Needing Help (for queenemma right now)

[semihero_pietro]

Pietro left Paris after seeing his sisters, and made his away across the ocean back to the Xavier Institute. It had been a few months now since he had been on the grounds - he had left soon after his father had blown up the place in Brussels - but as always it looked the same.

Making his way into the place, he avoided the groups of mutants (students and teachers alike) and instead went directly to Emma's office.

He stopped to look at his reflection. His hair was a bit longer, shaggy from not having been kept in careful cutting and styling. He was out of uniform, and his clothing seemed to just be hanging off him. He had lost weight, probably from not really eating in the last week, or was it too now... and the lack of sleep has his face pale with bags under his eyes.

Since seeing his sister, he had been able to see through the blind anger that had kept him going. But now, his head hurt and he wasn't able to know what was real and what wasn't. He also still couldn't feel his sister for some reason, and that needed to be fixed.

He needed help. And Emma Frost was, ironically, the only psychic he trusted to help him.

"Emma, it's Pietro. Are you here?" he called out, knocking rapidly on her door.

Comments

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

Emma was dressed perfectly, as usual, but her mind was anything but. She kept thinking back to her talk with Lorna in Paris, and more recently to what she and Scott had done to save Rachel. No one would understand, she was certain, but it had to be done.

So wrapped up in her own thoughts, Emma didn't even realize that Pietro was there until the rapping on the door became louder and louder. Blinking several times, she cleared her throat and started shuffling some papers about on her desk.

"Pietro, yes. Sorry, I was pre-occupied, but please, come in and sit down." She created a thought-bubble around them, effectively shielding their conversation from anyone else.

"What can I do for...?" But her voice caught as she opened the door to let him in. His appearance was...

"Pietro, sit down, now, and for God's sake, tell me what the hell happened to you."

[semihero-pietro.livejournal.com]

He made his way into the office, closing the door behind him. He moved slowly, as if he was exhusted, and sat down across from her.

"I don't know, Emma," he admitted. "I think... I think I'm going crazy."

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

"Really."

It wasn't even a question. Emma could tell by his appearance that he was more than likely speaking the truth. Rubbing at her temples and chalking this up to yet another thing she had to take care of, she clasped her hands in her lap and calmly eyed him.

"Very well. We're shielded from anyone else so if there's something you need to speak to me about...?"

Which, she assumed, was the reason he was here.

[semihero-pietro.livejournal.com]

"I haven't slept in nearly two weeks, or eaten. Wanda... the Phoenix... they did something and now I can't rest. It's like there's so much in my head that I can't figure out what is real, what isn't, and what is even mine."

He looked at Emma. "I can't feel Wanda either. I've always been able to feel her, and I can't. It's like she's dead..."

He looked away out at some unfocused point by the bookcase. "I thought she had died. It felt like it. I was there, and it felt like the Phoenix ripped her in half... ripped me in half... I don't know."

He moaned and lowered his head down to his knees, lacing his fingers behind his head. "I try to figure it out and it hurts. I don't know what to do."

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

She grabbed the bottled water she had on her desk and handed it to Pietro. "First, you're going to drink that and stop whining. It doesn't become you at all."

She was not motherly. Emma would heal him with "tough love" perhaps, but that was all.

"I'm going to forget everything you told me about Wanda and the Phoenix since I've heard too much about that lately." She censored her own words because although Wanda was clearly insane, she was still Pietro's sister. Which, Emma mused, might be a cause for his own behavior...

"You can't feel her, you say, now that she's been de-powered? And your mind is a jumble, hmm?" She closed her eyes and brought Pietro with her to the Astral Plane, where the pair of them could walk amongst the memories there together. Arms crossed, she looked at Pietro, hoping he knew where they were.

"Do you see anything familiar?"

[semihero-pietro.livejournal.com]

He took the water bottle but only took a sip of it. He wasn't thirsty, even if his body screamed for the liquid.

