Post by Pyro on Dec 27, 2006 12:08:38 GMT -5
Set somewhere between the guys arriving back on Genosha and present time.
Following the group's return to the island, Angie hadn't wanted to be too much of a bother, so she'd done her best to stay out of John's way and not bring up anything that could lead to her accidentally blurting out what she'd found.
It wasn't the kind of thing she'd talk to him about in a group setting anyway, so she figured that as long as she didn't end up alone with him, it would all be fine. She still hadn't been able to decide whether it would be a good idea to tell him or not - was it really the kind of knowledge that he needed?
'Your mum was, very probably, quite bonkers.' It had a certain ring to it.
So here she was, in the kitchen, making tea and trying to decide what to do with herself for the day that didn't involve being in her room. Her mind went back to the notebook, sitting open on her desk where she'd kept looking back to it every few minutes. She didn't need to - the information was burned into her brain.
"Good morning."
John appeared in the kitchen not so long after, looking a little tired, but with a bounce and spring in his step that she'd not seen in quite some time. He'd introduced the newcomers, particularly Dominic, with enthusiasm and obvious delight. Indeed, he had almost immediately shephereded Dom off to show him the sights of Genosha...mostly beach, forest and sand, really.
He treated Angie to one of his warmer smiles.
"Oh! Morning." She actually jumped a little at his words, as though he'd physically jerked her out of her thoughts.
"Sorry, I was a bit... away with the fairies there. How's it going? Sleep well?" Angie suspected that the quality of John's sleep was closely linked to his mental state. She was expecting, with his obvious pleasure at Dom's arrival, that John would have slept like a baby. Of course, she could have been entirely wrong - mental stuff wasn't exactly her forte, after all.
"Did you want a coffee, tea, anything?" It took a concious thought not to offer him breakfast - even though she wasn't sure if he'd actually eaten at all the day before. That was just John, though.
"Coffee would be good, cheers. You know me. Never have enough of the stuff." He was dressed more or less the same way he had been when he'd given his impromptu little speech before leaving for New York; smart trousers, white shirt worn loose over a navy blue t-shirt. He'd also, she noticed, shaved.
"How've you been?" he asked.
"Yeah, good." She turned to the coffee machine and played around with it, a small smile on her face.
Well, he looked good. It wasn't like she could just ignore that. She was allowed to think whatever she liked in the privacy of her own head.
"How was the trip? Successful, obviously, but there was no trouble or anything?" The machine finished doing its thing, and Angie walked the mug over to him before settling onto the couch, her legs folded underneath her.
"No trouble at all," he said, cheerfully. "Herr Zauber had the most amazing trip. Here - look." He reached into his pocket and took out some passport pictures. "I couldn't resist getting them done."
He passed over the photographs that made him look so very different.
She burst out laughing as she took the pictures from him, though she was absolutely amazed at what she saw.
"Yeah, I bet you couldn't." Angie grinned as she passed them back. She'd have been tempted to send them to the FBI just to tease, but of course that'd ruin any chance of using the same identity again.
"So what's the plan now? We just hanging here for a bit, or...?" As much as she fancied the idea enjoying the island, it was actually starting to get boring for her.
Well, she wasn't exactly the outdoorsy type.
"As soon as we get the go-ahead, we'll be heading out again. I'll fill you in on the details as soon as I can. For now...we just train. I know this is a bit presumptuous of me, but would you make sure you're on standby during training sessions in case people...y'know. Get...carried away."
He accepted a mug of coffee from her and didn't add any milk. It seemed he'd reverted to drinking it black again.
"Yeah, of course." That was, after all, what she was there for. Or, well, it was the best way she could contribute, anyway.
"Are... are you expecting people to get carried away?" Accidents did happen, of course, but the way he'd said it... Well, it wasn't like Genosha was a haven of absolute bliss. There was tension there, plenty of it, running underneath the group like a series of pits. Someone was bound to fall in sometime.
"It's serious training. So yeah, accidents happen - we need to be ready for them." Again, that smile. Damn him and his smile.
"Oh!" A sudden recollection of thought. "I got my copy of Catch-22 back - with the pictures of my mom - so you don't have to worry about that any more. Kinda long story how I got it, but it's all cool."
She nodded, returning the smile almost stupidly, though it fell at his next words.
"There... there were pictures of your mum in it? Shit, I'm sorry Pyro, I didn't know." Yeah, he'd just told her not to worry, and here she was feeling upset with herself over it.
"Can... can I see them? You know, one day? I've been... you know, reading your notes about her. I'm really sorry to hear..."
Angie looked rather awkward. She felt like she should give him a hug, but she didn't really know if she could just do that. Instead, she reached out to touch his arm briefly, her eyes full of concern.
"Sure," he said. "I'll go get them now."
