Persistence of Memory

Persistence of Memory Chapter Thirty Three (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… consider them
HEXED!!!!! *wicked witch cackle * *ahem
* All better now! InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are
wonderful for archiving. J ProPhile the silent (or busy…) gets extra
musekibble for being a smutmuse and Morgan, I really am writing that fic! Really!
Readers/Reviewers: *swoon *
Thank you! J

 

 

 

Betsy
Braddock stared at the ceiling miserably.
She had not slept in nearly twenty four hours and was wondering if she
ever would again. The version of
Cerebro that Magneto had made was draining her energy and making her, she
thought, more than a little crazy. The
voices…the voices…[1] Child-like, she pulled the soft sheet up to
her chin and bit her lip. If that
kid can come and go, maybe…

“You’re
still awake?”

“Yes.”

Firestar
yawned widely. “Me, too. It’s almost eleven.”

“That’s
it?” Betsy sighed. “I thought it was
closer to dawn.”

“Is he
going to help?”

“I don’t
know. I can’t…”

“Blocked. I know.
Me, too.”

“Firestar…” Betsy sat up and sighed painfully, the room
swimming before hleepleep deprived eyes.
“How?”

“I made a
mistake. I made a big, huge, colossal
mista Sh She shifted to sit up,
swinging her legs over the edge of the bed.
“I’ll tell you what, though…I’m not staying. No way in Hell.”

“You know
we can’t leave.”

“What’s
this we?” Firestar stood shakily, her
own lack of sleep showing. “There’s
always a way.”

“Sit down,”
Betsy sighed. “There’s nowhere to go
tonight anyway.”

Firestar
shook her head. “I know somewhere. I think.
I’m pretty sure they’d help.”

Betsy fell
silent and Firestar thought the other woman had finally dozed off, but the
reason why became very evident a moment later.
The door to their shared room creaked open on hinges older than the two
of them combined and Magneto entered, followed by a man they both knew on sight
but had never actually spoken to. Betsy
blinked and stiffened, standing slowly, as if she were not in control of her
own body. Mesmero spoke with a slight
tinge of mirth in his voice. “We need
your skills again, Psylocke.”

Magneto
smiled genially at Firestar. “Ah,
you’re awake. Good. I have an errand for you.”

She opened
her mouth to protest but let it snap shut, thinking better of it. “Okay,” she said finally, sadly.

Mesmero
made an impatient noise in his throat.
“Why do you insist on treating them like they matter?”

“Your powers
are useful in their place, Mesmero,” Magneto said coolly, “but there is a time
and a place. Restraint is one of the
most important lessons you should learn if you ever hope to get anywhere in the
Brotherhood.”

The
tattooed man frowned but remained silent.
He locked eyes with Psylocke and the hypnotized woman trailed from the
room with stiff-legged steps as if she were fighting whatever control he had
over her. “What do you need me to do?”

“An
associate of mine is available to aide in my latest project. However, unfortunately, he needs…guidance.”

“Guidance?”

“Stop
parroting me, Firestar!” he snapped, his cool demeanor suddenly gone before
sliding back into place with almost visible effort. “I’m charging you with one of the most important tasks of this
project. I’ll send someone with you.”

“Who?” She hoped, deep down, it would be the blond
boy who Psylocke had asked to help her.


“Incubus.”

Firestar
choked on her scream as she felt a new presence fill her, twisting her essence and
shoving it aside, leaving her mind to look out of someone else’s eyes. She saw Magneto sag visibly, rubbing at his
chest as if it hurt him to be without Incubus.
“I’ll take her,” she heard her own voice say. “We’ll be back by dawn.”

“Be
careful. He’s difficult to control and
I need you too much to lose you to stupidity.”

“Of
course. You give me what I need to
survive and I’ll do the same for you.
Our deal.”

“Our…deal…”
Magneto breathed, sounding very old. As
if summoned, Sabretooth appeared in the doorway, assessing the tableau before
helping Magneto to his feet with uncommon gentility.

