Typing Up Loose Ends: Part Two

by Red Monster

Theresa Cassidy spotted the Massachusetts Academy, of which her father, Sean Cassidy, was the headmaster, a half mile away. Remembering that the students scattered liberally throughout the grounds were normal humans and unaware that their school was run and inhabited by mutants, Theresa dropped out of the air and walked the remaining distance to the school.

As Sean Cassidy walked back to his office from a meeting with teachers, one of his students caught up with him.

"Yes, Peter, what is it?"

"There was a woman outside asking where she could find you, so I took her to your office. She says she's your daughter," said the student.

"She said she's my daughter?" Sean's eyes widened.

"Yes, Mr. Cassidy, that's what she said."

"Thank you, I'll go see her right now," said Sean, rushing past his young student before he finished the sentence.

He walked especially fast the rest of the distance to his office. Peter's notice alarmed him not because he didn't get along with his daughter (he did), but because of how she got there. The last place Theresa had lived that Sean knew about was in California, so she would have had to travel a long way, especially considering that she hadn't given him any notice beforehand. The thing that really sent Sean practically booking back to his office to see who was really there was that Peter had told him this woman had "said" she was his daughter. The last time Sean had visited his daughter, or more accurately, the last time he'd tried to visit her, she had been injured so badly she couldn't speak. Just how was she "saying" anything?

Sitting on the bench next to his office door was a young woman who looked exactly like his daughter, except he'd always known Theresa to keep her hair combed. Part of him wanted to hug the living daylights out of her, but the other part was afraid of what she'd turn into if he did.

"Can I help you, Miss?" he asked, putting on his best poker face.

"Da, it's me, it's Theresa," she said while standing up, tentatively reaching out to hug him.

"Prove it," he said, though her voice was unmistakably his daughter's.

"Okay," she nodded, placing her hands on her hips. "Do you have any chocolate milk at your cottage?"

That was something no shapeshifter could have known; it was really her. He let out a quick, soft laugh, and held out his arms to her. She ran up and hugged him, leaning her matted head on his shoulder. "Da, I'm sorry I wasn't there to see you when you came to visit me last time," she murmured.

"Don't worry about that, darlin'. All I want to know is, how did you get your voice back so soon?"

"It's a long story.

"...and the next thing I know, I wake up in this big glass vat of...something, wearing only this," she pulled down the neckline of her top to reveal a black band of spandex around her chest, "and some panties and leg bands to match. The vat's been turned over and is cracking open, so I climb out and see Wade, I see Deadpool, standing in front of me, and I'm so surprised I just open my mouth and say 'Wade?', and my old voice actually came out! So I fly up out of the broken glass vat and did a sonic scream, just for the heck of it, and it felt so good!"

They both laughed triumphantly. They were in Sean's office, with her in his chair behind his desk and him in the smaller chair against the wall, as if she were the headmistress and he were a belligerent student or angry parent, munching on brownies a teacher had baked, while Theresa told her story. She had inherited her mutant powers from him, and he had also experienced the trauma of losing his powers in battle before. In his case, though, he could at least still speak, whereas Theresa had been rendered silent by her old teammate, Feral's, attack on her.

"So we're in this big stone room, and your friend Logan's there, and there are these two weird-looking people and a giant robot also there, saying 'All appearances indicate that her injuries have been healed.'," she imitated the robot's electronic voice. "So I ask Deadpool if he was the one who made this happen, if he was the one I had to thank for having my voice back, and it turned out he was." She took a bite of her brownie. "Only, Logan was also a part of it," she said softly. "It turns out Wade had nabbed Logan and sent him to this shady bunch called the Watchtower, and they used his healing factor to fix my vocal cords. That's how I got my voice back so soon."

"So these people, the Watchtower, must have been experimenting on Logan in some way?" said Sean.

"He said they were taking his blood. I don't know just what he went through, and he was fine by the time I woke up, but still. He didn't like what had happened to him, and neither did I."

"I don't blame you, Theresa. Logan's been through far worse, I'm sure, but that doesn't mean he'd want to go through it again," Sean agreed. "So, then, what happened after you found all this out?"

"After they told me what Wade had done to get me healed, I flew with him out of the compound and into the nearest town, and it was the middle of the night, so nothing was going on. Wade broke into a thrift store and got some clothes for me, and they were ugly as sin, but they covered me up, so I wouldn't have to go flying around half-naked. And he offered to take me home, to get me either back to X-Force, or back to Aunt Tori's, or back to his place, I wasn't quite sure which, but he had planned to get me to some place I could call home after I was healed, I know that much. Only, I decided I'd better part ways with him there."