Before she could reply, he'd bounded out of the kitchen and sprinted off down towards his room like a young tornado. He was only gone a few minutes before he returned and passed the strip of fading photographs across to her.
Despite the fact that by age twenty Rachel was heavily dependent on drugs, it was evident where John had got his green eyes, and a lot of his facial features.
"Uh..." He was out of the kitchen before she'd gotten the word out of her mouth, so Angie just sat rather and drank the rest of her tea, looking thoughtful. He wasn't gone long - he must have run the whole way. She didn't know what to think about that.
"Aw, look at you." Angie smiled down at the pictures, delighted to see John so little. Not to mention Rachel - it was obvious that she had been good looking, even if the drugs had changed that.
"What was she, your age there?" It would have been so hard, being so young and pregnant in a foreign country. It was no wonder, really, that she'd ended up in psychiatric care for a while.
"I... I made a few phone calls while you were gone." She handed the pictures back to him.
"She's twenty in those pictures," replied John, taking the pictures back and looking at them with an uncharacteristic look of fondness on his face. "She was sixteen when she had me." He put the photographs carefully into his pocket. "It wasn't long after those pictures were taken that I got taken away from her. I still remember that day like it was yesterday."
A dark cloud blew over the young man's countenance briefly. "What did you find out in your calls?" he asked, shaking off the threatened funk.
Reflexively, Angie reached out toward him, but her hand stopped a few inches from his arm and she looked at it for a moment before looking back at him.
"I couldn't find your dad.I did find out that she delivered you in the Auburn hospital, so they might have a copy of your birth certificate or something."
God, did she tell him or not?
"I... um, also called a couple of the Allerdyce families in Sydney, but there was no St. John senior."
Well, that wasn't a lie, but her expression would have clearly said that she wasn't telling him everything. Angie had no poker face - she could lie over the phone, sure, but if you had her standing in front of you she couldn't get away with a thing.
"It's cool," he said, with a smile. "I didn't imagine it'd be that easy. Common sense tells me I should just forget about it now. It'd hardly be a happy reunion, would it. Thanks for trying anyway."
He got up and made himself another coffee. "Can I get you anything?"
"Oh, another tea would be nice. White, no sugar."
He hadn't asked more, which said to her that now was probably a good time to stop and leave it alone. If he was happy to forget about it, then she should leave him that way - the happy part was what was important to her.
"I... Um, I don't know if there even is a St. John Allerdyce, senior."
God, why had she said that? Yeah, Dharma had said that the truth was better even if it did hurt, but Angie still wasn't quite sure of that.
"There was just... you know, some weird stuff that I came across. Might be able to dig further and find out more, but... you're probably right. I know I can't find out any more without actually going to Australia and probably breaking into a few places, so..."
"Weird stuff?"
He raised one eyebrow, then turned to make her tea for her. He slid the mug across the table, then sat down again. "You want to elaborate a bit on 'weird stuff'?" She had piqued his curiosity now. "Tell me what you DID find out."
"Um."
She took a quick sip of her tea, but unfortunately it didn't do anything to make her feel better.
Her eyes closed for just a moment, as she mentally examined the page that had been her main focus for the last couple of days. Then, opening them again and managing to appear composed, Angie nodded.
"Well, I called the St. George hospital - one of the places mum worked. They had a file for her down in the archives, but all it was was a checkup and they referred her to Auburn. Dr. David Chenoweth."
She didn't bother elaborating on just how she'd gotten them to look in the archives, that wasn't exactly important here.
"So I called Auburn, but they didn't have anything useful. Just that she delivered a 'baby boy Collins' without any major complications. She would have had a good few weeks to name you, and I think that is all done with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages anyway, not the hospital."
Of course, this wasn't the weird stuff. She took another sip of her tea.
"There were two Allerdyce families in the south-west, in the right sort of area for those two hospitals. One didn't answer - I might try calling back another time, just in case. The initial is 'S', so you never know."
She was trying to avoid saying it.
"But the other one... well, that was a Dr. Allerdyce."
Suddenly, her tea became very interesting to her.
His eyes narrowed slightly and his expression became thoughtful. "Interesting coincidence," he mused. "I remember reading somewhere once that young, unmarried mothers often gave their infants the surname of the doctor who delivered them. Interesting. Interesting."
He considered his coffee for a while.
"The first name, though. I mean...St. John. It's not something that you'd imagine a sixteen year old to think of. At least it's not...Wayne or something."
"It wouldn't have been Dr. Allerdyce that delivered you. He... uh, we worked - works - for a not-for-profit health care centre, but they don't have a maternity ward."
She reached out to brush his hand with her fingertips.
"It's... one of those facilities run by the church. I called them, and she was treated there for a couple of weeks."
"Not-for-profit? One of those establishments that's run for people like my mom, for young women with nowhere else to go?" Her expression confused him. "It's OK, Angie, you can tell me what you've found out, I can deal with it. I had to live with a mother and a boyfriend who were out of their head on heroin for four years, nothing's gonna shock me, not really."
