Family Plan [Mercy Calls Sins]

[Mercy]

Mercy sat sideways on one of the seats in the long line of connected seats, in the terminal she'd arrived in. She leaned sideways against the back of the seat, her arms in her lap and her legs over the arm between her seat and the one next to it.

She held her phone to her ear, trying for what felt like the billionth time to get through to someone. This time she'd tried Carter again, in hopes that maybe he just hadn't had his phone with him or on or something the last ten times. She was starting to worry that she would have to sleep there overnight.

[sins]

The bank heist had gone off without a hitch. It was the second one Carter had robbed in the last year, and he knew that he should leave NYC if he wanted to continue to do this. No, not if he did, if they did. Just like most things in his life, they controlled this decision.

They did it the same way this time as the last. Carter would stand just outside the bank, allowing the Sins to go within but not be restrained by their mental leash. Wearing ski masks and carrying 9mm handguns, the seven of them stormed in, taking the bank by storm.

Carter would smoke a cigarette or talk on his cellphone outside, appearing that he had nothing to do with it (though this time his cell had been dead). When the Sins did their dirty deeds - indeed, he knew they did more than rob the people inside, he had heard the screams, he had seen the news - they would rush outside, pushing him to the ground or hitting him across the face as he got in their way. This was a tactical move, leading witnesses to believe him a hero and not a villian, though of course Wrath enjoyed doing it anyways. He would scramble up from the ground, yelling at them to stop and shouting while chasing them, until they were all out of sight.

The Sins would grin madly and congradulate themselves, then sling their weapons and cash into Carter's trunk. Then came the tricky part.
Carter would absorb them just as Wrath clocked him in the temple, simultaneously erasing their presence and knocking him unconcious. Carter wondered what would happen if he didn't absorb them in time - that would be a strange situation. But it had worked perfectly both times, and Carter awoke to the concerned shakes and tender touches of worried strangers.

Both times, he had shaken the strangers off, acting aloof and modest, thanking them and saying he didn't need any medical attention. Despite their pleas, and his own reservations, he got into his car and drove away.

He didn't mind the money of course, but every time he spent it, he felt both the guilt of the act and the fear of being caught. He had seen enough movies and television shows to know that bank robbers never make it very long. Maybe that was his little revenge on them - keep doing this, and they'd be caught. He knew they couldn't hear his thoughts unless he wanted them to, and it was a small blessing, but maybe one day he'd have that little revenge.

And maybe he'd be free.

Back in his apartment, the money and guns still sitting in his car, Carter hooked up his phone to the charger. As it turned on in his hand, it vibrated.

13 Missed Calls, it proclaimed. Thirteen? No one had called him except for his boss in, well, years. And he didn't recognize any of the numbers, one of them repeated ten times. Unless...

"Evie?" he called out. When he had arrived home and found a quiet apartment, he assumed she had either gone to get food - he didn't have much - or was asleep. "Evie?"

He made a quick jog through the rooms of the small apartment, confirming she was gone. Then he heard his phone vibrating once again on the nightstand. He walked back to it and flipped it open. It was the number that had called him ten times before.

He pressed send and held the phone to his ear.

"Hello?"

[Mercy]

"Carter!" Evie said, sounding utterly relieved. She bit back the 'Where have you been?!' that came to mind and instead said, "I've been trying to call you for, like, hours." She sat up, drawing her knees in to her chest.

"I'm in Jackson, Mississippi. At an airport. I don't remember anything about how I got here. I was on your couch...and then I just remember being on the plane and then starting to wonder why I was there."

[sins]

"I've been trying to call you for, like, hours."

Carter frowned and felt an urge to throw his phone at the wall as soon as they were done talking. The damned thing never stayed charged.

"I'm in Jackson, Mississippi. At an airport. I don't remember anything about how I got here. I was on your couch...and then I just remember being on the plane and then starting to wonder why I was there."


"What?" Carter shouted. "Mississippi?" He stared around at his apartment. Was someone there? Did they take her by force? He walked out of his room, unplugging the cell from the charger (so what, it barely worked anyway), and moved into the living room. Nothing looked like it had been moved or disturbed at all...But Carter wasn't the neatest guy around, nor where his duplicates. They messed up the place so bad sometimes, it took him days just to make it livable for himself.

