Memories

Posted on Fri Feb 23rd, 2024 @ 10:23am by Charles Xavier & Aurora Summers

2,982 words; about a 15 minute read

Mission: Episode 4: The Savage ConneXion
Location: The Mansion
Timeline: August 26th, 1990

Aurora tossed and turned in the night, it wasn’t like her to have bad dreams but there was something trying to break through, seeping through the cracks of a hidden and locked away memory it filled her mind with the briefest of imagery.

A woman looking into a mirror, like Aurora she had red hair. The image reflected in a mirror as parts of a message flashed through like someone tuning an old tv.

“Forgive me....please forgive me!” The woman looked around nervously. “I don’t...have much time. There’s so much...there’s no time!!” The image faded and returned. “I didn’t know...it’s not what I want for you, I have to get you safe!!”

In the mirror a flash of a baby basket with pink ribbon tie on it. The basket Aurora was found abandoned in.

“He can’t....must not....find you! Not now, not ever!!” Tears ran from the woman’s eyes, her mother’s eyes.

“I love you....”

With that the imagery was gone. Aurora sat bolt upright in bed. “MOTHER!!” She gazed around the room, before taking a moment to get her bearings. It was late but she had to talk to Xavier, and now...” she focused on his mind.

~Professor....I need to talk to you, now!~

In his bed chamber, Xavier's eyes opened from Aurora's telepathic summons. His subconscious defenses had not been breached. A quick telepathic scan suggested all was well with the exception of Aurora sending out a distress call like a lighthouse beacon. He sat up before closing his eyes again and brushed her mind with his own.

~I hear you, Aurora. Are you in any danger?~ Just because there was no imminent physical threat meant nothing. For telepathic beings who could venture into dimensions beyond flesh and blood, there were worse hazards than physical harm.

In her room, Aurora was putting on her pajamas. ~No, Professor, I just...had a dream, I need to talk to you about it. It’s important!~ Dressed, She was already on the way out of her door. I’ll wait in your office.~

It was just as we well. There was no swift return to sleep after a wakeup call such as that. And Aurora seemed especially perturbed. ~I will be right down.~

In a few moments, Xavier had exited the elevator in his robe and made his way to his office. At the late hour, he would keep the door open. There were unlikely to be eavesdroppers anyway.

"Hello, Aurora," he said, coming through the door in his chair and pausing in front of her. "I'm sorry you were disturbed by a bad dream. How can I help?"

Aurora sat rubbing her hands nervously together. “I need answers, Professor. I saw...my mother, I think.” She paused closing her eyes to remember the dream. “She was...sitting in-front of a mirror, in the reflection I saw the basket I was left abandoned in.” She focused harder. “She said...to forgive her, that there wasn’t time, that he...whoever he is, couldn’t find me!” She opened her eyes. “She was terrified, Professor! Whoever she hid me from, he truly terrified her.”

That was a lot to consider. Xavier put on his metaphorical thinking cap. Real or imagined, the maternal aspect of the dream clearly held great internal significance for Aurora. With the experience taking place in the medium of a literal mirror, the reflexive meaning pointing back to Aurora herself could not be plainer to him, so Xavier started there.

"How did that statement make you feel?" asked the Professor. "The sight of your mother terrified by someone."

“It terrified me, too, that and...” she paused. “Angry...it made me feel angry that someone made her that terrified. So terrified that she felt she had to let me go.”

Anger was an intrinsic part of the abandonment package deal. It was a typical pairing with fear. For Aurora to be dreaming so vividly, it might be a sign she was ready to integrate these repressed feelings into a more cohesive self. She was such a sensitive and gentle soul. It was no surprise that it might take a maternal dream in a reflecting mirror for her to face these feelings and come to process them.

"Of course," the Professor said. "What compulsion do you feel from these feelings? Are they driving you toward... anything?"

Aurora paused. “Right now it’s making me want to know more, can you help me?” She gave Xavier an almost longing look. “There must be more locked away in my mind, Professor, can you help me find it please?"

"Yes." The Professor smiled at the request. It would be a simple thing to join with Aurora's mind and descend into her subconscious to excavate the feelings no longer being repressed there. "Why don't you make yourself more comfortable." He'd seen what could happen when Aurora lost her cool. Not since Jean... "Empty your mind. Breathe. Let your memory of the dream float up to the surface along with anything attached to it."

Aurora relaxed back in her seat, closing her eyes she let herself relax as much as she could. Right now her abilities were unstable at best, she didn't want to accidentally hurt Xavier. She let her defenses drop, allowing Xavier into her mind so he could see what she'd seen.

