Natalia
Blakesley was in a truly foul mood once again. Well, if your hands had been broken and they were healing slowly and painfully, you would be too. Add in the pain on his chest and his face from the cutting that Spook had done...it did not add up to a happy sadist. He was meant to put other people in pain, not *be* in pain. So, he decided to play the only way he had left. Mental and emotional torture.
Natalia went down to the desk. "Hello, anything for Hanson?" She aked hesitantly.
"Yes, oh, and something for a Natalia Rayner?"
"That's me." Natalia smiled. Sergei must have sent her something, she coudln't think of anyone else who would have done so. She took the letters and packages, and went back upstairs to the hotel rooms they'd rented. She handed off all the stuff to their respective owners, then went to her room to open her own package. She lifted the cover of the box, and folded back the paper. "Oh god..." A copy of the Tempest, the one she'd been reading with Tom. She lifted it out with shaking hands, and some papers fell from it, and a locket. Photos. She picked them up to look at them. She knew what the locket was. It was hers. Tom had given it to her the day they were taken. It had a picture of him, and a picture of her as Odette.
"So we can always be together," he said laughingly as he slipped it round her neck. "Always."
She started keening and the phtographs spilled onto the floor on top of the bloodstained book. Tom. Tom. Tom. Bloody, bruised and bleeding. And then the last one, of him trying to breathe, him in her arms and gasping, mouth wide open as blood drooled down his chin. She put her hands over her head and rocked back and forth, wailing in pain. Oh god. Oh, oh, oh god.
Isaac
Isaac frowned in amongst his practicing. He could defintely hear crying. He lifted the blindfold, blinked to adjust to the light and looked around.
"Nat? Nat are you okay?" he asked, walking over to her.
What was all this stuff scattered around?
Natalia
Natalia hugged herself, the tears finally starting to fall and she let out a sound like an animal in distress and mortal agony. Oh GOD! She couldn't cope with this. She couldn't, she couldn't...she felt her heart break open again. She looked up and saw Ike, then scrambled backwards, sending the photos flying. "Oh god, please dont hurt me! I'm sorry. I'llm be quiet. I'm sorry..." She curled up again, weeping.
Isaac
"Hey, hey," Isaac said soothingly. "It's okay. I'm not going to hurt you."
He crouched down on the floor and crawled next to her slowly.
"What's wrong?"
Natalia
Natalia hiccuped, rubbing at her eyes. "I can't do this anymore...I can't, oh, I can't!" The locket dangled from her hand, gleaming. "How did he...I thought they'dve thrown all this stuff out! Oh Tom..." She moaned again, low heartsick sound. "He always knows how to twist the knife..."
Isaac
Ooooh... Isaac felt he understood now. They had sent her Tom's things. And Tom was the old boyfriend, right? He put an arm around her, hoping it would comfort her rather than scare her.
"Well," Isaac said slowly. "I... I think you should be glad."
He hoped he was saying the right thing!
"See, now you can give Tom a proper burial. In a way. We can have our own funeral service for him. And if you want to keep these things, then that's fine. We could still have a service. It'll be good for you. Get some sort of chance to say good bye."
Natalia
Natalia gave Ike a dead look. "He died in my arms. I think I said goodbye then. This..." she held up the oldfashioned gold locket, "he gave me the day we were captured. The book, is Shakespeare's Tempest. It was...our book. He was reading it to me...the blood on it is his. Some of it might be mine, but most of its his. The photos...Master Blakesley must have taken them while we were there. Before he...died."
Isaac
"I'm... I'm sorry," he replied.
Okay so he hadn't said the right thing.
"Blakesley just wants to torment you. But I mean... that..."
Okay he was stumped for words again.
"Don't let him get to you, Nat..."
Natalia
"It was my fault. All my fault," Natalia said in a montone. If she felt the pain, she'd curl up and die. "If we hadn't been going out...he'd still be alive. If he hadn't been with me that day, he'd still be fine. It's all my fault..."