"Why?" Sean asked. "Did you know anyone where you were?"

"No, in fact I didn't even know where I was. The problem was, as much as I was thrilled to have my voice and powers back again, I couldn't help but feel terrible about what Logan had to go through, and when I thought about it some more, I had to wonder; how did Wade get me in there? I mean, I didn't know where I was or what I was doing when he found me, or how he found me, or just how he got me to that Watchtower place after he found me. In fact, I still don't know now. You know, I had all these questions to ask him, but I didn't want to know the answers. I just wanted the whole episode to be over, so after I was dressed, and we stole a snack out of a little produce market, I told Wade I was very appreciative of what he'd done for me, and I'd be getting in touch with him soon, but that I'd get myself home and he could go his own way and not worry about me. And at first, he was caught a little off-guard, wanted to know if I was sure about this, and I told him yes, I'd be fine, and since I had my powers back, I could take care of myself. Now, he believed me on this, so we bid each other good-bye, and he went off in his direction, and I went mine."

"But, what way was that, if you didn't even know where you were at the time?"

"Now that's a good question. It was very warm and green where we were, so I figured it must have been in the southeast, so I thought, of all the places I could go, this place and the Xavier Institute were the closest. So I started flying north to see what I could find, and what I found was that I could only fly so far before my lungs got very tired," she explained quickly.

Sean laughed again. "Started wishing you'd gone with Deadpool instead, then? Not that I'd want you to be following that merc around, but this is a big country, isn't it?"

"It is," she concurred. "Now, when I decided I couldn't fly any farther without having my vocal cords fall out again, I landed next to a highway in what I later found out was the middle of Virginia. And I walked alongside it for some time, not looking for a ride, just wanting to see where it led, and a very nice man pulled his truck over in front of me and offered me a ride to Boston. I told him it wasn't safe, what he was doing, picking up a stranger by the side of the road, but he told me the same thing about what I was doing, and said he wasn't worried, and since I knew that if anyone had to worry about the other being dangerous, it was him, so I accepted the ride."

"That is, unless that man was also a mutant, and wasn't just looking to do a good deed," Sean put in.

"Yes, I know, but I thought, I can defend myself, and it's a much better deal than walking and flying god-knows-how-far up to this place myself, so I got in his truck, and it was a lovely ride up."

"That's good to hear. What is this truck driver's name?" asked Sean.

"His name is Lou, and he sounded quite Southern. He has two daughters about my age, he said, and he picked me up because he wanted some company while he drove, which I thought was very touching."

"Yes, I can see that. I'm sure it could get very lonely driving from Virginia or further south, up to Boston," said Sean, touching his chin thoughtfully.

"Actually, he's going as far as Buffalo, and then all the way back again. But, anyway, he dropped me off at his stop in Boston this afternoon, and then I flew the rest of the way here," she concluded.

"Wait," Sean looked worried. "I hope you didn't let the students see you flying, because they're not supposed to know--"

"Yes, I remembered that, Da. As soon as I could see the school, I landed and walked the rest of the way. I don't believe any of the students saw me until I showed up at the gates," she assured him. "Why, what would they do if they knew I was a mutant, pull out their power-dampening guns and shoot me down?" she spun around in Sean's chair with a mad twinkle in her eye.

"No, I think they'd be too intimidated to actually try anything, but remember that their world doesn't end at the school gates," Sean warned, turning his deadly serious gaze on her until she stopped turning his chair around. "Once word got out to the parents, and it would get out, then the school would come under investigation, and you can just imagine what would happen then--"

"Oh, Da, isn't that what you have Emma for? You're describing the kind of situation she lives for! She'd be inside the kids' minds before they could say 'Dear Mum and Dad,' and even if some of them did tell their parents--" Theresa began, but stopped abruptly when the door opened.

"You know, Sean, I never thought I'd hear your daughter, of all people, singing my praises," said Emma Frost as she entered her co-headmaster's office. "I see you've recovered from your injuries, Theresa."

"I wasn't singing your praises, Emma, I was just telling the truth, though I guess there's a time and place to be proud of the way you use your powers. I mean, isn't that how you knew I was here?" replied Theresa.

