane and then there was nothing and oh god..."
Rachel slowly began to sway. Kitty found that she could again move and darted towards her friend as the photo frames fell to the ground just seconds before Rachel.
Kitty swooped to her friend's side, cradling her limp body numbly. Rachel's usually vivid eyes were blank and rolled back in her head, her mouth foaming as her head twitched from side to side.
"Shit," she muttered, looking desperately around. On the counter were Rachel's pills, but she knew if she tried to get Rachel to take them, she would choke. Propping a pillow behind Rachel's head, Kitty flew to the phone, and desperately dialed the number she had been scared of before.
On the other side of the Atlantic, just moments before midnight, Pete Wisdom angrily picked up the urgently ringing phone.
"MI-X. Wot the fuck do you want?" he growled, glaring at the half-empty glass of whiskey that this call had taken him from.
"Get me Dr. Olivia. Now. It's an emergency!" the voice on the line cried.
"I'll have to transfer you. Wait-Pryde, is that you?"
"On second thought, we don't have time. You still have that jet, right? Get Olivia and get the jet and get over here as soon as you can!"
"Calm down, girl. What's the big deal?"
"It's Rachel. She's... I don't know. She's had another attack. Just get over here!"
And they did, faster than even Pete thought was possible. Red was a merciless flyer, taking every possible risk to get there just a big faster. Cloe spent the time pacing, grumbling that Pete should have gotten more information from Kitty over the phone. Pete was just about to explode at her when Red announced that they had arrived.
"Someone wake up Hugh," Pete grumbled, glaring at the sleeping Irishman. "If we have to suffer, then so does the playboy." Pointing at the hem of Hugh's pants, Pete sent a heat knife over and chuckled to himself as the flame instantly woke up Hugh who screamed like a little girl before putting it out.
"Will you boys stop for once?!" Cloe was panicked as was, and the guys' antics were not helping any. "Red, get the damn runway down already."
"Jeez, someone's being all menopausal," Red sneered, flicking a few switches on the dashboard. A mechanical hum sounded as the runway was lowered.
They walked out, Cloe dashing ahead of the others. Standing at the bottom waiting was an older, yet still familiar Kitty. Nestled in her arms tightly was Lilith sucking nervously on her thumb. Deep blue eyes turned out to stare at the newcomers tiredly.
"Where is she?" Cloe asked frantically. With one small motion of her head, Kitty indicated the jeep that was parked behind them and Cloe was off again, pulling the door open and sliding into the backseat. Pete could see through the tinted windows as Cloe cradled Rachel's head in her lap, pulling back the girl's eyelids to check her pupils and such. He turned back to the woman standing before him and something inside him felt numb.
"Great mothering skills, Pryde," he sneered. He heard Red stalking up behind him and he could practically feel the heat from the daggers that she was glaring at Kitty. "You usually keep the kid out at four in the mornin'?"
She glared at Pete, turning her body and Lilly away from him. He saw her eyes were haunted and it looked like she had probably been crying recently. "I wasn't about to leave her alone in an empty house. My husband isn't home yet." The word 'husband' was deliberately spat out.
Hugh ambled over to Kitty, giving her his best smile regardless of his exhausted condition. "Nice to meet ya... Is it Mrs. Rasputin," he lilted. "I'm Hugh Brady and that gel hidin' behind Pete is Red Bixby."
"I'm not hiding," Red protested, and she slowly sauntered past Kitty, looking her up and down before joining Cloe in the jeep.
"Please Mr. Brady, call me Kat."
Hugh grinned, his eyes twinkling. "Only if you call me Hugh."
Pete watched the exchange and could feel his irritation growing by the second. Hugh was laying on his charm. He had seen it happen before and he had seen Hugh always getting exactly what he wanted.
"Enough bloody pleasantries. Let's get on with this. Your place good?" Pete snapped.
Kitty made a small shrugging motion and her body seemed to quiver for a second. She quickly covered it up by jumping slightly up and down in an apparent attempt to keep herself warm in the morning air. Both she and Pete paused while the rest piled into the Jeep.
"It's.. uh," Kitty was completely lost for words. Lilly shifted in her arms and Kitty instinctively rubbed her daughter's back. "It's nice to see you again, Pete."
He raised an eyebrow at her. "I'm sure." And then he stalked off into the car, his entire body stiff with the intense hatred, intense passion, intense envy he felt when he saw her.
Later, back at Kitty's house, Lilly was finally sleeping fitfully in her own bed as the others occupied the living room, nursing large cups of coffee. Cloe had set off a smaller room for Rachel and had not allowed anyone to go in as of yet.
Pete walked around, looking at the wood floors, the large windows and he knew that the money for all of this didn't come from some day job. Leaning, he scooped up a photograph frame that lay face down on the floor. Turning it over, he saw a long crack of glass running straight along Piotr's face as he smiled happily with his wife and baby girl. Red, who was watching Pete intently, instantly spoke.
"Where exactly is your husband, Mrs. Rasputin?" she growled.
"Kat, please. And Piotr is... well, I'm not exactly sure where. He left before I got home. Rachel said that he went to see Xavier about an hour or so before I got home." Kitty was staring intensely at the floor as if she was memorizing the pattern of the wood.
"Aren't you worried about him?" Hugh piped up innocently, his eyes wide.
Another half shrug from Kitty.
"Is it often in your husband's nature to take off and stay out all night?" Red positively purred out her question.
Kitty's head snapped up and she fixed the younger woman with an intense and distrustful glare. "No, it's not. He just went to talk to the Professor. That's it."
Red's lips pulled back into a smile. She had gotten under Kitty's skin, and had begun seeing some of her weak spots. If she kept pushing a little harder, she would know everything she had to in a matter of minutes...
Pete caught her eye and shook his head. Before Red could continue just to spite him, Cloe entered the room breathlessly and everyone's attention shifted. Deterred, Red snarled and slouched further in the couch.
"Rachel is more or less in a vegetative state," she reported grimly. She shook her head and whipped away a few beads of sweat that had accumulated there with the back of her hand. "There's not much I can do right now, but I did give her some things that should calm her down. She shouldn't be having any more convulsions at least. I won't be able to do more unless we take her back to England with us. Will will probably be a bigger help than I."
Leaning against the wall, Pete nodded somberly. "We best be going to see the good ol' professor then, folks."
Kitty was instantly on her feet. "What? Why?"
Pete looked at her bewildered at her reaction. "To get some permission to take Rachel girl here back with us. Charley boy don't like us too much and he would probably accuse us of phoenix-napping." He shrugged, fingering the cigarettes that were tempting him so much in his jacket pocket. "Plus we can find your MIA lug of a husband."
Kitty stood her ground, glaring intently at Pete. "Rachel does not belong to Charles. If anything, I'm more of her guardian than he is and I say she can go." She put her hands on her hips. "As for Piotr, I would appreciate it if you stayed out of my personal matters, Wisdom."
He growled, striding across the room until his angry face was inches away from Kitty's. "Oh I get it now, Pryde. YOU make us get out of our bloody beds so we can come take YOUR bleeding crazy friend and clean up YOUR mess and then you tell me I should stay out of your PERSONAL matters?" He shook his head angrily. "Let me tell you something Pryde, I'd be more than happy to stay outside of your personal matters for the rest of my bleeding life. So if we fix up Rachel and clean up your mess well, you can bloody well fly over to us if you wanna see her." He looked over to the others who were watching him, mouths open. "Cloe, get Rachel ready. Red, call a taxi. We're out of here."
And they were. Almost as quickly as they had come, they were gone. Alone in her house with her daughter, Kitty finally allowed herself to break down and cry.