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XMM: "Vials of Ivory and Coloured Glass, Unstoppered" (Moira et al.)
Title: Vials of Ivory and Coloured Glass, Unstoppered
Fandom: X-Men movieverse
Rating: PG
Characters: Moira McTaggert, Jean Grey, Charles Xavier, Ororo Monroe, Raven Darkholme, Rahne Sinclair.
Spoilers: For all of X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
Summary: Women beware women, in days of auld lang syne.
Author's Note: Special thanks to![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
thelastgoodname for an absolutely wonderful beta that really had me thinking about the story in new ways. Unfortunately, each time I tried to write a new draft to address those issues, I ended up stalled, so I was forced in the end to go for a superficial edit. All flaws are firmly my own.
Vials of Ivory and Coloured Glass, Unstoppered
“So this is it?” Raven asked, looking at the huge building which loomed in front of them.
“Yep,” said Jean Grey as she dropped her bags and opened the mansion door. "God, it's good to be home.”
It was, Moira noted as she looked around, indeed a rather nice place for one to return to. Some of the older academic buildings on campus had been a little similar, and she had seen a few castles in Scotland which managed to be even more grandiose, but none of them had been so . . . welcoming.
This was, as Jean had noted, a home, at the same time as it was a mansion, and at the same time as it was a school. A building with many different faces, and Moira had only stepped inside the door.
"It is good to have you home," an older man in a suit responded in an English accent, entering the parlor. "The place wasn't the same without you, I have to say." He paused took in Moira and Raven. "And I see you brought friends."
Jean nodded. "This is Moira, Professor; she's in my pre-med classes with me. And this is Raven, her roommate."
The professor strode over the group, shook hands with the two of them. "It's a pleasure to have you here."
* * * * *
The Not-Too-Distant Future. . . .
Moira K. McTaggert, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., assistant director of the Muir Clinic in Edinburgh, stood in the courtyard of the old familiar mansion, staring into space at the tombstone of Charles Xavier. Oh, Charles, how couldn’t you see that your entire life was always hurtling towards this moment?
She didn’t know how long she had stood there, deep in her own thoughts, before she became aware of a presence behind her. "Ororo," she said, in greeting. "I'm sorry, I was just. . . ."
“Saying goodbye,” Ororo said, nodding with what she must have thought was understanding, even though of course that hadn't been what Moira had been doing at all.
She had said goodbye years ago, after all.
“It’s been hard for all of us,” Ororo started, after some hesitation, “but I can’t imagine—”
No, you can’t. “It’s okay,” Moira cut Ororo off before the X-Man had a chance to say anything more. “Charles died as he lived. As must we all.”
For a moment Moira thought Ororo might protest, call her on her bullshit (although it was true bullshit nonetheless), but then she just nodded in agreement. “I was hoping, that maybe, while you were here—”
Moira caught her meaning immediately. “I live to serve,” she said. This was who she was.
The relief on Ororo’s face was evident. “Ever since Jean—” She paused, flailing, then started again. “We’ve been a bit out of our league lately,” she admitted. “We think Theresa’s begun to develop a secondary mutation, but for all we know it may just be laryngitis.”
Moira graced the X-Man with a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll look at it. It won’t be any trouble at all.”
“Thanks,” said Ororo, leading Moira into the mansion. “You know, you know more about mutants than even we do, now. If you want—”
“No,” Moira said, cutting Ororo off before she could say another word. “Charles has already offered and I have already refused, Storm. More than once.”
She paused in front of a retinal scanner. The scanner's red light passed over her eyeball (how did Scott pass through this door? she wondered) and
“The temptation to turn my students into science projects would simply be too great for me to resist.”
* * * * *
One Month Later. . . .
“Check,” said Charles Xavier.
Moira watched as Charles raised his—no, not his, she corrected herself, the body was stolen, it would never be his—raised a hand and moved a bishop across the chessboard.
The teenaged girl perched in the chair at his bedside stared at the board, her brow furrowed. She didn’t have very many moves open to her at the moment. Frowning, she moved a pawn in between her king and Charles’ bishop.
Charles parried with his rook. “Rahne captured it with her knight, letting loose a girlish squeal of triumph in the process. Charles smiled and studied the board,
"Protecting your queen," Moira observed as she passed by the duo, giving her adopted daughter's shoulder a quick squeeze en passant. "How very English of you, Charles.”
