What Lingers in the Blood

Posted on Thu Jan 8th, 2026 @ 11:51am by Maeve MacKenna & Jennifer Bryant

3,185 words; about a 16 minute read

Mission: Episode 7: Pathogens and Contagions
Location: Xavier’s School – The Greenhouse (Late Evening)
Timeline: Two days after the Coney Island attack

The greenhouse always smelled like earth and warm leaves, but even that didn’t settle her anymore.

Two days.
Forty-eight hours of pretending she wasn’t checking her reflection to see if her eyes looked different.
Forty-eight hours of her pulse not matching her breathing.
Forty-eight hours of lying in bed wide awake because her body didn’t seem to think night was meant for sleeping anymore.

Maeve eased herself down onto the low brick planter, fingers curling against the cool clay. Normally she’d feel the faint hum of the earth under it — comfort, certainty, connection.

Nothing.

Or worse… a distant echo, like hearing a song she used to know through a wall.

She dragged a hand through her hair and winced; her scalp still ached from where the vampire had torn her up into the air. The bruising was nearly gone… but she knew that wasn’t healing. That was whatever this is working through her veins.

She touched her throat lightly, tracing the place where Damian’s fangs had broken skin. The wound was closed now. Too neatly. Too fast.

“Christ,” she whispered, breath shaking as it left her. “This isn’t supposed to feel good.”

But it did.
And that scared her worst of all.

There was a strength in her limbs now that didn’t belong to her — sharp-edged, electric, like she could run all night without tiring. Her hearing kept catching things through walls she wasn’t meant to hear. Food tasted wrong unless it was rich, salty, almost bloody. Her dreams were all teeth and shadows and hands pulling her close.

And she wasn’t sure yet if she wanted to fight it… or lean into it.

She pressed her palms over her face, elbows braced on her knees.

“I don’t know what’s happening to me,” she admitted to the empty greenhouse, voice cracking on the last word. “I don’t feel like myself. I don’t feel—” She hesitated, swallowing thickly. “—I don’t feel human.”

Her leg bounced restlessly — too fast — and she grabbed it with both hands to still it.

They’d told the others they were fine.
They weren’t fine.

Maeve lifted her head as footsteps touched the stone outside — light, unusually quiet, but familiar.

She didn’t turn immediately.
Didn’t need to.

Only one person in the mansion would be awake at this hour, restless for the same reasons, carrying the same bite, the same hunger, the same questions chewing through her mind.

Maeve drew a slow, steadying breath.

“…Jen?”

Jennifer didn't even exactly look like herself. The crazy colors had been replaced with her natural hair with its tight, dark curls. She had taken to dressing in black. Black jeans, black boots, black turtleneck. She had been living with this a little longer. A few days longer. She had the same feeling. Part of her wanted it. Part her thrilled at the strength and speed flowing through her. At how fast she recovered. You could say it wasn't real healing but it certainly felt like it. These powers were far less, by any fair standard, than her spark which she could no longer find. Certainly than her command over electric charges could grow to become. Still, it was more visceral and the spark felt more distant every day. She was ashamed of having that feeling. She was horrified, terrified, and yet...part of her...

There was no one she could really open up to. No one except maybe one person. So it was not entirely coincidence that her steps had carried her out to the greenhouse. She squatted down near her friend and dug her fingers in the dirt. "Right before, when the Earth rose up to meet you, that might have been the most badass thing I've ever seen."

She meant it. Mostly. But she wanted Maeve to miss it. She wanted to help fight back these feelings and to get some help. She didn't want to lean into it. Well, she mostly didn't. "How are you holding up? It's been a rough few days."

Maeve didn’t look up when Jennifer approached.

Her hands were already in the dirt — palms pressed flat, fingers digging slow channels through the soil like she was searching for a pulse she could no longer feel. She hadn’t meant to start doing it, but every time she came out here her hands just… drifted down. Like muscle memory that hadn’t caught up to the truth yet.

When Jennifer crouched beside her, Maeve let out a breath that was half a laugh, half a sigh.