He tried a smile.
She tried to smile back, and the fingertips touching his hand didn't move.
"It was a psychiatric care facility, Pyro."
God, she wished she wasn't sitting across the table from him as she said it.
"Named St. John of God hospital."
"Really?"
What he was asking 'really' to was unclear. Did he mean 'was it really a psychiatric care facility' or did he mean 'was it really called St. John of God'? It was hard to tell.
And then he started to laugh.
"So I'm named for a mental institution and a shrink. Fantastic!"
Was that the actual amused laughter, or the kind of nervous laughter that came out when you'd just heard something that you really didn't know how else to react to?
"Um?"
Angie took her hand back, cupping both palms around her mug. Now she wasn't sure how to react.
"Well, I mean, that's not necessarily... I don't know. I mean, it could be a total coincidence, he might not have treated her - I couldn't get any real information out of them." Pretty big coincidence, though.
"I thought... you know, if we ever do make it down that way, that we might be able to get more information. You know, Mystique... or something." Yes, she had just suggested - albeit in a roundabout way - that they break into a church run hospital.
He chuckled for a few more minutes, then slowly the laughter died out. "I'm not sure I really want to know any more now," he said, with a heavy hint of reluctance in his voice. "I'm starting to get the feeling that my mother really didn't want people knowing who the father of her baby was. Maybe I should respect those wishes."
Taking the photographs of Rachel out of his pocket again, he looked at it. "There's a story there," he murmured. "Definitely."
"You're not people though. You are her baby."
Angie smiled down into her tea. "Well, maybe not anymore, but you know. God, look at you. I bet that's the chubbiest you ever got."
He was skinny as a rake, now, but just as cute. In a different way, of course - babies weren't cute in the same way that real people were, it was like a survival mechanism or something.
John as a four-year old still had that post-baby chubbiness about his face. Despite the fact that the colours were fading in the pictures now, she could tell that his face was pale and sickly, that his eyes surprised and uncertain. The dark circles under Rachel's eyes told more of the tale. In the final picture of the strip, she was kissing his dark little head, her eyes closed.
"I have so few memories of her," he said, quietly. "When she was aware of me, which wasn't so regularly, she loved me. I remember that. The day they came to take me away, she wouldn't fight to keep me. I tried so hard to make her want to react, but she wouldn't."
He stared at the pictures.
"She sat on the floor in the kitchen and wouldn't even say goodbye."
Standing almost suddenly, Angie moved around the table and put her arms around John's neck, leaning down to hug him and look at the pictures over his shoulder.
"She probably wanted you to go to a family that would love you all the time. The drugs... they do bad things to people, John. I saw it at the hospital, people that were crying out for a hit, ignoring their kids because they needed... She loved you, you can see it. So much that she didn't want you to come second anymore."
"They wouldn't even let me see her." The memories were rushing back thick and fast. Four, five, six years old. By the age of six, he'd given up asking. For a year after he'd been taken from her, he'd refused to speak, communicating instead only either by drawing pictures or throwing tantrums.
He'd been just another statistic. Just like Rachel had been when they had taken her lifeless body off the streets of New York after she'd deliberately OD'd. John knew at heart that his mother's death had been suicide and not an accidental misjudgement of quantities. He knew that she'd simply given up on life.
He continued to stare at the photographs, not wanting to acknowledge the prickling in his eyes. He'd cried his tears for Rachel Collins a couple of years back. He didn't need to grieve for her now.
"I'm really sorry, John." She spoke quietly, little more than a whisper, feeling an incredible grief on his behalf.
Yeah, she hadn't known her dad 'til she was sixteen, and yeah her mum had wanted her cured. Regardless of how they'd parted, Angie had always known that her mother cared, even if she wasn't always there for her. Had always been able to see her, even if she didn't want to. That she had always had the choice made Angie feel incredibly lucky.
A lock of blonde hair fell over his shoulder as Angie pressed her cheek to his, her arms wrapping tighter around him.
He closed his eyes to try to fight back the tears, but didn't manage it quickly enough. They ran down his face and he brushed them away angrily. "Sixteen years - you'd think I'd have been able to deal with it," he said, trying to put a jovial tone back in his voice. "Maybe I shouldn't research my dad any more. Let the past die with her, y'know?"
He squeezed her hand gently, a way of indicating his appreciation for the care she was showing.
"If that's what you want, then we won't look anymore." If it was her, she probably would have been clinging to the hope that she'd find someone. John wasn't like her, though.
"But, you know, I'm here to help out if you change your mind, or... You know, if you just... want a hug, or to talk, or to kick my arse at video games." With a small smile and one last squeeze, Angie drew away from him and sat in the chair next to him, picking up her tea again. The physical contact felt a little awkward again, thanks to her revelation, and she didn't want to come across as weird. Yeah, she still liked Pyro, but since he'd made it clear that he didn't like her back, she was determined to be a proper friend and stop thinking about him like that.
