Appellere, "drive to" or "come ashore"

by Lise

XXVII: The Chapter of not Letting the Heart of a Man be Taken Away from him in the Underworld

Saith Osiris Ani: "Hail, ye who carry away hearts, hail ye who steal hearts! ... ye have done. Homage to you, O ye lords of eternity, ye possessors of everlastingness, take ye not away this heart of Osiris Ani in your grasp, this heart of Osiris. And cause ye not evil words to spring up against it; because this heart of Osiris Ani is the heart of the one of many names, the mighty one whose words are his limbs, and who sendeth forth his heart to dwell in his body."

IV.
~

NATE

*

The last thing I expect is to see Domino striding through the mist, angry scowl and worry coming off her in waves.

It's been-- oh, a few days, long enough for me to be a little grumpy, so the first words out of my mouth aren't the nicest. "What the fuck are you doing here, Dom?"

"I came in case something happened."

I don't want to argue with her, but yelling at each other is one of the two things we do best. We talk, voices rise. I get more and more frustrated... she's not taking things seriously.

She came out here because Adler told her to, for chrissake. Maybe the baby's throwing off her hormones.

"Do you think this is a joke, Dom? I can't protect you and the baby out here--"

"And no one's fucking asking you to!" She's pacing in front of me, and I can hear her boots squelching in the mud. She continues, "I came out here because I wanted to, and you have no fucking claim to guilt or anger or fucking any of what might go wrong in your oh-so-paranoid head."

Paranoia is considered overly-cautious. I call it prudent. She rounds on me, and I feel the itch at the back of my neck that means a shift's going to come. "Dom, get the fuck out of way, there's a line coming."

She hops to the left, belly swaying, and I catch her right before she falls off her feet. She glares at me, and pulls away. "I'm fine."

"Oh, you stupid woman! You want to die out here, that's it! I've figured it out."

"What the fuck are you on about now?"

Icy, angry, and still pretty spry despite the kidlet in her gut, Dom's voice rises close to a yell. I grab her arm, and haul her out of the way of another shift. Bad zone, too. "You come out here to try and find me because some schizophrenic thinks it's a good idea, pregnant and hardly capable of running, never mind surviving out here." Take a breath, continue. My eyes feel hard and full of fire. "And what the fuck were you going to do when you found me, hmm? Were you going to throw up on whatever danger there was until it went away?"

This is getting ugly. This is not the time, or place, but I can't seem to stop. She's looking equally pissed off, and starts in. "I'm perfectly capable-- I found you, I'm fine. Don't fucking question my ability again-- and don't, for chrissake, put yourself out over my well-being. I can still kick your ass, and I will if I have to. But we're going home. Now."

"I'm not going to be dictated to by prophesy."

What I don't say is, I met an Irene Adler once, and she had the power to frighten me a little. And I sure didn't like that.

She grabs her pack, muttering about fucking stubborn men, and looks ready to head out on her own again. I can't fucking believe this. "Where the fuck are you going now?"

Her voice is flat. "If you want to die, fucking do it."

"And what's that supposed to--"

Dom turns around again, anger full, but quieter. "Irene saw someone try to kill you. Succeed in killing you. Which fucks up the whole plan of gathering the Twelve together and getting out of this shithole, doesn't it? So I came to help. If you don't want it, if you're too crazed with shift-residue, then what can I do to change your mind."

"You think I'm acting irrational because I'm going crazy!--"

"No, I know you are."

I can't. Fucking. Believe. This. "Dom," I try to say calmly, and grit my teeth. "I am not going to let anyone kill me. You, however, are pregnant, and I am not going back without this Magnus. You'd better go back without me."

"No fucking way."

Desperate look in my eyes. Imagined? I can feel that she's worried, even if she doesn't want to admit it. "So we're stuck together."

I nod grimly. "A few more shifts, we see if he's healthy, we knock him out if he's not, and we go back."

She sticks out a hand, and sighs. "Deal."

She always was a stubborn one. I know I couldn't have sent her off packing, even if I tried.

I wish I had tried harder. We find the Magnus, alright, and he's not all right. Not in the least.

I end up killing him. --he wasn't that past saving, either, but I didn't know what else I could do. We didn't have time to try and calm him down.

He turned on Domino, and she crumpled up, fainting. I started to work my way towards him, keeping an eye on Dom to make sure she's still breathing okay, and everything looks good.

Then I notice the blood between her legs.

~

KITTY

*

Irene and I, as long as we're focused, are a very good team.

I've gotten used to her visions by now-- normal ones she'd point, and then an apple would fall, or she'd gesture and someone would fall flat on their face, or, well. You get the idea.

Ones that were in the Books, she'd start screaming, babbling, moaning. She'd clutch her head, eyes would squeeze shut, and then, just...

You know how sometimes, when a stream, barely any more than a ditch with moisture seeping up through the plants at the bottom, gets a lot of rain, it just... overflows? Floods?

That's what her mouth does, and my hands can barely keep up as I try and record what she's mumbling.

She speaks too fast sometimes for her hands to write, so we both try and take everything down. That way, between the dual records, we can, hopefully, catch everything.

It was Franklin's idea. I think he wanted to make sure that I had something to do. Sweet, but unnecessary. I'm still trying to build a computer that might take this disk I carry around with me, so that we can compare her version to the original.

One of the originals.

Domino set out this morning to find Nate. She said that he wasn't far, because she could still sense him, a little, and that she would be fine on her own. I was all set to go with her, but she gave me the slip, and if she doesn't want the company, fine.

They never said what happened to Magneto.

When they get back, it's all Franklin can do to repair the damage. They cut it fine. All of us were in the garden, teaching some of the children to read, and Nate just storms through with Domino on his back, face completely grey.

It had been three days since we heard from them.

