Subject: [OTL]: (New Mutants/X-Men) The Awakening 1/1
Date: Fri, 16 Jun 2000 16:42:13 -0700
From: Magik ! <magikfanfic@hotmail.com>

Not sure how good this is. At least I'm back to writing though.

Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for
non-profit entertainment purposes only. The story belongs to me.

Note: Alternate future ahead. Danger! Danger!

The Awakening

By Magik

One morning, upon opening her eyes and finding that he had ambled off
somewhere--again--it finally dawned upon her, the full blow, the telltale
punch of realization.  It had started a few months ago as a quiet,
whimpering doubt, a suspicion that stuck its head out every once in a while,
drawing her attention to things she had not fully noticed before, the little
flaws in the foundation of their relationship that her eyes--dewy with
love--had not been able to see. At first, she had pushed the clues away,
scolding herself harshly for being so pessimistic as to try and demean the
relationship by nit-picking it. Every person had quirks, ever partnership
its rough spots. Nothing was ever perfect, not even love, so she had lived
with it, decided to stick it out, give it the old college try, as her first
teacher might have said had his life gone in a totally different direction.

Suddenly, the picture on the nightstand spoke volumes. No longer did it
scream of two people in love, their relationship having already blossomed
and settled into smooth sailing on the calm sea, but of two people,
pretending. Illyana noticed that she herself looked...preoccupied, as if her
mind had slipped off onto something else already, her attention diverted
before the camera could even have gone off. Although her smile was full, it
appeared fake, a magazine smile, that at first glance you take to be real
but find the sorrow hidden behind it upon looking closer and truly
contemplating it. Roberto, already taking on the stature and set jaw of a
man, rather than the rage-filled boy he had joined the New Mutants as, had
an edge of iciness to his posture. The arm wrapped around her waist was held
stiffly, as though he was posing with his worst enemy or a complete
stranger, someone he wasn't at all comfortable with. The deep brown eyes
that had once been overflowing with laughter were now glazed, either in
boredom or displeasure.

Brushing strands of light blonde hair out of her eyes, Illyana reached out a
pale, thin hand and turned the picture over, not wishing to have the truth
spelled out there before her, not liking the idea that the photo developers
had known her secret before she did. How many years had it been, she
wondered as she stood up and slipped her arms into the robe that had been
draped over the desk chair? A long time, she was sure of that. Years, even.
They showed on her face, little lines that danced merrily around her eyes
and mouth, laugh lines that were pulling down now as she frowned.

The mirror reflected her face back to her, spinning tales about a girl who
had been through hell and more, whose soul and heart had been fiercely
guarded behind locked doors and mental walls, and the boy, with the dark
hair and a soul that echoed her pain, who had come, not riding a white horse
but what of it, and saved her from the voids of herself. Once she had stared
into her mirror, watched her ice blue eyes as they glowed, truly infused
with the light of love, the hope, the all-encompassing feeling of belonging
to someone body and soul, of connecting. Her fingertips traced futilely over
the glass, trying to ease the hurt out of the features that were suspended
there and the eyes that no longer glowed but seemed tearful, before even the
thought of tears had had time to reach them.

Facing the glass, watching the movement of her eyes and the way the sunlight
skirted the edges of her hair, she saw herself for perhaps the first time in
all of her years with Roberto. She was twenty-three. It was a far cry from
the seventeen year old whose heart had been dazzled by the thought of
spending her life with her dark skinned savior, the only person who seemed
to understand the pain, the darkness that brewed inside her, the guilt.
Seventeen was still too much of a child, far too naive to be allowed to slip
into the solidity of a serious relationship, such as the one she and Roberto
had allowed themselves to enter. Why had no one told her? Why hadn't they
stopped her?

Shaking her head, she turned away from the dresser, wanting to put as much
distance between herself and those all too soulful eyes as possible. She
couldn't have expected anyone to tell her what to do. Moreover, she should
not have expected it. They were all children, tossed back and forth across
the fire by life, burned, scarred, searching for love wherever it could be
found. There was no way they would have moved to deprive her of happiness
and Illyana was forced to admit that there had been a time when she was
blissfully happy, when the moon seemed to rise and set because Roberto was
there. Everything good seemed to come from him and nothing was wrong when
she stood in his shadow or by his side.

