Memories
The Little Things
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Eva sat quietly on the floor, her eyes downcast as she touched the little action figures softly. They were cheap and poorly-made, their articulated limbs floppy and helpless. And yet somehow, the one in blue managed to capture the slight smile perfectly; and although it was on the wrong side, the single strand of hair that always flopped out of place over the eyes. It was the closest thing she had to Maman that Dad hadn't hidden and boxed up. The hair was hard and didn't smell sweet or feel soft. She couldn't wind her fingers through the long stands and listen to Maman's soft laughter, feel the chuckle rumbling from the chest up to the throat and then soft warm breath on her face.
Maman's voice was gone. She couldn't remember it.
So Eva pressed the little button and listened to the voice, snatched from a fuzzy recording of a fight, proclaim "You shall not hurt these children!"
"Broken families… Do you ever think we are too cruel?"
"We are. But we never mean to be. We just… We never could understand."
Natalia slid into the darkened room. A flick of the switch and the ghostly computers powered up. She would have come here much sooner, but Maria's trackers had been hard to ditch. The cat slithered out of the cage and purred. Natalia wondered what Tora would have thought of the little black stray. Probably adored her, told Natalia how to care for her. That was their difference, for all Tora had been trained in an attempt to fold the Widow in with Weapon X. Tora was maternal, caring, gentle at heart. Natalia only brought death.
The NEST servers whirred into life as soon as she accessed them. Then she did exactly as instructed in the very detailed note Tora had left and completely wiped any potential traces of Tora's involvement in NEST. She could understand why Tora would want to distance herself from it after her death –their very existence was a closely guarded secret and though unlikely, someone going through her stuff may be able to trace a few irregularities back to them. The program ended and she leant back and stroked the cat between the ears.
Damn. NESTs efficiency had been almost exclusively due to Tora's network of knowledge that spanned the globe. She was ridiculously good at it –almost as good as SHIELD, at least that was what she said. Knowing her there was a significant difference between what she revealed and what she actually knew.
She had a quick look to see if anything new had been flagged –there was a surprising amount of things actually. Minor unrest that was projected to lead to full-out war... A slight increase in the price of MGH suggested that someone was stockpiling it… Lots of small things that didn't amount to much but the programs had flagged as warnings. She made note of the highest priority ones and sent a notification to Sable offering to work together on a bust of the MGH stockpile. Nothing too difficult though. A few favours here and there should deal with most of it.
As she rose to leave, she thought she caught sight of a figure crouched in one corner, hand reached out towards the cat and long hair hanging down in front of their face. But when she turned there was nothing, though the cat was staring into that corner intently.
Natalia shook her head quickly. Damn, she was getting too emotional. Tora would have laughed at her for this. But she did miss the quiet sarcasm and having someone who listened so well. Also, someone who could tell her how to litter train a cat.
"How good was NEST?"
"To put things simply, they got rid of approximately 2/3s of major incidents before they ever became major. It was just stuff out of left field that got them. They did as well as you could imagine some people doing Etana's job could do until Zillah was good enough."
Kitty walked out into the cold air, clutching the candle and lighter close to her chest. She had to do this. The others had forgotten or just lost track of the day. It was an unusually cold day for late spring. She reached her destination and was only slightly surprised to see Magneto already there, his candle lit and a small metal windshield erected to keep the flame from going out.
"I should have known you'd be here."
He turned and smiled sadly.
"I wasn't able to sit shiva for her. Once I knew she was gone I did say Kaddish each morning for avelut though."
"What's the halakha for if someone comes back to life and dies again? Do we light candles on both Yahrzeits?"
He smiled wryly.
"That is a very… X-Men thing to ask. I would not know. Though if you can find a rabbi capable of answering such a question, I would much appreciate to know the answer."
"Have you said Kaddish yet?"
"Not quite. I was waiting for you."
Kitty smiled slightly and put her candle down next to his, lifted the lighter and sighed, closing her eyes.
"I light this candle to bring peace to the soul of Etana Bat Aleka, may her memory be a blessing."
The flame took and she rose.
"I suck at Aramaic. Could… Could you?"
He nodded and touched her shoulder before beginning.
