Revamped!
[Happy Easter if you celebrate it! I technically do but I'm alone this year so nothing happening here on my end].
Chapter 94: A Living Hel Part Two
Hel
"I'm not dead!" Xavier exclaims, exasperated. He takes a few breaths and realizes that neither Sigyn nor Hela are arguing with him. "I'm not."
He isn't sure why he has to confirm it. He knows he's not dead … right?
Hela rolls her eyes. "Typical mortal with the human condition of denying death." She looks at Sigyn. "Why did you ever fall in love with him?"
Sigyn says nothing, her face barely budges. She looks at Xavier again and he's already looking at her. There's magic in the air that isn't coming from her or Hela. She suddenly forgets about everything for a second as she looks at his kind face. Already, she sees the look of a broken heart in his eyes - that sadness that starts on the surface and goes soul-deep, displacing all traces of the teenager he was. Yet, seeing her seemed to have brought the joy back inside of him. His shoulders are stiff and their suppleness and softness are gone, and they probably have been the moment he set eyes on her. And now that he's facing her, his emotions don't know how to react. Still, behind the fear and confusion on his face, it remains kind.
Sigyn is also trying to absorb what she has been seeing ever since she crashed into him. Xavier's SHIELD uniform makes his build look much stronger - like he has more power and authority despite his current vulnerability. His blue eyes have gotten darker and she believes she's the reason. When he came closer to her seconds ago, she felt the years fade away and felt like she was in high school again. Britney Braun would've fallen into his firm arms naturally as if they were her second home, but Sigyn Lokisdottir stood there frozen.
Sigyn blinks and suddenly Hela's gone, leaving her and Xavier. She can see in his eyes that he's still scared of possibly being dead.
"Are you dead?" He asks her.
And now he's the one asking her. Maybe that's the reason she fell in love with him all those years ago.
"I'm in a limbo," Sigyn tells him. "Do you know what that means? It's the neutral point between life and death."
-o-
Stark Towers - 9:02 AM
Hospitals or SHIELD were never the places to go. In situations like this, they could only rely on each other and Stark Towers, especially since this dilemma was probably not going to destroy it. Keyword: probably. Stark Towers has been through enough and more in Emily's lifetime.
Emily, Daniel, James, and Iqadi took care of the medical portion of hooking up Xavier and getting his vitals. The same results came up: breathing present, heart rate absent. As they ponder on that, Angela stands behind them, anxiously on her toes to make sure she sees everything. She isn't sure what's worse: watching Xavier bleed to death and needing a bullet removed, or whatever this is. By the window, Merida and Apollo stand next to one another, only being here for moral support since there's not much they could do.
"I knew this medical wing would come in handy," Emily says, complimenting herself only to make everyone breathe a little during all this. "One of us is always getting hurt."
"I wouldn't call this as being hurt," Merida says, glancing at Xavier. She puts a hand on Angela's shoulder. "It'll be okay…"
Angela puts her hand on top. "I'll believe you when we know what's going on, but thank you."
Nobody has an understanding as to what's going on. They all have searched through many medical journals, reports, miracle stories, but none of them matched this case. They couldn't report Xavier as dead since he was still breathing and has some brain activity despite his heart not beating. None of them knew where to start in determining what exactly this is since they couldn't pinpoint how this happened.
"Blood doesn't seem to be pooling anywhere which is good…" Daniel mutters.
"This wasn't one of your contingency plans, right?" James asks Iqadi.
"Not mine," Iqadi replies. "Nothing in Wakanda is capable of this, that I'm aware of."
Merida stands back as she watches all her friends worry and work. She's worried too but doesn't show it as much compared to the others. A part of her is glad that she went down first during the contingency plans because she wouldn't stomach being able to see this but up a couple of notches.
She steps out for some air to think.
-o-
Hel
"So, you're not dead," Xavier states questionably.