Isaac
Isaac suddenly found himself laughing.
"Oh... sorry Nat... I don't mean to... it's just," he wiped a tear from his eye. "I said virtually the same thing about Myra."
He sighed.
"Anyone ever tell you about Myra? We were dating for two years. Two years! I was going to propose - I still have the ring I bought, althought, admittedly I've hidden it away in the bottom of my wardrobe. One day I... I..." Isaac took a moment to fight back tears. "An alien hunter had gotten her. He waited until I showed up, a few words were said and then he shot her, point blank in the head. Two more seconds, damnit, two more seconds and I would have killed him first. She was human too. She never knew until that day that I was alien."
Natalia
"You didn't have to watch her being raped and tortured and *know* taht all the suffering could have been averted if you'd just said, sorry, I can't come today," Natalia said in a whisper. She shook her head lightly. "Taylor had no idea how lucky he is. None at all. He doesn't have to remember and he doesn't have the blood of someone he loved on his hands." She held her hands up and stared at them. "Yet here's a spot. Out, damned spot! out, I say!--One: two: why, then, 'tis time to do't.--Hell is murky!--What, will these hands ne'er be clean? No, never, never," she answered herself. "Never ever ever." She gave Ike a sly look. "Macbeth, always one of my favourite plays. But I'm reading Titus at the moment. Can't bear to read the comedies anymore." She rubbed her wrists, aggravating the cuts she'd placed there and a little blood ran out from under the black leather.
OOC: Qoutes from Macbeth, Shakespeare, Lady Macbeth scene I, act 5.
Isaac
"No, no I'm not trying to suggest what I went through was worse than what you did," Isaac replied. "I'm just saying that I... at least at some fundamental level, know what it's like to have someone you love more than anything in the world die just because of what you are."
He sighed and looked down. Then he frowned, looking at her hand.
"You're bleeding..."
Natalia
"I am?" Natalia looked at her hand, and frowned. "Bother." She stood and then bent to pick up the book. She hesitated for a moment, then knelt to pick up the scattered photos. "That's Tom. And oh, didn't he send a lot of firsts. First flogging, first beating, first burning, first rape and first death..." She swayed slightly, then started tearing the photos into pieces, hands shaking. "Bastard. Bastard. BASTARD! CAN'T YOU JUST LEAVE ME ALONE?! You broke me, alright?! You BROKE ME, can't you just, just, just leave me alone now?!" She wept.
Isaac
Isaac wrapped his arms around Natalia and let her cry into his shoulder. He didn't really know what to say, but felt it was best just for her to cry it out. Damn that Blakesley. Hadn't he tortmented her enough?
Natalia
Natalia held onto him, crying her heart out. In a way, it was good because she had let it all fester inside her for a long time. But while it was cathartic, it didn't release a lot of the other problems. She soon started to subside, hiccuping and choking for breath as the tears finally started to dry up.
Isaac
"It's okay," Isaac said quietly, rubbing her back gently. "You're going to get through this. You are. It may not seem like it now, but you will."
He was silent then. not sure what else to say.
Natalia
Natalia wiped her eyes and breathed in a shaky breath. "Everyone keeps saying that...and then Blakesley turns up again, and I go backwards again." She reached out and picked up the box, expression oddly calm. "Might as well see if he left anything else..." She rustled through the paper, and then picked out a note.
Dear Natalia, it said in Blakesley's elegant cursive, I thought you might want these. I was just going through some old rubbish when I saw them and thought I'd send them to you.
"Yeah, right. I know you, Master Blakesley," Natalia murmured to herself.
And tell Taylor I look forward to being in his company and Jane's again soon. This time, I think we might make it a full family gathering.
K. Blakesley.
"He's coming after all of you next," Natalia said fatalisically.
Isaac
Isaac was quiet for a moment, considering his reply.
