Persistence of Memory
folder
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,431
Reviews:
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0
Currently Reading:
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Category:
X-Men - Animated Series (all) › General
Rating:
Adult ++
Chapters:
57
Views:
7,431
Reviews:
68
Recommended:
0
Currently Reading:
0
Disclaimer:
I do not own X-Men Evolution, or any of the characters from it. I make no money from from the writing of this story.
9
Persistence of Memory Chapter Nine (NC-17)
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I wonder if that
Italian waiter misses us? ;) InterNutter (which chapters do you need
again?), TC and Maxwell Pink are marvelous people for archiving. J ProPhile gets Jennifer Connelly muses now to
go with the Salma Hayek ones. And I
don’t know if I want to know what he’s having the muses do… Readers/Reviewers: After a little slump of irksomeness, I think this is a much
better chapter than the last. And don’t
worry (you know who you are, lol)—they won’t stay apart—look at the future
fling, LOL. And mille, mille grazie for
reading and reviewing!
“Ah,
Professor Xavier! You’re awake!”
“Where…is
this a hospital?”
The nurse
quirked a brow and looked down at her uniform, then at him. “No. Welcome to Roscoe’s Chicken and
Waffles. May I take your order?”
Even in his
addled state, he could recognize sarcasm.
“What happened to me?” he asked, ignoring the jibe.
“We still
aren’t sure what caused it, but you passed out at home and fell into a brief
coma…you’ve been out less than forty eight hours.” She made a notation on his chart and fixed him with a smile. “You had some visitors last night…two
teenaged boys. They said you were their teacher. What do you teach?”
“I honestly
don’t…” he paused, scenes flashing before his eyes of diagrams, text books and
classrooms. “Psychology,” he said finally.
She smiled
wider. “Wow, that’s using your powers
for good, huh?” She trilled a laugh and
left him alone, going in search of his doctor.
Professor
Xavier sighed and folded his hands across his stomach. As much as he tried, he could only catch fragments
of memories and ideas from the ether in his mind and none of them seemed to
make sense. He saw a blue, fur-covered
man and a girl shifting into a wolf.
Another girl stuck her head and nothing else through a
door—literally. That image made him wonder
if maybe he was thinking of a movie, something about ghosts and monsters. Be calm, Charles. You just came out of a light coma. These are all just fever dreams, as it were,
images that don’t make sense because your mind is still recovering. He was diverted by the entrance of his
doctor, his face buried in a chart.
“Hello,” Professor Xavier said kindly.
“I’m sorry, “ I don’t know your name.”
“Doctor
Hall,” the man named himself, tuckine che chart under one arm and smiling
widely. “You almost gave us a scare,
Professor Xavier!” He began poking and
prodding his patient, checking the dilation of his pupils, palpating his neck,
abdomen and head just for good measure.
“Can you remember what happened before you fainted?”
“I was…” He closed his eyes and frowned. He saw a big, rounom, om, metal walls
soaring away from him. “I have no
idea.”
“Well,
that’s to be expected. Some minor
amnesia is typical after comas such as yours, especially in people with your
abilities.”
Powers…abilities…what
are they talking about? The
Professor jumped as he heard the doctor say, “Poor guy…hope it’s not
permanent.”
“Hope what
isn’t permanent?”
“Pardon?”
Doctor Hall looked decidedly guilty. “I
didn’t say anything.”
“You said
‘Poor guy…hope it’s not permanent.’ What
do you hope isn’t permanent?”
Instead of
answering him, the doctor shook his head.
“Now, now, Professor. No reading
in the ward. Now, I’ll have Nurse
Jameson call your friends who brought you in and let them know how you’re
doing. I need to run a few more tests
and you might even be able to go home tomorrow!”
Professor
Xavier nodded slowly and frowned deeply.