"Well, your psychic shielding is so nonexistent, you may as well be yelling down the hall, so it didn't take much effort on my part. Though, it is good to see you've come to visit your father in such high spirits, and not the Jack Daniels kind," Emma quipped.

"Emma, please," Sean began.

"No, really, Da, it's okay," said Theresa. "It'd be a shame for me to spend my teen years in a drunken stupor and not even have a few good jokes to show for it. Besides, from what I hear this is just her way of saying 'hello', right, Emma?"

"Yes, of course, Theresa. Also, don't let any of the kids see you in your father's chair, it might give them ideas."

"Now, really," Theresa snickered. "Are your students so precious they can't think of anything worse than sneaking into their headmaster's office and joy-riding in his chair?"

"I didn't say what kind of ideas they'd get," said Emma, and she slid out of the room and shut the door behind her.

"Jack Daniels," Theresa snickered after Emma left.

"You really find that funny?" asked Sean.

"Absolutely! Who knew the crazy bitch had such a sharp sense of humor!"

"Well, either way, that part of your life is none of her business."

"'That part of my life'?" Theresa mocked. "Just say it, Da. I was a drunk for nine years. I'm now a recovering alcoholic. There's no need to keep it a secret, and let's face it, that joke was just waiting to happen."

"Okay. I suppose if you're not offended, I shouldn't be, either," Sean conceded softly. "Now, how long do you intend to stay here?"

"A few days, maybe a week if you'll have me that long," Theresa shrugged.

"Of course I'll have you that long. With how long it's been since I last saw you, and everything that's gone on, a week isn't a long time to stay."

"I know, but I can't stay any longer than that. I don't know how I left Aunt Tori, and I've no idea what she's made of my being away, so I need to get back to her and make sure things are okay, fix them if they're not."

"Yes, you do need to get back to her."

"Besides, you know, all my stuff is back there, so I need to go get it..."

"Theresa," Sean laughed. "Would you like to stay in my guest room while you're here?"

"I would love that."

"Now, darling, I want that shirt off. Would you?" said a silky, knowing, yet slightly plaintive voice. Her face and torso were hidden in shadow, so that he could only see her creamy thighs straddling his supine form.

Sean complied, and cast his t-shirt to the side of his bed. "Is that better?"

"Yes, I like that," said his lover. She leaned forward to slowly run her hands up and down his chest. "I wanted you from the moment I saw you, and now you're mine," she whispered. "Say you want me."

"I want you," he breathed.

"Say it again," she demanded.

"I want you," he began. Then, he felt himself dragged into a deep haze, one that he did not care to resist. The slender hands on his chest faded away, the sleek lines of her thighs disappeared, and the weight on his stomach spread into a warm, heavy blanket over his whole body.

He turned his head to the side and slowly opened his eyes, to find that his digital clock read 3:26. Oh, now why did that dream have to end? It was a good one!, he thought. Until he realized that the hands were still on his chest, the shadow-concealed body still seated herself just above his hipbones, and her thighs still held him firmly in place. Sean turned his head to look straight forward, with eyes wide open, and beheld a curly-topped, voluptuous silhouette on top of him, gently backlit by the moonlight and lamplight coming through his bedroom windows.

Keeping his eyes fixed on his "lover," Sean reached for the switch to the lamp on his nightstand, almost knocking the lamp over in the process. His shaking hand fumbled around the neck of the lamp, just below the lightbulb, and finally found the switch. When he turned it on, the light revealed a barely-clad Theresa straddling him, leaning forward to touch his chest.

In one swift motion, Sean grabbed his daughter by the upper arms and swung her off his bed, and dropped her on the floor next to him. She made a slight squeaking sound as he threw her off, but the real reaction was after she landed. She was wearing a flimsy underwire bra and thong panties that she had probably stolen from one of his female students, who wanted to look like a grown woman but had to dress her own undersized teenage body. The result was that the thong's side straps cut into Theresa's hips, and her breasts bulged out of the cups and fought against its lacy material. She lay there in a petulant heap, propped up on her elbows as she scowled up at Sean.

"Theresa, what. Are. You DOING?!"

"You seemed to be enjoying it until a minute ago," she said, in the voice from his dream.

Sean flipped horizontally over in bed, trying to conceal his stubborn erection from Theresa, and grabbed the telephone.

