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A/N Hello, so long long time since I last updated, I know, I'm sorry.. Stuff just got in the way.
Anyway, thank you Luna13 & Ryan A. Violen for your comments, this one's for you guys.
Normal's The Watchword. Or Is It?
"I wanna join the X-Men," the blonde with a streak of purple in her hair proclaimed to the elderly man in the room.
"Brooklyn," he started but she cut him off.
"Professor, I want to fight," she insisted stubbornly.
"The X-Men is not about revenge,"
"Professor, will all due respect, I know that, I mean, the X-Men is about serving humanity right? Protecting and upholding human rights, so that man and mutants can co-exist harmoniously. My grandparents were not the best people in the world, but no one deserved what happened to them, that's why I want to do this, that's why I want to fight,"
"You can't fight when you can hardly control your powers, Brooke," the professor started, "You will need training, it will be a lot of hard work, physical hard work to get into shape and you'll need to train your mental acuity, be prepared, think fast enough, precise enough," Professor explained carefully and calmly, "We're not talking about something you decide to do on a whim, you'll need to take strategies and tactics class, danger room sessions, special defense classes and now is just too soon for you, especially in your mental state,"
"I'm fine," she defended herself.
"Your mother is dead now, not another fake death, but really dead, the people who raised you since you were a child is dead, you are not fine, Brooklyn,"
And maybe she really wasn't, but she didn't care at that moment.
"We'll talk about this later, when you're calmer when you've accepted this better,"
"Fine," she replied, defeated.
"Get a good night's rest Brooke, you have some heavy classes tomorrow," he advised and she bid him goodnight before making her way to her room. Once there, she fell onto her bed with a thump. But no sleep would come no matter how hard she tried the gruesome images, the photographs of the dead lifeless bodies of her only known grandparents who weren't even her grandparents and her mother replayed itself in her mind over and over.
Then her tired mind would slowly drift off into the arms of slumber when the images began growing, extending, the series of pictures played out in her mind, how it could have happened, the blood everywhere, their screams. Brooklyn's eyes snapped open, not for the first time that night as she lay on the bed. After relentlessly trying to go to bed, she abandoned the thought or any hopes of slumber.
She was sweating and her blonde hair clung to her head, sticking to her face. She went over to the window and pushed it open, letting in a small dry breeze which did nothing to ease the sultry unmoving air in the room.
Sitting by the window still, calmed by the wind, relaxed by the ease of breathing, her eyes slid close.
"Hey, so I met a guy today,"
"Ooh, do tell," the slender lady leaned over the kitchen counter of the dingy apartment, asking her daughter.
"Yeah so he said he was my dad," Brooke replied, placing her messenger bag on the table as Caitlyn recoiled visibly.
"Brooke.." she started.
"Yeah, and so you know that got me thinking, didn't my dad die, like in a boating accident 9 years ago? I told him he was wrong, and then he gave this," she ploughed on interrupting what her mother was about to say, pulling out a stack of letters tied together form her bag.
"What is that?" Caitlyn asked, panicking.
"You tell me," Brooke snapped, "It looks a lot like your handwriting,"
"Hmm.. Return to sender, Return to sender, Return to sender," she read off the unopened envelopes.
"Brooke, he was a cokehead, he got caught and he was in prison when I had you,"
"Did dad know?" Brooke asked, tears forming in her eyes.
"The day he asked me to marry him was the day he wrote his name on your birth certificate to be your father,"
"How could you have kept this from me? You come back and you don't even bother telling me that I buried a stranger all those years ago?!"
"Brooklyn, Charlie, he.. He was wasted, high, half the time, he got into a lot of trouble to get money for his addiction, but we were so in love, and I got pregnant, and then he got caught, I was so scared, so scared for me, for you, and then I met your father," Caitlyn explained pausing for a moment, "Who loved me, unconditionally, who took to his grave the secret that you weren't his daughter, who loved you like his daughter all the same, that man, was your father, not the crazy psycho addict who wasted his life away and.. and broke the law not caring that he'd leave you fatherless!"
Brooke wanted to argue, to defend Charlie, but Caitlyn did make some excellent points. And she could see the hurt in her mothers eyes, the pain that stopped her from saying anything, the regret that she may have been the one to kill the man who loved her unconditionally, who took her in, cared for her the way Charlie probably never did in his wayward addict ways no matter how much he loved her.
"He loves you," was what she said instead, "You may not believe that, but he does, and he's sorry, you know, I know he is,"
"Well, I don't care how he feels, but I don't want you to ever speak to him again, as a matter of fact I don't want you to even speak of him again, you got that,"
"Okay," Brooklyn replied though she wasn't sure how she felt about that. On the one hand, she wanted to love Charlie, to trust him, at least enough to bring him into their crazy world, and she'd admit readily to herself that she missed the father-daughter camaraderie, the one she had with Jack, the man whom she believed to her real father. On the other hand, though, she couldn't stop herself from feeling, no matter how nonsensical the emotion was, that if Caitlyn did still have any feelings for Charlie, she'd be betraying the only father she knew for 15 years of her life.
Later that night, Brooke rolled over in bed, tugging the pillow down tighter over his ears to shut out the sounds of his mother's distress. Down the hall, Caitlyn was tossing and turning in her fitful sleep. Brooke wondered what nightmares plagued her mothers perturbed sleep. Nine years. It'd had been nine years since she'd seen, heard or touched John. How long could one person be expected to go on grieving? How lonely could one person be expected to make her life in honor of a memory? Brooke wondered. Hadn't she sacrificed enough, tortured herself enough for his death? Wasn't she entitled to some happiness?
