Memories

Hatred

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If you want to use Tora, or any of my other characters, PM me.

She stared at her hands. There was something she had to remember. Something important… Something… Was it to do with Jamie? Eva? Curt? She shook her head. She wouldn't forget something about them. Shrugging, she filed away the odd feelings for later. She'd analyse them when she was less…strained.

Raising her head, she considered what she was going to do. She was getting stronger, she knew that much. Her power was bubbling up inside her and she needed to let it out else it would well up and burst the dam, releasing Dark Dragon. Hence the torturing of Scott, mixing technology with power to cause him to fear her. She hadn't yet reached the edge. She wasn't that far gone that she'd force him into oblivion. After all, the mutant race needed their leader.

She stared at her hands, not certain if they were flesh or water, human or hooked claws. She was slipping, unable to hold on much longer. She feared, for those she loved and for herself. She was afraid, not of dying, but of enduring. She wanted Death to come for her. She wanted Etana, or the thing that Etana had become, to take her away. Because she could sense what would happen. She knew she would continue to live, not be immortal but simply enduring, day after day, year after year, decade after decade, millennia after millennia And she recoiled in horror at the idea of that fate. She wasn't like Etana, who could detach herself so easily, who knew what it was like to live and lose. She needed her family, the small cocoon around her that protected her from herself.

"Tora?"

She shook her head to dispel the darkening thoughts.

"I'm fine."

Because maybe if she kept telling herself that, it would be true.

"As if sheer human willpower could prevent that from happening."

"Don't scoff Death. She did it before, for a number of years, and she did it again later."

Logan stared down at Tora, who was standing with her eyes closed on the terrace, her face turned up into the wind. He couldn't touch her. Physically, yes, she was still there. But mentally, spiritually? It was like she was trying to follow Kurt to whatever afterlife the elf had gone off to. Logan had given up trying to reach past the barriers she seemed to be throwing up. She seemed to be retreating into an adamantium-hard shell, refusing to allow her emotions out, or anyone else in.

She was raising her hands up and then she fell to her knees and Logan suddenly realised that this was something private and she didn't want anyone to see but he couldn't look away, couldn't tear his gaze from the small figure swamped by the sea.

"WHYYY!"

Her head fell down and she stared tracing shapes on the floor.

"Why…?"

And then he saw her absent-mindedly extend a claw and start scratching lines into the metal, lines that merged into a face, an angular face that should be bright with excitement or softened with understanding.

Tora started and stared at the etching of Kurt, then as Logan watched, she doubled over and lay on top on the image, her body shaking with tears. And he turned and walked away, knowing what Tora would say if she knew he had seen, no matter that all he wanted to do was go out and gently pick her up and rock her until she was able to accept what was happening. But right now, he didn't know what she'd do.

She was slipping away and he was afraid that one day he'd wake up and Tora would be gone.

"Well, it did happen, but only in the physical way."

"She did insist that it was for the best."

"Have you heard the latest on the Tora crisis?"

"No. What?"

"She's taken night shifts. Won't let Logan come on. It's basically the same as moving out. According to Bobby, she's never let him be alone with her for the last week. It's like they're not a couple anymore."

"You don't think…"

"Logan won't separate. He loves her too much. But her? I wouldn't put it past her to do a runner in the state she is. The only question would be if she would take the kids with her."

"You honestly think Tora would leave him?"

"Not leave him as such. More leave everything she ever had, then go off and try and die. Have you seen her eyes? She honestly doesn't care anymore. She could die tomorrow and she wouldn't even fight it."

"I hate seeing her like this."

"Don't we all. She isn't Tora anymore. It's like she's this ghost."

"Oh, on that subject! Have you heard the vamp community has started getting stirred up?"

"Really? That's bad. Did you know that Storm once got turned into a vampire?"

"No way!"

And the gossip changed direction, as Tora fell out of the forefront of their minds. After all, it was just gossip. Everyone knew gossip couldn't be trusted.

"Typical. The X-Men's gossip mill was just as bad as when I was alive, and that's without Jubilee to stir things up."

"Jubes came back soon enough."

"Yes, but not as a mutant."

"I'm sorry, are you being rude about her?"

"She was a vampire!"

"And Curtis was a brain-eating alien!"

Logan stood quite still, staring out from Avengers Tower. He could see the mansion, the place Tora most probably was with the other New Avengers and Eva. Turning his head, he could see the Baxter Building, where Jamie was busy learning how to be the next Reed Richards or something.

"Hey, Logan!"

"Push off Barton."

"What's wrong?"

"I said, push off."

"Is this about your wife? Because seriously, marriage trouble appears to be an Avengers thing. Cos we had Hank and Jan, then me and Bobbi, and now apparently you as well. You know, I'm amazed nothing happened along those lines while Osborn was in control…"

"Something did happen."

