Disclaimer: I Do Not Own The X-Men Or Anything Related To The X-Men. I Do Not Own The Song 'You Don't Know' From The Musical 'Next to Normal' Either.
Thank you to everyone for looking at the past chapter. I appreciate you guys and gals taking time out of your busy lives to look at and read this story. Thanks to Jehilew for her sweet reviews. Yes, this is another chapter to have a 'Next to Normal' song that helped the story chapter make it out of editing. It might still be rough, but we will see what everyone thinks. Thanks again and here is the newest chapter:
Lydia felt more emotions swarm her then she believed humanly possible when her daughter was brought back to the mansion. Every time she thought her heart couldn't take any more pain, it surprised her by continuing to beat just as strong, if not more so than before. Vivid hallucinations of losing her children one by one, cradling her husband as he lay in pain in their cell, and watching her only surviving child nearly die fighting a monster continued to dance through her subconscious without respite.
Lydia survived many challenges during her troubled years spent in the Morphs' land, but now it seemed her internal strength and grit were starting to drop considerably. Everything they thought was certain; Alex growing up, getting married, starting a life for herself, or just being simply happy and safe, was fading farther and farther away. All she wanted was to protect her daughter from any more pain. She prayed with each breath she took that she could take Alex's place and rescue her from any more trauma.
When word came through the head of Meridan's hospital, an elderly doctor who insisted on treating the princess without the interruptions of her well-meaning, but medically inexperienced friends and family, that Alex had woken up, a strange mix of happiness and fear spread throughout the mansion. The fact Lydia could be anything but completely thrilled to know her daughter was awake and alive made the stressed queen battle waves of guilt induced nausea. She took slow, deliberate breaths to calm her stomach and harshly berated herself internally for having a moment of weakness. She couldn't do that. She could not give up on her daughter.
The first thing Lydia noticed when she entered the private room adjacent to the mansion's small medical bay, was the chains. Thick wrist shackles connected to the wall by a long interlocking metal chain held down Rogue's wrists. Anger flooded every fiber of Lydia's being forcing her to stomp over to her daughter's side with a look of pure determination. She wasn't going to stand for this! She was not going to watch her daughter be bound and chained like some rabid creature.
"Who did this?" She demanded and reached for the shackle on Rogue's left wrist. "I will get these off of you right now and personally deal with anyone who dared to-"
"Mom…" Rogue's voice was soft and scratchy as if she had been screaming far too loudly and far too long.
"No," Lydia shook her head and tried to grab her daughter's wrist again when she yanked it out of the woman's reach, "Let me get these off of you, Alex. It will be okay. I promise -"
"No!" Alex pulled her wrists back from her mother and stood as far away from Lydia as was physically possible with her bonds, "Stop this! We both know it isn't going to be okay."
"Alex…"
"You need to get out of here." She felt her heart break apart piece by piece as the hard words tumbled out of her mouth. Why didn't they understand? Forgetting about her would be the best solution for everyone. The others listened when she demanded to be left alone. Why didn't Lydia run off too? The emotions swelling inside of Rogue's chest threatened to drown her, but she couldn't just sit back and wait till her mother was hurt.
"I am not leaving you, Alex." The words were strangely firm as iron and yet also completely filled with the true love of a mother for her child, "You are my daughter and I will never give up on you."
"I am," Rogue added slowly, finding herself unable to keep staring into Lydia's moist blue eyes, "the monster."
"Alexandria Gracelyn Rose Lenox," Lydia gripped her upper arms firmly and shook the young woman as if in desperation to shake the ideas right out of her daughter's head, "You are one of the most important parts of my life. You are my daughter and I love you. Never believe that you are anything less than one of the four most important people in mine and your father's lives!"
Rogue wanted to believe her mother's words. Oh, how she craved the certain security they could have offered her if the situation was different. She wanted to stop running and let the people around her hold her close and remind her that she was loved, but she couldn't do it. How many hospital patients were currently nursing severe wounds because of her? The guard with half of his face burned, the random citizens caught in her rampage, Victoria's broken ribs, Lydia's broken, or at least most likely to be, broken heart, and of course poor Remy who did nothing but try and help this psycho.
"I know this is hard Alex," Lydia's words were softer in volume but had not lost their emotional strength, "Please, honey. Try to let go of some of your doubts and let us help you. You can trust us to keep you safe."
"You don't know!" The ferocity of the words surprised even Rogue for a moment. Her eyes darted to the side, trying to hide the fear, shame, and genuine tears threatening to fall at any moment.
They wanted to be there for Rogue, but her loved ones just couldn't help this time. No one knew how much energy it took just to lift her head and step forward on her own two feet. It was as if she was trying to scream underwater. Never making a sound but practically killing herself by even trying to utter a desperate plea for help in the suffocating darkness. She couldn't bear to think of the future when her last resolve faded, but how could she cling to the past either? Memories of her lost family drifted through her brain and she could almost feel one psyche in particular cackle.
No, Lydia and the others could never really understand. She didn't blame them for not realizing the truth or trying continuously to tell her to let go and accept they would be there to catch her. It was all her family and friends had left before accepting the finality of the situation.
For Rogue, it was more like a tidal wave of overwhelming sensations. As if she was standing on a cliff side and never knew when she'd dive. Living an unending nightmare of terror where she fell and never hit the ground. How could she ever consider that anyone would understand such wild and devastating emotions without riding the train wreck themselves? They could never understand what it felt like to die alive.
The raw pain flashed through her head with greater strength, alerting her to oncoming danger. She pulled away from Lydia's embrace, with tears still threatening to fall from her saddened eyes as she tried to keep Sunil down. Rogue was panting and swaying on her feet, but as she looked back up to her mother, she managed to keep her right mind steady.