It wasn't really working. She shot him another smile, quick and nervous, before occupying her mouth with another sip of tea.
"Thank you," he said, simply, staring at the photographs for a few more moments, then tucking them away in his pocket. "At least I know that my craziness is hereditary, huh?" He managed a smile at her.
"I'll leave it - for now, at least. Not entirely sure my head can take any more sudden shocks." The grin returned.
"You're not crazy." The response was automatic and unthinking. Yes, he'd had a few mental issues - had been crazy for a spell, sure. But he obviously wasn't crazy now, and Angie didn't think he should be thinking of himself that way. Especially not with their growing numbers - Callisto didn't need to hear him say things like that, after all, and same with all the new recruits. What had happened in the past shouldn't be held against him, but Angie had a feeling that some people would.
"More sudden shocks? What, did you get some other news...?" Her face was full of concern again.
He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "I met up with an old friend. They weren't overjoyed to see me. Didn't really go quite the way I planned. Hurt a bit, you know?"
He stared at the wall for a moment, that anger he'd felt when Kitty had walked out on him resurging. "Still. Comes to us all."
"That's no good. This wasn't," she paused, her mind casting back to a conversation they'd had before Angie's trip back to the US, "the girl... You know, that you needed to put behind you?" As soon as she'd said it, she shook her head.
"I mean, that's none of my business, but... Well, I suppose even the best laid plans of mice and men."
Shrugging, she murmured, "Especially when there's another person involved." Angie couldn't imagine that anyone would be pleased to have John move past them and on with his life. Maybe she was biased, though.
He blinked, suddenly. "I shouldn't have told you," he said, anxiety creeping into his voice. "I shouldn't have done it. It was stupid and reckless and dangerous of me to do it. I just...had to see her, y'know? Had to put things behind me..."
It seemed to him that was all he was doing right now. His mother, his past, Kitty - all of it being left behind. But he was having difficulty taking that step away, clinging onto his memories for all they were worth.
"I need some fresh air," he said. "I feel sick."
"Come with me." Standing, Angie pulled him up and linked her arm in his, guiding him outside and toward the beach. Dharma was probably down building still, so when they hit the sand she turned and walked a short way in the opposite direction.
"Are you ok?" She found herself rubbing the small of his back, the same motion that she'd used to soothe people feeling sick so many times before.
"I'm not going to tell anyone, so you don't have to worry about that. And... I mean, you're here now, so it's ok. You didn't get caught, and no-one else has to find out... Just breathe, John."
He closed his eyes and let the warmth of the breeze calm him a little. The air and the gentle rubbing of his back took away the nausea and he slowly began to relax again. "I'm fine," he reassured her. "I just had a moment, that's all."
Staring out over the ocean, a look of grim determination crossed his face. "Not any more, though. That's it. From here on in, I don't care any more."
"You're still a person, John." She didn't stop rubbing his back.
"You can still care, people don't expect you to be some kind of robot." Angie couldn't let herself believe that John would want to stop caring.
"You care about the cause... You care about the Brotherhood, and..." Mystique.
"You don't need to give up the past. That's what made you who you are."
"Maybe so. Hasn't done me any favours though, has it?" He turned his head to look at her. "I'm a killer, Angie. Maybe it's time I stopped holding onto a hope that the past will offer up some sort of rescue and just play with the hand I've been dealt."
"You might be a killer, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person." She had to force herself to stay where she was - they were standing so close together, but she didn't want him thinking she was drawing away from him because of what he'd just said. Her hand stopped tracing circles on his back, though.
"Playing the hand you've been dealt doesn't mean you've got to forget who you were.I don't know who you were, but I know who you are... and if your past led to that, then... Well, things worked out, didn't they?" Her eyes dropped to consider the sand rather than him.
"Maybe," was all he said. "But I don't see it. I need to actually find out who I am, Angie. I'm not the John Allerdyce that Charles Xavier took in off the streets. I'm not the John Allerdyce who came to Genosha originally. It's time I find out who Pyro is."
He sounded so...angry. So bitter.
This time, she did take her hand away from his back, frowning a little.
"Well, you let me know when you've got that figured out." Angie looked back up at him, her other hand coming up to touch his now-smooth cheek lightly.
"And don't forget that some of us do care."
He reached up to touch her hand against his cheek briefly, and gave her what could only be described as a sad smile. "You'll be one of the first to know," he said. "Thanks, Angie. But I need to be by myself for a bit. I have a lot to think about, y'know?"
Angie nodded, looking more than a little sad herself. Taking her hand back, she looked down at the sand for a moment before turning green eyes back up to him.
"You know where to find me if you want to talk." She couldn't help but wonder who she'd find, the next time she did see him.
