"When the skies are grey and all the doors are closing
And the rising pressure makes it hard to breathe
When all I need's a hand to stop the tears from falling
I will find him, I'll find him next to me."
(Next to Me- Emeli Sandé)
Damned bastard had gotten called away right as he'd neared her and hadn't gotten that close since. For the first two weeks the schedule was the same: Breakfast came right after she was brought into Laura's room, and she got to spend precious time with her daughter before they took her away again. They left her pretty much alone except for the occasional blood test or mechanical scan, and her reward for docile compliance was her continued vision, which was healing at a rate faster than any of Rice Jr.'s men had noticed. Her other reward was being taken back to Laura's room in the evenings.
Maia was curled around her little girl one evening, humming and carding her fingers through Laura's dark caramel hair when the girl suddenly clung even tighter and pressed her face into Maia, her voice muffled as she said something.
Maia frowned. Like her father, Laura's mind was too unorganized for Maia to be in it all the time, and she'd already realized her child was eerily silent. She didn't want to give herself an unshakable headache or encourage her daughter to be a mute. So her only solution had been to block Laura completely when they were together. "What, baby girl?"
"Mine. My Mama." Laura repeated, barely pulling herself away.
Maia nodded, kissing her forehead, "I have, and I always will be." She added softly, "I love you."
Laura snuggled closer and drifted off to sleep, her breaths evening out and her muscles relaxing. Maia loved every minute of it. The first few times they'd ended up cuddling, Laura had been stiff as a board and completely unaware of why her mother had insisted on holding her. Maia had been lucky Laura hadn't reacted with claws. It had still taken a great deal of coaxing for Laura to relax around her. They should have had years to do so, should never have been apart for them to become so distant in the first place, but Maia was determined to make the most of the time they had.
She was grateful for that attitude when no one came to take her one morning. It was either the sixteenth or the seventeenth day, she couldn't really be sure. For hours she tried to convince herself that the change in schedule was a good thing, but she wasn't an idiot and her stomach rebelled more and more as the day went on.
When the door opened, Maia wasn't surprised not to see Laura. She was surprised to see a man she hadn't seen since she'd first been taken. "William Stryker. I thought you were dead."
He seemed surprised for a second, but quickly schooled his features, pointedly keeping his eyes away from her general direction. "Miss Kinney, rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I hope you've been enjoying your stay here."
"Why don't you just go fuck yourself." Maia snapped, trying to decide if she was going to scream at him or vomit on him. Either seemed to be a viable option.
His response made her stomach settle, "Well then, rumors of you taking after Weapon X haven't been exaggerated after all."
"What the hell did he ever do to you?" Maia had been sitting on her cot, but now she'd shifted herself up onto the edge, crouched, ready to grab the bastard by the ears if she had to. Yeah, that was probably more 'Weapon X' posture than sweet 'Miss Kinney'.
The man smiled slightly, "The same as you. You are all abominations. God made it my duty to eradicate mutants from this earth."
Maia clenched a fist into the fabric of her grey sweatpants, "Then why your current plan? The one Rice is working on with me. Essentially the opposite thing."
Stryker nodded, "Essentially. You're a special girl, Miss Kinney. No other woman has survived carrying Weapon X's child. If I can cure you, I can cure all future mothers of mutants. If there are no more mutant births, then there will be no more mutants. It's almost easy."
Maia felt sick again. "You sick son of a bitch."
Stryker just looked at her, "You may think that, but this is what's best. This is what God wants." He stepped back towards the door, "I'm not sure you took Dr. Rice seriously enough. We're moving you to another facility where I trust my employees to be smarter than these foreign hired hands, and less…'clumsy' too."
Maia shivered. So they'd caught on. She'd been compelling people to mess up her tests since the very start, and in almost three weeks no one had ever even noticed that all their results were garbage. Or so she'd thought. She'd been caught, and her ability to buy time was over. At least her backup plan had worked. He seemed awfully irritated. She clenched her teeth, resisting the urge to grin, "What you're trying to do is sick, and incredibly illegal."