The sense of panic that she couldn't be trusted this close to Lydia, was growing by leaps and bounds, forcing her to snap out a loud, "Go away!"
"Alex," Lydia's voice broke slightly and the sound almost crumpled Rogue to her knees. "Let me help you. Talk to me. At least let me take off those horrible things…"
"Don't you get it?!" Rogue yelled as salty streaks of liquid raced down her pale cheeks and her head started to pound, "I made them put these on me! This was my choice!"
Lydia reached a hand out, desperate to wipe the tears of sorrow flooding down Rogue's cheeks, "Alex, I-"
The color of the young woman's eyes turned yellow so quickly, Lydia couldn't take a breath let alone a single step back from her daughter before she attacked. The hand shot out and clutched Lydia's neck with so much force the woman's head snapped back as she was drug up to Rogue's face. A dark smile spread across the princess' face as the tears stopped flowing and a deep voice greeted Lydia.
"There is no Alex," Rogue's other hand let out a set of claws, holding the sharp daggers against her mother's abdomen, "Say it. Tell me exactly who I am."
"Alex." Lydia furrowed her brows and stared into her daughter's eyes with as much strength as she could. She prayed that her daughter would hear her through all of the mental confusion and unrest and that it would help keep her fighting to stay with them, "Alexandria Gracelyn Rose Lenox."
The angry woman's hand tightened on Lydia's throat and the claws poked her skin just firm enough to create three small trails of blood on the front of her shirt. Still, Lydia kept her fighting spirit strong and refused to back down an inch. She was certain that she could reach her Alex no matter what Sunil tried, "You are my daughter. And I know that you are stronger than this monster. You can fight him with the people who love you."
"No!" The scream was garbled between an angry man and a terrified young woman.
Suddenly, Lydia felt herself fly forcefully backward into the cabinet of medical supplies. She coughed and tried to force her lungs to work again as she slowly sat up on the floor. Pieces of glass from the cabinet and various medical supplies lay strewn haphazardly around the room. When she tried to set her hands down on the floor to push herself up, she hissed in pain as the glass stabbed through the palms. Despite the pain radiating throughout her body, Lydia shoved her hands down and demanded her body stand back up and stagger towards Alex.
"Alex, it will be okay." She coughed through the words and winced when it agitated the wounds on her abdomen. She fell back down to one knee and watched her daughter cry and whimper as her hands pulled brutally at her own hair. "Alex,"
The guards crashed through the door before Lydia could try to stand again. Having been alerted by the sounds of the crash and a possible fight brewing, they decided to ignore her orders to give her and her daughter complete privacy. Two of the professionally dressed men stooped down next to Lydia and tried to examine her wounds. She ignored them and continued to yell orders in vain at the men holding their weapons out towards Rogue.
"Move the queen to safe ground!" One of the guards shouted and motioned for his men to surround the princess who collapsed into a small ball on the floor and continued to whimper, whine, and yell at herself.
"No!" Lydia fought against their hold as the guards tried to drag her out of the room, "Stop this! I am not leaving her!"
The guard on her left side picked her up despite the constant demands and efforts to twist out of his grasp and walked her towards the door. She could only see small parts of what happened to Rogue as the guards encircled her. One of them held a very large looking needle in his hand, the only type that could possibly go through skin as tough as Alex's.
Of course, the princess didn't seem to even be aware she was cornered as she shook her head and continued to mumble words that no one in the room could understand. She covered her face and seemed to be changing into a truly wild animal with no concept of anything besides a desperately overpowering desire to escape. Rogue had to escape the room, the noise, the lights, the people, and most urgently escape her own mind.
"What is going on here?!"
That voice. Rogue finally opened her eyes, one yellow and one green, and looked out towards the sound. She couldn't see his face through the oncoming line of mansion guards, but she knew it was him. Even before he spoke again, she knew that it was the one man who needed to forget her the most.
"What are you doing? Back off! If you corner her it will just make Sunil attack!" The voice stopped and the familiar face of what was once her Cajun appeared over the shoulder of a guard, "Chere, you gotta try and calm down. I'm here now. Everyone is gonna calm down and we can talk, just you and me. Just like old times, mon coeur."
"No…" Alex spoke up so softly it was almost impossible to hear her over the commotion. She closed her eyes hugged her knees to her chest and finally shouted, "No more talking!"
The light that filled the room blinded all of the occupants for a moment and somehow shoved them back a good three feet. When the light dimmed all that could be seen in Rogue's spot was a thick wall of jagged ice spears jutting out from a floor to ceiling wall of solid ice. Although it was rather blurry, when the guards looked close enough between the spikes they knew instantly that their troubled princess was gone.
A gaping hole stood on the other side of the frozen wall and left no trace as to how the young woman escaped. The guards speculated whether she flew or possibly teleported away, but those who knew her best remained silent. When Lydia finally looked over to Logan and Remy, she spotted the same shock shimmering in their eyes along with the same amounts of concern and love for Alex. It helped relight the flame of hope in Lydia's chest that her daughter would come through this. How they would handle this she still didn't know, but she was certain in the fact that at least the rest of her daughter's family would fight till the end as well.
"How did she do that…" Remy mumbled to himself and tore his eyes from the intimidating ice structure to look at Logan, "She never absorbed someone with ice powers before."
"It is starting," Lydia hobbled over with the help of a guard and remembered the warning Mystique had given them hours earlier, "Ice was on of her father's favorite powers… Their strengths are starting to blend together…"
"We gotta catch that kid before she literally blows this whole place up." Logan gruffly added as the whole room agreed through a response of awkward silence.