“Badass, was it?” Her voice was small, but the old humour tried to surface.

She scraped her thumb through the dirt again — a familiar motion with none of the familiar spark. Nothing rose to greet her. No tremble, no warm thrum of the earth leaning back.

Just cold soil and colder silence.

“How’m I holdin’ up?” she echoed, finally lifting her eyes. The answer was written all over her face: the bruised shadows, the tension behind her jaw, the faint sheen of sweat from a body that didn’t regulate temperature the same way anymore. “Not great, if we’re bein’ honest.”

She swallowed hard, eyes dropping to her hands.

“It’s like…” She paused, searching for words. “Like someone took a knife and cut the cord between me and the ground. It’s right there, Jen.” She tapped the soil lightly, almost pleading. “I can feel it— not the power, but the shape of where the power should be. Like a phantom limb.”

Her breath wavered.

“And instead of reachin’ back, I get… this.”
A twitch rippled through her fingers — too fast, too sharp, unnatural. She curled them into fists immediately. “This strength that’s not mine. This speed. This—”

She stopped before she said hunger.

She didn’t have to. Jennifer understood.

Maeve finally looked up, meeting her eyes. “I hate it,” she admitted quietly. “I hate what he did to us. But what scares me more is…”

She hesitated — not for lack of words, but because the truth stung.

“…part of me doesn’t hate all of it. And that feels worse than the bite.”

The confession landed between them, fragile and heavy.

She shifted just enough that her shoulder brushed Jennifer’s knee — the smallest, wordless reaching-out.

“You’re the only one who knows how this feels,” Maeve said softly. “So… I’m glad it’s you here. Even if the reason’s shite.”

She stayed there, fingers still in the dirt, waiting for whatever Jennifer would say or do next.

Jennifer sighed. She felt contact with Maeve's shoulder and she squatted down, leaning into the other young woman. She answered that reaching out. Frankly, she needed the contact too. "Yeah," Jennifer said. For a moment, a long moment, she didn't say anything else. She wasn't really sure she needed to. They understood one another. They were both going through the same thing. "I hate it, too," Jennifer said, "and what I hate the worst is that sometimes I don't hate it." Maybe that didn't make since but she knew Maeve would understand. She had said the same.

"Except...for me...the power doesn't feel like it's not mine anymore. The spark is gone. Before, I can kind of remember what it felt like. I was always aware of it. There's always background electricity in the world. I couldn't really do much with it yet but draw some of it into me even when there wasn't a better power source. I was still learning. Theoretically, well, you know how it is, how powers almost seem to expand the more finely you can work with them. I was learning. I was always aware. the first day, it felt so strange to reach for that and not find it but now I can't really remember what it's supposed to feel like. And this strength, this alien monstrous strength, it's so much more visceral. It's in my muscles. It's in my..." She shuddered. She didn't want to say blood.

Maeve let out a weak laugh — not amused, just exhausted. “God, Jen… I get it. More than I want to admit.”

She rubbed her hands over her face, smearing soil across her cheeks, then dropped them to her lap where her fingers twitched restlessly.

“When you say the spark’s quiet…” She swallowed. “That’s what scares me most. That this—” she flicked her gaze to her own trembling hands “—is goin’ to drown out the parts of us that matter.”

Her voice frayed at the edges. “Because you’re right. The strength… the speed… how clear everything feels? It’s intoxicatin’. And it shouldn’t be.”

She shifted closer, their heads nearly touching.

“But listen to me: if that spark of yours was truly gone? You wouldn’t be sittin’ here worried about what you’re becomin’. You’d be cravin’ it.”

Maeve’s breath shook. “And I’m still terrified I might.”

"I didn't mean a metaphorical spark," Jennifer said but she seemed to reconsider. "Not only, anyway. I also meant my power. Electricity." She remembered how Maeve had been digging her fingers into the soil. Something else they could both understand. She reached back and dug her on hand in the dirt. "I can't really do this with my own power. Well, not safely." A small, weak laugh. She was trying to lighten the mood. The mood didn't feel much lighter.

