“I’m home, everyone! Back from Sydney with the shopping!” Madelyne calls, her words echoing through the dingy rooms, sheets still strewn everywhere from the slow-going renovations. “Hello hello
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Cable could never say that he'd been happy on this island, far from it, but he'd appreciated that he had so many people here that he cared for and that they, by and large, seemed to be happy. With Theresa and Jean both vanished and Rachel off to drown her grief in solitude, though, even that particular silver lining was currently looking rather less shiny.
So when he approached the compound and saw, what looked like, a young Jean sitting there looking confused, he wasn't inclined to assume the best. A 'clone', as the terminology put it, seemed far more in keeping with the cruelty of the Island.
"Hello," he greeted her warily, in a flat tone and hard face that gave away no emotions but his eyes searched her face as he spoke.
"Hi," Madelyne answers automatically, wide-eyed and just as wary, if not quite so serious about it. At first, there seems to be something almost familiar about him, but she chalks it up to getting her signals crossed. She's already on edge, and whoever he is, he doesn't exactly cut the most unimposing figure. "I, uh- I'm new," she goes on, as if that weren't obvious, offering a small, nervous smile that flits across her face and is gone.
"No kidding," Madelyne deadpans, her smile returning for tiny bit longer this time as she reaches up to take his hand. Having known Forge and Longshot, the metal one and the eye thing aren't as off-putting as they probably should be, but there's still something about this guy that makes her... not uneasy, exactly, but more aware. Besides, what kind of nickname is Cable? "I'm Madelyne."
Cable couldn't stop himself reacting entirely so his eyes widened slightly in recognition, for the second it took until he shut his face down again and shook her hand gently.
"Not Madelyne Pryor?" he asked as he let go, taking the recognition he'd accidentally showed and turning it into a lie without even thinking about it. "Summer's wife?"
The answer to that should tell him anything else he needs to know about when she's from. Either way, he wasn't sure he had the patience to deal with all the complications this would cause.
"I... yeah," Madelyne replied, eyes narrowing in surprise at being recognized, the unexpectedness of the question managing to temporarily take care of the surge of emotion it brings. She's his wife, alright, but you'd never know it to see him these days. Those days. However it worked with the time travel thing.
"How'd you know that? Do I know you?" she asked, smoothing out her dress as she stood up, figuring this was a conversation where she should be at least a little closer to his level.
"They do kinda have a tendency to make spectacles of themselves," Madelyne wryly admits, shaking her head slightly. "No matter what circles you moved in." There's a question implicit in the statement, or at least in her expression as she says it, but not a pressing one. She doesn't even know when Cable comes from, she and the X-Men could be dead to him, but she doesn't know if she has it in her to keep that act up for very long, so really, it's probably safer to avoid too many details about the past for the time being.
Cable ignored the implied question, of course. He wasn't good with straight answers.
"There's a few of them around this place," he warned, carefully. "Used to be more."
This wasn't a conversation he particularly wanted to have but he owed her that warning, at least. He owed her more than that, probably. She was still family and, more than that, she was too young to have done anything he held against her, yet. Which didn't mean he trusted her, didn't mean he wouldn't carefully drop a threat into this conversation later but it meant something nonetheless.
"Oh?" Madelyne asks, and although her first reaction is to be pleased by that, she can't help but be a little disappointed as well. She cares about the X-Men, of course, but things would have been so much simpler without them in her life, and she can't help but feel that the same will somehow hold true here, as well. "Who?"
She has to assume that he'd already have told her if it's Scott.
"Rogue, Wolverine, Multiple Man, Banshee and Wolfsbane are all here," he listed them off quickly. They'd all been active at the time she'd come from but he didn't know how many she actually knew personally.
"More to the point, Jean Grey was here up until a little over a week ago. Her boyfriend, Leonard McCoy, her friends, her daughter, Rachel, they're all still here and likely grieving. I am sorry, Madelyne, I can only imagine it will make things even more difficult for you."
Any relief she felt at hearing that there are people she knows here evaporates the instant Cable goes on, her stomach twisting. "Oh," she says flatly, letting that sink in, and her expression hardens when it finally does. She very nearly asks if they're sure she's actually gone and not just hanging around somewhere, waiting for Madelyne to get nice and settled before swooping back in and taking everything from her all over again, but that sort of comment would likely fall under the banner of 'making things more difficult'. "That is..." she trails off, unable to finish. What's she supposed to say? That it's unfortunate? As if.
"Yeah," she finishes lamely, but he obviously already understands that it's a complex situation, she probably doesn't need to spell everything out. "Thank you for... telling me."
"You needed to know," Cable replied, shrugging off her thanks.
