Forever Yours: It's not like you gave me a choice.

Hello all! Chapter two is done- ish May go back and change a few things to further my plot in upcoming chapters, not sure yet. Always looking for feedback, what works and what doesn't. I know it's not alot of Xmen/Kurt, but I like to take these stories slow, kinda. Anyway. Next chapter will be next week. Enjoy!!!

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           Shortly after leaving the church I made the choice to find help and figure out how to get as far from there as possible. Help sorta came in the form of a police cruiser parked in the “right turn only” lane. By “sorta”, I mean to say that the gentleman inside the cruiser sincerely paused to roll down his window as I frantically tapped on it for help…. just because it was cold outside. Evidently he would not have lasted long in my predicament, but I decided not to raise the subject seeing as how he offered to bring me to the police station to help me get in contact with my family.

            I found myself sitting alone on a hard wooden bench(again) amongst an assorted group of what I assumed to be criminals. At least two of the people in front of me were cuffed to the bench, and I dared not to look at the people behind my own bench. I was unsure how I managed to get a section to myself, but here I was; blissfully alone. Perhaps it was the “didn’t commit a crime” bench, especially set aside for poor unfortunate souls such as myself. I shook my head and sighed, I couldn’t believe the words coming out of my inner monologue. I also apparently couldn’t believe the words coming out of the lady at the front desks’ mouth, because only when her tone turned to annoyance did I realize she had been trying to get my attention. I stood up abruptly and approached her trying to look sorry, much the way I had approached the principle’s desk.

            “Ms. Leander?” the lady questioned nonchalantly.

            “Yes.” I replied dutifully.

            “I’ve tried calling the phone number you provided and it’s not an active number.” She looked at my oddly and it made me feel uneasy.

            “Oh, uh,” I couldn’t think of how to respond to that, “are you sure?”

            “Do you think I don’t know how to dial a phone?” She snapped in a professional yet scary kind of way.

            My eyes must have bugged out of my head because she reined it in rather quickly, “I’m sorry. New Year’s day is a stressful day at the office.” She pointed my attention to those resigned to the benches.

            “Yeah, I bet.” I smiled and leaned on the desk to shift my weight off my feet.

            “Excuse me?” A tap on my shoulder… or a harsh grab depending on how you looked at it, pulled my focus away from my mission to get the hell out of New York.

           

            I turned with a fake smile plastered to my face, “Yes?” I rubbed my shoulder where I’d been grabbed.

            The man looked quietly for a minute, like he had thought I was someone else, and hesitated a moment before committing to speaking, “You’re Tristatt?”

            “Yeah.”

            “SydneyKate Tristatt… of Hanover, Massachusetts?”

            “Uhmm, yep. Did my friends call looking for me?” I felt slightly less homicidal towards them.

            “Did your..?” He seemed unable to master the art of a full sentence, “Your friends, family. We had teams out in the bay for three days-“

            “Uh, I think there’s a mistake.” I was overwhelmed by his frustration and excitement, “I got separated from my friends last night.” I pointed to the lady at the desk to confirm my story.

            “Let me show you something.” The man grabbed my forearm and before I knew it I was being ripped away from progress and dragged into crazy land with a fifty-something year old nut job with a badge.

            He brought me to his desk which faced the front and up on his monitor was a picture of me from my college graduation party. I turned to look at him, unsure why he was showing me this or even how he had it, “yeah?”

            “Read it.” He tapped the screen with his finger to ‘Missing 12/31/11.’ This is where our tax dollars were going to, stating the obvious and cops parking in turn only lanes. “That’s you.”

            “It’s me, and that was yesterday- so.” I tried to keep calm, but an odd sense of distortion started to plague my remembrance of last night. It felt like when you know the name of something, and you know you know it, but you can’t think of it.

            “It’s 2012, Tristatt!” He slammed his hand on the desk and we had a crowd of three others around us, all nodding and confirming his allegation.

            I sucked my teeth and rolled my eyes in one smooth motion before facing him, “Riight.”

Whether I chose to accept it or not, I was shuffled to another desk with another gentleman who asked me a series of five questions in different forms. It felt like a game to see if I had been lying about my story of being separated from my friends and falling asleep in a church. Naturally, I left the blue demon with glowy-eyes out of it because I didn’t want to be committed on top of questioned.

