And here we are! This chapter touches a bit more into the X-Men movieverse cannon, and we even dip our toes into the First-Class movie... I hope you'll like the way I've chosen to approach that.
The song for this chapter is "In Dreams", featured in the 'Breaking of the Fellowship' track of the "Lord of the Rings - Fellowship of the Ring" OST, as performed by Edward Ross (well, you need to imagine it being sung by a girl, but the point remains).
Finally, there are some VERY IMPORTANT AUTHOR NOTES AT THE END, please don't forget to read them.
In Dreams
No one we love truly dies, as long as we keep them in our hearts.
Charles and Raven arrived to our flat just a few hours after we did; carrying several bags of groceries, having guessed that we wouldn't have anything in (since we hadn't planned on returning before mid-August at the earliest). Raven was the first to see Willow and Rose sitting in the living room, working on a colorful wooden puzzle together.
"Alright," She called. "Correct me if I'm wrong, but six weeks ago you only had one daughter."
"Actually, Rose is our second daughter." I revealed with a shrug. "Helena is grown, much like Hakon is, and making her own life."
They'd met Hakon, of course, and while the fact that we had a son in his late-teens had certainly shocked them, neither of them had asked our ages again.
"But you're right." I went on. "Willow wasn't part of our family before we left London."
"We found her in Ukraine." My love explained to them quietly. "Rose saw her dying in a fire... we barely got there in time to save her."
"More like Rose saved her." Hakon corrected half-absently. "Actually went into the burning hostel and got her out..."
"Saw..." Charles was saying, and then did a double-take. "Fire?!"
"Wait," she looked at Luke and Hakon. "So the two of you are ice and the little one's fire. How does that even work?"
We all shrugged. We honestly had no idea. It shouldn't have been possible, for the very reasons Raven had just implied: fire and ice were complete opposites. That didn't change what was though, we'd all see the fire surrounding Rose, yet never hurting her.
"She's pyrokinetic... and a Seer?" Charles asked next.
"It would seem like it." I nodded. "It's impossible to know how strong her powers will be, she just manifested after all... but something tells me this is just the beginning."
"Are you a seer?" Raven inquired, interested.
"Not at all." I told her honestly. "It's just an instinct."
"What about her family?" Charles inquired, looking at Willow.
"We don't know." I admitted.
"We had to get out of the town fast, and by the time we could go back the whole place had been razed to the ground, everyone was dead." Hakon informed them quietly. "We have no way of knowing if her parents were among the dead, if they survived and got away... nothing at all. We don't even know why no one tried to save her; her parents were there, outside, she remembers that much; they were fighting against others..."
"You think they were prevented from going in?" Raven asked, horrified. "From saving their daughter? But why?"
"We have no way of knowing anything." Luke said. "We already told you, Rose saw the fire and decided we had to save her. By the time we got her it was almost too late. We heard arguing in Russian and Ukrainian, and then Rose got Willow out and we had to leave..."
"I only caught snippets of the argument." I whispered. "I don't know Ukrainian, only Russian... it wasn't good. There were accusations being thrown around, about monsters, a demon, death, and some other word I do not know the meaning of: доктор. I have no idea what it means..."
"Languages aren't my thing..." Charles began.
"Monster... demon..." Raven repeated very softly. "Do you think they might have been talking about a mutant?"
"Willow doesn't have any powers." I said without a doubt. "We'd have noticed..."
"No, not her... but maybe one of her parents." Raven insisted. "Maybe the townspeople saw one of them do something and that made them turned against the family, made them believe they should die... that would explain why none of them were in any hurry to save the child. They might have even been planning on killing the parents."
"But if that's true, does that mean that the parents are among the dead...?" Hakon began.
"Or whoever of them was the mutant killed them all." Luke finished for him.
I had no words to offer to that, not sure which possibility was worse. And really, if Willow's parents were dead, we'd done right in taking her in; but if they, or at least one of them, was alive, were we protecting them from a possibly murderous individual... or were we doing a disservice to both parent and child by keeping them separated? It's not like we could actually do anything to change that, we still had no idea where the parents, or parent might be, how to even begin to try and find them...
*We'll cross that bridge when we get to it, my Nightingale.* My match said softly in our bond. *Until then, our focus must be on our little girls.*
He was right, of course, and I promised myself that they'd always be my priority. Always.
xXx
Two years later, at age twenty, my son graduated from Oxford, first of his class, as a Lawyer. Two months later he joined the army as a specialist. On the same year I began working on my MBA, as well as aiming to certify myself in two more languages: Romanian and Yiddish (the ones I strove to learn so my youngest child wouldn't lose that part of her past). Raven had said it was ridiculous, I was already certified in twelve languages, wasn't I getting tired of learning more? Truth was, I wasn't, I loved learning languages, and I was good at it, had always been (even in my past life, when I'd known sindarin (elvish), khuzdul (dwarvish), the Ancient Tongue (which was close to Ancient Norse), Old English, Ancient Egyptian and an old form of Arabic.
