X-58 #1
I don't think I ever really knew a 'father.' I had a collection of men, some who insisted that I called them “Mister” something or other because no matter how much their wives wanted me to call me them “Mom,” they were not so lenient. They made it clear that I was not their child.
There were a couple of men who asked that I call them by their first name, but I always slipped and called them “Mister,” as well. One was “Doctor.” Another “Professor.” One dared to ask me to call him “Master,” even, though I did not stay in his home very long, and neither did the other teenage girls in his foster care collection of sex slaves.
And once upon a time, like a fairy tale, I think I may have had a Julian.
-----x-----
“What the hell do you mean you're putting her in foster care?! She's just a little kid, she needs us!”
It had been quite an insane disaster. There was no body count, but the repair bills were absolutely astronomical, and an entire half of Utopia needed to be repaired. Even part of Atlantis was destroyed, though Namor was more amused that a child had done the damage than angry that he'd have to spend more time on repairs.
“I mean, Mister Keller, exactly what you are saying! She is a child. A child needs a proper upbringing from proper parents. I am unable to take more time out of my already busy schedule to raise a little girl, and you obviously have no idea what you're doing.” Emma leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her temple, trying to alleviate some of the growing headache before it got too bad.
“I can take parenting classes or something! They have those on the mainland, right?!”
“Yes, they do. Unfortunately, not a single one of those classes is going to properly equip you with the knowledge to care for a mutant child. Especially not a mutant child that is the clone of, for one, a clone of Wolverine. And two, an irresponsible idiot who thinks that it's fine to give her junk food and let her curse and have her nearly bite Gambit's finger off!”
“Well, to be fair, she did that on her own...”
“You should have stopped her, is what I'm trying to say! Your irresponsible behavior and Laura's inability to properly handle a child is exactly why I think it would be better-for Sofie and for Utopia-if she were placed into the foster care system.”
Julian took one look at the little girl sitting in a chair in the hallway, her hair covered in drywall dust and little angry red marks on the backs of her hands from where she had not quite healed all the way, and he knew that Emma was right. He had no fucking idea what he was doing, and as long as she was very, very careful about using her powers, she wouldn't be too bad off out there, disguised as another pathetic face in the California State Foster Care system. She'd be safer, that was for sure.
“Maybe she'll end up with some nice couple in your old neighborhood, Mister Keller.” Emma breathed, picking up on his frustration very easily.
-----x-----
I never ended up in Beverly Hills. I didn't even stay in California for very long. I was bounced from family to family all over the country, never staying in one place for very long. When I was thirteen, I ran away from that “Master” while living in New York, and I ended up following my nose to some old, broken up mansion ruins. It was the heat of summer, so in the night time, when it was nice and cool, I worked hard and moved a good portion of the rubble around, eventually making a pretty sturdy shelter. I even found personal belongings, like wallets that still had money in them.
At first, I felt bad. I thought that it was stealing, and the social workers had slammed into me “Sarah, stealing is wrong, and you will end up in prison without hesitation.”
But then I thought about it. No one had lived there for years except for little animals, and they sure as hell weren't going to spend it.
I bought clothes. Whatever clothes I liked, there was more than enough money there. A big bag to carry it all in. Canned food that I could open with my claws and cook over a little camp stove if I got desperate. Blankets. Even a little pillow, though I didn't need it.
I suppose that I tried to make a home for myself there, in the ruins of this place. I found fragments of other peoples' lives there. I even found graves. There were a lot of graves, for a place that appeared to be a school. They were all in horrible, neglected condition. I felt bad for the people laying beneath those ornate headstones. Didn't a single one of them have anyone who loved them enough to clear the filth away from their final resting places?
I found myself doing it soon enough. Tearing away vines and scrubbing with water from a lake that I found not too far off. I made sure that everyone had a clean grave, from Jean Grey (who would apparently rise again, if the headstone gave any indication), to Sophie and Esme Cuckoo (sisters, from the looks of it) to Brian Cruz (someone scrawled on his headstone “Tag, you're it,” in marker that I couldn't erase) to Laurie Collins, whose name sounded all too familiar.
