AN: Time to get to know this new character! This is going to be very much an ensemble piece, with POVs from everyone, but here's a chance to get behind Madeline's eyes.
Madeline followed the blue woman up a vast flight of stairs, and through a maze of seemingly endless corridors. She could feel the knowledge of their route – left, left, right, three feet then left again – tattooing itself onto her mind, along with every word that had been said in Xavier's office, the professor's kind eyes, every book that had been on the shelf behind him, the precise quantity of whiskey that had been left in the other man's glass. Her brain was always doing this, and seemed to have an inexhaustible capacity for detail – every song she'd ever heard or book she'd read, every crack in every ceiling she'd stared up at, every scar and every operation. She must still be a bit on edge, as normally she wouldn't even notice herself doing it, any more than she'd really pay attention to the volume of olfactory information her powerful sense of smell was taking in – the scents of old dry wood and cool marble, the meaty odour of sleeping young male bodies as they passed down one corridor, and the fruity hint of young women along another. The blue woman had a fragrance she'd never smelled anything like before, musky, almost spicy, intensified by her work-out. Madeline could have followed her with her eyes shut, and she practically did – she was so very, very tired. She'd taken the brandy because that seemed polite and it had smelled so good, but she had never drunk alcohol before, and its effect on her already exhausted young body was pronounced. She almost missed what Raven said when she spoke to her at last, but a quick rummage in her trusty memory brought up the – question, statement, challenge? – that the mutant had fired at her.
"You're very self-possessed. Most people at least stare a little." It took a moment for Maddy to process what she meant. Then she realised.
"Well, I haven't spent much time around people. And I've watched a lot of Star Trek over the years. Who am I to say what you ought to look like?" Raven didn't seem to know whether to be mollified or insulted by this. "Anyway," Maddy continued, trying to quell a yawn, "I think you look completely cool." Raven seemed to decide to take the compliment, and a gleaming white smile split her azure face. Maddy tipped her head to one side, considering.
"It can't have been easy for you though, growing up like that out in the world. It must have been difficult sometimes." A shadow chased the smile from the blue girl's face, but then she shook her head decisively.
"It could have been much worse. Since I was a little girl, I had Charles; he protected me. And anyway, I've got certain-" a flicker of flesh, and Maddy was looking at her own (rather dirty) face as if in a mirror, hearing her own voice finish: "-talents." Her sleepy eyes grew wide, and Raven – looking satisfied with the impression she had made – slipped seamlessly into her own skin.
"SO cool," breathed Maddy admiringly, provoking another dazzling smile.
"Just call me Mystique!" Raven said brightly. Maddy felt that she had passed some kind of test.
She followed 'Mystique' into the biggest room she'd ever seen in her whole life. The professor's sister – although Maddy was less sure about that now, they didn't smell at all related – then opened the door to the en-suite bathroom, and twiddled with brass taps until a steady stream of hot water was rushing down into the claw-footed tub.
"You can add more cold in if you want to," Raven said, indicating the cold tap. "Personally I like to boil myself, but not everyone does." She opened a cupboard and handed Maddy a bottle of bubble-bath. Maddy tentatively unscrewed the cap, and was almost knocked over by the heady scent of jasmine. Raven screwed up her face.
"Don't you like it? It is a bit dowager duchess, as Charles would say, but I don't think there's anything else-" Maddy shook her head vehemently.
"No, no, I like it – I like it a lot. It's just – so much." Raven looked a bit nonplussed; she couldn't be expected to know, after all, that the only times Maddy had washed before had been in a steel shower cubicle with supposedly 'scentless' surgical soap. It did have a scent to Madeline, of course – a chemical, dead sort of smell – but nothing overpowering, like this. She tipped the liquid excitedly into the stream of water, accidentally decanting half the bottle and producing drifting icebergs of bubbles that threated to topple over the rolled sides of the tub. Raven smiled indulgently.
"I'll leave you to it. There are towels on the rail, and a robe on the hook there." She turned back at the door and warned: "You look exhausted – make sure you don't fall asleep in there." And with that, the blue woman was gone.
Madeline slipped out of her filthy clothes, pulled out of a trash can behind a thrift store on the night of her escape and worn for months for want of anything else. As she sank her scarred, grimy body blissfully into the flowery steam, she reflected that she had never really felt clean before – only 'hygienic'. She rinsed her thick dark hair until it squeaked, and only reluctantly left the bathroom when, in spite of Mystique's warning, she dozed off, slipped beneath the surface of the cooling water, and woke up gasping and coughing explosively. Definitely time to sleep, she decided, gave herself a cursory swipe with a towel of awesome size and fluffiness, then slipped naked between the sheets of the intimidatingly huge bed.
She lay there staring at the ceiling for a moment, running over in her mind all the reasons she shouldn't feel as safe and relaxed as she did. The professor had seemed like a good guy; and Maddy already felt a genuine liking for his unusual 'sister'. But she couldn't forget that he and she – that all of the people here – were powerful in ways she didn't know or understand, more powerful even than Fiskel was, and she didn't really know what they wanted or why they were helping her. And even leaving that aside, the other man – Erik Lensherr – was clearly just out-and-out dangerous. You didn't need to be a mind reader to detect the predator in him, the fury, the potential for destruction – and the fear. For all his power, the stink of fear had rolled off him when he had attacked her in the garden. She didn't want to know what kind of peril could make a man like that afraid. Xavier had promised that they could protect her. If that was true, why was his friend so scared?
In spite of all these worries, her treacherous eyelids were slipping down. The soft bed, the brandy, the hot bath, days on the run with barely any sleep or food, all ganged up on her, forcing her into a sleep so deep that even her nightmares could not follow her there.