verynaughtymutant | Home Plot: Day 3

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Home Plot: Day 3

Cable was not someone you could reasonably call a coward, there was very little he was truly afraid of. But this conversation was one of those things. He'd planned to never have it, in truth, but Natalya's talk yesterday had convinced him that would be cruel. Whatever sort of illusions these people truly were, they did not think of themselves as such and perhaps he owed it to them to treat them better than that. In memory of who they represented if nothing else.

So he had, reluctantly maybe, gone to see his wife and his son. They had, he was pleased to note, survived Stryfe's attack unharmed and he had silenced Aliya's questions, and anger, at his absence, by dropping his shields and joining his mind with hers. Not completely, of course, not enough to reveal all the details of his mind or his life but he let her see his real, aged, body and the Island where he lived, enough for her to know he didn't think this was real. He watched her face as he did so, watched the emotions flicker along a face he'd been so familiar with and yet had almost forgotten and then he heard her whisper in his head, speaking to him in his first tongue the way they always did so as to not disturb the baby sleeping nearby.

"You are not my Nathan?"

"No, I'm not."

"And I am not your wife? Not a real person?"

"No, I don't think you are."

He could feel the grief in her mind at that, and the determination overriding it and he could have taken her in his arms, he wanted to but he wasn't her husband, not really. Time and anger and grief had left him as someone else and that distance sat between them as clear as anything else.

"And tomorrow, you might wake up on that Island and it'll be like me, and my baby here, never existed?"

He sent a mental confirmation to that and waited for the reply.

"Well," she sent and he could feel as well as see the brave face she was putting on, "that at least is no different from normal. The bright lady said we should give thanks for today and plead for tomorrow. I can hope you are wrong, Nathan."

"You can," he replied and he felt a smile rise unbidden to his lips. "You always had faith in that, at least."

And then he finally did what he had been dying to do since he walked into this room, he took his wife into his arms and kissed her, fully and deeply on the lips.

"I have missed you," he whispered into her skin, the foreign words he had not spoken in years coming back to him naturally, "more than you will ever know."

He could read the questions she wanted to ask in her eyes as well as her mind, how could she not want to ask them, but she knew he would not answer and so she didn't.

"Oh, my husband," she told him back, as she accepted his embrace. "What has happened to you?"

"Life," he told her, and it sounded more apologetic then he'd intended. "I am not the man I was"

"No," she agreed. "Life is hard. Even in the sacred timeline, there are losses. But you still live and you are here now, not then. What is, is."

The sacred timeline, oh he remembered that. Aliya had believed in it entirely, believed in a way he never had. This was the sacred timeline, the best of all possible worlds, so it must be preserved and any sacrifices were in service of a greater destiny. She could see her own death in Cable's future and accept it but the idea that their cause had failed altogether was alien to her, unthinkable. And he saw that belief in her face, and for a moment, a brief moment he didn't let out of his own mental shields, he utterly despised his sister.

Instead he forced himself to be cheerful, forced such thoughts away. This was his wife, or something very much like her that he held his hands and he had wanted a day like this for oh such a long time, for all it will hurt when this day was over.

"I have missed your mind," he told her, as he reached for it with his and he felt himself rewarded with a blush, because for the Askani that was like telling someone you'd missed their breasts or their backside. "I have missed your thoughts, missed the dark hues of your fantasies, missed your tactics in battle. Missed the brilliance of your war plans, and the way your mind's thought reaches for food when you are aroused."

And she reached for him, the flattery stirring their passion, until they heard a cry from the baby and he, reluctantly pulled himself away from her to go tend her. He was so beautiful, his little boy, he'd almost forgotten how beautiful he'd been and he remarked as much.

"In which case, you can change him," was Aliya's, verbal, reply from towards the door. "While I attend our guest. Please, do come in."

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"Am I interrupting?" Madelyne asks, not shy but merely aware as she pokes her way inside and pushes past the surge of -- Sadness? Jealousy? Neither of those are quite right -- emotion at the family reunion that seems to be going on.

"Nothing that wasn't already interrupted," Cable replied dryly, in the tongue of the askani so Aliya would understand, as he held the crying baby in the air and started telekinetically removing the cloth nappy. One of the advantages of having two telepathic parents is they knew immediately what was the cause of their son's distress and Cable found it surprisingly easy to fall into old patterns of domesticity, to decide to play along with this illusion.

"Please," Aliya added with forced cheerfulness as she ushered Madelyne in properly, "I have no doubt you'll be better company than my husband often is."

Rachel heard the baby cry and hesitated on the doorstep until she heard Aliya's voice. Aliya, her sister-in-law who had probably heard all manner of things about Rachel by now. There were others inside already and she wasn't quite sure what to think about them, or they about her.

She entered the home and looked around. "Hi, I'm not late, am I? I didn't really know when, or... you know, exactly when."

