The Silver Lining [ISO:Wanda Maximoff]

[Laura Kinney]

[/u][/url] she wore. She had never forgotten Megan, or Debrah for that matter. But seeing the girl's face again just made the image and memories imprint even more. Laura shut her eyes hard, waiting for the little spots of light to appear in the new darkness, the pain her only savior against the tears. She hung her head, a few locks of black hair falling from the messy bun she had tied up.

I am very proud of you.

The voice interrupted her earlier thoughts, and that choking noose of curiosity enclosed on her once more. The student stood from her table in the Dining Hall when she finally opened her eye, boots clunking with each step she took. Her hands slid into the pockets of her jacket, the one she normally always wore. It was zipped up to the middle, exposing the upper half of her dress under. Her jeans stuck to her form and the elastic material woven in allowed it to move with every stride she made toward the Danger Room.

Was she there? Did she give up. Laura kept on wondering that, the questions repeating over and over in her mind. She said the information requested from the computer, hesitating like she did every time before saying her access code. The doors opened to reveal a blank room. In the middle sat her mentor, in a chair, reading a book that looked rather old. Laura calmly swallowed the lump that had formed on her throat, her face just as set as it always was. She walked forward into the room, stopping a few feet shy of the woman. The distance was shorter than the last time, in the last.

So she didn't give up.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

Wanda looked up from the book on werewolf lore as Laura answered. Making a note of the page number that she was on, 142, she closed the book and stood up, placing the book on the chair. The first day she had sat alone on the cold floor of the Danger Room and waited for two hours. Every twenty minutes she had to get up and move about, otherwise the Danger Room decided that it was empty and turned off all of the lights. The next day she had brought the book and again sat on the floor getting up every twenty minutes. The day after that she had brought a chair as well. Each day she had waited and Laura had not shown up, and each day she forced herself to resist the urge to go to Laura's room at night and ask why. Patience did not run in her blood line, Magneto, Quicksilver, Polaris, these were not people with a reputation for being able to wait for something. Wanda forced herself to be the exception, and as Laura entered the room she was rewarded.

Again she had the urge to hug the girl, but decided that thought it was what she wanted it was not what Laura wanted nor needed. So she pushed the chair against a wall and went to the centre of the room, turned and addressed her. "I said the other day that I do not believe in a good or an evil. An action itself is neither right nor wrong, it simply is," she said, "As humans we define actions, ascribe to them their moral weight. We have decided that killing is wrong because it leads to a more stable society, and yet the government would have no trouble killing a murderer on death row, or an enemy soldier on the field of battle."

Wanda paced as she talked, focusing on the words. It was a lecture she had been mulling over and over again in her head for the last few days, something to help describe to Laura how she herself felt about life, and why she made the choices she did. "I would not kill another person to save my own life. I believe I would kill to protect the lives of one of my students, or if I had children to protect them. These are my values, and my decisions. Nobody can make them for me," she explained, continuing, "They are however informed by those values of my parents the Maximoffs. They adopted Pietro and myself, raised us as their own. They loved us, and I will always love them. You do not have such a background to draw from, and thus your beliefs, your values, must be your own creation."

Sighed she frowned, "The only thing that I know for sure is that I can know nothing. What lies beyond this life? I do not know. Are mutants what is to come after humans? I do not know. Are we creatures of a god, or a divine creator, or simply atoms smashing against each other randomly? Are we order or are we chaos?"

"I would lean towards chaos, but I do not know."

"I have little practical knowledge that I can pass onto you," she explained, "All I can tell you is that anyone who ever claims to have all the answers, probably has none at all."

Smiling softly she laughed, "I suppose you wonder why I'm expecting you to waste my time with me if all I have is dead ends. Well I can not tell you what to believe, I can not tell you what your values are, I can tell you what the values of Charles Xavier were. He created this school because he believed in a bright future where humans and mutants could overcome their differences and work together. These are principals in turn that most of the staff have come to cherish, that I myself have found close to my heart. These are the principals that we hope the students will learn, and then in turn spread to their families, and their neighbors and around the world."

"Most importantly to you these are the principals that you will have to live by as long as you are a student here," Wanda said, "And that means violence is never your first option."

She stopped, turned and studied Laura again. Her eyebrow went up as she asked the unspoken question, which was whether or not Laura had any questions. She let the silence fall back onto the both of them like a heavy wool blanket.

[Laura Kinney]

[Wanda Maximoff]

A silence decended on the Danger Room. Wanda waited for Laura to say something, and yet the silence continued. The girl's reluctance to speak was starting to wear out Wanda's patience. Though her being here must have meant that she wanted help, the fact that she seemed unwilling to speak at all made the going quite slow. Wanda went another minute, and then another minute, in silence. Finally she nodded as if the pair of them had reached an agrement.