Both men turned around with lightning speed to see Tora standing, holding a box.

"Sorry if I'm intruding. Luke sent me to pick up some stuff from Tony. I'll just…go…"

"Wait. What are you saying?"

"No one remembers, not anymore. Maybe it's better that way. For all concerned."

"Tora?"

"I need to take this to Luke."

She hurried out and Hawkeye ran after her.

"What do you mean, no one remembers?"

She rounded on him.

"Forget I said anything! The whole deal would fall through if I told the truth!"

"What deal?"

"It involves Mesphito and an Avenger who can't remember what happened, so don't go around asking."

And she walked into the lift, elbowed the button and closed her eyes. Hawkeye turned back to Logan.

"So what's wrong?"

"She would have stayed."

"What?"

"A month ago, she'd have hung around to talk. Now she just wants to get out and I bet if we ask Luke later tonight she'll have been late and said she stuck around here for a while."

"Where's she going?"

"Etana's old place. She goes there and does who knows what. Probably just sits still and cries. She's not allowing anything out to us. Seems to think it makes her weak."

Hawkeye sighed.

"Do you want to come out for a drink? Steve swears by a small bar in Brooklyn that's been around for years and hasn't changed much. Course, he never goes there anymore, but we can still just go and sit there for a while."

"Nah. I need to go and get Evie from Luke and I promised I'd take Jamie to Central. He's basically moved out to the Baxter Building. Tora was right. It's safer there than Utopia. What a joke. Utopia? More like us all running to our own little concentration camp and waiting for them to put up the fences and instate guards…"

Hawkeye sighed.

"It sounds like you really need to get some time just you and her."

"Says the guy who has been studiously avoiding Mockingbird for the last week and a half."

"That's different. We're divorced. You're still married, for all she acts like you aren't. Look, I can see it. It starts like that. Being polite, too polite; not hanging around for a talk; stuff like that."

"I know the signs Barton. Thing is, I don't know how to help get things back on track."

The water showed Tora walking through streets, people staring at her because she wasn't wearing the inducer to hide the face scars, hadn't since Hope returned and then there was the fact her eyes were threatening, daring anyone to dare come up to her. Phoenix sighed.

"How long did this state of affairs last?"

"Over six months."

"Wow… And they didn't fall apart?"

"She got good at hiding. Too good in fact."

She stood in the centre of the room, closed her eyes, swirled her hands around as the water coiled around her fists and then she slammed her hands forwards, sending the waves crashing down to the wall at one end and spreading out. She span around and hit the other wall then turned to the photo of Etana, Kurt and Tora that Logan had taken. And she slammed more water into it, hating all the people smiling up at her for their happiness, their joy of being together, the way they thought they were untouchable. And she knew who she hated most; the woman who was on the verge of laughing, her eyes crinkling up as she bit her lip to try and prevent herself from getting the giggles, red hair splayed over the shoulder of the man she was leaning on.

She snatched up the photo and started down at it, Etana resting a hand on Kurt's shoulder, other hand on her hip, her odd 'I know more than you' smile making her face look curiously beautiful. Kurt, in the centre, fangs flashing as he grinned. And Tora, arm flung over Kurt's shoulder, head resting on him and smiling softly. Happy times. Just before getting married, when the world was perfect, they were all going to live forever and one day, one day very soon, mutants would be accepted. She hated the younger her, hated her for her naivety, her hope, her optimism.

She hated her because she had Kurt and Etana and didn't realise how lucky she was.

"Poor child. She never stood a chance with all that."

"Tell me about it. She never forgave Etana for dying, not after she saw what happened when she didn't die."

"Ohhh! What happened?"

"Peter came back, Kurt and Nate didn't die, Tora never became Dark Dragon, mutants were accepted after another few years, Scott and Logan parted ways peacefully, and Logan took all of the children under twelve and those older who wanted to come, as part of the agreement to reinstate Xavier's dream. The X-Men remained as one team, similar to the Avengers East and West Coast teams and the Utopian nation was founded twenty years earlier. Oh, and Steve Rogers was a heck of a lot happier."

"And Etana never took that into consideration?"

"She's Etana. What do you think? Anyway, the years bought for her were almost up. She knew that sometime in the twenty-first century, she'd cease to be Etana and would become the Malach Hamavet."

Phoenix glared at Death who shrugged.

"Do you know how difficult it was to balance her being alive with giving her power? I was kind to give her three thousand years. Of course, a certain someone definitely help improve my choice."

A.N. A drawing of Tora's new uniform is now up on deviantArt. Also, I won't have internet access for three days. Sorry.