Summary: "She’s tried to find herself, separate the essential *her* from everyone else, the part of her that started, that’s something less and something more than what she’s become..."

Notes: This is my most recent story. Don't worry, soon, I'll quit clogging your inboxes. I've been sitting here realizing that I seem to have accumilated a large amount of fic over a short period of time. I only have one more, and I've saved it 'til last cuz it's the one that I'm most proud of.

Disclaimer: Not. Mine.

Rating: Um, let’s say R-ish, for a couple of bad words, and implied situations; but I'm rating on the safe side.

Thanks to: Devin, for being an all-around nice person and beta'ing.

Archive: My site, ( http://cherryice.topcities.com ) Everyone else: You want? You take. Just drop me a line ( orangesky@graffiti.net ).

Feedback: Pretty pretty please with an X-Person of your choice on top?

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Again, This Time

Cherry

She’s stopped thinking that it will be different. She knows what the
rest will hold for her.

And she can’t believe that she was ever naive enough to think otherwise.

She’s long believed that any scratch of innocence, of hopeless wishing was thoroughly gone, destroyed, quelled, extinguished.

It’s taken her this long to see how stupid she really was.

She is what she is.

And she thinks that she’s the only one who didn’t see it.

Lying awake at night, staring out the window at a sky that’s devoid of stars, devoid of moonlight, she realizes something.

She was so determined to prove them wrong that she couldn’t see that they were right in every way.

It’s a hard concession for her to make.

She was wrong.

For a long time, she hated the thought, denied it, tried to crush it under one immaculate heel. But she’s come to accept it, watched as all that stupidity, all her stupidity, withered away in the face of proof.

She is what she is, and they were right all along. Her Father was right, too, something she always suspected in that dark little place just below her consciousness, where his voice took form, dancing in the back of her head, making itself heard even over all the other voices that clamour for her attention.

She tried, she really did, before she recognized the futility. She tried to be something that she wasn’t, to show them that she could change, that she had changed.

Or maybe even that what she was wasn’t as bad as they thought.

She thought that she had, that she’d succeeded, that even *They* would would find something worth... while, worth liking, worth getting to know...

That especially they would find something.

But they didn’t change their opinions, didn’t even have second thoughts about their thoughts.

Maybe that was when her convictions started to wither, pounded to nothing by their views, their clearer picture.

She knows that when it comes to one’s mind, one’s own recollections can often not be trusted. She’s recreated herself so many times, just to try and make the voices go away, or at least alter them so that they didn’t wear so heavily on her, on what she was, that she doesn’t know where she starts and everyone else begins.

She’s tried to find herself, separate the essential *her* from everyone else, the part of her that started, that’s something less and something more than what she’s become, but every time that she thinks she has it, something in her snaps under the strain of the voices, all those voices, pounding inside her head.

It’s not like being taunted on the school yard, words that can be screened, can be ignored, don’t hurt in the end. These are true, unwatered opinions, and they’re always there, no matter what she does.

Sticks and stones to break her bones.

She should thank them, she supposes. They’ve exposed her ignorance for what it truly is.

She’s stopped thinking that *this* time, it will be different, that some how, magically, she’ll be one of them. It’ll stop her from sinking each again, each time.

She is what she is.

So she knows that whatever she is isn’t enough, that it could never be enough.

She’s started cutting herself again.

She knows that Father was right all along.

And sometimes, she supposes that if he was right about that, then maybe he was right in the rest too.

She knows that she should accept it, since she is what she is, she has to have deserved it, doesn’t she?

She’s been spending a lot of time in diamond form lately. She can look at it coldly like that, without caring about the observations she draws.

It’s how she really discovered how obtuse she had been, in diamond form for the first time, trapped under the rubble of what had once been the most populous mutant area in the entire world, trapped in her thoughts. It let her deal with what had happened without any psychological damage, but it certainly offered her a chance to examine all her little foibles, all the times when she was just so God-damned stupid that she wants to scream looking back on them.

