Angelo & Cecilia | Friday afternoon

[x-barrier.livejournal.com]

Cecilia learns more about X-Corps from Angelo, who offers her a job. Then, they discuss Nate, Moira and Rachel.

Cecilia swore there had once been classrooms or dorms or something besides offices in the part of the mansion which she was now exploring. In fact, she had a distinct recollection of coldly chastising someone on the other side of the door before her. All of which intensified the perverse sense of deja vu she hadn't been able to shake since she'd return to Salem Center.

But it had been 10 years, and things had changed, and where there were once students (or something), now there was X-Corps. Cecilia had been curious about the group since Sooraya mentioned it, and she was even more curious upon learning Angelo was its head. With most of her X-Friends elsewhere, she'd had too few opportunities so far to see how folks she met turned out.

Cecilia knocked on Angelo's slightly-ajar office door and stuck her head through the gap. "Knock knock."

"Hey!" He looked up and grinned broadly at her. "I wondered when you'd come to see me."

"Well, you know," she waved dismissively, "had some things to do. Unpack. Buy winter clothes. Figure out if I still knew where the library was. Basic life skills."

Cecilia pushed the door and stepped inside his office, looking around. "Wow," she clucked her tongue. "Look at you, mister director." She sat down in a nearby chair. "And Dios mio, are you wearing a tie in that picture? So professional."

He glanced sideways at the photo. "Yeah, and I think I was all of about seventeen there, which means Nate made me do it. How are you, Cecilia?"

"Oh, I'm fine." She nodded. "I mean, granted, I never expected to come back here, and everything feels both completely familiar and completely different. And I have no idea what I'm doing with myself these days. Plus, nobody's hiring doctors in February or March, apparently." She paused, realizing how manic she probably sounded. "But I'm so glad to be back in New York, and I really do like the vibe here, and the kind of people here. So it's not a bad place to get my bearings."

"Ten years is a long time", he agreed. "Or... close to it, anyway, maybe not the whole ten yet. But the vibe around here never really changes and the door's always open."

"So they told me," Cecilia nodded. "Now tell me about you." She leaned back in her chair. "And maybe about how you ended up doing this. Or maybe exactly what all this is."

"How I ended up doing this - well, it began with Elpis. Nate and I began it, way back when, and it's a lot like this. It's still operating, but things happened and I parted ways with them, brought a few people out with me, and then the Professor offered me this. And this is my dream."

"Sounds like Xavier," Cecilia gave him a small smile. Until this conversation, she hadn't thought about Nathan in years. Weird how somebody had the potential to shape so much of your life, however indirectly, and then vanish from your mind.

"And you do what, exactly?" She asked "I mean, I know you're an NGO, and Sooraya mentioned her project, but what have you been working on?"

"I'm the boss", he said easily. "I work on everything. But my pet project - we've all got one - is a chain of mutant-specific shelters, starting in New York and spreading out. Open to non-mutants, of course, but equipped to deal with powers where other shelters aren't."

"I'm the boss", he said easily. "I work on everything. But my pet project - we've all got one - is a chain of mutant-specific shelters, starting in New York and spreading out. Open to non-mutants, of course, but equipped to deal with powers where other shelters aren't."

"Yeah", he agreed, nodding. "But everything's got to start somewhere. District X has a lot of mutant businesses and services, but mostly they're run by individuals. It always takes government a while to catch up."

"Oh, for sure. Any step's a good step. Life for mutants in New York is markedly better than they were when I lived in Philly, and a hell of a lot better than they were in Honduras."

"Philly's on my list." He grinned. "Honduras, too, given time. We're a global operation."

"Hope you've got a long game plan," Cecilia said. "Honduras has an ineffective sham government rife with corruption. Plenty of government officials have no incentive to change anything, because they're getting money and perks from the carteles. And that's before you even mention mutants," she spat out, "which is a whole other thing." She shook her head and sighed, then met his gaze. "There was so much more good to be done there. I'm still so mad they made me leave."

"I do like a challenge", he said with a grin and a glint in his eye that said he relished it. "It was just getting too dangerous to stay, I'm guessing?"

"No!" Cecilia frowned. "Well, okay," she conceded, "maybe. I mean, Doctors without Borders got the word from a friendly bureaucrat that the cartels might be making doctors targets. It already happened in Somalia and a few other places, and they balked even though the violence hadn't ramped up yet."

