Family Ties

Family Ties Chapter Seventeen (NC-17)




Family Ties Chapter Seventeen (NC-17)

Disclaimers Apply

 

A/N Goddess Foxfeather, Queen of Mad Plotbunnies, BUSIEST
WOMAN ALIVE™ and Prophetic Muse…is it possible to over-poi? InterNutter, TC and Maxwell Pink are
wonderful for archiving. J ProPhile is lovely because of the flowers,
lol, and Jubilee, Tex and Ramsey get musekibble because I said so. Readers/Reviewers: The ducks are doing happy
dances…I think they’re plotting… They’re
devious fowl, those ducks…

 

 

“Once upon
a time, there was a man named Carl Jung…”
Professor Xavier winced as Lucas whimpered with the promise of a
squall. “Sigmund Freud?” he
hazardedhe bhe baby whimpered more
urgently. “Once upon a time there was a
man named B.F. Skinner,” he began again, his annoyance showing.[1] Lucas’s threatened shriek became reality,
his chubby cheeks going red and his eyes screwing shut against the outpouring
of baby panic in his lungs and heart.
“I apologize,” the Professor sighed, picking the bundle of manic infant
up and cradling him against his seventh nicely pressed, clean shirt. “Lack of sleep makes even the most logical
people act the fool and say things they don’t really mean…” Lucas’s cry continued, albeit less urgently
than before. “Have I told you about my
two PhD’s?” Professor Xavier sighed, reaching for a bottle of formula, just
warm enough to pass muster, while holding Lucas with his other hand. “No matter…I’m sure you couldn’t care less
if I had a million of the blasted things, you just want your mother.” Inwardly, the Professor seethed with
annoyance at Tabby, but the annoyance was tempered with worry and a tinge of
fear. As immature as she could be,
she’s made great strides since her pregnancy and the birth of Lucas in acting
as an adult should. Or mostly so. She holds down a steady job, albeit part
time and her income is supplemented by the Kitty Pryde Fund for Wayward Girls,
she has an apartment that she shares with Wanda who seems to be toning down her
general rage issues, and she’s been taking parenting classes at the community
center…Tabby is not wont to disappear like she used to anymore. The baby squirmed in his arms, done with
the bottle and ready to be burped.
“Here goes shirt number seven,” the Professor sighed aloud. Sure enough, Lucas opted to miss the towel
laid over his holder’s shoulder entirely and aimed for the expanse of starched
white material beneath it. “Thank you
for proving me right,” Professor Xavier sighed, but smiled faintly. “You are nothing if not consistent.” Lucas giggled.

 

Rahne drew
up short. In the kitchen, leaning
wearily on one hand and his eyes half closed, the Professor was murmuring to
Lucas. “And so Peter Pan lunged at
Captain Hook, driving him back towards the great ticking crocodile…”

“Am I the
only one who pictures Kurt as Pan?” she asked dryly by way of greeting.

“No,” he
chuckled, pausing in his storytelling to regard the young woman. “I’m afraid I’ve lost track of time…is it sate ate that you’re up now?”

“It’s just
past eight a.m. I couldn’t sleep,” she
said, heading towards the refrigerator and the jug of orange juice within. “St
John was pacing upstairs until about an hour ago, making the floor squeak
outside my room. He’s worried because
Bobby isn’t back yet.”

“He called
around ten last night. He’s spending
the night with his parents at their hotel room in town.” Lucas seemed momentarily sated, full of
formula and story, therefore mostly quiet save for a few infantile hiccoughs
and coos, so the Professor left him be.
“I don’t suppose you would like to keep an eye on Lucas while I snatch a
few hours of sleep?”

Rahne
raised an eyebrow. “Well, I suppose…”

Professor
Xavier sighed. “No, that’s not fair of me.
Beast is up. I’ll ask him.”

She
snorted, nearly choking on her orange juice.
“It’s not fair of you to ask me, a teenage girl, to babysit, but
perfectly acceptable to ask Beast, a grown man with much better things to do?”

Professor
Xavier smiled wryly. “Well, he is
technically my employee…”

“And
technically, I’m a teenage girl! Babysitting is one of the few things we’re
allowed to do!” Rahne rinsed out her
glass and turned to face her mentor, hands on her hips and not quite
glaring. “Go get some sleep,” she
ordered. “Lucas and I will be just
fine.”

“Yes
ma’am,” the Professor chuckled. “He’s
been fed and…” The doorbell cut him off mid-sentence. As soon as the last note
faded, the bell was rung again, and again and again…By time ime he reached the
door, the patter of many footsteps abovestairs joined the chorus of
impatience. Rahne opened the door
before he could, but he was the one left facing a very angry, tear-streaked
Scarlet Witch. “I was wondering where
you were,” he sighed, waving her into the foyer. “Go back to bed,” he intoned to the gallery of faces peering over
the banister.

“Um,
Professor?” Jamie said, sounding a little worried at this directive, “It’s
almost nine in the morning…we’ve been up for a while…”

“In that
case,” he sighed, aware of the waves of emotions roiling off Wanda’s mind, “go
help the workmen clean up the new wing.
They should be starting shortly.”
He sent a mental request to Forge to supervise the project, a pang of
worry for the innocent workmen at the hands of curious teenagers overriding
most other worries at that moment.
“Wanda, come with me to the study.”

“No,” she
snapped, jerking her arm away as he reached for it. “Where’s Tabby?”

“That,” he
said sternly, “is exactly what I wanted to know.”

Wanda’s
face underwent several emotional transformations in little more than five
seconds. Panic, anger and, seeing Lucas
held securely in Rahne’s arms, relief.
“Give him here,” she said, sounding very tired, the anger seeping from
her voice as she reached for the infant.
After a moment’s hesitation, Rahne handed the baby to Wanda at a subtle
nod from the Professor. “I was so
worried,” the vaguely Gothic girl murmured, not caring who heard her as she
whispered against Lucas’s forehead, swaying back and forth in such a way that
he started to coo in response.