He was sure he had heard the doctor say something to him clearly, loudly
even. All side effects, he tried
to tell himself, slipping further beneath the sheets. Remnants of dreams… He closed his eyes, not willing to sleep but
needing some semblance of isolation as the hall teemed with traffic: nurses
coming and going, patients and families visiting, doctors sauntering. Who brought me here? A man…he smelled like pine needles and
cigars. A woman who reminds me of rain for some reason. A beautiful woman…White hair. Is she old?
She belongs to the man or he to her… The more he tried to remember,
the worse his head hurt.
“Charles?”
He opened
his eyes to find a woman in a soft looking track suit staring down at him. She has white hair…but no. It wasn’t her. “Yes?”
“I heard
you were awake,” she murmured, the fingers of one hand gesturing towards her
temple to indicate he did not know what.
“I wanted to come talk in person now.”
“I’m
sorry,” he said after a moment. “Do we
know each other?”
She raised
a brow and her smile faded. “Don’t play
dumb with me, Charles. It’s Emma.”
He
blinked. “Frost…wealthy
socialite…family is very old…we’ve met several times, yes?”
Her smile
returned faintly. “Yes. We’ve…met.”
She sank down into the chair next to his bed and crossed her legs
regally, folding her hands over her knee.
“You really don’t remember the circumstances under which we last met?”
He stared
at her for a long moment. “No,” he said
finally, blowing out a harsh breath. “I
remember you, but I must confess that the details are fuzzy. Were you…mad?”
“You could
say that,” she allowed, letting the double entendre stand. “Do you remember the Institute?”
He
frowned. “I seem to remember running a
school. Am I a principal? I think I’m a
teacher.”
“In a
manner of speaking,” she said, shrugging.
“Don’t tax yourself right away.
It will only give you a migraine and you don’t want the medication they
give you here. It makes it hard to
block them out.”
“Block them out?”
She cocked
her head to one side. Charles…
It toim
im
a moment to realize her mouth had not moved.
“How did you do that?”
The
same way you do…form a thought and let it flow from my mind to yours…My. I haven’t thought of the actual process
since I was ten or so… “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nurse!”
Kitty
contemplated her toenails. “I need to
repaint these,” she sighed.
Kurt looked
over her shoulder. “It’s forty degrees
outside, Schatz. Why are you wearing
sandals?”
“Because
it’s eighty inside and I didn’t get to wear these this summer, what with one
thing and another…” She glanced at the
clock over the stove and started. “Oh,
damn it! We’re gonna be late!”
Kurt
sighed. “Not that late, Kitty. We’ve got more than an hour…”
Kitty did
not respond but gulped down the last of her orange juice and phased through the
table, upsetting Rahne’s untouched applesauce as she became material again. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped.
Rahne waved
her off. “Forget about it. I’ve got it.”
Kitty
paused, torn between finding out why Rahne looked so miserable—tear streaked,
dark circles under her eyes and still in her pajamas at a quarter to seven on a
school day—and hurrying to get out the door.
She was saved from making a decision by the arrival of Jamie. Rahne made a choked noise, pushed her chair
back so hat fet fell over when she stood, and ran from the room. “Well,” Kitty said to the room in general,
“that was weird.”
Kurt shot
Jamie an apologetic look and dashed after Kitty. He caught up with her as she grabbed her bag from the sofa in the
rec room. “Katzchen, what’s going on? It only takes us fifteen minutes to get to
school and at this rate, we’ll be there before the doors are unlocked!”
She glanced
around furtively, seemed to find everything to her satisfaction, grabbed his
wrist and pulled him into the phone room off the foyer. “We’re not going to school today.”
He stared
at her for a moment. “Usually, I would
take that as good news…”
“We’re
going to go see the Professor. You
missed your visit with him last night anyway!”
“Ja,
because I was studying for a test that I have today!” He tipped Kitty’s chin upwards so she had to
look him in the eyes. “Kitty, I thought
you were letting this go…” At her mutinous expression, he sighed but did not
relinquish his hold. “I have to take
this test today, Liebes. If I miss any
more school, I don’t graduate!”
Kitty’s
expression wavered and became hard. “Fine.
I’ll go myself!”
