Eliza's last words caused the joy at the positive pregnancy test to diminish slightly. There it was again, the slight fear, shown in her hesitation at the others around her. Was being pregnant that bad?
It would force them to break this facade of changing her back to a human again. They would have to admit, if not an outright lie, then that they were unable to do what Eliza thought they could.
"You can bring whomever you wish" Phoenix said gently, through the tightness in her chest. These people she was staying with, they had taken her and her daughter in, protected them from from aliens, fed them…despite the ferret's fear, they couldn't be all that bad.
She didn't really want anyone else at her house. She still wasn't sure she wanted Eliza there, nor was she sure why she was being so generous with her invites. Chategris and the Grey Cats knew the rules, knew how things were to operate at her abode. They came for the children to play, or for help.
Well, Eliza is here for help, isn't she? she told herself. And now she will be having a regular appointment.
The smell of the sauce filled the air as the water mixed with it and it cooled, She could hear Aries', Medusa, and Arcos arguing in the far distance, what about she couldn't decipher. Probably about who was not pushing the car to their best of his or her ability. She watched Eliza's shoulders as she shrugged them, wishing for breaking of the news of her pregnancy to go well, and sounding despondent at the notion that it wouldn't.
Phoenix felt a little sliver of annoyance pierce through her. She didn't like not knowing things, she didn't like being felt like she was being lead on, she didn't like being left in the dark. She felt there was something just out of her grasp that she wasn't comprehending, and the feeling was maddening. Knowing she was being rude, she asked, "Why would the news not go over well? It is excellent news."
The ferret's tail swished behind her, a response to the agitation she could hear in her friend's voice. How was she suppose to explain the complicated dynamics at the lair to a person she had only meet twice? Still she felt she could trust Phoenix. All she could do was give her side of the story and hope it was enough.
"Have you ever had a guest outstay their welcome?" She chose a spot on the wall and started talking to it, detaching herself from how she perceives things, as if she was analyzing the role of a stranger. "It's all still nice and pleasant but there is this underlying feeling that they need to move on. Yoshi and the boys would never say so, but sometimes I get the feeling that they would like to have their space back. When I first came to the lair there was a hole and a wound in their homelife. Gwyn and I had a purpose then, she brought light and laughter, as she does everywhere, and soothed their hearts. Me, well, I gave my body to try to find a cure along with what service I could. But now their own sunshine has returned and my body is no longer mine to give."
She frowned feeling she wasn't explaining herself properly but pressed on. "Till now I was a temporary guest, a problem to solved and then be on my way. But now that arrangement needs reevaluation." She glanced at the healer trying to gauge her reactions. "Yoshi is a good man, he has been very kind to shelter us. I owe him ours lives. But, that doesn't mean that things are always easy between us." Eliza looked up towards the sky as if the right words would fall from the heavens. "This world is dangerous, they have enemies and those aliens went after Gwyn and I. We aren't fighters, so we are under his protection, in his debt and subject to his rules. The boys feel responsible for my mutation, and if I can't be cured then that means we can't return to our old lives." She returned her gaze to the older woman, hoping for a glimpse of understanding. "Once I tell them I'm pregnant I can only imagine that they will feel responsible for my baby as well." She dropped her gaze, contemplating the counter, her emotions rolling underneath the surface.
"After all, if it weren't for the boy's carelessness it's very possible," Try as she might she couldn't keep the bitterness from her voice though Eliza knew it was pointless to travel down the road of what-ifs. "that I would still be with Lee, Gwyn safe and all of us celebrating growing our new family together." She slapped her palms on the counter and pushed away, taking frustrated strides back towards the stove. The steaming water was not yet ready for the pasta. She took a moment to let her temper ebb away as she watched the water vapor float towards the ceiling and dissipate. Life was strange web of inter-tangled events, but it was pointless to carry over the blame from one thing to another. "Yes a baby is exciting news, but it also means decisions to be made. This isn't what they signed up for, and it's going to add stress to an already difficult situation."
Eliza folded her arms protectively across her chest and turned to face Phoenix, trying to hold her head high but feeling exposed. "Even still, I'm not afraid that they will kick me out, I'm afraid they will hold me closer." There was defiance sparkling in her eyes before cooling to something closer to determination. "Just because I owe Yoshi so much doesn't mean I want to be owned by him. But it doesn't matter what I want or what happens to me. What's important is keeping my children safe. And whether I like it or not Hamato Yoshi and his sons are capable of doing just that. I know that they would sacrifice anything to protect us, even their lives if necessary."
Understanding blossomed in Phoenix's mind as Eliza went on, in a rambling attempt to get out her thoughts on the matter. Her heart was still torn, at small phrases that didn't seem to fit right: because of the carelessness of the boys, she was a mutant; there was a hole that they had filled, but now it was filled by something else; Yoshi is a good man, he has been very kind; she did not want to be owned by him through indebtedness.
