A large Sports Utility Vehicle barreled down the one lane back roads at speeds usually only seen by the old moonshine runners that had set up the roads. Behind the wheel, Raven Darkholme snarled as her foot smashed down even harder than before on the gas pedal, and the knuckles of her blue fingers turned a frightful purple from the iron grip on the steering wheel.
The evening news blared out of the community room television, loudly announcing heralds of war, robberies, drive-bys, and whatever else could possibly be communicated in a sensationalistic thirty-second sound bite. The sound was loud, so loud in fact that one could easily wonder why the television was not moving about inside the opulent oak cabinet. The rest of the room was decorated similarly, with a large oriental rug spread across the floor and beautiful oil paintings dotting the wall. The room itself was empty, save for one person sprawled across the couch. She wasn't paying any attention to the news, though, however loud it might have been. Wanda wasn't truly concentrating on anything, just staring up at the darkened ceiling, the blinking, flickering tube of the television her only light. She was transfixed by the dancing, flickering patterns projected onto the high stucco ceiling. The eggshell-white material made the perfect surface upon which to project, greens and blues and reds and all other colors intermingling. She let her mind wander, exploring thoughts that were disturbing, curious, joyful, and all things in between. All in an instant, however, she became aware of someone standing behind her, and jumped up quickly, her hands suddenly surrounded by an electric-blue light. All thoughts left her mind except those concerning survival, and the would-be sneak jumped backward into a wall, shielding his face with his forearms.
"Who are you," Wanda demanded. "And why are you creeping around?" She held her arms at her sides, but her stance was still an attack position.
"Ah…Ah was jus comin down ta get a drink. Mah name's Sam. Uh, Sam Guthrie." The teenager stammered out through the space between his left and right forearms. The glare of the television hit him head on, giving his skin a pale, deathly glow. Wanda stared him down for another several seconds, either judging the truth of his words or simply because she was relishing in his fear. Given Wanda's personality, it was impossible to tell which one was true. However, she abandoned her attack position and the blue glow diminished from her hands. At roughly the same moment, Sam let his arms fall to his sides, but unable to move, the dregs of his fear locking his legs to the floor. Wanda slumped back onto the couch and switched the channel from the news to an old black and white movie.
"Well? Are you going to get a drink, or are you just gonna stand there and stare at me all night?!" Wanda demanded. That broke the spell, and Sam scrambled, first to the left, then to his right, and finally, Sam tripped over his own feet, falling to the oriental carpet in a pile of limbs. Wanda shifted her blue eyes between the movie playing on the television and Sam's crumpled form three times before letting out an annoyed groan and walking over, extending a hand which Sam gladly took. She pulled hard, hard enough that, for all of a fleeting second, Sam wondered if she was helping him up from the floor or attempting to separate his arm from his chest. Those thoughts turned to mental dust once he was back on his feet, however unsteady they might be.
"Thanks, Wanda. Ah'm not usually that clumsy. Ah guess Ah'm jus tired or something. It's pretty dark in here and all."
"I like the dark." Wanda stated, clearly challenging Sam as she clomped back to the couch, collapsing back upon the coffee-colored leather.
"Oh, Ah didn't meahn anythin' by that, Ah was, um, ya know, just makin an observation," Sam paused, shifting his weight from his left to his right foot, then back to the left foot. "Ya know, um, an observation about the room and all."
"Look, just go get a drink," Wanda irritably demanded. "And get me one, too."
"Well, Ah can show ya where the kitchen is," A glare from Wanda sent Sam into another stammering fit. "Ah mean, since yah're new here, Ah figured Ah could help ya out. Ah mean, this place is kinda big." Sam scratched the back of his head, a nervous habit he had never been able to shake. Wanda glared at him through the dusky haze of the room, the television still blaring in the background like the chorus in a Greek tragedy. Her eyes glinted like daggers for several minutes, minutes in which Sam felt increasingly nervous as to Wanda's intentions. Then, with no reason given on Wanda's part, her features softened slightly and she stood up.
"Fine, just quit babbling so much. It gets on my nerves."
They entered the kitchen in relative silence, with Sam too nervous to say anything and Wanda not one to start any sort of small talk. Ororo was sitting at a small breakfast nook, a table that could fit maybe three people comfortably.