I ran my fingertips over engraved vines of flowers, and murmured aloud to the wind and a nest of baby robins up in a tree.
“A flower named Laurie.”
-----x-----
“Remember how I paid that landscaper back in Westchester to go out to the mansion every year and clean up the cemetery?”
Cyclops paused from typing up a paper of exam results to look at Angel, who was staring out of a wall of windows at the San Francisco skyline. Scott Summers had seen that look on his friend's face about a hundred times a week back in their youth, and it had been the first time in years that he'd really noticed it again.
It was the look that said he wanted to jump out of that window, spread his wings, and fly along that skyline for hours and hours.
“Yeah. I remember you complaining about how you were worried that the guy wouldn't do a good job, because he charged so little. I told you to be thankful. What about it, though?”
“Well, he sent me an e-mail, and said that he went out there to clean up, but everything was already cleared away. There had been signs that someone was living there.” Warren said, drinking down a bottle of water. “Asked me if I'd still pay him for coming out.”
“Will you?”
“Already did. But who could be living out there? It's... well...”
“Unlivable. I know. Maybe some kids exploring out there just felt bad and cleaned it up themselves.” Scott printed off a few copies of the results and paperclipped them together before reaching down into a seldom used desk drawer to grab a new stack of printer paper. Instead, he grabbed something small and soft, and pulled it out to examine.
“A toy?”
Warren looked over and recognized the stuffed bear, remembering how the soft bear with the green tartan ribbon around his neck had been cradled carefully in a child's arms.
“Isn't that Sofie's bear? Um... Ronald, or something?”
“Rufus.” Scott stared at the small stuffed toy, turning it over in his hand and examining it. For a child's favorite plaything, the bear was in amazing condition, without a single stain or tear. “Don't ask me how I remember that. I couldn't begin to tell you.”
Cyclops remembered seeing her flee his office after she'd been made to pack her things and prepare for the arrival of the social worker. Now, after all these years, he knew why she'd gone in there.
“Didn't it used to belong to Wallflower? That bear?” Warren asked, and though Scott tried to rack his brain, he couldn't remember anyone ever holding it except for that dangerous little smiling child.
------x-----
I have no idea why I've grown my hair out so long. It's a pain, but I can never really bring myself to cut it any shorter than I've got it now. I keep it tied back, so that a long black ponytail snakes down by back and ends at about my tailbone.
At night, I fly. I don't have wings, but I have my mind, and that's all that I ever seem to need. With a green light, I lift myself up, and before I know it, I'm up as high as the clouds. I feel so very free up in the sky, like I'm dancing with the wind.
I once met a woman who was looking to adopt. Her name was Sofia Mantega. When I told her what my name was, she stopped, told me a story about how she knew my father, how she used to be a mutant, how she used to be called the Wind Dancer. She left without adopting me, tears in her eyes.
I think that I grew my hair out long to be like Sofia. But I don't remember.
From one of my flights, I descend down into the ruins of the mansion. I don't feel the least bit exhausted, so I use my telekinesis to move away some of the rubble, eventually coming across a green, spiral-bound notebook that has survived for many years underneath a pile of desks and debris.
I flipped it open, and scrawled in handwriting that looked like it was purposefully messy, was written
“Property of Julian Keller! So get your hands off and back the fuck away!”
I dropped the notebook, full of mathematical notes, and remembered, very suddenly, that I may not have had fathers, but I once had a man named Julian.
Slowly, I bent down and picked it back up, hugging it close to my chest. I didn't know why, but this felt like it was very, very important, and I wanted to keep it safe. I may have even begun to cry a little bit.
I fell asleep, clutching the simple 5 subject, spiral bound green notebook as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
-----x-----
Emma knew that she could ignore it no longer. The mutant light that glowed so brightly from the old Institute, and had for many, many weeks. She knew that could only lie to Scott for so long. To Laura and Julian.
When she had been moved out of the state, Emma had received notification through a nondescript letter from the state. She had received many of these from many states without really giving any of them a second glance, and when she received one from New York state telling her that she'd escaped foster custody, she at first had only assumed that she'd moved to some other state without really reading the contents.