She crossed her legs, considering the situation she'd left. "But I think it was about to. They - the Kick cartels were recruiting known mutants, which is never a good sign. And I think we were being watched more closely, at least in Tegus, where it was already a little too violent for DWB's liking." And for Cecilia's, though she'd never admit it.

Angelo nodded. "Better to get out with your lives than risk being kidnapped or worse. Live to fight another day, as they say. And there'll be plenty of fighting to be done."

"I guess," Cecilia half-agreed. "But there's plenty of fighting going on there, and fewer doctors around to help. And plenty of people - like mutants - who can't even get healthcare for whatever reason." She gave him an apologetic smile. "Sorry. I know I sound intense. It's just, you know, you live somewhere for long enough, you get passionate about it. You should have seen me after five years in San Diego."

"...Here's an idea", he said after a moment of studying her thoughtfully. "You want to set up healthcare for mutants in Honduras, X-Corps wants passionate people. Want a job?"

Cecilia stared at him for a second. "Seriously? You think I know anything about cutting through red tape? Or organizing things? Or, frankly, anything beyond cutting people open and fixing their insides?"

"Let me worry about the red tape. I've learned to be good at it, in half a dozen languages. I can take care of the organizing, maybe hire you an administrator to work on site out there, and let you get on with what you're good at."

"I don't know," Cecilia hesitated. "I mean, I like surgery. I genuinely do. I'm not sure if I'd want to give that up." Not that she'd been doing much of it anyway, not since she'd come back.

"You wouldn't have to be there all the time", he offered. "We could work something out to cover your travel back and forth."

"Hm." Cecilia crossed her arms. "Can I think about it? I mean, how much time do you think it'd be?" She paused. "I know I'm being ridiculous, and it's not like I've got a surgery job or anything, but I'm just not willing to turn my back on that. And you know, if I got a job and things ramped up, I couldn't guarantee that I'd have much time for it. I wouldn't want to put you in the position of starting something you have to end."

"It can be as much time as you want it to be", he said frankly. "And of course you can think about it. All I ask is you tell me honestly how much you think you can commit to, everything else we can work with."

"Okay," Cecilia nodded. "Let me get back to you. It turns out Wade Wilson has a contact in Honduras who knows some of the people I know, so at the very least, I should try and find out what the situation there is now, especially for mutants." And then she'd also have a better idea of just how involved setting up mutant healthcare in one of the world's most violent countries might be.

"But yes. I'm interested. I'm just not sure... I've got some thinking to do." And she did, because doing something like this would really be a fundamental shift for her. Cecilia Reyes The International Altruist had really just been Dr. Cecilia Reyes escaping her problems in America. This would be something far more active.

"Wade Wilson has contacts everywhere", he said, amused. "Take all the time you need, then, I don't want you signing up before you're sure."

"I'm beginning to get that sense," Cecilia admitted. "But seriously, thanks. From everything I've heard, you guys are doing great work here, and it's impressive you started all that. And," she smiled, "I'm pretty flattered you'd want me to be a part of it too."

"I've got the Professor to thank for most of it. I wouldn't have got far without him bankrolling us. I think you'll do great work too if you join us, that's why I asked you."

Cecliia snorted. "Well, sure, the money helps. But you can't bring all these people in and get things done unless you have a vision, which you clearly do. You told me this was going to happen 10 years ago, I would have been like 'That kid? Pffft, no.'"

Angelo chuckled. "Yeah, well, ten years ago I was still aimless and angry at the world. You can thank Nate for fixing those."

"Weren't we all?" Cecilia lifted an eyebrow. "Wasn't like I was thrilled to be here back then either," she pointed out. "Times change. When I had to come back to New York, it was here I wanted to be. More or less, anyway. Guess I have Nate to thank for that too." Now there was a weird thought.

"How's that?" he asked curiously.

Cecilia looked at him, a little surprised. "Columbia," she said quietly. "Columbia brought me here, and even though it was an appalling tragedy and, if we're being honest, the lowest point in my life to date, it was..." She searched for a word, but nothing came, so she let the sentence trail indefinitely. "I don't know. Being back here has made me weirdly reflective. I'm glad things turned out the way they did."

"Sometimes it does turn out for the best even if you can only see that afterwards", he agreed. "And Columbia was... Columbia, but I really meant why Nate? Put me down as being self-involved back then."