"That's the thing, though," Jennifer said. "It's both. Terrified and craving. Both feelings are raging in me. I know the choice I've made, want to go on making, but it doesn't silence the feeling. I dream about them."

Maeve shook her head slowly, a small, tired huff of breath leaving her nose.

“No — I know what you meant,” she said, gentle but firm. “Your spark. Your actual power.” She glanced down at her own hands again, dirt ground into the lines of her palms. “And yeah… it still counts. Even if it’s not the same shape as before.”

She hesitated, jaw tightening like she was weighing whether to say the next bit at all.

“My dreams aren’t like yours,” Maeve admitted quietly. “They’re not about them. Not really.” She lifted her eyes to Jennifer’s, holding them. “There’s no fangs. No faces I recognise. It’s more… shadows. Old ones. Like something that’s been waitin’ a long time suddenly realised I can hear it.”

Her fingers curled, slow and deliberate.

“I don’t see places I know. I don’t see people. I just feel watched. Guided.” A pause, then, softer: “Promised things. Power. Control. Like whatever took my earth away is tellin’ me it can give it back — better than before.”

She swallowed, throat working around the truth.

“And the worst part?” Maeve murmured. “It doesn’t feel like a lie. It feels patient. Like it’s happy to wait until I’m tired enough to listen.”

She leaned her shoulder into Jennifer’s again, grounding herself in the contact.

“So yeah — different dreams. Same problem.” A faint, crooked smile flickered. “Somethin’ in the dark reckonin’ it knows us better than we know ourselves.”

"Same problem," Jennifer agreed, but then she furrowed her brow. "But you don't think this something is them? You think there's something else? Or am I misunderstanding?" She leaned into Maeve, also needing the contact and wanting to give it to the other girl. She is starting to think Maeve might be going through something even harder than she is. "Right before you faced off against Damian, that was amazing."

Maeve leaned into Jennifer’s shoulder, quiet for a moment, breath evening out as if she’d already said more than she meant to.

“No… it’s not them,” she said finally, soft but sure. “The vampires didn’t start it.”

Her fingers curled in the soil again, nails digging in like habit more than need. “That voice was already there. Before Coney Island. Before any of this.” She shrugged, quick and dismissive, like it didn’t matter much. “I probably just ignored it. I’m good at that.”

She gave a small huff of a laugh, the kind meant to cut the tension. “You know — blame stress, bad sleep, too much drama. Works most of the time.”

Her gaze drifted up to the dark glass of the greenhouse roof. “They didn’t open a door or anythin’. Just made it harder to pretend I wasn’t hearin’ it.”

Then, deliberately, she changed tack.

“I do remember the fight, though,” Maeve said, a flicker of something like pride touching her mouth. “Before Damian. Proper scrap. And for a minute there I thought we actually had the upper hand.” She glanced sideways at Jennifer, a crooked smirk tugging at her lips. “You were class, by the way. The way you moved — fast, right where you needed to be. You didn’t hesitate once.”

She nudged Jennifer lightly with her shoulder, grounding herself in the contact. “I was glad you were there.”

Then, like she always did, Maeve brushed it off before it could get too heavy.

“So don’t worry about me, yeah?” she said, voice steadier than she felt. “I’ve had worse rattlin’ around my head than a dodgy voice and a bad bite.”

She pressed her palms flat into the dirt once more, then wiped them on her jeans and leaned back again.

“I’m fine,” Maeve said firmly. “Honestly.”

The words sounded confident. Practised.

And she stayed there beside Jennifer, pretending — just well enough — that it was true.

Jennifer looked at Maeve. The other girl had said a lot. She smiled at the compliment to her fighting. "Yeah," she said. "I was never really so up close and personal with the sparks. To be honest, I was surprised. I thought they had me cornered for awhile there."

