Auld Lang Syne - Tabula Rasa (Backdated)

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Afraid of missing the upcoming class field trip, Molly visits Adrienne's office. The problem is the field trip was in May.



Emma leaned back slightly in the chair she was sitting in, curling her now bare feet under her, more willing to relax in her sister’s rooms than she was most places. “I wish I had been able to stay for Christmas Day,” she replied to Adrienne’s comment. “But the only possible date for the meeting with Bambang was Boxing Day. Spending most of a Christmas Day in a jet, no matter how personally and luxuriously appointed is not my idea of fun. Still, I finally got sign-off on the contract and not even the most annoyingly sexist General is going to over-ride his President’s wishes.” She quirked a slightly anxious eyebrow in her sister’s general direction. “You did enjoy dinner on Christmas Eve, didn’t you? And Christmas itself, I hope.”

Adrienne emerged from the kitchen to pass Emma the cup of tea she'd poured and sat opposite her sister with her own cup. "You mean because you didn't pick up on that the half-dozen times I said 'this dinner is amazing' or some variation of same?" she inquired sweetly. "Yes, I enjoyed dinner immensely. Thanks for setting everything up. And yes, I enjoyed Christmas itself," she nodded, sipping her tea and grinning like a Cheshire cat. "Thanks for putting that word in at the Plaza for us." Despite being cleared of the financial investigation, Adrienne was finding that her reputation wasn't proving so easy to repair. Luckily for her, Emma had an indefatigable reputation, and was trusted without question. Adrienne had suspicions it was the telepathy. "I'm glad you got the contract; not that I had any doubts at all that you would," she smirked. "You have a special way with Sexist Generals that I both admire and fear."

Emma’s sigh was deeply satisfied. “If only they knew how easy it was to install paraphilias, they might be more careful about what they think in my general direction,” she said. “It’s always so difficult to explain to the museum staff what you’re doing to the diprotodon.” She sipped at her tea and smiled at her sister. “I’m glad you enjoyed unwrapping your presents for Christmas.” Emma’s tone was utterly dry and yet somehow managed to convey the comedy waggling eyebrows of her double entendre. “Now, how about mid-January? I can get us up to the Berkshires house for a few days without too much risk of interruption for at least three or four days. Enough leisure time for – what do you call them? Shenanigans?” She tilted her head slightly. “I’m happy for you to bring Garrison, of course, but we all know I’m not one of his favourite people, so I’ll leave that to your discretion.”

Adrienne put a hand over her face at the bit about the diprotoon to hide an amused chuckle. "I love your brain so very much." Raising the teacup to her lips again she shrugged and gave Emma an easygoing smile. "Gar's been talking about taking a sailing trip in the new year, and we'll have our little Spring Training getaway soon enough, so I don't think he'd begrudge me a couple days with my sister without him. And hey, you're already my favourite person so don't be bent out of shape about Garrison. I think he's more terrified of your magnificence than anything."

“Oh, I’m not bent out of shape, believe me,” said Emma. “He doesn’t like me for perfectly sensible reasons...” Emma’s words were cut short by a knock at the door.

"Hello?" Molly voice called on the other side. "It's me, Molly! Can I come in please Miss Frost?"

She heard talking on the other side so it sounded like she was there. That was good! Maybe she'd make it.

"So you're implying that I'm not- uhh, he-ey, Miss Hayes," Adrienne called out, brows knitting together. "Yeah, just a second." Slightly confused, she set her tea own and opened the door. "C'mon in," she gestured. "Em, you remember Molly Hayes?" It was a silly, too-formal line- of course Emma would remember her.

Emma’s smile was warm and open. She hadn’t had many opportunities to see Molly since Genosha, but the affection she felt for the young girl was very strong. “Of course I remember Molly,” she began, but cut herself short at the look on Molly’s face.

Molly blinked at her. "You do?" she said, tilting her head curiously. Hmmm. Maybe Miss Frost had talked to her about her before?

"Oh! Um...cool!" she added quickly with a nod of self-reassurance. That was it. She smiled brightly, extending her hand.

"Nice to meet you!"

She glanced between her and Adrienne.

"Is she coming with us? I was afraid I was gonna be late! I fell asleep on the couch. But I didn't see anybody else. Are they already on the bus?"

Adrienne dropped her mental shields and sent Emma a Look. She didn't really think much about Molly saying it was nice to meet Emma, figuring she'd just been excited and used the wrong word. But what bus? ~What the fuck is she talking about?~ "Uhh... what bus, Miss Hayes? Am I forgetting some sort of chaperoning duty I signed up for?" ~I didn't even drink anything last night!~

It was Molly's turn to be confused and she shook her head. Oh! Maybe she'd forgotten too!