Emma Frost woke with a start to the sound of her phone ringing. She tore the receiver off its console and, thinking the caller was a wrong number or one of her idiot drunken students having too much fun, snarled into it, "Do you have any idea what time it is?!"

"Emma, I know what time it is. Theresa just tried to seduce me," said Sean Cassidy's voice on the other end of the line.

"I'll be right over," she flatly said.

Sean hung up the phone and looked back at Theresa. She was now propped up on her hands, sitting more upright, and looking very confused.

"Da, what am I doing in here?" she said in her own voice.

"You tell me!"

"Really, I don't remember coming in here. What's going on, was I sleepwalking?"

"It looked more like you were developing multiple personalities. Emma'll be in here soon to deal with whatever's going on inside your head," said Sean.

Theresa stood up and walked over to Sean's closet. She took his bathrobe off the hook on the closet door and put it on, followed by a pair of his slippers. "I have her, Sean," she said, again not sounding like herself.

"Wha?" he muttered incredulously, then it hit him. "Good work, Emma." After Theresa left his room, he watched out his bedroom window until he saw Theresa walking towards Emma's cottage, then he turned around and tottered robotically into the bathroom. In there, he turned on the cold water in the shower at full blast, and walked under it, still in his pajamas.

Theresa found herself in the middle of shutting Emma's front door. She looked down to see her father's bathrobe over the too-tight underwear, which she also couldn't explain. In front of her was Emma sitting cross-legged on the couch, wearing a satiny white negligee and matching robe, next to a lit table lamp.

"You entered my mind and dragged me over here, didn't you?" said Theresa with a hand on her hip.

"Yes. I thought it unnecessary to have both of us walking around outside at this hour, especially in our state of dress. Come sit down," said Emma, pointing to the seat beside her.

Theresa stepped slowly towards the couch. "This is about me doing whatever made my Da so mad in his room, isn't it?" she asked as she went.

"It is. Now, just before I took control of your mind, I checked into your father's short-term memory for details, and there's something I'd like to let you know," Emma began. "While you may have had a good reason to want to wake up your father in the wee hours of the morning, straddling him and rubbing his chest while nearly naked is generally considered inappropriate behavior."

"Is that what I was doing?" said Theresa with wide eyes.

"Apparently so," Emma answered. "With behavior like that, you're either consuming some very illegal substances, or you have even more 'issues' than I thought, or I'm not the only one who's been in your mind tonight."

"Well, you were just inside my head a few minutes ago, so why don't you tell me?" Theresa challenged.

"I suppose I could have looked into that, but it requires time and concentration that I'd rather not expend unless you're in here, with me," Emma explained. "Now, let me see this." She opened up the bathrobe Theresa was wearing. "And for this occasion, you decided to wear something that might even make me feel exposed, and it's at least three inches and two cup sizes too small. Stolen from one of my more petite students, I wager. I wonder how you even closed up that bra."

"Oh God, now I remember," said Theresa.

"So, you were conscious when you did this?"

"No, I don't think I was. I remember watching someone else doing that to my Da, and I thought it was just a sick dream," she recalled. "Then I remember him throwing her off of him, and she was annoyed about it. Then I woke up, and I was sitting on the floor in Da's room, wondering what in God's name was going on, and he was angry at me."

"You felt dissociated, then? Like you were watching it happen from the side, instead of being in the middle of it?"

"Yes! That's exactly how I remember it. But, Da said I was the one doing it?"

Emma nodded.

"Good lord, I don't know what came over me, Emma. I mustn't have been myself, because I'd never pull a stunt like that, honestly."

"I believe you," said Emma. "Really. I think you were under some form of mind control, but not like my telepathy. Something more indirect, but still effective."

"And I suppose you'll be wanting to enter my mind again to get rid of it?" asked Theresa.

"Unless you want to stay under mind control, I'm afraid so. Why, do you?"

"No!" Theresa ejected. "Do whatever it takes, if it means I won't mount my father again. I don't want that."

"That's what I thought. I'll have to warn you, I may have to go through your more recent memories, and gain access to some very private information," Emma warned. "So, if that happens, don't be too surprised."

"Emma, I don't think anything in my head is anywhere near as embarrassing as what I just did," said Theresa as she closed up her robe. "You can read my mental diary, if that's what works."

"Okay. I need you to sit back, close your eyes, and relax. Don't worry about feeling tired or sleepy, that won't hurt anything. Just calm down," Emma instructed. "I can't say how long this will take, but I can promise that I won't hurt you."