            I had caught my picture on the television nearly an hour after I began to be questioned and re-questioned. I paused my interrogation to read the subtext under my picture, ‘After missing for one year, young Massachusetts woman shows up with no memory.’ I stood up, outraged that someone had run and called the media and gave them what I knew to be the second worst picture of me. “Listen, you can ask me all you want, but I only got separated yesterday.”

            “We’re going to have to take you to Mercy Hospital and get you checked out.” The man stated out of nowhere. How long was he going to wait to tell me I had to go get ‘checked out’?

            “Look, I just want to get home. My friends-“

            “Your friends were found dead two blocks from Times Square with their eardrums blown out and one had a broken neck.”

            My mouth hung open for a second in disbelief, “What?” Now I was getting emotional.

            “Why do you think they searched the bay?” He had lost his patience with me, “You’ve been missing a year, it’s 2012. Your three friends were found dead after the crowd cleared and your body… you had been reported missing.” I chose to accept his version of reality just then, maybe it was the shocking and assholish deliverance of the news my friends were dead; maybe I am missing a year of my life.

 

            It was awkward at the hospital. It was one of those state healthcare accepting hospitals-- things were clean, but run-down and used. There was a crowded waiting room but I was expedited past everyone into a room with a plastic bed and a grey curtain. One curt nurse later I had met with a doctor by the name of Bradford. The name seemed ordinary enough, but when he pulled the curtain back and closed it behind him, he looked nervous. I found it interesting that he was perspiring from his forehead like he had run a marathon. Maybe he had?

            “G-good afternoon Ms. Leander.” He offered a hand and I politely took it. The handshake lasted a bit longer than what was comfortable and upon sliding my hand out of his grip, I realized his palms were sweaty… which is gross, honestly.

            “Yeah, not really.” I wiped my hand on the plastic bench and tried to be polite about the awkwardness of the doctor.

            “So, uh, how are your scars healing up?” He put a hand on my abdomen and lightly pressed on it.

            I stood up and took a step back, now near the curtain, “I don’t have any scars.” I wanted to say ‘don’t touch me’, but that’d be rude.

            “Oh, I, uh, I’m sorry. My mistake. I need to examine your abdomen and then we can take a look at your back….” He moved closer to touch me and I evaded him by taking a step back.

            “I want to speak to someone else.” I turned to move the curtain and it wasn’t until he put a hand on my shoulder I realized something was terribly wrong.

            “Ms. Leander, if you don’t cooperate, you’ll be dealing with someone far worse.” It felt like a threat, but the flash of fear across his face for the moment made it feel like it might have also been a sincere warning.

            I grabbed his hand off of me, and walked along the curtain. The doctor made no effort to ‘run’ at me; he was slow and persistent like Jason from Friday the 13^th which made the matter all the more out of place. “What’s going on?”

            “You need to sit down.” He warned me, this time it felt like his patience was wearing thin.

            “I won’t, who are you? Why are you doing this?” I realized that I sounded like one of the first people to die in a horror movie. Could I be overreacting? I mean, he is a doctor. He technically has to touch me at some point, but scars? Where did that come from? If anything, I was protecting myself from malpractice; it seems like he thought I was someone else.

            “Security!” He called out in a less panicky voice.

            He may have been calm now, but I was desperately searching for the parting between the curtains all while facing him. I heard commotion from behind the curtain across from me and a voice asked, “Is everything ok?”

            “Our patient here is confused and won’t cooperate. Call a code yellow and have them bring IM sedatives.”

            I didn’t know what IM meant, but I knew what sedatives were, and I was sure I wasn’t the one who needed them. “Look,” I put my other hand out toward him, “I just want to go.”

            “You’re not going anywhere.” He said it like it was a relief, like he’d been holding his breath.

            “I just want to go-“ I found the part in the curtain and just as I stuck my hand out of it, a pair of hands grabbed my wrist. “No!” I yelled and tried to yank my arm back. Doctor Bradford looked concerned for a moment and then he was gone. The room was gone, the lights.

            It took me a moment to get my bearings, but I recognized it to be the top of a roof. I also recognized I was about to be sick and fell to my knees. When the feeling had passed and I was done looking at my designated puke target site, I raised my head enough to see that someone was in front of me, also bent down.

            I started to tilt my head up further but found a lightly placed hand under my chin to guide my eyes up. It was the demon from this morning. Its eyes seemed to luminesce a yellow light in the dark and invoke my childhood fear of the monster under the bed. I pulled my head back, out of its hand and plopped on my butt. “Oh god-“

            “God? Does this mean you won’t talk to me?” it spoke in the demonic accent which had befit it so perfectly.