"Can your...clones? Your duplicates...Can they do that to you?" Carter would have immediately suspected his own clones had they not been clearly with him the whole time. And then again, if they weren't, waking up in an airport in Jackson is probably the last place Mercy would have ended up. He shuddered.

[Mercy]

"I don't think so," Mercy replied unsuredly. "And I don't know why they'd take me here. There's...there's someone I've been trying to call, but he's not answering either. He's the one who helped me find you. He's a mutant too, and he's travelling around. I don't know if he had anything to do with it, but maybe he'll know something about it...Or maybe he'll know what to do."

The obvious answer was to buy a ticket for the next flight home. But Mercy was curious; she wanted to know if there was a reason she was in Jackson. "If I don't hear anything by tomorrow I'll get a ticket home." Home. Could she really call his place home now? Did he want her living with him? And could she live with his crude duplicates?

She pushed those thoughts aside. 'One step at a time,' she told herself. "So, how was it?"

She paused, then clarified. "How was whatever you ran off to do?"

[sins]

Carter listened as she explained her situation. When she finished, he still wasn't sure that her duplicates (or his) had nothing to do with what had happened, but he did believe what she said - or rather, he believed that she believed it.

When she called his place "home", Carter furrowed his brow. He wasn't sure if it was really even home to him, but if Evie felt like she belonged here...he was more than happy to have her.

"So, how was it?" She asked, then paused. "How was whatever you ran off to do?"

Carter faltered, searching for a response. "Yeah, Evie...I'm sorry. It went fine. I wish I didn't have to run out on you like that." He started thinking about this other mutant she mentioned. If only I'd been here. We could have stopped him. Whatever his power was, he doubted the man would be ready to be jumped by seven vicious clones.

"What are you going to do now?"

[Mercy]

"I guess...I'll just chill here 'till I get through to him," Evie said with a shrug, her slang coming through as she wasn't trying to hide it so much anymore. She didn't really have to act better than she was, since her brother wasn't exactly above her. Which she kind of liked; it was comforting. But she still wanted something better for both of them.

"So...How's the...gang?" she asked vaguely, referring to his duplicates. "They're probably glad I bounced, right?" She spoke lightly; she didn't care how much they hated her. They didn't scare her when they weren't up in her face.

Her stomach growled again, and she made a noise of frustration. "I am so hungry! It's ridiculous--I just ate." She paused, tempted to ask if he'd ever done drugs. It wasn't a stretch of the imagination to say that he had, if he wasn't now--they both lived those kinds of lives.

[sins]

"I guess...I'll just chill here 'till I get through to him."

Carter didn't like the idea of his sister waiting around alone in an airport for this mysterious mutant who may or may not have a hand in what happened to her. Then again, airports were some of the safest places around these days, so it could've been worse. In some ways, his apartment itself was worse.

"So...How's the...gang? They're probably glad I bounced, right?"

He was sure she was referring to the duplicates, but didn't know how to respond. He thought for a second, then said, "They're fine. I got rid of them right after we left the apartment...reabsorbed them, I mean." He knew she got the meaning, as the same thing happened to her.

"No trouble from them today."

"I am so hungry! It's ridiculous--I just ate," she blurted out. Carter laughed. In a lot of ways, she was just as he remembered her. That statement alone brought back what seemed like a million memories of a million Burke family dinners - back when there was a Burke family.

"Did you have airplane food?" he asked. "Cuz, you know, that's not really food, so it doesn't count."

[Mercy]

"I...I dunno if I had food on the plane," she said, trying to think back but coming up blank. "But I had a huge cinnamon roll once I got here."

She'd had the hunger before, she knew it would go away soon. She knew that the worst wouldn't come for weeks. She'd tried to kick meth twice before, and of one of those times, she'd managed to make it until she started feeling the hit of the withdrawl. It had only taken a couple of days of the growing, aching, gnawing depression for her to use again.

But this time, she'd thrown it out. She was already regretting it; every time she thought about how hard the months ahead would be, she wished she had kept it. But she didn't have a choice. The only way to get any more was to go back to where she'd lived before. Give up her chance at something better. Give in. She didn't want to give in.