Pietro watched as the mansion disappeared and they appeared on what was for all appearances, the top of Wundergore mountain. The stars and moon gave them enough light, and looking over the edge of the cliff, they could see down into the small village that had been home for awhile to both of the twins.

The town shifted. First it looked warm and comfortable, then in another second it was in flames, then full of life, then there was screaming as people were dying.

"Wundergore," Pietro said.

The times where the village was normal, there was a cool breeze blowing. When the village was being destroyed, the breeze turned hot.

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

She nodded as the scenes changed before them. "But you don't recall it being this way all the time, do you?" It was a rhetorical question, and so she simply shook her head as one boot stepped carefully over a rock, nearing the edge of the cliff.

"Your mind is a jumble, Pietro. Your memories are here, but not all of them are your own. Some of them feel... wrong. Not as though you've had your mind tampered with, but rather as if the memories are..." She tilted her head, regarding him.

"Misplaced," she finished, before holding her hand out to him and pulling him over the edge of the cliff with her to the town.

"I'm going to have to sort through them, and I apologize in advance for any memories I might cross of you fantasizing about me, but I've known for rather a long time you've fancied me anyway," she teased lightly, before beginning the real work.

Searching out with her mind, she would have to reassemble two sets of memories somehow. Maybe... just maybe, she could bring Wanda's sanity back once Pietro's returned. She found one thought of love, then examined it more closely to see it was for a daughter. Pietro's, obviously. She continued and found another thought of love, but upon further examination, she saw it was of The Vision. Wanda's. Piece by piece would take a long time, but with Pietro there, he could help her along as well.

She gasped out loud as she came to one thought, that had to be Pietro's. But... it couldn't. It simply couldn't. It was a memory of power, raw power, coupled with fear. She'd almost assumed it was Wanda's thought until she'd examined it...

"You have your father's powers...?" It was barely a whisper.

OOC: Sorry for the late reply!

[semihero-pietro.livejournal.com]

As Emma worked more and more with the sorting, the weariness wore away from Pietro and he started to look alot healthier and just like himself again.

However, when Emma came to that memory, he winced. That was one of his darker secrets he didn't want people to know about him.

"Yes," Pietro stated, and reached out to touch the image of the memory.

ooc: Image here (http://pics.livejournal.com/semihero_pietro/pic/0000are8.jpg)

It had happened here, in Wundergore, when he had come in contact with Isotope E. The feeling of raw power that had surged through his body had unlocked a secondary mutation that Pietro wasn't even aware that he had carried.

"I can't access it anymore though. Not without the Isotope. And I would rather not, because the power nearly took me over the first time. I fear what I would become."

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

"Not without the Isotope," she repeated slowly. "But you can access it. You can become your father if you wished." He could most likely best Lorna as well with the memory that she touched alongside Pietro.

She would keep the secret, of course, and she understood his own issues with Magnus.

Fathers could be so troublesome.

Back to work, though, Emma sorted memories piece by piece, thankful that he was by her side to assist her. She noticed that even on the Astral Plane, his appearance was better. Stronger. It was draining for her, though, and once it was completed, she shifted the scene away and back to her office, which was still shielded from other telepaths.

She could only hope that Pietro was whole again, as well as Wanda. But that secret... that power that he possessed... shaking her head, she reached for her bottled water. "I don't sense another presence in your mind any longer. But the question remains -- how do you feel?"

[semihero-pietro.livejournal.com]

"I fear that I would become worse than my father," Pietro said softly. Because that was his greatest fear, and he would take his own life before allowing that to happen.

As they shifted out of the plane, Pietro leaned his head back and took a deep breath. He heard Emma's question and smiled softly. "It's quiet. Blessfully quiet."

He looked at Emma and then held a hand up to cover a yawn. "Maybe... maybe you should ask me again in the morning. I can suddenly feel how exhusted I am."

[queenemma.livejournal.com]

"Of course," she said smoothly, leading Pietro towards one of the empty bedrooms in the mansion where he could rest.

OOC: BTW, the Disney thing is still going on if Pie wants to join in for the fun. :)