"Laura, I truely want to help you but if you are here simply to be polite, or because you think that it is required then please leave. I promised not to hurt you again, and I will not trick you or play games to make my point," she said, "I want to work with you, but I feel like I'm simply preaching at you, and that I'm boring you. Do you want to be here or are you simply being polite?"

The silence was getting on her nerves, and she worried that she was going to take it out on the student. Something had to be done, but she was at a loss as to what that would be. Standing there staring at each other was getting them nowhere. So then what was she going to do. Turning her attention back to Laura she decided to wait for the girl's response, if it was simply more silence than drastic action might have to be taken. If she finally started to talk, then perhaps they could continue. She continued to pace, keeping her eyes on the still feral for some kind of reaction that she could read beyond what appeared to be intense bordeom.

[Laura Kinney]

[/b][/color] she said at what seemed to be the last minute she would have to save the meeting and all that went along with it. "Where you just chosen to be here?" she continued. She had it in her mind every once and a while that the staff had been sitting around in the Headmistress's office, all drawing strings to see who would have to attempt and council the Weapon X test subject. She would also imagine them secretly watching her, waiting for her to snap completely and go on a violent rampage, maybe even give her location to those that were looking for her.

She half expected the question to be turned around and asked of her. She wouldn't give a reply unless she was given her own first. That was her stubborn quality, and it nagged at her constantly, along with many other ticks that make her live everyday. Still, her fist were clenched in her pockets, the only sign of the tension she had in her body. The rest of her form stood to attention, ready to move if needed. It was the appearance most saw her in, even if she was resting.

Then again, there was no rest for the wicked.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

"Where you just chosen to be here?"

Wanda blinked in surprise, taken off guard by the question. It seemed such a simple one, but it was far more complex than she felt that she could answer properly. The short answer was that she had asked for the role, and that was the truth. Why Emma Frost had not used her position as Headmistress to overrule Wanda and take the job herself, for example was another question and a longer explanation.

"I insisted," she answered, "I felt that what you needed was patience and someone to treat you not like a weapon or a problem child but as an equal. Maybe I've failed at that, I probably have. It's just I understand what it's like to be in this place and believe that everyone expects you to snap and hurt someone. I know what it's like to have a past that you're afraid other people might find out about. I thought that might be a place for us to start, a bond for us to build from."

When said outloud it seemed foolish, and like she feared much of her ideas were, naive. Perhaps Emma Frost's more hard bitten, direct methods would have been better suited to the task. As it was after just a bit more than a week all Wanda had managed to do was get the girl to hate her, make herself vomit and cry and read two chapters of a book. It was not the progress she had imagined, and not the progress she had promised.

"Do you want anything from these sessions, or are you just here because you feel that it would be rude not to be?" she asked in return. At least the girl was speaking, and maybe just asking questions was going to work better than any of the other stuff she had hoped would work.

[Laura Kinney]

[/b][/color] she retorted. It was her way of saying that she did want to be there. Today she had originally tried to figure out if the woman had given up or not.

She still weighted herself on Wanda's words, still wondering if they were really as honest as they were believed to be. Respectfully, the woman would be honest with the Laura just as the girl was with her, right? But there she went again, assuming it was really true. Nothing had ever really been settled, and even though the idea seemed plausible, what with the instructor being one of ethics, Laura had her doubts.

"I want understanding," she said after a few minutes of silence. Her anger was growing slightly, as it had been for some time. It seemed like a personal thing, what she said. It was a leak of the bottle she had been keeping tightly shut. Wanda had asked for honesty, no? Even though Laura expected the possibility this wasn't truth she was gaining from the woman, the unexpected might just be worth it.

Maybe.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

"I want understanding."

Wanda nodded, "I want to understand. Tell me anything you want. I am, I will always be, here for you. I know you can tell by my heart rate, and how I smell, if I am telling the truth. Nothing you tell me here will ever reach other ears."

Not being a telepath did not prevent Wanda from noticing that Laura was becoming increasingly uneasy, which puzzled her. The conversation seemed to be flowing much more smoothly now, and yet each exchange seemed to produce greater and greater amounts of strain in the girl. Her posture had shifted, Wanda had the image of a normally friendly dog backed into a corner and feeling threatened. Wanda herself had tried to be as open as she could with the girl, but that had just ended up with her talking, possibly to a daydreaming Laura, about her past. It was clear that whatever similiarities that they two mutants had in their histories, it was a parallel that Laura was not interested in noticing.