She had never been allowed to be weak, to show the full spectrum of her
feelings, to let all the vulnerability and sorrow inside her leak through
the armor until Roberto showed her that it was okay, he would protect her
through anything. He would never leave her. Never. It had been nice to have
the freedom to fall apart if she needed to. It had been heaven to let go and
cry and be comforted, to not have to hold it all inside anymore.

Where had everything gone wrong? When did it stop being fun and exciting and
become a routine?

There was the sound of running feet as the New Mutants hurried past, already
late to their first class. In the back of her mind, Illyana laughed,
remembering the time she had been a novice, a member of the younger team.
Now she was one of the X-Men, a full-fledged member along with Roberto and
Kitty and Dani. They were the only ones who had made the transition from New
Mutant to X-Man.

Sam was in Kentucky, working hard on his father's farm, married to some
blonde haired, blue eyed country girl who wore overalls and a ponytail. They
took care of the land and his younger siblings, who had been orphaned four
years ago when Mrs. Guthrie died of a heart attack. Paige, Sam's younger
sister, was a member of the New Mutants and Illyana expected more of the
clan to be along any day. Rahne had gone to Muir when Moira was laid low
with breast cancer two years ago and had stayed there ever since, becoming
quite the scientist and serving, periodically, on a Britain-based super-hero
team named Excalibur. Doug, after trying to make it as an X-Man, finally
gave up and followed Rahne to Muir. She had welcomed him with open arms and,
if Illyana's memory served her correctly, they were engaged. Warlock had
disappeared after Doug's departure. Shan had gone looking for her missing
siblings, only to find their graves and, since then, had taken to stalking
their killers. Occasionally, Illyana went with her, eager for the chance to
wreck revenge on someone. Amara was still playing the part of princess of
Nova Roma, only now she had included Empath in her elaborate fantasy.
Professor Xavier, who had abandoned them to Magneto's care, was still in
space somewhere, cruising with his alien love, oblivious to his duties.
Illyana wished him well.

Two years prior, Magneto had suffered a complete breakdown and then sunk
into a depression so deep that he barely even acknowledged the presence of
his children, Wanda and Pietro, when they came to visit. Eventually, he had
left all together. No one knew where he had slunk off too but there were
rumors circulating that he was again gathering mutants to his side to begin
anew the war on humanity. The time for the tyrant of old had passed, that
much was clear, and Illyana recalled, quite vividly, standing in front of
the grave, eyes fixed on the blank marble tombstone, fulfilling the dying
wish of her mentor.

It had been a harsh winter morning when the call came through, barely,
filled with static, on her cellphone. The way his voice quavered had
unsettled her, this man who seemed to be made of rock, laid low by something
as simple as pneumonia, dying under an assumed name in a run-down
Yugoslavian hospital.

"Illyana," he had rasped, breath rattling.

"Magnus? Is that you?"

The phone crackled. "Yes, child."

"What's wrong?"

There had been a pause that, even months later, she had never been able to
determine whether it was the connection or Magnus trying to sort out what to
say. "I'm dying."

Stunned, she had slipped down the kitchen wall, her knees refusing to
support her. "What?"

"I'm dying, Illyana." There came the sound of coughing, weak, old man like
and Illyana had to remind herself of what he looked like in his glory days,
before he had led the New Mutants, before he had been defeated, when he was
still the head of the Brotherhood of Evil Mutants. Recalling his power, his
majesty, was the only way to keep from breaking down into heart-wrenching
sobs. But she couldn't let him hear her cry. He expected more from her.

"I heard you. Where are you?"

In the beginning, teacher and student had fought each other at every step;
two souls with so much pain in common that it formed tension between them.
He tried to use too much authority, to protect the New Mutants as he had
failed to protect the daughter that had died so many, many years ago.
Illyana resented all authority figures except Xavier, who had represented 
a calm and diligent force in her mind, someone who didn't command but
suggested. Xavier had protected them in such a way that it didn't feel like
protection, it felt like concern, the kind of concern that people who
respect each other have for one another. Magnus had treated them like
children and that was where the new headmaster and his student had clashed.
Years and tragedies have a way of changing things, however, and the old
quarrels were soon long forgotten. The shared pain became a link instead of
a conflict and Illyana learned that everyone has demons that must be fought,
must be locked away to protect the good. Their common bond was evil and how
close they both were to it, how they had felt its nearly infinite power and
then taken a step back for the simple reason that they knew it led to
nowhere they wanted to be. And now he was calling her, telling her he was
dying. People like Magnus, and Illyana herself, were not supposed to die.
They were supposed to continue on, until the end of time, fighting the good
fight, continuously suppressing the baser instincts that hinged on power and
evil. They were meant to be legends, fairytales.