At some point, Charles had offered to go into Willow's memories, so we might all know what her parents looked like. I actually thought about it, but in the end we refused. It wasn't easy, but we decided it was for the best. We knew that eventually Willow's memories would become fainter, they were already loosing their potency; there was a chance that a day would come when she wouldn't be able to remember what her parents looked like, exactly. But she'd always remember the best of them. Just like I'd always remember that my mom had the same eyes as me (or I had her eyes, however one wished to look at it), and her voice singing that Ballyeamon Cradle Song when I was very young...
She had nightmares sometimes, mostly about the fire, about her parents calling to her, unable to get to her, about Rose not getting to her in time... most of those times Rose herself was enough comfort, waking her up, reminding her she'd gotten there in time, that the two were together, sisters, as it was meant to be.
She'd a particularly bad nightmare the night after Hakon left for basic. Bad enough that Rose went to get me so I could help (Rosie had managed to convince us, over a year before, that she could handle her sister's nightmares, so while most of the times we did wake up, we didn't interfere unless we really had to).
"Mama..." The seven-year-old whispered very softly. "Willow had a really bad dream... and I cannot help her..."
I reacted instantly, slipping off the bed and pulling a robe over my sleeping clothes (it probably wasn't necessary, I wasn't going anywhere except my daughters' bedroom, but still, it was habit). Little had changed in the room even after Willow had joined our family. While the flat was a decent size, it only had three bedrooms, and we hadn't been able to fit an additional bed anywhere at all. The girls hadn't minded. Willow apparently was used to sharing a bed with someone else, mostly her mother (and we hadn't been too sure about bunk-beds, as it'd have been hazardous, if one of them happened to fall off the top bed. So in the end we'd simply changed the twinbed for a full, just the right size to still fit inside the room, and for the two girls to be able to sleep in. It was an arrangement that wouldn't last forever, but for the time being it was good enough.
Actually just before leaving Hakon had made a joke about Willow taking over his bedroom in his absence, which the chocolate-eyed girl had denied emphatically.
"Mama..." She called, in still somewhat accented English.
"What is it my little sprite?" I asked softly as I sat on the edge of the bed.
Rose had immediately rushed around the bed to cuddle into her other side. Hakon had first called Rose a nymph when she was still an infant, due to her apparent fascination with flowers and trees; when Willow had first heard him call her that, she'd wanted to know what she was. My son had known that was important, a moment of bonding, he also believed it to be only right for the two girls to have related nicknames, and so Willow became a sprite...
"You're never gonna leave me, are ya mama?" She asked with a slight hiccup.
"What...?" I had trouble understanding that. "Of course not! Why would I ever leave you, darling. I love you and your sister so much, I could never leave you..."
"Dai (mom) loved me too, and dadro (dad), and they left me..." She pointed out quietly.
"That was beyond their power my dear." I did my best to reassure her. "I promise you, if it had been their choice they'd have never left you..."
"What if one day it's not your choice?" She insisted. "I don't want anyone to take you away mama? I love you! And sisi, and papa, and big-bro..."
"Just like we all love you, my sprite." I kissed her brow, caressing Rose's arm next. "Just like we all love you and your sister both. You must know that we'll always do our best to stay with you." I wished I could promise nothing would ever happen to me, but I knew better than to make promises that might not be in my power to keep. "However, if the day does come when we're forced to separate... that doesn't mean we don't love you, or that we don't want to be with you. The people we love... they never really leave us. They're always with us..." I touched her temple. "here," then her heart. "and here. Whatever the future might bring. Whether we're together physically or not, as long as we keep each other in our minds and hearts, we will always be together. Forever..."
"Do you promise mama?" She asked me, very softly.
"I promise you, baby." I embraced her tightly. "I will always love you."
I was quite sure that what I'd told her probably wasn't really what she wanted to hear; but I wanted her to trust me, to trust I wouldn't lie to her. That was important. So I did my best to comfort her, without making impossible promises. Hopefully nothing would happen that might pull us apart any time soon...
"How about a song?" I offered quietly.
"Yes mama!" Both said at the same time.
I settled a bit more comfortably then, a hand on each of my girls as I sang the first thing that came to mind; the song wasn't quite finished, not even in my own head, but it was good enough:
"When the cold of winter comes,
Starless night will cover day
In the veiling of the sun,
We will walk in bitter rain."
"But in dreams,
I can hear your name.
And in dreams,
We will meet again."