"Sam, what are you doing up? You have school tomorrow, and a training session after that. You need your rest." She cradled a cup of tea with both hands, and a small book lay open on the table immediately in front of her.
"Sorry, Ms. Monroe. Ah jus' came down to get a drink, and Ah ended up runnin into Wanda here, and she wanted a drink, so Ah offered to walk her to the kitchen, and well, that's about right now, Ah guess." He shifted the weight of his lanky six-foot frame as he attempted to avoid Ororo Monroe's gaze.
"That's fine, Sam. Get some water, and then straight back upstairs. I don't want you falling asleep in your first classes." Ororo took a sip from the demitasse cup and turned her attention back to her book.
"Yes Ma'am." Sam plodded over to the kitchen sink and produced two glasses, very similar in design to Collins glasses, from a glass-door cabinet above the sink. He set them both down on the counter to the left of the sink before flicking the handle of the faucet. Clear tap water surged downward, smacking the stainless steel of the sink bottom until Sam stuck the glasses underneath the cascade of water. He handed one of the glasses to Wanda after shutting off the flow of water. She took it with a small, lopsided smile.
"Hehre ya go. Sorry about botherin' ya Ms. Monroe."
"Do not worry about it Sam, just get back to bed," Ororo said, not looking up from her book. Wanda paused, took a sip from the clear glass, and was about to exit through the same swinging door Sam had, when Ororo spoke again. "Wanda, would you like to sit down for a moment?" Her voice was light, and sweet, but behind all that was a great forcefulness in her voice, one that seemed to say that Ororo had all the power in the world but simply could not be bothered to make use of it. Wanda complied with a small noise of complaint, taking the empty oak chair nearest the white-haired mutant, resting her glass of water in front of her on the tabletop.
"So, what do you want?"
"I just felt like talking, Wanda. We didn't get a proper chance to talk when you first came here."
"I still hate blondie." Wanda blurted out. When Ororo focused her gaze upon Wanda, she shifted her gaze downward into her water glass and began fiddling with the Ankh choker fixed tightly around her neck. She twiddled the small silver charm around and around in her fingers as though the proper manipulations would send Ororo's eyes onto something, anything else.
"Wanda, where does all this anger come from?"
"People." Wanda stated with a grimace, the very word putting a foul taste on her tongue. She gave the only other soul in the room a long hard look through jet-black bangs before continuing. "Well? What do you do, if you're so fucking calm all the goddamn time?"
"I'll show you, Wanda," Ororo stated regally, rising from her chair and shutting the book in front of her. "Follow me, and grab some tea if you would like."
"Whatever." Wanda said with a groan as she began to follow Ororo out of the kitchen.
Kitty tapped her thumb on her knee to the beat of the pop song filtering through her headphones as she tossed a dried apricot into her mouth. The plane banked sharply to the left and Kitty held the portable CD player and an open bag of vegetarian treats close to her abdomen, all the while with Madonna singing about the joys of being a material girl into Kitty ears. They had been in the air close to an hour, and while Kitty outwardly appeared to be doing nothing more productive than absorbing music, she was actually deep in thought, the subject of which happened to be sitting right next to her.
Rogue.
Kitty studied her best friend intently, trying to figure out the perfect way to open a conversation. Rogue sat facing away from Kitty, facing away from everyone save the two piloting the behemoth. Rogue was cradling her chin with a gloved hand as her emerald green eyes bore into the thick stainless steel wall of the jet they were currently aboard. Kitty fished a hand into the clear plastic baggie, and a figurative light blinked on above her brunette hair. Delicately, she nudged her left elbow into Rogue's side. Rogue stirred, staring blankly into the space directly in front of her before turning to face the source of her interruption. Kitty held the bag open by a single hand, dangling the treats mere inches from Rogue's face.
"You want one?" Kitty garbled out.
"Nawt realleh."
"Well, you want to talk?"
"Nawt realleh." Rogue attempted to turn her attention back to the blank steel wall to her left, but instead felt a thin hand grasp her shoulder, and then she was passing through solid matter. It is not a feeling that is experienced by many, but it is almost universally agreed that the feeling is unpleasant. Rogue felt that "like having your insides thrown into a rusty cement mixer" was an apt description. Once the feeling passed, once Rogue released the death grip she had on her abdomen "Kitty, what tha hell is wrong with ya?," Rogue shouted, ready to strangle her roommate. "Where tha hell ahre weh?"
