Disclaimer: All characters belong to Marvel Comics and are being used for non-profit entertainment only. This story belongs to me.

You can archive it just as long as you tell me where it is. I love feedback and I thrive on flaming people for flaming me. Be wary. Walk carefully. I burn when I'm hurt.

Note: This occurs after Inferno and changes it so that Illyana saved the world by trapping her evil and the evil of Limbo inside herself.

I am not content. I was not raised to be content. I was raised to be strong, to be confident, to be powerful.

I was meant to be a dark demon's dream.

But I am not that either.

For a while I might have touched that goal, my fingers could possibly have slid over its slimy surface, waking the evil inside the dead. It was just for a moment, just an instant that flew by but sticks inside my mind and won't go away.

In my weakness, I nearly succumbed to the darkness, to the evil.

I was raised to be strong.

Everyday that ticks by, every moment that I have to endure this ache, I know that I am not strong. I was never strong enough to deal with this.

They all sit behind their closed doors and they talk to each other in hushed voices. Their whispers press down like a heavy weight upon me and I can barley find the strength to go on.

I am no longer wanted here. I am no longer welcome. And it's all because they are afraid of me, drop-dead terrified of what will happen if I lose control, if I let the darkness wake up again.

Therefore, I must not be content. No slips in concentration, not today, not ever. I'll just stay here, behind my locked door, keeping myself from them and them from me. I will protect them by leaving them alone.

I was raised to be strong and I can get through this.

The whispers have died. I can't hear them anymore. I think they've all gone back to their side of the mansion, content in the belief that I am no longer a threat to their lives.

However, I know better.

I know that one slip, one tiny, almost imperceptible stir will end their lives and my sanity. These people are my friends. They have stood by me before when I forsake my humanity, when I nearly killed, when I maimed. If I asked, they would stand by me now, shaking, worried, but they would be near me.

The shadows in my heart are too black, the taint on my soul too foul. If I let them near, if I drop my barriers to smile, or laugh, or feel, then I will slip and the world will end in fire and brimstone.

I was raised to be strong. I can sit here, locked behind this door, no food, no drink, and control my darkness. I can control it until I die from starvation, from thirst, or from heartache. My resolve will not be broken.

I don't know how long it's been since I threw the lock on this door. Days, weeks. No more than two weeks, tops. I'd...I'd be dead if I'd been in here longer than that.

Why aren't I dead?

Am I too awful to even die?

I hear them sometimes. They come close to my door and just stand there, breathing quietly, thinking about what they should do. In the end, they always leave without saying hello or goodbye.

It takes all my resolve not to throw the latch and walk out to greet them. I want to see them smile at me, hear their voices tell jokes and try to get me to laugh. I miss them.

But if I am strong then I will save them.

I must save them.

They came to the door today, all of them. I could hear them talking amongst themselves, arguing, fighting about me. Dani wanted to have Roberto break down the door. Rahne said it was too dangerous, that I was still a threat, that, at any moment, I could slay them all with one wrong look.

I can't hurt them now. I can't even stand anymore. That's how weak I am. That's how long I've been in here. Long enough to lose the ability to stand.

Sam started saying that they should do something for me, after all, I was their teammate. Warlock was quick to agree saying that they should save "selfriend Illyana" like they never had the chance to do for Doug.

Doug. I miss Doug. He's dead like I should be. He wasn't strong, and he didn't have any flashy superhero powers but he was a hero. Doug saved Rahne. I nearly killed the entire world. Who deserves to die more?

Roberto was strangely quiet. Almost as if he were still trapped in that veil of lies that Gossamer spun. I have no doubt of what he would say. He'd damn me for my crimes, especially for the murder of Gossamer.

I didn't mean to, `Berto. I didn't mean to. I'm sorry. I'm sorry.

They left shortly after Rahne pressed again how dangerous I was, what a threat I was to every living thing on the planet. I don't blame her. She's right, after all. I should be dead.

I should be dead.

Dani came to the door today. She sat outside and talked to me for a while.

I didn't talk back. I have lost my voice.

