Rappaccini's Daughter: A Mother's Love

[x-scorpion.livejournal.com]

Cammie & Jake arrive at Cammie's parents' house and a story Cammie would rather not hear is told. Not all ends well.

The house that Cammie grew up in was a slight notch above small town average, Jake noted as they stopped on the sidewalk in front of it. From the outside, it looked warm and inviting in the twilight, lights on in the windows of what he assumed was the living room. It all looked so...domestic.

He glanced at the green-haired girl next to him. "You okay?"

The whole town was like walking through a bad dream. Cammie had made sure they had stayed mostly out of sight. She didn't want to start a riot in town by being back. "I dunno. That's the window I crawled out of," she said, pointing to a second floor window, no lights were on inside, "When I left. This is just... weird."

True, Jake thought wryly--whatever the circumstances of her running away, he was sure Cammie never counted on returning because her parents were being held hostage. He resisted the urge to glance towards where Wanda waited further up the street, instead looking at the girl again. "We can do this," he said, as much to reassure himself as her. "Just...Try not to make anybody angry, yourself included, okay?"

"Too late for that," Cammie said, looking up at Jake, "I want to kill them. I just don't know if I'm equipped to right now," she said, "Well, whoever is with George, not my parents. They never needed to know." Know that they had let a monster into their home. She put her hand on the gate to the white picket fence the blocked the sidewalk to the front door. Mom's garden was starting to go into full bloom and the smell of flowers hung heavy in the air.

"We better get in before neighbors start staring. It happens pretty quickly here. Not much excitement."

"That's sort of my point--you're already angry," he responded. He followed her up the walk, eyes flicking over the house and the neighborhood, watching for the ambush he felt sure was coming. "We want to keep them talking as long as we can, okay?" He sighed inwardly at what he was about to say next. "Punch me if you need to."

"I don't have anything left to kill anyone with. There's not enough pollution around here and you wouldn't stop to pick up anti-freeze," Cammie said. "So I'll hold myself in check," she said, a hand on the doorknob and a deep breath later and she opened door. It was the longest few seconds of her life.

"Mom... Dad...?"

"Cammie." Tim Black was frozen in the doorway of the house's living room, staring at his daughter with an expression that seemed equal parts hope and disbelief. The smile that broke over his face as she came the rest of the way in was utterly joyful. "Oh, Cammie, honey..."

Having a completely opposite reaction from her husband, Julia stared at the green haired girl in the foyer with red eyes- her tears all spent from the phone call George had rudely snatched away. Her little girl wasn't little anymore, she looked like a woman and a stranger.

A plethora of emotions welled up inside her as the cup of tea she'd just pour fell from her hands and broke on the carpeted floor. 'Don't worry about that now, this isn't the parlor, just the living room and it's just tea,' she thought as she stood on shaky legs and walked- as if in a trance- to the girl who had just come in.

A brief glance over confirmed what she knew, this was her daughter, come home at last. She wanted to slap the woman standing before her- gone for three years without a word if she was alive or dead. All Julia Black could think to do though, was embrace her daughter in a motherly hug; holding her tight, as if Cammie would slip away if she let up even a bit. "Thank you, Jesus," she whispered, over and over.

Well that was new. The thanking Jesus thing. They had never been that religious, but Cammie had been gone three years, and it occurred to her now it may have indeed knocked a few screws loose in her mom. "Yeah. Hi Mom. Need to breathe please. Love you too?"

"Oh, yes, of course," she managed to stammer out, as her arms loosened and she took her daughter by the shoulders. Tears once again began to well up behind her dull blue eyes and she found herself unable to talk as she simply looked at her daughter and smiled.

Tim stepped forward and laid a hand on Cammie's shoulder for a moment, his eyes suspiciously bright. He might very well have drawn her into an embrace as well, except that his attention was drawn by Jake, standing behind Cammie. His eyes narrowed for a moment, before he forced himself to smile at the stranger, not quite stiffly. "Hello," he said, extending a hand. "I'm Tim Black. And you are...?" His gaze flickered back and forth between Jake and his daughter, as if assessing their body language for clues.