"Cargo hold."
"And tha reason weh're in tha cahrgo hold?" Rogue asked in the same tone one would use with a nine year old who needs to be walked through a complex math problem.
"Because I wanted to talk to you. Rogue, like, Kurt and I are worried about you." Kitty paused, knowing full well how Rogue was going to react.
"Yah two ahre wahrried ahbout meh? Wha? Whaht tha hell ahre yah two got in yahr head thaht yah gotta wahrry ahbout meh?" Rogue demanded, gesturing wildly with her hands.
"Rogue, you just haven't been yourself lately," Rogue scoffed, crossing her arms across her chest. "Come on, Rogue. I told you about every argument I had with Lance."
"And Ah neva ahsked ta hear ahbout those."
"That's so not my point, Rogue. If something's going on, I want to know about it. We're friends, you should be OK discussing stuff that's going on," Kitty said before bowing her head ever so slightly, just enough so that her bangs obscured her eyes from Rogue's. When she rose her head back up, her eyes had filled to the brim with a deep sadness, and her bottom lip was trembling. Rogue's own eyes filled with annoyance mixed with hate, telling Kitty her plan had worked before Rogueeven opened her mouth.
"Yah're puare evil, yah know thaht? No one else at tha instatute bahlieves meh, but yah ahre," Rogue set herself down on the nearest crate, a large square thing colored a gun-metal grey. Kitty opened her mouth to answer these accusations, but Rogue interrupted her, "If Ah tell yah this, yah've gotta promise noht tah tell anyone ahbout this. This doesn't go past meh and you."
"Well, Rogue-"
"No one else, Kitty!" Rogue shouted, startling Kitty.
"Alright, alright, I won't tell anyone. It'll stay down here until you say otherwise. Just tell me what's going on Rogue." Kitty's voice was not pleading, but to describe it as such would not have been an unfair estimation. Rogue cradled her head with both hands, focusing on the non-skid surface beneath her feet. She sighed loudly before pushing the hair away from her forehead with both gloved hands. After studying the unchanging floor for several seconds, thoughts racing through her head so quick she barely had the time to register that one had entered before the next one arrived. She didn't want to tell Kitty about this, she didn't want to tell anyone about it. She knew every word of it would taste like bile on the tip of her tongue, burning every inch of her esophagus from her lungs up to the moment her lips gave the words life.
But still, Kitty was a friend.
"Kitty, yah evea had a gut feelin'? Just something yah're positive is true, even though yah ain't got any proof?"
"Uh, a few times. Why? What are you feeling?" Kitty was almost afraid ask that final question, dreading Rogue's response.
"Ah…Ah've been feelin' lately lahke Ah ain't eva gonna be able tah cahntrol mah skin…yah, know, mah powars."
"What do you mean, Rogue?"
"Look, Ah'm noht expectin yah tah undahstahnd any a this, but, Irene, tha woman Mystique hahired ta watch ova meh, she used tah get these gut feelin's, sometahmes ahbout some horrible plane crash on tha news, sometahmes ahbout tha weather fohr tha next day," Rogue glowered, not so much saying Mystique's name as spitting it out like it was cyanide. Kitty stared at Rogue, unsure of what, if anything, she should say to her friend. Rogue continued, still slouched on a single crate. "Tha point is, she'd get these feelings, and she was neva wrong ahbout them, no matta how strange they sounded. Ahd lately, Ah've got this feelin…Gawd, Kitty, Ah've got this feelin lahke …lahke…" Rogue couldn't let the last of her sentence make itself tangible, and instead collapsed backward onto the wall of the cramped storage space she currently occupied.
"Rogue, please don't say what I think you're going to say!" Kitty exclaimed suddenly, throwing her hands in front of her, as if she could push the thought away from the both of them. Rogue's revelation had been the exact last thing the Illinois-born mutant was expecting. She had expected maybe a complaint concerning Kitty's recent push for Rogue to get out more, or some gripe concerning Kitty's continuing insistence that Rogue felt some form of a romantic pull towards Gambit, something Kitty had maintained quite vocally in the past months.