But the words, "This world is dangerous," made everything click, all the little pieces that she felt were just out of her reach came to lay in her hands, and she felt that she knew exactly what was going on.
These people she was staying with, they were performing a great disservice to the woman in front of them. They were indulging her. They were indulging her in keeping her thinking she could be human again, they were indulging her from protecting her from a world full of danger, they were indulging her by treating her as if she were still a human being, and if they were still human beings. They were probably doing it in order to keep up this facade that they'd been feeding her, but in doing so, they had caused damage that she would never have seen another mutant anywhere.
She felt she had outstayed her welcome. She felt they wanted their space back. Phoenix knew, of all people, that they had no space, no true space. Their space was borrowed, they always had to be on the lookout for something or someone so it was not taken back. Eliza had already hinted that they did not want their home revealed to anyone, and Phoenix did not blame them one single, solitary bit. Where Eliza had miscalculated, she felt, was the in the illusion that there was a welcome to be outstayed. In this dangerous world of mutants , and aliens , and enemies, there was no room for unwelcome. Phoenix had never met a mutant who not accept another one in a heartbeat, or move on themselves if they did not want the other's company. She had never met a mutant who did not know that life, that the company of others, was too precious to waste on false notions of a welcome present to be outstayed. If these people had taken her in, then had expected her to be there for the rest of her life. The Grey Cats would have made the same assumption, she would have made the same assumption, any mutant she'd ever met would have made the same assumption.
Eliza was still trying to live in a human world in a mutant body.
As the voices of her children came closer, no longer arguing, but with Aries giving instructions on what to do to get the car running again, drifting through the window, Phoenix walked over to it, and glanced out and down at the garden. The juniper bush still had some of its smaller berries left, the ones she and the birds had left on it. The catmint was beginning to get bushy and inviting to the creatures that roamed her garden both when she was there and when she wasn't. She debated with herself a little, before turning back to Eliza.
The look of frustration, of defiance, on the ferret's face is what made the decision for her.
She took a deep breath, it was harder making her voice work than she had anticipated. "When the children and I first began our lives together," she started slowly, looking at Eliza's face, even though the ferret's eyes were facing away from her. "I knew nothing." She shook her head, as if saying the words were unbelievable. "I barely knew how to take care of myself." Her eyes drifted to the upper right, as they did when she thinking, though her face was still facing the same way. "I didn't need to know," her voice was soft, and faraway. "But then, one day, I had these little things that needed me. I did not know now to take care of myself, and they could not take of themselves."
Her eyes came back to the ferret, her look softhearted. "I had to learn how to take care of myself, and take care of these four mutants. I was terrified. I was afraid of aliens coming and finding us. I was afraid of men in black suits coming and finding us. I was afraid of other humans coming and finding us. I was afraid of other mutants coming and finding us." SHe took a breath in. "But, after a while," she said, "I realized that I couldn't be afraid anymore. In being afraid, I was teaching them to be afraid," she gestured out the window, as if the children were small and playing in the garden below. "I did not want to make their lives even harder by giving them a life filled with fear."
She twisted her mouth, the feeling of not explaining herself correctly also over taking her. SHe'd never had to explain this to anyone. SHe had had to explain so many things, things that she had taken for granted, to her children, about behavior, about morality, about life, about love, about fear, about helping. But she hadn't had to explain this, because everyone already knew it. It was a foregone fact.
"There is no one in my life who would call me a fighter," her voice changed to one that was more present. "In fact, I refused to learn how to do it until three years ago." She saw the look of surprise on the ferret's face. "The kids learned a long time ago," she said, as if that would be reassuring. "But I didn't."
As she spoke, she moved the nails near the window, where she and the children hung their weapons. She picked up the slingshot, and toyed with a bullet casing in her fingers. Looking at it, she continued, "But then, I did. I had to, if I was going to survive in this place, which had aliens, and other mutants, and enemies, I had to." She loaded the slingshot, and aimed it across the room. She pulled it back, and let the bullet fly. The projectile flew across the room, making a strange little whistle as it did, and then embedded itself in the wood of the pommel horse on the other end of the huge warehouse floor with a quiet thunk.
She turned back to Eliza, the softheartedness gone. "I can kill a man from this far away, with a bullet casing," she said. "I can kill a Kraang in a robot from even farther away." She dropped the sling shot into the loop on her belt, and then picked up her knife. "I can tear a person's achilles tendon in less than a second," she slashed the knife low. "I can disembowel them in two," she made a straight line in front of her with the knife blade. "I can cut their throat in three," she waved the knife in front of her face, "and it will only take five for them to bleed out enough to be unable to attack me back."