What rumbled over the phone might have been laughter. "Can't tell you."

"Magnus."

"Don't take that tone with me, child."

Illyana sighed and hung her head. "I'm not a child. That was always your
biggest character flaw, the inability to believe that we were adults, that
everything we had been through had made us as hard and mature as you were."

"I don't want to argue, Illyana. I'm dying. I want to ask something of you."
She heard the beginnings of a sob within the rasp and rattle of another
dying cough.

Puddles formed on the Formica, the result of the salt tears spilling down
her cheeks, which had hollowed out in the recent years. "Anything, Magnus."

Brokenly, he gasped for breath, liquid moving in his lungs with each intake
of air, the sound amplified over the phone. "Let the rumors live. Let the
memory live."

And Illyana ran her long nails over her lips silently, not saying a thing,
barely breathing, feeling the warmth slip from her eyes, detached from the
pain. "Live as a legend," she whispered, hoping he wouldn't hear.

"For ones such as us, dear child, it is the best way, the only way." One
last sob/cough and the phone went dead, shutting Illyana off from her mentor
forever.

Later she would berate herself for having traced the call in the first
place. Guilt and anger would overwhelm her, leaving her shuddering and
crying in her sleep. She never breathed a word of it to anyone, not even to
Roberto who held her all those nights and ran his fingers through her hair,
trying to calm her, which was as fruitless as trying to stop a tempest with
words. Then, in the only act of penance she could think of, she had taken a
leave of absence and flown to Yugoslavia, despite the fact that she hated
airplanes. The hospital staff hadn't been too cooperative but she had
finally convinced them to give her the location of the cemetery he had been
buried in. But, upon seeing the blank headstone and flowerless grave, she
felt worse than she would have ever imagined possible and returned to the
school with a heavy heart, soul weighed down with a secret that would haunt
her nights forever.

Since that time, the rooster of the X-Men had shifted drastically, new
members coming in, old ones leaving. For three months it only seemed to be
Dani, Kitty, Roberto, and herself on active membership. Things had leveled
off again when Storm returned from reaches unknown, possessing a sharp
increase in power and a new aloof proficiency that reminded people of
Cyclops. It was under her leadership that the team had congealed into what
it was today. There were the active members, consisting of Dani, Kitty,
Roberto, Illyana, Storm, a newcomer called Gambit, Dazzler, Longshot,
Archangel, Wolverine and Psylocke. Then there were the senior members, who
were there to teach the New Mutants. They included Cyclops, Jean
Grey-Summers, the Beast, and Iceman. The last faction of the X-Men was the
alternate members, those lucky individuals who didn't feel the lure of
heroism in their blood twenty-four/seven, pushing them on and on. They were
free to live normal lives, pursue the goals that they had always intended
to. The list was in a continuous state of flux but, if need be, there was
always someone who was willing to part with the everyday world and help.
Such members included Alex and Lorna Summers, Banshee, Forge, and an English
bloke named Pete Wisdom whom Kitty had met when she went to visit Rahne on
Muir.

Illyana didn't quite approve of her best friend's choice for a boyfriend but
Kitty was old enough to take care of herself and, besides she deserved some
happiness. What really bothered her was the name thing. Pete Wisdom. Peter
Rasputin. It was enough to warp anyone's brain and Illyana hoped that Kitty
hadn't hooked up with the foul-mouthed Brit just because of the name.
Illyana bowed her head for a second, observing a moment of silence for both
Magnus and her slaughtered brother, Peter, who had died at the hands of
Mikhail, the eldest of the Rasputin children. Mikhail, insane as all get
out, had been devising an elaborate plan to take over the world and it was
only because of Peter's sacrifice that his plan had been thwarted.