"Wha noht? Yah're tha one who asked meh what was wrong," Rogue stated, focusing her eyes on Kitty and making no attempt to hide the bile in her voice. "Ahnd thaht's exactly what's been botherin' meh, Kitty. Ah've goht this feelin' lahke death's just around tha corna ahnd Ah haven't been able ta shake it. Ah just goht this feelin lahke Ah ain't goht much longa ta live. Lahke Ah'm gonna die." Rogue leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees but showing no signs of continuing her tale. There was no reason to, now that Rogue had said that dirty little word.
"Rogue, you…you're not going to…you're not going to kill yourself, are you?" Kitty stammered, already scared of what the answer might be.
"What? No! Kitty, Ah ain't suicidal," Rogue shouted, springing up from the metal crate and turning away from her friend. "Ah knew this was a mistake. Look, just fahrget Ah said anything ahbout ahll this," She turned back to face Kitty, who grabbed Rogue in a tight bear hug, keeping a near-unbreakable hold while taking great care to avoid any exposed skin. Rogue struggled against the bonds, bu Kitty held fast, too dedicated or too stubborn to budge an inch. "What…tha…let meh go!" Kitty squeezed even tighter, forcing a short yelp of pain from Rogue. She let go after that, but kept a hand on each of Rogue's shoulders.
"Rogue, I want to promise me you're not going to do anything," Rogue made a disgsted noise at the thought of this, and Kitty shook her before screaming, "Promise me!"
"Kitty, Ah ain't gonna kill mahself. Yah're worried ahbout nothing."
"You're positive?"
"Yes," Rogue exasperatedly gasped. "Ah have no desia tah kill mahself. Kitty, Ah ain't gonna lie tah yah." Kitty focused her eyes on Rogue for another second, then turned away, letting go of Rogue's shoulders. She stood, frozen in place, as Kitty paced back and forth in the cramped space, roughly ten feet long by eight feet wide. There as little room to move, and even less to stand up in, as Rogue noted with some annoyance. Kitty was shorter than Rogue, short enough that she could stand upright in the space with no difficulty. Rogue could stand, but just barely. She was positive that, had there been another hair on her head, it would have been an entirely different matter.
"You're my best friend, Rogue." Kitty said suddenly, no longer pacing.
"What?" Rogue asked, less a question of clarification and more a request for repetition.
"Since I've been here, you know, I think of everyone in the mansion, everyone we knew in high school. Of all of them, you're the person I feel closest to. You're my best friend, Rogue." All of this came out of Kitty's mouth in a rush. There was no rehearsal inside her mind, only thoughts given voice as soon as they took form. She stared at her feet for a long time before facing upwards, looking towards Rogue for approval.
"Kitty, yah're mah best friend, too, no question. Hell, you and Kurt ahre tha onlay ones who didn't treat meh lahke a baby after…" Rogue trailed off. She was discussing a dark moment in her past, one in which she lost almost complete control of her abilities. In the resulting aftermath, most of the students had either treated Rogue with all the joy and playfulness of a cancer patient, or just flat out ignored her completely. As the days and weeks had given birth to months, much of this dissipated, but one thing that hadn't was Rogue's vitriolic bitterness towards it all.
"Rogue, like, we weren't the only ones," said Kitty, her use of the word like indicating that Kitty's usual bubbly attitude was making an attempt to break through, a spot of brightness in a dark conversation. "What about Scott? He visited you a few times."
"Nawt tha way Ah wanted," Rogue stated bitterly, quickly adding, "Ah mean, ahll heh realleh did was drop some homework assaghnments ohff ahnd talk about school once ohr twace. Look, thaht ain't tha point."
"Well, what is your point."
"Mah, point? Mah point is Ah don't want ya mentionin' any ohf this tah anyone." Now it was Rogue's turn to speak in a blurred flow of words.
"You already told me that, Rogue. What you didn't tell me is why?"
"Because Ah'm taired ohf everybody hadlin meh with kid gloves," Rogue shouted, loud enough that Kitty was sure the entire jet could hear. "Everyone looks at meh sideways, lahke Ah'm some sort a psycho killer." Kitty opened her mouth, although to say what was never known, for at that moment Professor Xavier's voice, telepathic but by no means less intense, echoed in both their minds.