While she was there, sitting outside the door, leaning against it, her voice floating through the crack under the door and even through the wood, she told me all sorts of things. She mentioned how everyone is doing and that Kitty wishes she could come visit me. Once Dani laughed and started talking about old times. Nevertheless, when she remembered Doug she began to cry.

I wanted to cry with her. I wanted to be sad. But if I let anything out, anything go, then I endanger the lives of everyone in the world.

It was shortly after that, when she left, pleading even as she walked away from my door for me to come out, for me to eat and drink. Dani pleaded with me to do something to make myself live.

I was raised to be strong and I can not afford to let my resolve be broken.

I can hear footsteps outside my door again. They're not Dani's, and they don't feel like Sam's. Sam came to see me...yesterday I think it was.

I can't tell anymore. Each day seems to just sink into the other. I spend most of my time half-asleep, half-dead. It doesn't hurt anymore.

Well, it doesn't hurt much.

I just wish Death would get off her ass and hurry the hell up. I have much to pay for before Heaven opens its gates for me.

"Illyana," the voice bombards me through the door. Not soft like Dani's, not hesitant like Sam's, but loud, strong, and demanding. It's `Berto's voice. He's come to spit on me.

I want to speak to him. I want to say I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, but I can't speak and I can't move.

He draws in a breath and the doorknob shakes. "Look, Sorceress, you've paid your penance. It's time to rejoin the land of the living."

I want to tell him to go away, to leave me here to die in peace but I can't talk and everything's getting dark.

"Illyana? I'm going to break down the door. The others don't know I'm here. They're still bickering. Illyana?" `Berto's voice starts to get panicked, like he knows about this big, black stillness that's resting over my head, snuffing out my air. The last thing I hear is the wood of my door splintering and a hushed, "Illyana."

I'm sorry I killed her, Roberto. I'm sor...

The black stillness has fled. It no longer hangs over me like a cloud. I can't find it anywhere. I wonder what chased it away.

Maybe I did. Maybe the darkness crept out and fought the stillness. The evil won't even let me die.

I was raised to be strong. I can fight the evil. I can find a way to die.

"Die," I hear my voice floating like a butterfly through the air. It doesn't sound like me; it's so far away and such a tiny whisper.

There's a light pressure on my hand, like someone's squeezing it. "You're not going to die, Sorceress," a new voice says and it is loud, strong, and demanding.

"`Berto?" I manage to squeak out.

"Right here, Illyana. Right here." And I feel him squeeze my hand again.

Panic bubbles it's way up into my mind. I am evil. I am darkness. I have been released from my cage. I will kill the world. I will kill `Berto. I must save `Berto.

"Go away," I tell him, my voice too faint, too breathy.

"Never," is the only word that falls from his lips as I disappear into the stillness again.

When the stillness goes away, I can fell my legs. They don't move well yet. They're all stiff and achy but I can fell them.

I was raised to be strong. I won't just lie down and die. Not for anyone, not even for myself.

The slight pressure enfolds itself around my hand again and I hear, "Open yours eyes, Sorceress. Try to open your eyes."

"H'lo `Berto," I say, still weak. But I can tell that the strength is returning by the painful prick in my right arm.

He clicks his tongue at me. "I said open your eyes, miena."

I think a slight smile spreads over my face as I mutter, "Too bright."

"No excuses. I want to see your eyes."

I can't help but think that I've never heard `Berto speak to me like this, so gently, so soft. Could it be that I'm hallucinating? This can not be real.

I am strong and so I fight to send my eyelids the signal to open. I am greeted with a burst of blazing light that sends my eyes blinking and makes them tear up. "Too bright," I repeat, louder this time.

"Let me dim them," `Berto says as he releases my hand.

His footsteps are light things on the tiled floored. But I don't want him turning the lights down. I want him to hold my hand again. I want to feel safe.

"`Berto?"

"Hmm?" he asks and I can hear him walking back towards me.

"Don't leave me. Please," I manage to mumble out, to plead. I can't remember pleading for anything before in my life. I was raised to be strong.