However, once that light had settled itself precisely where the remains of the mansion still stood, Emma knew where she had run to. Her own olfactory recognition would have led her there, for she was sure that familiar scents beyond normal human recognition still clung to the earth there.
Upon first seeing it, she had been a tad confused-why was she there? But upon digging through her file of letters and reminding herself quite harshly that they did not put out Amber Alerts for mutant children or foster children, it all made sense again.
“We will never be fully rid of our responsibilities as women, will we?” she asked no one in particular, swirling a flute of fine champagne around in a white-gloved hand before throwing it back quite expertly. “Forever nurturing. Always having a wing extended for children to rest underneath.”
“What was that, Em?”
Emma did not turn to see Scott as he entered, merely refilling her glass and downing the contents yet again.
“Nothing, dear. Monologuing.” She huffed, pointing up to the indicator light on the holographic display, knowing full and well that he could see it.
“A mutant? Out there? Are they blind, or just behind on the times?”
Emma loved Scott for many, many things, but his ability to tell a joke was not one of them. Not now, at least.
“It's Sarah Sofia. She made her way there.”
A few keystrokes identified the little green light as “Keller, Sarah Sofia.” It wasn't that Scott didn't believe her, it was just that it was a bit difficult to believe.
“I thought you said she went missing months ago. That you thought that the Facility got her.”
“I did. But apparently, she's got her father's brain in her head. She's very, very crafty.”
Scott stared at the display and rest his hand on Emma's shoulder, quickly feeling her soft skin shift to slick, hard diamond. Not to suggest that he still didn't like the smooth feel underneath his fingers, he just preferred when his lover felt warm and not so much like glass.
“We've got a job to do. You know that. We have to go get her.”
Emma nodded, snapping the stem of the flute between her shimmering fingertips.
“I'll inform Mister Keller and Miss Kinney at once.”
-----x-----
The notebook was filled with notes, as one would imagine. This one was for a Professor Grey's telekinesis specific course, and while there were plenty of doodles in the margins of the pages, the notes were well-detailed and covered telekinesis from a rudimentary level all the way up to what was described as “Omega,” where one could use their mind to move and alter things even on a molecular level.
I learned so many things from that notebook. It became almost like a bible for me, like this Julian Keller had took one look at me, written this down, and handed it over, knowing that I'd need it later. With that notebook, I learned how to replicate powers that I'd remembered seeing other mutants use.
Typically, when I cut myself, whether it be in my own self-given training regimen or just moving more debris, it would heal up in a matter of seconds and I'd only really notice that I'd been injured from the smeared bloodstains on my skin. But I wanted to try something new.
Unsheathing my claws from the back of my hand no longer hurt. They looked like two small swords, protruding from my hand for just under a foot, and they were very, very sharp. Just enough to test what I had planned on doing.
With just the right amount of pressure, I was able to press the bladed claws deep into my thigh and drag them sharply so that I could see the bone when I pulled aside the muscle. Yes, it hurt quite a bit, but one had to make sacrifices to learn anything properly.
Pressing my bare fingers to either side of the wound, I began to use my telekinesis to re-attach the severed muscle and skin, making it look like a mysterious green glow was stitching my leg up again. Whatever I was unable to do on that first attempt, my own natural healing did for me, and soon, only blood stains remained as evidence that I'd done anything at all.
Diving into my bag, I pulled out a pen and wrote, under the “Omega” section of the notebook, that telekinesis could be used on a molecular level to heal injuries. To fuse the molecules together and increase the healing process by an unknown percentage.
I felt pretty proud of myself, for being able to add to these notes. Like I was some kind of a scientist, and these findings would change the outcome of the world.
Even if it was just my world that I was changing the outcome of.
Over the next several days, I was able to mimic the powers of a lot of other people that just barely clung to my memory. I could increase the speed of molecular movement to make something explode. I could, if I flew up high enough, make small alterations to weather patterns. I could even, on colder nights, when it was easier, change the water in my water bottle to ice.
The healing, exploding, weather changes, and freezing all took a lot out of me, though, so I resolved not to do them very often, and stuck to doing what I was best at.