Kitty, Rogue, we have landed in California. Remember that we are on Pacific Time now, and any time telling devices on your persons need to be set three hours backward. Please join the rest of the team below the jet.
"This is my stress relief, Wanda. Whenever the pressures and troubles of the school, the students, or sometimes just life in general become too much for me to bear, I come out here," Wanda and Ororo were standing just inside an expansive greenhouse behind the institute. It was not its size, however, that could take one's breath away. Rather, it was the vast array of vegetation, plants of every size and color from all corners of the globe. Wanda was thankful she was wearing a T-shirt in place of her usual outfit, an outfit which consisted of a heavy scarlet overcoat. It was not the temperature, however, but the humidity of which Wanda felt the effects. She turned to Ororo to say something, but if the older mutant was affected by the humidity as well, she displayed no outward signs thereof. "I come out here, and I spend time with my plants. Sometimes I am only out here for a brief minute, and other times for entire days." Ororo slowly walked over to an elevated wooden box, brushing the purple petal of a flower growing tall out of the dirt. Wanda watched this with both confusion and envy. It was silent, save for the low hum of a few spare lights. Visibility was hampered further by the plants themselves, many stretching towards the roof on thick stalks.
"That's it," Wanda finally asked, exasperated with the scene before her. "This is your big solution to stress?" Ororo answered without so much as the most cursory of glances back towards the teenager.
"Yes it is, Wanda. They may look like simple plants, but these are living breathing creatures. So many people these days fail to see that. It's sad, really," and Ororo began to walk further into the twisting maze of the greenhouse. "Follow me." Wanda complied, noting to herself that, no matter how ridiculous Ororo's words sounded to her, she indeed seemed at peace out here. She trudged several feet behind the statuesque African woman, brushing past dangling leaves and fragrant flowers. Her heavy black boots sunk slightly into the soft, moist ground as she wound around raised planters and small trees, until the two reached what Wanda only assumed was the back of the greenhouse. Ororo gestured towards an empty planter flush with the glass and steel wall. Surrounded on either side by planter bustling with full, lush greenery, this lone planter looked all the more small and neglected.
"So…I come out here and take care of your plants with you?"
"Not exactly. I feel that you could benefit from having a small place to come and collect your thoughts, Wanda. In this planter, you can grow anything you like. However, these plants will be entirely your responsibility. It will be up to you to see that these plants get watered, that they are taken proper care of."
"Anything I like," Wanda questioned, staring at the empty dirt for a moment before turning back. "Even Tiger Lilies?" Ororo smiled.
"There's a nursery just outside of the city. I can take you there tomorrow once the children have been seen off to school."
"Wait, wait a minute-You're going to take me to a nursery, give me a place to grow stuff, and I can grow whatever I want, right? And you're just doing all of this out the kindness of your heart?"
"That's right."
"Well, what do you want out of it?"
"I don't want anything, Wanda, beyond seeing you find a better karmic place," Ororo paused, and she delicately placed a single hand on the edge of the planter. "And, you remind me of a student we once had here, a student I was very close to."
"Somebody like me? In the Brady Bunch of mutants?"
"Wanda, despite your beliefs about us, I can assure you we are not the, 'Brady Bunch of Mutants.' We have disagreements, just like anyone else. This boy, he was angry, just like you. He had a temper that could start a fire, and he was so stubborn," Ororo laughed a wistful laugh. "If he set his mind to something, the Gods themselves couldn't tell him different."
"So where is he now?"
"I…I don't know. He left this place in order to forge a team with another band of mutants, and I've only seen him once since then. I miss him everyday." Ororo's voice cracked and it was apparent to Wanda that the woman was holding back tears. She felt guilty for making her dredge up the memories, and she began to play with the hem of her T-shirt, suddenly very aware that she had caught this woman in an unguarded moment.
"I'm sorry." Unsure of what to say, Wanda uttered the first thing to enter her consciousness.
"You have nothing to be sorry for, Wanda," Ororo sighed. "It's getting late, almost midnight. Mornings in this mansion can be very hectic; we should both get our rest."