“You’re not
being fair!” he said as she twisted from his grasp. “I’ll be more than happy to go with you after school! We can go when you get out at fifth period!”
She shook
her head, phasing from the tiny room and into the hallway. Kurt appeared in front of her in a
blink. “Kurt, we have to strike while
the iron’s hot!”
“Kitty,
have you ever considered medication?
Seriously? I think you’re
blowing things way out of proportion.”
“No one
believes me when I say that this isn’t right!
It’s not normal!”
“That’s why
he’s in a hospital, Kitty. Because
something isn’t normal.” Kurt sighed
anosedosed his eyes for a moment, thinking furiously. “If you promise me you’ll wait until after I take my test during
second period, I’ll figure out a way to get out of school so we can go, okay? I
won’t even say anything about you overreacting.”
Kitty bit
her lip and sighed. “Okay. Okay.
I’ll wait until second period.
But no later!” She turned on her
heel and flounced back towards the kitchen, her plans thwarted for the
moment.
Kurt
groaned inwardly, wondering just how he was going to get out of this mess, when
the beginnings of an unearthly noise ripped through the otherwise quiet
mansion. The sound built rapidly,
making his eyes water and very bones hurt.
He could not help it, he went to his knees even as his hands clamped
over his ears in futility. Kurt howled
himself, the sound torn from his chest, a cry of pain and confusion that he
could not help. The sound ended just as
suddenly as it began and there was a lull that seemed to crash down on the
mansion before pounding footsteps sounded overhead.
“Kurt!”
Kitty cried, stumbling back into the hallway.
She had a trickle of blood running from one ear as did Rahne, who followed
her dazedly. “Are you okay?” She could only imagine how awful it must
have been for someone with such sensitive hearing.
“Was?” he
cried. “Was?”
It was her
turn to force him to look at her. “Are
you okay?” she demanded, exaggerating the mouth movements.
“Was?”
“What the
Hell was that?” Lance panted, bursting through the front door. A cigarette,
half-smoked, hung from the corner of his lips, Todd practically shaking on his
heels.
“The new
girl,” Rahne sighed. “She came in very
early this morning.”
Kurt shook
his head hard. “Was?”
Disclaimers Apply
A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE ™, Prophetic Muse, Hamster Witch and Uberbeta… I wonder if that
Italian waiter misses us? ;) InterNutter (which chapters do you need
again?), TC and Maxwell Pink are marvelous people for archiving. J ProPhile gets Jennifer Connelly muses now to
go with the Salma Hayek ones. And I
don’t know if I want to know what he’s having the muses do… Readers/Reviewers: After a little slump of irksomeness, I think this is a much
better chapter than the last. And don’t
worry (you know who you are, lol)—they won’t stay apart—look at the future
fling, LOL. And mille, mille grazie for
reading and reviewing!
“Ah,
Professor Xavier! You’re awake!”
“Where…is
this a hospital?”
The nurse
quirked a brow and looked down at her uniform, then at him. “No. Welcome to Roscoe’s Chicken and
Waffles. May I take your order?”
Even in his
addled state, he could recognize sarcasm.
“What happened to me?” he asked, ignoring the jibe.
“We still
aren’t sure what caused it, but you passed out at home and fell into a brief
coma…you’ve been out less than forty eight hours.” She made a notation on his chart and fixed him with a smile. “You had some visitors last night…two
teenaged boys. They said you were their teacher. What do you teach?”
“I honestly
don’t…” he paused, scenes flashing before his eyes of diagrams, text books and
classrooms. “Psychology,” he said finally.
She smiled
wider. “Wow, that’s using your powers
for good, huh?” She trilled a laugh and
left him alone, going in search of his doctor.
Professor
Xavier sighed and folded his hands across his stomach. As much as he tried, he could only catch fragments
of memories and ideas from the ether in his mind and none of them seemed to
make sense. He saw a blue, fur-covered
man and a girl shifting into a wolf.