Sigyn shrugs. Xavier is on his toes, unsure of how to approach that. She did say she was in a limbo but he didn't understand what she meant by that. It had to be that she was either dead or alive, not in between or in a limbo.
Xavier sighs. "You look awful, you know that?"
Sigyn nods. Xavier doesn't have to see her face change because he knows that she knows he's lying. Sigyn always looked beautiful to him even if she resembled a mess.
"So, what happened?" Xavier asks.
"I wish I knew," she responds flatly.
"What's going to happen?"
"I wish I didn't know."
Xavier opens his mouth to ask the next question but unexpectedly, she beats him to it.
"How's Apollo doing?" Sigyn asks, her voice shaking a little when she gets to his name.
"He came to us with no memory of what happened on Asgard," Xavier replies. "He has flashbacks or hallucinations often but other than that, he's fine."
Sigyn nods slowly, drifting off in thought. She looks so disinterested that she could be sleepwalking. Xavier notices that her reaction seems as if she already knew or expected that to be the outcome of Apollo's arrival. Well, it should've been since he had a dream and some hallucinations (which may not have exactly been dreams and hallucinations the more he thinks about it) of her telling him to get Apollo.
"Why is he like that?" Xavier questions.
Sigyn sighs sharply as if her mental coin has suddenly flipped to its other side. "Apollo's overreacting! He got me and everyone else terrified so we had to get him out of Asgard to calm him down. It was all just a little death prophecy."
The death prophecy. Xavier and the others learned about it during their high school graduation. Apollo is destined by fate to kill Sigyn. Why would that be a present issue? He has no idea. Why would Sigyn seem not to care about it? It's her cousin, her brother. He needs to know.
"Sigyn…" Xavier mutters carefully. "You do understand that there's no such thing as a little death prophecy."
Sigyn looks at him. "Of course I do! I've always known that! I knew that longer than everyone else and understand it unlike some people out there!"
She's angry, her breathing is heavy and rapid. Xavier remains calm and silent, looking down at her shimmering hands which she doesn't seem to notice. If she were to lash out at him and his questions, he wouldn't know how to defend himself. He waits for her to simmer down a little since heR emotions can change at the flip of a coin.
Xavier's face softens. "Why can't you or Apollo tell us anything?"
Instead of rage, sadness and guilt appear in her eyes. She knows the secrecy now is doing nobody any good but it was the events that happened in the past seven years that she needed to keep hidden from not only Xavier…
"Because saying it aloud makes it real and we'll lose ourselves more than we already have," Sigyn whispers, barely audible.
But herself as well.
Xavier looks at her, knowing that she won't say any more about that tender topic, at least not yet but that's just his optimism speaking on behalf of his fear. At least he now has some indication as to why Apollo has no memories but that only leads up to more unanswered questions like why they're both in Hel.
"What are you doing here?" Xavier asks.
"Nothing," Sigyn replies. An obvious lie.
Hela laughs wickedly, making Sigyn and Xavier jump a little. In the heat of their conversation, they forgot that Hela was still hovering above them. This time, she was just watching, observing, getting glimpses of their weaknesses which she already knew.
"You have all the power in all the realms and now I gave you this mortal with a weapon, and you're still going to do nothing?" Hela grins widely and scarily. "Well then, let the fun begin."
"Fun?" Sigyn questions.
"It might take a while to wake up my army and since I'm saving them for our favourite day but I suppose my fleet will suffice."
Hela blows into her horn and a deep, billowing noise echoes through the empty realm. Then, it's silent for a moment before the ground starts to rumble. The dryness of the ground below starts to crackle, hands of armoured skeletons making an exit from below. Xavier struggles to keep balance as Sigyn stands paralyzed in fear, lost in her thoughts.
"Sigyn!" Xavier exclaims. "C'mon, let's go!"
Sigyn doesn't start moving until Xavier grabs her hand and leads the way. They run away to the sound of Hela's laugh and forming fleet.