"And my motives are not entirely selfless," he continued carefully, still watching her reactions like a hawk. "Rachel means ... a great deal to me. Things will not be easy for either of you but there's no need for them to be harder then they have to be."
"And there are plenty here who did not know Jean," he added. "It is not so small an island that you can't escape a single shadow."
Madelyne nods, more overwhelmed than ever, but doing her best to keep from losing herself to it, keeping on top of things. No matter how Cable's words seem to help, she can't ignore the implication that, in a way, he could be one of the very shadows of which he speaks. "I'm sure it'll work out fine," she says, not actually sure of anything at all. "I mean, Rachel and I always got along fine before, assuming you mean who I think you mean." Or rather, the girl avoided her most of the time, behavior that makes a lot more sense now that Cable's placed her in the proper context. Jean's daughter. Of course.
"Shadows tend to find me no matter where I am, though."
"I've had similar problems escaping shadows myself," he told her, with a smile. "But, I think a lot of it is how you deal with it. Whenever anything troubles me, hurts me, I don't allow it to do so again."
They were cheering words and it would, perhaps, have been easy to take them lightly but his face froze slightly as he spoke and his voice dropped a little in tone so an undercurrent of coldness entered it to make the threat clear.
And then, after a moment, the smile became real again, his eyes lost their hardness and he continued with enough cheer it was if that moment had never happened.
"If there is anything else you wish to know, that might make things easier, please do ask. I'm happy to help."
Madelyne couldn't miss the change in Cable's demeanor if she tried, but that doesn't mean she's immediately sure how to take it. There's a lot about the man that's difficult to decipher, saying such things could very well just be something he does, and there's no real reason for it to be personal. And yet...
"Smart way to live," she replies, voice going slightly flat, but in truth, she means it. "I might have to borrow it." Lingering suspicions aside, he's right back to the way he was before, though, and she offers a small smile of her own, whatever that was all about. "Thank you. Really."
So when he approached the compound and saw, what looked like, a young Jean sitting there looking confused, he wasn't inclined to assume the best. A 'clone', as the terminology put it, seemed far more in keeping with the cruelty of the Island.
"Hello," he greeted her warily, in a flat tone and hard face that gave away no emotions but his eyes searched her face as he spoke.
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"It can be somewhat disconcerting, at first," he continued and held out his human right hand to her to take. "You can call me Cable."
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Cable couldn't stop himself reacting entirely so his eyes widened slightly in recognition, for the second it took until he shut his face down again and shook her hand gently.
"Not Madelyne Pryor?" he asked as he let go, taking the recognition he'd accidentally showed and turning it into a lie without even thinking about it. "Summer's wife?"
The answer to that should tell him anything else he needs to know about when she's from. Either way, he wasn't sure he had the patience to deal with all the complications this would cause.
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"How'd you know that? Do I know you?" she asked, smoothing out her dress as she stood up, figuring this was a conversation where she should be at least a little closer to his level.
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"But when you've moved in the circles I have, you can't help hearing about the X-Men."
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"There's a few of them around this place," he warned, carefully. "Used to be more."
This wasn't a conversation he particularly wanted to have but he owed her that warning, at least. He owed her more than that, probably. She was still family and, more than that, she was too young to have done anything he held against her, yet. Which didn't mean he trusted her, didn't mean he wouldn't carefully drop a threat into this conversation later but it meant something nonetheless.
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She has to assume that he'd already have told her if it's Scott.
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"More to the point, Jean Grey was here up until a little over a week ago. Her boyfriend, Leonard McCoy, her friends, her daughter, Rachel, they're all still here and likely grieving. I am sorry, Madelyne, I can only imagine it will make things even more difficult for you."
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"Yeah," she finishes lamely, but he obviously already understands that it's a complex situation, she probably doesn't need to spell everything out. "Thank you for... telling me."
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"And my motives are not entirely selfless," he continued carefully, still watching her reactions like a hawk. "Rachel means ... a great deal to me. Things will not be easy for either of you but there's no need for them to be harder then they have to be."
"And there are plenty here who did not know Jean," he added. "It is not so small an island that you can't escape a single shadow."
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"Shadows tend to find me no matter where I am, though."
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They were cheering words and it would, perhaps, have been easy to take them lightly but his face froze slightly as he spoke and his voice dropped a little in tone so an undercurrent of coldness entered it to make the threat clear.
And then, after a moment, the smile became real again, his eyes lost their hardness and he continued with enough cheer it was if that moment had never happened.
"If there is anything else you wish to know, that might make things easier, please do ask. I'm happy to help."
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"Smart way to live," she replies, voice going slightly flat, but in truth, she means it. "I might have to borrow it." Lingering suspicions aside, he's right back to the way he was before, though, and she offers a small smile of her own, whatever that was all about. "Thank you. Really."
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