Laura wanted understanding, but Wanda could not guess at each detail that she needed to have understood and mine that individual nugget of truth. Emma could, perhaps, but even she would probably have trouble if Laura wanted to stay closed off to those around her who wanted to help. Her voice even she added, "Try telling me something you have never told anyone, start small if you want."

It was doubtful that she would unearth anything significant now, but if over time she could get Laura to trust her, then maybe bit by bit she could uncover what hidden things in her past had shapped her into what she was today, and what she was going to become when she grew up. Wanda believed that you could not change the past, but knowing your past could help you shape the future. The trouble was each step forward she took with the girl, seemed to come with two steps backwards. Progress came at the cost of hurt feelings and distrust.

[Laura Kinney]

[/i][/color]

Laura blinked her green orbs. The girl forced herself to let go of the fuel to her fire. It was difficult, and would require her to avoid the heart of the subject. She didn't think it would happen, but she tried nonetheless. That was what she had to work on, her control, was it not? Her shoulders shifted hardly a millimeter, and her composure remained the same, but another blink of her gem-like orbs and the glitter of her pupils explained she was thinking of something to say.

"My middle name is Jane," she said, "I have only known that for a few years. I did not know my name at all." Who even considered that she had one to begin with? No, to most she was a machine with no heart, no soul and a common first and last name. Most didn't even know that. Some didn't even know her similarities to the man who fathered her. They just knew her as the girl to watch out for.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

"Jane," Wanda repeated, pausing a moment and then speaking again, "Laura Jane Kinney. It is a very beautiful name, and I think it suits you. Thank you for telling me that, and I promise I will keep it to myself."

The silence again descended on the room, but this time it felt more comfortable to Wanda. It could have course been her imagination, and even so in these sorts of situations whether something was comfortable or awkward all depended on what role you were playing. Wanda considered telling the girl a secret in turn, to show that she herself would do anything that she asked of Laura, but decided against it. That was where she kept going off track with her, the girl was obviously not connecting Wanda's own stories to her life no matter how clear Wanda tried to draw the parallels between them. Instead focusing only on Laura Jane's pain and her past seemed to work better. It was natural, one could always identify with oneself more than someone else.

Wanda tried to be direct, though she attempted to ask the question as softly as she could knowing that she was about to enter into dangerous territory. Laura's files said little to nothing about what she had done before coming to the mansion, and said even less about her victims. Yet something about those five she had pulled up clearly had affected her, especially the one that Wanda had focused on.

"Who was the girl the other day," Wanda asked, her voice soft and even. "The one that I focused on."

Not saying the words, "I asked you to kill" was hard. As much as she had managed to appear calm since Laura's arrival the last few nights had seen her dreams plagued with that moment, with Wanda actually killing the girl. Except in the dreams it was not a simulation, in her dreams she had given into a darkness that she still feared was somewhere in her that would lead her to become her father. Wanda forced her eyes to meet Laura's even though she was so ashamed that looking at the girl was hard. How had she been so foolish as to have done that, as much as it might have helped she was worried that neither her patient nor herself would ever recover from that moment.

[Laura Kinney]

[/i]

Laura blinked, her eyes leaving Wanda's face after the woman's gaze left her. Her jaw clenched and that tension returned to her being. Of the four people she had called the other day, Megan had been the hardest to say. Of course, she had yet to finish the set of people Wanda had requested - again, Laura did not bother to attempt to correct and resurface what had already been buried.

It seemed, however, that the Scarlet Witch was already trying to do just that. But her mother's name had never been buried, so there was nothing to bring back up. The girl hoped it never would.

"Megan," she whispered softly, her gaze falling to the curves of her boots that were protruding out from the hem of her jeans. "She was my cousin; Debrah was my aunt," Laura added. Her body remained still, her mind threatening to warp her into another bout of self-loathing. That laugh, that smile, even that comical horror-struck face after they ended up in the principals office three times in one day; she remembered it as if it was the sun on a clear summer day.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

Wanda was shocked, the records about Laura were spotty and mentioned little about family. That the young girl had killed her own cousin and aunt was surprising news and worried Wanda. If she could kill her own family, what would happen if she was ever turned loose on the Xavier Institute or its student body? Few of the X-Men would be able to handle Laura, the only one who would almost certainly be able to defeat her was Logan and the rest would have to get lucky. Even Wanda herself would need a certain amount of luck to be able to stop the girl.