One night, the birds in the area that had grown used to my presence had stopped their midnight warbling very suddenly. Immediately, without even being aware of it, my claws came out and I took a defensive position, curling back into the trees. I no longer slept in my little shelter of debris, except for when it rained, preferring to be high up and able to smell and see everything.
Out of nowhere, a large black jet landed in a clearing that was just the right size for it, and almost immediately, people climbed out-a woman all in white, who did not smell very pleased, and a small man who reeked of cigarette smoke, but also smelled very, very familiar.
It did not take long for me to be caught. I was half a second too slow, and half a second was all that it took for the smaller man to grab me up and restrain me like I was a criminal. He at least had the courtesy to grab my bag, though I feared that as roughly as he was swinging it around, he'd tear the precious notebook inside.
“Come on, Sof'. Time to go home.”
I did not know how the gruff man knew my name, but when he said the word home, I was immediately overcome with feelings and images, the strongest of those being one of a much smaller me, curled up into the handless arms of a man that made me feel like I was the safest girl in the world.
I did not have fathers, but I had a man named Julian.
-----x-----
“Well?”
Scott was getting very, very, very irritated with Julian asking that. So irritated, in fact, that Emma's Chianti was starting to look more and more appealing. He hadn't been drunk nearly as much as he seemed to have the right to be.
“They will be here any moment, Julian. You must exercise patience.” Thankfully, Laura was there to act as a voice of reason, keeping Hellion from pacing a hole in his office floor (or blasting one, as he'd gotten very good at doing both with and without prosthetic hands) and keeping Scott from punching him and telling him to shut up.
It was a curse, Even though they were both now in their mid twenties, he couldn't help but treat them as teenagers. In Julian's case, it was even easier, because he still acted like a teenager so much of the time.
“I've been exercising patience for the past nine fucking years. So have you.” Julian seethed, and Laura nervously balled her hand into a fist and back out, as if trying to squash the urge to unsheathe her claws and cut herself to keep calm.
'So it will not harm you to wait the forty five second run down to the med-bay, will it, Mister Keller?'
Emma quickly stepped aside from the door after opening it, watching Julian angrily dart off towards the med-bay with Laura in tow, getting unfortunately dragged along by a telekinetic current. She was glad that she'd moved after her telepathic message-she would have been trampled otherwise.
“Do I wanna see her, Em'?” Scott asked tiredly, once again glancing down at the wine bottle. Emma walked across the room and intertwined their fingers together, tugging him out of his chair.
“I daresay you have no choice, darling. Now come on, before Julian makes a mess of everything.”
Scott reluctantly left the comfort of his chair and followed Emma to the med-bay, where Julian was ranting at Elixir about having to wait even longer, while their poor healer tried his hardest to explain to Julian that he couldn't necessarily go in on her in the shower, she was a teenager now, after all.
“I don't give a fuck-”
“Julian is unconcerned with her age, Josh. He is more concerned with the fact that he has been separated from his... daughter for almost a decade.” After nine years, the word daughter was still as unfamiliar on Laura's tongue as it had been when the girl had first made her way to the Institute, still in the Facility's standard issue hospital gown, covered in blood and shaking with hypothermia.
An awkward silence filled the room as Josh struggled to find an answer, Julian's rage slowly went from a rolling boil to a soft bubble, and Laura kept her touch on Julian's arm firm, to keep him from flinging Josh into a wall as he was so fond of doing. In that slow five seconds of silence, they heard the water of one of the communal showers turn off, and Laura herself could hear the rustle of clothes being replaced.
For the first time in nine years, they saw Sarah Sofia Keller, and she saw her parents. Her unwilling genetic donors that had, over the span of a few months, grown horribly attached to the girl's infectiously happy personality.
It was Julian who reacted first, stepping away from Laura and wrapping the shorter girl in a strong-armed hug.
“Sofie.” Was all that he could manage to bring himself to say without wanting to look like an idiot, crying over her. Hellion did not cry. He had no reason to. Especially not when he was so god damned happy.
Slowly, confusedly, she wrapped her arms around him as well, tears brimming up in her own eyes no matter how much she stubbornly tried to blink them away.
