Disclaimer: of the twenty or so characters mentioned in this story, all but three are property of Marvelcorp and are used without permission, although since none of those three do anything in this chapter, I don't see any reason to say who they are just yet. This story is property Danny Sichel (eds7466@umoncton.ca), and may not be reproduced off-net without permission of the author, or for profit in any context. ****** VISITING HOURS ------------ "... congratulations. It is a girl." ------------ The deserted hallways of the Muir Isle Medical Station, by the cold grey light of dawn, with the beginning traces of the sunrise muffled behind the fog rolling in from the North Sea, and Venus still - although just barely - on the edge of visibility. The air fluoresced, and with a soft hum, a vehicle, obviously designed by someone who had read about motorcycles in a book once, but missed the part about wheels, shimmered into existence. "Hopsikle has completed its journey, Miss Rasputin", said the driver. "You may disembark." Ilyanna Rasputin turned to thank him, but her stomach and inner ear protested violently, and she toppled to the ground. "Miss Rasputin! Are you all right? May I assist you?" "...shards... i feel horrible..." "Here, Miss Rasputin. I strongly recommend you take this anti-nausea tablet." "... *gulp*... thanks, Justy..." He frowned. "Miss Rasputin, I _have_ requested that you not refer to me as such. My name is Peace, or, if you prefer to refer to me by my rank, you may call me Justice. 'Justy' is a -" " ...a malapropism, I know. Sorry." "Your apology is accepted. May I help you to rise?" "Yeah, thanks." With a gentleness surprising in one so cyborged, Justice Peace lifted Ilyanna into a standing position and guided her to a nearby bench. "Shall I bring you your luggage, Miss Rasputin?" The pale woman nodded, running fingers through her close-cropped hair in a reflexive, half-remembered gesture, once intended to sweep her long blonde tresses, gone now, from her eyes. "Here is your suitcase, Miss Rasputin", he said, ceremoniously presenting her with a small suitcase. "Thanks." "I live to serve, Miss Rasputin." "Yeah, yeah, I know. Thanks anyway - I know you could have had me transferred automatically instead of bringing me over yourself, so..." "It _was_ specifically requested by Administrator Ramsey, Miss Rasputin. I hope that you enjoy your new life. Farewell." "Right. 'Bye, Just- .... Peace." "Thank you, Miss Rasputin. One more thing, though - " and he swept her into his arms, pressed his lips firmly to hers, and then delicately spat in her face - "Administrator Ramsey said to give you a big wet sloppy kiss for him. Goodbye, and good luck." With that, Peace formally remounted his Hopsikle, and shimmered out of existence. --------- Pete Wisdom sat bolt upright in bed, heart racing. Power surged to his fingertips as agent's reflexes, still sharp after all this time away from Black Air, screamed in his head that something was wrooooongggg... He leapt to his feet, ready to ward off attackers, careful not to wake Kitty... Kitty? Oh. Right. She's not here. Which is, of course, what woke him up - not only is she not next to him, but the telltale warm hollow her body leaves on the mattress isn't there either. Which is only fair, really - after nearly twenty-two hours in labour, he'd want a separate bed too. Twenty-two hours. Brr. But in the end, of course, it's worth all the specialists - physicians, physicists, geneticists, sorcerers - just to see that tiny little face... What was it the McCoy woman had said about love being additive? Something... something about flowers, and fire, and all that sort of romance-writer pap, which again is only fair, all things considered, and it's actually a rather beautiful passage, really, although of course it can't _help_ but be beautiful, not in such a beautiful world, and... Pete cut this line of thought short, though, as that familiar twinge in his gut signalled that it's time for a smoke. He scrabbled through his dresser drawer, searching for one of those last few packs... Found it. He weighs, briefly, the possibility of lighting up indoors... Nah. He can deal with MacTaggart telling him not to smoke, he can deal with McCoy, hell, he can even deal with McPherran - but all of them, plus --! He slipped on his bathrobe (a gift from Braddock) and slippers (from Rahne) and headed outside. --------- Hunched over in the lee of the station, Pete shivered in the cold morning air and cupped his hand to protect his cigarette from the wind... Damn. Too late. He carefully rolled up his bathrobe sleeve - don't want to burn the