Nathan looked down at his watch, his keys rattling in the door of his flat. It had been a rather short day in his estimation. Normally, he would still be sitting in his office with his experimentation notes all around him, Anne already gone for the day. Of course, this was not a normal day.
She wasn't dead.
The door swung open to his push. It still looked a lot like it had when he had originally owned it. Almost exactly as it did when she had first showed up in his life. How many years ago was it now? He had forgotten, the year she had appeared having become unimportant as he realized that she wasn't going to die any year soon.
She wasn't dead.
That thought kept intruding, kept needling him. If she wasn't dead, where was she now? Why couldn't he touch her as he had been able to do for so many years; when he could reach for her across continents and touch her awake or sleeping. Why wasn't she where she belonged, at his right hand?
He shut the door behind himself, the gestures to put his keys away automatic. Turning to his right, he went through the parlor and into the kitchen. She had cooked when she felt like it. It was a skill that hadn't meant anything to either of them. He often forgot to eat and she didn't even really need to, not for nutrients anyway. Then it had ceased to matter for either of them.
Continuing through, he went out the kitchen door and through the courtyard to his laboratory. He needed the peace, he needed to concentrate, he needed to find out why she didn't respond to him when he called her if she still walked the Earth.
LENNETH! This was not the call of a distressed lover, but closer to the yell an angry owner uses for a misbehaving dog. WHERE ARE YOU?
Poisyn stopped in mid-step, turning her head, a look of confusion slipping across her face. Then it was gone, whatever it was that brought her to a stop. Of course, her momentary lapse was enough to make the ever-impatient War nearly go to the foot tapping of why the devil am I waiting for you?
"Ya ready?"
"More than ready. It's time to go about his business."
"Just wonderin'. Yah looked all lost there for a second."
"It's nothing and it won't happen again. Neutralize her quickly. I'll handle any opposition."
War looked for a moment as if she were going to protest, but she just shrugged. If Poisyn wanted to be in charge of running interference, then why argue? She was going to have her hands full with Famine.
Nathaniel went back into the house after an hour, leaving behind his laboratory, his work unfinished. It made no sense. He couldn't sense her. For over a hundred years, the merest thought of her had brought him her placement in the world, had told him the mood she was currently in, everything that he needed to know in order to monitor her. Now, his repeated attempts brought him nothing. As though she really were dead. But she wasn't. He knew that. He knew that she was somewhere. Why was she beyond his reach?
It irritated him. It had taken him years to prefect her. She was his; Lenneth Ascher was his.
"Where are you," he muttered aloud to himself as he divested himself of his suit. His body armor was beneath, but he made a point of keeping that detail to himself. No use in making the humans suspicious or combative.
"Australia," Poisyn stood in the hallway outside of the room where War was fighting with Famine to bring her back into the fold. She hadn't even marked her own speaking, especially not with the sound of breaking furniture and rushing wind coming from inside the room. Absently, she blew a kiss to the empty hallway.
"Poisyn," War screamed. "Git her before Ah have ta damage her."
It was honest that Poisyn wasn't paying attention. Famine, however, was paying attention, stopping at the sight of Poisyn.
"Madame Essex," Storm's white hair stood on end at her neck. First Rogue returns from the dead, now Lenneth? What sorcery was this? "How can this be?"
"I don't know who you speak of, Famine darling, but we have work that needs be completed and you can no longer be allowed to shrug your duties."
A swipe of Poisyn's nails delivered enough paralyzing agent to freeze Storm's muscles, and they left behind a set of parallel stripes across Storm's cheek.
"Pity to mark you so, Famine, but you'll understand better when things are as they should be again."
Hurried footsteps drew her attention away from the African woman who was struggling to breath. Poisyn turned her head just enough to look down the hallway with one glittering eye.
"Take her, War," Poisyn waved her compatriot off. "I will handle our pursuit. The Master's patience wears thin and Famine must be reminded of her place before he can proceed."
The snarl on War's face said that she knew everything that Poisyn was saying and didn't very well need to be reminded by one so newly awakened. Yet she knew that taking on a woman who could kill with the very air was not a bright choice. Instead War fixed her face, thoughts of revenge toward the top of her mind, gathered up Storm in her arms and took off through the home that Storm and Remy had built around their son.
Their little boy wasn't screaming as Remy rounded the corner and burst into the small home that he shared with the women who had become the light of his life and their baby. He had his staff and a card in hand, prepared to do battle. He wasn't prepared for the sight of a woman, a dead woman, standing in the floor gently talking to his baby, his son, held lightly in her arms.
"Shush," the dark haired woman said to the bundle in her arms, not looking up at him. All around her were signs of battle, but she was so quiet, so still, that she seemed to be no part of that world around her. "Hush, little one."
"Put 'em down," Remy called to her, his voice suddenly back in his throat. "Please, Madame Essex, put 'em down."
"Quiet, you'll frighten him," Poisyn said mostly to herself, she was paying Remy very little attention. "We must be careful how we speak around children." Gently, she laid the baby back in his cradle and tucked him. "He will grow up to be a darling boy, won't he, my son?"
Lenneth wasn't really his mother, Remy knew that, but she had been the one to hold him like she had just held his son, back when he was still wrapped in blankets. He blinked, once again stunned by realizing that this was the woman who had held him at that age, the same woman he had slept with years later, that he had almost fallen in love with. Shaking his head, he tried to clear his vision; this was too surreal. She was gone when he opened his eyes again.
Mind barely working, he stumbled over to a wall communicator, pressing the button wildly, his normally calm voice rising to a scream. His son started to scream along with him.
Nathaniel arrived in Australia the next day, no suitcase in hand, he didn't need one and now that he was back on mutant owned soil, he could openly wear his body armor.
"Tell me what you saw."