Fire. Madeline is full of fire, burning so hot inside her veins she feels like she's been threaded through with molten metal. Her stomach is a furnace, her eyeballs are boiling inside her head. It feels terrifying, wrong, and wonderful. She feels for the first time no distinction at all between her body and her mind – they are one, pure and purposeful as a weapon. Her eyes snap open.
Erik jumps back as she turned her gaze on him.
"Madeline…" he breathed. Her eyes flashed garnet in her gleaming face, much redder than they had been the last time. Everything was different this time, more. Even her hair seemed to be glossed with red, glowing in the blue light of the refrigerator. Erik, who had looked death in the face more times than he could remember, felt a twinge of fear. This is too much, he thought. And then he shook his head, dismissing the cowardly thought. No. This is what she is. It can't ever be too much.
Madeline smiled at him, a wild, dangerous smile that made his heart hammer against his ribs. She grabbed the second blood bag, ripped it open with her teeth, sucked down the contents in one fluid gulp. She gasped with satisfaction, a throaty sound that put Erik in mind of the rough call of a bird of prey, descending on its quivering victim. Her hand whipped out and grabbed his, much too fast, too hard.
"I need to get out of this room," she said, and without warning pulled his arm over her shoulders and vaulted through the window of the lab.
Erik didn't have time to scream before they hit the grass outside, Maddy absorbing the shock of their fall into her heels as easily as if she had merely stepped off the sidewalk. There were fragments of glass and window frame caught in in her hair, so she shook her head wildly, laughing and spinning around like a top, so fast that she became a blur. Erik was trembling, leaning his hands heavily on his knees, having trouble convincing his brain that yes, he did just jump from a third storey window, but that no, he wasn't dead. He sucked in air, trying not to throw up. Suddenly, Madeline crouched down in front of him, her face expressive of concern.
"You're bleeding!" Erik looked at the backs of his hands and his arms. They were sprinkled with tiny cuts, some with splinters of glass and painted wood caught in them. Maddy's face, he noticed, was covered in the same small wounds.
"So are you-" he began. Even as he spoke, the cuts on the girl's face began to close and crust and disappear. He blinked.
"I guess I'm not as durable as you."
Guilt suffused her face, threatens to turn to tears. The volatility was back with a vengeance.
"I'm fine," he hastened to reassure her. "Nothing that won't heal."
He reached out to pat her hand – then turned it over in his own, seeking confirmation of what was obvious but simply couldn't be.
"Madeline, look. Look at your hand."
Her finger had grown back. The finger Fiskel cut off to see what would happen. It had grown back.
She stared at the new digit and her emotions warred across her face – horror, delight, fear, curiosity. And then they were both bathed in an oblong of yellow light, as a window in the front of the house lit up. Instinctively, she jumped backward into the shadows, dragging him with her.
"Somebody must have heard the window break," Erik whispered. Madeline shook her head.
"No, it's just Raven getting home late. She's been out with Azazel."
"How do you know?"
"I can smell her. And I can smell him on her," she said matter-of-factly.
"All the way out here?" he questioned. She nodded.
Erik felt a wolfish smile spreading across his face.
"Do you want to see what else you can do now?"
The next few hours were the best of Maddy's life to date. In spite of everything awful that happened afterwards, she would always look back on them with an unrepentant pleasure, which could sustain her even through the darkest times. If you had asked her whether it had been worth what followed, she would have denied it – but nonetheless, the freedom and the joy she felt for that all too brief time, exploring her new powers with the one person she knew unequivocally approved of them, was not something she could have given up, not for anything in the world.
By common consent, they had moved away from the mansion, out into the wooded walkways surrounding the grounds. Once they were out of the possible earshot of even the most sophisticated mutant ear, Madeline was at last free to let rip – and Erik was the last person to stand in her way.
Madeline had spent so much time and effort trying to force her body to reflect her will, trying to boost her underused muscles, trying to become fast, to become strong. She laughed out loud now at the memory, the hours spent so futilely when all this strength had been in her the whole time, just waiting to be set free.