fabric, now - and let the power flow from the tip of his finger. The air hissed as its temperature very briefly approached that of the sun, water vapor superheating away, and the tip of the cigarette glowed white-hot, subsiding after a moment to a utilitarian smoulder. He inhaled the hot smoke, then leaned back against the station's wall and plotted out a contingency tree for the day's schedule, one of the few useful vestiges of his time as an agent. First, of course, is see Kitty... or go to the nursery first instead, see his new daughter? ... No, better wait, no need to find out if there really _is_ a robotic decontamination chamber hooked up to the tobacco sensors outside the nursery... _or_ outside Kitty's room, for that matter... so, say, twenty minutes to let the smell fade - use the time to charge the generator, of course - _then_ go see Kitty, let's say a half-hour, _then_ go to the nursery, then maybe breakfast with Romany, if she's up, then - Damn! Cigarette's out again! He relit it - it went out _again_. One more time? And... Out. He glanced around and saw... McPherran, out for her morning jog with her kid. "Hey! McPherran!" She looked at him innocently. "Yes, Pete?" He pointed meaningfully at the remainder of his cigarette. "Did you do that?" In reply, she pursed her lips and blew the cigarette out of his hand, from twenty paces. To Pete's dismay, it landed in a puddle. "I have _no_ idea what you're talking about", she grinned, and jogged away. He rolled his eyes and made a rude gesture in her direction. For a supervillain, McPherran's just too damn whimsical sometimes. Anyway, without the cig, that's practically the whole contingency tree shot to hell right there - which is about average for contingency trees, really. Of course, that just cuts the nicotine-fade time in half - still ten minutes, but the generator _does_ need charging. Might as well earn his keep, eh? ---------- One thing was certain, Ilyanna grumbled to herself as she cautiously made her way through the corridors of the Medical Station, and that was that, no matter WHAT Doug had said, this was definitely NOT the X-Mansion. True, he hadn't actually MENTIONED Westchester, but - hello, what's this? "This" was a wall-mounted computer console with what appeared to be an interactive map of... Muir Isle? Ilyanna's brow furrowed. What would Kitty be doing on Muir? Research? Recovery? "Rehabilitation"? No. Don't even _think_ about that. Doug _said_ there'd be none of that here. Just take a deep breath, don't panic, and find Kitty, and everything will be okay. ----- *beeeep* "Hello, you have reached PW Pyrotics, the wise choice in industrial waste disposal. No one is available to *sqwraaaaaawk* There are... no... new messages." Good, Pete thought as he reset the answering machine. Nothing new to deal with on _that_ front this morning. So, what else, what else... Smoke break, check... - he set off down the hall to the residential wing - Charged the generator, check... Fed Lockheed, check... Checked the messages, check... Residual cigarette smell gone? ... *sniff* ... Check. And that... is... it! So, who to visit first, wife or daughter, Kitty or Ilyanna... well, Kitty's room is closer, and... - he paused - and her door's open, so she must be already up. He smiled. Life was good. This lasted for all of thirty seconds. As he neared the door, he saw that Kitty was still asleep, and that a blonde woman was standing over her. The blonde was saying something. Pete's heart sank as the intruder's words penetrated his consciousness. "Kitty? Kitty, wake up! It's me! It's Ilyanna!" Pete stared, horrified. Oh no. Oh no oh no oh God PLEASE no... No. No. Don't collapse. Be pragmatic. Be realistic. Be _efficient_. Eyes brimming with tears, he set his jaw, marched grimly into the room, grabbed the blonde by the arm and had her halfway out the door before she realized what was happening. "HEY! What the -- let go of me, you --" "Quiet!", Pete hissed. "You'll wake Kit- OW! You HIT me! You frigging HIT me! How could you DO that to me?!?" "Let me GO, you bastard! I've got to see Kitty!" "Are you crazy?!? Ow! Stop... struggl-OW! Stop STRUGGLING! It'll damn well KILL Kitty to see you like this!" "I'll fucking kill YOU if you don't let me go, you-" "Don't you talk to me that way, you little -" -------- "Mmm?" Kitty Pryde opened her eyes and stared muzzily at the scene unfolding before her. She considered the irony of being woken by Pete and Ilyanna arguing over whether to wake her, pondered for a moment whether or not that irony was actually *funny*, decided it wasn't, stretched lazily, turned over to go back to