Roberto chuckles and brushes his fingertips across my eyelids before whispering, "I'm not going anywhere. Open your eyes."

There is a long hesitant moment on my part where I don't want to face the light. The light burns through the darkness. It destroys it. I don't want to be destroyed.

Then he squeezes my hand again and tells me, "It's okay, Sorceress. Open your eyes."

I allow my eyes to open. They blink a few times, still not adjusted to the light, not used to seeing anything but darkness. My eyes seem to scan the room of their own accord, looking, searching, so glad to be free again.

I can see `Berto. He's smiling slightly, a proud, brave smile, but tears seem to linger in his dark eyes. There are dark circles under his eyes and I wonder if he's been sleeping at all. What has been worrying him so? Surely not me. It can't be me.

He swallows, aware of my fixed, concerned gaze on him. "I always thought you had such beautiful eyes." After this statement leaves his lips, he turns his face from me so I can't look at him, so my evil can't creep into his soul, his heart.

Bastard, I think and pull my hand away from him. Then the stillness descends and I am gone.

Just like always, the stillness lifts and I am free to see and hear and speak. My eyes travel over the white walls and the locked door. Straps keep me tied to the bed. I hadn't noticed them before.

My friends still do not trust me.

Roberto isn't here. He isn't holding my hand and he isn't pacing in circles around the room. I don't know where he went. I want him here. I want to feel safe.

Unconsciously, my hands pull at the leather bonds, aching to be free. They've tied me down. My own friends have tied me down.

I hate being tied down. It reminds me of Limbo, of S'ym.

"No," my voice slips from my throat, a fallen warrior in the space between me and the looming creature in my nightmares. "No!" I repeat a tad louder.

But the beast draws closer. It is large, so tall, so tall its head touches the ceiling as it comes near me. Purple. Purple monster. Sharp teeth, claws, whip-like tail. It comes closer, reaching for me. Its hands yearn to touch me, claw me, and tear through my soft flesh. Kill me.

No, not kill me. Hurt me. Rape me. Punish me.

Again.

"NO!!" I scream into the air clouding with its thick breath. My body begins to react to the terror, straining against the bonds, trying to snap them, yearning to be free so I defend myself. "No. Not today. Not again. NOT EVER!!"

There's something pulling at my soul, tearing right through me, drawing closer. It's not the purple monster. It's something worse. This thing is pure evil. It is a piece of me.

I force my mind to calm, my heart to still. Then I tell the Soulsword to go away, go away, go away. I don't want it, anymore. Not now. I don't want to kill the world.

"No," I whisper again, this time it sounds defeated and I close my eyes as the monster draws near and the sword is glowing white against the backdrop of darkness.

Tears making an unwanted journey down my pale, taunt face, I sit in silence and wait for the blow, or the screams. I'm not sure what will happen next. I just know that it will be bad. Very, very bad.

It's so quiet. It's been so still. What has happened? What has happened?

When I open my eyes, I see nothing. No purple monster. No Soulsword. No infinite blackness burning itself into my soul. There's just a white room with white walls and I am alone.

I can hear his footsteps in the hall, loud, deafening sounds that work their way into my skull. He's pacing. Roberto's pacing outside my door, wondering whether he should bother with me today or not. I haven't spoken to him in ages, not since before the day I had my semi-breakdown.

That was a week ago.

He's tried to make me talk. He's sat by my side, holding my hand, trying to make me look at him, talk to him. Like if he just sits closer, talks softer, holds my hand tighter, then I'll open up and tell him everything.

I just don't feel like talking. I don't want him to know about S'ym, about the Soulsword, about the bad things in my head.

I don't want to hurt him.

The door opens and `Berto's standing there, leaning up against the doorframe, staring at me like I've broken his heart and then blew his head off. I don't know if he looks pissed or sad.

"What's wrong with you?" he demands, angry tears hidden in his voice. He stands, waiting for a reply he will never get. "What is wrong with you, Illyana? I come here, I sit with you, I stand up for you, and this is how you treat me? The silent treatment?"

"I don't really feel like talking, `Berto?" I mumble, my words losing their conviction upon leaving my mouth.