She paused, regarding Eliza's reaction, and then sorrow filled her face,as if she were looking at a child who had lost their beloved toy.
"No one in my life would call me a fighter," she said again. "But I learned, because that is what I needed to do to keep my children safe." She echoed Eliza's very words that seemed to cause the ferret despair. "I learned," she smiled ironically, as if the thought had just occurred to her, "because I did not want to owe anyone anything." While still looking at Eliza, she reached into her belt, and hung the slingshot back on the nail. She walked over to the ferret, and put her hand on the woman's shoulder, and smiled warmly. "In this dangerous world that you now live in," her voice was gentle and apologetic, "There are few debts, and when you have them, they are usually paid back quickly. You are thinking like things are the same as out there," she gestured to the window again, indicating the rest of the city. "And they aren't." She rubbed her arm again, burying her fingers in her fur at the movement, "There is no such thing as guest status in the mutant world," Phoenix tried to make her voice light. "You are cooking me dinner in my own home on your first visit. I would hardly call that a guest." She smiled, "Repaying debts is easy, Eliza. It is choosing to not be in debt that isn't."
As Eliza listened to Phoenix talk about her early days she felt an intense connection to the feelings she was describing. Though some days were better than others, ever since the invasion of the lair by the ninja robots fear had seeped into her life. It was not only her trauma but Gwyn's as well. She suspected that some of her child's recent moodiness was, at least in part, a lingering symptom of Gwyn trying to cope with stress.
She knew for a fact that Gwyn had been having nightmares. What troubled Eliza was that her daughter had recently taken to slipping out of their shared bed to find one of the boys to hang out with till exhaustion claimed her again. Apparently mom was good enough when she was sad or lonely, but she wanted stronger guardians against the demons that now haunted her dreams. The girl could often be located on the couch, in Donnie's lab or even curled up in front of Splinter's door. None of them made the mistake of letting her into their room at night. Not after she had found a sleepy-eyed Gwyn curled into Mikey's side on his bed, when Eliza went looking for them after neither had showed for breakfast one morning. The children had both been wide-eyed and shocked silent in the face of a mother's fury, obviously confused about what they had done wrong. Eliza felt bad about the outburst later but the message had been delivered clearly to the males of lair and the infraction had not been repeated.
As Phoenix continued to talk about her life she was surprised to hear that not only had she not been a fighter till three years ago but that her children had taken up the art before her. That surprise paled in comparison to the small healer's demonstration of her skill. Eliza flashed back to the first moment she had seen the woman approach her in the alley, the sense of danger she had felt looking at her with only a glimpse of her knife and build. Had Eliza had even an inkling of the deadly ability that was now displayed before her she would have scurried back down that manhole despite her injuries.
The accuracy with the slingshot she could admire on a level of eye-hand coordination alone. However as the small woman, this matronly figure, started to equate her prowess to the ways in which she could incapacitate and even kill another being, Eliza's blood began to run chill. She did not begrudge anyone defending themselves, in some ways she even envied the ability, but to watch that hardness in a person she saw as a healer was disconcerting. Is that what this life did to people? Made the gentle hard and the young dangerous beyond their years. She saw it in the lair and now found it here as well. What would this life do to her? What would it force Gwyn to become? She shivered at the thought.
When Phoenix came close and laid a comforting hand on her shoulder she was unable to stop the twitch of muscle underneath, an instinctive rejection and fear at being harmed. It was foolish and Eliza was ashamed for thinking that her friend would ever hurt her. But just knowing that she was capable of it created a seed of wariness within her. It was much the same as being around Splinter. She trusted him but she also treated him with a respect and deference that she wouldn't normally show. In part because she had experienced first-hand his physical power.
"You are thinking like things are the same as out there, and they aren't." Eliza let Phoenix's words sink in and examined them as the healer rubbed her arm, her now gentle fingers finding the skin beyond her fur. There was so much she was being asked to give up. Though it had it's challenges, she had lived a blessed life, she was now being forced to turn away from the only world she had ever known. She smiled slightly at the thought that maybe she had been misreading the situation. That maybe she wasn't the burden that she thought she was. But still there was something lingering within her that was not completely at peace. If nothing else this conversation had opened her eyes a bit and she could see that she needed to make adjustments to the way she thought.
She tried to find the words to express what she thought about the things Phoenix had told her but it was too jumbled in her own head to string together anything remotely coherent. Instead she bowed her head in a bouncing nod. Hoping that the older woman would be satisfied with the noncommittal motion. She also placed her hand over the one Phoenix still had on her arm in a sign of gratitude. Though she may not fully understand and agree with everything her friend had tried to convey she knew that she was only trying to help her.