Following the group's return to the island, Angie hadn't wanted to be too much of a bother, so she'd done her best to stay out of John's way and not bring up anything that could lead to her accidentally blurting out what she'd found.
It wasn't the kind of thing she'd talk to him about in a group setting anyway, so she figured that as long as she didn't end up alone with him, it would all be fine. She still hadn't been able to decide whether it would be a good idea to tell him or not - was it really the kind of knowledge that he needed?
'Your mum was, very probably, quite bonkers.' It had a certain ring to it.
So here she was, in the kitchen, making tea and trying to decide what to do with herself for the day that didn't involve being in her room. Her mind went back to the notebook, sitting open on her desk where she'd kept looking back to it every few minutes. She didn't need to - the information was burned into her brain.
"Good morning."
John appeared in the kitchen not so long after, looking a little tired, but with a bounce and spring in his step that she'd not seen in quite some time. He'd introduced the newcomers, particularly Dominic, with enthusiasm and obvious delight. Indeed, he had almost immediately shephereded Dom off to show him the sights of Genosha...mostly beach, forest and sand, really.
He treated Angie to one of his warmer smiles.
"Oh! Morning." She actually jumped a little at his words, as though he'd physically jerked her out of her thoughts.
"Sorry, I was a bit... away with the fairies there. How's it going? Sleep well?" Angie suspected that the quality of John's sleep was closely linked to his mental state. She was expecting, with his obvious pleasure at Dom's arrival, that John would have slept like a baby. Of course, she could have been entirely wrong - mental stuff wasn't exactly her forte, after all.
"Did you want a coffee, tea, anything?" It took a concious thought not to offer him breakfast - even though she wasn't sure if he'd actually eaten at all the day before. That was just John, though.
"Coffee would be good, cheers. You know me. Never have enough of the stuff." He was dressed more or less the same way he had been when he'd given his impromptu little speech before leaving for New York; smart trousers, white shirt worn loose over a navy blue t-shirt. He'd also, she noticed, shaved.
"How've you been?" he asked.
"Yeah, good." She turned to the coffee machine and played around with it, a small smile on her face.
Well, he looked good. It wasn't like she could just ignore that. She was allowed to think whatever she liked in the privacy of her own head.
"How was the trip? Successful, obviously, but there was no trouble or anything?" The machine finished doing its thing, and Angie walked the mug over to him before settling onto the couch, her legs folded underneath her.
"No trouble at all," he said, cheerfully. "Herr Zauber had the most amazing trip. Here - look." He reached into his pocket and took out some passport pictures. "I couldn't resist getting them done."
He passed over the photographs that made him look so very different.
She burst out laughing as she took the pictures from him, though she was absolutely amazed at what she saw.
"Yeah, I bet you couldn't." Angie grinned as she passed them back. She'd have been tempted to send them to the FBI just to tease, but of course that'd ruin any chance of using the same identity again.
"So what's the plan now? We just hanging here for a bit, or...?" As much as she fancied the idea enjoying the island, it was actually starting to get boring for her.
Well, she wasn't exactly the outdoorsy type.
"As soon as we get the go-ahead, we'll be heading out again. I'll fill you in on the details as soon as I can. For now...we just train. I know this is a bit presumptuous of me, but would you make sure you're on standby during training sessions in case people...y'know. Get...carried away."
He accepted a mug of coffee from her and didn't add any milk. It seemed he'd reverted to drinking it black again.
"Yeah, of course." That was, after all, what she was there for. Or, well, it was the best way she could contribute, anyway.
"Are... are you expecting people to get carried away?" Accidents did happen, of course, but the way he'd said it... Well, it wasn't like Genosha was a haven of absolute bliss. There was tension there, plenty of it, running underneath the group like a series of pits. Someone was bound to fall in sometime.
"It's serious training. So yeah, accidents happen - we need to be ready for them." Again, that smile. Damn him and his smile.
"Oh!" A sudden recollection of thought. "I got my copy of Catch-22 back - with the pictures of my mom - so you don't have to worry about that any more. Kinda long story how I got it, but it's all cool."
She nodded, returning the smile almost stupidly, though it fell at his next words.
"There... there were pictures of your mum in it? Shit, I'm sorry Pyro, I didn't know." Yeah, he'd just told her not to worry, and here she was feeling upset with herself over it.
"Can... can I see them? You know, one day? I've been... you know, reading your notes about her. I'm really sorry to hear..."
Angie looked rather awkward. She felt like she should give him a hug, but she didn't really know if she could just do that. Instead, she reached out to touch his arm briefly, her eyes full of concern.
"Sure," he said. "I'll go get them now."
Before she could reply, he'd bounded out of the kitchen and sprinted off down towards his room like a young tornado. He was only gone a few minutes before he returned and passed the strip of fading photographs across to her.