One side of his lip curls up into a snarl as he says, causally, "Oh, how convenient for you. Too bad for you that I feel like getting some answers, Sorceress."

I sigh, unable to keep the moisture from forming in my eyes. "If you ask, maybe I'll answer."

"I guess that will have to work. First off, why did you try to kill yourself?"

My voice seems so small, so light, and airy as I tell him, "I wasn't trying to kill myself. I was trying to save you, save the world from me."

"What are you talking about?" he snaps, his voice hard almost as if he remembers what I thought he had gotten past, forgotten. The fact that I killed Gossamer. The fact that I stood over her body, torn to shreds by my limber hands, and laughed.

"All that evil, Limbo's evil, my evil, it's all trapped inside my soul just waiting to come out, just waiting to destroy everything," I explain, my blue eyes growing large as I shift under my leather straps. They're not about to take them off now, not after the panic I caused a week ago.

Roberto stands there, silent for a moment, his dark eyes casting their glance across the high, tiled ceiling before he turns to face me. Now he speaks in slow, sad tones. Now he informs me, slowly, of all the tests they've run on me, every painstaking one. Moreover, the results from each test were the same, they all matched, no percentage of error, no room for any type of subtle mistake.

With this sorrowful expression on his face, he relays the information to me. My powers are gone, nonexistent, unreachable. I have no more ties to Limbo, no more secret connections to evil and sorcery. I am normal.

When he finishes talking, I can't speak. My eyes are full of tears and my throat has closed up. I never imagined. I never considered *that* option.

My powers are gone. I am normal.

I always said I wanted this.

Why do I feel so empty inside?

"No," I mumble into the air, so taunt with frustration and disbelief. "No! I don't believe you. It's all a trick. Some awful lie. This was all your idea, Roberto DaCosta! Some kind of sick scheme to get me back for murdering your lover!" I scream at him, my voice rising to an unbearable squeak, my eyes clouding even more with tears.

Fury flashes across his dark face like a flash of lightening across a starless sky. Within moments he's by my side, eyeing me down, the pain and rage barely contained by his features. "Gossamer was no such thing to me," he manages to say evenly, calm even though he looks as though he wants to rip my throat out.

"Liar," my whisper floats free without a thought from me. "I saw the way you looked at her, the way she looked at you. It was all there, written there, you just have to be able to see."

"I think you were looking for a reason to kill her."

"I didn't need a reason, Roberto. Gossamer was a dangerous, mind-bending bitch! My only regret is that I didn't kill her sooner."

He looks at me coolly, the depths of his eyes too calm to be about to say anything nice. "You didn't even know Gossamer."

I swallow, his strange shift in mood setting me on edge. This is one game I don't know how to play. I used to, back when I had something inside me, back when my soul hadn't been ripped to shreds and I could be bitter. Now, I am empty and so I shrug, looking beyond him, gazing at the white walls.Dark fingers wrap themselves around my chin and lift my head up so that I'm starring into Roberto's watery eyes. "Don't you even care that she died?"

I don't avert my eyes. I don't back down. I was raised to be strong. "No. No, I don't care that she died. I didn't like her. She was a manipulative monster on the inside who didn't care who she hurt so long as she got what she wanted. I am sorry that I killed. But not sorry I killed her."

"How cold and dead is your heart, Illyana?"

"As cold and dead as your former lover, Roberto," I snarl at him, my mind racing into fourth gear, ready to take down whoever tries to stop me.

"Shut up! Just shut your mouth, demon!" he roars, letting go of my face and stepping away.

I can't help but taunt him as he turns his back to my, his ragged breathing making his shoulders shake like he's crying. "Did I strike a nerve, Mr. Big, Tough Sunspot."

"Back off, Sorceress. The water's you're testing are not very calm right now."

"Who are you to say anything to me, you snot-nosed, rich brat!? God, I could never stand you. Never. You always thought you were so much better than me, than everybody in the New Mutants. And the way you fawned over every girl you met up with was disgusting. Like you were some playboy. Then you fall for Gossamer. Gossamer, of all people. A little alien slut who probably used her powers to lure you into her bed!" My eyes burn with fire as I let the words just fly out of my mouth. All these things I've been holding inside, all these emotions that I never felt safe letting out are free now. The truth is out.