"Rest in peace, Piotr," she whispered as she gazed at his picture, hanging
perfectly in its gilt gold frame on the wall.

Shaking her hair out so that it fell like a waterfall of pale sunlight down
her back, Illyana smoothed her hands over her clothes and then stepped out
in the hall. A few New Mutants were still hurrying down the halls, moving
quickly to catch up with their teammates and hoping that they wouldn't be
disciplined too badly. An auburn haired girl, strolling carelessly as though
she didn't have a care in the world, turned and smiled at Illyana.  "Ms.
Rasputin," she greeted, with a slight incline of her head.

"Shouldn't you be in class, Autumn?" Illyana questioned.

The girl shrugged, her eyes sparkling like a pair of aurora borealis stones.
"They'll wait." She spun on her toes, her loose, pleated blue skirt twirling
around her ankles while her fingers played with the bows on the sleeves of
her cream peasant blouse.

"Not forever." It was said firmly, but with an air of lightness, so that it
wouldn't sound like a command but a suggestion. Illyana had picked it up
from Dani.

Autumn laughed and rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay, I'll go. See you later, Ms.
Rasputin." With that, she turned and started off towards the library, still
moving with that carefree stride of hers.

Unwanted memories of her time with the New Mutants rushed back at Illyana,
flooding her senses with the remembrance. They had been the first and,
consequently, had made the most mistakes, had been allowed the most freedom.
Images flickered through her mind as she walked down the hall, pictures of
herself as she had been then, withdrawn in the beginning and then outspoken,
not caring what everyone else thought, keeping everything of herself to
herself for her rage, her determined dedication to ensure that others not
have to face the kind of evil that she had.  That was back when the
Darkchilde still reigned supreme in her heart, when the scars of Limbo and
S'ym and Belasco when still so fresh on her soul that, at night, she could
still feel the blood rush across her skin, still draw away from the shadows
as if they had claws. For years she had slept with a dagger under her
pillow, ready if anything should reach out from the nightmare that was her
past and try to harm her again.

How had everything changed so drastically? It was getting hard to remember
those times, the simple times when she was just the battle of light versus
dark trapped into flesh, before her power had been stripped away by Jennifer
Kale and Dr. Strange. The two magicians said it would be for the best and so
they had come and stolen three-fifths of her soul, they had left her empty
and broken and sobbing for days because of the void the loss had left in her
heart. And she thought she had been hollow before. It was nothing compared
to how she felt after her powers were gone.

It was during this time, this short hiatus into misery, that she and Roberto
found each other. He had always been afraid of her, written her off as a
witch who could serve as either ally or enemy but he didn't trust her enough
to turn his back on her for more than a minute. Now, he saw her as something
else, as someone else. Someone who could cry, as full of pain as he had been
after the loss of his Julianna. It had startled him, as it had all of her
teammates, this sudden overflowing of emotion from her, this human side that
had never been allowed to poke its head out because it meant a loss of that
scale balancing control she had honed over the years.

It had been perhaps a week when Roberto had come knocking on her bedroom
door. "Illyana," he'd called in at her, voice low, softer and more gentle
than she had ever imagined his voice capable of being.

The weeping had left her by this time; everything seemed to have fled from
her soul, so that the only thing she could feel was the gaping maw of
nothingness inside of her. "What do you want?" she inquired, voice flat.

The door cracked open and Roberto's head peeked in around it. A slightly sad
look came over his face when he saw how Illyana had been reduced to a pale,
thin ghost of what she had been, stretched across her bed, hair fanned over
her pillow, eyes listless and roaming and filled with tears that could no
longer make the effort to be cried. "I came to see how you were."

"Spectacular. Will you leave now?" The ability to remain sarcastic and
bitter would have astonished her, had she any will left to be astonished. As
it was she could barely even handle cynical indifference, preferring to lie
there in silence and not speak and not think and not dwell on what had
happened to her, on all the many things that had happened to her.

"Do you want me to leave?" His eyes were two dark coals, blazing fire
through the mist that seemed to swallow her up.

Illyana had shrugged but made no effort to sit up as he wandered around the
room and, finally, came to rest beside her desk chair. Silently, he turned
it to face the bed and sat down, watching her the whole time. "Why are you
here?"