Firestar
wanted to fight and scream as she felt Incubus control her, but found herself
trapped in her own body. “You are not
strong enough to fight me, Firestar,” he said soothingly in her ear, from
within her mind. “It works better if
you relax…”

 



“Katzchen,
I brought you…” Kurt paused in the darkened doorway. He could hear Kitty’s
breathing, shallow and hitching, and smell a sick sweat, tinged with something
acidic and septic. “Katzchen?”

“Kurt?” she muremured weakly. “I don’t feel so
good.”

He dropped
the can of Sprite[2] and packet
of crackers, at her side before they could even hit the floor. “Kitty, look at me! Open your eyes!”

“I
think…ooooh. I feel really bad.” She exhaled and her eyes fluttered, the
whites showing under dark, damp lashes.


He tasted
fear on his tongue as he felt her clammy skin. “Kitty, listen to me.
I’m going to get Beast. Don’t
try to move!”

“I don’t
think I can,” she sighed. “Hurry,
please.”





“That feels
nice,” Beast sighed, leaning back into Cecilia’s hands. “I didn’t realize how much tension I carried
in my shoulders.”

“You walk
onr knr knuckles half the time. I’m
just surprised it isn’t more,” she said kindly. “Hank, have you given any thought to tomorrow?”

“That’s all
I have been thinking about,” he admitted, tilting his face up to look at
her. “Cecilia, it might be best if you
weren’t here when thportporter comes…”

“Why not?”
she countered, her hands stilling on his upper arms. “I’m a mutant, too.”

“But you’ve
worked so hard to remain private, to keep this out of the public eye…”

“They were
witnesses earlier. They saw Jean have
her…episode. They saw my own
reaction. People know. It’s only a matter of time before this gets
around to everyone in town.” She sighed
and slid around him to sit on his lap.
“Hank, don’t worry about me. I’m
a grown woman. If I can handle an
internship at the busiest emergency room in New York City, I can handle a nosy
reporter.”

Beast
sighed and pulled her closer, resting his chin atop her head. “Cecilia, I’ve been meaning to tell you
something for a while now…”

“Beast!” Kurt fairly screamed, crashing into a rack
of sterile bandages and knocking it to the ground.

Beast
almost dumped Cecilia from his lap as he hurried into the exam room, finding
Kurt panting in fading plume of sulphrous smoke, the metal rack tangled around
his legs and tail as he cursed it in German.
“Kurt, calm down!”

“Kitty!”

“What about
her?” Beast asked with growing worry.
“She’s sicker?”

“I think
she’s dying!”

“She has an
infection, Kurt…” Beast sighed, guilt
bubbling to the surface. He had
completed Kitty’s blood work to find she did have an elevated white blood cell count,
indicating an infection, but all his other tests and her symptoms had not given
him worry. Until now.

“Beast,
come on!” He plucked frantically at the
doctor’s sleeve. “I can port us.”

“No,”
Cecilia broke in. “He’s too big. I’m
about the same size as Jean…you can take me without much trouble. Hank, meet us up there.”

Kurt
swallowed a sob and grabbed Cecilia more roughly than she was expecting,
teleporting them both before she could manage a gasp. “Kitty,” Kurt said urgently, letting his hold on Cecilia go as
soon as they appeared in her room, “I’ve brought Doctor Reyes.”

“Hey,
Cecilia,” Kitty murmured. “I think
something popped.”

“I’m going
to turn on this lamp, okay, Kitty?
Close your eyes.” Cecilia did
gasp then as the dim light showed Kitty’s complexion as pale and greenish, her
skin mottled by sweat and almost no color, her freckles standing out
starkly. “Where does it hurt?”

“Nowhere,”
she breathed.

“Her
stomach hurt, like cramps,” Kurt supplied, taking Kitty’s limp hand and squeezing
it gently. “She had a little bit of a
fever ear.” r.”

“Kitty, I’m
going to touch your stomach, okay? If
it hurts, tell me. Loudly.” Cecilia gently palpated Kitty’s abdomen. “Damn it. Kurt, go get Logan. Tell him we’re going to need to take Kitty
to a hospital.”

“What is
it? What’s wrong?” Kurt said
desperately.