"When the seas and mountains fall
And we come to end of days,
In the dark I hear a call
Calling me there
I will go there
And back again."
xXx
In 1959 Rose and Willow turned ten, Hakon was 23 and had been Sergeant for a little over a year (according to what we'd been told by some contacts in the military he was good and on the fast track, earning promotions as fast as they could be granted). We were all there the day Charles received his first doctorate (he was aiming for one, maybe two more... Raven thought he was insane); Raven herself had finished all the classes she attended, eventually earning a BA in Literature. I had my MBA in Linguistics and had been teaching languages at Oxford for a year, but then things changed:
The SSR offices in New York wanted Sia to transfer there, had been asking for it for years apparently; and since hardly anything happened in England, it was finally happening. Also, Howard had phoned to invite us to his wedding.
It was supposed to be just a thing of a summer, but in no time at all Luke was spending hours with Howard in his workshop, creating new things, while Sia went on missions with Marge Sholto (nee Carter). Anna Jarvis, Edwin Jarvis's wife (he was Howard's butler, and she his housekeeper) just loved the girls and would play dolls and tea-parties whenever they asked. I could see she felt alone.
It was Marge who told me about the mission they'd been involved in where Anna had been shot, her unborn child had died, but worst of all, the bullet had caused such damage to her, the doctors had said she would never have any children. I actually decided to throw caution to the wind and offered to heal her womb, but she refused. Anna was a woman of faith, the kind who believed that everything, both good and bad happened for a reason, that it was the will of God. Therefore, if she couldn't have children, that's how it was meant to be, and we shouldn't mess about with God's plans... while a woman of faith myself, I just couldn't understand her thought-process. What I could do was a gift, and it was meant to help... still, I did not insist, let her hold onto her choice and her faith.
In any case, what began as a summer soon turned into six months, then a year, and by the time we noticed we'd fully settled in New York once again. I gave a few guest lectures in a number of universities in the states, and became well-known as a private tutor for languages. We phoned Charles and Raven every so often, first to apologize for not going back, later on to try and keep in touch; though even that began failing, ever so slowly. Between all the classes Charles had to take in order to finish his degrees, and Raven's unexpected rebellious phase, we'd pretty much lost contact with them by 61.
There are days when I wonder if it was our fault. If maybe living in the past, knowing how long our lives would be, how many people we'd have to lose before the end had made us colder than necessary; had made it so we didn't try as hard to keep friends. Maybe things would have turned out differently if we had... then again, maybe they turned out exactly as they were supposed to.
xXx
The next time we saw Charles Xavier was late summer of 62 and we were spending our summer break in a penthouse Howard had bought just the year before, of a newly built apartment complex. He was on California, overseeing the expansion of Stark Industries, while Sia was... off somewhere in South US on a top-secret mission. Hakon was still in the army, Sergeant First Class, he'd told us in one of his latest letters. The girls had recently turned thirteen and while most still thought of them as twins, the changes between then became more and more obvious as time passed; and it wasn't Rose's darkening red, compared to Willow's still bright shade, or the fact that while both had eyes like melted chocolate most of the time, Rose's would shift into a mix of red, orange and black whenever she used her powers (her visions were still sparse, and mostly came to her in dreams, but with fire, it'd gone beyond it not burning her, she could control it... and I had a feeling she'd eventually be able to conjure it too). It wasn't even the fact that Rose was gifted, while Willow was clearly human, simply the fact that they were different, meant for different things in the world, and even young as they were, they both knew it.
The meeting actually took place by the lake shore. The girls had insisted on going and were having fun playing in the sand and getting their feet wet (though they both knew better than going into the lake without an adult accompanying them). I sensed a familiar presence, though couldn't quite identify it, and then a man approached my daughters...
My reaction was instinctive, in seconds I was standing beside the girls, using a hand to hold my wide-brimmed summer hat in place, while in the other I held my sandals (I too was barefoot).
"Excuse me," I called to him. "Who are you? Do you not know it's bad manners to approach children without an adult present?"
He arched a brow in my direction and I could almost guess he was about to say something I wasn't going to like when...
"Please forgive my colleague." I heard, in a posh tone of voice and British accent I knew quite well. "We mean no disrespect ma'am. This is Erik Lehnsherr and I am..."
"Charles Xavier..." I finished for him as I spun around to face him. "Charles is that you?"
"You two know each other?" The one called Erik asked, eyes narrowed.
"Oh, my friend." Charles said in a tone that I knew hid a lot he wasn't saying, not aloud, and possibly not even in his mind. "This is a very good friend of mine, Arianna Serrure, we knew each other a few years ago, in Oxford. Ari, like I said before, this is Erik Lehnsherr." He made a pause before taking a look at the girls. "I should have known, when I saw through Cerebro what she can do... I should have realized it was your daughter."