Despite the fact that by age twenty Rachel was heavily dependent on drugs, it was evident where John had got his green eyes, and a lot of his facial features.
"Uh..." He was out of the kitchen before she'd gotten the word out of her mouth, so Angie just sat rather and drank the rest of her tea, looking thoughtful. He wasn't gone long - he must have run the whole way. She didn't know what to think about that.
"Aw, look at you." Angie smiled down at the pictures, delighted to see John so little. Not to mention Rachel - it was obvious that she had been good looking, even if the drugs had changed that.
"What was she, your age there?" It would have been so hard, being so young and pregnant in a foreign country. It was no wonder, really, that she'd ended up in psychiatric care for a while.
"I... I made a few phone calls while you were gone." She handed the pictures back to him.
"She's twenty in those pictures," replied John, taking the pictures back and looking at them with an uncharacteristic look of fondness on his face. "She was sixteen when she had me." He put the photographs carefully into his pocket. "It wasn't long after those pictures were taken that I got taken away from her. I still remember that day like it was yesterday."
A dark cloud blew over the young man's countenance briefly. "What did you find out in your calls?" he asked, shaking off the threatened funk.
Reflexively, Angie reached out toward him, but her hand stopped a few inches from his arm and she looked at it for a moment before looking back at him.
"I couldn't find your dad.I did find out that she delivered you in the Auburn hospital, so they might have a copy of your birth certificate or something."
God, did she tell him or not?
"I... um, also called a couple of the Allerdyce families in Sydney, but there was no St. John senior."
Well, that wasn't a lie, but her expression would have clearly said that she wasn't telling him everything. Angie had no poker face - she could lie over the phone, sure, but if you had her standing in front of you she couldn't get away with a thing.
"It's cool," he said, with a smile. "I didn't imagine it'd be that easy. Common sense tells me I should just forget about it now. It'd hardly be a happy reunion, would it. Thanks for trying anyway."
He got up and made himself another coffee. "Can I get you anything?"
"Oh, another tea would be nice. White, no sugar."
He hadn't asked more, which said to her that now was probably a good time to stop and leave it alone. If he was happy to forget about it, then she should leave him that way - the happy part was what was important to her.
"I... Um, I don't know if there even is a St. John Allerdyce, senior."
God, why had she said that? Yeah, Dharma had said that the truth was better even if it did hurt, but Angie still wasn't quite sure of that.
"There was just... you know, some weird stuff that I came across. Might be able to dig further and find out more, but... you're probably right. I know I can't find out any more without actually going to Australia and probably breaking into a few places, so..."
"Weird stuff?"
He raised one eyebrow, then turned to make her tea for her. He slid the mug across the table, then sat down again. "You want to elaborate a bit on 'weird stuff'?" She had piqued his curiosity now. "Tell me what you DID find out."
"Um."
She took a quick sip of her tea, but unfortunately it didn't do anything to make her feel better.
Her eyes closed for just a moment, as she mentally examined the page that had been her main focus for the last couple of days. Then, opening them again and managing to appear composed, Angie nodded.
"Well, I called the St. George hospital - one of the places mum worked. They had a file for her down in the archives, but all it was was a checkup and they referred her to Auburn. Dr. David Chenoweth."
She didn't bother elaborating on just how she'd gotten them to look in the archives, that wasn't exactly important here.
"So I called Auburn, but they didn't have anything useful. Just that she delivered a 'baby boy Collins' without any major complications. She would have had a good few weeks to name you, and I think that is all done with the Registry of Births, Deaths and Marriages anyway, not the hospital."
Of course, this wasn't the weird stuff. She took another sip of her tea.
"There were two Allerdyce families in the south-west, in the right sort of area for those two hospitals. One didn't answer - I might try calling back another time, just in case. The initial is 'S', so you never know."
She was trying to avoid saying it.
"But the other one... well, that was a Dr. Allerdyce."
Suddenly, her tea became very interesting to her.
His eyes narrowed slightly and his expression became thoughtful. "Interesting coincidence," he mused. "I remember reading somewhere once that young, unmarried mothers often gave their infants the surname of the doctor who delivered them. Interesting. Interesting."
He considered his coffee for a while.
"The first name, though. I mean...St. John. It's not something that you'd imagine a sixteen year old to think of. At least it's not...Wayne or something."
"It wouldn't have been Dr. Allerdyce that delivered you. He... uh, we worked - works - for a not-for-profit health care centre, but they don't have a maternity ward."
She reached out to brush his hand with her fingertips.
"It's... one of those facilities run by the church. I called them, and she was treated there for a couple of weeks."
"Not-for-profit? One of those establishments that's run for people like my mom, for young women with nowhere else to go?" Her expression confused him. "It's OK, Angie, you can tell me what you've found out, I can deal with it. I had to live with a mother and a boyfriend who were out of their head on heroin for four years, nothing's gonna shock me, not really."
