Moira/Cain

[x-mactaggart.livejournal.com]

Moira knocked, loudly, on Cain's front door. "Open up, ye bloody pillock, it's startin' ta get cold!" With her tests completed and Nathan off doing what he had promised her last night, she had decided to come out and check on Cain after spotting the journal posts.

Cain pushed himself away from the computer, suddenly glad for the interruption. Striding across his kitchen, he opened the front door. "Evening, Doc."

"Evenin' yerself," she replied, rocking back on her heels. She nodded. "Are ye invitin' me in or am I stayin' on yer porch fer th' rest o' th' time I'm 'ere?"

Cain grinned and held the door open for her. "If you'd have called first, I'd have cleaned up," he joked. "Still, I'm glad you stopped in."

"Glad I'm still loved by all." As she ducked under his arm...well, walked under his arm...she noticed the tools laying around. "Remind me ta call on ye when Marie-Ange's new bed arrives. Was wonderin' where th' tools were kept."

"Hey now," Cain chided, "I don't go askin' to play with your scalpels and... doctory doodads, you leave a man's tools alone." Absently, he reached back behind himself to turn off his monitor. "So," he continued, "what brings you out here?"

Moira nodded at the computer. "Saw yer reactions ta stuff goin' on in th' main 'ouse, came by ta see 'ow ye were doin'."

Letting out a huge sigh, Cain settled down onto his couch, realizing that Moira's visit was going to take a more professional turn than he'd anticipated. Still, she'd listen.
"I swear, I don't even like the little bastard. He's one of them," Cain spat the word, "them damn empaths, telepaths, mindfuckers. But it ain't right to treat him like that. Ain't right at all."

Taking a few moment to compose himself, Cain stared at the floor between his feet. "I went down there to the medlab a few nights ago. Was going to see if you were up and just wanted to shoot the shit." Cain paused, intently staring at a spot on the floor as if expecting some answers to materialize before him. "I could see him in that room, just staring blankly like he'd been lobotomized. That ain't right to do to someone, doc." He looked at Moira, trying to divorce the image of the woman who was his friend from the doctor who could support crippling a kid in the name of "help".

She sighed and shrugged out of her jacket. She was going to be here for a while. "It's nay me decision," Moira murmured. She was still worried about his test results. "I jus' do damage control." The chair she grabbed was heavy but she managed to move it over so she faced Cain. While she didn't agree 100% with the decision, she had known something had had to be done.

Cain smacked his fist into his palm, the noise echoing through the room. "Someone's going to push that kid until he snaps. He's got nothing to build on, so they take away everything he CAN do?" Cain gestured pointlessly in the air. "Like, turn just PART of his power off?"

He sighed, leaning back and staring at the ceiling. "Just... seeing him in there like that. Reminded me of too much stuff."

'Ahhhh, there we are.' She had known all of this wasn't strictly about Manuel. "I'd ask if ye'd need ta talk but...I think tha' goes without sayin', aye?" She leaned back in her chair, eyes focused on Cain and waited.

Cain nodded and continued, kicking his feet up onto the couch. "It was seeing him there, stripped of everything that makes him ... him, you know? It's like..." Cain took a deep breath, then just came out and said it. "I spent over twenty years strapped down to a bed in a hospital. Couldn't move, couldn't speak, could barely even think. It's like... I knew there was something out there, but I couldn't do a damn thing about it."

"That's what that kid's face was like. Like a waking coma. And then he gets out, gets some semblance of life back, he gets treated like a fucking pariah - like he's the goddamn Antichrist. The kid can't even COMPREHEND how people feel, how's he going to react when he gets his power back?" Cain paused, looking over at Moira. "You are going to give it back to him at some stage, right?"

"Aye, o' course," she said, firmly. "I dinnae believe in takin' anyone's powers away from them. They were *born* wit' it an' unless they're tryin' ta use it ta injure others on purpose...'tis theirs ta use."

Cain thumped his chest. "I mean, if you take this," he indicated the gem set into his breastbone, "away from me - I'm a normal guy. I had twenty-six years of being a normal guy, and I could go back to it if I had to. This kid, he doesn't even REMEMBER what it's like to be a human being. That's just --" Cain paused. "He scares the shit out of me, I'll admit it. All of them do."

"Th' kids?" Not entirely surprising.

Cain shook his head. "The telepaths. And it ain't just because they're the only things around that can hurt me. I don't like the idea of having anyone in my head again." Cain cut himself off suddenly, not having intended to say the last word out loud.

Moira's eyebrows raised slightly. "Cain, I'm nay only th' doctor, but I'm yer friend. Ye can talk ta me 'bout anythin'," she reminded him.

For a long while, Cain sat silently, watching his hands shake. Get the fear under control... he repeated. "There was this guy," he began, "when I was in the coma. The military brought him in to try and get me out of it. For years I had this guy sticking his fingers into my head. Pushing at stuff, prodding. And there wasn't a damn thing I could do."

"That's why I ran. It got to be too much, and something inside me just - I don't know." Cain clenched his hands into fists. "I just hated it, hated him, and pushed and pushed and pushed until something just - broke. And then... then I ran."

The professional inside Moira growled loudly and she wanted nothing more than to get the names of those doctors and have their licenses suspended. You don't play God. The friend inside her was equally as outraged. But she managed to remain calm. Things had started to make sense finally. "An' fer good reason. Cain, sorry doesna cover this...but I am. No one should 'ave ta go through tha'."

Cain shook his head. "Hell, I could even accept that they meant well. But for years - YEARS - I'd wake up somewhere and just hear his voice in my head. I knew the bastard was out there - and then when I learned about Chuck, and I thought about what he could do..." Cain sighed. "I don't know what the fuck I was thinking, coming here."