She’s lucky that she doesn’t have any damage from Genosha.

In diamond, the walls are down, and she can see how things have influenced her. They haven’t hurt her, because she hasn’t let them.

Because she’d be weak if they had.

Father. Sebastian. The guards at the asylum.

She finds herself spending more time in diamond lately.

There’s something of a rush in it, of the sharp transition from nothing to the jagged lines of red that radiate, that fill her up.

She doesn’t particularly like her heavy white gloves, but they’re rather necessary.

Pain steadies her.

She hasn’t let any of *them* hurt her, because the pain is her own.

Red rather fascinates her. Contrast, it’s all contrast. Sudden white line, white against white, then red.

Red.

It started back in the Asylum. It made the pain something of hers, something that she controlled, until they really couldn’t hurt her any more and she didn’t need it.

If she controls it, the pain, then it can’t really hurt her.

The gloves are rough against her tender skin. They rub, chafe, keep her focussed.

She rubs at them absently now, white roughing red.

They say white shows everything, but it doesn’t.

It hides in plain site.

White’s a mask. Pure. Blatant. Because they think it won’t hide anything, it hides everything.

Black shouts to the world ‘I’m damaged. I want to slide into the night.’. It’s something Jonothon has never learned.

He stands there with Jean, with Scott, with Logan.

She doesn’t really remember what this fight started over.

Only that now it’s taken a life of it’s own, a focus.

It’s probably over nothing big, something that’s been blown out of proportion. Or maybe she started it. She might as well be what they expect her to be, after all.

She rubs her wrist roughly as she delivers a repartee, twisting the fabric of her gloves until it’s enough, until her head is clear again. She thinks that she feels something give, but she really doesn’t care. She’s flying again. She’s on top, she’s untouchable, because the pain is only hers.

She finishes, spins on her heel to go, leaving them standing there in shock.

Something grabs her hand, her arm, her wrist, holding it tight, spinning her around. She’s above them. The lights are bright. She catches a glimpse of a thought, a recollection, of Jean, Jean the psychologist, mentioning that Emma rubs her wrist all the time, that it’s a new habit.

It’s off-hand, it’s nothing. It goes unnoticed, drops into that pit that most inane conversation goes into.

It’s a short flash, a few seconds, and scanning the surface thoughts of the others, she knows that Logan is the only one thinking about it, but he’s the one that matters as he grips her wrist with all his strength. He looks a bit shocked almost, for a second, for a moment, and she can feel that her wrist is warm, warm against those cold lines. His grip, which she had thought tight enough, tightens involuntarily, and she’s had it.

She brings her other hand up, brings it across his face with all her might. His head snaps to the side, and she can see his mouth open a bit in reflex, can see the red marks raising up on his face.

He releases her wrist slowly, looking at the floor, not at her. She can feel the others staring at her, feel the weight of their thoughts.

Logan brings his hand up, looking at his fingers, his hand, as he turns it towards himself, his face impassive, his thoughts curiously numb.

She rubs her wrist, twisting hard, centring, and there’s something sad in his face. He turns his hand towards her, slowly, like a glacier turning its face towards the hills, and she can see the red on his hand, the smear, bright against his skin, bright against the lights.

She glances down at her hands, her wrists, her gloves. The white is marred, scarred, proclaiming to all that There Is Something Behind, that She Can Be Hurt.

She raises her head defiantly, because she knows what it will hold, because she is what she is, and she will not apologize to any of *them* for it.

She stares right at Logan, her eyes digging into him, and she finds something there that she wasn’t expecting, doesn’t know how to deal with. She's ready for idealism, for revulsion, for anger, pity. Things that she can scoff at, defend herself against, turn to her right. Maybe she wants to see those things, because then she was right all along, and there isn't that chance that there was another way for her to be.

What she sees there is something else, something that she doesn't know how to deal with, to make sense of, to comprehend.

Understanding.