Once she reached the astral plane, the first place Emma went in Theresa's mind was her state of consciousness. It appeared as a small room, with all the furniture pushed towards the center, and Theresa standing in a corner while vigorously scrubbing a spot of the wall. "I see, you feel dirty and you want to clean up your act," Emma said out loud. Theresa did not respond, which did not surprise Emma. The walls were a pale beige-gray color, softly textured and matte, looking like typical drywall. Emma noticed a greasy trace several feet away from Theresa's head. She ran her hand over it to make it glow and stand out, and what appeared was a handprint. "Theresa, I need to borrow your hand for a second." Emma took her subject's hand and pressed it against the wall next to the first print. She let go, and Theresa went back to detailing the drywall. The first thing Emma noticed was that the new handprint was much brighter than the first one. "This was left here days ago," Emma muttered. She also noticed that the older print was left by a different hand. The palm was too broad, the fingers too knobby. Emma took a broom resting in the corner and ran it across the floor next to the wall adjacent to Theresa. When she turned it over, she found several long white and gray hairs winding through the broom fibers. Pulling the hairs out of the broom and winding them around her finger, she said to Theresa. "Next stop, Memory Lane."

Emma found Theresa standing on a gravel road with a waist-high stone wall on one side and a full-length wall of mirrors on the other. She touched Theresa's hand and found she was solid and warm, though catatonic. "What's wrong with me...make it stop..." echoed through the air in Theresa's voice, very clearly. Another voice echoed something else, so quietly that Emma could not understand. In the mirrors were Theresa's most recent memories. First was her conversation with Emma, from Theresa's perspective. Then there was a square of blank mirror, and the incident with Sean, but from an outside point of view. All the images after that were back to appearing through Theresa's eyes. Emma floated past the truck ride with Lou, the saying goodbye to Deadpool, waking up in the chemical bath, then the mirror showed only Emma with the stone wall behind her. About a dozen squares showed no memories from Theresa, and in the middle of the blank squares stood a thin, gray-haired old woman in a long purple dress. Emma held up the hairs she'd pulled out of the broom and found they blended with this woman's tied-back hair. Emma tried to touch the old woman's face, only to find that she was without solid matter. Just after the apparition in the mirror were several more blank spaces, then a blurry version of Deadpool's face, then the ground, and then an ordinary outdoor scene. Here, she heard the other voice echoing much more clearly. "No, please don't let this happen," it said.

"I never thought I'd congratulate Deadpool on a job well done," said Emma. "But right now, I must." After several days' length of the same-old traveling about, the mirror showed a heavy-set blonde woman entering a partly ransacked house and looking very shocked, then a few squares of a bottle of liquor interspersed with knocking things over in the house. After that came the road leading up to the house, from inside a car, then the inside of an antiques shop, and then Theresa's form appeared on the road. Behind her was the same antiques shop scene, this time with the purple-dressed woman holding up a big, gaudy necklace and pushing it towards Theresa.

"How very rude of you," said Emma. "Taking up residence in this girl's head through your ugly jewelry, and not even cleaning up after yourself when you leave. So now she has to deal with your leftovers."

Sean Cassidy stumbled out of the shower in his soaking-wet pajamas to hear Emma Frost's telepathic voice in his head.

"Sean, put on some dry clothes and get over here. I've found what's wrong with Theresa, and we've agreed to deal with it in the morning."

"Will she be okay? It's not serious, is it?" Sean asked.

"No, it's not serious, but I think you should know what's going on. Now move."

Sean did as he was told, and arrived at Emma's residence to find her alone in the living room.

"Um, where's Terry?" he asked upon noticing his daughter's absence.

"She's going to bed," Emma answered. "She's spending the rest of the night here, because we wouldn't want to repeat the incident in your bedroom, would we?" she gave a quick smirk.

"Is it really so bad that she can't stop herself from doing it again?" Sean asked after sitting down next to Emma.

"It's really not as bad as it looks. It'll take a few simple mental exercises to fix the problem, and since it's late, and we're tired, Theresa and I have decided to get some sleep before trying the mental exercises. In the meantime, I don't think it's wise to let her fall asleep around you."

"Okay. So, just what's going on?"

"Theresa has been possessed," Emma began.

"What?! That's what you call not serious?!" Sean started.

"But she is not possessed now, in fact she hasn't been since before she arrived this afternoon. The possessor left some psychological residue behind, which is what caused your daughter to attempt an incestuous act on you," she explained.