“Daddy.”
-----x-----
I once had a father. His name was Julian. I think that I have him again now.
There were a couple of men who asked that I call them by their first name, but I always slipped and called them “Mister,” as well. One was “Doctor.” Another “Professor.” One dared to ask me to call him “Master,” even, though I did not stay in his home very long, and neither did the other teenage girls in his foster care collection of sex slaves.
And once upon a time, like a fairy tale, I think I may have had a Julian.
-----x-----
“What the hell do you mean you're putting her in foster care?! She's just a little kid, she needs us!”
It had been quite an insane disaster. There was no body count, but the repair bills were absolutely astronomical, and an entire half of Utopia needed to be repaired. Even part of Atlantis was destroyed, though Namor was more amused that a child had done the damage than angry that he'd have to spend more time on repairs.
“I mean, Mister Keller, exactly what you are saying! She is a child. A child needs a proper upbringing from proper parents. I am unable to take more time out of my already busy schedule to raise a little girl, and you obviously have no idea what you're doing.” Emma leaned back in her chair and pressed her fingers to her temple, trying to alleviate some of the growing headache before it got too bad.
“I can take parenting classes or something! They have those on the mainland, right?!”
“Yes, they do. Unfortunately, not a single one of those classes is going to properly equip you with the knowledge to care for a mutant child. Especially not a mutant child that is the clone of, for one, a clone of Wolverine. And two, an irresponsible idiot who thinks that it's fine to give her junk food and let her curse and have her nearly bite Gambit's finger off!”
“Well, to be fair, she did that on her own...”
“You should have stopped her, is what I'm trying to say! Your irresponsible behavior and Laura's inability to properly handle a child is exactly why I think it would be better-for Sofie and for Utopia-if she were placed into the foster care system.”
Julian took one look at the little girl sitting in a chair in the hallway, her hair covered in drywall dust and little angry red marks on the backs of her hands from where she had not quite healed all the way, and he knew that Emma was right. He had no fucking idea what he was doing, and as long as she was very, very careful about using her powers, she wouldn't be too bad off out there, disguised as another pathetic face in the California State Foster Care system. She'd be safer, that was for sure.
“Maybe she'll end up with some nice couple in your old neighborhood, Mister Keller.” Emma breathed, picking up on his frustration very easily.
-----x-----
I never ended up in Beverly Hills. I didn't even stay in California for very long. I was bounced from family to family all over the country, never staying in one place for very long. When I was thirteen, I ran away from that “Master” while living in New York, and I ended up following my nose to some old, broken up mansion ruins. It was the heat of summer, so in the night time, when it was nice and cool, I worked hard and moved a good portion of the rubble around, eventually making a pretty sturdy shelter. I even found personal belongings, like wallets that still had money in them.
At first, I felt bad. I thought that it was stealing, and the social workers had slammed into me “Sarah, stealing is wrong, and you will end up in prison without hesitation.”
But then I thought about it. No one had lived there for years except for little animals, and they sure as hell weren't going to spend it.
I bought clothes. Whatever clothes I liked, there was more than enough money there. A big bag to carry it all in. Canned food that I could open with my claws and cook over a little camp stove if I got desperate. Blankets. Even a little pillow, though I didn't need it.
I suppose that I tried to make a home for myself there, in the ruins of this place. I found fragments of other peoples' lives there. I even found graves. There were a lot of graves, for a place that appeared to be a school. They were all in horrible, neglected condition. I felt bad for the people laying beneath those ornate headstones. Didn't a single one of them have anyone who loved them enough to clear the filth away from their final resting places?
I found myself doing it soon enough. Tearing away vines and scrubbing with water from a lake that I found not too far off. I made sure that everyone had a clean grave, from Jean Grey (who would apparently rise again, if the headstone gave any indication), to Sophie and Esme Cuckoo (sisters, from the looks of it) to Brian Cruz (someone scrawled on his headstone “Tag, you're it,” in marker that I couldn't erase) to Laurie Collins, whose name sounded all too familiar.
I ran my fingertips over engraved vines of flowers, and murmured aloud to the wind and a nest of baby robins up in a tree.