Jake blinked; he'd been hoping to stay in the background for as long as possible. He had no idea how to deal with the family reunion, and worse, he had no real idea how to explain himself to Cammie's parents. "Jake Gavin," he recovered smoothly--but not too smoothly, offering his hand. "I work at Cammie's school." "Yeah, he... uh... is like a teacher or something," Cammie said. She was always a horrible liar as far as her parents were concerned. Hiding the first part of mutation had just been dumb luck, really. And a good place in her closest picked out for hiding things like paint and household cleaners. "But yeah, living at a school," she said. That part was true. Now that mom had loosened up, Cammie looked over at her Dad, wanting to hug him too, but feeling suddenly awkward about the whole thing.

"So.... I'm alive," she said, mentally slapping herself.

"Oh my goodness, where are my manners," Julia said, wiping the tears away through her smile. Extending a hand she pulled Jake and Cammie into the living room, with the gentle insistence of an overcome host. Three years of a living hell had been washed away in this moment- Father Matthews had been right. "George, Monica, look who it is!" She beamed at her old friends, steering Carmilla in front of her. "Our baby's come home."

"Well, now isn't this a pleasant and totally unexpected happenstance?" George wore a gleeful smile that seemed as if it would unhinge the top half of his skull at any moment. He put the teacup in his hands down carefully, centering it on the saucer, then rose to his feet. "Carmilla, isn't it? Home all safe and sound and hoping things stay that way, I'll bet."

Monica stood, a serene expression on her face as she finally laid eyes on "Carmilla Black" in person for the first time since she'd grown. "What a lovely day this has turned into. Julia and Tim have been so very distraught since you've left. Quite a terrible thing, coping with the loss of a beloved child." She exchanged a glance with George, the look in her eyes changing for a moment to one of victory. It was the sort of look a predator got when they ripped out the jugular of prey they'd been hunting for days. When she turned back to the newly reunited family her expression was serene again and Monica held a hand out to Carmilla. "We've not met, Carmilla, I'm Monica Rappaccini, quite an old friend of your parents."

Cammie tore her death glare away from George for the moment and shifted it to Monica, “Charmed, I’m sure,” she said dryly, “And call me Cammie,” one more person saying her full name was going to make her come out swinging, despite promises.

“Nice to see everyone here in one piece,” she said brightly.

Jake let himself be led into the room, trying to keep from being separated from Cammie without getting in the way of the reunion, only to find George in his path. "I remember you," he told the man quietly, pitching his voice to keep it under the conversation that was happening with Cammie and her parents. "You're one of the lab rats from New Son."

"Ah, ah, ah. Former lab rat," George corrected him, holding up one finger as if making a point to a simple child. His other hand remained in his pocket."You were there when I offered up my resignation. And if you don't want me to refresh your memory using these sickeningly good people as stand-ins for Heckle and Jeckle, you and I should just keep our distance and let Carmilla and Monica get in some quality bonding time, girl to girl." His smile had not narrowed at all, but there was an eager malice to his expression now that his back was to the Blacks.

“Yeah,” Cammie said, looking at Monica. Some things were disturbing here. They looked alike. Not just a little, like a stranger would occasionally. “Let’s bond,” it would kill time. “How do you know my parents?”

"We were friends in college," Monica answered simply. She was going over Cammie visually. She had good skin, looked healthy. She could probably run a few miles and her muscle tone seemed better than average for a girl of her age. Monica had to stop herself from pulling down Cammie's lower eye lid to check her eyes or to check her gums like a purebred dog. "I also helped them when they were having problems having children." Technically it was the truth.

Cammie wished that she hadn’t wasted about everything she had using the toxic cloud in the warehouse. She didn’t like this. She didn’t want to sit and play nice which was the Jake and Wanda plan, but she didn’t have a choice. “Really? Huh, you work with the adoption service or something?” she asked. She only knew a little bit about the story of her parents and their attempts to have kids that ended with them taking in a monster.

“Since they obviously ended up adopting.”