Serenity was far and away from anything Aurora could achieve of late, but her attempts to relax eased the difficulty of what Xavier was about to do. It cut down the interference and allowed for him to approach her in a calmer state himself. Fortunately the dream was quite new in Aurora's mind, so it was easy to find right near the surface.

With that located, Xavier reached out for her thoughts. ~Reach out to my thoughts, Aurora. We will investigate together.~

Aurora reached out her mind mingling with Xavier’s ~She was so much like me~ Aurora focused on the image of the red haired woman in the mirror, just as she’d seen her.

~There may be a good reason for that~ Xavier replied. ~Your dream may be more about you than anybody else. But let us see what we see.~

The dream itself became a construct that allowed for the two of them to take form within it. Standing side by side, Xavier and Aurora observed the image of the woman with the baby speaking to a phantom form of Aurora herself—a representation of her subconscious mind which had first contained and then projected the dream.

"From this more external perspective, Aurora, what do you see?" In this quasi-dream state, their voices became audible for one another.

Aurora looked at her mother, her eyes misting up with tears. “It’s my mother, it has to be! She was trying to say...goodbye.” So soon after Scott’s departure, it was proving difficult to keep her emotions in check. “Why is she so afraid?! Who is this ‘he’ she was talking about?”

"That is unknown at this level," said the Professor. While he responded, his thoughts turned toward the image. It was being projected from Aurora's subconscious but it didn't seem to originate there. "We may have to go deeper. I'm not certain this dream was truly a dream."

Aurora's spectral image gave the Professor a curious look. "Whatever you need to do, Professor, I have to know the truth, now more than ever. If there's anything, or anyone out there that's a risk to me or my son I need to know."

"Very well, then..." Professor Xavier took a breath. "We must go deeper, past your subconscious into your unconscious. It is a state of being that is formless and void, where thoughts are alien and sentience itself is unwelcome. It is both a nursery and a graveyard, a database and a mausoleum. If we go there, mind your thoughts, lest they summon their source and origin all around us. Are you comfortable with that?"

Aurora nodded. “I am, I have to know the truth and if that’s the only way then so be it.” She nodded her acceptance. “Just tell me what to do.”

"The sensation is like waking up and falling asleep at the same time," said Xavier. It was a complicated description but less jarring than the truth. Going into the unconscious was not dissimilar to the experience of dying. "When you're ready, take hold of me. And, whatever you do... do not let go."

Though Xavier extended his hand, it was but a representation of his focused concentration of will. With their power combined, they could access the recesses of Aurora's inner mind without a comatose state. Without Xavier as a link to a semi-conscious state, Aurora could fall completely unconscious for an unknown period of time before she woke up.

Aurora reached out the representation of her hand, taking hold of Xavier's she held on tight.

Together they descended into the utter reaches of Aurora's being, so far down in depth that it felt external, almost to the edge of existence itself. Here was the primordial essence that underpinned her consciousness, a place so subliminal that no thought would ever touch on its own.

It was black at first with only the luminescence of Xavier and Aurora themselves pushing away the darkness. Soon what seemed to be air became thick and amorphous, both vacuous like the wind but as unyielding as the sea.

"Push back, Aurora!" called out Xavier. His outstretched hand kept the darkness at bay, but at some unknown cost. Black smoke fluttered up at the edge of light and dark. "Concentrate on peace, the point between rage and serenity!"

Aurora focused, this was her mind what she commanded would happen. Her spectral figure closed it's eyes, focusing on peace. As she opened her eyes again, a air of calm started to form around them. It was almost like being in a bubble of calm in a stormy sea.

"Better," Xavier said, his voice reverberating now. "Much better." The inky black void turned a dark shade of gray that allowed them to see far and wide, though only as if through a hard squint. "Now let's see if we can locate the message from your dream."

Aurora nodded. She concentrated her mind on what she could remember of the dream, the face of her mother, the image of the room in the mirror, it could all help to find the message in her dream.

With all of Aurora's concentration, the entire atmosphere shifted. A face came forth out of it all, easily ten meters in diameter, formed of the same misty, gossamer nothingness that surrounded them. Its likeness to the woman from Aurora's dream was more than distinct. If anything, that woman was a copy of this form.

"Forgive me for what I have to do, Aurora. I don't have the words to express my regret or the means to give you anything other than a head start, and even then I fear you don't have much time. Time before he finds you. There is so much you need to know, but I can only imprint so little onto you now. There isn't time for more. My only hope is that you grow into a stronger woman than I did. My mother never warned me. This is not what I want for you, Aurora, but in some ways it's more than I had. My only gift is this man's face."

Another visage appeared next to hers, this one distinctly male with chiseled features framing pale white skin, a red diamond in his forehead, and glowing red eyes. If cruelty and hubris had made a baby together, this man would have been it.

