Learning to Breathe
Chapter Thirty-three: Suspicion and Need
Andi awoke the following morning with a blistering itch tearing down her back. Gazing in her mother's full-length mirror, she saw the rash creeping up her back. Great, not only was she in a strange town, but she now had to hide her shedding skin also. Wonderful. She seized the phone and dialed her mother's home number.
At the Boarding house, Raven rallied all of her strength into getting the boys up in time for the meeting with Magneto. Toad, naturally, was awake before the others. Lance stumbled into the shower about five minutes ago, and Fred would wake up once he smelled breakfast. Pietro slept like the dead, but could dress himself in under a minute, so she wasn't worried. She had started pulling the food for breakfast out when the phone rang.
"Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding house, Raven speaking." She said.
"Mom!" A girl's voice exclaimed on the other line. "I'm so glad it's you!"
"Andrea?" Raven hissed. "Why are you calling here?"
"I know you said not to, but Mom, I'm shedding!" Andrea said. "I can deal with it for the better part of this morning, but when the actual cramping starts up and I…"
"I know." Raven sighed. "But I can't come sit with you this morning, you know that. I will call you back as soon as the meeting is over. If it gets worse before I call back, call your brother, understand?"
"Yes ma'm." Andrea replied. "I'll see you later."
"You too. Goodbye, Andi."
"Bye." Andi hung up, and not a moment too soon. Someone rapped at the front door, demanding her attention. Magneto stood in the doorway, a sick smile plastered on his face.
"Hello, Raven. Shall we begin our meeting?"
While Andi and Mystique raced to cover their bases, the X-Men cornered Kurt at the mansion.
"Who was it you were out with last night?" Scott demanded. Kurt glared back at the fearless leader.
"Just a friend from school. Jeez, do you have to butt into every detail of my life?"
"We've never met this person!" Jean shouted. "What if she's harmful to mutants?"
"She's not, Jean, don't worry." Kurt protested. "Why do you all care so much?"
"We know you got detention yesterday!" Kitty shouted. "That's not like you, Kurt. What did Mystique, like, tell you anyway?"
"She asked me if I painted the library. I said yes. She gave me detention. End of story!" Kurt growled. Okay, so it wasn't really the end of the story, but the others didn't need to know that.
"Why did you paint the library?" Jean asked.
"That was you? Awesome! The paint job was amazing! Too bad the janitor took it down." Evan exclaimed.
"This girl I met in the library came up with it and marked the tiles. We got paint, and went to work." Kurt shrugged. "We hit it off, and she asked if I could meet her for dinner after school. That's it."
"Jean…"
"No, Scott!" Jean exclaimed. "I'm not going to probe his mind!"
"Fine then!" Scott said. "Rogue, would you…"
"I'm not getting anywhere near this argument!" The Southerner threw her hands in the air. "It ain't my business an' I'm not gonna make it my business just because you can't trust your own teammates!"
Scott snarled and stomped out of the room.
"What's gotten into him?" Kitty asked.
"I don't know." Jean said. "Just let him calm down."
Kurt seized the break and ported away.
By noon, Mom still hadn't called back and the cramping escalated to nearly unbearable levels. Andi groaned, pressing a pillow against her stomach. Those other mutants in the world didn't know just how lucky they were. She wanted—no, needed help, but where to turn? Moaning in agony, she slowly stood up and began to search down the phonebook.
At the Institute, Kurt tried to finish his American Lit homework. The phone's ring distracted him shortly, but he chose to ignore it. When the Prof informed him the caller asked for him by name, he became puzzled. Cautiously, he picked up the receiver.
"Hello?"
"Kurt. Is that you?" A female voice asked, the hint of a southern accent playing into her cautious tone.
"Andi?" Kurt blinked. "What are you doing? You'll blow your own cover!"
"Kurt, this is important!" She said. "I need your help."
That got his attention. "What is it?"
"I'm shedding my scales, Kurt." She explained. "It burns, itches, and cramps all at the same time. Mom hasn't called me back yet, so Magneto's still at the Boarding house. I have no one else to turn to, Kurt."
"I don't know." He replied warily. If he went, he would have to teleport and leave a note with some phony story about forgotten plans or leave altogether. Either way, he would be in serious trouble upon his return.
But his baby sister needed him.