“A flower named Laurie.”
-----x-----
“Remember how I paid that landscaper back in Westchester to go out to the mansion every year and clean up the cemetery?”
Cyclops paused from typing up a paper of exam results to look at Angel, who was staring out of a wall of windows at the San Francisco skyline. Scott Summers had seen that look on his friend's face about a hundred times a week back in their youth, and it had been the first time in years that he'd really noticed it again.
It was the look that said he wanted to jump out of that window, spread his wings, and fly along that skyline for hours and hours.
“Yeah. I remember you complaining about how you were worried that the guy wouldn't do a good job, because he charged so little. I told you to be thankful. What about it, though?”
“Well, he sent me an e-mail, and said that he went out there to clean up, but everything was already cleared away. There had been signs that someone was living there.” Warren said, drinking down a bottle of water. “Asked me if I'd still pay him for coming out.”
“Will you?”
“Already did. But who could be living out there? It's... well...”
“Unlivable. I know. Maybe some kids exploring out there just felt bad and cleaned it up themselves.” Scott printed off a few copies of the results and paperclipped them together before reaching down into a seldom used desk drawer to grab a new stack of printer paper. Instead, he grabbed something small and soft, and pulled it out to examine.
“A toy?”
Warren looked over and recognized the stuffed bear, remembering how the soft bear with the green tartan ribbon around his neck had been cradled carefully in a child's arms.
“Isn't that Sofie's bear? Um... Ronald, or something?”
“Rufus.” Scott stared at the small stuffed toy, turning it over in his hand and examining it. For a child's favorite plaything, the bear was in amazing condition, without a single stain or tear. “Don't ask me how I remember that. I couldn't begin to tell you.”
Cyclops remembered seeing her flee his office after she'd been made to pack her things and prepare for the arrival of the social worker. Now, after all these years, he knew why she'd gone in there.
“Didn't it used to belong to Wallflower? That bear?” Warren asked, and though Scott tried to rack his brain, he couldn't remember anyone ever holding it except for that dangerous little smiling child.
------x-----
I have no idea why I've grown my hair out so long. It's a pain, but I can never really bring myself to cut it any shorter than I've got it now. I keep it tied back, so that a long black ponytail snakes down by back and ends at about my tailbone.
At night, I fly. I don't have wings, but I have my mind, and that's all that I ever seem to need. With a green light, I lift myself up, and before I know it, I'm up as high as the clouds. I feel so very free up in the sky, like I'm dancing with the wind.
I once met a woman who was looking to adopt. Her name was Sofia Mantega. When I told her what my name was, she stopped, told me a story about how she knew my father, how she used to be a mutant, how she used to be called the Wind Dancer. She left without adopting me, tears in her eyes.
I think that I grew my hair out long to be like Sofia. But I don't remember.
From one of my flights, I descend down into the ruins of the mansion. I don't feel the least bit exhausted, so I use my telekinesis to move away some of the rubble, eventually coming across a green, spiral-bound notebook that has survived for many years underneath a pile of desks and debris.
I flipped it open, and scrawled in handwriting that looked like it was purposefully messy, was written
“Property of Julian Keller! So get your hands off and back the fuck away!”
I dropped the notebook, full of mathematical notes, and remembered, very suddenly, that I may not have had fathers, but I once had a man named Julian.
Slowly, I bent down and picked it back up, hugging it close to my chest. I didn't know why, but this felt like it was very, very important, and I wanted to keep it safe. I may have even begun to cry a little bit.
I fell asleep, clutching the simple 5 subject, spiral bound green notebook as if it were the most precious thing in the world.
-----x-----
Emma knew that she could ignore it no longer. The mutant light that glowed so brightly from the old Institute, and had for many, many weeks. She knew that could only lie to Scott for so long. To Laura and Julian.
When she had been moved out of the state, Emma had received notification through a nondescript letter from the state. She had received many of these from many states without really giving any of them a second glance, and when she received one from New York state telling her that she'd escaped foster custody, she at first had only assumed that she'd moved to some other state without really reading the contents.