"I was worried."

"Why?"

With a sigh, but not one of his frustrated, on the verge of losing his
temper sighs, he spread his arms wide, indicating the room, the whole
ambiance of the place. "This isn't like you, Illyana. To crawl away from
your problems and just stay here, in this room, slowly dying."

The room had changed, Illyana noticed. Once it had felt a little like home,
like Limbo, like Russia, like her. Something had filled it, made her feel
comfortable, like it was someplace she belonged, somewhere she was supposed
to be. Now it felt tight, confined, and alien. Had the strength, the will,
remained, she would have left. "I'm already dead, Roberto. I'm dead inside,
in my soul, in my heart."

"I do not believe that."

Now it was her turn to sigh. She might have in that lost moment of time that
it took her to recognize that she was beginning to get aggravated at
Roberto, an emotion was stirring inside her. "Why?"

A hand, long fingered and elegantly formed, brushed through dark curls. "You
are a fighter, Illyana. You have been through hell and you never gave up. I
refuse to believe that you would give up now. You are better than that."

"You don't know anything about me, Roberto. Can't you just leave me alone?"

"You don't want to be left alone."

Anger filled her, a rush that made her heart pump again, her lungs take
their first real breath in ages. The blue eyes turned icy again, the look
that had been able to make the Hellion tremble, and she pushed herself to a
sitting position without even realizing it. Color flooded back into the
cheeks that had grown so pale the skin seemed translucent and blue-tinged.
"How the hell do you know what I want? I want my powers back. I don't care
if I am a demon. I don't care anymore. It hurts. It hurts to have most of
your soul torn out of you. I hurt. I'm empty and lost and I don't know what
to do anymore and where the hell do you get the right to tell me that I
don't want to be left alone." She stopped screaming because the sobs
overwhelmed her, choked her, closed her throat up, and made the tears run
down her cheeks.

Roberto got up from the chair, slowly, gracefully, and walked over to her.
His hand brushed her cheek; the skin soft and cool against her warm, fever
inflamed skin. "Not so empty after all," he whispered to her, a sad smile
lighting his face and then he held her, letting her cry, smoothing her hair,
telling her that it was okay, it would stop hurting eventually, and that he
would help her get over it.

That had been the beginning of their romance, tragic and hopeful, speaking
of lots of times of pain to come, of hardships, of tears and arguments. They
had gotten through it, though, even to this day, Illyana had no idea how the
pieces had all come together. She had been hell during that period of time,
bitter and angry, but Roberto had been able to make everything better just
with a smile or a touch of his hand. He made everything seem whole again,
even her. It had been hard, difficult, and well worth the fight.

What had happened? How had that pure love been tarnished? Or had they just
grown apart, as people are apt to do? When had she stopped needing him?

Illyana had never been good at needing people, it never occurred to her that
they could hold anything for her that she herself couldn't get. After the
purging of her powers, she had seen how wrong she was. She needed people
then, craved friendship and love and supporting pillars to hold her up when
she started to fall. Was it possible that the reawakening of her powers had
been the thing that had driven a wedge between her and Roberto?

On that fateful day when her powers, her very soul it felt like, had been
peeled away from her body as she screamed, Jennifer Kale had been at her
side afterwards, eyes aglow. "It never goes away completely. It's in the
blood, the soul, the mind, it permeates the body, becomes part of it. No
power on earth can get all of it."

"What are you talking about?" Illyana had asked, the words muffled by her
sobs and her aching throat.

"The magic, Illyana. It's yours. It will always be there."

Three years after the cleansing, which had occurred when she was seventeen,
Illyana had been walking through the grounds of Xavier's school, feeling
useless and unimportant, as she always did when the New Mutants were out on
a mission. It had started as a tickle at the bottom of her heart, like it
had missed a beat or something problematic like that. She had stopped her
strolling and gazed at the trees towering over her, remembering how she had
sat under one with another dimension's version of Ororo and learned how to
look at things with the eyes of magic, of power. After another second of
peace, it hit her full tilt, causing her to suck in her breath and grab onto
the nearest tree for support.