"No, actually, I'm a scientist." Monica thought it was perfectly reasonable that Cammie had never been told who her biological mother was, especially with her disappearing act. It was likely unfair to Tim and Julia to do this without warning them, however Cammie was her daughter and she ought to know. "I found myself in a position where I was pregnant but unable to care for an infant properly. Rather than destroy the life inside of me," and all of its scientific benefit, "I asked them to adopt her."

Cammie paused for a moment. It took a minute for her to process that sentence. Then another minute to pick her metaphorical jaw up off the ground, “So you’re… my mom,” she said slowly, dryly. She wondered if she was behind everything. It made a sick sort of sense. “Why? Why all this?” The fingers, the warehouse, everything.

"You'll have to be more specific if you would like a pertinent reply." Monica's voice was level and calm, almost clinically devoid of emotion save for a sliver of curiosity.

“The box I got and the warehouse,” Cammie returned shortly. She wasn’t going to blurt out thinking they were her parents fingers in front of her parents, who were so calm they likely didn’t know what exactly it was they were being threatened with by George over there.

"It was a test, nothing more. A measure of your performance under stress and an observation of your reactions and method of thinking under duress." Monica tapped a finger against her lips as she thought. "I did not foresee the impetuous streak, however that could merely be due to residual adolescence. Still, I wish I had accounted for that and taken a few measures to keep it within reasonable bounds."

“A… test… of me what?!” Cammie returned, managing to keep herself from shouting just barely. “Gee, did I pass, Mommy?”

"Not quite as well as I had hoped you would," the scientist returned thoughtfully. "All experiments have their flaws and it's nothing that can't be engineered out of the system. An adjustment of some brain chemistry levels and perhaps a bit of neurosurgery and the undesirable qualities shall be eradicated. You'll be perfect."

“…Experiments?! Flaws…?!” Cammie whipped around to look towards her parents, “Do they know that?” she asked, jerking a thumb towards them, “Also: you’re not touching my brain chemistry and here’s a memo for you: No one’s perfect.”

"Oh, but they could be," Monica corrected with the patience of a teacher. "People are sequences of code. You can extract genetic code and splice it together with another set of code, essentially eliminating flaws, weakness, and vulnerabilities. Look at you, for example. You'll never be poisoned. You'll never get cancer. You won't even contract an STD, chicken pox or the flu. I designed you in such a way that none of that would ever be able to touch you. How is that not a step closer to perfection?" There was a quiet intensity about Monica's tone. She was clearly passionate about the things she spoke on but her passion was stuffed down, pent up inside of her rather than pouring out of her like such a thing would normally. She was carefully contained in her expression of her joy and she was sure Thanasee would see what a gift she'd been given with it explained properly. Thanasee, the name the girl ought to have been called by. Carmilla, what sort of undignified name was that anyway? How could Julia and Tim do that to her child?

“Designed me?” Cammie balked, “So what, I’m not even a mutant? Just a science project?” Now she was confused. She looked down for a moment and her gaze settled on her left hand, a pale green, “What about this?” she said, holding it up, “Was this an accident or on purpose?”

The look on Monica's face was a touch confused. Why was the girl reacting like this? Was she...angry about who she was? About who Monica had painstakingly ensured she'd be? "No, you're not a 'science project,' you are the pinnacle of scientific achievement. You are my very finest creationg and that," Monica nodded to the green hand and resisted the urge to reach out for the hand to examine it, "is a component of your design. It was built from the basis of the mutation you were to inherit from me." Monica was very matter of fact about it all, fondness and a subtle affection lacing through her tone as she spoke. "Thanasee, you are a flawless biological weapon. That is your design and your purpose, to allow the earth a rebirth."

Of all the time to wish Forge were around for translating Mad Science into Human. It was the last part she paused at, “What did you call me?” she asked, confused. Didn’t sound like an insult or a science project name, or the experiment jabber that was just making her more and more pissed off. “And I’m sorry, but I’m not a weapon.”

Just ignore the trail of destruction she always managed to leave…

"I called you Thanasee. It's your name." She gave Julia and Tim a curious look. "You never told her what her original name was?" There was a look of betrayal on Monica's face for a moment, but then it vanished as she looked back at Cammie. "Your name was Thanasee Rappaccini before I found myself forced to give you up for adoption. As for your use and purpose," she trailed off for a moment. "You are a weapon. You are also a human being, but you are also a weapon. You can't stop being the latter any more than you may accomplish ceasing to be the former."