"You've known what she can do since she first manifested." I agreed. "So how come you didn't know it was us?"
"I didn't see you." He told me honestly. "There's this installation, called Cerebro. It helps amplify my powers, allows me to find other mutants... I could see Rose, but I couldn't see you, or Luke... Luke is around, isn't he?"
"Yes." I nodded. "He went to get us some drinks, the girls were getting thirsty." I shook my head, refocusing. "So, are you going to tell me what you're doing in Chicago? And how come you were looking for my daughter?"
"We cannot possibly recruit her Charles, she's a child." Lehnsherr put in his two cents.
"Recruit?!" My voice went through an octave or so in my shock.
"Cerebro is less trustworthy than we expected." Charles admitted. "We've been looking for other mutants, off-age mutants of course, to help us with something important..."
"Should we even be telling her anything?" Lehnsherr demanded.
I could tell he was dismissing me, seeing me as unimportant. I couldn't help myself, I hated when people looked at me like that, so I called on just a little bit of Luke's ice, and then touched the back of Lehnsherr's hand, just where the sleeve of his leather jacket ended, with a single finger. He pulled back instantly, hissing.
"Does that answer your question Mr. Lehnsherr?" I asked him sharply, then ignored his shock to focus on Charles again. "Now Charles, what's really going on? I thought you would still be in Oxford? And where's Raven?"
"I graduated from my last doctorate in June... you missed my graduation." He informed me.
"Oh..." I wasn't expecting that. "I didn't know that. Honestly, Charles. I thought you still had another year to go or so..."
"I understand, our last call was, what? Almost eighteen months ago." He nodded in understanding and shrugged. "I'm not blaming you for anything Ari. But that's not the point I'm trying to make. I met a woman right after graduation, a Moira MacTaggert, she works for the CIA and was on a case when she came across mutants. Mutants that are trying to start WWIII..."
That was more than I could process right then and there, I swayed in my spot.
"Ari?!" Charles cried out, hurrying to catch me.
Before I was fully conscious of it I was sitting on a bench, Charles crouched on one side and my little girls on the other. Luke also was there by the time I recovered, while Lehnsherr stood a few feet away, watching me with a mix of disdain, and a tiny hint of curiosity.
*Nightingale...?* It was my love's voice that finally finished bringing me back.
*I'm alright...* I began, then revised. *Well no, I'm not, but I'll be.*
Charles was still looking intently at me, and I could sense his presence in the edge of my mind, while he knew better than to try to go deep into my head, and I was quite sure he'd never be able to spy on our bond, he was still there, and I knew he was worried about me.
"Another world war?" I asked very quietly. "Wasn't the last one bad enough?"
"You were there?" Surprisingly it was Lehnsherr who spoke then.
"We worked with the Allies." Luke nodded. "Arianna as a nurse and I did some missions for the SSR, as did my sister."
"Then you have experience in this sort of thing!" Charles explained (he'd long given up learning our real ages and past history, so he didn't focus on that). "You could help us."
"Help you with what?" Luke inquired. "All I know thus far is that you came here trying to recruit my thirteen-year-old daughter for a CIA operation!"
"We'd have never recruited her, I didn't recognize Rose when I was in Cerebro, or that she was a child." Charles tried to explain. "We're looking for grown-ups, with powers that might aid us in the confrontation that's coming..."
"You're looking for soldiers." My love corrected him. "We're not soldiers Charles."
We'd lunch together on a small diner by the lake edge, through which Charles kept trying to convince us to join the team.
"We cannot do it... I cannot do it." I told him finally. "You don't understand Charles. I'm sure your intentions are good. But I cannot go through another war..."
"We're doing this to prevent a war Ari..." He insisted.
"I know you are, but against that man and his followers... you cannot tell me that the kind of confrontation you're marching to won't be a war in and of itself." I tried to explain. "I believe in what you're doing, but I cannot do it. Not again. You have no idea the things I saw in the war, I still have nightmares!" I took a deep breath, trying to focus. "You know the power I have Charles, what I can do..."
"You're an empath..." He began, then grew quiet, as if the implications finally hit him.
I was an empath, and I had been a nurse, I'd been at the front... he could connect the dots. The fact that I'd seen death... and I'd felt it.
"And it's not even just that." I went on. "If it were just Luke and I... that would be an acceptable risk. But if we get involved now we'll be putting the girls in danger."
"Not necessarily, the CIA..." Charles began.
"I know you're an optimist at heart Charles, but don't take this personally when I say: hell no!" I cut him off. "Rose and Willow are my daughters, they're two of my greatest loves, I trust no one with their safety but myself, my husband, and my other children."
"Hakon..." Charles began, as if just then remembering him.
