Bellwether

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> Bellwether Chapter Eleven
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> Disclaimers Apply
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> A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Hee hee, now I smell good, have good music and something to read while I nibble chocolate. J *GLOMP * InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: Hola? Morgan: I should be about tonight… Readers/Reviewers: Tomorrow will not have an update of this fic as I’m going to be catching up on a few other things. Thanks for reading and reviewing as you can!
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> Magneto flexed his fingers experimentally, feeling his long life throb in his veins. He was tired, more tired than he wanted to admit, but he was not ready to die yet. Incubus was gone and he had a decent idea where; it was too far away, too far to summon him back. Maybe, he thought with a grim smile, he could get Moira to whip up a batch of the medicine that had been keeping him alive. Maybe. It was so quiet in the manor house that he could hear Mystique moving, she of the usually silent steps. He had relied on her for so long—it seemed as if she had been his right arm since time began. But he knew, as far as human lives went, it was a relatively short amount of time. He waited, standing just inside the open doorway, for her to reach him. They would be going soon, heading for Muir Island. He had not heard from the Institute nor Xavier himself remarking on the use of the primary jet for this excursion. He knew Logan was aware and by that token, so was Storm. And Banshee…he let his thoughts trail off and fixed his face in lines of serious calm. She was blue, he noted, her normal form. The only way he could see her in the dark hallway was by the flash of her eyes and the subtle shimmer of her skin as she shifted, not taking on a new form but darkening, blending with the shadows. In an instant, she was gone from his site but he knew she was there, knew she was close by. “You drive,” he intoned softly. “I’ll co-pilot.”
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> Mystique did not need to look at his hands to know they were trembling, another sign of the disease that was attacking his body from the inside out. She was not sure how she felt about that, Magneto’s glaring mortality. Half the time she could easily believe that she was immortal. The other half, she wondered if she would need to sit shiva for him. She nodded curtly, not even slowing down as she passed him, letting him fall in behind her as they made their way down the narrow, dark hallway, past their sleeping host, towards the darkened garage and the waiting car. It would take less than ten minutes to reach the private air strip that was harboring the Blackbird and then an hour to get to the island. After that… time was too fluid to guess. “Magneto,” she murmured as they gained the door leading to the parked car, “are we rescuing Moira or just Theresa?” She flicked a glance up at him, noting the grim set of his mouth in the dimness of the space.
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> “Does it matter?” his low voice rumbled, intimate as only a long time companion could sound.
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> “Only in terms of logistics,” she replied tersely, padding quietly to the still car. “Do you think they will incorporate her DNA into the mix?”
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> Magneto did not reply until they were backing out of the garage, the expensive car purring like a large cat under Mystique’s handling. “They already have,” he said lightly. “All it takes is a drop. A bit from this person, a bit from that… perfecting Homo superior takes a lot of hard work.” His tone was rueful at best. “Moira MacTaggert’s interest in recombining the DNA of mutants is relatively new; until a year or so ago, she was content to study it, find out what is at our root, what sets us apart from all others…” He paused, raising a brow to meet Mystique’s gaze in the rear view mirror. “Problem, Raven?”
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> She shook her head, refocusing her attention on the road. She had forgotten, almost, that his cause was different. Things were always changing, she thought with a splinter of bitterness. A year ago she knew her place in the grand scheme of things. She knew where she stood, which side she served. Now, she was not sure. When she first found Magneto (Or did he find her? She was not sure anymore.), she knew what she believed. She was superior, evolved beyond the other humans. Magneto nourished this, helped it grow and flourish until it formed her bones, filled her veins. She became the idea, became the theology. Now, she felt tendrils of uncertainty creep through her mind and she did not like it. When she gave it any thought, it tended to give her a headache and cause her to lose her temper. Taking a deep, fortifying breath, she found her words on an exhale. “Not at all,” she smiled tightly, swinging the car into the private driveway leading to the air strip. “We’ll have little time between landing and being detected. Seconds, really. Are you sure…” she trailed off, remembering belatedly how much he hated being reminded.
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> “Positive.” The word was sharp and short, cracking the atmosphere in the car like a lightening bolt. “I do not need Incubus to move my feet,” he added, wondering how much of a lie that was. A thought of Essex wormed through his mind, Essex and his human experiments. For just a moment, fear clutched at his throat, the vision of Pietro, flayed open and used for parts, so to speak, dancing before his eyes. Then it was gone and all he could see was the dark interior of the car as they rolled to a stop just inside the private hangar. “When we return, we refuel and head immediately for Bayville.”