"Yitgadal v'yitkadash sh'mei raba. B'alma di v'ra chirutei, v'yamlich malchutei, b'chayeichon uv'yomeichon uv'chayei d'chol beit Yisrael, baagala uviz'man kariv."
Kitty closed her eyes as she muttered 'Amen'.
"Y'hei sh'mei raba m'varach l'alam ul'almei almaya. Yitbarach v'yishtabach v'yitpaar v'yitromam v'yitnasei, v'yit'hadar v'yitaleh v'yit'halal sh'mei d'kud'sha b'rich hu, l'eila min kol birchata v'shirata, tushb'chata v'nechemata, daamiran b'alma. Y'hei sh'lama raba min sh'maya, v'chayim aleinu v'al kol Yisrael. Oseh shalom bimromav, Hu yaaseh shalom aleinu, v'al kol Yisrael."
She said Amen one last time and Magneto's eyes half closed.
"Zichronam liv'rachah."
She smiled sadly.
"I did ask Zillah if she wanted to come. She said she'd rather do this alone."
His voice faltered as he very softly said, "I'd hoped to have met her today of all days."
"She… she just needs some time alone. It's not like us. We had a lot longer to process our grief."
He nodded.
"So… next year then? Or will it be January?"
She could bring herself to laugh at that.
"I'll go ask a rabbi or three. Give them an excuse to argue."
He laughed, quick and honest.
"Please don't spark off the requirement for another Talmud…"
She couldn't help but grin at that.
"What? No Genoshan Talmud for Max Eisenhardt?"
He rolled his eyes but she could see the fondness there.
"Oh good heavens no. That would be a terrible idea."
And they hugged before parting ways, the black marble stone being left alone once more and the grass slowly growing over the earth pushed up only a few short months ago. Neither spoke of their sorrow at the lack of a body, which had been destroyed back when their hopes had all faltered.
"I… I never knew they did that…"
"Zillah joined them later. They sat together, lit candles, said Kaddish and told Etana stories. I believe her haggadah at the Pesach seder became rather famous…"
"Any particular reason?"
"I think it was the bit where she would inevitably ended up telling another hilarious story about Elijah and prophecies about the coming Messianic Age… Also she sang psalms afterwards. You always wanted to be there when Etana sang psalms. Oh and the inevitable arguments with Max about whether charoset or salt water should be used for karpas… And who got to be which child… Her seders always started with an argument."
Zillah sat in front of her candle and smiled sadly, muttering the last of the known blessings. Then she turned around to the drawn out circle. She'd spent months researching this, sneaking peeks into the magical library whenever she could. And finally she knew the full ritual, raised her hand and cut it with the prescribed electrum knife (oh the hassle she had gone to to find the exact percentages of the metals required to make the precise alloy required) and smeared it along the hexagram. The lines lit up as she chanted, the Aramaic slipping from her lips fluently. And then the figure formed like mist and it hovered there, indistinct and distant.
"Thou have summoned me. What is thy bidding?"
Zillah's mouth dropped open.
"I…Ima?"
The hazy figure instantly solidified and Etana stood in the centre of the circle, her eyes wide and tears starting to well up.
"Zi… Zillah?"
Zillah gulped and reached out, hand about to waver into the circle when her mother screamed "NO!" and she darted back terrified.
"I… I'm sorry. You can't enter the circle. Your soul would instantly depart your body."
"Why… why did you do it formally? I thought you often ignored summons?"
"I didn't want to ignore anything today of all days, but I wasn't sure it was you and so I figured I might as well put on a show…"
And she gently stepped out of the circle and wrapped Zillah in a bear hug, her tears soaking her daughter's hair.
"I'm sorry. I'm so, so sorry…"
"Ima, I've missed you so much…"
"I should have told you how to summon me so long ago…"
"I… Dad… Steve… He'd probably want to talk to you."
"I want to talk to you though. Wait. Dad?"
"Oh… yeah… he… he offered to adopt me. And he's currently protecting me from Great-Gran…"
"Great-Gran?"
"Ummm… Did you ever meet Themis-Nemesis?"