And it would be too late.

~

DOMINO

*

I can't believe it.

The nerve of the woman, sending me off on a suicide mission to see that Nate was fine.

"Maybe, maybe the vision was prevented because Domino went. Maybe, her just being there created a disturbance in the shift lines long enough for Nate to escape that fate. Domino." Kitty puts a hand on my arm. "We can't ever know."

"And that's the only answer I'm going to get."

She's worried. Kitty's messiah, the one who could tell us what the fuck to do in order to save the whole goddamned universe-- Irene is useless. She can't fight, she won't survive the shifts, and she's fucking up. Kitty answers, a tremor in her voice. "You can't ever expect things to go the way you plan them with destiny, Dom. You know how it works--"

"And that's going to make the fact that I risked my life-- I risked a lot more than that-- to run out into madness, half-cocked, on the word of some psychic who's barely holding her own head together."

I'm very grateful she doesn't point out that I chose to go.

She sits down across from my bed. I don't remember the last time she's smiled and had it count. She says, "I--don't know."

Out there, somewhere in my belly, an ache formed. About an hour ago, it started throbbing again. Instinctively, I clench my fist, and turn away from her to face the wall. "If you don't know, Kit, who does? You're supposed to be the expert."

I hear my door shut quietly, and take a shaky breath. She doesn't know what I've lost. I don't even know, and it's my gut that's torn up, my baby that almost made me bleed to death.

Another day, and I'll be ready to be back on my feet. This day of rest is only because Nate threatened to knock me out psychically, and I know he wasn't bluffing when he said it.

I drift into sleep, listening to people alive. I shouldn't have this day of rest.

It feels like Thursday.

~

LORNA

*

"So, you know some shit, right. You can see some shit." Nate's arms are folded across his chest, and he's leaning against my favorite tree. Irene's facing up to him boldly, and I shiver. He still frightens me. They haven't noticed me so far. "Tell me, Irene. When you saw me in trouble, what was going to happen? What, tell me, did you see?"

She replies quietly, "It doesn't matter."

I don't think he could see her knees trembling, but I can.

"And you've decided that it doesn't matter, now. It was so important before."

Nate being sarcastic. I stay still, behind some bushes, and hold my breath. He stares at her, and I wonder if he's reinforcing the threat with some mental conversation as well. Her hands start to sign, and he makes a chopping motion with his hand, cutting her off sharply. "No. Say it out loud."

"... I just saw, an ambush. Someone trying to kill you. Nathan, I never told her--"

"Who?"

Her profile looks tired. "It doesn't matter." At his warning glare, she said, "A woman with red hair and power. Lots of power. You knew her. I think, I knew her. Or, will know her."

He looks a little shaken. Of course he is. I recognize that description, same as him. He asks, "What was she going to do?"

Irene is loathe to give him the answer; I can tell by her posturing. With difficulty, she forms the words, softly getting out, "She was trying to rip out your heart with her bare hands. It-- took her quite a while."

I shiver again, and crawl on my hands and knees into the greenhouse. I don't want to know any more about Jean Grey trying to rip her son's heart out. And there are tomatoes to wash.

I don't know what became of the conversation, but I do know that I found out that Cable was gone in the morning, and Irene looked like she'd been crying all night.

~

FRANKLIN

*

It's the most awful thing I've seen.

--no, that's a lie. It's the most awful thing I've seen today. And this week, and maybe this month. Irene's face, Kitty is hiding. Nate and Dom aren't around-- already shunning this last hope of the deceased. They've gone foraging. A few of the children are playing in the grass over there, and Mikhail is with them, eating an apple.

We didn't tell him we were burying a four month old baby.

I barely got used to the idea of Domino, pregnant, and now I have to get used to the idea that she'll never have children again.

Gods protect Dom.

She refused to come, of course. Said she didn't lose anything that was real, and nothing that she hadn't lost before. Nate didn't come because he's Nate.

I don't care. For once, I need this. I hate thinking that someone who lived here, even a still-born infant, had to die without a funeral. I can't do anything to prevent it sometimes, and that's hard, but I can do this.

I'm responsible for this place in a way the others aren't. I can't do what they do to protect it, so I have to do things like this.

Kitty asks uncertainly, "Should someone say a few words?"

Irene starts signing, and I pick up the motions for 'apology' and 'child' and I thought that one meant watermelon, but I guess not. Her mouth stays closed. I cough, scuff my shoes. "I wish I could do more. Could have done more. Dom, Nate, they made sacrifices, we all do."

It's not much of a eulogy, but my heart's not in it. We give up so much. Dom won't admit it, she stays tough with armor, a warrior with mental spears and no phalanx of Roman soldiers behind her. Nate chooses to ignore that which doesn't make him angry-- a fierce thundering god.

I miss my parents. Last night, I dreamed about their deaths again, and couldn't help crying. I wonder if Nate misses his.

Kitty brings me back to the real world with a frown. "This doesn't seem, right, somehow. We should say something else."

Irene has a look of everything being her fault, and I touch her shoulder kindly. Answer, "Yeah, we probably should."

Irene leaves.

My mind wanders back to this show I saw as a kid once, about wrapping mummies up in bandages. I thought it was the coolest thing in the world, the way that all the scientists would unwrap them and find little bits of spells and things written on the cloth itself. It was neat to think that someone wrote something on some cloth, and then wrapped a dead guy in it, and then thousands of years later we'd unwrap them and read the writing, get to see all the gross details of the body.

Natron, the crucial ingredient for making a mummy, can preserve a corpse with roughly thirty-five days of immersion. I don't know why I remember that from being a kid. My father's face is a dim memory, but I know that.

Kitty shakes my shoulder, and looks concerned.

I tell her, "I don't know what to say," and go.

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