Another girl stuck her head and nothing else through a
door—literally. That image made him wonder
if maybe he was thinking of a movie, something about ghosts and monsters. Be calm, Charles. You just came out of a light coma. These are all just fever dreams, as it were,
images that don’t make sense because your mind is still recovering. He was diverted by the entrance of his
doctor, his face buried in a chart.
“Hello,” Professor Xavier said kindly.
“I’m sorry, “ I don’t know your name.”
“Doctor
Hall,” the man named himself, tuckine che chart under one arm and smiling
widely. “You almost gave us a scare,
Professor Xavier!” He began poking and
prodding his patient, checking the dilation of his pupils, palpating his neck,
abdomen and head just for good measure.
“Can you remember what happened before you fainted?”
“I was…” He closed his eyes and frowned. He saw a big, rounom, om, metal walls
soaring away from him. “I have no
idea.”
“Well,
that’s to be expected. Some minor
amnesia is typical after comas such as yours, especially in people with your
abilities.”
Powers…abilities…what
are they talking about? The
Professor jumped as he heard the doctor say, “Poor guy…hope it’s not
permanent.”
“Hope what
isn’t permanent?”
“Pardon?”
Doctor Hall looked decidedly guilty. “I
didn’t say anything.”
“You said
‘Poor guy…hope it’s not permanent.’ What
do you hope isn’t permanent?”
Instead of
answering him, the doctor shook his head.
“Now, now, Professor. No reading
in the ward. Now, I’ll have Nurse
Jameson call your friends who brought you in and let them know how you’re
doing. I need to run a few more tests
and you might even be able to go home tomorrow!”
Professor
Xavier nodded slowly and frowned deeply.
He was sure he had heard the doctor say something to him clearly, loudly
even. All side effects, he tried
to tell himself, slipping further beneath the sheets. Remnants of dreams… He closed his eyes, not willing to sleep but
needing some semblance of isolation as the hall teemed with traffic: nurses
coming and going, patients and families visiting, doctors sauntering. Who brought me here? A man…he smelled like pine needles and
cigars. A woman who reminds me of rain for some reason. A beautiful woman…White hair. Is she old?
She belongs to the man or he to her… The more he tried to remember,
the worse his head hurt.
“Charles?”
He opened
his eyes to find a woman in a soft looking track suit staring down at him. She has white hair…but no. It wasn’t her. “Yes?”
“I heard
you were awake,” she murmured, the fingers of one hand gesturing towards her
temple to indicate he did not know what.
“I wanted to come talk in person now.”
“I’m
sorry,” he said after a moment. “Do we
know each other?”
She raised
a brow and her smile faded. “Don’t play
dumb with me, Charles. It’s Emma.”
He
blinked. “Frost…wealthy
socialite…family is very old…we’ve met several times, yes?”
Her smile
returned faintly. “Yes. We’ve…met.”
She sank down into the chair next to his bed and crossed her legs
regally, folding her hands over her knee.
“You really don’t remember the circumstances under which we last met?”
He stared
at her for a long moment. “No,” he said
finally, blowing out a harsh breath. “I
remember you, but I must confess that the details are fuzzy. Were you…mad?”
“You could
say that,” she allowed, letting the double entendre stand. “Do you remember the Institute?”
He
frowned. “I seem to remember running a
school. Am I a principal? I think I’m a
teacher.”
“In a
manner of speaking,” she said, shrugging.
“Don’t tax yourself right away.
It will only give you a migraine and you don’t want the medication they
give you here. It makes it hard to
block them out.”
“Block them out?”
She cocked
her head to one side. Charles…
It toim
im
a moment to realize her mouth had not moved.
“How did you do that?”
The
same way you do…form a thought and let it flow from my mind to yours…My. I haven’t thought of the actual process
since I was ten or so… “Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Nurse!”
Kitty
contemplated her toenails. “I need to
repaint these,” she sighed.
Kurt looked
over her shoulder. “It’s forty degrees
outside, Schatz. Why are you wearing
sandals?”