He tried a smile.
She tried to smile back, and the fingertips touching his hand didn't move.
"It was a psychiatric care facility, Pyro."
God, she wished she wasn't sitting across the table from him as she said it.
"Named St. John of God hospital."
"Really?"
What he was asking 'really' to was unclear. Did he mean 'was it really a psychiatric care facility' or did he mean 'was it really called St. John of God'? It was hard to tell.
And then he started to laugh.
"So I'm named for a mental institution and a shrink. Fantastic!"
Was that the actual amused laughter, or the kind of nervous laughter that came out when you'd just heard something that you really didn't know how else to react to?
"Um?"
Angie took her hand back, cupping both palms around her mug. Now she wasn't sure how to react.
"Well, I mean, that's not necessarily... I don't know. I mean, it could be a total coincidence, he might not have treated her - I couldn't get any real information out of them." Pretty big coincidence, though.
"I thought... you know, if we ever do make it down that way, that we might be able to get more information. You know, Mystique... or something." Yes, she had just suggested - albeit in a roundabout way - that they break into a church run hospital.
He chuckled for a few more minutes, then slowly the laughter died out. "I'm not sure I really want to know any more now," he said, with a heavy hint of reluctance in his voice. "I'm starting to get the feeling that my mother really didn't want people knowing who the father of her baby was. Maybe I should respect those wishes."
Taking the photographs of Rachel out of his pocket again, he looked at it. "There's a story there," he murmured. "Definitely."
"You're not people though. You are her baby."
Angie smiled down into her tea. "Well, maybe not anymore, but you know. God, look at you. I bet that's the chubbiest you ever got."
He was skinny as a rake, now, but just as cute. In a different way, of course - babies weren't cute in the same way that real people were, it was like a survival mechanism or something.
John as a four-year old still had that post-baby chubbiness about his face. Despite the fact that the colours were fading in the pictures now, she could tell that his face was pale and sickly, that his eyes surprised and uncertain. The dark circles under Rachel's eyes told more of the tale. In the final picture of the strip, she was kissing his dark little head, her eyes closed.
"I have so few memories of her," he said, quietly. "When she was aware of me, which wasn't so regularly, she loved me. I remember that. The day they came to take me away, she wouldn't fight to keep me. I tried so hard to make her want to react, but she wouldn't."
He stared at the pictures.
"She sat on the floor in the kitchen and wouldn't even say goodbye."
Standing almost suddenly, Angie moved around the table and put her arms around John's neck, leaning down to hug him and look at the pictures over his shoulder.
"She probably wanted you to go to a family that would love you all the time. The drugs... they do bad things to people, John. I saw it at the hospital, people that were crying out for a hit, ignoring their kids because they needed... She loved you, you can see it. So much that she didn't want you to come second anymore."
"They wouldn't even let me see her." The memories were rushing back thick and fast. Four, five, six years old. By the age of six, he'd given up asking. For a year after he'd been taken from her, he'd refused to speak, communicating instead only either by drawing pictures or throwing tantrums.
He'd been just another statistic. Just like Rachel had been when they had taken her lifeless body off the streets of New York after she'd deliberately OD'd. John knew at heart that his mother's death had been suicide and not an accidental misjudgement of quantities. He knew that she'd simply given up on life.
He continued to stare at the photographs, not wanting to acknowledge the prickling in his eyes. He'd cried his tears for Rachel Collins a couple of years back. He didn't need to grieve for her now.
"I'm really sorry, John." She spoke quietly, little more than a whisper, feeling an incredible grief on his behalf.
Yeah, she hadn't known her dad 'til she was sixteen, and yeah her mum had wanted her cured. Regardless of how they'd parted, Angie had always known that her mother cared, even if she wasn't always there for her. Had always been able to see her, even if she didn't want to. That she had always had the choice made Angie feel incredibly lucky.
A lock of blonde hair fell over his shoulder as Angie pressed her cheek to his, her arms wrapping tighter around him.
He closed his eyes to try to fight back the tears, but didn't manage it quickly enough. They ran down his face and he brushed them away angrily. "Sixteen years - you'd think I'd have been able to deal with it," he said, trying to put a jovial tone back in his voice. "Maybe I shouldn't research my dad any more. Let the past die with her, y'know?"
He squeezed her hand gently, a way of indicating his appreciation for the care she was showing.
"If that's what you want, then we won't look anymore." If it was her, she probably would have been clinging to the hope that she'd find someone. John wasn't like her, though.
"But, you know, I'm here to help out if you change your mind, or... You know, if you just... want a hug, or to talk, or to kick my arse at video games." With a small smile and one last squeeze, Angie drew away from him and sat in the chair next to him, picking up her tea again. The physical contact felt a little awkward again, thanks to her revelation, and she didn't want to come across as weird. Yeah, she still liked Pyro, but since he'd made it clear that he didn't like her back, she was determined to be a proper friend and stop thinking about him like that.