"I wish that I could keep you, but he is already haunting my dreams. That was the last stage before he reclaimed your grandmother. I have to get you safe, Aurora. He can't find you. He must not! Not now! Not ever! I love you."

The image of the woman faded, leaving only the ghastly and devilish man to remain.

“Mum...” Aurora hung her head before raising it again with a more determined look on her face. “Who is he, Professor?” She motioned to the man whose face remained before them. “Why is he so determined to possess the women in my family? Better still how much of a threat is he to my son?”

"I don't know, Aurora..." The Professor kept his jaw stiff, but he was still visibly unsettled by the image of that man. "He seems... so familiar. I can't place why." He cast a wary eye at Aurora. "Your mother must have been a telepath. There's no other way she could have imprinted your unconscious as she did."

“So she was like me.” Aurora nodded. “I wanted to know my mother, but it seems I’m never going to get the chance to meet her. Wait....could Cerebro locate her? Or for that matter...him.”

"Perhaps," said the Professor with some doubt or hesitation in his voice. "But we can discuss that another time. Unless you believe there may be more to this mystery, I suggest we extricate ourselves from your unconscious mind. There may be other imprints that we are unprepared to address."

"Agreed, Professor" Aurora's astral figure nodded in agreement. "Let's get back to the real world, at least now I have some answers, if not all of them."

The Professor sighed in relief. "Then listen to me. Listen to the sound of my voice. Concentrate on your physical body and your waking thoughts. Follow me back up."

Aurora did as instructed, following the sound of Xavier's voice back to the real world. She slowly opened her eyes as she started to come out of it. "Whoa, that was intense!" she smiled. "Thank you for helping me, Professor."

"I'm afraid we may have found more questions than answers, but I'm happy to continue assisting however I may." The Professor's frown of concentration broke into a warm smile at her voice. "Let's take stock of our immediate impressions while they're still fresh. Your mother reluctantly, and very reluctantly at that, left you while she fled some man whom she greatly feared. It was a man who had some history with your grandmother. Despite being a telepath, she found her dreams were compromised. Was there anything else that stood out to you?"

Aurora shook her head. "I don't...think so. I was too wrapped up in just seeing my mother let alone whoever that mutant was. It seems to me he's using the women in my family for something, the question is for what? What happens if he finds me? With my abilities..." she let it trail off. "Ohhh, before I forget, not that I'm likely to anytime soon...when Juggernaut attacked the mansion, I was practically blown up by one of the men, strange thing is the blast blew me over, but it's like it never touched me! I didn't have time to deflect their shot, it hit, but as you can see I'm not injured!" she shrugged her shoulders. "I don't understand why not."

The mention of his stepbrother Cain made Xavier clamp down on his emotions. If there was ever a persistent thorn in his side, Cain would be it. But the issue at hand was Aurora. Somehow she had survived an explosion without a scratch.

"It's possible that you created a psychokinetic shield on instinct alone that negated the concussive force of the explosion." Other memories set off within Xavier's mind. He was no stranger to war zones. "The explosion isn't the fatal part of a grenade, for example. Shrapnel can certainly kill but it's the concussive blast which does most harm. It goes out in a wave which pushes through everything around it, even through hard cover that would block projectiles, and causes distortions like ripples in water. The body does not react well to such force, particularly internal organs. That you were unscathed tells me it was likely your maternal instinct engaging in the face of certain death for you and the baby."

Aurora nodded. "I guess that could be it, I was trying to be more careful now I have more than just my own health to think of. I don't want to be a burden, or a danger to anyone else. I'd stay behind at the mansion if I thought others were going to have to protect me."

"We'll take each day as it comes," the Professor said at length. "I'm just grateful that you're alive and well now. There are instances of symbiosis between mother and child. While your body gives a nourishing and nurturing environment for growth, the baby will actually perform the same to a more limited degree, typically with immunology but in your case it could be more. Prenatal studies in mutants are still a frontier in medical science. There's no telling what to expect."

Aurora nodded. "I guess we're in uncharted territory then Professor, at least with my being here it gives us chance to see how pregnancy in a mutant progresses, although I guess it would be different for each mutant just as it is for normal humans." she stifled a yawn. "Sorry, doing anything these days tires me out quickly."

"No need to apologize," the Professor said. "Perhaps it's a sign that you're ready to return to bed."

Aurora nodded. "Perhaps so, I'll head back and try to get some sleep. Something is better than nothing, hopefully I'll sleep better now."

"I hope so," the Professor said. Some of those revelations could arguably make sleep elusive. "Sleep would do us both some good. Good night, Aurora."

Aurora stood to leave offering a warm smile. "Good night, Professor, and thank you."

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