Eliza could hear the noise of the car's engine revving and a trio of cheers float up from the ground floor. Looking over she saw the water pot was finally at a roiling boil. It was as good a time as any to start the final preparations for dinner. She felt Phoenix's hand slide from her arm and walked towards the stove. A question finally detached from the mire of thoughts clouding her brain and came to the forefront of her mind. She picked up a box of pasta but did not put it in the water yet.
"Phoenix," She waited for the healer to acknowledge her. "What happened three years ago?" She looked over her shoulder and their eyes meet. "What made you finally become a fighter?"
She saw the uncertainty in Eliza's face, and the compliant nod, but decided not to push it any longer. Eliza was such a mixture of signals, of signs that she would flourish in the this life that had been pushed upon her, and signs that she would wither and die, if not outright be snuffed out from denial. It wasn't Phoenix's place to make that decision for her. However, the flinch at her touch, and reticence of her reaction was not lost on the little human being. It reminded the Phoenix of how different she was from those around her, that she didn't really belong anywhere, neither here nor there, even when speaking to someone who felt they did not belong either. It made her chest constrict with sadness, a sort of pity upon both herself and Eliza.
She sat down at the kitchen table, and considered Eliza's question, gathering her thoughts to make the story coherent to someone who did not know her. She chuckled slightly, how conceited she'd gotten, being put out to explain something to someone who didn't know her, as if everyone should know her.
"I don't help just mutants," she began, watching Eliza deal with the pasta. "I help humans, too. A lot of them are homeless, and they are mentally ill and have no family. Others are in gangs, or other groups, that are like gangs." She had a strong suspicion that Eliza didn't know much about street life, but she didn't want to sound patronizing in her explanations. She liked Eliza, it was nice to have another woman, an adult, a parent, who had the same worries she did, to talk to. She did not want to isolate her. Being patronizing to someone whom she cared little about the relationship was one thing. Having been given a jewel like the woman in front of her, even if she wasn't pregnant, was something altogether different.
"The Kraang found me," she said quietly. "For more than 15 years, I hadn't heard hide nor hair of them. They might as well have gotten back on their mothership and returned to their home planet. Then, one day I was helping someone, and they showed up again."
She was quiet for a while, her lips pursed, her eyes faraway again. "I was terrified," she admitted, her voice shaking slightly. "I had no idea what to do. The kids were with me that night," she laughed derisively, "which turned out to be a blessing. I don't know what would have happened to me if they hadn't been. There wasn't anything I could have done about any of those robots."
She took a deep breath, saying these things out loud was much harder than they were thinking them. She hadn't needed to tell anyone, the people who needed to know knew. There was no judgement in the telling to those who did not. There was no fear in the telling of those who did not. It was not the case here, and she knew it. Eliza still lived in the world of human beings, she still lived by the rules of human beings, and those rules were very different from the ones of the world she was now inhabiting. "That was the impetus that the children needed to convince it was time for me to learn how to use a weapon." Again, she laughed derisively. "Took me a while to choose one, though."
Eliza added the pasta to the boiling water and stirred. She turned so that she could see Phoenix at the table as she recounted her story but did not join her so that she could keep on eye on the pot and give the occasional stir. She was not surprised to hear that the healer dealt with more that just the mutant community. She had grown up on the east coast between several major metropolitan areas and knew of the type of people that were often drawn too or stuck by circumstance in those dense populations. She did not fear them but had mainly stuck to well lit tourist areas, as a result she had encountered those who had found themselves destitute, but not on a regular basis. Never had she imagined that she would actually be a member of those communities herself. Now here she was and yet wasn't at the same time.
She clutched the spoon a little harder in her hand at the mention of the Kraang. It seemed that so many troubles could be connected to the alien interlopers. She had always thought that it was plausible that life existed in vastness of the universe but it was disappointing to discover that those that had chosen to visit earth were manipulative and dismissive of the life already in existence. What made it worse was she had yet to hear of one redeeming quality she could attribute to the species. As callous as people could be as a whole, good could be found somewhere within each soul.
"Well, I can certainly understand feeling helpless against bots." She said quietly as she watched the pasta beginning to float of it's own accord. In a few more moments she would check for tenderness. She looked over and flashed a toothly grin. "Though, it might be worth it to fight if I had a chance to get some payback on kraang-bot or two." She laughed derisively. "I say that but my bark is worse than my bite. If only the kraang were vulnerable to high pitched verbal throwdowns, then I might have a fighting chance."
Eliza attended the pot for a few more minutes before fishing out a few limp strands of pasta into a bowl then spooned a small dollop of sauce on top. She tasted the mix and found that she was pleased with the result. The pasta was slightly firm but from experience she knew that it would continue to soften as the residual heat would cook it further before it was served. She brought the rest of the small portion over Phoenix and waited for her to taste it, hoping it would meet with her approval. "So… how is it?"