After being placed under arrest, Talia felt as though the day was simply one humiliation after another. The entire ride to the police station, she was not only handcuffed but locked to the seat. Standard procedure for violent criminals, the officers had told her, we treat everyone like this. It was a claim that would have had much more veracity had the cops not been making mutant jokes the entire drive to the station. They were quiet, making an attempt to disguise their discussion, but Talia could make out enough. She also noted that the younger cop, the one driving, made several attempts to change the subject, all of which were absolutely ignored by the older cop riding shotgun. The younger offier was making an attempt to look good in the older officer's eyes, and Talia gave him some leeway on that. Still, their biased discussion made the car rdie all the more unbearable. Her heart had beaten against the inside of her ribcage violently, and her breathing was ragged, a condition not improved by the tears she was choking back. No matter how much the back of her eyes burned, she was determined not to cry in front of these cops. She saw that as the final humiliation these cops were looking for, and she was determined not to give it to them. So when the squad car finally arrived at the station, Talia put on the bravest face she could, and kept it plastered on firmly when she was not so much removed from the backseat but rather dragged out with more force than necessary. She put up no resistance and offered no words of protest. She offered them nothing, uttering not so much as even the quietest pleas.
She kept her face firm when her mugshot was taken, despite the lewd comments courtesy of the police photographer. They cataloged her belongings, everything, including the loose mints that had been floating at the bottom of her purse for years. Afterwards, all of her information was taken down, she was cataloged the same as the mints, and for the first time, Talia realized that, legitimate or not, she was going to have a criminal record. It was a painful, stinging realization, but Talia still managed to keep the tears back, and it was at this point that her throat began to burn. After her personal information was catalogued, it was time for her to be fingerprinted. Her thumbprints transferred just fine, along with her two fingers, but standard fingerprinting sheets were designed with five-fingered hands in mind, not three. The final breaking point came when the arresting officer loudly asked any fellow officers within earshot how to deal with someone with less than five fingers, although he did not phrase it in such kind terms. It was a question designed to humiliate, and it succeeded absolutely. Her head fell, and the tears came, slow at first with one or two trickling down her cheeks. They quickly became a flood, and within a minute's time Talia's entire frame was shaking she sobbed quietly. The arresting officer, and anyone else nearby, wisely chose to give the girl a few moments of both peace and space.
After she regained a modicum of composure, Talia was informed that she would be placed in a holding cell. The handcuffs were firmly placed around her wrists for a second time, and she was led down a concrete staircase into the basement. The bars were high, higher than Talia had expected, but it was the interior of the cell that gave Talia fright. The concrete room reeked of urine and sweat, and she wondered momentarily of the cop seated at the desk outside the cell stood the stench.
"Hey, is that Talia Josephine Royce?" The cop seated behind the desk asked after laying his desk phone back on its cradle.
"Yea, assault by a mutant on a human. Why?"
"Don't bother tossin' her in the cell. Bond's already been posted."
Already posted? What the hell, I just put her in system two minutes ago." The guard behind the desk took a sip of coffee from a white Styrofoam cup, steam visibly curling up from the dark brown liquid from the moment he picked it up until he placed back on the worn wooden surface dotted with nicks, scrapes and water rings.
"Hey, don't lecture me. Desk clerk just phoned down here, says this girls mother's been raising hell damn near twenty minutes, shouting and raving. Paid in full the minute the girl went in the system. Desk clerk told me to get the girl up there as soon as I could." The cop standing behind Talia looked down at her.
"Well how about that. You got lucky mutie." Any other time, and Talia would have protested the use of this particular slur, but the relief she was feeling was too great. Her parents, or at least her mother, had come to the rescue. She'd be angry at first, her mother dealt very poorly with stress. She'd most likely yell and shout for maybe twenty minutes, but then Talia could explain her side of the story; after all, this wasn't the first time she'd been painted as the bad guy simply because she was a mutant. Of course, Talia also considered what the guard had said about her mother screaming and raising hell at the front desk. That's right, I told Jeannette to call them, Talia thought, She probably explained everything to them. God knows it probably took her an hour, and I'll probably owe Jeannette for the rest of my natural life, but it'll all be worth it if I can get this cleared up. Talia was doing her best to avoid thinking overly positively, knowing full well that she was in no way completely clear of the situation. However, narrowly avoiding a night inside a jail cell has a funny way of turning one's mood towards a decidedly sunnier outlook. Her thoughts had been turbulent only moments before, now, on the long journey from the basement to the entrance, they were threatening to turn into a full-fledged typhoon.
