A follow-up with Essex

[x-psylocke.livejournal.com]

A late-night meeting leads to a disturbing turn of events for Elisabeth.



“Ms Braddock.”

Elisabeth Braddock jumps slightly at the hollow voice behind her. “Yes, Doctor?”

"Nervous, Ms Braddock?"

"No,” she said slowly, her back still turned away from him. “I’m just realizing that I'm absolutely oblivious to when you're around, which can be damn annoying." She faces him, wearing a soft smile to lighten her tone.

"I'm used to dealing with oblivious people. There is a surplus of them in government service." Essex took a sip of his drink. "However, I think that is not what you are most interested in."

Elisabeth lets out a frustrated sigh. "No, it is not."

"You would like to know about your vision."

"I’m assuming this was the general idea of us meeting." Betsy voice laced with obvious sleep-deprived irritation.

"Well then, I do have some news." Essex walked over to the lushly appointed and carefully locked bar in Xavier's lounge. "Drink?"

"No. Thank you." Grateful for her glasses at the moment, Elisabeth knew that if they were removed, it would only show her glaring at him. Though she could not hide her grimace as she followed his footsteps to the bar. "Are you planning on sharing this news anytime soon, Doctor?"

"Certainly, but some things shouldn't be hurried." Betsy heard the infuriating clink of ice cubes and bottles. "Like a proper gin. Ms Braddock, I'm surprised. After months without sight, you cannot wait a few moments to hear about regaining it?" Essex' moved close, suddenly, and withdrew. Betsy was pulled up short by the speed, and her fingertips brushed the rim of a glass beside her.

Her anger brewing slowly, Betsy clenched her jaw. "I am a patient person when I'm not being tested. Perhaps, we can discuss this later, when I don't seem so eager, then. And I said no to the drink."

“If you wish, Ms Braddock. I am surprised, though. A young woman with extrordinary self control as you must possess, angry over a trifle.” Essex’ mouth quirked as he sat back down. “Sleeping poorly, perhaps?”

“No,” she lied. Her tone was acid.

"Indeed. Sit and I will tell you all the details. I admit a certain amount of professional pride in my solution." Essex sipped his drink.

"Fine, I'll sit." She reached for the arm of the chair and sat down. She sat fuming silently, the nerve of him to antagonize her like this and about this of all things. "I thought you said that the possibility for treatment would be difficult and long.” She snorted at him. “The fact that you claim to have found a solution so soon is questionable."

“Ms Braddock, I detect a tone of rebuke. I did say that the possibility for treatment would be long, and indeed, it has been. Your treatment involves processes that I have been working on for twenty years.” Essex said mildly, enjoying Betsy’s anger, savouring it. “I should point out that I do have other duties beyond your troubles. I have devoted some time to your issues; time taken from other endeavors. While I do not begrudge it, I think a certain amount of patience is justified. Besides, solution or no, I will not allow you to make any decisions without due consideration of the implication. Excitement is not a virtue in my profession, Ms Braddock."

Elisabeth shuddered with pulsating rage. She would not cause Essex bodily harm, she repeated to herself. She realized the man was trying to help her. "Alright. I apologize.” She bowed her head, exasperated. “I’ve been quite irritable as of late and unfortunately, it seems I’ve been a bit snappish. I would like to hear about your discovery."

"So I can see. Do give my respects to Mister Summers." Essex said, and for a brief moment. Betsy thought she heard a nasty twist to Essex' voice, but she ignored it.

The man could assume all he wanted about them though without her corroboration or reaction, it’d just be speculation. She turned her attention back to him as he continued, obviously pleased with himself.

"The design is actually very elegant. However, the same dangers I cautioned you on still exist. You see, the damage is as extensive as we feared. Eyeballs, optic nerve and the brain. And yet, it provides us with a new opportunity."

Extensive. Damage. Her shoulders slumped slightly, though she tried to continue as if unphased. "How so?"

"The blinding is complete. Any other doctor would have told you that you will be blind for life and beyond. I have no such issues. I've made some inquiries, and believe that I have found a way to help you." Essex sipped his drink again. "We are going to perform a three step operation."

"Which entails what, exactly?"

"Replacement of your damaged eyes, spun carbon filaments with stem cell packets to regenerate the optic nerve, and laser surgery to reconnect the nerves to your brain."