"The queen was more powerful than the rook,” Charles noted, speaking in a voice which was and wasn't his at the same time. The cadence, the accent--all of these were completely reminiscent of the Charles she remembered--but the pitch was off, too deep. "Sacrificing the former to save the latter was a necessary sacrifice."
Necessary sacrifices, Charles? Moira remembered long nights of conversation between Charles and Erik, debating which sacrifices, exactly, were necessary and which were not. And now here he was, in another man's body, turning an ethics problem—a problem she stressed mentally, even though she knew Charles couldn't hear her, not anymore—into a last-act debate solution, all because he had deemed it necessary. Don’t talk to me about necessary sacrifices.
Rahne's look of triumph suddenly turned the sour as she searched the board for a move, any move, that would free herself from the trap Charles had laid.
“It is possible to beat him,” Moira answered helpfully, seeing that, if Rahne would only attack from the right direction, Charles’ queen was weak. “I managed more than once.”
“Indeed you did,” Charles agreed, examining the lay of the board. “And Erik managed quite regularly.”
Charles moved a pawn, the arm which wasn't his not even shaking as he did so. the physical therapy was taking well, and Moira had little doubt that soon he would be walking, running, having the use of a pair of legs again after so many years in the chair. Little recompensem, she supposed, to he who had been the third-most powerful telepath in the world—for being trapped in a body without a mutation, trapped in a single brain with only his own thoughts to keep him company.
“Moira?" a voice cut in from over the intercom. "Miss Darkholme is here."
Charles raised an eyebrow that wasn't his, the question clear in his stolen eyes. “A visit from an old friend?”
“I am a doctor, Charles,” she answered, unsure why she was defending herself to him, of all people. "I don't get to choose whom I heal."
* * * * *
“Hello, Raven,” Moira said as she entered, taking care not to start at the sight of her old acquaintance (never a friend, no matter how well Moira might have thought she had known her, never that). Out of all the hundreds of faces the serum could have forced upon Raven, why that one? “Or do you like to be called Mystique now?”
“Mystique is dead,” Raven said firmly. “I’m here to see if you can bring her back to life.”
“Mystique was a terrorist,” Moira observed as she picked up a stethoscope and put it on. “Even if I could restore your abilities, I’m not certain that I should.”
“You will,” Raven said with confidence. She looked up at Moira with eyes much older than the too-familiar face in which they were set, penetrating eyes which had seen Moira down to her very core. “It is what you do. You heal people, and this . . . this humanity, it is a disease.”
Moira slipped a hand inside Raven’s shirt and listened to the thump-thump of the ex-mutant’s heart as she held the cold metal of the stethoscope to Raven’s breast. “There are some of us who are perfectly happy being human,” she pointed out.
She expected Raven to scowl at the reminder, to scoff at human weakness, but instead she only looked up thoughtfully, and Moira would almost swear that for the first time in her life she saw sadness in eyes which formerly had only been used to hide behind. “This is not who I was meant to be,” she said simply.
* * * * *
“Why that face?” Moira asked the empty laboratory as she finished scanning the notes from her interview with Raven. She picked up the ex-mutant’s blood sample and slipped it into the centrifuge. “After so many years, so many masks, why that face, Raven?”
It was an insane question. After all, Raven hadn’t chosen what face would be forced upon her for the rest of her life; the serum had, although Moira was not quite certain just how. A hundred hypotheses flitted through her mind, each more improbable than the last; she knew better than to reject any of them.
She would find an antidote to the so-called cure. If it was possible—and she no longer doubted whether anything was possible—she would find a way to do it. She would give Raven and Erik and all of the other mutants who had been robbed of their powers and of their abilities back their old lives if they wanted them, and she would carry the burden of being partly responsible for the good and the evil they would do with that power.
And as she extracted the DNA and inserted it into the analyzer, her mind kept coming back to a single image: a face from long ago, sitting next to her in a cramped dorm room, working on a paper on the economics of Victorian London while Moira composed a lab report on evolutionary genetics, and the same face, older but unmistakable, in her observation room, today.
Why that face, Raven?
* * * * *
As Moira returned to the hospital wing, the voice which wasn’t Charles echoed through the corridor, speaking the three familiar words which Moira had hoped to never have to hear again:
“Check. And mate."
Fandom: X-Men movieverse
Rating: PG
Characters: Moira McTaggert, Jean Grey, Charles Xavier, Ororo Monroe, Raven Darkholme, Rahne Sinclair.
Spoilers: For all of X-Men 3: The Last Stand.