She closed her eyes, willing it to stop because it was just too much for
her, too much feelings, too many sensations but it continued, pulsing
through her, waking her up. It was so pure now, so clear and free, nothing
like before, no taint to it, no taint in her. Now it was just beautiful,
like her, like the soul she had once had.

Around her neck the pendant formed, humming, pulling away from her skin.
Opening her eyes, her fingers tightening around the gold chain, she recalled
that Jennifer had stolen it away, saying that it was an unbreakable link and
would only cause pain. Hands shaking, afraid of what she'd find, Illyana had
opened the face and stared inside, at the five empty holes. Tears of joy
dripped from her eyes as she realized that she was free now, it was all
over, like a nightmare, gone with the day, with the light.

Limbo, once she had regained her sense enough to teleport there, was a
crumbling world. It had been transformed, transfigured, by evil for so long
that it was having trouble altering itself to fit the purity that was
flowing through it. There were still demons, misguided souls, skittering
around the edges of the deserts and playing in the endless hallways of
Belasco's castle, which was melting away into the mist, an illusion on the
edge of one's vision. There would always be demons, Illyana realized,
because there were demons in every human heart, hers included, maybe hers
more than others. But the demons would serve as reminders; they would be
warnings of what she could become if she allowed the power to corrupt her,
if she became as greedy as Belasco did before her. It was her world now, a
strange combination of Siberia and Massachusetts, with scatterings of the
other places she had traveled to in her short life.  Limbo was beautiful and
it hummed songs of thanks into her veins.

No longer did the Darkchilde rule supreme in this world. There was no need
for her here for S'ym had been uncreated and the other demons were content,
still cruel at heart but now they had the knowledge that there were better
things to be, other ways to live their lives, and that their mistress has
done this for them. For once, they had a master who was gentle and kind.
They praised the Lightchilde, they cried out to her as she walked along the
ruins that reminded her of Muir and England.

Nobody wanted to believe it at first. To them it had become easier to look
at Illyana and see a human girl, someone to protect instead of a former
mutant whose powers had been striped from her while they watched, trapped by
binding magic, unable to lift a finger to help one of their own. And when
her powers came back they were reminded of their shortcomings and that hurt,
so they choose denial, saying they might fade away again and that they
weren't trust worthy enough for her to rejoin the team.

As hard as losing her powers had been, Illyana found that regaining them
seemed to be even harder. She had to prove herself every step of the way
and, by this time, the New Mutants were beginning to disband, changing into
one of the many incarnations of the X-Men that followed in the next three
years. Even Roberto, who had promised that he loved her more than life
itself, wasn't ready to allow her back into the fold, didn't think she was
ready.

"Why don't you believe me?" she asked him one night when they were sitting
in the living room, he picking through a book while she gazed out at the
windows.

"Please, Illyana, just give me time to adjust," he said and turned the page.

Outside, rain fell, creating a curtain of water that hung over the glass.
"You don't want me to have my powers back." Then she laughed, bitter,
haunting laugh. "That's it, isn't it? You want me to be weak and human
forever."

Roberto shut the book, placing the bookmark in before doing so. "What makes
you think that?"

"You don't accept the powers and you said you liked protecting me."

"You've never needed protection, not even when you were without your powers.
Give you a sword or a long stick and you could take anybody out. You got
very good at that, Illyana. You became an excellent sword fighter and a
hand-to-hand fighter, as well."

Her fingers pressed against the window, feeling the coolness of the rain.
"But I never got to go on missions."

With a sigh, he ran a hand through his dark curls. "It was too dangerous."

"Well, it's not anymore. I have my powers back. I'm Magik again. Damn it,
Roberto, why won't you let me do this? Everyone wants me to prove myself,
prove that the powers are reliable and true, but no one will give me the
chance. Why?" Illyana turned to face him, unaware that the armor was
building up inside her eyes again, that her feelings were locking themselves
behind a wall that wasn't of her own making, but an unconscious reaction.

"We don't want to lose you again."

"You won't! I told you, the Darkchilde is dead. She lives no more, Roberto.
There's just me now." Her hands clenched the arms of the chair and her blond
hair fell over her shoulders, forming a thin veil across her face.

There was a second of silence while he peered at her, gazing at her eyes,
trying to find the soul he had learned to uncover over the three years they
had been together. Having found no traces of what he was looking for, he
drew back in his chair, leaned into the cushions. "It no longer looks like
you, Illyana. Whether you want to believe it or not, you are not the same.
It's not just you. It will never be just you again."