"Y'know...the bus! For the rally? At the thing....with the Gen...um..." She couldn't think of the word. What was the word?

"It's for a class project? All the students are going? We needed a bus. I need to find my peace hat though. It'll be part of the theme!"

Molly glanced back over to Emma. She didn't want to be rude to just talk to Miss Frost while she was there.

"Are you a new teacher?" She looked a lot like Miss Frost. She seemed really nice though, kinda like her mom. She could see her being a teacher.

“No, Molly” said Emma. “I’m not a new teacher. I used to be a teacher here, but not for a little while. But Ms Frost is my sister. I was coming to visit her.”

~I don’t have to tell you that this is not right, do I?~ Emma’s words were clear in Adrienne’s head, as was the concern that tinged them. ~What do you think this bus is that she’s talking about?~

~Oh gee, yeah, y'think?~ Adrienne snarked as thoughts of demon possession and dopplegangers went through her head. ~The bus, the rally... it's like she's thinking of Genosha?~ But the psychometrist didn't sound entirely certain, because that would be really weird. ~I don't know what other bus or rally she's talking about. Usually if we're taking them somewhere we just use the van. I hired the bus specially so I wouldn't have to deal with the traffic at the rally, but usually we take them in the van.~ Stop rambling, she ordered herself. ~Besides, I don't think anyone has any fieldtrips upcoming, beyond the New Mutants training thing. So why the fuck does she think we're going to a rally? Should we tell her there's no rally?~ Normally she wouldn't have trouble correcting a student, but something about the weirdness of this situation had Adrienne asking Emma before she acted. Or maybe it was her newfound ability to include other people in situations rather than trying to cope on her own.

"Oh!" Molly said. This seemed familiar. Miss Frost the 1st seemed a little nervous, though. That was weird.

"That's neat. Is your last name Frost too?"

"Yes," Emma replied. "I'm definitely a Frost." ~We've had this identical conversation before,~ Emma sent to Adrienne. ~On Genosha. Molly knows me. Knew me. She hasn't had a head injury recently that you're aware of? Because if she's waiting for the bus we're thinking of, she's lost everything since before Genosha.~ Emma was smiling at Molly but it was hard to keep a frown from her face. ~That is a lot to lose. A lot.~

Adrienne went to shake her head but caught herself in time, not wanting to give away to Molly that they were having a mental conversation about her. ~No, I haven't heard of anything. Jean would have told us if there was. Do you think something's fucking with her mind?~ she asked Emma nervously. ~Demon, power-sucking evil mutant, some shit like that? Shit, do you really think she's lost everything? since before Genosha?~ "Hey, Miss Hayes," she asked with a smile, "my sister and I were just talking about math before you came by. She was asking me about your lessons. Would you do me a favour and tell her what you're learning in class right now?"

Molly curled her nose. She really didn't like math that much. "Um....fractions? And um...we just started on stuff with letters in them?"

She glanced between the two of them.

"What's going on?"

There was a lot of pauses between when Miss Frost the 1st and Miss Frost the 2nd talked.

Emma smiled reassuringly at Molly. “It’s called algebra, Molly,” she said. “And it’s very important. There’s nothing going on. Adrienne and I are just a little bit worried that you didn’t know the bus had been cancelled, because that happened a little while ago.” Emma flicked a very quick question into her sister’s mind and nodded at the reply. “Adrienne was telling me that lots of the other students went on a ski trip, but you couldn’t go because you were sick. Maybe that’s why you didn’t know about the bus?” Emma managed to make her tone gently interrogative, aiming the question as much in Adrienne’s direction as in Molly’s.

~I’ll need some more information before I can work out exactly what Molly’s lost,~ Emma sent to Adrienne. ~Who knows her best? Maybe they might have some ideas about why she’s regressing.~ Emma gave a mental shrug. ~There are holes in her mind, Adrienne. I can feel that much just from the most superficial scan.~

~Yeah, I'll get Wade Wilson for you,~ Adrienne answered, pulling out her phone. ~And I think you're right about her losing everything,~ she added with the mental equivalent of a wince. ~We're not doing algebra.~ "Emma's right, there's nothing going on, Miss Hayes," Adrienne said with another smile. "If you'll excuse me a moment, Wade's supposed to be joining us for tea and he's a bit late, so I'm just going to call to see what's keeping him.

"Wilson," she greeted when the call connected, "you're late for tea. You're supposed to be in my suite. Why don't you come up right away?"

Wade pulled his phone away from his ear for a moment and frowned at the display before putting the mobile back to his ear. "I hate tea. Also, not supposed to be there. You sure you've got the right Wilson? Lockpicking's not till next week."

