Reacquainted Souls: Part Five

by Kerri G.

After dinner, Bishop tapped her shoulder, silently asking her to go with him. She nodded and followed him outside. Maybe now she'd get answers from him. She didn't like being on the short end of the information stick.

Bobby saw them leaving, his nose for trouble giving him a tweak. He turned back to Jubilee. "I've got an idea for a practical joke, if you're interested."

Jubilee's eyes lit up. Bobby's jokes were the best, as long as they weren't on her. "Tell me more, oh great swami!"

Bishop waited until they were away from the mansion before taking a seat on a fallen log. "I come here to think, sometimes. It is a good place." It afforded him a good view of the mansion he protected.

He remembered the day he and his sister were brought to her. The old man who took on the responsibility of bringing them cross country led them up a forgotten mountain road instead of taking them to what little distant family they had left. She had been waiting for them.

The old man struggled and nearly fell off his horse, but she caught him and helped him down, holding him in her arms lovingly. He was almost dead from exhaustion and stress. A 14 year old Bishop, holding his sister in his arms, had approached her belligerently, prepared to be ordered away, prepared to hate and be hated.

She was different from the other women in his world. She was young and pretty, the hate and rage of the world hadn't marked her in any visible way. She smiled in genuine warmth. He adored her on sight. She would never want him and his sister around, never want the mutate he was becoming.

"I brought 'em," the old man wheezed. "You care for 'em, chere." He sagged heavily against her, but she wouldn't let him fall. She had never let him fall.

"You know I will," she'd reassured the old man. "Follow me," she'd told the boy, and helped the old man through the shields and to the house.

There were other children here, of all ages, perhaps two dozen, all mutants. Young Bishop had pasted a sneer on his face and stalked behind them, not allowing himself to look at either side, fixing his eyes on the old man, letting his hate carry him through the embarrassment of being scrutinized by the others. He hated that old man for bringing them here.

It hadn't been easy, and he didn't make it any easier, but she won him over. His sister didn't put up a fight. Shard immediately turned herself over to Charlotte's unconditional love for children, the little girl desperate for a mother. He was the one who struggled and fought, anyone and everyone. He tried to get himself kicked out, but it didn't work. Tried to make her see she didn't want him here.

She finally let him have his showdown with her, one on one, after six weeks of his posturing and fury. He towered over her even then, and, with the invulnerability of youth, believed he could intimidate her.

She taught him a painful lesson that day, in blood and tears. After methodically beating him down to a bloody pulp, she held him while he cried out his rage and fear on her. That was the last time he ever cried. Or tried to escape her. And she set about healing his soul and, as part of the underground, helped mold him into the man he was now. 'The poster child for Obsessive-Compulsive,' one of the team called him. It kept him alive.

The old man was confined to bed after their arrival and died several months later. She'd cried for him, the only one left alive who remembered the charming Cajun thief, and buried him in a tiny cemetery in the small valley adjacent to this one. There were other names buried there, some names whispered only in legends.

Bishop shook himself, bringing his mind back from the future-past, and glanced over at her sitting quietly, waiting for him to begin. 'Grandmother' he thought to himself. He now lived with the some of the names he'd known only on grave markers and through the stories she had told him. She'd trained him well for his task. It was no random choice that he was here in this time, or that he'd been brought to her as a child.

"So, how do you know me?"

"I was sent here to stop a traitor and prevent the slaughter of the X-men."

Charlotte said nothing, waiting for him to continue. Logan had told her all this.

"The future I am from is a terrible place. Mutants slaughtered, the humans enslaved, Sentinels in control. World wide hunger and poverty. Mass destruction on a level as yet unimagined. There is no hope, no compassion, no quarter for anyone, mutant or human. We, as a race, are being hunted into extinction."

"The rebellion leaders managed to isolate the one historical incident they believe began the change to the future I know. I am unable to remember much of it, but I do know that it will begin here."

"The traitor and extermination of the X-men," Charlotte said softly.

He nodded. "I have no details. I was unable to carry that information with me. I have vague memories that Xavier and Jean have not been able to help me clarify."

"What has all this to do with me, unless you believe I am the one who will cause the deaths?"

"No, you are not the traitor. You sent me here; you, Forge and the other elders." He paused for a moment. "You took me and my sister in as children, as you had many others, and became our guardian, raising us with your own, as your own." His voice thickened slightly. "We all called you 'Grandmother'."

She placed her hand on his, seeking the truth of his words. His mind radiated only honesty and a curious innocence. There was love there too.

"Perhaps," she said slowly, "this time you will teach me."

He squeezed her hand in return, showing a small sign of feeling. He'd said enough.

She'd gained a healthy respect for destiny and karma over the decades. "With an entire century to chose from, I pick now to take a vacation. It could only happen to me," she said wryly.

He started back towards the mansion.

"Hey," she called after him.

He turned to look at her, the cold, stern security officer firmly in control now.

"If there is anything I need to know, you will tell me before it happens, right?"

He nodded curtly, then continued his way to begin his nightly patrol.

She thought about the things she wanted to ask him, about Thomas, about herself. No, too much knowledge would be a terrible thing. Some things she didn't want to know.

[next part]

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