This is set in the general period after Domino rejoins X-Force and before Cable #73.
Many thanks to Cass, my worst critic and my inspiration and Lynxie, for BETA, continuity and encouragement. Thanks also to those credited below for my research and inspiration.
Domino --- Mysterious Lady Luck
Surfacing by Alicia McKensie
Blue Lines : Early Morning by BJ Carlson and Lynx
For an time bomb, it was innocuous looking. A brown courier's envelope had arrived, for one 'Beatrice Summers'. As obvious a label as it was unexpected, it was nonetheless an alias she had never felt the temptation to use.
It contained no wires, no timing device, no plastique. The kids were smart enough to check anonymous packages before accepting them, and fortunately, trained well enough not to read the contents. A few typed reports, a plastic vial -- blood sample -- and a letter, from someone claiming to be her father.
At least Nate hadn't been there.
The letter was clinical and detached, more legible than the stereotypical scrawl of the medical profession.
She was the last and 'most successful' of a long line of children. He made no apology for abandoning her, no tactful coating disguised the naked disappointment he recounted. Her mutation had been apparent from the start and quite unimpressive. But in the interim, he acknowledged, it had proved itself 'intriguing'.
Who could resist investigating a power which could provoke a rare moment of sentiment in he, of all beings? A power which had stopped him from terminating the last genetic memory of his long dead marriage; another point that separated her from her siblings.
He had delegated her observation to a computer sub-routine, expecting nothing, but too conscientious to stray from procedure. For years, she had been safely buried among the prosaic myriad, surviving impressively on luck alone.
When she recaptured his attention, he was pleasantly surprised to see how far she'd come from the pits of Madripoor. If he had 'choreographed' her fate himself, he said, he could not have placed her anywhere more 'advantageous'. It was the recent 'fruition' of the hope he'd held upon rediscovering her that had prompted him to make contact.
'It really was such a small world, after all.'
Unlike luck, an unreliable gift in her opinion, it seemed that her complexion was inherited. Lead white with ever darker bruises under her eyes.
At least the kids hadn't said anything.
"A paternity test?" Reyes laughed.
She'd gone to the Puerto Rican because Hank's work on Legacy didn't need the distraction. She also hoped that a stranger would be less likely to offer advice, or sympathy.
A paternity test. For her, not a baby. If she was carrying, she doubted the child would require any scientific form of identification. If she was pregnant, it was no one's business but her own. Possibly Nate's, if he had left any way to be contacted. If he was still alive; without their link she could only guess. Right now, it wasn't exactly at the top of her list.
Skipping a few periods was not unusual in the context of her lifestyle; missing just one happened too often to raise notice. Her 'father' was obviously playing her. She had to wonder why he chose to consider her 'Summers by association' now, when she'd always been below his notice.
She wasn't pregnant.
Simple biological fact. It takes two to tango, as they say, and it had been weeks... since... she'd last...
Five or six weeks, as she recalled, since the last morning she hadn't expected to wake up alone. It wasn't proof. He had a history of manipulating coincidences, but it unnerved her to think of the surveillance she must be under.
At least it wasn't Toll--
"I've just finished that test you asked for. Definitely a close relative; another thirteen points it'd be your identical twin."
..."You didn't ask, but I also ran an identity check. One exact match in the database."
..."I regret telling you this over the phone..."
"I know who it is."
..."I did repeat the tests a few times, to check," the doctor added.
"How many?"
"Three is standard procedure, too many more would have raised suspicions--"
"How many, Reyes?"
There was an awkward silence on the line.
"Twenty. And I was careful. I thought that you'd like to be sure, considering..."
"This is strictly confidential," she reminded.
"Por supuesto, I take my profession very seriously..." she heard the good doctor insist before she hung up.
At least someone did.
She was in her room, with the door locked. Wasn't drinking, wanting to see this through clear-headed; wasn't crying either.
The interval specified on the pack had dwindled down to the last half hour. She'd always preferred action to waiting, had put off this trivial task with the hope that it would become irrelevant. It almost was, but she needed to be sure.
Flung upward, the reports now lay haphazard around her. If they were to be believed, in-vitro fertilisation had actually been 'discovered' in Victorian times, by her father. He'd found the technology so 'versatile', the next logical step towards a greater understanding of his discipline.
He was a man whose wife had had trouble conceiving following the problematic birth of their first child, in turn followed by a fatal second. A doctor whose ethics were so thin as to harvest half the raw materials for his experiments from her cooling body, expressly against any dying wishes. A monster who would give the lucky last of these embryos, thawed one by one, printouts from their lab trials as a sign of 'fatherly' interest. And in about thirty minutes, she would know if he could add 'grandfather' to his titles.
She got up and took three steps over to the dresser. The stick was still blank. A plus or a minus sign would appear there, the packaging promised. She'd picked it at random, but couldn't now deny the irony. Waiting for an 'X' to spell the end.
How melodramatic.
She already had so many 'X's in her life, what was one more? A metaphor about camels felled by needles sprung to mind. Suppressing the vague feeling of hysteria that followed, she tried to think 'happy' thoughts.
At least it would be over soon.
It was almost surreal, how quickly everything had changed. Too many variables for a hoax, even for him. Too many questions now, of things she never had a reason to second-guess.
She would undoubtedly survive. It was the pattern her life followed. You stacked the odds, ran the risks. Sooner or later, your luck ran out. You packed up, you moved on. She had never been the only victim before. This time would be no different.
She lay still on the bed, as a familiar golden presence became brighter at the back of her mind. Memories just didn't have that amount of clarity. She thought, as quietly as she could, of anything but the papers scattered around. Running would only delay the confrontation.
Her reserved hysterics were slowly relaxing into nostalgia. For a while, there had been more in her life than merely surviving. It had been -- nice.
She should have seen it coming.
There was a knock at the door, accompanied by the cautious mental equivalent. Someone downstairs would have filled him in on the last few days. The package, her impromptu trip to restock their medical supplies, her irritable yet distant behavior -- that she'd spent the last few hours locked in here. Not to mention anything that he'd 'accidentally' picked up from their link, its reappearance both a miracle and curse.
He was obviously here for something else -- Nate wasn't much for sentiment -- and the kids had roped him into 'dealing' with her. With all the millennium hype, she'd be quite surprised if there wasn't some prophecy or other that required something incredibly stupid and dangerous. He'd probably come to say good-bye, to the kids.
Six weeks couldn't have changed him much and he hadn't thought she required a good-bye then.