Her face darkened at the casualness of his would-be to do list. "In which the results of said operations will render me with an IQ equivalent to an amoeba." She paused. "Not to place little faith in your abilities, Nathan. But you did say such procedures would only cause damage to my psionic abilities, alone."

"As I told you, Ms Braddock, any treatment involves that risk. My colleagues would waste no time sewing nerves into your brain tissue and damn the costs. My only other option is to try to use some stem cell regeneration in your optic nerves and hope it bonds a link." Essex said. "If you want your sight back, you will have to risk your mental abilities. As I have told you repeatedly, Ms Braddock, it is a risk that you must choose whether to face."

She shook her head at the notion. "I'll go with what you believe is best." Betsy leaned forward with elbows on her knees and placed her head in her hands, massaging her temples. "I've forgotten what it feels like to actually see a doctor without receiving pity or a false hope prognosis."

"Ultimately, Ms Braddock, you have to go with what you feel is best." Essex steepled his hands together. "I'm not the one assuming the risk. You are. If you are at all hesitant, I'd recommend you decline the procedure."

"No," she turned up to him, another dark look directed at him. "I'm not going to decline. Risk or no risk." A smile playing on her lips. "I suggest you should ready yourself, sir. I doubt this procedure will be a short one and I'd rather you not fall asleep mid-incision.

"Impuning the skills of the man with the knife to your brain is not the best way to begin." Essex said, finishing his drink and standing up. "Be assured of this, Ms Braddock. There is no one on this planet better qualified for this.”

"My, my. We are modest, aren't we?"

"Humble neurosurgeons have malpractice suits. Arrogant ones do not. Make your own conclusions."

Betsy rose slowly, her grin expanding. "I was merely trying to make light a rather bleak situation." She placed her hand out to shake his and make a formal exit.

Essex took her hand and touched the back of it to his lips lightly. "I will be in touch over the next few days about my assistants for the operation. Since you don't wish to involve the staff, I think I will use Ms Pryde to monitor the diagnostics."

Elisabeth tried not to appear shock as his lips made contact with her hand, or the fact that she felt scarring all along his hand. "Kitty?" she croaked. "Don't you think it would prove a little unnerving to have her witness such a procedure?

"Without McCoy, she's the only one competent to monitor the displays while I operate. If I had another options, unless you'd prefer undergoing this procedure at Fort Dix."

"Sorry, but I don't think I can handle more than one arrogant surgeon a day." She said tersely.

“As you wish.” Essex said, and Betsy instantly regretted the comment. There was a cruelty in Essex that much was obvious. But she was using him as a convenient target for her anger. It was that maddening calm that bothered her. Normally, her psychic abilities would have pierced whatever mystery Essex kept locked inside himself. Instead, it was that horrible blackness in front of her.

"I would rather not have a student around at all.” She said quietly, realizing her hand still in his grasp, she slowly removed it from Essex's grip. Her finger traced the scars. She continued, uncomfortably. “But, I would hope that Ms. Pryde would manage to keep this between us, then? I would truly like this to be kept a private matter, for now."

"I have utmost confidence in the young woman." Essex said. “She understands sensitivity.”

Betsy brought back to her senses, finding that she still questioned him and his motives. “And you, Doctor Essex?”

“I understand my oath, Ms Braddock. I also understand the road ahead of you.”

“Doctors always say they do.” Betsy said. “But really, they’re just spectators.”

"I have some experience in private rehabilitation."

"Do you?"

"Quite."

Betsy quirked an eyebrow at him, she had actually picked up on the strain in his voice. "Was it a personal matter?"

"Aren't they all personal matters, Ms Braddock?"

"Quite. But yours don't seem to revolve around vain attempts to become the human norm."

"No, they don't. Do you need the approval of humanity around you? Perhaps you do, even if as a mutant you are hated. I’m not worried about their opinions. Their God is dead, Ms Braddock, and rightfully so; a vain, arrogant humiliating tyrant that man needs to jettison. I hope for an evolution in thought and idea, not just genetics." Essex mused. " There is my work, and nothing else is needed."

There was something tacit about his statement, she decidedly pushed her curiosity further. "But this wasn’t always the case, was it?"

"No, it wasn't." Essex said in clipped tones.

"Ah, so there is more to the formidable Doctor Essex. I must say it’s very encouraging to hear you were a proper Englishman at one point."

"Proper I do extremely well. It's one of the advantages of being English. Americans like vulgar emotion."

"But yet you choose to work here in the States than back home. I wonder if you've grown accustomed to handing out your daily scathing remark to unsuspecting students and staff, American or not. You must be aware that you are not the most approachable member of this staff?