That typhoon struck at the very moment Talia reached the front desk. She had prepared for many things, a warm embrace, screaming and yelling, even complete stony silence. What she had not prepared for was absence. Her eyes scanned the waiting room once, twice, but no sign of her mother, or her father. No familial relations were anywhere in sight. The only soul that wasn't clad in a blue uniform was a woman, maybe forty but certainly no older than forty-five. Her hair was dark brown and her eyes were the same color, but hidden behind a pair of bifocals. She was dressed professionally in a crisp suit and blouse that would have fit in better on Wall Street than anywhere near a police station. As she caught sight of Talia, this woman let a large, relieved smile cross her face. She approached Talia, and, without a single word of warning, took her a tight hug, embracing her so tight Talia was sure her ribs would crack under the pressure.
"Honey, it's so good to see you. You're not hurt, are you? Tell me you're alright," Who is this woman? This is not my mother. Talia thought. Still in a hug, the woman leaned into Talia's ear and whispered, "I know you've never seen me. Trust me, Talia." Talia briefly entertained the notion of telling the police she didn't know this woman, that she was an utter stranger. But where that put me? Right back in that jail cell, and lightening doesn't strike twice, Talia mused, using a phrase both her parents used frequently. Ok, I can throw a bolt at her if she tries anything; I'm not defenseless. I've got the choice of stranger or jail. A split second decision was required, and Talia made one, wrapping her own arms around this unknown woman and clasping her just as tight. Her audience was several members of the California police department, people with the ability to throw her in jail if they weren't convinced of the performance, and Talia pulled out all the stops to impress them.
"Mom, it's so good to see you," Talia said, conjuring up every shred of acting talent she possessed. An Oscar-worthy performance, in her own opinion. "Thank you so much for getting me out of here. Can we go home?" The woman gave her a sympathetic smile and, while releasing the hug, left her hands placed firmly on Talia's shoulders .
"Of course, dear. My car is just around the corner."
The police had not them go quietly, with numerous reminders not to leave the county, her court appearance would be on the thirtieth, and similar notices. Talia also noted that it had taken close to fifteen minutes for the police to produce her purse. Finally, after what felt to Talia like an eternity, her unknown savior and she were allowed to leave the station. The woman's car was a block away, and the entire walk to the car was shrouded in silence, neither one willing to begin a conversation. The sun had said its goodbyes in Talia's absence, as the sky had turned to an inky black save for the gray-silver half-full moon smack in the middle of the night sky. As they approached a massive black SUV, the mystery woman dug through a small leather purse dangling from her shoulder, unlocking the doors with the simple press of a button. The automotive chirped in compliance, the locks of the front doors popping up. Talia opened the passenger door and climbed in, settling into the soft leather seat. She waited for the mystery woman to settle in, speaking up before she had a chance to start the engine.
"Ok, I don't want sound ungrateful about all this, you know, believe me, really appreciative of the help over here. But, um, who are you?"
With as much energy visibly exerted as it takes to blink, this woman's very physical appearance began to change, much to Talia's complete shock, her jaw falling slack. Her power suit melted away and her bifocals recessed into her skull, all revealing a deep blue skin highly similar to Talia's own. Her short brown hair descended and changed to a bright, vibrant red. Finally, her eyes morphed, going from brown to cat-like yellow. Talia watched all this whle back away, moving closer and closer to the door until the handrest dug sharply into the small of her back and her hair was flush with the window. Her brain yelled, screamed, at her arm to reach behind her, unlock the door, and run like Hermes. Her arm, just simply would not respond, instead holding her weight up upon the seat and doing little else. She brought her knees onto the seat, drawing them to her chest quickly, using them as a makeshift shield. The woman, however, seemed unconcerned with this sudden transformation, turning to Talia with a small but genuine smile. "I'm your mother, honey. Your real mother."
Author's note: Ok, this chapter took much longer than I had anticipated, and things don't look good for the next one. I'm moving into a new apartment, classes start in roughly a week, and I'm sure there are about twelve other things I've completely forgotten about. However, I make the promise here and now that this story will be seen through to the end. So, please enjoy, and leave a review.