Layla & Kurt

[x-mandelbrot.livejournal.com]

Kurt tries to talk to Layla about whose fault Rachel's death really was. She's not quite as receptive as she usually is.

Warning: Angsting over Rachel's death.

Keeping busy was important for lots of reasons. It helped the people who had saved their asses out. Repaying shit like that was really important. The better prepared they were the better they would do going in to help other people, also important. But mostly, Layla needed to not think. Stopping meant thinking and thinking meant Sarah. Thinking meant Rachel. Layla couldn't even figure out which was worse, that her girlfriend was a mindless slave most likely or that a little girl had been killed. No, Layla totally knew which one was worse. That was probably why she was trying to focus on Sarah, as awful as that was right now, because maybe there was hope for her. Maybe she could be saved somehow. But Rachel...that kid was gone. She was gone and, what was worse, Layla couldn't even bring herself to regret her actions that had caused the kid's death. Because more than ever she thought the guy fucking deserved to be eviscerated.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts Layla didn't even realize she was crushing the package of gauze in her hand that she was supposed to be bringing to the medical station.

"Layla?" came a concerned voice from over her shoulder. "The gauze will bounce back, no doubt, but that cannot be good for it."

Jumping a little at the unexpected voice, the girl's eyes shot up, seeking the owner of the words. She hadn't even realized she had tensed up so badly until she realized it was Herr Sefton and relaxed. It was like everything drained out of her and she went as limp as one could while still standing. Her eyes moved from her fuzzy teacher to the crinkled paper package in her hand and she finally loosened her grip. "Oh, sorry. I just...you know." She frowned, eyes turning downward, and ended with the incredibly articulate, "Stuff."

"Of course." He stepped forward to her side, putting a hand on her shoulder to look down at her. "How are you holding up?"

A slow shrug came hesitantly, as if she wasn't even sure it was the answer. It was highly unusual for the girl to seem so unsure of herself. Normally she would bluff her way through things but now she was just sort of...lost. "Still standin'. That counts, right?"

"It is not nothing", he agreed, studying her with growing worry at her uncharacteristic behaviour. "And until we get home, it may be all we can make do with. But you know you can talk to me, yes?"

She tried for a smile but only one corner of her mouth really put in any effort and it came out looking weak and lopsided. And very likely a little bit like a grimace. "Yeah. I just. I dunno. Who says we get home, right? Or that everyone gets home? The people they took in the beginning...they took Yvette and Sarah and Megan and Matt and others. And they showed us this girl. This girl that only wanted to do what they told her. Like she was terrified of not doing what they wanted. And I think...I think that's what they turned those people into. And even if we get home, what if we can't fix them?"

"There must be a way to undo it", he said, with confidence he didn't feel. "There would have to be, in case someone started to ask about one of their own Genoshan mutates who then had to be produced. We will find it."

"Gonna find a way to un-kill that kid he like vaporized, too?" she asked grimly. "'Cause I know I'm like the zombie queen and shit but I can't like un-vaporize someone." And that was the problem. Layla could bring dead things back to life but she couldn't fix the one person she'd been responsible for getting killed.

"Her name was Rachel Kinross," he said quietly. "And no, I think that one is more than anyone can do."

"Who was she? Like half of you knew who she was. Not just like 'that's a little girl' but like knew her." And that was the other thing.

"Her father is a friend," Kurt told her. "And her mother was one of the doctors at Xavier's for a time, which will be why she was taken. I cannot bring her back to them, but I mean at least to bring them the news that her killer has paid dearly for it."

"But what if he doesn't?" Layla had begun fiddling with the gauze package, eyes on it instead of her teacher. "What if he gets away? If you can't find him? If he gets all movie villain escape in the night? If he dies painlessly? If someone other than us kills him?" Clearly, there was no way for him to pay for it that didn't involve his death in Layla's mind. Where was Nico when she wanted someone's life drained away?

"If he gets away," he said, voice stony, "I will spend as long as I must hunting him down, then give him to justice of one kind or another. I am an X-Man, so I will hand him to the law, and if that fails... a number of people who were in that room with us have their own ways. And when he is dead, however it happens, I believe his punishment will be more than any of us can imagine, forever, while Rachel has her peace in the hand of God."

It almost sounded simple the way he said it. Eternity of torment in Hell for the asshole and the little girl gets to be a cherub on a cloud. Normally, Layla could have signed on with something like that. She wasn't exactly a believer but she wasn't exactly a nonbeliever either. It was a little hard to have faith here, though, with everything that had happened.

The girl let silence fall between them and linger for a few moments. And then, in a very quiet voice, she asked, "What're you gonna tell your friend about why she was killed?"

"I will tell him..." He trailed off, putting the words together in his head, then started again. "I will tell him that Thomas Moreau was a monster in human skin who cared for nothing but power. Layla, you do understand that he would have done it anyway? All that you changed was that we were made to watch it."

"But you don't know that," she told him in the same quiet voice she'd used a moment ago. "You don't know what he would've done if I had just...behaved."

"Listen to me. That frame was already being prepared before you ever tried to attack him. It was only minutes between that and the time we entered the chamber, and I did not hear him give any order concerning Rachel, did you?"

"He said she was a lesson. We needed a stronger lesson. Me and Doug and..." her fist crushed the gauze packet again. "If you think people are gonna need restraints you have them ready but you don't put them on people until they try to attack the orderlies. You don't know that he would've used it. You don't know that it wasn't just a back up plan in case and we made him think we needed the fucking lesson. I made him think..."

"Thinking like that will kill you as certain as a blade or bullet," Kurt told her fiercely. "I am no stranger to guilt, I carved my skin for twelve years for sins I am no longer sure I committed, so I know, Layla. Put the blame where it deserves to lie. On him."

"If the wind knocks over a tree and that tree falls on your house do you blame the tree or the wind?" she asked him. "Because if I push him and he did the actual act...it's kinda everyone's fault."

"A tree has no control over where, when or whether it falls in a high wind," he pointed out. "He is not a tree, Layla, he has a will of his own and he allowed you to push him. Perhaps he even hoped someone would."

"Maybe. Maybe he let me and maybe he hoped someone would. Maybe he was just lookin' for an excuse, but you don't know that he would've done it anyway. You don't know he would've used Doug or Jubilee or Kyle as the reason if I didn't do anything. We shipped out the next fucking day. Maybe someone else who's still there woulda been the reason why he did it but you don't actually know. So you can't say it's not my fault. Because maybe it really is. Maybe I'm the straw that broke the camel's back and no one else woulda been." Layla was obviously frustrated and angry. She wasn't really angry with Kurt but somehow him trying so hard to make her feel better just frustrated her more. "I get you want me to, like, not blame myself, but you can't actually swear for sure it's not so...could you just like...not?"

"All right", he said quietly after a moment. "Then I can only hope it will stop hurting you so, in time."

Layla shrugged and muttered a noncommittal, "Yeah." She wasn't sure she really wanted to talk about this, after all. Not even with Herr Sefton. Not with anyone. 'Cause she wasn't entirely sure she deserved for it to stop hurting.