"Please, Kurt." She pleaded. He could hear the pain in her words. He knew exactly what he had to do.
"I'll be there in five minutes, okay?"
"Okay." She croaked. Rambling off some directions to the apartment, they said goodbye for a moment.
After fabricating a note for his x-family, he teleported away to sit by his real-life sister.
At the boarding house, Mystique found herself pin holed, yet again, on her meeting the previous evening.
"For the last time, I was not communicating with Xavier!" She shouted, throwing her hands in the air. "Honestly, after all the years I've worked for you, Magnus, you should know me better than that!"
"Then you won't mind telling us who you stayed with last night." Magneto replied.
"That is none of your concern!" Mystique snarled. "What I do in my spare time is my business! Not yours and certainly not theirs!"
"It became my business when you took on this team, Mystique." Magneto glared. Mystique ignored him.
"I did not take the team, Magnus, you forced it on me! Get your facts straight, please!"
"How am I supposed to when I don't have all the facts?" He growled, staring her down.
For not the first time, Raven regretted ever agreeing to hear the man out. Sure, the sales pitch had been nice, but after losing one child and having to hide the other, a dream offered little consolation. Lying bastard. "You know all you need to know." She replied. "I met an old acquaintance of mine for dinner, that was it. There was no sharing of information other than the mundanes of school administration. Now if you don't mind, I will ask you to wrap this up and leave my house!"
Magneto seemed to back down a bit, but never stopped glaring at her. She hadn't expected anything less.
"We are done here." He said. "But I will be by again. Count on it."
As he strode out the front door, Raven whipped around to stare at the boys. "Let me make one thing clear to all of you. You do not need to know everything that goes on around here! What you need to know will be explained, and what you don't, you are better off not knowing. Any questions?"
"Who makes that decision?" Pietro asked. His reward was near strangulation.
"I do!" Mystique snarled, gazing through his eyes and reading his emotions with surprising clarity. "Now all of you, get out of here! Go play in the park, or terrorize small children and traffic cops! I don't care! Just go!"
It took a mere five seconds for the house to clear out.
Kurt arrived at the address he'd collected from Andi and found the door locked. Hearing retching on the other side of the door, he teleported inside and followed the noise. He found his sister curled up on the tile floor of the bathroom. "Sorry for taking so long. I got a little lost." He said softly. She gazed up at him.
"It's okay." She murmured in a voice so soft that even Wolverine might have trouble hearing.
She looked completely different from the day before. Her shoulder-length hair, now quite oily, had been pulled into a messy ponytail. Small tattered sheets of gray-blue scales hung off her joints, and the rest of her coloration seemed much more pallid than it ought to.
"Don't you want to lie down somewhere more comfortable than the floor?" he asked. Andi sighed.
"I don't think I can move that much." She mumbled, her scales standing on end as a wave of cramps washed over her. "When I tried to get a glass of water, I got really dizzy and then I felt sick…"
"Shh. it's okay." Kurt said, crouching down beside her. "I'll take you back to your room."
Thankfully, Andi didn't weigh as much as any of his teammates. Despite being nearly Jean's height, the girl weighed less than Kitty.
Since he wasn't exactly sure which room the bed resided in, he carried her through the hallway until he found the right one. Laying his sister on the bed, he backed up a little before asking her anything else. "When did you speak to our mother last?"
"About eight this morning." She whimpered. "She said she'd call back when he left, but she never did. What if something bad happened?"
Kurt agreed. It was a quarter past noon. Mystique should have been finished by now. Should he call pretending to be another student? "Do you want me to call the boarding house and find out?"
Andi made a face. "I don't know. Maybe in another five minutes." Her voice began to wear out, and her eyelids barely remained open. He saw her strength ebbing away from her bit by bit and realized that he could do nothing to help her. Desperately, he prayed that his mother would call before it was too late.
God listened. In seconds, the phone began to sing. Kurt jerked the receiver from the pad. "Mother? Is that you?"
"Kurt!" Mystique exclaimed. "What's going on? How is she?"
Kurt hesitated. "She's not well."
"Explain." Mystique demanded. "I'm on my way now, so we have time."
"She may not." Kurt blurted out. "When I got here, she was vomiting in the bathroom. That was five minutes ago! I don't even know if she's still awake anymore!"