"Do I need to be approachable, Ms Braddock? Should I hang a sign for hugs and positive reinforcement outside of my door, while gleefully preparing children to fight a leather clad war?" Essex snorted. "I wonder if any of you understand what you risk in this."

Her voice remained calm, despite her growing irritation. "We are not preparing them to fight this war, but to learn how to protect themselves against those that would try and cause them harm. If they choose to join in this fight, that is their decision." Betsy's felt her hair stand on end as she continued. "Though I think I understand better than most about risk. And the fact that you even dare make such a proclamation shows you are oblivious to much more than gleeful children searching for affection."

"Their decision? Really? And this school's indoctrination has nothing to do with that choice? Ms Braddock, I had assumed a much more astute perception from you. Tell me, where will you be when Charles writes his first letter home to the family of a child that has been killed in his crusade." Essex' voice showed the barest edge of anger. "What words will he tell them? Explain that they were lost in a war that he helped to create? You have lost something in your battles, and can understand at least the bare minimums of pain. Can you extend that to a child in an unmarked grave?"

Her hands balled into fists, as she spat out her words. “How can you say that?”

"Have you ever watched a child burn?"

She held onto her resolve, though she felt her anger waver. She took a deep breath as she answered slowly. "No, I have not."

"It's a hot fat sizzle. The smell of roasting pork." His voice is calm as a lake, but she can hear the maelstrom behind the maddening level tones. "You salivate as you smell it. Like a pig at a cook out. The smell makes your mouth water. The burnt hair smell underlies it, but over that, over everything, is that delicious scent."

Essex is suddenly very close to her. His dead dull tone with perfect infliction. "You smell your own fat cooking under the skin as you reach over the seats. You hear the screams like a dull roar beside you, all the while your stomach growls and begs to be fed."

She remained still as Essex walked behind her and continued speaking into her ear. She refused to move. His hand came up, and gripped her chin lightly, fingertips along the side of her face. The immense, unnatural strength in his hands hinted themselves with the barest pressure.

"You smell your son and wife burn to death as you scream and fight and drool and exist in a world that is nothing more than pain, helpless to save them." Essex' hand tightens, and then lets go, the scars rubbing slightly over Betsy's skin. The violence in them underlined by the reminders of pain. "Just death and hot fat in the cold evening."

"They tell you that he is not human, not fit for God's church. No hallowed ground, because He cannot allow his creations to reach towards him. That is the world Charles wishes to reconcile with, and he is not ready for the pain." Essex' voice is steady, no hints of the horror in his voice. "That is the reality for someone in this school.”

Her skin continued to burn where his fingers touched her. Yet, she refused to be dissuaded, Elisabeth turned her head stiffly in his direction. "Though I do not see the correlation between your wife and child dying and our cause. All of us have suffered, Essex. Do not assume that no one can understand what waits for us behind these walls. We are not blind to it. To the burden that is being a mutant.”

"You have made your first and worst mistake. That is the burden of being a person, mutant and human. ." Essex refilled his glass, the gin slopping over the rim. “I will always make sure they have another choice. Give them the freedom to choose a path that is neither Xavier's nor Magneto's. If cool dispassion is what will hold the zealots at bay, so be it."

Betsy tilts her head to the sound of the gin landing on the table. She found the crack behind the façade, however disturbed by what laid behind it. "I think you chose cool dispassion as a front to try and prove to the rest of us that you don't care. Which I'm starting to feel is not the case. You care more than you would like to admit, personal matters aside, you were a parent and therefore, in your own demented way still behave as one."

"Ms Braddock, you can tell yourself whatever fiction you wish. It really doesn't matter." The icy control was back, full force. Betsy started to speak, but was cut off by Essex. "I think that you should get some rest, and let me know about the procedure." Essex left the glass on the table and walked out. Betsy looked around in the darkness, her disability underlined by Essex' sudden abandonment.

She finally broke her stiff composure and let out a hiss of air through her teeth. This was the man who she trusted her life to; she ignored the fact that he was the only one who could help her. She stared at the door in which he just exited. Her lips in a tight line, Betsy shook her head. “Bastard.”

Comments

Really...

[x-essex.livejournal.com]

What Essex needs is severe blooy therapy. Barring that. the blood of the foolish and weak to bathe in. And a stiff gin. Even genocide looks calm and well thought out after gin.