Adrienne frowned into her own phone. "Yes, that's right. I can't believe you forgot, either. Silly Wade," she said into the phone, ignoring Wade's protests. "Look, Miss Hayes is here as well. She came by to ask about going on the bus to the Genosha rally. I'm going to ask her to stay for tea as well, so it'll be a proper tea party. Hurry up; Emma and I are waiting to speak to you." She hoped she'd given him enough information without upsetting Molly again.

"Wait - what? Fuck. I'll be there in ten." Wade didn't give Adrienne a chance to respond before thumbing his phone off and heading for his gym bag. He was pretty sure he had some clean clothes in there - and if he didn't, the Frost sisters were just going to have to deal with Eau de Wade until he figured out what the hell they were talking about where Molly and Genosha were concerned.

"I'm going to go pour some more tea," Adrienne announced when Wade had hung up, setting her own phone aside and going into the kitchenette. "Wade will be here presently. I've got cookies to go with the tea," she called out to Molly cheerfully. "Did you want tea with your cookies, Miss Hayes? Or would you like some juice instead?"

Normally brightening when Wademan came in, Molly instead tried her hardest to suppress a frown. Something wasn't right. They kept looking at her a lot, staring.

"Hi Wademan. Um...can I have milk please?" she said, fidgeting with the tassels on her rainbow hat. Milk was best with cookies.

"But...But....I wasn't sick, Miss Frost...um...Miss Emma Frost," she said. Had she been? Was that why she couldn't remember being sick? She didn't know of any sickness that made it hard for you to remember that stuff.

"I'm....very confused."

Emma smiled reassuringly. “I always used to like milk with cookies,” she said. “But now I might have another cup of tea, Adrienne,” she called in a slightly louder voice. “If you can just stay with Adrienne, Molly, I might just have a talk with Mr Wilson in the hallway for a minute and we’ll see if we can clear up why he thought you were sick and you don’t remember. Because you’re right – it is very confusing right now.”

"O...Okay," Molly said.

***

Emma had been accused of many things in her life and had been guilty of a reasonably high proportion of them. But one thing she was fairly certain she would never be accused of was attempting to soften the blow.

"Molly," she told Wade, once she was certain the door had closed behind them, leaving them alone in the hallway. "is losing her mind." She raised her hand to stop Wade before he started. "Literally. There are holes. In her memory. I haven't delved deeply but there are large gaps in her memory. As in can't-remember-much-of-anything-since-before-Genosha gaps."

Wade snapped his mouth shut and just looked at Emma for a second. "Okay," he said, keeping his voice low. "So. How'd it happen and how're we gonna fix it?" He very pointedly kept himself from thinking about who might've done it and what he'd like to do with them for messing with Molly.

Emma frowned and tapped a fingernail against her lips. “I haven’t investigated in great depth yet; this has all come as a sudden and rather unpleasant surprise and Molly was already confused enough. Running a full scan on her would have just made her think the world had gone madder than she already thought it had. From what I’ve been able to feel about the pattern of the holes, though – it’s like a thread unravelling. Something has pulled a string in Molly’s mind and now it’s all coming apart.” She looked at Wade. “I know you’ve been spending extra time with Molly because of her illness. Is there anything you can think of that happened that may have triggered this... reaction?"

Frowning, Wade started tracking back over the last week or so, using his hyper paranoia as a marker for when things might have gone bad. "Nothing... really stands out. I mean, nobody weird approached her, she didn't go missing for any length of time." He paused, eyes narrowing a little. "There was a kid at the comic store the other day. He seemed nice enough - Adam, I think. Molly said she knew him from the store, they liked the same stuff or something. It looked like they were having some kind of... staring contest at some point, but I didn't think anything of it at the time."

“Ok,” said Emma, thinking deeply. “What sort of age are we talking about? Molly’s age, older, younger? It would be unusual to have an offensive telepath of sufficient skill at Molly’s age to do it deliberately, but it could happen unconsciously if he’s powerful enough. Or has been given some very specific training. What happened to Maddie springs to mind.”

"Molly's age, definitely - maybe a little older? But she acts younger than her age most of the time - but a he's a kid. Not the kind of person who'd have the kind of training you're talking about," Wade said, well aware of the types of programming that could be done to young people. "And he wasn't acting shady like Maddie was. I didn't get that vibe from him at all - he seemed perfectly happy and his mom was nice when she collected him."

"Do you know," said Emma thoughfully, "I wish your answer had been "green flames shot from his eyes and he gave an evil laugh before Molly fell over in a dead faint". It doesn't mean it isn't him, though, but the green flames always make it so easy." Emma frowned in thought. "He could be a manifesting telepath. Or empath or any variation of path you can stick a prefix in front of. He may not know he's done it. We need to resolve that possibility and perhaps hope that it is him. Because if he is just a kid and Molly isn't being subject to outside attack, then this is something coming from inside her. Either something that got planted long ago or Genosha did far worse things to her than we expected." Emma frowned at herself. "I knew I should have followed up on whether she had a head injury at the time. Maybe I could have caught a glimpse of this."