“…Do you have any idea what you actually did to me?” Cammie asked, more hurt than angry. Did this person understand exactly what she had been through? What the last three years had been? Or what it had been like to accidentally kill her boyfriend. “Any idea at all? People aren’t weapons and tools, ‘Mom.’ You can’t treat them like that!”

The look of confusion was back on Monica's face. She did not understand the hostility she was getting from her daughter. She was so very ungrateful. Clearly that would have to be adjusted as well, if possible. "I know precisely what I did to you. After all, I did do it myself. I ensured you would walk out of any biological attack unscathed. I ensured you would never die after months or years of excruciating pain withering away in your bed from cancer or AIDS or who knows what else. You'll never know the pain of fibromyalgia or lupus or musculardystropy or any other of a number of debilitating diseases. Everyone is a tool, most are merely of no use." Such useless people ought to be disposed of, precisely what Thanasee had been developed for. Yet she refused her fate. She refused to see the gift she was given.

“I kill people,” Cammie said, “That’s… useful? I killed my boyfriend when I was fifteen. I can’t be close to anyone without them starting to get sick. Yeah, thanks for the free pass as far as cancer and STDs go, but holy shit!”

"Hmm, that is quite unfortunate. I had intended to come to you before you had manifested so as to negate any potential trauma." Monica understood the emotional turmoil a teenager would undergo in such a situation, however she did not feel it warranted this level of reaction. Teenagers were a bit too hormonal for her tastes. If the processes were not vital to psychological and biological development she would have tried to find a way around this turbulent period in a human's growth. "However you manifested sooner than expected and you have been missing ever since. To my understanding I only just missed you before you ran off not to be heard from again for years. That really was a rather heartless thing you did to your parents. All of us."

Having stood by with a confused face long enough, Julia took a step forward and draped her arm around her daughter's shoulder in a comforting fashion. "Mon, what in Jesus' good name are you talking about?" The tension filling the room was setting her on edge and she could see the pain on Cammie's face- this was not how they'd intended to introduce her birth mother. "All this talk about weapons and fate, you told us you were giving her up because-"

"Because I wasn't in a position to care for her and circumstances had changed. All of which was true." After all, von Strucker ordering the project terminated because she would poison everyone, not merely select individuals really had changed circumstances. Monica gave Julia a look that wasn't altogether kind. "Futhermore, I told you all you needed to hear, that I had a child needing a family and you wanted one."

Looking as if Monica had just broken her heart, Julia clutched Cammie a little harder. "Then what's all this stuff about my Cammie killing people?" A shake of the head and a sigh, "I think it's time for you to leave now, Monica."

Monica tilted her head a bit to the side and gave Julia a quizzical look. "I came here to retrieve my daughter, Julia. I make it a point to not devote my time to endeavors which I will later abandon."

“Yeah, but what if she doesn’t want to go with you,” Cammie said, arms crossing over her chest.

George laughed out loud at that, whooping as if Cammie had made an unexpectedly hilarious joke. "Oh, kids do say the cutest shit. Carmilla...sweetheart, haven't you been paying attention? Even assuming that she doesn't want to go with us, that she wants to throw away every gift that was built into her and spend the rest of her life hobbled so she doesn't accidentally upset the peons in the herd..." The words were coming faster, louder as George finally turned to toward Cammie again. "Assuming that she wants to spend the rest of her life refusing to live up to her potential, Carmilla dear, what makes you think she has any fucking say in what's going to happen?"

Jake stepped forward, putting a hand on the scientist's arm. "Let's talk about this, George. Maybe we can work out a deal of some sort?" He smiled at the man like they were old friends. "Like you said earlier, each of us has something the other side wants."

George glanced down at the hand on his arm as if he'd just remembered that Jake was even in the room, then returned the smile.

"You're right, Junior. Absolutely right." Quick as a snake, he removed his hand from his pocket and fired the taser he held point-blank at Jake's chest. "So we're just gonna drop this play-nice bullshit and take what we want now."