"It's all very well a good to say that, but our atom manipulation alone will allow us escape. I haven't heard of any way for a temperature manipulator or a telepath to be stopped using their powers, short of another telepath or unconsciousness. I can't say anything about Astral projection though. X-ray vision, tongue, what's left of Mom's empathy, dreamwalking and flight, aren't exactly offensive, I know. And then of course, there's my telekinesis..."
He paused thoughtfully.
"If only one thing good can come out of what's happened to Miette... I'd actually say it was the fact she blinded me. There's the whole otherside to it I never even realised."
Isaac put a hand to the side of Natalia's face and looked into her eyes.
"And I expect there's another way for you to use your powers too. Y'know what? I don't really care if he comes after us. Because I know that whatever happens, we're going to survive Nat. You've survived this long, Nat. You're stronger than you give yourself credit for, you just need to get out of some old habits. Don't let Blakesley get to you. Yeah, sure, he's come close to us a few times, but he should have taken full advantage of those moments. Now we're onto him. When you play mind games, you're putting yourself at risk of them backfiring - especially when you underestimate your enemy. And Nat, he's underestimated us. He's too preoccupied with his sadistic games to ever truly understand people like us."
He shook his head.
"I don't know if he ever will kidnap any of us again. Maybe he will, maybe he won't. But we're on the look out, Nat. We're alert and we're preparing. To him it may see like fun and games, but for us, it's survival. Aliens haven't lasted this long to be chased out now. And they can never destroy mutants, because mutants are what humans are becoming."
Natalia
"Now you sound like Spook," Natalia commented thoughtfully. "She always went on about how one day, she was going to get all the mutants out. Didn't stop her from bringing Mouse in though. I don't understand her..." Natalia was methodically shredding the box, paper, note and photos Blakesley had sent. "She didn't much like being at the labs...but she worked for them. Caught aliens. Hybrids mostly." She nibbled her bottom lip. "I wasn't a person there, you know. More like a dog. Everyone would say anything in front of me...because nothing I could do would matter."
She tore one of the photos up into smaller pieces.
"I was nothing there. Nothing. Wasn't human, wasn't a person, I was a nothing. A womb, a, a toy. A plaything. A doll. But I wasn't...important, even as that. I just was...a good girl. Oh so good. After the first year or so anyway...after Tom died it didn't seem to matter so much anymore..."
Isaac
"Well you're a someone out here," Isaac replied firmly. "You're very passionate, caring woman, Nat. I'm not going to let you loose sight of who you are now just because of who you were before."
Natalia
"You're so good at being a white knight," Natalia said, smiling slightly. "But you're someone else's and I can't keep you. Pity." She looked at the mess of paper around them. "Guess I better clean this up...really wouldn't like any of the kids getting into it, even if I did destroy them pretty thoroughly."
Isaac
Isaac smiled back.
"I'm not sure who's white knight I am," he replied softly. "But hey, if you want I can give you a hand cleaning up the mess?"
Natalia
"That, that would be good..." Natalia placed the locket around her neck and the book on her bed. She fiddled with the locket for a moment, then opened it with her fingernail. "See...that's me at my dance recital. We did Swan Lake, and I danced Odette. And that...that's Tom. Last name, Mirimoto." She smiled slightly. "We always used to get the oddest looks, cos he was so obviously Asian and I'm so very, very white. Sometimes...people would say nasty things...but, it didn't matter to us. Because...it was us, you see?" She gave him a half-questioning smile.
Isaac
"Sure," Isaac smiled back. "When you love someone, the outside doesn't matter, because you can see the heart and soul inside. And that's more beautiful than any outside appearance."
He picked up the mess telekinetically and deposited it in into the bin.
"We should probably that that particular bag of rubbish out ourselves," Isaac observed. "Prying cleaners, and all."
Natalia
"Oh, yeah. Very bad." Natalia winced. "And they'd make stuff up, cos, you know, the truth is something they won't know. Can't know. Bad. Very very bad." She got to her feet. "Thanks."
Isaac
Isaac stood up as well.
"No problem," he replied. "Always happy to help."