"I've never heard of this psychological residue before," said Sean. "Would you explain that to me?"

"Of course. The consciousness and will of the possessor have been forcibly removed from Theresa's mind, apparently by the same people who restored her voice. However, the possessor left behind some of her own impulses and emotions in a weak form. It's like echoes in an empty lecture hall; the teacher has left and no longer commands the student, but the words are still in the room.

"Not that I'm calling your daughter empty-headed," she clarified. The two of them shared a brief chuckle. "So, when she's conscious, she can shrug off the echoes very easily, but when she falls asleep, her own will goes dormant, and the echoes become the only voice in her head, which leaves her vulnerable to their influence. When she was on top of you, her regular consciousness was fast asleep, and she was operating on the psychological residue. She's not crazy, nor does having sex with her father appeal to her," she reassured him.

"Okay, I can understand that," Sean nodded. "But, why have I never heard of this phenomenon before?" he asked. "In all the time I've known Charles, and Jean, and you, why has no one ever brought this up?"

"The de-possession was incomplete," she said. "The possessor didn't want to leave, and Theresa was supposed to stay in the treatment bath a little longer than she did. Unfortunately, a fight broke out in the facility, and she was removed prematurely." Emma yawned. "So, the de-possession didn't happen quite as cleanly as we're used to."

Sean didn't respond at first, he just stared at the painting on the wall ahead of him. Finally, he looked back at Emma. "Now can you explain something else to me?"

"Perhaps."

"What in the saints' is wrong with me?" His voice dropped to a whisper. "Before I woke up and found her, I was dreaming about what she was doing, and goddammit, Emma, I liked it."

"Sean, it's okay," she began.

"No, it's not," he continued. "When I woke up from the dream, but before I realized she was actually there, I was disappointed that it had to end. I wanted to fall asleep again and go back to that dream. And then, when I noticed that there was really a woman sitting on top of me, and I turned on the lamp to see who had gotten into my house, the first thing I felt, just before I realized how sick it is to feel that way about your own child, was 'Wow, she's hot.' Emma, what is wrong with me?"

"You're human," she said quietly. "Being a mutant doesn't change that," she began to yawn again. "No matter what anybody says." She stopped yawning, and placed her hand on his knee. "When you were dreaming, you didn't know it was your own daughter, and it's not your fault that your body doesn't care."

"I guess so," he sighed. "Still, it just seems so wrong."

"Of course it does," Emma shrugged. "It's perfectly natural to feel that way. Just don't beat yourself up over it. Theresa is in pieces over this, and no matter how well she cleans out her mind tomorrow morning, I can assure you she'll be embarassed to face you. You don't both need to be convinced you're damaged goods."

"Did you explain all this to Theresa?" he asked after a lull.

"I gave her the whole story before I asked you in. What, did you think I'd tell you but not her?"

"I'm just covering all the bases, is all."

"All right," Emma said. "Now, unless you need something else explained to you, I need to get some sleep, you need to get some sleep, and I need to be close by in case Theresa tries another crazy stunt once she starts to get some sleep."

"Okay," said Sean, getting up to leave. "Good night, Emma. And, thank you."

"This is what we're going to do," said Emma to Theresa the next morning. They were in Emma's bedroom, sitting face-to-face on opposite ends of her bed in their respective sleepwear. "The old lady with the ugly necklace broke into your apartment and used it as crash space. She made a big mess and didn't clean it up before the police came and threw her out. So, you have to clean up after her, but I'm going to help you."

"Okay, let's start," said Theresa.

"Close your eyes," Emma instructed.

Theresa found herself standing on a gravel road with a low stone wall on one side and a solid wall of mirrors on the other. Ahead of her, the mirrors showed nothing except the reflection of herself and the wall. She turned around to see what was behind her, and found Emma at her side.

"This is Memory Lane," said Emma. "The mirror shows everything your eyes have seen, starting behind us and going back in reverse order, the road shows who lived through it, and the air carries your voice. If you go back far enough, you'll find younger versions of yourself standing on the road, and as your life goes on, older versions of you will appear. The woman who possessed you can be found a few days back."

"So, you've seen my memories?" said Theresa. She started to walk down the road, into her past. Emma walked beside her.

"Your most recent ones, yes. But, don't worry, I didn't find anything too intimate, except the incident of last night, which I'd already known about."