"Hello, Rachel," Cable responded from where he was handling, and changing, his upset baby. "You were talking before about the idea that this was a separate time-line? That instead of created a suitable world, our captors had merely borrowed one."

He didn't believe that but he was a liar by nature and that was a good one. Whatever the person who thought she was his wife was, he knew now that he couldn't be cruel to her, not after he'd felt her mind. She'd deserved to know why her husband was acting oddly but she didn't need to believe everything he did about their fates. Letting her think that, if he did leave, she might still live and even have her Nathan returned to her was the kindest thing he could think of.

And he knew how to ger her to trust Rachel's word over his own, too. He just needed his sister to hit her cue.

"Yes, that is a possibility, probability in my experience. Not like I haven't been to other timelines before." Rachel entered the cabin, keeping her expression even. It was obvious from her brother's mood and comment that she'd walked into something. She wasn't exactly sure what, but there was a definite point to his comment.

"There are infinite timelines and dimensions."

Cable nodded once and sat down, with, a newly clean, Tyler clutched to his chest and then turned towards Aliya.

"So if I am wrong, this clan will endure long after we leave," he told her. "And if this is the Sacred Timeline, then the one in my memories can not be."

"Please for Tomorrow," Aliya quoted the Askani teachings in a whisper as she sat down next to him and took his hand in hers.

"Indeed. Please take a seat Rachel, I haven't introduced you to my family, yet."

Cable's mind was closed entirely, being as he was in the presence of two telepaths much more powerful than he was in his current condition but there was something a little darker and harsher in his tone then his words might lead her to expect.

Yeah, she didn't know what was going on here and she decided that she didn't want to pursue it. Wasn't her problem and besides, there was family to meet. New family. Clansmen and kin and that meant something here that it didn't exactly back home.

She took a seat and put a smile on her face. She really liked this opportunity, even if it was some offshoot timeline, it was close enough. Nathan wouldn't be here at all unless it was close enough. "I know by reputation, Aliya, it's so nice too meet you. Is anyone else coming tonight?"

"An old friend of yours wanted to meet you," Cable replied with a nod as he rubbed Tyler's back with his metal left hand and rocked him back to forth on his chest. "I asked him to wait a little first."

"We heard what you did for the clan yesterday, Rachel," Aliya added as she leaned forward, her hand still interlocked with Cable's. "Such a victory will not be soon forgotten. By the dream, with the Chaos Bringer dead we will have the troops free to block off Ebonshire entirely. I do not know how long you will be remain here, or how long we will still exist, but as long as I live you will be welcome with our people and the bright lady will watch over you."

Frowning slightly, Rachel considered her brother's words. Who was coming, what old friend? Rachel couldn't fathom it, but then she didn't need to because Aliya's words pretty much derailed her.

"Don't... It's what he deserved, but it doesn't need to be celebrated. Really. And I'm pretty sure I'm already watching over myself, so we've got that covered." She wasn't going to feel guilt over killing Stryfe, she wasn't, but she still felt that stone in the pit of her stomach. She'd never be at ease with killing, but it was getting easier to do.

The Askani were a warrior clan and they celebrated victories in a way any people who were trying to be exterminated celebrated more time being bought. And Aliya in particular, who had suffered terribly in the prisoner camps of the man she'd never seen without his face covering helmet, had no real reason to feel bad about his death. Her eyes' flickered briefly towards the boy Nathan had only ever called his son, though they both knew when he was conceived and how, and she nodded once. Fine, if Rachel didn't want to be praised she wouldn't be. The second part however, made no sense.

"Look at her closely," Cable suggested, having felt, presumably, some of her confusion in her mind. "And remember the old emp-discs Sanctity showed you."

And she did, for a moment, and then her eyes went wide.

"Bright Lady," she whispered and received a little mental confirmation from her husband. It had never been difficult to cope with the fact that the man she was married to was also a living messiah, he'd been an arrogant rash boy to her first and even when she'd become convinced he wasn't a pretender, she'd never been in awe of him. But she was a firm believer in the wisdom of Mother Askani, and being face to face with her mother goddess, or at least a version of her, was a humbling experience.

"Hi." Rachel grinned and giggled a little sheepishly, waving her hand a little like they'd just met. She didn't want everyone to know who she was, for obvious reasons, but Aliya was family. "Whatever you've heard, I'm sure only, like, half of it was true. The awesome half, but still only half."

"Hello," was the, rather sheepish, reply.

"She's quite not the mother Askani we heard about, of course" Cable added, with a little smile, "but she has that potential, the same mind, same spirit. She's adopted me as her sibling the way you did Hope."

Hope and Aliya were sisters by kinship rather than blood, it was not an uncommon ritual among their people and one he knew she understood.

"In that case," Aliya spoke with a nervousness that was unlike her and kept her eyes bowed as she reached for Tyler and took him off her husband, "would you like to hold your nephew?"