“Rahne, go
with the others,” the Professor said firmly and the Scottish girl nodded,
backing away a few paces before making haste up the stairs. He knew, logically, that any work done by
the teenagers in the new wing would be cursory at best, but he wanted them out
of the way for what he was sure would be a screaming fit on Wanda’s part. “The study?” he suggested again, and this
time she nodded and let him lead her into the room, her hold on Lucas
tightening.

 

“I was
taking care of some family business,” she said for the third time in less than
ten minutes. “I was gone for two
days…two damn days! I knew she was kind
of twitchy lately but…” Wanda
sighed. “I didn’t think she’d bail.”

“Twitchy?” The Professor raised a brow and waited for
explanation. He did not want to make
Wanda angry or combative by probing into her mind himself but he was growing
sorely tempted. Each answer was only a
fraction of what he wanted to know and it seemed impossible to get the young
woman to give him the entire truth.

Wanda
glared. Lucas was nestled comfortably
in a portable crib next to the shaded window and slept fitfully as the older
people in the room trudged onward, emotions high. Her voice a hiss, Wanda said, “She’s been upset a lot
lately. She hates taking money from
Kitty, even if it’s in the form of a trust fund type thing, she hates leaving
Lucas alone while she works on the days when I’m too busy to watch him, she
hates being a young mother…” Her lips compressed tightly, cutting off the flow
of words.

“She hates
being a young mother,” the Professor murmured. “What do you mean by that?”

“Just what
I said,” she snarled, making to stand.
“I should’ve known she’d bail on me…on him…”

“No, sit,”
the Professor said, his voice hard. “I
have a few questions for you before you storm out of here.” Wanda wisely said nothing. Even she knew when to shut up
sometimes. “Was Tabby highly emotional
of late? Was she prone to crying jags for no apparent reason? Did she ever say things like she wished she
never had Lucas?”

Wanda
narrowed her eyes and looked as if she were considering not answering, but
finally she nodded. “She’s been really
skittish lately and crying all the time.
But she never said she wished she never had him. Just that she felt alone all the time and
hated it. We…” she sighed as a she
wrestled with inner demons before saying through gritted teeth. “We had a fight. A huge one. I wasn’t doing anything related to my
family…my blood family…at all. She
kicked me out because she said I didn’t understand her or care about her. I came back last night because I thought she’d
had time to cool off and I found all the baby’s stuff missing. She took the spare cash from the sugar bowl
in the fridge and her windbreaker and that’s it. I think her wallet is gone, too,” she added in afterthought. Wanda seemed deflated and unusually
cooperative, staring at her boots glumly.
“I didn’t think she’d bail like that…”

“Wanda, I
want you to let me see what you saw of Tabby in the days before she kicked you
out.”

Wanda
blinked at him in mild confusion, then defensive anger. “No way am I letting you wander around in
here, buddy. This is my territory!” she
snapped, her hands flying to her temples as if they could block out the
Professor by physical force.

“It’s not
like that,” he sighed wearily, his lack of sleep catching up with him. “Just hold those memories in the front of
your mind, think of them and nothing else for a few moments…” He watched as Wanda gradually relaxed,
giving him tacit permission to pick her brain.
She must be incredibly worried or incredibly tired to let me do this…

“Well?” she
demanded after a few minutes, her face and mind shuttering closed as the
Professor withdrew from her thoughts.

“I cannot
make a proper diagnosis, as it were, but it seems that she is sufng fng from
postpartum depression. It is a very
real and serious problem among many new mothers. Partially because of the
hormone levels changing dramatically and partially because of outside factors,
some new mothers find themselves in the throes of a deep depression and
helplessness that they blame on their loved ones and even the new baby. Tabby, for what she did, was actually very
lucky. Some who suffer from postpartum
depression hurt themselves or even the child when they lash out.”

“She just
abandoned him…us,” she added under her breath.

“She ran
because she felt she could not handle the situation,” the Professor said,
hoping he was telling the truth and Tabby did not disappear because she was
well and truly tired of her life in Bayville.
“Rahne saw her when she dropped Lucas off here, where she knew people
would take good care of him. She said
Tabby was very upset…that tells me that did did not choose to run out of sheer
malice.”

Wanda
growled something unintelligible under her breath and slumped down in her seat,
glaring anew at her boots. “So now
what?” she finally asked on a harsh outward breath.

“Now we
look for her,” he said patiently. “I
don’t think she meant to be gone for many days. She only left enough diaper and formula for two or three days and
that time has almost passed. We can
easily get more, but I honestly don’t think she planned to be gone for very
long.”

“You’re
really not doing much to keep me calm here,” she said, sounding very young and
frightened. “I…God damn it, I don’t
know what to do!” she snapped, making Lucas start to cry. She pushed herself to her feet and began
pacing, her hands fisted at her sides.
“I always know what to do! Why can’t I think of anythiow?”ow?”

“Because
you care too much?” the Professor suggested mildly. Wanda ran down next to Lucas’s crib and did not voice a response,
but the Professor could feel the waft of pain and sorrow from her mind and knew
he had hit the truth. “Lucas will stay
here while we look for Tabby. If Logan
were here I would suggest you pair with him and organize a plan for the search
but as it is…” he spread his hands and smiled thinly, “it seems that we’re to
be the team for the moment.”

Wanda
sighed. “Great. Pinky and the Brain ride again.



[1] Skinner
advocated, among other things, Skinner boxes which some think children should
be put into to deprive them of outside stimuli and test their development that
way. Kind of a quacky idea, that one.