"I think I ran into Nemesis once… Oh you are kidding me right? Her?"
Zillah nodded.
"She turned up at the school and tried to take me from Dad and Logan. I think in the end they managed to persuade her to leave me alone."
"Ah yes, how is school?"
"It's… it's interesting… I've made some friends. I really like Laura and Jeanne. And Akira is really nice if far too smart for me."
Etana smiled softly and gently sat down, her features softening so tenderly in front of her daughter.
"Tell me everything. I want to know about your life. And I'll give you something so you can talk to me whenever you want without all this rigamarole…"
The two dark angels sat together and talked for hours, sharing thoughts and precious memories.
"I didn't know Zillah could summon her whenever she wanted…"
The masked woman smiled softly.
"She kept it private. She never summoned her to ask for help. She wanted to do it right."
Kurt sat in the infirmary and could only stare in horror as Hank deftly stitched the gaping hole in his chest back together. It had been a hard fight and then he had been deafened and hadn't heard the shot that should have killed him except all that had happened was he fell to the floor screaming in agony and the pain wouldn't stop and he should have died except he hadn't and Hank had managed to sedate him and was now stiching him up and cursing quietly under his breath and finally he could bring himself to speak.
"Hank… what happened to me?"
Hank finished the final stitches and sat down with a defeated look on his face before he closed his eyes.
"Etana said she couldn't see you anymore… That you've been taken out of the Book of Death. That… that you can't die anymore."
Kurt blinked confused.
"How…?"
"We… we… we think Tora brought you back and… she made a mistake. It had to be a mistake… Surely…"
Kurt finally let it sink in and then it hit him.
"You… you mean I… I can't die? Ever? At all? No matter how injured I am?"
"Well… maybe a disintegration would work but we don't exactly want to test that, do we?"
Kurt rolled over in the bed so he wouldn't have to look at Hank's earnest, sad face.
"Kurt, I'm sorry, I didn't mean it like that!"
"I know… I… I just need some time to adjust."
Hank paused before resting a hand on Kurt's shoulder for a second before moving on.
"Oh she royally screwed that one up…"
"To be fair, she wasn't exactly in the best state of mind when she fixed that…"
The alarm blared through the school ridiculously early and everyone staggered out of their rooms with bleary eyes. Evan glanced around as he prepared to head to his assigned panic room. He could barely move the corridors were so packed and the mass of bodies buffeted him against the wall. Then there was a hoarse shout and everyone stilled and he could hear the voice again… Zillah.
"Right, stop pushing you idiots! If you're going to Panic Rooms 1-4, please line up on my left and proceed in an orderly manner to your assigned room. Those for rooms 5-8, to my right! Thank you! Now see! This is much more efficient and orderly! No pushing or running! More haste, less speed as Ima always used to say"
The crowd had parted and he could see her and he blinked in confusion at the fact her hair was now a mess of spiralling curls like a halo around her head. She must have straightened it every day before ever leaving her room. Somehow it suited her more than the glossy straight braids she usually wore. At her shoulder, Akira stood, silent and watchful, her blindfold not on for once, displaying the horrific mess of her upper face and the bridge of her nose. Her head snapped around as if she was aware of his eyes on her and moved with an uneerie grace.
"Evan, you're in Room 5, with us, right?"
He nodded before wondering if she could register that. He needn't have worried. She nodded sharply and her hand found his arm before steering him over to Zillah, who had finished ordering everyone else into neat and swiftly moving lines.
"I think that's everyone, Zil'."
Zillah turned and sighed.
"Let's get to the Panic Rooms. Pretty sure this is just one of Logan's cruel drills but it's always better to be on the safe side. Though why it had to be at three am I'll never know."
She offered an arm but Akira remained latched onto Evan as she began to steer him towards the room. Zillah rolled her eyes but stepped into line besides them, muttering quiet curses as she ran her hands through her hair.
"Why did she straighten her hair?"
"Long story short, Etana used to do it as a safety precaution, to make her Jewishness less obvious when it could have been even more of a death sentence than her mutant nature. Zillah picked it up and used to straighten it daily."
"Used too?"
"She grew out of the habit as she became more assured of herself as her own person."