"Yeah, talking to the kid would probably be a good idea," Wade said. He was getting ready to offer a plan when he heard Molly's voice, a distinct thread of distress coloring it, coming from the other room. "Shit," he muttered. Then there came a thump and Wade was heading for the door without a backward glance. They could figure plans out later.

****

While Emma was explaining what was going on to Wade, Adrienne had been left in the suite with the girl. Which was weird. Students didn't really hang out in her suite. Luckily, she had a couple things she hoped she could get Molly interested in to keep her unaware of what was going on, like her fish tank, or the Wii. "Did you want to play a video game or something while we're waiting for Emma and Wade to come back?" she asked Molly when she'd brought the milk and cookies for the girl out of the kitchenette.

Something was going on. Usually when kids asked what was going on adults fibbed and said there wasn't but there really was. They were nice but kept looking at her like she was wearing a funny shirt.

"Maybe," she said quietly.

They would tell her, right?

But then again her mom and daddy never told her stuff. She was always too little to know.

Adrienne fired up Lego Batman on the Wii while she drank her tea, snagging a cookie as she waited for the game to load. "'Ever played Wii before?" she inquired.

Staring at the Wii controller, Molly nodded. "Wademan showed me," she said. She could hear him and Ms. Frost the 2nd outside. Wademan sounded worried. Ms. Frost the 2nd sounded calm but maybe she always sounded like that. She reminded her a little of her mom.

There was something bugging her, though. Something Ms. Frost the 2nd said...It was weird.

"Why would they be going skiing? It's May."

"It's- wha?- uhh..." Adrienne barely managed to stop herself before telling Molly it was almost January, figuring at the last moment that maybe she shouldn't correct Molly until Emma and Wade figured out what the fuck was going on. Delicacy and tact for the win. "I dunno," was all she said for an answer instead. She wasn't actually lying now, right? She wasn't confirming or denying. Just sort of being noncommittal. "So I've got all the alternate characters unlocked; who do you wanna be?" she asked to change the subject as she brought up the appropriate screen. "Batgirl?"

"It's too hot for skiing," Molly said, frowning in frustration as she tried to get Miss Frost to look at her. Maybe she was kidding.

At least it sounded good until she saw the bright white when she looked out the window. Jumping up, she headed for it and looked out.

"Th---There's snow? Why is there snow?"

It wasn't cold yesterday. It was nice. She got to wear a t-shirt. Her stomach felt funny, fluttery.

"Uhh... it's a hologram?" Adrienne suggested weakly.

Molly blinked, her frown deepening. "No..." She shook her head, backing away from the window, nearly tripping over a chair.
"I don't...I don't believe you," she said. She could tell she was lying but why would she lie?

"What's going on? Please tell me!" she said, her voice rising the more scared she got.

Emma was in the room on Wade's heels, and took in the scene at a glance. The thump seemed to have come from Molly sitting down facing the window, as if the shock of the scene outside the window had physically staggered her to a point where she couldn't stay upright. Even without touching her mind, Emma's suspicions were confirmed when Molly's face, turning towards her and Wade, was entirely drained of blood, white and shocked.


When Wade and Emma came back Adrienne went over to them. "She's freaking out," she hissed in a stage whisper, "she saw the snow and now she's freaking out. I didn't want to be the one to tell her it's December. I wasn't sure if it would mess her up worse."

"I got this," Wade said, mostly sure it was true. Walking over to Molly, he sat down next to her on the window seat and glance outside. "So," he said, then paused to put a gentle hand on her shoulder. "So here's the thing, half-pint. It's not May anymore - a lot's happened since then. It's December, that's why there's snow outside."

Molly wordlessly shook her head at Wade. Her mouth opened, then closed, then open again to give way to a gasp as she pulled away from him reflexively.

"But...why?"

She put her hands to her head, ripping her hat off, her breathing getting quicker, and quicker. All the thoughts swirled around in her head, like a tornado, and they swelled, bigger, and bigger, until her head began to pound and she couldn't take anymore....and the thoughts popped.

Molly's eyes rolled back and she backed up into a corner, slamming into the wall so hard it made a few knickknacks fall off of the shelves. She slid to the ground, her body twitching and moving like an uncontrolled dance.

Part of Emma's mind went out like an arrow to the medlab, grabbing the first mind she could find there and letting them know that Molly was coming down now and why. The rest of her power was busy, catching disintegrating swirls of Molly's memories, trying to stop the girl's mind from unraveling further. "Medlab," she ground out, even as Wade picked up Molly's convulsing body. "They know. Go. Run."

They ran.