"Well, he was at the heart of it," she pointed out. "Experienced some really heavy shit, excuse my language. And then he'd just... bounce back and keep working for whatever it was he believed in. Plus, to see him and Moira build this life in light of everything that was going on." She glanced back at the picture of Angelo in a tie. "It's very encouraging to see people soldier on like that."

"Oh, yeah, that I knew." He nodded. "Mistra's gone and buried for good now, but yeah. I don't know, he's... had some more things to bounce back from that might take a bit longer, since then."

"Oh?" That caught her interest, but she tried to look more confused than curious. The trouble with disconnecting from almost everyone from a certain part of your life was that you tended to miss things, especially when your only conduit for information had been busy raising two adorable kids. This is why the Xavier Institute needed alumni class notes.

"I'm sorry to hear that," Cecilia said after a moment. "But I bet he'll get there. We all figure it out, eventually."

"We all do. And at least it's turned out to be more... strange... than as tragic as we thought it was. What have you heard about Genosha?"

"Hardly enough," Cecilia admitted. "I mean, I know basic bullet points, and I've been picking up bits and pieces and filing in details. Sooraya told me that... well, nothing specific, actually. Something about mindless slaves, and I know that we lost people there," we being the mutant network with Charles Xavier at its center, "but she never really said who. Or how many."

"A lot of us were kidnapped as punishment for the Professor's activism, and leverage to make him stop it. Five of our own were made into those mindless slaves and sent against us", Angelo said quietly. "They don't remember anything about it, or what they did, and we all agreed not to tell them. It wasn't really them... but they tried the same thing on four more. Three of them, it didn't take and they escaped. The fourth... was Rachel."

Cecilia stared at him, dumbfounded. She had known Genosha was bad, but this sounded unreal. Implausible. Like a Cronenberg movie come to life. And it was real, and she suddenly felt so guilty. Because while she'd been in Philly, training to be a trauma surgeon and purposefully distancing herself from mutantkind, this had been going on. And she could have helped in some way to stop things

Instead, a child had bee involved and -- wait. "Rachel?" She blinked. "As in... Rachel?" And now it was all she could do keep staring at Angelo, since her brain couldn't process anything he'd said in any way that made remote sense to her.

"As in Rachel", he said quietly. "Nate and Moira's Rachel. The process went very wrong. For almost a year, we thought she was dead."

Cecilia was quiet. It figured it would be an old friend (well, old acquaintance, but still) that brought back her old anxieties. "That's..." She shook her head, very unsure how to respond. "Madre de Dios, that's crazy," she finally said. "This place is still fucking crazy. How do — poor Nate. Poor Moira. That's..."

"It was hard." His voice was still quiet. "For a long time, it was hard... but what's crazier is, it turns out she wasn't dead after all, she'd been put in a fake world on the astral plane."

"Oh." Cecilia squeaked. Everything she'd heard about astral planes and fake world was... yeesh. Based on what 'Yana had told her way back when, nothing good happened in other worlds or dimensions. Nothing. "She didn't — I mean, so wait. If you know all this, that means she's back now?" Her eyes widened.

"She is", Angelo confirmed. "But she's not the girl you remember. She's... sixteen or seventeen, when she should be about eight, and she's been raised as a soldier."

Cecilia tilted her head back and closed her eyes. Poor Nate and Moira indeed. And, for that matter, poor Rachel. Suddenly, Jean Grey's resurgence from beyond the grave looked weak. "Jesus, Angelo." Her eyelids opened, and she looked at him. "That's so many different kinds of fucked. And seriously, is our history just doomed to repeat itself? That's Illyana all over again. Maybe worse.'

"There were no demons this time", he said with a faint humourless smile. "Just Essex." That was delivered with pure venomous hatred. "But otherwise, yeah."

"Only this time, you know," she offered a similarly faint smile, "we're supposed to be the adults. How's that for a scary thought?"

Angelo snorted. "Terrifying. I've even got myself a protege."

Cecilia laughed. "No you don't. The former tag-along-kid gets his own tag-along-kid?" She made a show of frowning. "Where's my protege?"

"And he's one of the troubled ones. Amanda's got apprentices to make her tear her hair out sometimes, too. Three of them. We're calling it karma." He grinned at her. "Stick around long enough, you'll get one."