Disclaimer: All recognizable characters belong to Marvel Comics and are
being used for non-profit entertainment only. The story, Joshua, and Ariana
belong to me.

The Darkchilde in Me
by Magik

Part XVI

Then they were home.

Illyana took one look at her surroundings and stormed off in the direction
of the house.  The wind caught her low mutterings and threw them into the
sky, ripping them to unrecognizable shreds of sound.

Dani sighed and sat down on the grass.  "Geez," she murmured, "what an
adventure that was."

"We saved the universe again," Sam said as he leaned against one of the
trees in the yard.

Roberto gave his friend a look of utter disgust and amazement.  "We did not
do anything, Sam.  Joshua saved the universe."

Sam shrugged and shifted his weight nervously on those bean pole legs of
his.  "We helped, Bobby."

Rahne was at Sam's side in a minute, her green eyes glowing slightly.  
"Aye.  Sam's right, Bobby, we helped."

"Whatever," Roberto admitted before walking up the stairs and into the
mansion.

Illyana closed the door to her room and laid down on the bed.  Joshua was
dead.  Well, that wasn't the right word.  He had been a ghost, dead for a
long time.  It was just...now he was really dead because it was like he
wasn't there anymore.  What had been him, just him, was now combined with a
million different elements to form the entity of Death.

Someone knocked on her door.

"Come in," she called out, not really wanting to talk to anybody but, also,
not wanting to be alone right now.

Roberto stuck his curly head in the door.  "You okay, Illyana?"

She shrugged.  "You coming in?"

"Am I allowed?"

"Well, the lock's already broken," she told him in a flat, dead voice.  But
there was a slight smile in her blue eyes.

Sheepishly, Roberto twisted the knob in his hand.  "Sorry."

Illyana settled into a sitting position leaning against the headboard and
motioned for Roberto to join her on the bed.  "S'okay," she admitted when he
had seated himself on the edge.  "I mean, the warning posters are still
there and all."

"Do you still want to be normal, Illyana?" he inquired after a moment of
silence.

Again, she shrugged, the blonde hair falling over her shoulders and tumbling
down her back.  "I don't know anymore.  I mean, Ariana was normal, wasn't
she?"

"Well, she was not a mutant if that is what you mean."

"And, apparently, the others were all normal, too, and Belasco broke them.
He hurt them and used them just like what he did with me.  But I survived.
I fought.  I beat him at his own damned game and they...they..." she trailed
off and bit her lip.

Roberto put his hand over hers and met her teary eyes.  "They killed
themselves.  Their normalness did not protect them, could not save them.
While you won."

She pulled away from him, not in a bad I-don-t-want-you-to-touch-me way but
in an I-don't-know-what-to-do way.  Her hands pressed against her skull
through the thick blonde hair.  "I don't think I won, 'Berto.  I think I lost
the most."

"What does that mean?"

"True, they died and I lived but think about what I've become just to
survive -- a monster, a demon," Illyana confessed, hiding her eyes behind 
a tendril of hair.

The boy reached out and stroked the side of her face.  "You are not a
monster, Illyana, not a demon.  We all have dark sides.  Yours is just a
little more prominent."

Shaken by his sudden outpouring of emotion, Illyana leaned away from him.
"I don't understand."

"I was worried about you.  I thought you were going to die.  I did not want
you to die.  It confused me, too.  It still does.  I don't want you to shut
me out."

"I won't, 'Berto.  I promise I won't but...can you just leave me alone for a
little while?  Please?" she begged, looking deep into his dark brown eyes.

In a huff, he jumped off her bed and crossed the room to stand next to the
open door.  "Fine!" he shouted at her.  "I just came to see if I could make
you feel better.  You do not even appreciate that!"

Weary, she nodded.  "You're right, Roberto.  Now get the hell out of my
room."

The door slammed shut behind him and Illyana buried her head in her pillow,
trying to block out the voices that called to her from beyond the grave, the
voices of all the other girls.  Each one whispered a secret, shared a
strength, or told of a horror she had gone through in Limbo.  In the fog
between life and death, in that in-between place that so few people can
reach, the tortured and tormented fellow consorts to Belasco embraced her,
pulled her into their web of support, and made her realize that she was not
alone, that she would never be alone.

The End