However, once that light had settled itself precisely where the remains of the mansion still stood, Emma knew where she had run to. Her own olfactory recognition would have led her there, for she was sure that familiar scents beyond normal human recognition still clung to the earth there.
Upon first seeing it, she had been a tad confused-why was she there? But upon digging through her file of letters and reminding herself quite harshly that they did not put out Amber Alerts for mutant children or foster children, it all made sense again.
“We will never be fully rid of our responsibilities as women, will we?” she asked no one in particular, swirling a flute of fine champagne around in a white-gloved hand before throwing it back quite expertly. “Forever nurturing. Always having a wing extended for children to rest underneath.”
“What was that, Em?”
Emma did not turn to see Scott as he entered, merely refilling her glass and downing the contents yet again.
“Nothing, dear. Monologuing.” She huffed, pointing up to the indicator light on the holographic display, knowing full and well that he could see it.
“A mutant? Out there? Are they blind, or just behind on the times?”
Emma loved Scott for many, many things, but his ability to tell a joke was not one of them. Not now, at least.
“It's Sarah Sofia. She made her way there.”
A few keystrokes identified the little green light as “Keller, Sarah Sofia.” It wasn't that Scott didn't believe her, it was just that it was a bit difficult to believe.
“I thought you said she went missing months ago. That you thought that the Facility got her.”
“I did. But apparently, she's got her father's brain in her head. She's very, very crafty.”
Scott stared at the display and rest his hand on Emma's shoulder, quickly feeling her soft skin shift to slick, hard diamond. Not to suggest that he still didn't like the smooth feel underneath his fingers, he just preferred when his lover felt warm and not so much like glass.
“We've got a job to do. You know that. We have to go get her.”
Emma nodded, snapping the stem of the flute between her shimmering fingertips.
“I'll inform Mister Keller and Miss Kinney at once.”
-----x-----
The notebook was filled with notes, as one would imagine. This one was for a Professor Grey's telekinesis specific course, and while there were plenty of doodles in the margins of the pages, the notes were well-detailed and covered telekinesis from a rudimentary level all the way up to what was described as “Omega,” where one could use their mind to move and alter things even on a molecular level.
I learned so many things from that notebook. It became almost like a bible for me, like this Julian Keller had took one look at me, written this down, and handed it over, knowing that I'd need it later. With that notebook, I learned how to replicate powers that I'd remembered seeing other mutants use.
Typically, when I cut myself, whether it be in my own self-given training regimen or just moving more debris, it would heal up in a matter of seconds and I'd only really notice that I'd been injured from the smeared bloodstains on my skin. But I wanted to try something new.
Unsheathing my claws from the back of my hand no longer hurt. They looked like two small swords, protruding from my hand for just under a foot, and they were very, very sharp. Just enough to test what I had planned on doing.
With just the right amount of pressure, I was able to press the bladed claws deep into my thigh and drag them sharply so that I could see the bone when I pulled aside the muscle. Yes, it hurt quite a bit, but one had to make sacrifices to learn anything properly.
Pressing my bare fingers to either side of the wound, I began to use my telekinesis to re-attach the severed muscle and skin, making it look like a mysterious green glow was stitching my leg up again. Whatever I was unable to do on that first attempt, my own natural healing did for me, and soon, only blood stains remained as evidence that I'd done anything at all.
Diving into my bag, I pulled out a pen and wrote, under the “Omega” section of the notebook, that telekinesis could be used on a molecular level to heal injuries. To fuse the molecules together and increase the healing process by an unknown percentage.
I felt pretty proud of myself, for being able to add to these notes. Like I was some kind of a scientist, and these findings would change the outcome of the world.
Even if it was just my world that I was changing the outcome of.
Over the next several days, I was able to mimic the powers of a lot of other people that just barely clung to my memory. I could increase the speed of molecular movement to make something explode. I could, if I flew up high enough, make small alterations to weather patterns. I could even, on colder nights, when it was easier, change the water in my water bottle to ice.
The healing, exploding, weather changes, and freezing all took a lot out of me, though, so I resolved not to do them very often, and stuck to doing what I was best at.