“No
hospital,” Kitty gasped. “No!” Ruth was
wrought large in her mind, the image of her in St Dymphna’s too great to bear.

“Shhh,”
Cecilia soothed. “Kurt, go, now!”

“I’ll be
right back,” he said to Kitty, kissing her as softly as he could manage so as
not to disturb her.

“You
promised…”

“And it
will be,” he said, disappearing again.

“What did
he promise?” Cecilia asked idly, seeking to distract Kitty as she again
palpated her abdomen.

“He said
everything would be okay…ooooh. Don’t
do that, please.”

“Okay,
Kitty. I’m going to be honest
here. I think you had appendicitis and
I think it ruptured. Your tummy is
really hard right now and that shows me you’ve got some big problems going on.
Did you feel a chill or a sharp pain recently?”

“Mmmmhmmm.”

“When?”
“When…when Logan and Kurt
left.” She opened one eye. “I don’t know what time.”

Cecilia
sighed. “You’re going to have to go to
thspitspital, Kitty. Beast can’t handle
this here. He doesn’t have the
facilities for surgery like this.”

“Surgery? No!” Kitty tried to sit up and failed,
crying out loud now. She shook her head
violently. “No! No surgery! No hospitals!”

“Don’t be
ridiculous, Half Pint,” Logan said, coming through the door with Kurt in tow,
looking more haggard than anyone would have thought possible. “Where’s Beast, damn it?”

“Here,” the
doctoid, id, lumbering through the door.


“Ruptured
appendix,” Cecilia said tersely. “She
needs surgery. Now.”

“Bayville
General is closest,” Logan said, letting Kurt past him to fret over Kitty.

“St
Dymphna’s is mutant-friendly,” Beast pointed out, feeling Kitty’s pulse and
nodding to Cecilia, who began preparing a syringe from the bag he had brought
up with him.

“But we’d
have to fire up the Blackbird and that’d take too long.”

“Call an
ambulance!” Kurt almost wailed. “She’s
had that shot! She’ll last through
surgery! She won’t phase!”

Beast
debated sedating Kurt. “Kitty, we’re going
to give you another dose of the shot that’ll block your mutation, okay? Logan and Kurt are going with you to the
hospital. Cecilia and I will meet you
there and act as your physicians of record.”

“Okay,” she
said with a whine in her voice. “I feel
so sick.”

Logan made
as if to pick her up. “Can I?” he asked
Beast hesitantly, pausing.

“It should
be okay…we want her to be as still as possible. We don’t want her heart pumping
the…” he hesitated to say poisons and amended it to “illness through her body
any faster than necessary.”

Logan
carefully picked up his foster daughter, wincing when she whimpered. “Elf, go get your holo and bring a
backup. This is gonna be a long night.”

Kurt
grabbed Cecilia’s arm as the other two men left. “Is she really going to be okay?
I promised her and…”

“This
happens every day, Kurt,” Cecilia soothed.
“Bayville General has a very good emergency department. She’ll be in
good hands.”

“You
promise?”

She smiled
tightly. “Go get your holo and meet us
downstairs. I’m going to call the
ambulance and notify Banshee and Forge.”

Kurt let
his panicked tears fall at her lack of a promise. “Okay. Okay…” He looked frantically around the room, sure
there was something in there Kitty would want or need. “She needs a change of clothes!”

“That can
wait,” Cecilia said. “She’ll be in
there a few days…”

Kurt nodded
again. “Okay.” His eyes lit on a purple dragon. “Lockheed! She needs Lockheed!”

Cecilia
sighed. “Get it. Let’s get going.”

Kurt
grabbed Lockheed and clutched it to his chest.
“I can ride in the ambulance with her?”

“Not if you
don’t get your holo!” she said sharply. “Kurt, let’s get a move on!”

“Ja,
okay!” Swallowing, he said, “But I
promised her everything would be okay…”






[1] Hm. Almost Sybil there… “The people, the
people, the people…”

[2] A
time-honored remedy for nausea. I
forever associate the smell and taste of Sprite and 7 Up with being sick. *shudder *