The springs on the bed creaked noisily again.
Brooke snapped back awake. She stared outside the window overlooking the vast garden of Xavier High, the fountain, the basketball court, before glancing back at the clock by her bedside. She'd fallen asleep and had her moment of reminiscent for only a few minutes. Giving up on sleep entirely, she made up her mind, grabbing a hoodie to pull over her tank, she changed her pajama pants to jeans and pulled on her sneakers before climbing out of the window seamlessly as she did many times back at home and ran across the garden headed for the gate.
Brooke was not quiet sure what she had in mind when she decided to roam the streets of New York at 3 am in the morning and she tried her best to appear as a normal person – the sort of teenage girl who could go for a late-night walk without fearing anything other than a mugger in the shadows of the neighborhood. Although it might not have been the most prudent approach for personal safety, it was necessary for her to retain her sanity, no matter what the means.
And for several blocks, the exertion worked its magic, clearing Brooke's troubled mind and leaving her with the pleasantly washed-out feeling associated with good, hard cries and strenuous exercise. She fell into a form of walking meditation as her feet briskly carried itself swiftly across the pavements of the street under the occasional street lamps, her mind seemed separated from conscious thought, broken only when she her feet began slowing down, her soles, hot from the vigorous walking.
The lights of the local internet café flashed, not quaintly, but tackily, the 24 hour sign blinking. For a lack of a better place to go, she entered and dug out some cash from the pockets of the jeans, paying for an hour before sinking into a chair before a computer.
She didn't know exactly what she was doing, but out of curiosity, she began typing in names, her grandparent's names, her mother's name, and she read random articles, from newspapers. Nothing fathomed her interest much, but nothing helped the gruesome images in her head either. Until she read his name in one of them. Charlie Nether.
Her heart stopped.
Brooke scrolled down, reading. He was a fireman now it seemed. Apparently he was taken in for questioning over her dead mother and grandparents, funny how someone with a criminal record was always the first to be suspects. At least the article didn't really focus on that. Unknown to her, she dug around the internet and found his address. It wasn't too far from the café, she headed out and made her way to the address.
The house was a dingy little place, it wasn't much, but it seemed homey enough. The lights weren't turned on inside, and there was no car on the driveway. Maybe he had the graveyard shift, Brooke mused. Creeping up to the driveway, she saw no movement inside the house, the air was quiet, still even. She crept to the door and hesitated, not quiet sure what she was doing, but there was just a strange emotion puling at her. She had to know, curiosity got the better of her and she pulled the pins out of her hair. Keeping the hood over her head, she bent over and carefully inserted the pins, pushing and pulling, pressing onto the right mechanisms and the door clicked open with ease.
Entering quickly, Brooke shut the door silently behind her.
In the dark, she made out the furniture and she saw a pile of unopened letters on a desk. It wasn't the letters that came as a shock but who, or rather whom the letters were addressed to. Charlie & Victoria Nether. She flipped over several more letters, all addressed to Charlie or Victoria or both. She heard a sound coming from the driveway and she dropped them back on the desk, scurrying carefully to the window for a peek.
The roar came from the engine of an old truck. An old truck pulling up onto the driveway. Brooke inwardly cursed herself. What was she thinking? This was crazy. She didn't think it through too properly. Caitlyn told her never to speak to him again, and she kept her word. What was she going to say anyway? 'Hi Charlie, my mum's dead so I decided to break into your house, how's the new wife by the way?'
Her lithe legs jumped to motion and she leapt across the room quietly wanting to make an easy exit through the kitchen door but too late, the lights flicked on and she heard a creak of the floorboard up front as the door closed.
Brooke tried her best to blend into the shadow of the kitchen but without much avail. Even in the semi-darkness he could see her.
"Brooke?" his voice called out to her, "Is that really you?" he asked, taking a step forward.
"Don't," she whispered and he didn't come any closer.
"Brooke," he started saying but she cut him off.
"You're married now?"
"Yes," he admitted.
"You said you loved her," she stated, he did say those words, he claimed to be sorry for what he had done, that he loved Caitlyn more than anything, but he was in so deep into drugs that he screwed it al up.
"I did, I still do, but.. It's been so long, Brooke, and she made it clear she didn't want me in her life, or your life for that matter,"
"Yeah, I guess she was right to want that,"
"Brooke -" he was saying when he took another step closer but she backed away.
"Charlie, don't,"
"Brooke, what's going on?" he asked, approaching her without heeding her warning this time, "What were you doing? Eloping from police custody? And why do they think you've something to do with their deaths?" he probed deeper.
"I don't know, but I uh.. ran away before the.." she let her voice trail off.
"Let me help you okay, where are you staying now, where've you been?"
"Somewhere safe,"
"Look, just let me - " he started saying as he placed his arm on her shoulder.
"No!" she reacted viciously, pushing him away, "I'm sorry," she said to the man named Charlie as he fell to the floor on his right arm, "I'm.. I'm just sorry, okay Charlie, I don't know what I'm doing here, you can go back to your new life now, I'm sorry," Brooke said as she turned around to leave.
"No wait, stop!" he called out from the floor, holding up his uninjured hand and she did, in mid run as a matter of fact, he looked at the clock on the wall and the second time was at a still, unmoving. Time was at a standstill, but for not long enough as he tried to get to his feet, the clock ticked and Brooke shot out of the door.
"Damn it!" he cursed and there was sounds of movement from upstairs and a muffled, sleepy voice calling out to him.
"Charlie?"