She ran like breathing, jumped so high it was like flying, turned cartwheels and backflips for the sheer joy of it. She felt alive, in a way she'd never imagined – it was as if she'd spent her whole life wrapped in clingfilm, and someone had suddenly torn it away, letting her see, letting her hear, letting her breathe. She wound up perched in the branches of a tall tree, just taking in all that her senses offered her. The air on her skin was like the caress of a lover; her sense of smell, always her most important way of mapping out the world, now had an extra dimension of time. She could smell everything, not just what was there – Erik on the ground below, his skin, the sweat under his arms, the mutant blood from the cuts on his hands drying and flaking, the lemon-leather-lusciousness of him; but what had been as well – Azazel and Mystique's combined scents squashed into a bed of wildflowers under a willow tree; and in part what was coming – the thunderstorm beyond the horizon, bearing down on the mansion redolent with the promise of rain.
Dawn had broken about an hour ago. She stood up and dropped lightly from the tree, landed in front of Erik with barely a sound.
He had seemed perfectly content to just stand back and let her test herself, to push her own limits just as far as she pleased, not trying to force her or contain her or direct her to any particular challenge. He seemed to be taking a clean, heartfelt delight in her delight, and in that moment she loved him recklessly for that utter acceptance. She grabbed hold of him impulsively, pulled him into a tight embrace that was mercifully free of the conflicted desire that had undone her the last time.
"Thank you for persuading me to do this, Erik," she whispered.
"Thank you for being persuaded," he replied, then: "Ow." She sprang away as if he was on fire.
"I'm sorry! I keep forgetting to be – careful." He shook his head.
"Don't ever apologise for being strong, Maddy. Not to me, or anyone." He took a step back, studied her speculatively. "I wonder just how strong you are like this …" Maddy barely had time to notice the mischievous sparkle in his eyes before he took her legs out from under her with a sweeping kick. In normal circumstances (when, for example, Raven had tried exactly the same move on her) she would have ended up in an undignified heap on the grass. But now, the fall felt like slow motion – it was almost laughably easy to twist around in mid-air and flip back onto her feet, and to knock Erik's own feet from under him. He landed with a grunt in the aforementioned undignified heap, and then huffed out an admiring laugh. She grinned proudly.
"I think the answer to your question is 'strong enough'," she quipped tartly. Erik held up his hands in mock surrender.
"I withdraw the question!" He vaulted lightly back onto his feet, stepped towards her, still smiling. Then quick as blinking, he had her arm twisted up behind her back and was trying to push her to the ground.
What happened next was pure instinct, but none the less enjoyable for that. Madeline bent double, threw the powerfully-built German straight over her head, then flipped herself into the air, landed with her knees on his wrists. He laughed again, maddeningly.
"Very good!" He twisted skilfully, managed to get his elbow locked around her shin. "What is it Raven's always saying?" She struggled free, struck a blow toward his chin which he dodged, her knuckles just grazing his face. "Never let your guard down, not even in your sleep!" They were both grinning like idiots now, shifting into a loose-limbed fighting stance as they sprang apart, appraised one another.
Madeline knew that Erik had grown up fighting; his body was a weapon, all sinew and muscle. What with that, and his metal-bending power, he didn't often encounter an opponent he couldn't easily beat. And she knew how he loved a challenge. Maddy herself was eager for a fight, to find out the full extent of her new power.
Their playful sparring swiftly became earnest as they realised that neither of them had the upper hand. Erik had the experience, his size, his longer limbs. But Maddy's new reflexes and agility, coupled with the strange harmony between her body and her mind, meant that he was soon sweating to keep up with her. She suddenly became aware that he was reaching with his power for an advantage, felt the metal buttons on her jacket become heavy, start pulling her down towards the ground. She tore the jacket open, flung it from her, used his moment of surprise to spring onto Erik, knocking him flat onto his back and pinning him.
Their faces were inches apart, both their chests heaving; as she looked down into his awestruck eyes, she realised that this had been a terrible mistake - just before she made another one, ducking her head to kiss him on the mouth.
Erik hadn't been expecting the kiss. Later he cursed himself, because he should have been. But in the moment, in the shock of it, the first thing he did was instinctively kiss back.
That was too much for Madeline, who made a desperate sound low in her throat, pushed her tongue into Erik's mouth. His eyes slammed open. Charles. This was all wrong.
"Mm!-" he tried to protest, twisting away. She didn't seem to understand, pushed him back down with the length of her body. Jesus God, she was so strong. Her mouth clung to his hungrily. Erik gathered all his strength and pushed her away, scrambled back to his feet.
"Madeline, stop!"
She turned her blood-red eyes to him, and he could see she hardly understood the words. He had seen that look only in the eyes of someone drunk or drugged or in the throes of passion. She was beautiful, he realised, but in an abstract way that was entirely unhelpful at the present moment.