            “What?” I attempted a pathetic crawl backwards towards the ledge.

            “Nevermind. What trouble have you gotten yourself into?” it casually asked.

            “Me? I didn’t do anything. I’m just – what the hell are you doing here?”

            “I saw you on T.V., you were famous for five minutes today. I heard you were here.” He stood up and I had now just noticed he stood on quite an interesting pair of legs with elongated toes… something between a cat and a kangaroo. “It’s not nice to stare.” He broke my train of thought.

            “Oh, I- I’m not.” I did my best to look offended.

            “You were. It’s alright, I’m aware that they’re a little ‘different’. You may stare as long as you’d like within the next 5 seconds, and then we must go.” He posed with his hands on his hips and he looked off into-nowhere.

            I knelt forward to stand and he broke his pose to offer me a hand. Naturally I refused to take it and continued my path to the ledge of the building. I looked down at the traffic below and momentarily felt a dizzy-spell come on. I looked up at the demon, “I’m not going anywhere with you.”

            “Well then, let me take you back down to your doctor. I’m sure h-“

            “How am I supposed to know you’re not going to do anything?”

            “Oh fraulein, I am going to do many things.” He walked closer and sported a grin that I found unsettling, “but nothing quite as heinous as you may think. “ It was then we were interrupted by the roof access door slamming open. I turned my attention from the demon to see a pale figure with red eyes and a marking on his forehead come forth from the lit stairway. He stood still for a moment and we both just looked at him, “Verdammt,” it mumbled.

            Whoever the man was, he raised an arm and sent what looked like light out of his hand and sent the demon flying back off the building. I couldn’t help but look confused.

            “You seem to be getting around alright.” he started towards me and I began to feel like I had when the doctor had tried this; alarmed to say the least.

            “How did you-”

            “Let’s not worry about that now.” He was nearly 5 yards from me when he began to slow his pace. Perhaps he could sense how uneasy he was making me. He reached an open hand towards me and held it in the air, “Come and let us be on our way. You’ve caused quite enough commotion.”

            “I-?” I couldn’t quite wrap my mind around the amount of nonsensical things that were coming out of this guy’s mouth. “I’m not going with anyone!” I threw my hands in the air.

            “Either you come with me, or we will have to do this the hard way.”

            “The hard way?” I questioned, though I was more than positive that it was rhetorical. I had happened upon the edge at this point and took a moment to look at the traffic below, again. It was starting to feel more and more like home was out of reach and though I didn’t know why, I had several people trying to steer me away from any progress. Impulsively, I had gotten an idea, “I’ll take the hard way.” I said before stepping off the building and feeling my stomach climb to my throat as I fell 17 stories to the ground.

            When I hit the ground, I was shocked to open my eyes and find myself alive. I was even more shocked to find my face buried in someone’s shoulder. I pulled back, the two of us lying on the ground and found it to be the demon from earlier. “Shit!” I screeched and trying to push away from him. It let me go and I scurried onto my feet while it took its time.

            “Your language is atrocious.”

            “Your face i-,“ I stopped myself for two reasons; the first being he was a monster and I had no idea what his intentions were, and the second reason was that I was pretty sure he just saved my life. He looked momentarily fazed by what I was about to say, but quickly chased it away with a grin. “Look, I need to go-,” there was no telling when the next maniac would come for me next.

            “You don’t expect me to just let you go, do you?”

            “Kinda hoping you would.” I started planning out how I would evade him if he tried anything.

            “You just jumped off a building.” He had a laugh to his voice, as if I were somehow being ridiculous.

            “You saved me…”

            “You didn’t know that I would.” He had a point, but things were looking desperate up there.

            “I think I’ll be fine. I’ll keep clear of tall buildings.” I turned away from him, a brave move on my part, and tried getting an idea of where I was.

            “How are you planning on keeping clear of Sinister?” His voice lost all playfulness.

            “Who?”

            “Why was he looking for you?” He made his way towards me and I found myself frozen; at least that felt familiar- deer in headlights again.

            “How do you know he wasn’t looking for you?” I answered meekly.

            He paused for a moment, so maybe I brought up a valid point, “He pushed me off the building and you jumped on your own.” I took a step forward, away from him and he appeared in front of me in a cloud of smoke that unexpectedly materialized. “Going somewhere?”

            “Please,” I begged, “I just want to go home.”

            “Ja, und that is where I will take you.” He pulled me into him and I held still, waiting for the next thing to go wrong- but it didn’t.