He didn't even blink, eyes pointed up at the ceiling, "You have no rights, Miss Kinney. Besides, think of your sacrifice here as being for the betterment of our great United States. Your country thanks you."
"I'm a fucking Canadian you asshole." She growled, standing.
He laughed softly, turning his back to her like she wasn't a threat to him at all, "Be that as it may, I expect your full cooperation from here on out or we will use your daughter, regardless of how young she is."
He was through the door before she could reach him to claw his disgusting eyes out. Maia slammed her closed fists against the door, "Come back here you fucker!"
She was alone for hours, staring at the ceiling, mind open, searching for anyone she'd made contact with coming near her cell. Nothing. Two men she'd never met before finally came in and ushered her into the back of a van and shoved a gag in her mouth when she started screaming for Laura. No one listened to her or looked at her in the hours that passed.
Stryker came to see her in her new cell, which was equipped with a small entryway that was separated from the rest of the cell by a grate. She couldn't touch him. "I hope you enjoy your new accommodations, Miss Kinney. X-24 will be here soon to keep you company."
She went completely still, terror inching up her spine. "I'm never letting that thing touch me again."
Stryker laughed, "Weapon X is too far out of reach for our experiment, but X-24 will be a virile substitute. Enjoy, I'll be back in a few weeks to see how things are progressing. Best of luck. If all goes well, you will be reunited with your bastard daughter in a few weeks. Heard she's easier to manage when you're there."
Then he was gone again, and she was alone for a long, long time. Long enough for madness to begin to seep back in. She paced the cell until she was exhausted, and fell onto her newest cot to sleep before she got up hours later and did it again. She picked at the thick scab on her head, the one that had covered the skin broken by her skull cracking against the bathroom countertop, until blood dripped through her hair, over her ear, and down her neck. She didn't eat the few meals that slid under the door. Not out of any real rebellion, but just because she couldn't bear the thought of eating.
When the door finally opened again, Maia expected to be poked and prodded or tossed to X-24. She didn't expect an older man dressed all in maroon with a helmet on his head or the ragged looking man at his flank. The ragged man spoke first, "Well shit, this ain't Jimmy."
"No." The older man said, the one word echoing an accent Maia was unfamiliar with, "But she must be what Charles was looking for." The metal grate separating them suddenly wrenched apart to create an arch he stepped through.
Maia's heart was pounding in her chest, and she stood with her back against the far wall. She tamped down the urge to attack this unknown mutant, and used her words instead, "You know the Professor?"
He laughed, a low chuckle that did nothing to put her at ease, "Yes, Charles and I have known one another for a very long time. I was surprised, however, when he called to ask me to free mutants in a facility I was nearer to than he was. A highly unusual request. Then Sabertooth here thought he smelled the Wolverine."
The man called Sabertooth was suddenly in her space, sniffing at her neck, "Weird. You smell good."
Maia turned her head and caught his glance, baring her teeth at him. "Get away from me."
His thoughts flooded into her mind, and they were eerily similar in rhythm to L's. There was none of her mutation in her request, but he sensed the animal in her and backed off of his own volition. He scratched himself lewdly, "What can you do? They don' just lock up pretty girls in cells like this for no reason."
Maia didn't answer, didn't have the chance even if she'd wanted to, her attention was instead on the figure that had come in behind them. Relief flooded her, "Logan!"
She had taken one instinctive step forward before she stopped, staring at the man behind the two strangers. He had Logan's face, but… "You're not Logan."
'Logan' tipped his head to the side, and shrugged, "No one else seemed to notice." A woman's voice coming out of Logan's mouth was jarring, but Maia's shock only grew when his claws folded back into his arms and his skin rippled until suddenly a woman stood in his place. A blue woman. She moved around the men to stand in front of Maia, "How did you?"