She approached Laura cautiously, still wanting to respect the girl's space but her instincts to mother the girl fighting with her. Holding her hands up with the palms facing Laura in the most non-threatening pose she felt that she could take, Wanda moved closer. Bending down she reached out to hug Laura, feeling awful for what the girl must have gone through. It was obvious the girl was tense, and so Wanda moved slowly so as not to startle her and to give Laura a chance to back away if she wanted.

"I'm sorry." Wanda said it as if it had been her doing that Laura had been made to kill her family. She tried to imagine how she would have felt if somehow Wanda had caused the death of her family, or even just Pietro. Awful, that was how she would feel, sick to her stomach. The idea was beyond anything she could imagine, and she knew that had she ever done anything to Pietro she would not have been able to live with herself. Even losing him through no fault of her own would have been hard, but to have him die at her hands. She swallowed and focused not on imaginary problems, but the girl in front of her. "I'm sorry," she repeated.

[Laura Kinney]

[/b][/color] she stated blankly. It was the line she repeated to herself when she thought of her own personal regret, or how she felt the reasons her family members were eventually killed were selfish.[/ul]

[Wanda Maximoff]

A was becoming the norm in their interactions Laura did not respond how Wanda had hoped she would. The hug had not comforted the girl at all, but instead simply seemed to make her more stressed out, and her body became as stiff as a board as Wanda tried to console her. Eventually feeling awkward Wanda let go, stood and stepped back. Even though they were technically making progress it felt like Laura was no more comfortable with her than she had been during the first ten minutes of their first session. The futility of it all made Wanda want to cry, the girl's story was so tragic and yet she seemed to be trying to bury her past as though it were not something worth remembering.

"Sorrow can not fix what has already happened."

Wanda nodded, "You are right, but it is still okay to be sad and to have regrets. Our past is what makes us who we are, and it is how we learn what to do in the future. If you push things down, try to forget them, then you risk repeating the same mistakes."

Wanda now found herself in a tricky spot. She wanted to ask Laura about why the girl had killed her relatives, people who she had clearly cared for based on her reaction the other day. Yet she did not want to bring that up for two reasons. The first was that the subject had clearly upset Laura and the second was that Wanda did not want to be a hypocrite. She knew that somehow Laura had been manipulated to kill her relatives, controlled in some way by Weapon X and so was not responsible. The problem was that someone was responsible and had someone killed part of her family Wanda knew her reaction would have been to make them pay. However the last thing she wanted to do was to suggest to the young girl that she go off on some vendetta against Weapon X and a department of the government.

Instead she tried to push forward, for now avoiding those responsible for making Laura into a weapon. It was, for now, time to focus on more immediate and practical matters such as how Laura was fitting in at the school. "I upset you the other day. I was extremely cruel to you, and yet you never once lashed out at me. Even now you are clearly not happy to be here, but you do not seem to want to lash out at me," Wanda said, pointing out what she had noticed. Laura was in here for her violent behavior towards other students, yet here she seemed to be able to control herself perfectly, "Why do you react physically to students when you're upset, and not me?"

[Laura Kinney]

[/i][/color]

Laura blinked, her eyes squaring on Wanda. That was the exact reason why she didn't attempt to make friends, why she didn't want to get close to anyone. And if her past made her what she was today, then there was nothing else they needed to talk about. Her past made her the exact psychopathic killer she was considered, and personally believed to be. It was clearer than ever that Wanda had no idea of what went on inside her head. Some aspect of that gave Laura peace, because there would be nothing the woman would know unless she asked.

But, even though she wouldn't admit it, it brought on just a sliver of intervention. The reminder that Wanda understood almost nothing of the girl also was also the same about everyone else, save the intruding little pricks with telepathy.

"Why do you react physically to students when you're upset, and not me?"

She continued to stare at Wanda for a few seconds, and then with each flash of her closing lids her gaze fell to the floor. Her body language changed slightly. It was still rigid, as she was still standing on the edge to divulging her thoughts completely into things she didn't want to in front of another person. Her orbs would shift slightly back and forth, still angled at the space between the ground and to the side of the level Wanda's eyes were at.

Honesty was forcing her to think about it for the short amount of time she took, more so to word it correctly and efficiently. "I.." she started, then tilted her head when meeting Wanda's eyes with her own, ".. know your intentions are for well being, even if I do not know how the goal will be achieved, or if it can. The others are ignorant and do not consider the affect of their words.

Most others want a challenge. So I give it to them," the end was a cruel reality. By the time most were ready to give up, an instructor was around to pull it apart. Laura, most of the time, tried to dissolve the fighting problem with threats that would work. But it seemed throwing another person against the wall with her elbow, claws not even exposed, was too much.

It was better than the alternative of just ignoring the threat and fighting on the spot, like it eventually ended up as on occasion.[/ul]