With impish glee, Rachel stuck her tongue out at her brother. Potential, my ass, she was already awesome. But her expression softened almost to tears when Aliya offered to let her hold Tyler. She wasn't awkward around kids, not since Nathan had been born, not after she'd spend nights sneaking in his room to hold him when he was at the mansion. But this... this was different.

Taking her nephew (and ignoring the way he instantly took a fistful of her hair and pulled), she smiled and touched his mind in greeting. Words just couldn't quite cover what she wanted to say, but she could let the little baby (and his nearby parents) know how she felt. How happy she was to be with family again, alive and whole and healthy. To have hope that his life would be better than hers and his father's. She might have a past, but this kid - he had a future. Now more than ever and she believed that. Needed to believe that.

At that moment, Cable was more grateful of his sister then he'd been in a long time. The hope and happiness that was flooding off her would surely work more to comfort his family than any argument ever could. His wife leaned back against him and rested her head on his chest as they watched their baby start giggling and waving his hands at the woman touching his mind.

He hoped Rachel was right, that these versions of his family would continue on after they left. That with Stryfe dead and Aliya alive things would go differently. They deserved that, somewhere at least, and it was this battle that had lost them the war in his own time-line after all. Without Aliya he had not been a quarter of the leader he was with her at his side.

"Yeah, you're gonna have a great life kiddo, just don't go around pulling girls' hair, we don't really like that." She gently disentangled his chubby little fingers from her hair as she gave him a little kiss, before using her power to bounce him in the air. He really was the cutest thing.

"Other than that, I think you're going to break a few hearts before you're done." Which was much better than the alternative in her opinion.

It was at that time when their second guest arrived,and he didn't walk through the door but merely appeared out of thin air in between Cable and Rachel. His stunted little body spun around several feet above the ground before it came to a stop and he let himself flop to the hut floor.

"It's been a long time," Blaquesmith said, "Mother Askani."

Cable and Aliya meanwhile acted instinctively and in tandem, both reaching out with their teke to provide a buffer below Tyler should Rachel's concentration fail her.

Rachel had been hyper-focused on not letting Tyler so he made only a little dip when her attention had been diverted. Years of training had to pay off sometime, right, and when it came to kids, she tended not to mess around.

Still, she couldn't quite stop the smile from crossing her face at the new arrival. It was so completely like Blaquesmith to just pop in like that and it made her so happy that she couldn't even be mad at her brother for not warning her. Here, at least, was someone she had experience with in two lives, both in her memories of the Askani and her memories of when Nathan brought her home.

"Enough with the Mother, do I look old enough to be your mother, mister?"

"No," he replied and maybe something approaching a smile crossed his face. "You look young. Very young"

"I have done as you wished," he added with a glance over his shoulder towards Cable. "Though I could wish you'd picked me a more cooperative student."

Rachel looked over at her brother and then back at her old friend. "Student? Something I should know about, you two?" She wouldn't be surprised with the two of them, she only asked out of curiosity. "We're not planning a takeover already are we?"

"Aliya and Tetherblood have always been ready to rule in my stead," Cable replied as he reached forward and took his son back from his sister. "I suspect Blacquesmith just can't let the past go. He still sees me as his student."

"It was your last wish of me," the misshapen old mutant continued quietly, "that I trained the Askanisson. I did not let you down in that."

Oh. OH. He was referring to that. Rachel laughed, a little embarrassed, but not so much so that she couldn't lean over and give her friend a kiss on the cheek. "I think you did a wonderful job, too. Thank you. He's-" she tried not to choke on the sudden tears she felt, "he's a true hero."

Aside from when the place was getting aqttacked, the encampment was kind of boring for Zell. It was mostly because Zell refused a mindlink which could have provided him the language around here. If they were gonna be here much longer, maybe Zell would trust Rachel to do it, but he still wasn't comfortable with the idea.

Zell could only sit still for so long. He'd gotten up to find the few English-speaking people here, so he ducked his head in where Cable was.

"Yo, Cable. How's it goin'?"

"Hello Zell," Cable replied, in English, as he held the crying baby in the air and started telekinetically removing the cloth nappy while simultaneously providing a mental translation for his wife.

"I don't believe you and Aliya have been introduced."

Zell had been looking at the baby, but didn't know who's it was. When Cable initiated an introduction, he brushed his hand across his pant leg and extended it out for a shake.

"'Sup, Aliya? I'm Zell."

Cable ran the translation for her, manually, letting her pick the english words out of his head, while he dealt with his crying baby.

"It's good to meet you, Zell," Aliya told him, in halting stilted english as she took his hand."Any friend of my husbands is always welcome under my roof."

Zell grinned when she not only answered in English but introduced herself as Cable's wife!

Zell brightly replied, "Yo, thanks!"

"It's nice too mett ya', Aliya. Did he tell you about the island I met him on?"

Zell hadn't quite connected who's baby Cable was holding quite yet, but it was coming.

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Home Plot: Day 3

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