But she didn't know if she could hold out through it.

"Hey...Did I, uh...Did I ever have a pet owl? Or a...stuffed one?" Evie asked, laughing softly at herself. It must have seemed like an odd question. "I just...Thought I remembered."

"And I remembered, uh...Somebody dressed up like Santa Clause?" She laughed sheepishly again, feeling her cheeks turn slightly pink. For all she knew, it could have been some random moment, nothing vaguely memorable.

[sins]

Carter began laughing so hard, tears came to his eyes. He laughed in deep dorky gasps, sneaky sniggering, and finally tapered down to silly giggles. "Oh my god," he said as he wiped his eyes. "Oh wow..."

A brief stint of the giggles attacked him again, but he settled quickly.

"Oh, no, you never had a pet owl. We never had any pets except goldfish and the toads our brothers and I brought home. No no, you're thinking of Mister Frank...he was a stuffed owl you found in the garbage." Thinking of the memory of her getting all excited brought on new laughter, but he held it in. "We were walking home, all of us, and you found that dead taxidermied owl in a trashcan. You freaked out, saying it couldn't get thrown out because it needed a family, and when we tried to get it away from you and throw it away, you threw a fit like never before. We let you take it home and figured Mom and Dad would handle it. But you just threw an even bigger fit when they tried, and they just let you keep it. Oh man, Evie, that thing was so ratty and old, I'm surprised you didn't get a disease from it. But you just kept holding onto it, you even slept with it..." He started laughing aloud again. "Sorry, sorry...Oh wow...I wonder whatever happened to that thing. Dad must have done something with it."

He paused and thought about the other memory she had brought up. One that was just as funny, except... "Yeah, Dad used to dress up like Santa every year. And every year, we fell for it. Until we were older, of course, but they really tricked us good. 'Dad's just going out for some last minute presents', Mom would tell us, and we'd always shrug it off like 'Wow, Dad never gets his presents on time'. And not long after, Santa would come knocking on our door, with a bag over his shoulder, and a toy for each of us." He slouched in the chair, letting his head rest against the back. "We would freak out, especially since we all didn't get very many presents on Christmas morning. So every twenty-third of December, we got a special visit from Santa himself."

His eyes were tearing up again, but it was a different kind of tears.

"They were really great parents, Evie. They really were."

[Mercy]

Mercy laughed as she listened, enthralled, to Carter's stories. It was sick that she'd picked up a taxidermied owl, and yet cute...And the story of their dad dressing up like Santa Clause year after year managed to make her giggle and tug at her heartstrings simultaneously.

"They were really great parents, Evie. They really were."

She was quiet for a long moment, smiling a sad smile down at the seat. "I hope I remember about them...someday."

"So tell me about Mom and Dad. How did they meet?" She asked, her tone brightening slightly. For the next hour, they talked about their family, Carter reminiscing and Evie re-learning. She asked question after question, in endless supply, it seemed, until finally she looked at the clock hanging over the desk at the terminal. "I should try Dead--Wade again," she said, quickly correcting herself. "The sooner I get a hold of him, the sooner I can get back."

"I'll call you...Probably later tonight, is that cool?"

[sins]

Carter had a suprisingly amazing time telling Evie all he could about their family. He was almost constantly tearing up, but he never broke down and cried. It had been so long since he actually had, it probably would have felt good. But he was too happy telling his sister everything he remembered. Of course, there would always be more to tell.

All too suddenly, Evie stopped to conversation. He couldn't be mad at her - they had talked for over an hour - but he was having such a good time, he almost asked her not to go. She had to, obviously, the world mutants lived in wasn't always one where you got to reminisce for hours on end. In Carter's experience, a mutant's life was filled with hatred, violence, and often, pure terror. And had he enjoyed their conversation even more because his Sins had kept their disgusting mouths shut through the whole thing? Yes, but that wasn't it. He was finally close to someone again, someone real, someone he thought was long gone from his life.

"I got ya, Evie. Good luck, okay?" He waited a second, unsure what to say next. The words had come so easily before, but now...

"Yeah, call me tonight, please. I need to know you're going to be okay."