She laughed and looked away. When she looked back, Maeve was trying to brush things off. Jennifer didn't buy it. Not really. Maybe she would have if they didn't share this problem, this issue Maeve wanted to present as the least of her worried. But she knew better. Maeve was brave and strong and needed to feel it, but this shadow was over them both. Still, she didn't think trying to pierce it would be welcome or helpful. So Jennifer did something else. She told the truth about herself. "I'm not," she said honestly, and leaned into the other girl. "I'm not okay. I'm terrified and, when I'm not terrified, that's even more terrifying. I can't just go on like life is normal with one foot in the grave like this."

"I've seen a lot of scary things since I joined the X-Men," she said, "and I've found it in myself to face them. Deadly robots, hostile mutants, even literal demons. I've gotten hurt a few times and I've gotten back on my feet. I know my teammates are counting on me, just like I'm counting on them. But I've never been afraid of myself before. I barely recognize myself sometimes these days. And I worry we have to lean into it a bit more to get through it. It's not something we can just hide from." She sighed as she settled back down next to Maeve. "This really sucks."

Maeve went still when Jennifer finished.

Not stiff. Just quiet in that way that meant something old had been stirred up.

She stared at the dirt between her hands for a moment, thumb worrying a groove into it, then let out a slow breath through her nose.

“Yeah,” she said softly. “That bit… bein’ afraid of yourself.” A faint, humourless smile tugged at her mouth. “That’s the one that gets under the skin.”

She didn’t look at Jennifer straight away.

“When I got dragged over here,” Maeve went on, voice low and steady, “I learned real quick that monsters don’t always look like monsters. Sometimes they smile. Sometimes they tell you you’re lucky. Sometimes they tell you you’re strong and that’s why it’s happenin’ to you.” Her jaw tightened. “And for a while, you believe ’em. Not because they’re right — but because believin’ ’em hurts less than fightin’ every second of the day.”

She rubbed her palms together, like she could scrub the memory off. “I’ve seen what people will do when they think they own you. I’ve seen what they do when they think you’re breakin’. And I’ve seen what happens when you don’t.”

That time, she did look at Jennifer.

“So when you say you don’t recognise yourself?” Maeve said quietly. “I get it. I’ve been scared of what I might turn into more than once. Not because I was weak — but because I knew I could survive it.” A pause. “And survivin’ changes you.”

Her shoulder nudged Jennifer’s again, solid and warm.

“But here’s the thing,” Maeve added, a little firmer now. “We’ve faced stuff that should’ve flattened us. Traffickers. Killers. Demons. Things that wanted us gone or wanted us owned. And we’re still here.” A beat. “Shaken, yeah. Messed up? Absolutely. But not gone.”

She exhaled, some of the edge bleeding out of her.

“I won’t lie to you,” Maeve said. “This part? It’s different. It’s uglier. And I don’t have a neat answer for it.” A small, crooked shrug. “But I do know this: you don’t have to go through it pretendin’ you’re fine just because you’re afraid of what happens if you stop.” she knew she was contradicting just how she acted moments ago but Jennifer's honesty had moved her.

She tilted her head, forehead almost touching Jennifer’s.

“If you’re scared,” she said gently, “then we’re scared together. And if we have to lean into the mess a bit to get through it?” A faint spark of defiance lit her eyes. “Then we do it on our terms. Not theirs.”

After a moment, she added quietly, honest to the bone:

“And yeah. This really does suck.” Maeve smirked. "Pun intended."

Jennifer listened. She actually hadn't fought traffickers. She realized how little she knew about Maeve's background. What else had the other girl gone through and at a younger age than her? But she didn't press. Those sorts of memories weren't really for dredging up. But she found herself nodding to what Maeve was saying. It made a lot of sense. She furrowed her brow, processing, thinking things through. "Thanks, Maeve. We're in this together." She clasped the other girls hand.

Then Jennifer couldn't help but snort, a laugh coming unbidden. "Pun in....? I didn't even think of that! Vampires totally suck!" She brought a hand to her mouth.

Then she nodded as if coming to a conclusion. She offered Maeve a hand to shake. "It's scary but we're getting out of this and we're not facing it alone. Let's kick their ass!"

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