Jake's brain screamed Gun! and he braced for what was going to be an incredibly painful bullet to the chest. He was completely unprepared for the sudden contraction of every muscle in his body as the taser's electrodes hit.

He jerked uncontrollably, head snapping back as he went rigid. Dimly, he was aware of someone screaming, although he wasn't sure if it was him or someone else, and then he ceased to be able to care. He collapsed bonelessly to the ground, twitching as his brain was overwhelmed by his mutation as each one of the cells in his skeletal muscles and nerves flooded him with panicked information.


----


In the end, you can always count on friends to save your ass.

Kurt's message had told her that he and the rest of the X-Men were only a few minutes away, so Wanda was waiting for them not so patiently a few blocks away from the house. She hadn't dared to get any closer without backup, unsure of the situation in the house, but she figured the best course of action would be to circle around and close around the house from a few different points. If they had enough people.

She watched as Jake and Cammie got closer and tried to watch all the windows at once.

Logan yawned as he leaned up against a wall, waiting for the go order to be given. He had a stogie clenched between his teeth, although it was unlit. "We got a plan here or are we just bum-rushing the place and putting everyone down?" he asked idly.

Kurt glanced at the house, considering. Jake and Cammie had been in there for a long time, but there'd been no sign of a disturbance... He was just starting to reply when Jake began screaming.

"I think that means we are going in now. No one is to be harmed unless they attack first." Cammie's parents were quite possibly innocent victims in all this, after all.

Wanda hadn't even waited for Kurt to finish speaking before sprinting for the house, long legs eating the distance between their hiding spots and the front door. She kept low and fast until the front door was in sight - her powers pinpointed the exact weak spot the second before she launched herself into it.

Speed and weight combined with the fact that the hinges were old and should have been replaced ages ago to result in the door exploding inward in a spectacular fashion.

Monet swore and ran after Wanda, hoping the other woman wouldn't need backup. Stepping through the door behind her, she stopped to look around. Monica arched an eyebrow, seemingly undisturbed by the sudden intrusion. "Is no one raised with manners anymore?" She looked over at the Blacks and asked merely, "Friends of yours?"

"No, Mom n Dad don't know these guys. I guess you could say they're my friends," she said. "You know, if you can say I have any in the first place." Mommy's little weapon was on the floor, down by Jake trying to figure out how to untaze him. "And you're so lucky I'm dry," that was directed at George.


"Yeah, yeah. I'm shaking in my boots, Carmilla." The thin-faced man folded his arms over his chest at the sudden infestation of mutants, bringing the pistol hidden under his jacket that much further within reach. He glanced over at Monica, his gaze long-suffering. Couldn't they just taze her too, grab them both, and get the hell out? He'd get the kid that stupid new vampire movie or something as an apology later.

Logan took a very simple and expedient course of action. Out came the claws of his right hand, which he used to stab for the gun still in its holster. Putting holes in ballistic weapons usually meant they didn't fire so good after that. His other hand - claws still in - went for the guy's face in a vicious palm strike to the nose. Blood sprayed everywhere as the thin-faced man was jolted backwards off his feet.

Being slammed in the face with muscle-coated rebar was good for having the wise-ass knocked out of a body, but, somehow, George refused to stay down after the strike. He struggled to get his feet back under him, even as neatly-sliced sections of his firearm began rolling out from beneath his jacket. Don't forget the objective, even if it was all going to hell. Monica needed the girl. If they left without her, this whole circus and everything that had lead up to it was for nothing. He whipped the palm-taser around again, trying to tag Cammie.

Logan looked down at George with amusement. He could tell the man had a weapon in his palm - looked non-lethal - so Logan introduced said
palm-held weapon to the sole of his boot.


*STOMP!* *CRUNCH!*


Unfortunately for both Logan and George, the power-pack came in contact with things it shouldn't have come in contact with and discharged their contents in one torrent of electrons. They liked Logan because of the steel caps in his boots and the metal bonded to his bones. They liked George just fine as well for the shortest path to ground. Logan swore a lot as his leg convulsed. George, on the other hand, screamed.