Summary: Women beware women, in days of auld lang syne.
Author's Note: Special thanks to
thelastgoodname for an absolutely wonderful beta that really had me thinking about the story in new ways. Unfortunately, each time I tried to write a new draft to address those issues, I ended up stalled, so I was forced in the end to go for a superficial edit. All flaws are firmly my own.Vials of Ivory and Coloured Glass, Unstoppered
No one knows what it's like to be hated, to be fated to telling only lies.Fifteen Years Ago. . . .
But my dreams, they aren't as empty as my conscience seems to be.
I have hours, only lonely. My love is vengeance that's never free,
No one knows what it's like to feel these feelings like I do, and I blame you.--"Behind Blue Eyes," The Who
“So this is it?” Raven asked, looking at the huge building which loomed in front of them.
“Yep,” said Jean Grey as she dropped her bags and opened the mansion door. "God, it's good to be home.”
It was, Moira noted as she looked around, indeed a rather nice place for one to return to. Some of the older academic buildings on campus had been a little similar, and she had seen a few castles in Scotland which managed to be even more grandiose, but none of them had been so . . . welcoming.
This was, as Jean had noted, a home, at the same time as it was a mansion, and at the same time as it was a school. A building with many different faces, and Moira had only stepped inside the door.
"It is good to have you home," an older man in a suit responded in an English accent, entering the parlor. "The place wasn't the same without you, I have to say." He paused took in Moira and Raven. "And I see you brought friends."
Jean nodded. "This is Moira, Professor; she's in my pre-med classes with me. And this is Raven, her roommate."
The professor strode over the group, shook hands with the two of them. "It's a pleasure to have you here."
* * * * *
The Not-Too-Distant Future. . . .
Moira K. McTaggert, M.D., Ph.D., D.Sc., assistant director of the Muir Clinic in Edinburgh, stood in the courtyard of the old familiar mansion, staring into space at the tombstone of Charles Xavier. Oh, Charles, how couldn’t you see that your entire life was always hurtling towards this moment?
She didn’t know how long she had stood there, deep in her own thoughts, before she became aware of a presence behind her. "Ororo," she said, in greeting. "I'm sorry, I was just. . . ."
“Saying goodbye,” Ororo said, nodding with what she must have thought was understanding, even though of course that hadn't been what Moira had been doing at all.
She had said goodbye years ago, after all.
“It’s been hard for all of us,” Ororo started, after some hesitation, “but I can’t imagine—”
No, you can’t. “It’s okay,” Moira cut Ororo off before the X-Man had a chance to say anything more. “Charles died as he lived. As must we all.”
For a moment Moira thought Ororo might protest, call her on her bullshit (although it was true bullshit nonetheless), but then she just nodded in agreement. “I was hoping, that maybe, while you were here—”
Moira caught her meaning immediately. “I live to serve,” she said. This was who she was.
The relief on Ororo’s face was evident. “Ever since Jean—” She paused, flailing, then started again. “We’ve been a bit out of our league lately,” she admitted. “We think Theresa’s begun to develop a secondary mutation, but for all we know it may just be laryngitis.”
Moira graced the X-Man with a smile. “Don’t worry,” she said. “I’ll look at it. It won’t be any trouble at all.”
“Thanks,” said Ororo, leading Moira into the mansion. “You know, you know more about mutants than even we do, now. If you want—”
“No,” Moira said, cutting Ororo off before she could say another word. “Charles has already offered and I have already refused, Storm. More than once.”
She paused in front of a retinal scanner. The scanner's red light passed over her eyeball (how did Scott pass through this door? she wondered) and
Kinross, Moiraappeared on the screen in front of them, just above
Codename: None
Clearance: Granted
Monroe, OroroThe steel-reinforced door slid open, giving them access to the fortified portions of the mansion and Moira’s unfortunate patient.
Codename: Storm
Clearance: Granted.
“The temptation to turn my students into science projects would simply be too great for me to resist.”
* * * * *
One Month Later. . . .
“Check,” said Charles Xavier.
Moira watched as Charles raised his—no, not his, she corrected herself, the body was stolen, it would never be his—raised a hand and moved a bishop across the chessboard.
The teenaged girl perched in the chair at his bedside stared at the board, her brow furrowed. She didn’t have very many moves open to her at the moment. Frowning, she moved a pawn in between her king and Charles’ bishop.