One night, the birds in the area that had grown used to my presence had stopped their midnight warbling very suddenly. Immediately, without even being aware of it, my claws came out and I took a defensive position, curling back into the trees. I no longer slept in my little shelter of debris, except for when it rained, preferring to be high up and able to smell and see everything.
Out of nowhere, a large black jet landed in a clearing that was just the right size for it, and almost immediately, people climbed out-a woman all in white, who did not smell very pleased, and a small man who reeked of cigarette smoke, but also smelled very, very familiar.
It did not take long for me to be caught. I was half a second too slow, and half a second was all that it took for the smaller man to grab me up and restrain me like I was a criminal. He at least had the courtesy to grab my bag, though I feared that as roughly as he was swinging it around, he'd tear the precious notebook inside.
“Come on, Sof'. Time to go home.”
I did not know how the gruff man knew my name, but when he said the word home, I was immediately overcome with feelings and images, the strongest of those being one of a much smaller me, curled up into the handless arms of a man that made me feel like I was the safest girl in the world.
I did not have fathers, but I had a man named Julian.
-----x-----
“Well?”
Scott was getting very, very, very irritated with Julian asking that. So irritated, in fact, that Emma's Chianti was starting to look more and more appealing. He hadn't been drunk nearly as much as he seemed to have the right to be.
“They will be here any moment, Julian. You must exercise patience.” Thankfully, Laura was there to act as a voice of reason, keeping Hellion from pacing a hole in his office floor (or blasting one, as he'd gotten very good at doing both with and without prosthetic hands) and keeping Scott from punching him and telling him to shut up.
It was a curse, Even though they were both now in their mid twenties, he couldn't help but treat them as teenagers. In Julian's case, it was even easier, because he still acted like a teenager so much of the time.
“I've been exercising patience for the past nine fucking years. So have you.” Julian seethed, and Laura nervously balled her hand into a fist and back out, as if trying to squash the urge to unsheathe her claws and cut herself to keep calm.
'So it will not harm you to wait the forty five second run down to the med-bay, will it, Mister Keller?'
Emma quickly stepped aside from the door after opening it, watching Julian angrily dart off towards the med-bay with Laura in tow, getting unfortunately dragged along by a telekinetic current. She was glad that she'd moved after her telepathic message-she would have been trampled otherwise.
“Do I wanna see her, Em'?” Scott asked tiredly, once again glancing down at the wine bottle. Emma walked across the room and intertwined their fingers together, tugging him out of his chair.
“I daresay you have no choice, darling. Now come on, before Julian makes a mess of everything.”
Scott reluctantly left the comfort of his chair and followed Emma to the med-bay, where Julian was ranting at Elixir about having to wait even longer, while their poor healer tried his hardest to explain to Julian that he couldn't necessarily go in on her in the shower, she was a teenager now, after all.
“I don't give a fuck-”
“Julian is unconcerned with her age, Josh. He is more concerned with the fact that he has been separated from his... daughter for almost a decade.” After nine years, the word daughter was still as unfamiliar on Laura's tongue as it had been when the girl had first made her way to the Institute, still in the Facility's standard issue hospital gown, covered in blood and shaking with hypothermia.
An awkward silence filled the room as Josh struggled to find an answer, Julian's rage slowly went from a rolling boil to a soft bubble, and Laura kept her touch on Julian's arm firm, to keep him from flinging Josh into a wall as he was so fond of doing. In that slow five seconds of silence, they heard the water of one of the communal showers turn off, and Laura herself could hear the rustle of clothes being replaced.
For the first time in nine years, they saw Sarah Sofia Keller, and she saw her parents. Her unwilling genetic donors that had, over the span of a few months, grown horribly attached to the girl's infectiously happy personality.
It was Julian who reacted first, stepping away from Laura and wrapping the shorter girl in a strong-armed hug.
“Sofie.” Was all that he could manage to bring himself to say without wanting to look like an idiot, crying over her. Hellion did not cry. He had no reason to. Especially not when he was so god damned happy.
Slowly, confusedly, she wrapped her arms around him as well, tears brimming up in her own eyes no matter how much she stubbornly tried to blink them away.
“Daddy.”
-----x-----
I once had a father. His name was Julian. I think that I have him again now.