"Still in the army." I shook my head. "I'm sorry Charles. I know this is not the answer you want, and a part of me really wishes I could offer you more, but I cannot. Not this time. The girls have to come first."
"I understand." He nodded.
And I knew he did, I'd no doubt that if he were a father his children would come first; we had different priorities, it was as simple as that.
"I honestly believe you'll get the help you need, that you'll succeed." I murmured.
"Thank you." He nodded.
"So we're leaving then." Lehnsherr stated, already getting on his feet.
"Hopefully we'll meet again." Luke offered politely as he paid the check.
We split outside the diner, I knew Charles and Erik had a car parked nearby, while we'd be walking to the penthouse.
"If you ever need help with that school of yours don't hesitate to call us." I offered as I embraced him in goodbye.
It didn't occur to me until much later that he'd never mentioned a school... I didn't even know if he'd even thought about it before then. In any case, it was likely that if he hadn't he'd think Rose had seen something and mentioned it to me; the chances of him realizing the truth, how exactly I knew about the future Xavier Institute were practically nil.
xXx
Mid-October, there was a blockade in Cuba, it seemed to be like some kind of cue, as Rose began having dreams, violent dreams, fights between two teams of gifted individuals: a furry-blue man with super-strength and great agility, a red-skinned teleporter with a sword, a blonde young man that shot lasers from his chest, a black-haired Spaniard capable of conjuring cyclones, a redhead whose voice could shatter glass, a blonde woman with diamond-skin and telepathy, a dark-skinned young man who could adapt, a young latina with insect-like wings, a man with the power to control pure energy, a blue-skinned red-haired shapeshifted: Raven... a tall, steel-eyed man who can control magnetism: Lehnsherr... and a blue-eyed telepath: Charles...
Rose actually woke up screaming Charles's and Erik's names on the 28th of October. The moment we reached her room she began demanding that we get to them, that we help them, much like she'd once demanded to save Willow... but it wasn't the same. It really wasn't... in the end fear won out. Fear over what might happen to our family, to our girls if we got involved in the mess. The whole situation was already volatile enough what with two teams of mutants, the CIA and the military of two superpowers involved... who knew what adding our presence might have caused? Who knew if we would have been able to help or only made things worse...? In the end, it'd be impossible to know, because we didn't go.
On the 29th Rose woke up screaming again, screaming and crying. She also refused any comfort from anyone except Willow. A part of her seemed to blame us for not having interfered (a part of me did the same...).
It was Hakon who eventually told us what had happened. While he couldn't be considered exactly as high-ranked, he'd connections, and friends in high-places. He was the one who told us about what had really happened in Cuba: the Russian ship that had come so close to breaking the blockade, so close to provoke a start to WWIII... until the sudden appearance of a plane that seemed to have been taken out of a comic-book... and the people to come out of it had been no better. Individuals who were so obviously not human, more than human, displaying extraordinary powers. Two sides, with one eventually winning... and the moment when the leaders of the military of both countries had given the order to fire on the beach in Cuba, where the victors were standing, recovering from their battle... they'd come so close to destroying a group of valiant warriors, of innocents who'd fought to save the world... and they would have, if Erik Lehnsherr, aka Magneto, hadn't stopped almost a hundred missiles in their tracks...
It only got worse when Sia arrived home. The mission she'd been in had been with Division X in Richmond Virginia, apparently they'd been the sub-division of the CIA working with Charles, Lehnsherr, Raven and their team of young mutants against Shaw and his minions... and it had been an absolute disaster. Sia had been on the border of Russia, running back-up for Moira's team, when the facility in Virginia was attacked, almost everyone in the base had died... that had probably influenced the decision of attacking the team after Shaw was defeated. Not that it could be considered in any way right, or even remotely justified. But people in power tended to become quite irrational when the status quo was threatened, and what could be more threatening than a new generation of individuals with powers no one could comprehend yet? Who would surely change the world?
I got a phone-call from Raven days later, she sounded more than a little off and asked to see me in person, she needed someone to talk to. I couldn't help but feel something was off, but immediately agreed and we decided to meet in Central Park.
I sensed her before I saw her, but I didn't say a word, just stayed sitting on a bench, beneath a huge dogwood flowering tree. Eventually she sat beside me, wearing the blue-eyed, curly blonde facade I was used to. For a couple of very long minutes neither of us said a word, until eventually I was the one to break the silence:
"What's happened Raven?" I asked her softly.
"The name is Mystique." She nearly snapped at me. "Not Raven."
"Mystique..." I repeated tasting the name. "It's a beautiful name, well-suited to your gift, I think. But you know, just because we take a new name, doesn't mean we have to lose the old one. As we grow we might change, might want a name that shows that change, that doesn't mean that the other parts of us stop existing."