sleep... ... and something clicked inside her head. She sat up. "Ilyanna? Pete?" No response, as two of the people she loved most in the world were too busy screaming at each other to be able to hear her. She sighed, picked up the jug of ice chips from the bedside table, noted with approval that its contents had - ooh! - almost but not completely melted, hefted it experimentally, then swung it in a wide arc, soaking Pete and Ilyanna in ice water. Dead silence. "Pryde, what the FUCK do you think you're -" "Hey, don't you talk to her like that, you bast-" SMASH. Kitty held up the jagged remains of the water jug, a brittle smile on her lips. "Now, are you two going to shut up and listen, or do I have to get up out of this bed and pull a Blanche DuBois?" "Um..." "THANK you, Pete. First: this is NOT our Ilyanna. This is MY Ilyanna." "Wait a minute - 'my' Ilyanna? 'Our'? What the hell are you-" "I'm GETTING to that! I just had a baby girl and I named her for you and from what Pete's been screaming he thinks that you're her and that, I don't know, some deranged villain kidnapped you to some godforsaken parallel universe or something and made you grow up twenty years in a half-hour, and -" "But that _did_ happen." "SEE? SEE?" "Dammit, Ilyanna, you're not helping! And Pete, calm down, for God's sake! And pay atTENtion! This is NOT our daughter! This is my best friend who I named our daughter FOR, okay?" Kitty sagged backwards, dropping the jug. Pete scowled at Ilyanna, then rushed to Kitty's bedside, heedless of the broken glass underfoot, and stroked her brow. "Easy, love, easy..." " 'm fine, really, 'm j'st a little tired..." Across the room, Ilyanna stared at them perplexedly. "Um, Kitty... It's great to see you, and I'm glad you had a baby and everything, but... this guy ain't Peter. Not even close. And why didn't he recognize me?" "What the hell d'you mean, I'm not Pe- Oh. 'Peter'. You mean the tin Russian. He, uh, he left. Broke up with Kitty. Long time ago. Hasn't been by here in, uh, years, I guess. Haven't seen him." Ilyanna's shoulders slumped. "Oh. So you're the _new_ Peter. Huh. ... Peter leaves, you get a new Peter, I can see that. A little TWISTED, but I can see that. So you've got a new Ilyanna, is that because the _old_ Ilyanna left? Is that why New Peter didn't recognize your BEST FRIEND?" She slammed the door to punctuate that remark and glared at them, shuddering with tension. Pete glanced at Kitty and raised his eyebrows meaningfully. Kitty shook her head. "Let me, Pete. ... How old are you, Ilyanna? Best guess, I mean", she added hurriedly. "... well, counting the time with Belasco, about twenty-three. Why?" "Because when you were seventeen, you got turned into a five-year-old, and... and died when you were eight." Ilyanna sat down hard. "Oh." For a long moment no one spoke. Suddenly, a shrill buzzing filled the air. Ilyanna spun around, wild-eyed, and saw that the doorframe was slowly but surely being outlined in burning yellow, accompanied by unearthly screams of rage. "Kitty? Kitty, what IS this?!? What's HAPPENING?!?" Kitty and Pete glanced at each other and sighed. "Busted", they said in unison. Ilyanna stared at them in disbelief. Doug had SWORN there'd be none of that here! And how could they be so, so, so CALM?!? The buzzing stopped, and the door swung violently open. "AND JUST WHAT IS GOING ON IN HERE???" Ilyanna gaped at the figure in the doorway. Her hand went to her stomach, and she crumpled to the floor. ---------- "Ilyanna? Ilyanna, are you all right? What happened? "owwwww... went for the fucking Soulsword, and it's not fucking THERE, so I punched myself in the fucking STOMACH..." "Watch your tongue, Miss Rasputin. Would you like a glass of water?" Ilyanna glanced dubiously at the masked figure in the doorway. "Uh, Kitty... what's HE doing here?" Kitty's lip twitched. "Ilyanna Rasputin, I'd like to introduce you to Doktor Victor von Doom. My obstetrician." Ilyanna considered this. "Bullshit", she pronounced carefully. Doom froze. "Very well, then. To the devil with your glass of water." "Oh, come on, Victor. She's been under a lot of stress. She didn't mean it that way." "No?" "No, I... I guess not... but Kitty, how -?" "It is a long story, Miss Rasputin", Doom said as he hoisted Ilyanna to her feet, "and one which I am sure they will enjoy telling you. However, that is quite enough for now - you too, Mister Wisdom. Katherine needs her rest. Visiting hours are _over_. ------------------------------------------- "A story which features an invisible city of talking gorillas is inherently cooler than one which does not." - Peter Meilinger