It wasn't really working. She shot him another smile, quick and nervous, before occupying her mouth with another sip of tea.
"Thank you," he said, simply, staring at the photographs for a few more moments, then tucking them away in his pocket. "At least I know that my craziness is hereditary, huh?" He managed a smile at her.
"I'll leave it - for now, at least. Not entirely sure my head can take any more sudden shocks." The grin returned.
"You're not crazy." The response was automatic and unthinking. Yes, he'd had a few mental issues - had been crazy for a spell, sure. But he obviously wasn't crazy now, and Angie didn't think he should be thinking of himself that way. Especially not with their growing numbers - Callisto didn't need to hear him say things like that, after all, and same with all the new recruits. What had happened in the past shouldn't be held against him, but Angie had a feeling that some people would.
"More sudden shocks? What, did you get some other news...?" Her face was full of concern again.
He shook his head, a wry smile on his face. "I met up with an old friend. They weren't overjoyed to see me. Didn't really go quite the way I planned. Hurt a bit, you know?"
He stared at the wall for a moment, that anger he'd felt when Kitty had walked out on him resurging. "Still. Comes to us all."
"That's no good. This wasn't," she paused, her mind casting back to a conversation they'd had before Angie's trip back to the US, "the girl... You know, that you needed to put behind you?" As soon as she'd said it, she shook her head.
"I mean, that's none of my business, but... Well, I suppose even the best laid plans of mice and men."
Shrugging, she murmured, "Especially when there's another person involved." Angie couldn't imagine that anyone would be pleased to have John move past them and on with his life. Maybe she was biased, though.
He blinked, suddenly. "I shouldn't have told you," he said, anxiety creeping into his voice. "I shouldn't have done it. It was stupid and reckless and dangerous of me to do it. I just...had to see her, y'know? Had to put things behind me..."
It seemed to him that was all he was doing right now. His mother, his past, Kitty - all of it being left behind. But he was having difficulty taking that step away, clinging onto his memories for all they were worth.
"I need some fresh air," he said. "I feel sick."
"Come with me." Standing, Angie pulled him up and linked her arm in his, guiding him outside and toward the beach. Dharma was probably down building still, so when they hit the sand she turned and walked a short way in the opposite direction.
"Are you ok?" She found herself rubbing the small of his back, the same motion that she'd used to soothe people feeling sick so many times before.
"I'm not going to tell anyone, so you don't have to worry about that. And... I mean, you're here now, so it's ok. You didn't get caught, and no-one else has to find out... Just breathe, John."
He closed his eyes and let the warmth of the breeze calm him a little. The air and the gentle rubbing of his back took away the nausea and he slowly began to relax again. "I'm fine," he reassured her. "I just had a moment, that's all."
Staring out over the ocean, a look of grim determination crossed his face. "Not any more, though. That's it. From here on in, I don't care any more."
"You're still a person, John." She didn't stop rubbing his back.
"You can still care, people don't expect you to be some kind of robot." Angie couldn't let herself believe that John would want to stop caring.
"You care about the cause... You care about the Brotherhood, and..." Mystique.
"You don't need to give up the past. That's what made you who you are."
"Maybe so. Hasn't done me any favours though, has it?" He turned his head to look at her. "I'm a killer, Angie. Maybe it's time I stopped holding onto a hope that the past will offer up some sort of rescue and just play with the hand I've been dealt."
"You might be a killer, but that doesn't mean you're a bad person." She had to force herself to stay where she was - they were standing so close together, but she didn't want him thinking she was drawing away from him because of what he'd just said. Her hand stopped tracing circles on his back, though.
"Playing the hand you've been dealt doesn't mean you've got to forget who you were.I don't know who you were, but I know who you are... and if your past led to that, then... Well, things worked out, didn't they?" Her eyes dropped to consider the sand rather than him.
"Maybe," was all he said. "But I don't see it. I need to actually find out who I am, Angie. I'm not the John Allerdyce that Charles Xavier took in off the streets. I'm not the John Allerdyce who came to Genosha originally. It's time I find out who Pyro is."
He sounded so...angry. So bitter.
This time, she did take her hand away from his back, frowning a little.
"Well, you let me know when you've got that figured out." Angie looked back up at him, her other hand coming up to touch his now-smooth cheek lightly.
"And don't forget that some of us do care."
He reached up to touch her hand against his cheek briefly, and gave her what could only be described as a sad smile. "You'll be one of the first to know," he said. "Thanks, Angie. But I need to be by myself for a bit. I have a lot to think about, y'know?"
Angie nodded, looking more than a little sad herself. Taking her hand back, she looked down at the sand for a moment before turning green eyes back up to him.
"You know where to find me if you want to talk." She couldn't help but wonder who she'd find, the next time she did see him.