"You don't know what you're talking about." She hissed, in a way a sulky teenager would... it actually reminded me of Hakon in his early teenage years, when he'd trouble understanding why his father and I were so insistent on him going to college, getting a degree, before joining the army... he'd wanted to enlist the moment he was the right age for it.
"Actually, I do know." I corrected her calmly. "You're aware already that I'm considerably older than I look..."
"Charles said you were there, in WWII, that you were a nurse..." She interrupted me suddenly.
"That's correct." I nodded. "But that's not what I wanted to talk about. The point I was trying to make is that I've had other names: Arianna, Silbhé, Rossi, Nightingale... they've all been my names, at different times, and with different people..."
"Nightingale?" She inquired.
"It's the name I hold closest to my heart." I admitted calmly. "It is to me what Mystique is to you... but the fact that I am Nightingale doesn't mean that I stop being Arianna (or Silbhé)."
"I still rather you call me Mystique for now." She said, more settled. "It's easier..."
I could sense her turmoil. Whatever had happened had left her emotionally affected, and it was likely that the change in name helped her find a balance.
"Very well Mystique," I nodded. "Will you tell me what's happened?"
"I'm not sure how much you know of the mission we went to, Cuba..." She began, hesitantly.
"I'm aware of most of it." I nodded at her. "I know about Shaw and his minions, what happened in Richmond, and in Cuba, up to the missiles that Lehnsherr stopped."
Mystique looked at me in shocked silence.
"I have some contacts, and friends in high-places." I explained with a light shrug. "So, what is it that's bothering you, exactly?"
"If you know about the missiles, that means you know almost everything." She began, twisting her hands together nervously. "The only thing that you're really missing is... well... after Erik stopped the missiles... he actually turned them around. He wanted... he..."
"He wanted to kill the men for daring to shoot at you all." I finished for her with a nod. "You do realize it wasn't really their fault, right?"
"Charles said something about innocent men following orders..." Mystique blurted out, then winced. "Erik didn't like it."
"No, I imagine he didn't." I admitted quietly.
Curious as I'd been I'd actually researched Sebastian Shaw, and his former alias: Klaus Schmidt... the things I'd learnt would probably feed a whole new chapter of nightmares for years to come. They'd also included some basic information about Lehnsherr's past, including the fact that he was Jew by birth, and had been in Auschwitz... Not for the first time I wished we could have done more for all the people in those awful camps. But our focus had been on Hydra, so the rest of the military could handle Hitler's armies; otherwise we would have been spreading ourselves too thin. It'd have never worked.
"I wouldn't go as far as that." I went on. "Only children are ever truly innocent in this world... but that's not my point. The point is that killing them wouldn't have changed anything. The people who gave the orders for those missiles to be fired were nowhere near Cuba that day; and they'd have continued giving the same order, if they'd found a reason to do so... Killing those men... at best would have turned them into martyrs for the people in power to use, to make humans fear those who are different."
"Erik did say they would turn against us." Mystique muttered.
"He said that, then gave them a reason to fear him, not exactly the best plan, if you ask me." I offered, then raised a hand to stop her objections. "I'm not telling you that doing a certain thing or another would have been better, I simply don't know. The situation was so volatile that day... I don't know if things could have been any better, or any worse..."
"I seriously doubt they could have been any worse." The blonde, blue-eyed girl whispered, so quietly I barely heard her.
"Mystique?" I inquired, confused by the mix of sadness and resignation I felt. "What happened?"
"I left... we left." She announced, still very softly.
"'We' who?" I asked her to clarify.
"Erik and I." She explained. "Even after the humans shot us, he still insisted that integration was possible! Even Moira turned against us! She shot at Erik, hurt Charles, and Charles blamed Erik! And Erik wanted Charles to be on our side, but Charles refused and then Erik decided to leave, and I knew I couldn't stay and..."
The rant broke off abruptly as I placed what I hoped was a comforting hand on Mystique's shoulder, only to have her throw herself at me, crying into my chest. I held her tightly in silence and just let her cry it out.
Eventually Mystique settled down, enough to stop crying, though she still didn't speak.
"You know, there's nothing wrong with wishing for independence." I told her, running a hand through her short hair.
I wasn't sure if she'd noticed yet that her facade had fallen at some point and the real her was right there (naked and all). Still, we were completely alone in that particular corner of Central Park, so I saw no point in making her focus. Instead I tried to help her, it was why we were there, after all.
"It's the natural course of things." I went on. "One day children will grow up and leave their homes and their parents, make a life for themselves. Granted, Charles was your brother, not your father, but the same applies."
"So I didn't do wrong?" She asked in a half-broken tone.