“Because
it’s eighty inside and I didn’t get to wear these this summer, what with one
thing and another…” She glanced at the
clock over the stove and started. “Oh,
damn it! We’re gonna be late!”
Kurt
sighed. “Not that late, Kitty. We’ve got more than an hour…”
Kitty did
not respond but gulped down the last of her orange juice and phased through the
table, upsetting Rahne’s untouched applesauce as she became material again. “I’m so sorry,” she gasped.
Rahne waved
her off. “Forget about it. I’ve got it.”
Kitty
paused, torn between finding out why Rahne looked so miserable—tear streaked,
dark circles under her eyes and still in her pajamas at a quarter to seven on a
school day—and hurrying to get out the door.
She was saved from making a decision by the arrival of Jamie. Rahne made a choked noise, pushed her chair
back so hat fet fell over when she stood, and ran from the room. “Well,” Kitty said to the room in general,
“that was weird.”
Kurt shot
Jamie an apologetic look and dashed after Kitty. He caught up with her as she grabbed her bag from the sofa in the
rec room. “Katzchen, what’s going on? It only takes us fifteen minutes to get to
school and at this rate, we’ll be there before the doors are unlocked!”
She glanced
around furtively, seemed to find everything to her satisfaction, grabbed his
wrist and pulled him into the phone room off the foyer. “We’re not going to school today.”
He stared
at her for a moment. “Usually, I would
take that as good news…”
“We’re
going to go see the Professor. You
missed your visit with him last night anyway!”
“Ja,
because I was studying for a test that I have today!” He tipped Kitty’s chin upwards so she had to
look him in the eyes. “Kitty, I thought
you were letting this go…” At her mutinous expression, he sighed but did not
relinquish his hold. “I have to take
this test today, Liebes. If I miss any
more school, I don’t graduate!”
Kitty’s
expression wavered and became hard. “Fine.
I’ll go myself!”
“You’re not
being fair!” he said as she twisted from his grasp. “I’ll be more than happy to go with you after school! We can go when you get out at fifth period!”
She shook
her head, phasing from the tiny room and into the hallway. Kurt appeared in front of her in a
blink. “Kurt, we have to strike while
the iron’s hot!”
“Kitty,
have you ever considered medication?
Seriously? I think you’re
blowing things way out of proportion.”
“No one
believes me when I say that this isn’t right!
It’s not normal!”
“That’s why
he’s in a hospital, Kitty. Because
something isn’t normal.” Kurt sighed
anosedosed his eyes for a moment, thinking furiously. “If you promise me you’ll wait until after I take my test during
second period, I’ll figure out a way to get out of school so we can go, okay? I
won’t even say anything about you overreacting.”
Kitty bit
her lip and sighed. “Okay. Okay.
I’ll wait until second period.
But no later!” She turned on her
heel and flounced back towards the kitchen, her plans thwarted for the
moment.
Kurt
groaned inwardly, wondering just how he was going to get out of this mess, when
the beginnings of an unearthly noise ripped through the otherwise quiet
mansion. The sound built rapidly,
making his eyes water and very bones hurt.
He could not help it, he went to his knees even as his hands clamped
over his ears in futility. Kurt howled
himself, the sound torn from his chest, a cry of pain and confusion that he
could not help. The sound ended just as
suddenly as it began and there was a lull that seemed to crash down on the
mansion before pounding footsteps sounded overhead.
“Kurt!”
Kitty cried, stumbling back into the hallway.
She had a trickle of blood running from one ear as did Rahne, who followed
her dazedly. “Are you okay?” She could only imagine how awful it must
have been for someone with such sensitive hearing.
“Was?” he
cried. “Was?”
It was her
turn to force him to look at her. “Are
you okay?” she demanded, exaggerating the mouth movements.
“Was?”
“What the
Hell was that?” Lance panted, bursting through the front door. A cigarette,
half-smoked, hung from the corner of his lips, Todd practically shaking on his
heels.
“The new
girl,” Rahne sighed. “She came in very
early this morning.”
Kurt shook
his head hard. “Was?”