"I'm fine." Andi rasped, dangerously close to unconsciousness.
"Please, stay awake for me." Kurt asked, edging closer to her.
"I'll be there as soon as I can." Mystique said. "Stay where you are and let her get some rest. She always sleeps when she's sick."
"I've got it." Kurt nodded.
"Don't you dare leave her now, Kurt!" Mystique warned. "She's in no shape to take care of herself."
"I know." Kurt said. "I'm staying right here until you get here."
"Good." His mother replied. "I'll see you in a few minutes."
"Bye." Kurt said as Mystique cut off the conversation.
She shouldn't feel so exhausted. Hell, she dealt with attacks of seizures and migraines. Some cramping and itching shouldn't bring her to her knees.
But it did.
Her entire body ached, and her head pounded like a jackhammer on cement. A filmer over her eyes rendered her temporarily blind. It wouldn't pass quickly; she knew from experience. She craved sleep, but forced herself awake. Kurt was worried enough as it was without her passing out.
Her throat burned and the inside of her mouth felt of sandpaper. Though she knew otherwise, her surroundings felt extremely hot and dry. She dehydrated herself, yet she didn't want anything to drink. She doubted she could keep anything down now. What she needed was a cold bath.
Kurt softly grasped her hand in his; the cool, soft texture of his fur soothing her parched skin. Even as a fine coat of indigo fur spread over her body, she remained still. Suddenly, he let go, and teleported away. When he returned, he balanced a bowl in one hand and a washcloth in the other.
"Just lie still." He said. "You need your rest."
"If I stay still, I'll go to sleep." She replied. Was she slurring her words?
"Then talk to me." He said. "Why did you come here in the first place?"
"My powers are on the fritz." She mumbled. "My scales are turning into everything I touch, in case you couldn't tell. I thought Mom could help."
Kurt nodded, laying the wet cloth on her forehead. Lord, that felt good. Since she felt too exhausted to maintain control of her powers, her scales turned a uniform gray color to match the cloth.
"I'm sure she'll do what she can." He replied.
She couldn't keep her eyes open any longer. Releasing all of her willpower, she drifted into unconsciousness.
Mystique chided herself for not driving faster. Every second wasted in traffic meant precious time and energy lost to her daughter. Andi, she discovered, lost both water and nutrients at exponential rates when shedding. And Andi was notorious for underestimating her needs.
Once at the complex, she raced up the stairs to her old apartment and fumbled with the lock. Once inside, she threw her purse beside the door and rushed to the bedroom.
Kurt squatted by his sister's side, a bowl of water on the floor next to him. He looked up at her, desperation and fear reflecting in his pale yellow eyes.
"She fell asleep a little while ago." He whispered. "She seemed so tired…"
"Don't worry too much." She assured him. "She needs her rest right now." He nodded, and then looked back to Andi.
Mystique followed his gaze and sighed. "She will be fine, Kurt. She just underestimated how much water she needed for her system to function. This happens more often than you know." In truth, it actually did. Since she'd rediscovered her youngest child, she'd sat through many sheddings, not to mention the occasional attacks migraines and seizures. Though incredibly independent, Andi often seriously misjudged her nutrition intake. Raven returned home after short errands to find the girl curled into a ball on the bathroom floor.
"Still, I don't want to leave her yet." Kurt sighed. "What if something happens and you have to leave again?"
"We'll be fine, Kurt, stop worrying so much." She answered.
"Just a few more minutes?" He asked. "I want to make sure she's all right."
Mystique stared at her son for a few seconds. She was going soft. "Fine, you can stay, but only for a while. I don't want you in trouble."
"I left a note." He said.
"And you're a lousy liar." She countered. "Five minutes, then you go home. Is it a deal?"
Kurt sighed in defeat. "Deal."
"Good." She said. A sudden thought hit her. Checking her watch, she realized how late it truly was. "On second thought, would you like to stay for lunch?"
Kurt blinked. "Are you serious?"
"Yes." She answered. "By the time you return to the Institute, lunch will likely be over with. The boys won't be home until later, and they'll probably terrorize some vender into handing over his food anyway. Would you mind?"
"Not at all." He smiled. "I never turn down a free meal."
"Then you stay here with Andi, and I'll find something for us to eat, How's that?" She asked. He nodded in reply, and she walked out of the room.