He opened his mouth – but to say what? – when her expression altered utterly. Where there had been desire was suddenly a single-minded focus. Her eyes narrowed, her nostrils flared, and every angle of her body suddenly seemed honed to a single point. She sank forward into a predator's crouch. Erik felt the hairs rise on the back of his neck.
"Maddy-"
Without warning, she suddenly vaulted over his head, a smooth, clean leap that saw her land a good six feet away from him. Without a moment's pause she streaked away across the lawn. Erik sprinted straight after her, a blade of unease twisting in his gut. Some instinct told him that her flight had nothing to do with what had just happened between them, that she was being driven by some other need. Or drawn by it.
Charles was having the most appalling morning he could remember for a long time, and it was showing no signs of improvement. He suppressed a yawn, wishing his powers extended to being able to transform the prospective pupil's parent he had forgotten was visiting today (at half past eight? What was the woman, mad?) into a pot of Earl Grey and a pillow.
He'd had enough to worry about that morning before she had arrived. Erik hadn't come to bed the night before, and although Charles knew his lover was a grown adult, who could choose to sleep or not as he chose, he couldn't help but fret. Moreover, Hank had woken him from his restless slumber with the alarming news a window in the lab had been shattered. Probably just some students horsing around over-enthusiastically; but Charles was disappointed that the culprit hadn't come to him to confess. Trust was everything to Charles, and he'd hoped the children had all come to understand they could confide in him without fear.
He dragged his attention back to the woman, who was asking something about sports facilities. But something at the edge of his awareness was trying to get his attention. An unfamiliar mind. Charles heard his mouth saying something enthusiastic about racquetball, whilst his inner consciousness was reaching out, feeling for-
Hunger. A bone-deep, driving hunger, and a maddening smell that promised to feed that hunger, have to find it, have to-
Charles jumped. The mind wasn't just alien to him, it was barely coherent – a jumbled mass of power and desire, and under that a driving instinct sharp and simple as a knife. And close. He spun round in his chair, and saw Madeline standing at the bottom of the stairs, sunk into a half-crouch, her blood-red eyes fixed on the oblivious woman's neck. Charles could feel the need in her, to leap, to bite, to drink-
Have to, have to, HAVE TO-
Madeline.
Charles shouted her name into the dark vortex of hunger her mind had become, and somehow it got through. Her eyes flicked from her prey to him, and something desperate in them connected for a moment.
Charles, help me, please!
He had no time to ask permission. Charles plunged into the girl's mind, pushing through the hot layer of hunger into her recent memories, saw everything, the blood, the change, the fight, the kiss.
The kiss.
Erik.
The shock pulled Charles briefly out of her head, and that was all that was required for the hunger to get the upper hand again. Just as Erik burst panting through the door, Madeline's muscles bunched as she prepared to spring-
Go to sleep now.
Madeline crumpled at the foot of the staircase. The woman, who had turned around as the door slammed open, stared at her in consternation.
"Ah, Mr Lensherr," Charles said smoothly. "Would you be so kind as to take Madeline back to the sickbay, please, and get Dr McCoy to look her over? He did try to warn her she shouldn't be up and about so soon after the flu." He smiled suavely at the confused woman. "Please, don't worry yourself. A bit of summer flu going around, you know how kids pick up every bug going – but she's past the infectious stage, or Hank never would have let her out of his sight. She'll be just fine. Now, let me show you our Library next."
Erik had picked Madeline up; she wasn't just asleep or passed out, he could tell – she was far too limp, her breath barely there, her pulse weak. He called out helplessly to Charles's mind.
Do as I said, Erik. I'll be along as soon as I can get away. I've had to put Maddy in a coma – she was too strong to neutralise any gentler way.
Erik could feel the hostility from Charles's mind, stinging like a whiplash to Erik's soul. And under that, fear and bewilderment, a stream of images from Maddy's mind, the blood, the change, the fight, the kiss.
The kiss. Erik's eyes widened in horror.
Charles-
Not now, Erik. Please just take her to Hank. And with that, Charles cut off their mental link. It struck Erik with the force of a slap, and one he knew that he richly deserved. He thought that was the end of it. But as he carried Maddy up the stairs, he heard Charles's voice in his head once more, radiating anger and disbelief.
My God Erik, what have you done?