"Of course," said Theresa. "That's why you were in here in the first place. Did you see anything about me and my aunt Tori? Because, I don't know how I left her."

"You didn't hurt her, if that's what you're asking. But you did give her quite a scare, it seems."

"Did I hurt myself in front of her?"

"No, but you did trash the inside of her house before you left. Although, you might count getting drunk as hurting yourself in front of her."

"So she reinstated my old drinking habit?"

"Well, judging from your behavior of the last few days, it doesn't appear to have carried over from the possession. Whatever damage it did to your body, I'm sure was healed along with your voice."

"Yup, that Watchtower's a real fixer-upper, I hear," Theresa muttered. "They pulled out all the stops for me, using Logan's healing factor and everything."

"My God, you're really torn up about that, aren't you?" said Emma.

"I just wish I could be speaking again without having Logan hurt for it."

"Look, you know I don't know Logan very well. All I know of him is from old battles between the Hellfire Club and the X-Men, a few brief meetings after I awoke from my coma, and what your father's told me. But I think he's been through much worse than what the Watchtower did to him, and he got through it," said Emma.

"But that doesn't mean what they did to him was okay."

"Granted. But he also knows that being a mutant adventurer puts him at risk. So, what they did to him was unpleasant, no doubt, but it was no big shock to him. He also knows-" they both paused on the road, "that some good came of his sacrifice."

"You think he's happy for me, then?"

"Like I said, I hardly know the man." They continued walking. "But I don't think he begrudges you your voice and powers-in other words, resent you for having your life back-just because they came at his expense, and outside of your control. If he does resent you, that's his problem to deal with, not yours."

"That's her," said Theresa. Her eyes were fixed on the apparition of the purple-dressed old woman on the road ahead of them.

"Ah. Yes, there she is," Emma observed. "Do you hear her?"

The sound of an older female voice saying, "I don't want to lose this body," slipped through the astral air.

"Yes, I do. I only knew her for a few seconds before she slipped that bloody necklace on me, but she said a lot in that time," Theresa said. "I remember her voice. Her name is Ophelia."

"Why does that not surprise me?" said Emma. "But back to the task. You'll need to erase her image and silence her echoes. Once that's done, she'll no longer have any power over you."

"Okay, you're experienced at this astral travel, I'm not. What do I do to erase her image and silence her echoes?" asked Theresa.

"Do what you do to vanquish all your enemies. Your sonic scream works here, if you choose to use it."

"Oh," Theresa said, surprised. "I didn't know those rules applied here."

"You use whatever weapons are at your disposal," said Emma. "I will stand out of your way." She stepped behind Theresa, away from Ophelia.

Theresa opened her mouth and belted out a scream worthy of a major opera house. The image of Ophelia washed away like colored sand on a sidewalk, blowing away in the ocean breeze. All the mirrors behind her within eyeshot shattered and the pieces blew away. Theresa cut off her scream and looked back at Emma, her eyes and mouth wide open with betrayal.

"Did you know I'd also be destroying those memories when I did that?!"

"Yes. But you've only killed hers. When the road gets back to the time before her possession, your memories are all intact."

"So why didn't you tell me I'd be erasing the memories I'd gotten from her? I would've liked to see them!"

"Theresa, I've seen them. They're not very interesting."

"I don't care! You've gotten to see my memories, and then had me destroy them before I could see them. You wanna be a little bit more controlling?"

"No. I got to see Ophelia's memories. They had nothing to do with you."

"No matter how boring those events were, it was my body that lived through them, so I think they had something to do with me."

"Maybe so. Still, I doubt that their information would prove useful to you. You're not missing anything you wanted to see."

"And how do you know what I wanted to see?" Theresa challenged.

"I've seen them, and I remember you saying to your father that you didn't want to know what was in those mirrors."

"Emma, how could you be so dense? That was while I was in the physical realm! What if I want to know what Ophelia used my body to do?"

"Then you learn some psychic skills, and you travel to the outside astral realm, hunt Ophelia down, and beat it out of her."

"Fine," Theresa huffed. "Are we finished yet?"

"No. Come with me," Emma said.

The landscape dissolved to gray, and rematerialized into a small, gray room with all the furniture pushed towards the center. In one corner was a broom and dustpan, next to a bucket full of sudsy, dirty water with a sponge floating on top.

"What do we do in here?" Theresa asked.