"If you did it for the right reasons." I qualified. "That's the point here. If you left Charles to make a life of your own, that's your right. But did you leave him for yourself, or for Erik?"
Mystique froze, she didn't seem to have an answer for that.
"I'm not here to judge you." I assured her. "In the end only you know the answer to that question, and only you can decide if the answer matters, if it makes a difference to you or not. I know Charles is not perfect, no one in the universe is. He tried, and I know he probably failed in many ways... it is said that we always hurt those we love the most. And I think that's true for both of you, but that doesn't mean you love each other any less. Charles will always be your brother Raven, just like you'll always be his sister, and both of you will always be my friends."
She didn't even complain about me calling her Raven in that moment; though I wasn't quite sure if that was because I was getting through to her, or just that she was so overwhelmed by our conversation she hadn't even noticed it.
In the end no answer was forthcoming, not that I was expecting one either, like I'd already said, only Raven knew the answer to that question, and only she could decide where to go from there.
"Just remember, whatever might happen, wherever you might go... you're never alone Raven..." I finished, kissing her brow.
In that moment she felt like my own child, and following that same instinct I began humming a lullaby softly.
We stayed where we were for an indeterminable amount of time and when she eventually stood to leave I remained where I was. After her explanation of what had happened in that Cuban beach after the missiles I couldn't help but have a very good (or very bad) feeling about who else had left that battlefield with the two of them, and it was a guess I rather not confirm, so I stayed sitting, waiting until she disappeared completely from my radar. Then I stood and walked away myself, back home.
xXx 3rd Person POV xXx
Agent Sia Serrure presented her resignation from the SSR in the aftermath of the Cuban Missile Crisis. Officially she cited the need for time to recover after loosing so many friends in Division X, especially Agent Oliver Platt, the agent who was commonly referred to as the 'Man in Black' and head of Division X had been a good friend of hers, one of very few who knew how far (both deep and back in time) her involvement with the SSR went; he'd also loved listening to stories about the Commandos, even if he knew he couldn't share them with anyone else. The truth was not so simple though; while another important factor was how long she'd been there, it'd been almost twenty years, and even those who were low-level enough that they didn't know anything and didn't need to know, were beginning to notice something was different about her. Finally, knowing what had truly happened in Cuba that day... Sia simply couldn't bring herself to continue working for a government that so easily turned against their own because they were different. She knew that was not something Peggy, Steve, James or any of the other Commandos would have ever stood for. So she turned in her resignation and walked away.
Hakon Serrure did stay with the army, though there were rumors about a quite intense argument he'd had with his superiors and (some claimed) even with millionaire, inventor and successful founder of Stark Industries: Howard Stark (of course, most of those who would be scandalized by that event, ignored the fact that Hakon was actually Howard's nephew... or as close to it as he could get, legally).
A group called the Brotherhood of Mutants was created, the government saw them as a terrorist organization, whose members went around killing humans and destroying private property. Those who might suspect heir motivations behind such actions either never came forward, or were permanently silenced before they could.
The government created a project they called WideAwake, supposedly to investigate the X-Gene cases, as they began calling them (following an article written by Dr. Charles Francis Xavier, trying to explain such mutations as natural and part of evolution... something very few people were willing to accept). Officially they were meant to do nothing more than research; the truth was much more sinister than that though...
In the 22nd of November of 1963 president John F. Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas. The government immediately blamed the mutant known as Magneto, the well-known (and feared) leader of the Brotherhood. Sia, however, sent a covert message to the family; while Lehnsherr had definitely been in the area, and involved to some degree, he wasn't the one to pull the trigger. No, she believed the shooter to be a spy and assassin known as the Winter Soldier. Up to that point the man was believed to be nothing more than a myth. A handful of assassinations over the past twenty years were attributed to him, but no one had ever seen more than his shadow, therefore there were no records of anything that might help establish that it'd been him, that a single man had committed all those assassinations, not even that the Winter Soldier existed at all. Except that Sia was sure, somehow. She finished her secret message announcing she was going after him and would get in touch when she could... it was the last they heard from her for a considerable number of years.
The following year Erik Lehnsherr turned himself over to the police (some tried to make great claims about an operation to catch him and the like... but those with the right connections knew they'd only caught the man because he'd chosen to surrender). A secret trial took place and soon enough the mutant was sentenced to life in prison... in a very specific, secret prison only a handful even knew the existence of.
In 1965 the Xavier School for Gifted Youngsters was founded. Charles never did call on Arianna or anyone else from her family for help; and she herself never went looking for him. Truth be told the young woman felt such guilt, refusing to intervene even when her daughter had had those dreams, had insisted on them to go to Cuba, that she simply didn't know how to deal with it, couldn't imagine how to even begin to apologize to Charles for not having been there when he'd needed her, needed them all. Then days passed, weeks, months, years... until eventually it became easier to simply ignore it altogether.