Sometimes, it was best to stand back and let Logan just ... be Logan. There wasn't a whole lot of room to maneuver without the potential of getting hurt but Wanda didn't necessarily need to be in the thick of things to be useful.

Wanda stood amongst the ruins of the door and used her powers as much as she could, fully willing to shut down anyone that tried to escape. And then something flared red and hot in her mind as her powers caught a new threat and she cursed, trying to figure it out, trying to find the source.

Things are not going to plan, Monica thought in a rather unsatisfied tone. Thanasee didn't with to come with her, even seemed opposed to it, and now had sicced her "friends" on George and herself like savages. These people, precisely these sorts of people, were exactly the sort that the earth needed to be cleansed off.

Monica knelt down beside George and made a show of checking on him while her hand reached into her pocket and drew out a small, electrical device. "It's time to cut our losses, my love," she told him quietly and initiated the teleporter. It wouldn't take them more than a half mile away but it would get them far enough to make a more dignified escape.

That was it. "Oh no you don't," Wanda muttered, taking the cord for the device firmly in hand and pulling, manipulating it. There was a gasp as the device went off, a muffled 'whoomping' noise and a flash of light - sickly - and then they were gone.

In the immediate aftermath, Cammie just stood there numb. Feeling like she had been slapped hard across the face one too many times in quick succession. "What the fuck was that," she muttered.

Jake moaned, lifting his head up slowly. "Are they dead?"

“No,” Wanda ground out, dropping next to Jake, “but they will be.”

-----

Afterward, Kurt and Cammie have a talk about family and history...

Now this was weird. Her room, cleaner than the way she left it, but other than that, nothing had changed. With everything that had happened today, Cammie had excused herself for a few minutes. Why she had come up here?

There were pictures tapped on the wall and the door. The mirror over the desk was broken, but the glass had been cleaned up. A tiara sat on top of the mirror, like the mirror itself was some crowning achievement. Books were all over, and the bed – green and black sheets were made. Posters covered the walls, some of punk bands, others more ‘mainstream.’ The Killers, A.F.I., The Offspring, Greenday, The Pixies, Voltaire…

This was all her stuff, but it felt like a lie.

How much of her life had been make-believe?

After a while, a figure appeared quietly in the doorway, watching her. "This was your bedroom, before?"

“Yeah,” Cammie said, “Pretty freaky, huh?” she took another step forward, “It feels like it belongs to someone else.”

"You have been gone a long time", he pointed out. "The person you were then... may as well have been someone else."

“Yeah, seems like it,” she said, “I used to have to hide things I wanted to eat in the closet,” she said with a gesture and a laugh. It seemed weird now. “It’s hard, being weird in a small town.”

"I know." He half-laughed in return. "I have been weird in far too many of them... once I stopped hiding in the camp from the locals, that is."

“Well… at least Mom and Dad are happy I’m okay,” she said, stopping and picking at some pictures. Three years and one night was still burned too deeply into her brain to consider any of them friends, “I suppose I should’ve called, huh?”

"It might have made things easier on all of you", Kurt agreed. "But what is done, is done, and at least you have got in touch now."

“Yeah. Better than my ‘real mom,’” Cammie muttered. She was a weapon, apparently. That was a comforting thought. She didn’t hate science or anything, but some people should seriously leave stuff the fuck alone.

"There is no such thing as real but how you define it", he said firmly. "Even with family."

“Yeah, there’s a saying though about blood being thicker than water. The kid that lived here… she was totally oblivious. I miss that,” she admitted, “By the way, I know I said it already, but sorry. For hitting you.”

"I wish you had not", he said frankly. "And not only because of the effects. I could have helped you."

“Yeah… well, I’m still getting used to the last bit meaning people actually want to help. …And I didn’t want anything to happen to my parents. I mean, Tim and Julia… I mean… oh what the fuck ever.”

"Tim and Julia are your parents, if you consider them so. For Monica, call her whatever you choose but I would not recommend "mother"." He smiled faintly. "It leads to confusion."

“Yeah, it’s pretty confusing. I think I’m just going to not think about it for awhile,” as much as she could. Some of what her ‘real mother’ was saying invading her the back of her mind still.