Fingers began to quiver at his words, tears formed in the corners of her
pale blue eyes, the eyes that had melted in the warmth of his love.
"Roberto," she started and then drew in a shaking breath.

"I can see them, Illyana, even if you do not. The walls are forming tightly
and completely over your heart, over your soul, blocking out the light of
you, making you cold again. It's selfish of me to say that I wish your
powers would go away again but that is what I want. Without the magic you
were so open, you needed me. You needed my support and my love. Can you
honestly say that you still feel the same way, that you need me, that you
love me as much as you did before? If you can say that to me, Illyana, then
I'll give you every chance to prove yourself that you want." There was
pleading in his voice, fear, none of the anger she had been expecting. It
made her feel better somehow, stronger, more in control to hear the fright
in his voice, the silent panic.

Blue eyes met dark brown ones, and the lips on a pale face smiled, softly.
"I need you, Roberto, as much as I did before. I love you as much as I did
before. Nothing has changed in me." As she said the words, she knew she was
lying but she pushed the information to the back of her mind, blocking it
out, forgetting all about it because she wanted things to go on as they had
before.

Still lost in thought, she wandered through the rooms of the mansion,
wondering when it had started to seem so small and restrictive. They had
talked about building on plenty of times but, in the end, nothing ever came
of it. Nobody wanted to tear the house apart, to alter even one thing about
the place that had become more like home than home itself that ever seen. It
would have been like slowly ripping the hearts out of their chests.

Finally, Illyana ended up outside, perched on the edge of the fountain that
Betsy and Warren had installed last month because they thought the grounds
needed sprucing up. It was here that Roberto, whom she had been searching
for without even consciously realizing it, found her.

"Illyana," he greeted her as he sat down next to her.

"Oh, it's you," she commented as she peeked between the strands of blond
hair falling over her face and caught a glimpse of his face, mouth set in
the same hard expression that it had fallen into over the years, eyes always
looking past the present, trying to foresee future dangers.

It took him a second to acknowledge she had said something and then another
second to process her words. "Who were you expecting?"

Blue eyes watched the water on fountain, gazed on the reflections that were
distorted and ruined and destroyed by the bubbling water. Like my life, she
thought, destroyed by changes.  "I don't know anymore."

"Has it come down to this, Illyana?"

She wanted to hurl insults at him; to snap at him, and rouse him into the
kind of all-out quarrel they would have had years ago when it still meant
something and making up was her only goal. Now she was too tired, too
disillusioned for that game, too old. "I lied. All those years ago, when you
asked if I still needed you, still loved you like I did when I lost my
powers. I lied, Roberto, because I wanted to keep you and I knew if I told
you the truth, you'd leave me."

He nodded, looking at his hands, so calm now. The beast in him had been
tamed, the rage beaten out, the insolence tempered. These days he was
softer, gentle and some of that, she was proud to say, had been her doing
but in the same breath that she praised his new demeanor, she cursed it.
This wasn't him. This wasn't Roberto. She had ruined him while just trying
to help.

"Roberto?" she prodded, after he had said nothing.

"I know. I knew all along, Illyana. I could read it in your eyes. I believed
the lie because I wanted you, only you. I loved you. I still do on some
level. It's just..."

For the last time, her fingers brushed his cheek. "It isn't the same
anymore. We need to stop fooling ourselves."

Those brown eyes, eyes that she had gotten lost in, thrown herself into,
turned to look at her for one long, last time. Behind the mask, she saw all
the words swirling, trying to form the sentences that needed to be said.
Sitting there, by the fountain, starring into his eyes, she read every
thought that had never been said, gazed the infinite reaches of his soul,
and found him wanting. She drew away; hands folded in her lap, hair making a
veil over her face.

He didn't touch her as he got up and started to leave. For one moment he
reached out as if he were going to smooth the hair away from her cheek but
then stopped. "I'm sorry, Illyana. I never meant for it to be this way." The
sound of his footsteps would haunt her dreams for nights to come but, as she
locked her gaze with the girl in the water, she realized that she wasn't
crying and that she wasn't going to.

The End