"You don't know what you're talking about," he insists.

I shake my head, oblivious to his signals to stop before I'm too far to come back. "I hope she was a good lay, Roberto. Your first I'd bet. I hope she was worth the pain in your eyes and the guilt on your soul."

"I said stop it."

"I don't know what you were thinking. Hormones, probably. All guys are like that. Hormones. But in the end, it all comes down to the fact that you let that tramp seduce you. It's as much your fault as hers." By now, the anger has drifted out of me and I'm speaking in a flat tone that says I couldn't care less. I no longer pull against the straps on my bed or fight to free my legs. I lay, content and quiet against the white sheets, watching the ceiling instead of Roberto.

"Stop it!" he screams and marches over to stand beside my bed, looking down at me, pain and fear like liquid fire in his round, dark eyes.

"Is that how you imagined your first time would be?"

A sharp sting flashes across my cool face like the bite of a whip. I look up to see Roberto's eyes tearing up in regret and fury. Cold tears cried more for himself than for her, for little, dead Gossamer. Gossamer who wasn't as wonderful as we'd like to think. Nobody else saw her from the inside like I did. Like knows like and I knew Gossamer.

After a second, `Berto shakes his head, eyes flickering around the room looking for salvation that will never come. "I'm sorry," he speaks low and husky, close to doubling over in hysterical tears.

If I could move my hands that far, I'd reach out to touch him, to stroke his hair and make him feel better. As it is, I can barely make my fingers graze the palm of his hand. "No, `Berto, I'm sorry. I didn't know how close...I didn't think. I was hurt."

"Do you think I wanted her?" he chokes out, trying to hold the sobs into his throat. "I wasn't ready for that. I barely knew her. I thought she was pretty and I liked the way she acted around me. I liked how jealous she made you."

I shift uncomfortably on the bed at those words.

But his confession just goes on, like the current of some great river destined to unite with the sea. "She used me, Illyana. She used her powers to control me, to make me go to bed with her. I didn't know what I was doing. When I woke up, she was laughing at me. Laughing because she had broken me to her will. Gossamer had broken me."

"It's no fun to be broken," I mutter.

He nods. "Exactly. I know. I hated her for that. When you killed her, I was glad. I thought maybe you knew and you were saving me from ever being controlled by her again. I thought your jealousy had pushed you over the edge. I thought...maybe you wanted me."

Silence settles like dense fog around us and I feel like I'm suffocating. Me? Want Roberto?

Okay, maybe a little. But I wasn't jealous of Gossamer. I didn't know what she had done to him, how she'd used him, hurt him. There was no ulterior motive to my slaying her in cold blood. It just happened that at the moment I was infused with the complete essence of Limbo's foulness, she was there and I had been pushed beyond my limits. I killed her before I even knew what I was doing.

"`Berto?"

His dark eyes swing up to look at me. "What?"

"I didn't kill her to avenge what she did to you. I didn't kill her because I was jealous. I killed her because I was insane with the evil."

A muffled, "Oh," drops from his lips and his eyes become glued to the floor.

With all my strength, I stretch out to brush my fingertips across his hand. That makes him look me in the eyes again, that gives me the chance to say, "But I would kill her for all those reasons if I was given another chance."

My face stays clean as a slate, flat and emotionless but showing so much by being so innocent. Roberto can't seem to keep himself from smiling although tears are making a long trek down his wonderful face.

"Thank you," he manages to choke out as we continue to gaze at each other.

I shake my head and pull against the bonds again, aching to touch his face, to wipe the tears away and run my fingers over his lips. "Don't cry," I plead with him. "There's no need for anyone to cry ever again. We're both going to be fine, `Berto. We have each other."

Now he laughs, such a pure and gentle laugh, as he takes my hand in his and squeezes.

Maybe I'm not so empty, after all.

END

End note: I really hated Gossamer. Can you tell?