It was said that Charles Xavier did seek help from someone though, an old family friend and once colleague of his father, Brian Xavier: Howard Stark. No one knew what was said in that conversation, though it was the belief that things hadn't gone well, as the two never spoke again after that day.
In the end it didn't last. Not long after the school opened its gates the war in Vietnam got worse, men were being drafted, many of them either teachers or even older students in the Institute... they were eventually forced to close.
When Hakon found out about the developments in Vietnam, and most importantly, about how the military was 'using' mutant soldiers in the front, he immediately requested a transfer to the front, ready and willing to do anything to protect those who might have great power, but in the end couldn't, or simply didn't know how to protect themselves (and whom the government wouldn't protect either). He was a Mayor at the time, until 1971, when he was promoted to Lieutenant Colonel, which granted him more power and authority, and made him better able to look after the mutants he kept finding on the front. He might not have been able to do anything about Cuba... but he hadn't forgotten the things Steve, James and the others had taught him, he would fight for those who needed him.
Then one hot summer night in 1972, Rose Alfdis Stark Serrure woke her whole family with an unholy scream.
xXx Nightingale's POV xXx
One might almost think we were all awake before the first note of the scream left my daughter's lips, they'd be nearly right. It wasn't quite like that, but still close. Rose's scream was enough not only to wake us up but to get us moving so fast that it was but a matter of seconds before we were all inside her bedroom.
After Tony's birth the 29th of May of 1970, Luke and I'd decided it was probably about time we gave Howard and his little family some space. The girls had been off at college at the time: Rose studying Music and Nursing (an odd combination, but still her preference), while Willow opted for Art and Psychology. Luke and I'd chosen to travel.
In the summer of 1972 the girls were 23, they'd just returned home after earning two Master Degrees each (not counting the number of languages each of them was certified in). Hakon was still in Vietnam and none of us had heard from Sia in almost a decade. We were staying in Stark Manor in upstate New York (Howard and his family were living in Malibu, California), when it happened: Rose woke us all up with a scream, like she hadn't since October of 62...
It's not like she hadn't had a vision since that fall, because she had. Just like her mastery over fire, her Sight had been growing in the intervening years, to the point that she no longer needed to see things in her dreams. In fact, most of the time it was more about her noticing things, sometimes even simply seeming to know them... And that was precisely the point, from what I knew (and either of the girls would have told me if it were otherwise) Rose hadn't had such a vision in more than five years...
Whether because of her gift with fire, or simply some personal preference, almost every flat surface in Rose's room had at least a couple of candles; from the plain old white candle-sticks to others in every shape and color of the rainbow, some even with certain scents (she favored flowery ones, not just of roses, but also orchids, lilies, jasmine...). Every single candle was alight and practically blazing when we stepped into the room. And not only that, the flames were reflected in my daughter's tiger-stone eyes, making the different colors in her irises seemingly dance and twist together.
"Rose, phei..." Willow whispered, running a hand through her sister's hair.
That seemed to be enough to pull Rose back to reality, to the present place and time. She looked at each her father and I in turn, before turning her eyes to her sister.
"A friend needs us." She said simply. "We need to go."
Considering her screams it was quite obvious she was understating things, radically. Still, we didn't say a thing, just waited.
"Things are coming." Rose said next, this time turning to look our way. "Events that will mark the path the world will take for years and decades to come... Charles Xavier and Erik Lehnsherr will be at the epicenter of it all... and so will I."
I knew what her words meant, beyond the obvious. Our daughter wasn't asking for permission, her future was no longer in our hands; she'd made her choice.
Now, to explain a bit what will be happening next: from the moment I started Fate and Destiny, I knew Rose would need her own piece at some point. Originally it was supposed to be a Companion (sort of like The Return is Peter's and Gwen's piece), and yet things kept getting bigger and bigger with her, until it became its own story, one that I initially planned on posting as a sequel to Fate and Destiny... until Rose decided that she wanted her say much earlier than a sequel would work! And I cannot include her parts in this story, because this is Nightingale's story, and Rose is just too different from her mother, I didn't want to confuse everyone. So bottom line:
NEXT UPDATE won't be happening here. Instead next week I'll be posting the first chapter in another story. One called: 'BOUQUET OF ROSES'. You will be able to find that in the X-Men category (initially, until we get to the other important fandom, then it'll become a crossover), if not you can always drop by my profile next Friday night (or Saturday morning, depending where you live), and look for the first chapter of Bouquet of Roses. We'll be staying there for three or four chapters before coming back here to take in Nightingale's and the rest's reactions to what will have happened with Rose...
So, see ya next week over there! Please don't forget to review!