"We clean it up. Or, rather, you will." Emma raised her arms and swept her hands outward, making several illuminated handprints appear on the walls. "Most of those are Ophelia's. Take the sponge out of the bucket and scrub them off the walls."

Theresa did as she was instructed. The handprints were like glowing soot stains. They rubbed off slowly and tediously, each removal leaving a scratchier remnant, until finally they were completely erased. "Anything else?" she asked Emma when she was finished.

"Yes. Now I want you to take the broom, sweep the floor, especially where you see silver hairs, and I will help you dispose of what you find."

Theresa pushed the broom around the edges of the room first, and made a pile of swept debris near one corner. She worked inward, moving towards Emma and the furniture and sweeping a new round of dusty matter into the pile every few seconds. Emma pointed at the furniture and concentrated; some more hair and dust blew out from under it, where Theresa could reach.

"You wouldn't want to miss that and leave it in here, would you?" said Emma.

"Thank you," replied Theresa, sweeping up the junk Emma had brought out. "There, is that all of it?" she said, looking at her pile of dust.

"Yes, that's it," Emma answered. "The gray hairs in the dust, as you probably guessed, are from Ophelia. You've already taken care of the echoes; this is the more subtle part of the residue. " She took a box of matches out of her pocket and struck one on the box. "Stand back," she said. Theresa stepped back, and Emma lit the debris on fire. The dust gave way to smoke, the hairs glowed orange and curled inward, and after a few seconds, the flame shrunk down to nothing, leaving only a tiny pile of ash.

Emma walked over to the door and opened it up to a gently swirling blue nebula. "This is the outside astral plane," she said.

"That's what it looks like?" said Theresa.

"It can look like a lot of different things," Emma shrugged. "Now, blow the ashes out the door. They'll dissipate into space and not hurt anyone."

"Can I use another scream?" Theresa asked, mischievous and hopeful.

"Of course, if that's what works."

Theresa dropped to her knees behind the ashes and lowered her head so that her chin almost touched the floor. She let out another sonic scream, this one much smaller and more controlled than the one she used to dissolve Ophelia's ghost, and kept it up until all the ash was pushed out the door.

"Good job," Emma nodded.

Without warning, Theresa found herself sitting on Emma's bed again.

"Now, why don't you go back to your father's house and get dressed?" Emma suggested, getting up. "The students will be out soon, and you don't want to be walking through a crowd of them in a bathrobe, do you?"

"Oh God, I have to face Da again, don't I?"

"I told him you'd been possessed, Theresa. I don't think he's going to hold your sleepwalking against you."

"But what if he does, Emma? What if he's still upset about it and isn't ready to see me?"

"Then I'll make him suffer," Emma said nonchalantly. "He's an adult, he's your parent, and he knows you weren't in your right mind last night, so if he can't look at you without feeling either sick or aroused, or maybe both, then he's the one with the problem."

"All right," Theresa sighed. "I guess that's just one of those things that has to be done." She rose from the bed and started through the door. Pausing in the doorway, she turned back to Emma. "Listen, I know I made quite a fuss over shattering those mirrors, but, you know...thank you."

"You're welcome. Now, go say good morning to your dad."

Theresa crept back to her father's house, on the lookout for students who might wonder why she was outside in a bathrobe. She spotted a few, but they didn't say anything. When she reached Sean's cottage, she thought she'd let herself in without a lot of ceremony, but found that the door was locked.

"Come on, Da, let me in," she muttered while knocking on the door. Seconds later, the door opened, with Sean on the other side.

"I'm sorry," they both blurted out. Theresa looked away uncomfortably; Sean continued. "I didn't mean to lock you out," he said, holding the screen door open for her. She slipped inside, hunched in on herself and clutching the bathrobe's collar. "It's just old habits, you know? The students are mostly good kids, but you can never tell what they'll try, so I keep the door locked. Are you okay?"

"I'm all cleaned up now," she said quickly. "Emma took me to the astral plane and helped me fix my problem. Da, I'm sorry..."

"It's okay, it's okay," he soothed, pushing stray curls of her hair, which she had partly combed out, off her face. "What happened last night, it wasn't your fault."

"Still, I'm sorry," she said. "Look, it's been really nice seeing you again, but I'd like to leave soon. Today or tomorrow. I really need to get back to Aunt Tori."

"Yes, I understand," he said. "We'll arrange some transportation for you this afternoon."

[next part]

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