Eloi

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… Yes, that too. ;) InterNutter, TC, Maxwell Pink, Dracena and Greywolf are loverly and wondermous for archiving/hosting. J ProPhile: “be right back” my eye. ;) Morgan: *waves * Howdy. Readers/Reviewers: A few more chapters to go and as always, my caveat… There *will * be loose ends but the ends will be picked up in the next arc of the fic. J Thanks for reading/reviewing as you can!

Cecilia felt sick with fear and uncertainty. The sour taste of bilious acid filled her mouth and she swallowed it back. I will not be sick. I refuse to be sick. Her hands shaking only a little, she deftly injected Paige with a small dose of anti-seizure medication, retrieved from her office after a litany of sworn promises to Caliban. I should just get up and leave. Call an ambulance. They’ll surely be here and gone by the time that weirdo gets back… she had thought as the door closed behind the Morlock. Paige’s pale body shook and Cecilia sighed. Something ineffable, something stronger than her fear and anxiety and anger, kept her in place. Paige was, technically, doing fine. She was breathing on her own, the bleeding had stopped and the seizures were under control. She needed, Cecilia knew, a brain scan to make sure there was no brain damage going on, but for now, she was ‘fine.’

“When she dies, it will be blamed on Morlocks,” Caliban’s soft voice came from the shadows. They were in a building near Cecilia’s apartment, an old department store long empty but used for storage by a different company. Rows of boxes reached towards the ceiling, casting odd shapes through the half-light of the security lamps overhead.

“Because if she dies,” Cecilia spat, “it will be the fault of a Morlock!” She stood and began pacing, pushing her braids from her face. It was hot in the old store, almost stifling. Spring had turned to summer with a vengeance while she was not looking, casting a humid pall over the city. “We need to move her again. This place is too warm. I can’t tell if she has a fever or if it’s just the ambient temperature of the room.”

“We are safe here, for now,” Caliban murmured, his eyes never leaving Paige. “If we move, we will be found. They are moving around us, beneath us. They know I am here. They know I am not alone.” His eyes found Cecilia’s in the dark. “You do not understand because you cannot. You do not know what it’s like, being exiled because of something you cannot help. Being persecuted, tormented…”

The doctor stared at him with incredulity. “Excuse me?” She took several steps towards the Morlock, stopping just short of arm’s reach.

Caliban sighed, his gaze raking over her form. “Your skin color is nothing. You are not forced to live below the streets, hunted like a beast!”

“I am not going to play the ‘my history is more tragic than yours’ game with you,” she sighed, her fingers pressing over her eyes as if to block the coming migraine. “Look, I know you think that my friends will hurt you or something worse but at least let me take her to Doctor McCoy at the Xavier Institute. He’s a mutant, too. He’ll help her and keep her safe.” She exhaled, a sigh rending the air with it’s pain. “Please?”

Caliban stood, taller than Cecilia realized on first impression, and stared down at Paige. “ She is my hostage. She is my example…” his gaze flickered to Cecilia. “As are you.”

“Take me as your hostage and leave her with Doctor McCoy. I’m healthy, I can stand being a prisoner. She can’t,” Cecilia said angrily, pointing at Paige. A shiver of movement caught Cecilia’s attention and she paused. She was sure she had seen Paige move, just a hint of life going through her limbs, but she did not want to alert Caliban to the possibility. “At least tell me what we’re hostages for! Is it money? Fame? Please, give me at least that much information!”

Caliban looked at her carefully, trying to peel away layers of artifice, and sighed anew. “The Eloi have long trampled the Morlocks, not knowing that it is because of us that you exist. We are tired of being your chattel. You do not realize that we feed off of you, you are our symbiotic siblings in this un-life we both live. But you, you Eloi… you move among them as if you were gods on earth. Empowered, beautiful, unmarred by reality. Morlocks, we live in the slime and dirt of the Earth herself. We are ignored, feared and ugly. Our beauty is in our scars. Our life is the reality you reject.” He moved suddenly then, practically leaping across Paige and pinning Cecilia to the wall behind her. His hand at her throat was surprisingly dry and warm, not clammy like she had assumed it would be. His large eyes were fierce as he cut off her breath, enforcing her silence. “Callisto is a fool. She thinks she can bring us to the surface in a blaze of glory. It is not as simple as that. They are using her as much as we are using you. You will find,” he paused, easing the pressure on Cecilia’s throat, “that we are more alike than you ever imagined.”

“The fighting,” she gasped, trying to regain her breath and talk at the same time. “ What was the fighting we heard?”

“Us,” he smiled. “And Them.”

She heard the capital in the word. “Them? You mean…Eloi?”

“Worse than Eloi. Those who wish they were Eloi, who think they are Eloi. The Friends of Humanity,” Caliban spat. “Slime on the belly of the world.”

Cecila’s face creased into a frown. “I know that name,” she murmured, her fingers going to her throat, rubbing Caliban’s marks as if she could erase them.

“They know of mutants,” he said plainly. “And seek to destroy us.” After a brief pause, he added, “All of us. Eloi and Morlock alike.”

“We have a common enemy then,” she smiled, hoping that she had an opening with him now.

“No, we do not. It is because of the Eloi that we are hunted. You hide amongst them, looking and acting and living just like them. This frightens them more than anything, the idea that someone so ‘normal’ is a mutant.” His smile became edged. “At least Morlocks do them the courtesy of being hideous.”

“So what are you going to do with us?” she asked, anger plain in her tone. “The hate mongerers won’t care if you kill us, neither will the Morlocks.”

“Maybe,” he shrugged. “But Charles Xavier will.”