Staring at a seemingly naked woman who'd just been dressed in flannel and her lover's skin, Maia blurted, "I…uh… read minds."
"A telepath? I can see why Charles is so interested in you." The woman said, dragging her eyes from Maia's Ked clad feet and up. Maia looked away before the inspection made it up to her face. She'd read enough in the woman's expression to know that she didn't need to be in her mind right now.
"I'd like to leave now." Maia said, mind open, sensing the tiniest hint of her daughter in her head. She almost sighed in relief. Nothing from the real Logan yet, though Laura seemed to be pissed at how slow he was. She turned her mind back to the trio in front of her.
"You can come with us." The woman offered.
Maia made another mistake. She caught eyes with the blue eyed man under the helmet. She staggered under the weight of his mind, and the woman steadied her for a moment. Maia blinked at him, breathing hard, "You…I… Charles…"
HIs face went from placid to furious, "You can see into my mind? The helmet…"
Maia nodded numbly, echoing a phrase that Rice had used, "The eyes are the window to the soul."
The fury left, and he smiled at her, looking more like a shark than his placating thoughts indicated, "So you can do something even the great Charles Xavier can't do. Mystique is right, you can come with us."
Maia shook her head, "I can't." There, there was the chaotic beauty of her daughter's mind. Still a bit away, but ahead of any of the others. "My family is coming for me." She looked into his eyes again. "Erik, they're your family too. You can come back to New York."
Erik blinked a few times, so still he looked like a statue. His voice was rough when he spoke, "I can't."
Laura was almost to her.
"You can." Maia insisted, "The Professor keeps his mind closed. I can only hear a bit from him. I…I didn't know who you were, but there's someone he misses so much it hurts. He'd take you back in a heartbeat."
Laura busted into the room focused entirely on her mother. "Mama!"
Maia stepped to the side so no one stood between them, and threw her arms out, "Laura!" The pint sized mutant ignored the others and threw herself at Maia. She didn't cry, she just held onto her mother with every ounce of her strength. Maia peppered kisses on her daughter's face, "Oh, baby, Daddy found you."
Sabertooth was gawking at her. "Shit, Jimmy's got a kid?"
Maia laughed over Laura's growl at his tone. "Guess that makes you an uncle."
Sabertooth shook his head, cursed a few times and walked out. Mystique followed, giving the mother and daughter a pained glance as she left. Erik stayed a minute longer, "She has adamantium on her bones."
Laura growled at the word, and Maia smoothed Laura's hair with her hands, "She's done being hurt."
Erik swallowed hard once, adams apple bobbing, "She's not. She's a mutant. She'll always be hurt."
Maia held her daughter tight when he busted a hole in the side of her cell, walking out into the forested surroundings and disappearing from view. Silence stretched for a few seconds, and Logan grew even closer, "Laura, you can't leave your daddy like that again. He's not too happy."
Logan's ire melted away as soon as he appeared in the ruined doorway and saw the two of them. He cursed of course, but it was half-hearted, "Fuck, Kit, you can't do that shit."
Maia walked towards him, smiling even as her muscles started to protest holding Laura's weight, "Wild Man, you've got to stop using words like that. People don't expect to hear such things from the mouths of pretty little girls."
He grinned at her, moving so they stood close enough that their clothes brushed without weight behind, "Shit, Darlin', I've heard words like that come out of your pretty little mouth before."
Maia grinned back at him, "Not around our kid you haven't."
Logan leaned in to kiss her, but was blocked by Laura pushing herself between them, "No! My Mama!"
Logan looked pissed for a second before the three of them came to a realization as a unit. Laura hissed, and he sprung into action, claws out. "Maia, run!" Logan yelled, but she was frozen.
There wasn't any out running this threat though, not for her. X-24 had risen from the ashes Logan'd thought they'd left him in, and even more than he wanted Maia's flesh, he wanted Logan and Laura's blood. He was ready to kill for all three.