"Sometimes 'ome is all ye've got. Do ye want t' keep bein' on th' move?"

Cain let out a quick breath. "I could - but I shouldn't HAVE to, you know? I never asked for this. I wanted to be normal, someone just like... like everyone could be proud of, you know? My old man..." Cain's voice caught in his throat, but he swallowed and continued. "My old man picked Chuck over me. I know that. I wasn't what he wanted - I wasn't another version of him. I ain't dumb, Doc. But even before the accident, I was a physical kid, not some lab rat like my old man."

"We're nay carbon copies o' our parents, Cain. Nor should we 'ave ta be." Her gaze softened. "But it still 'urts, I know."

"It ain't about hurt, doc. I was different, so I got cast aside because he wanted something just like him. And that-" Cain punched his thigh, punctuating his angry statement "that is why the fucking double standard with de la Rocha pisses me off. He's not something they can control, so they'll push him and push him and PUSH him until he breaks." Cain's voice grew louder, and all he could do was look around. Something had to be done about it. Something HAD to move, something had to be broken.

Cain stood up from the couch and began pacing, hands clenching and unclenching. "That's what they do, they PUSH you, and you have to push back or they'll break you. Well, I'm not gonna be pushed anymore!" He shouted, turning to scream at Moira. "I'm not someone they can fit into their fucking little box! I go my way! I do what I want, when I want to do it! I can't be stopped, you hear me! NOTHING stops me!"

Something in the back of Moira's mind was telling her now would be a good time to retreat. She remembered Charles' table and what happened in the Danger Room. But despite that little drop of fear, she stayed. 'Unbreakable, unbendable.' Her conversation with Nathan came back to mind. She rose to her feet, jaw set. "Fine, ye do tha'," she said, loudly. "Nay anyone's tryin' ta stop ye. Ye set 'urdles fer yerself, nay anyone else!"

Cain's breathing was rapid now, his chest heaving as he heard the blood rush through his ears and the world took on the tinge of red. Red was anger, red was power.

Control, he reminded himself. Solitude. I am in control. I do not need this. I do not NEED this...

Slowly, Cain opened his eyes and exhaled. The red had faded, and with it, his rage. "Doc," he croaked out, "I'm ... I didn't... I wasn't going to..." his apologies fell off into midair as Cain looked at his hands, as if seeing them for the first time. He knelt down by the couch, leaning over to rest his upper body on it. "I gotta get through this, Doc. That girl, Marie. She keeps telling me I don't know what it's like having another person in your head. She's lucky. She gets to push them down and be herself. I couldn't... I didn't. Not until he pushed me too far." He looked up at Moira, eyes red with some emotion held in check, "And now I come home, and they push. And they push. When does it stop, Doc?"

She stepped over and knelt next to him. "I dinnae know, I wish I knew." Moira tilted her head at him. "Ye'll get through this, ye've got friends 'ere who are willin' ta 'elp. If'n ye'll let them."

Cain looked Moira in the eye, whispering. "How do you do it?" he asked, voice a mixture of pain and concern. "How can you let one of them into your head like that? You don't... you don't worry that he's going to change you, mold you into what he wants you to be instead of what you are?"

Moira closed her eyes and then opened them up again and looked Cain straight in the eye. "I trust 'im wit' everythin' tha' I am. We've 'ad seven lon', tryin' years ta build tha' trust." She smiled. "'Tis nay easy, I'll say tha'. But I *know* Nathan. I know 'e would never do tha' ta me. An' I believe 'im. "

Cain sighed. "Ain't for me," he announced. "I'm happy with just my own voice inside my head for company. That's enough for me." He stood up, reaching up to brush his fingers against the ceiling briefly. "I know I ain't a part of Chuck's dream, doc." Cain said, "and deep down, to be honest, I don't give a nickel's worth of pig crap for the whole mutant-human thing. And Chuck and I ain't ever going to see eye to eye on anything." He pointed a finger out the window at the mansion. "But what they're doing to that kid in there - because they're scared of what he is - that's wrong, Doc. He's helpless, and those bastards are gonna fuck with him good unless someone stands up for him, gives him a little bit of dignity to learn how to be his own man again." Cain turned again to look Moira right in the eye. "I didn't have that. I never had that. Not until I came here. Here I finally get to be who I am, not some lab specimen or hunted like some animal." Cain ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. "And I'll be damned if someone's going to do to that boy what they let Aldo Ferro do to me."

Moira filed the name away. It wasn't one she recognized by maybe Nathan would. Or Pete. "We're nay goin' ta let tha' 'appen ta 'im. I'll leave before it does." She sighed. "Rory suggested it...fer Kevin. Lookin' back, it would 'ave only killed 'im faster. So, aye, I will nay watch tha' 'appen."

Cain nodded tersely. "Good. He.. I won't ever trust him, Doc. I don't think I'll ever trust any of them. But that don't mean I'm gonna sit by and watch them screw him over worse than he needs, you know?"

"Aye, I know." Moira shook her head and looked at him seriously. "Ye may 'ave all th' bloody tact o' a tractor bein' dropped from a plane but...yer a good man. Ye argue wit' me on tha' point an' I'll personally 'ave it out wit' ye."

"Good man?" Cain arched an eyebrow. "Doc, I'm the best. Ask anyone." He smiled. "I'll be okay," he said straight-faced. "Really."

She snorted. "Did yer ego grow wit' th' rest o' ye?" She nodded. "Aye, I know ye will because I'll be checkin' up on ye."