Charles parried with his rook. “Rahne captured it with her knight, letting loose a girlish squeal of triumph in the process. Charles smiled and studied the board,
"Protecting your queen," Moira observed as she passed by the duo, giving her adopted daughter's shoulder a quick squeeze en passant. "How very English of you, Charles.”
"The queen was more powerful than the rook,” Charles noted, speaking in a voice which was and wasn't his at the same time. The cadence, the accent--all of these were completely reminiscent of the Charles she remembered--but the pitch was off, too deep. "Sacrificing the former to save the latter was a necessary sacrifice."
Necessary sacrifices, Charles? Moira remembered long nights of conversation between Charles and Erik, debating which sacrifices, exactly, were necessary and which were not. And now here he was, in another man's body, turning an ethics problem—a problem she stressed mentally, even though she knew Charles couldn't hear her, not anymore—into a last-act debate solution, all because he had deemed it necessary. Don’t talk to me about necessary sacrifices.
Rahne's look of triumph suddenly turned the sour as she searched the board for a move, any move, that would free herself from the trap Charles had laid.
“It is possible to beat him,” Moira answered helpfully, seeing that, if Rahne would only attack from the right direction, Charles’ queen was weak. “I managed more than once.”
“Indeed you did,” Charles agreed, examining the lay of the board. “And Erik managed quite regularly.”
Charles moved a pawn, the arm which wasn't his not even shaking as he did so. the physical therapy was taking well, and Moira had little doubt that soon he would be walking, running, having the use of a pair of legs again after so many years in the chair. Little recompensem, she supposed, to he who had been the third-most powerful telepath in the world—for being trapped in a body without a mutation, trapped in a single brain with only his own thoughts to keep him company.
“Moira?" a voice cut in from over the intercom. "Miss Darkholme is here."
Charles raised an eyebrow that wasn't his, the question clear in his stolen eyes. “A visit from an old friend?”
“I am a doctor, Charles,” she answered, unsure why she was defending herself to him, of all people. "I don't get to choose whom I heal."
* * * * *
“Hello, Raven,” Moira said as she entered, taking care not to start at the sight of her old acquaintance (never a friend, no matter how well Moira might have thought she had known her, never that). Out of all the hundreds of faces the serum could have forced upon Raven, why that one? “Or do you like to be called Mystique now?”
“Mystique is dead,” Raven said firmly. “I’m here to see if you can bring her back to life.”
“Mystique was a terrorist,” Moira observed as she picked up a stethoscope and put it on. “Even if I could restore your abilities, I’m not certain that I should.”
“You will,” Raven said with confidence. She looked up at Moira with eyes much older than the too-familiar face in which they were set, penetrating eyes which had seen Moira down to her very core. “It is what you do. You heal people, and this . . . this humanity, it is a disease.”
Moira slipped a hand inside Raven’s shirt and listened to the thump-thump of the ex-mutant’s heart as she held the cold metal of the stethoscope to Raven’s breast. “There are some of us who are perfectly happy being human,” she pointed out.
She expected Raven to scowl at the reminder, to scoff at human weakness, but instead she only looked up thoughtfully, and Moira would almost swear that for the first time in her life she saw sadness in eyes which formerly had only been used to hide behind. “This is not who I was meant to be,” she said simply.
* * * * *
“Why that face?” Moira asked the empty laboratory as she finished scanning the notes from her interview with Raven. She picked up the ex-mutant’s blood sample and slipped it into the centrifuge. “After so many years, so many masks, why that face, Raven?”
It was an insane question. After all, Raven hadn’t chosen what face would be forced upon her for the rest of her life; the serum had, although Moira was not quite certain just how. A hundred hypotheses flitted through her mind, each more improbable than the last; she knew better than to reject any of them.
She would find an antidote to the so-called cure. If it was possible—and she no longer doubted whether anything was possible—she would find a way to do it. She would give Raven and Erik and all of the other mutants who had been robbed of their powers and of their abilities back their old lives if they wanted them, and she would carry the burden of being partly responsible for the good and the evil they would do with that power.
And as she extracted the DNA and inserted it into the analyzer, her mind kept coming back to a single image: a face from long ago, sitting next to her in a cramped dorm room, working on a paper on the economics of Victorian London while Moira composed a lab report on evolutionary genetics, and the same face, older but unmistakable, in her observation room, today.
Why that face, Raven?
* * * * *
As Moira returned to the hospital wing, the voice which wasn’t Charles echoed through the corridor, speaking the three familiar words which Moira had hoped to never have to hear again:
“Check. And mate."